Eight years ago, I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety disorder and like any fourteen-year-old, I thought it was the end of the world. I thought I was doomed and the thought of overcoming it never entered my mind. My depression took over and kind of became my entire life. It's funny how we all look back on obstacles in our lives and wonder the generic, "How did I ever get through that?" question. To be honest, for the first four years of my journey with depression and anxiety, (yes I call it a journey because it's been a very long road), I do still look back and wonder how I really did get through those years of struggle and pain. I guess it's silly to still wonder about those early years of my journey, because after the past four years I've had, those first four bad years don't even hold a candle to what was in store for my life to come.

After having battled the first four years of my anxiety and depression, I completely lost myself. I lost everything that I once enjoyed, I lost trust in everyone, I lost my ability to care about anything and everything, but most importantly, I lost who I was. The girl who once loved and adored life and all it had to offer, was gone. The girl who enjoyed adventures and being outdoors was gone. The girl who trusted everyone and believed that everyone had something good to offer, no longer existed. It killed me the most when people would ask me "Where's the girl who could light up any room she could walk into?" because I now felt like the girl who constantly had a black cloud following her everywhere.

I spent four years of wishing on 11:11 for someone to come into my life and just help me find myself, someone, who understood me. Four years, 1,460 days, two wishes a day, all in hopes that someone would magically come into my life and would understand me, and I secretly hoped that they would change my life.

Well after four years of wishing, someone came into my life. He was a tall, strong, a United States Marine, and as if it couldn't get any better, he was very handsome! He didn't really just walk into my life, he'd actually been there for years, and it wasn't until we started dating that he really became a huge part of my life. We had what everyone thinks of as the "dream relationship." We never argued, we made each other happy, we fell in love and we fell fast.

This is what I thought I'd been wishing for all those years. For three years, we loved each other more than we even thought possible, and it just made me think that all my wishes had come true. The girl I once knew from years earlier, had started coming back. I thought I'd found the person who was going to save me from the person I'd become after anxiety and depression took over my life. He didn't quite fully understand me and my diagnosis, but he did make me happier than I'd been in so long.

I learned that time changes people and time changes situations, and we have no choice but to accept it and continue on with our everyday lives. For three years we took on the world together, and it was time for me to continue the journey on my own. After three years, we learned that it was no longer our time, and we broke up. (But for the record, I hope you know how happy you made me when I needed it the most, and I hope you're doing really well!) With time, something in me just knew that this was not the person who I'd been wishing for to change my life for all of those years. Something told me that there was something better in store for me and all I'd wished for.

So, the wishing continued.

Well, four years of wishes finally came to an end and instead of magically being brought into my life, she came in pretty tragically, and she didn't exactly walk into my life, she came running and barking. Loudly, very very loudly. One thing that has never once changed in my life, despite how much has changed since my journey with depression and anxiety began, is my love and passion for animals. I've loved them since I was born, and that love has only gotten more passionate in the 21 years since. My love for animals is what has led me to have my wish come true.

For almost the past five years, I spent about 300 days out of every year volunteering at the local humane society. I wish I could say I spent every day out of the year there, but I can't forget the days where depression kept me in bed and wouldn't allow me to leave. I found a special sense of peace being around the animals and it became a second home to me. I always made special little bonds with certain animals there, and those are some memories that will never be replaced. It wasn't until September of 2015 that my wish truly came true.

I wish I remembered the exact day that my wish came true, because it'll always be one of the best days of my life, but I have a horrible memory when it comes to dates. Since I'd started volunteering at the humane society, I'd noticed one dog that never seemed to get adopted, an 8-year-old pit bull mix named Mira. Mira was found roaming the streets of town after being abandoned by whoever was cruel enough to leave her behind. She kept barking and barking so much that I was petrified to even give her a treat. I always saw her barking and thought to myself, that's why she hasn't been adopted yet. Now I wish I could take those words back more than anything in the world.

