How I Found Light Again: My Honest Story About Depression and Relapse

Where It Started

My depression started quietly in November of my junior year of college. It didn’t come crashing in all at once; it crept in between the long nights, heavy class loads, and the endless pressure I put on myself to hold everything together.

By that point, I was juggling school, work, and life, and I didn’t give myself permission to rest. I filled every free minute so I wouldn’t have time to think. What I didn’t realize then was that I was slowly losing myself. During this time, I had major anxiety and self-esteem issues. I was constantly stressed and felt like I could never catch a break.

It all began my junior year. I lost my aunt, the woman who felt more like a grandmother to me. Her passing broke something inside me that I didn’t know how to fix. I was drowning in schoolwork, job responsibilities, and trying to maintain a social life. I would look around and see my friends living their lives to the fullest, laughing, posting pictures, having fun, and I felt angry. Not because I didn’t love them, but because I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be like them. Why did happiness come so easily to everyone else when I was just trying to make it through the day?

Then senior year came with even more pressure. My mom moved away for a new job, and it was the first time we had ever been that far apart. Up until then, I had only been two hours from home, which meant I could drive back whenever I needed a piece of comfort. Now I had to plan visits, and the distance felt heavier than I expected.

Work also became more demanding than ever. I had more responsibilities, more expectations, and more people depending on me than I’d ever experienced before. My body finally gave out. The exhaustion caught up to me, and that’s when the ER visits began. In and out, week after week, trying to find answers that didn’t seem to exist.

Around that same time, the situationship I was in ended abruptly, leaving me emotionally drained. Then I lost my childhood dog, Gia, the one who had seen me through everything. As I was grieving that loss, I also found myself drifting apart from one of my best friends. Everything seemed to unravel all at once. Friendships, relationships, my health, my stability, even my faith in myself.

That was when my depression hit its worst point. When I found out I might not be graduating on time, it pushed me over the edge. I remember texting my friend this exact message:

“I just don't feel good enough for anyone or anything. I feel like I try my hardest to always come up short. I burn myself out in hopes of making everyone happy, and I still feel like I can’t. I feel like I’m a bad friend, that I don’t celebrate my friends’ wins anymore because I can’t focus on anything but having to pry myself out of bed every morning just to start my day. I feel lost, hopeless, and lonely. I feel like I’m not worth the love people give me or the respect I’m shown. How am I supposed to preach about loving yourself and others to the kids I work with when I can’t even do it myself? I feel like a liar and a failure. I especially feel like a failure at school. I’m making the grades, but barely, and now I don’t even know if I’ll graduate on time because of how much I’ve given up. I just need time to get it together. I’ve been having the worst panic attacks of my life where I can’t breathe and feel like I’m going to die or pass out.”

That text still sits heavy with me because it reminds me of how real it got, how I was trying to keep everything afloat while feeling completely empty inside.

I don’t think they’ll ever know it, but someone very dear to my heart helped save my life one night during this time. I truly believe God sent them as a reminder that everything was going to be okay, that my story wasn’t over yet. And soon enough, it wasn’t.

These Pictures Are A Visual Repersentation Of How Done I Was

The Climb Back Up

After that night, something in me shifted. I knew I couldn’t keep living like that, running on fumes and pretending to be okay when I wasn’t. I started trying to help myself again, little by little. It wasn’t an overnight change. It wasn’t pretty or easy. But it was real.

At the time, during the worst part of my depression, I had gained at least forty pounds, which I ended up losing by December of 2024. But even then, when you aren’t looking your best, you aren’t feeling your best either. During the summer of 2024, I went through a lot to get back to a place where I could finally be happy with myself again.

I started reading my Bible and journaling every night, not just talking to God through prayer but finding peace in His words. That brought me more comfort than I can explain. I also started getting close again with my core group of friends, the ones who really showed up for me when I needed it most. They didn’t just try to pull me out of the darkness; they sat with me in it. They didn’t rush me to “get better” or make me feel like a burden. They just stayed, and that meant everything.

Getting Winnie was one of the biggest blessings I received in college. She pulled me out of a hole I didn’t even realize I was still stuck in. I started taking her on walks every day, which got me outside again. We’d go to the dog park where I started meeting new people and making new friends. She was there for me on the bad days when all I could do was cry, and there to play and make me laugh on the good days. She became my life and my personality. It’s a well-known fact that if you’ve met me or know me, you’ve either met Winnie or seen enough pictures and heard enough stories to feel like you have.

