Debi Strong is a survivor.

After battling — and beating — breast cancer, she had another war to wage.

Strong, who had suffered from depression from adolescence, succumbed to the crippling mental-health issue and overdosed on prescription medications while her husband and daughter were away for the day.

She woke up in the emergency room hours later.

“My feeling was there was nothing left to do,” she said. “I felt like a burden. I thought it was the best thing I could do. My liver is in really good shape. That’s probably the only reason I lived.”

More than a year after she attempted to take her own life, Strong has become an advocate for understanding depression and suicide.

She and Kalispell Regional Medical Center’s Pathways Treatment Centerare trying to destigmatize depression by hosting National Depression Screening Day at Flathead Valley Community College.

Today’s event from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the Learning Center Building, Room 129, is free and no appointments are needed.

Strong said the best way to treat depression is a complete holistic approach. Not just medication or family support or “being strong-willed” will stave off what Strong calls “this beast hanging over me, waiting to strike again.”

All those approaches together — medication, therapy, positive thoughts and family support — can lift someone out of the inky blackness of depression.

It did for Strong.

She picked up these techniques from her time at the Menninger Clinic in Houston after her attempted suicide.

“Pathways said I don’t get to go home,” she said. “They said I could go to Warm Springs or get help somewhere else. I didn’t want to go to Warm Springs.”

She went somewhere else and was able to overcome her depression. She has not had a major depressive episode in over a year. But like alcoholism, depression is never completely gone, just in remission.

The screening event today at FVCC will give potentially depressed people a questionnaire that can help determine if they are at risk.

Determining depression isn’t for laypeople, but symptoms can include detachment from work, family or friends and loss of interest in things that once were liked.

Strong said many families will just sort of “pick up the slack” for depressed people. The level of depression can be someone who is high-functioning at the office or around people but can fall into a slump at home.

“For adults, it can be from stress piling up,” she said. “It isn’t any one thing. Divorce, surgeries, bills, parents dying... It’s also that inability to enjoy anything anymore.”

While things may seem hopeless or pointless for those in the grips of depression, Strong said she was amazed how quickly things turned around with a well-balanced approach to her mental illness.

“Your brain starts telling itself the bad things,” she said. “It will believe what you tell it. This cognitive behavioral therapy really works. I was doubtful at first but in less than a week I could feel a difference.”

Since leaving the hospital in Houston, she has had rough days but has also had times where she was happy to be alive. One of these times was feeding a baby giraffe at the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago.

Strong proudly shows a photo of her beaming as this 12-foot tall “baby” leans down to eat the food in her hand.

Depression can be overcome, she said. But without help it can feel insurmountable.

Reporter Ryan Murray may be reached at 758-4439 or at rmurray@dailyinterlake.com.