Second Chances

“My boyfriend had to shake me to keep me awake so I wouldn’t go into a coma,” Alyssa Jameson said. “And that’s all I really remember.”

One January night three years ago, Alyssa Jameson closed herself up in her bathroom with a prescription bottle of anti-anxiety pills, and calmly swallowed nine in a row. She sat on the bathroom floor and waited to die.

“My dad found me lying on the floor like five minutes later,” Jameson said. “When he knocked on the door, it hit me what I’d just done. He opened the door and saw the pill bottle. It was the only time I’ve ever seen my dad cry.”

Jameson told her story slowly, trying to fill the gaps in her memory. She’d had a bad night and was driving around to distract herself. When she called her boyfriend of three years, she told him she didn’t know what to do anymore. He said he was too busy writing a paper to talk.

Jameson drove home and walked straight to the bathroom. She poured out all the pills and took what was left. With a blank expression, she recalled what the family doctor had said. If she had taken one or two more, she would have been rushed to the emergency room to get her stomach pumped. 

“After my dad carried me to the couch, my grandparents, my boyfriend and his mom came over to see how I was,” Jameson said. “At that point, I was just in a daze. I wasn’t thinking at all.”

During her first two years of high school, Jameson had a small, close group of friends, although she bounced from group to group. Her life was perfect by the book. She cheered with her best friends and was the team captain by sophomore year. She was nominated for the homecoming court and spent downtime studying for advanced placement classes. Jameson filled her weekends with sleepovers and movies with her friends.

Jameson had been diagnosed with depression and anxiety in 7th grade. At 16 years old, she didn’t realize her medicine had stopped working for her. She had no energy to go to school and no drive to do homework. She couldn’t focus. She fought with her parents daily and no one knew how to help.  

 “My friends tried to help as much as they could, but it’s hard for someone to help with a disease they don’t understand,” Jameson said. “It weighs on you internally and you ache. It’s like having the flu, but without the flu.”

Jameson credits the buildup of stress from her boyfriend cheating on her earlier that year, as well as the constant fighting with her mother. When he wouldn’t see her that night, it pushed her too far.

“I just wanted it all to be over,” Jameson said. “While it was happening, I didn’t think of anything. I was kind of stone cold.”

There was no miracle recovery after the incident. Jameson found herself in an abusive relationship, constantly running away from home. She refused to see a therapist for months and grew more depressed every day.

When the symptoms got significantly worse, she finally called her own intervention.

“I realized I didn’t want to live my life like that anymore, so I agreed to talk to a therapist,” Jameson said. She jokes, “I also started on Cymbalta, and Cymbalta can help!”

A sophomore in college, Jameson says she hopes those dark days are behind her. She holds an executive position in her sorority, keeps a high grade point average and knows what she wants to do with her life. Her dream of being a bilingual lawyer is driven by a desire to represent people who are overlooked.  

“I feel like I can live my life again without a big burden,” Jameson said. “It feels good to be able to trust again.”