During this time, I also started going to the gym almost every day. And if I wasn’t at the gym, I was taking three or four mile walks. I began eating healthier and actually cooking for myself instead of living off DoorDash. I was finally taking the right medicine for my health issues, which made me feel ten times better both physically and mentally.

From August to December of 2024, I was going out with friends again almost every weekend. I was enjoying my time with people, both in and out of the bar scene. My self-esteem started to rebuild, my anxiety started to fade, and people around me kept saying I looked happier, that I had gotten my glow back. And honestly, I felt it.

Even with hard things still happening around that time, like losing my uncle who was like a grandfather to me, or getting news about my blood sugar problems and having to wear heart monitors, I still felt grounded. That was also the start of my glucose monitoring journey, which later became a whole battle of its own. But back then, I was proud of myself for finding the good in everything, for not letting the negatives take over like they used to. My grades were improving, and that semester my GPA went up to a 3.7, one of my highest in college.

By August of 2024, I was finally starting to feel like myself again. I was going to church more, reading the Word every night before bed, and spending time with my friends without guilt. I had peace for the first time in what felt like years. I was free from that on-again, off-again relationship that had drained me all through college. I had new energy, new hope, and most importantly, a new sense of calm I hadn’t felt in years.

Life started to feel good again. My family was doing well. I was working hard and proud of how far I’d come. Winnie had become my little shadow and my reminder that I was capable of love and responsibility again.

Starting in January and February of 2025, I was on a high. I had lost the depression weight, the health issue weight, and was continuing to feel strong both physically and mentally. I was going out with my friends all the time, my love life was finally going well, and for the first time in years, I genuinely felt happy. It felt like everything was finally falling into place. It was exciting and felt like something good, like maybe this was the next chapter of my life. For the first time in a long time, I felt genuinely happy and open to what the future could hold.

But as life usually does, it shifted again.

As You Can Tell Much Happier And Healthier In These Pictures... No Fake Smiles All Pure Joy

When It All Fell Apart

It’s funny how life can feel perfect one minute and completely unrecognizable the next. By April of 2025, everything that once felt steady started to fall apart piece by piece.

The person I had been talking to, the one I thought could be something good, started pulling away. Things that once felt light and easy began to feel heavy. I started questioning everything about myself again. I felt like I had to become someone I wasn’t just to keep them interested, and that kind of pressure slowly broke me down.

At the same time, school and work became overwhelming. The place that used to feel like my safe haven, the job that once gave me purpose, now felt like a place I avoided unless I absolutely had to be there. I felt like I was failing at everything. I had just found out I might not be able to walk at graduation or even graduate on time, and that crushed me. I had worked so hard to get my grades up, to push through all the obstacles, and now it felt like everything was slipping away again.

Then the unthinkable happened. I had just bought a new car with my own money, something I was incredibly proud of. It felt like a symbol of how far I had come, my independence, my hard work, my stability. Two weeks later, I wrecked it.

At first, I didn’t think much of it. The pictures didn’t look terrible, just some damage that could be fixed. But when the first responders told me that if the impact had been two or three inches different, the outcome could have been different, it changed everything. Hearing that out loud hit me harder than I could have ever expected.

That car wreck opened my eyes to a lot of things very quickly. I was in the middle of an argument with one of my best friends that night, one of the people I love most, over something so small it didn’t even matter. Looking back now, I can admit it was my fault. Knowing I could have lost my chance to make things right with that person, whether they were mad at me or not, tore me apart. They were one of the first people I told the first responders to call.

Another thing that still shakes me is knowing I was supposed to have three other people in the car with me that night. At the last minute, I told them I needed some alone time. I really believe God knew what He was doing because if anyone had been sitting in the passenger seat, they would have been severely hurt or worse.

But even then, my biggest concern wasn’t myself. It was Winnie.

If you know me, you know that dog is my whole world, just like my other dog Gia was before she passed away in February of 2024. I got Winnie in June of 2024, and she helped me through some of the darkest times of my life. Her first birthday was actually the day of the car accident, April 14th. Losing her was my biggest fear in that moment, not the car or my injuries. I just kept praying that she would be okay.

People kept telling me that cars and dogs are replaceable, but they were wrong. Cars are replaceable. Dogs aren’t. The people who say a dog is replaceable have never felt the kind of love and connection that comes from a dog that’s completely yours, one that understands you, feels your pain, and loves you unconditionally. I’ve always said I believe God put dogs on this earth to show us what unconditional love really looks like, no strings attached.