I'll forever remember the day that one of the shelter staff asked me to take Mira out for a walk. I remember being so nervous of the dog from the corner cage who could eat my hand if she wanted to. But as reluctant as I was, I sucked it up and took Mira out for a walk. I took her out to walk and she led me into the exercise yard in the front yard of the humane society. From that moment, my heart and my life, have never been the same. She took me into the exercise yard as if there was something she had to show me. And two years later, I've realized that she did show me something, she showed me her heart.

With her size and her not really knowing me, I sat on the ground and waited for her to come to me instead of bombarding her and being all over her, and after some time, she did come to me. I remember sitting there so scared of the dog who probably weighed more than I did, but she laid down next to me and rolled on her back for a belly rub. The way she was wiggling made me laugh so much and she loved chasing after the toys I threw; She really loved ripping them apart! She was so tired so we took a break. I sat on the bench in the exercise yard and she jumped up and laid across me like a lapdog; It was apparent to me that she didn't know her size. It surprised me when I looked at her in that moment, because I remember thinking, "This is why you haven't been adopted yet because nobody takes the time to get to see this side of you." After playing, I put her leash on and brought her back inside. It broke my heart when she knew which kennel was hers because it showed me that she'd been there too long. That was the day that I met the real Mira, that was the day my wish had finally come true. That was the day my life became forever changed.

So many people wonder how one dog could change my life, so let me tell you. Since the day I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression, I've felt as though nobody truly understood how I felt. Of course, I knew other people had the same problems as I did, but being only fourteen years old at the time, I felt so alone, like nobody had ever felt as horrible as I did. I felt so abandoned by myself, for letting myself become this person who I so badly hated. With Mira, it was the first time that I genuinely felt as though someone understood my abandonment issue, who understood my trust issues and who understood how badly I just wanted to be loved. Mira was abandoned by the people who she trusted to take care of her, just like I was abandoned by the one person who was supposed to take care of me, myself. So just as I no longer trusted people, neither did Mira, but can you really blame her? In the same way that I just wanted to truly feel loved by everyone, including myself again, so did she. And it was the way I could look at her and see the sadness and yearning for all of that in her eyes, that I knew I'd finally had my wish come true. Four years, 1,460 days, two wishes a day, all in hopes that someone would magically come into my life and would understand me, and I secretly hoped that they would change my life. And here she came, four paws, a tail, and a really loud bark.

My wish came true and Mira forever changed me. And over time, just like I had to trust Mira not to hurt me, she had to trust me not to hurt her. That's what taught me to trust again. If I could trust a dog that weighed more than me and could attack me at any second not to hurt me, I had to trust people who could hurt me as well, not to. Just like Mira was afraid of me abandoning her like other people before me had done to her, she taught me that I can't abandon myself any longer, because just like Mira meant the world to me, I had to mean the world to myself. Just like I loved Mira, Mira loved me back and it gave me faith in humanity again, that I can love people and that they can love me back as well.

In the past year, Mira and I became a team, a dynamic duo. My goal was to repay Mira for everything she's taught me in the best way I could, to find her a forever home and get her adopted. So for the following eight months, I did everything I could to get Mira adopted. I wrote a personal Facebook post that went world wide about the dog who changed my life. We made it to the local newspaper, the Examiner.com, and we even made it to the Huffington Post not once, but twice. But if I could go back now and change anything about that, it'd be that people wouldn't just know that Mira changed my life, but that Mira saved my life.

Without Mira, I would've never imagined that I'd be where I am today. Without Mira, I'd still have that heavy feeling of abandonment, I still wouldn't trust a single soul. But because of Mira, I can look back at my journey over the past eight years, and smile looking back at how far I've come. Mira showed me a happier side of life, one that I'll never forget, and for that I'll be forever grateful for her. Mira showed me how to trust and love again. So eight years after I made my first 11:11 wish for someone who would come into my life and would understand me, my wish came true. Although I still do battle with my anxiety and depression today, I look at life in a whole new light and I wouldn't change a single thing.

As for Mira, after exactly four months of searching for a forever home, Mira was adopted! After three months and eleven days to the date of sleeping in a kennel made with concrete floors, she has her own bed, her own family and her own forever home! And as for me, depression and anxiety are still here in my life, but they are no longer my entire life.