People Lovin' People.

Life as I knew It.

Some days you just want to give up. Some days you feel like there is nothing you can do to make things better for yourself, like you are worthless and there is nobody out there for you.

That's how this whole ordeal started. I was 15, life was good. I had a great boyfriend, plenty of friends and a family that supported me. Then I found out that my said "great boyfriend" was cheating on me with one of my best friends. I got really depressed after we cut off the relationship. Instead of my friends supporting me, they saw me getting more and more depressed, anxious and defensive, and didn't want to be around me any more, which made things even worse. My parents tried to help, but didn't know what to do. I felt like I was alone. I felt like no one cared, so why should I. That's when I stopped eating, and started cutting. I didn't know why I was doing it, but I knew the physical pain I was feeling, the hunger, the sting of the blade was better than the emotional suffering. It didn't change the fact that I was still depressed and anxious. In fact, it just made it all worse. I knew I wasn't ready to end it all yet, But I didn't know what else I could do with no support.

By the end of my sophomore year, I was 30 pounds under weight and had more scars than any girl ever should have. That's when my parents knew it was time to do something drastic, more than support me in the ways they new how. They new I needed professional help. Help I could only get in one place, The Clayton Center in Douglas, Wyoming. Now, when they first mentioned that that was where I was going, I was apprehensive. I'm a city girl, born and raised in suburban California. I didn't know how I would cope with living in a much more rural area, in a state far away from my family and the people I knew, but what I did know is that I needed help to get my life back on track, so I was willing to give it a try. And that is where my story begins.

As I write this, 10 years later, alive and well, I know it was the right decision, especially since I went back to Wyoming, got married, and now co-own an AQHA breeding and training farm with my husband and run programs for kids going through the same thing I did as a teenager. My name is Stacy, and this is my story.