I'm a social worker and a mom. The best parenting advice I learned was from my patients at an inpatient psychiatric unit.

• Working in an inpatient psychiatric unit taught me lessons that helped me after I became a mom.
• I now feel confident in asking for help when I need it.

Early in my social-work career, I worked in a locked inpatient psychiatric unit. My patients were suffering from debilitating depression, crippling anxiety, psychosis, and a variety of debilitating mental illnesses.

I loved the work.

I loved getting to know my patients — the people they were when they weren't struggling with overwhelming thoughts and confusing feelings — and finding ways to connect with and support them. I found great meaning in helping their families make sense of their loved ones' diseases and get through the crisis.

I learned a lot in that job

In the years I spent working in the unit, I learned a number of powerful lessons that would serve me well once I became a mother.

Sleep is a powerful remedy.

We don't have to believe everything we think.

There's no shame in taking medication for a mental illness.

We all need support in challenging times.

Despite how much I loved my job, the work was sometimes scary. Sometimes, my patients or their visitors behaved in unpredictable, threatening, or violent ways. After one particularly harrowing experience in which a young man exploded during a meeting and lashed out physically, the attending physician took me aside and gave me one of the most useful pieces of advice I've ever received: "Never be scared alone."

The doctor said those words in passing, but they meant more to me than she'd ever know. She not only offered me useful advice for those moments when I was paralyzed by fear but also let me know I wasn't alone in being scared and that it was OK to feel that way.

My fear wasn't a sign that I was doing anything wrong. It's just what happens sometimes.

What I learned was even more helpful when I became a mother

Now that I'm a mother, that advice has saved my sanity more times than I can count. When I couldn't feel the baby kicking, I called my midwife. When my infant's cough sounded weird in the middle of the night, and I couldn't figure out whether it was croup or not, I woke up my husband. When I was scared for no clear reason, when the fear was vague but no less relentless, I texted my friends. And when I thought I was losing my mind, and I wasn't sure what to do about any of it, I made an appointment with my therapist.

So I've learned to reach out. It's not always easy, even with friends and family who know well and love me always. But over the years, I've found that when I reach out in times of fear, one of two things is likely to happen. In the luckiest of moments, there's a solution or a clear path forward. More often, though, there is no easy answer, but at least I know I'm not alone.

It's so tempting to burrow into my fear and hide in it until it passes, but I have learned not to do that. Fear loves nothing as much as a dark, lonely corner to flourish in. It expands to fill whatever space we give it, and it's so easy to feel stuck and powerless when that happens. But fear doesn't do well in the light, and the best way to shine a light on it is to share it with someone else.

Carla Naumburg is a clinical social worker and the author of four parenting books, including "You Are Not a Sh*tty Parent: How to Practice Self-Compassion and Give Yourself a Break."