While waiting almost an hour for the ambulance to get there, all I could do was pray. I wasn’t even worried about myself. I kept thinking, “If she’s okay, I’ll be okay.” I’ll never forget when the first responder finally opened the trunk and handed Winnie to me, completely unharmed. I got up and climbed out through the sunroof, bleeding and shaking, just to hold her. I remember grabbing her, crying, bleeding all over her, and whispering “thank you” over and over.

My friends showed up at the scene not long after. They instantly took over when I couldn’t. They took Winnie to the emergency vet, stayed there with her for hours, and made sure she was okay. They called my parents, kept them updated, stayed by my side, and didn’t leave until they knew we were both safe. They stayed in the vet ER until I was out of the hospital, and they didn’t have to do any of that. That’s not just friendship. That’s family.

That night reminded me how amazing God is and how powerful His miracles can be. That wreck could have changed my life forever, but it didn’t. I came out of it with some bruises and a basically broken nose, but I was alive, and so was Winnie. God spared me and everyone I love. He gave me another chance, and that’s something I’ll never take for granted.

After that whole experience, I decided to take the rest of the week off from work and school to rest and focus on my health. I wanted to slow down and just be thankful to still be here.

Later that week, my family celebrated Easter a day early. It was a beautiful day, one that reminded me how lucky I was to still have life and love all around me. But that night, everything changed again.

On my way home from the celebration, I got a message from one of the parents at the gym. One of my former students had passed away in a car accident the night before. She had turned 17 just the day before the wreck. I couldn’t believe it.

That kid was special. She had a big personality, full of light, laughter, and love. I had trained her and her younger sister, so I spent a lot of time with their family. She was funny, polite, and a little handful at times, but she always kept me on my toes. She was the kind of kid who’d walk in the gym and ask how my day was or give me a surprise hug before she left. Finding out she was gone crushed me.

I thought about how much life she still had left to live. She would never graduate high school, never go to college, never get married, never have kids. She’d never see her sister reach her milestones, and her younger sister would now have to go through life without her. Even now, thinking about it makes me emotional.

People don’t realize how close coaches get to their athletes. You see these kids more than four to six hours a day during meet season. They become part of your everyday life, part of your routine. You start to love them like your own little sisters. You hear about their boy drama, their school struggles, their friend problems. You try to be someone they can talk to, someone who listens and helps them navigate the little storms of growing up.

After her passing, I was hit with major survivor’s guilt. I couldn’t stop thinking, “Why her and not me?” I had lived through love, loss, heartbreak, and all kinds of chaos. She hadn’t even started her life yet. I was angry, numb, and distant. I became someone I didn’t even recognize.

I started going out not just on weekends but during the week too. I drank more than I should have. I spent money I didn’t have. I didn’t feel anything anymore, not happiness, not sadness, just emptiness. The only time I felt anything at all was when I was drinking. It was like I had shut off the emotional part of my body unless there was alcohol in it.

It wasn’t until sometime in May that I realized I had a problem. I went to eat Mexican with a friend on a Tuesday, drank too much, and she had to drive me home and leave my car at the restaurant. Later that night, another friend came over, and we sat outside my apartment while I cried. I told them I didn’t understand how something like that could happen. I told them I wished it had been me instead, that I wished that family didn’t have to feel that pain.

They looked at me and said something I’ll never forget: “So it would be okay for us to have to feel that pain instead?”

That hit me hard. It made me realize how selfish that thought was to the people who loved me. I was reminded that God had saved me from some incredibly hard battles over the past few years for a reason. He gave me purpose. He gave me time. And I needed to make that time mean something.

That conversation changed me. I realized I could be upset, I could grieve, I could question God, but I couldn’t change what had happened. All I could do was live in a way that honored the people I’d lost and the second chances I’d been given.

Looking Back At These Pictures They Are Somewhat Hard To Look At Because I Don't Really See Any Emotion In Any Of Them In My Eyes I Kinda Was Just There Like A Zombie.

The Relapse

After everything that happened that spring, I thought I was starting to feel like myself again. I told myself I had learned my lesson, that I was going to slow down, take care of myself, and focus on the good things. But looking back now, I realize I never actually dealt with everything that had happened. I just pushed it down, pretending I was fine when I wasn’t.

When summer came, I had plans that I thought were going to help me move forward, but life had other plans. A job opportunity that I had been really excited about ended up falling through, and I felt completely defeated. I couldn’t believe after everything I had been through and survived, I was moving back home. After living on my own for five years, it felt like failure. I felt like I wasn’t worth much.

