The U.S. suicide rate has risen dramatically in recent years, and certified money coach Tammy Lally of Washington, D.C., is convinced money shame is a contributing factor.

Lally’s brother died by suicide in 2007 after receiving a foreclosure notice. Shortly afterward, Lally’s mortgage business collapsed in the Great Recession. She says she went from driving a Mercedes and living in an oceanfront house to filing for bankruptcy.

“It blew me away, the level of pain and sadness that I was experiencing,” Lally says. “I didn’t tell anybody. I was pretending like nothing was going on.”

In my latest for the Associated Press, the origins of money shame and what can be done about it.