Having a close family member pass away is inevitable. No one knows how they will emotionally respond to it until it happens – and it is usually difficult.

And after Samantha’s father passed away, it was debilitating and mentally crippling. She experienced a level of depression that few people on Earth will understand.

But that wasn’t the end for her.

She managed to bounce back and recover from it – but it wasn’t an easy journey. Several years ago, Samantha’s father developed a progressive brain disease. It was a strain on the entire family.

“I watched my father dying slowly over the years as his brain got worse. So it was a very difficult time in life,” Samantha said. “After my father’s death, I bottled a lot of feelings up inside of me. I didn’t want to mentally process the things I’d seen during that time or things I experienced. I just tried to push forward, and I never wanted to take time for myself and process my grief.”

The experience was made even more difficult to endure because Samantha deals with health issues of her own. She, too, was diagnosed with a degenerative disease that causes her to have chronic pain. Although Samantha has a youthful appearance, she has been dealing with physical pain for over 15 years.

After the death of her father, it was just too much to handle.

“I fell into what is called a major depressive episode, and then I developed Major Depressive Disorder. I actually had to go live in a clinic for a week,” she said. “I never in my entire life imagined that I would ever be in that situation, ever. It was apparently an accumulation of the grief over the last couple of years after my father passed that I didn’t want to deal with mixed with dealing with a chronic health issue.”