Not having a job was harder than I expected because I have always found my worth in what I do. I have always loved working, staying busy, making my own money, and feeling like I have a purpose. Suddenly, that was gone. I had just earned three degrees and had nothing to show for it. My family had always told me throughout college that they couldn’t see me moving back home after graduation, and yet here I was. It made me feel like I had let them down, like I wasn’t living up to the expectations everyone had for me.

Around that time, I started talking to someone again. It was someone I had known before, and it felt like we picked up right where we left off. Everything seemed to be going well, or at least that’s what I thought. From June to September, things felt easy at first, like maybe this could be something real. But it only took one fight to make me realize that I couldn’t keep pouring myself into someone who wasn’t willing to meet me halfway.

I started noticing that I was changing parts of my life to fit into his world. I was planning to stay in my hometown, even looking for jobs there, because I wanted to be closer to him. I had never wanted that before. I had always dreamed of leaving my hometown, traveling, and starting fresh somewhere new. But suddenly, I found myself putting those dreams on hold for someone who wouldn’t have done the same for me.

When that relationship ended, it broke something in me. I felt like I had changed my entire plan, my entire outlook on life, for a person who wasn’t meant to stay. I was hurt, confused, and questioning everything again. Later, I found out things had been going on behind the scenes that I didn’t know about, and while it hurt, it also gave me clarity. It showed me that what I thought was rejection was actually protection. One of my friends said something that has stuck with me ever since: “God was protecting you when He ended that connection. He saw what you didn’t and heard conversations you couldn’t.”

That line has stayed with me ever since. It was an eye-opener that made me start reexamining my life and what I really wanted.

Still, that period of uncertainty hit me hard. I felt stuck. I felt trapped. The loneliness crept in slowly until it became all I could feel. I stopped eating regularly. Some days I would have a cupcake or a piece of bread, maybe a drink of water, and that was it. I told myself I wasn’t hungry when in reality I just didn’t care. It all caught up to me one afternoon when my body finally gave out.

I had just finished a six-mile run and sat down in my driveway, feeling lightheaded. I remember thinking, “Something’s wrong. My body feels like it’s shutting down.” And then everything went black.

Apparently, I had been passed out for about five to ten minutes when my dad got home. He found me lying on the driveway, unresponsive. He couldn’t wake me up at first, but when I finally came to, I couldn’t swallow or lift my head. He dragged me toward the car, trying to get sugar in me, trying to keep me awake. After ten or fifteen minutes of effort, I finally had enough strength to walk to the kitchen where he was making food. I was so weak I could barely hold a Coke can in my hand.

Eventually, I got my blood sugar back up to 100 and went to take a shower. But when I came back to the living room, it had already plummeted again. I had to eat more, and after a while, I went to bed. Within minutes of lying down, my Dexcom alarm started going off, warning me that my blood sugar was back in the 50s. I ignored it at first, until my dad came into my room trying to wake me up, with my mom on the phone, panicked from miles away.

From that point on, the night turned into chaos. Between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m., I had five Cokes, twelve glucose SOS packets, and multiple food items, but my sugar wouldn’t go up. It stayed in the 30s. We ran out of emergency glucose because all my backups were at someone else’s house. By 3 a.m., my dad took me to the emergency room. My sugar had barely climbed to 100, and doctors started to worry my appendix had ruptured or that my kidneys were shutting down.

I stayed in the ER from three in the morning until five that evening, completely exhausted. The pain didn’t stop, though. By Friday, I was back in the ER again, barely able to move. They confirmed something was wrong but thankfully said I didn’t need surgery. From Tuesday to Friday that week, I wasn’t allowed to eat after midnight in case I needed an emergency procedure the next morning. It was terrifying.

That week shook me to my core. It was a reminder that no matter how strong I thought I was, I couldn’t keep pushing myself past my limits. My body had been begging me to slow down, my mind had been begging me to rest, and I ignored both until they forced me to stop.

It’s strange, but in the middle of all that pain, fear, and exhaustion, I could still feel God working. I could feel Him reminding me that He had saved me for a reason. Every time I had hit rock bottom before, He had given me another chance to get back up, and this was no different.

That week was my wake-up call. I realized that surviving isn’t the same as living. I had been existing for months, running, striving, pretending, but I wasn’t really living. That experience forced me to confront the truth I had been avoiding. I needed to stop finding my worth in my work, my relationships, and my ability to stay busy. My worth was never meant to come from those things in the first place.

Finding My Way Back

The days and weeks after that health scare were slow, heavy, and emotional. My body was weak, but so was my spirit. I had spent months trying to hold everything together, and now there was nothing left to hold. For the first time in a long time, I had no choice but to stop.

