The My name's Allison. I'm from Seattle, and while it took me way longer than I wanted to, I'm

finally ready to send this over. For the longest time, I had a friend named Chris, and Chris suffered

from persistent depressive disorder. It started after he lost his job, got violently mugged, and then got really sick with

some kind of viral infection, all while his relationship with his fiancee was falling apart

around him. He ended up moving back in with his parents up near Richmond Beach for a while,

and then after finding it harder and harder to get out of bed and leave the house every day,

Chris just

sort of stopped trying.

He was put on various cocktails of medication in the hopes one might work, but nothing did,

and for a while he just rotted away indoors.

But then in early spring of 2019, Chris asked if I wanted to go get sushi. He was online a lot, which was pretty much

the only way we kept in touch, so hearing from him wasn't a shock. But hearing that he wanted

to meet in person, that came as a real surprise. I accepted the invitation, and while he still

had a whiff of hermit about him, he seemed way, way better than before.

I didn't question it.

I was just too happy to see progress.

But at the same time, I knew that there had to be something going on in Chris's life

to prompt such an improvement in him.

I'd be damned if I wasn't going to figure out what it was.

The day after we met for sushi, I asked Chris what had changed, like if he'd been

doing or taking something new. And he said he'd found a kind of support group that met once a week,

and since he started going, he'd been feeling a lot better about life. They met in a coffee shop,

...