Directionless and depressed after leaving the blissful cocoon of college, Rebecca Patrick was finding herself at a loss in the "real world." Her friends had scattered to the winds, jobs were hard to come by in her mountain town, and her difficult relationship with her boyfriend was disillusioning. Spending way too much time watching trashy television and scrolling through strangers' travelogues on the internet, she was losing herself to equal amounts of depression and anger.

That's when her mother stepped in. At the end of her...