Hello kids, this is Risk.

The show where people tell true stories, they never thought they dared to share.

I'm Kevin Allison and every Thursday we release these special episodes that we're calling

classic risk singles.

Each of these episodes features just one story from our earlier years.

If you're new to Risk, you should know that the podcast can be very uncensored.

This week a story by Katie Peabody that she first shared on the podcast in 2012, it's called

Side Effects.

My story takes place about 25 years ago.

At the time I had been carrying around feelings of sadness and hopelessness every day, all

day for as long as I could remember.

And it affected pretty much everything in my life.

It affected my job where I just kind of droomed away in my cubicle working on assignments

without interacting with anyone there.

I was lucky enough, I was in a relationship with a guy named Larry who was, I think, the

finest guy on earth.

I lived in terror that he would wake up one day and realize that he had hooked up with

the biggest wet blanket on the planet and leave me.

And just in general, I didn't enjoy life.

I didn't feel joy or pleasure from anything.

And I desperately, desperately wanted to fix myself.

I felt like I was in a constant battle with the beast that was my mind.

...