In those quiet weeks, I started seeing things differently. I realized how much of my worth I had been putting into the wrong things: my job, my relationships, how busy I was, how much I could handle before breaking. I used to think strength meant doing it all without falling apart. Now I know strength is admitting when you need help, when you need rest, when you can’t keep pretending that everything is fine.

I began trying to rebuild my life piece by piece. Slowly, I started eating again and taking care of my health. I started praying more and writing again, not because I had it all figured out, but because I needed to get it out. I needed to talk to God honestly, not just when things were bad, but also when they were starting to heal.

It wasn’t an instant transformation. There were still bad days, days where I felt lost, confused, or angry at myself for slipping again. But there were also good days, the kind where I would wake up and realize I was still here, still breathing, still trying. Those days meant more than anything.

I learned that healing doesn’t always look like progress. Sometimes it looks like learning to rest without guilt. Sometimes it looks like letting people help you. Sometimes it’s just getting out of bed and deciding that even if today hurts, you’re still going to show up for yourself.

I started reading my Bible again at night and finding peace in words that once felt distant. I began walking more, getting outside, and spending time with Winnie, who somehow always knows when I need her most. That little dog saved me more times than she’ll ever know.

My friends and family showed me love in ways I didn’t even know I needed. They didn’t try to fix me; they just sat with me, reminded me I wasn’t alone, and believed in me even when I couldn’t believe in myself.

And through all of it, God was there. Not in the loud, obvious ways I expected, but in the small things. In the people who checked in, the moments of calm after the chaos, and the quiet reminders that I was never truly alone. I used to think I had to be perfect for God to show up. Now I know He shows up most when I’m at my weakest.

God gave me this life for a reason. He gave me every hardship I have faced, not to break me but to shape me. God loves each and every one of us whether we believe in Him or not. He still chooses every single day to love us through our sin, through our hard times, through our disobedience, and through our silence toward Him. He never leaves. He is always there, guiding and protecting us, even when we don’t see it.

I have always said it’s easy to pray and talk to God when things aren’t going our way, but what about when everything is going right? I need to be able to talk to Him all the time, not just when it’s convenient. God is our biggest cheerleader. He wants us to succeed. Whether we believe in Him or not, He believes in us. And I truly don’t think I would be here without Him today. Without His unwavering, unconditional love, I wouldn’t be strong enough to share my story or to still be here at all.

I believe that everything happens for a reason and in seasons of life when we need it most. It has been hard for me to write lately. Creating these blogs used to be so fun for me. They were my outlet, my way to connect, and a safe space to share my thoughts. But lately, I haven’t had that same drive. I haven’t felt inspired or creative. Writing this has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever done because I can’t hide behind my sarcasm or the funny one-liners that usually make people laugh in my other posts.

This one is different. This one is raw, it’s real, and it’s vulnerable. It’s me. No filter, no front, no humor to distract from the truth. And as uncomfortable as that is, I know it’s right. Because if my story can help even one person, if it can make someone out there feel less alone, then it’s worth every bit of it.

If my story of faith, struggle, and redemption can help someone else find hope again, then none of this has been for nothing.

I don’t share this for sympathy or attention. I share it because I know how it feels to be there, to feel like you’ve lost control of your life, to feel like the world is moving without you, to think you’re too broken to come back from it. But you’re not. You are never too far gone to start again.

Depression doesn’t define you. Relapse doesn’t erase your progress. You are allowed to start over as many times as it takes. Healing isn’t linear, but it is possible.

I still have bad days. I still have moments where the weight of everything hits me all over again. But the difference now is that I don’t sit in that darkness alone anymore. I’ve learned that it’s okay to lean on others, to ask for help, to pray even when the words don’t come out right.

Most of all, I’ve learned that God isn’t disappointed in me for struggling. He’s proud of me for not giving up.

If you take anything from my story, I hope it’s this: life gets better. It might not get easier right away, and it might not look like you pictured it, but it gets better. You just have to keep going, one day at a time, and let the light in, even when it feels impossible.

Some Of My Favorite Pictures Over The Past Year That Remind Me That I Am Loved And That I Know How To Love.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story. If you’ve made it this far, I hope you know how much it means to me that you did. Writing this wasn’t easy, but it reminded me why I started sharing my heart online in the first place to connect, to be honest, and to remind others that they aren’t alone in what they’re feeling. If you’re walking through your own hard season right now, please don’t give up. You’re here for a reason, and your story is far from over. I’m still learning, still healing, still growing and if all you did today was wake up and try again, I’m proud of you too. —B 💛