{Alyson: A Desert Daisy}

Hi! I’m Alyson, and this is my story.

            Living down in Saint George, Utah had been a heaven on earth for a 19 year old brunette. I was attending Dixie State College at the time and working graveyard shifts as a CNA at a nursing home. I was living in my aunt and uncle’s basement with a cousin near my same age, and dating a boy whom I was planning to marry. Through him, I had made many friends and we spent our days rock climbing and chasing the sun. I was in love: with the place, with the people, and with myself.

            I was diagnosed with panic disorder my senior year of high school when I had been complaining of insomnia. I was put on some regular medicine and sent on my way. But during the summer of 2012 I had decided that I no longer needed the medication. It didn’t seem to do anything for me anymore so I decided to fly free.

My anxiety slowly started to get worse, without me even knowing it or noticing. My boyfriend, on the other hand, did. He could tell that I was becoming needier than I usually was, and when school started up again in August my stress load got more intense. The more I clung to my boyfriend, the more he pulled away, and the vicious cycle, as well as some other issues, led us to break up.

I was now living alone (basically), drowning in school, working 12 hour night shifts, and dealing with a devastating heart-break.

“When anxiety goes unchecked, paired with a high-stress lifestyle, you were bound to develop depression.” my therapist told me later.

I would lie in bed all day after working all night, and the only thing that would stop the crying was the sleeping. That’s all I remember September and October being; all sleeping and crying and spiraling into a place I had never known before. I started drinking with some friends of mine, and I tried to cope by asking my mom to email me a list of therapists I could see. I started seeing a woman once a week. I thought she was a hippy.

And then one night someone who I loved more than anything in the world told me that I was no longer welcome in their life. I knew I was going to hang myself. It would be so easy, it would be so relieving, and I had just the place for it. It was in that moment that something inside of my brain shut off and something else took over. My religion tells me it was the Spirit of God; my psychology professor tells me it’s an animal survival instinct. Whatever it was, all I know is I blurred through getting dressed, gathering my things, and driving myself to the emergency room.

I spent three to four days in a room with only a bed. Just a bed and a woman who had to watch me go to the bathroom, to take a shower. I saw no one, heard no one, and asked the male nurse for more Ativan, a medication that helps calm someone down. It made me groggy and numb, and I was in and out of consciousness for those hellish three days. I got out on Halloween Night 2012.

I made a pact with myself that I would never go back to that place. So I started seeing my therapist three times a week, who was working hand-in-hand with a nurse practitioner to get me back onto some medicine. I feel that I owe my life to those two women.

As mentioned by Hannah, we started this blog to bring together women who suffer from this mental illness, or any mental illness in general. We want to put a familiar face on something that people seem to misunderstand. I felt so alone with all of this, and I strive every day to be there for someone else. I don’t want anyone to feel the way I felt.

Four and a half months later I am living in Orem in an apartment with five girls. I just recently returned from a vacation with three girls I consider my sisters. I take my four pills on-time, I work with seniors in their home, and I spend every Sunday evening with my family, come rain or shine. I have my weak moments, but I am healing. I am radiant. I am a survivor of depression.