Thirty-eight-year-old Vivian Long has suffered from agoraphobia (fear of public places, fear of leaving home) for all her adult life. She experiences a severe panic attack while driving home from the store and runs a red light, nearly crashing into a truck with her 14-year-old daughter, Faith, in the car. This is the catalyst to get long-needed help. 

She meets with Dr. Buhari, a psychiatrist who, via video sessions, leads her through a 10-step Cognitive Behavioral Therapy program, which progressively pushes Vivian to be exposed to situations which frighten her. 

As a child, little Vivi was abducted from a county fair after being separated from her family, and as a teen, she survived two sexual assaults. These traumas haunt her for years, culminating in her becoming paralyzed with anxiety and agoraphobia. Vivi and her brother, Shane, are raised by their grandparents after their parents died in a snowmobile crash. As the two become adults, Shane’s life is propelled forward but Vivi’s stagnates. 

Vivian makes good progress in her therapy, and the final step involves she and her husband, Carl, taking a day-long canoe trip down a remote Michigan river. The first part of the trip is spectacular. Vivian has never felt so free and serene—until Carl suddenly slumps over in the canoe. Vivian drags him to the riverbank to attempt CPR, but she is unable to revive him. In the process, the canoe, bottled water, food, and cell phones float away downriver. 

Vivian is left alone in the remote backwoods with her husband’s body—her greatest fear. She encounters many dangers during an effort to find her way back to civilization (thunderstorms, snakes, bear, biting insects, mushroom poisoning, a broken ankle, dehydration, and hunger). Vivian draws on every survival skill she can muster and is eventually rescued, tattered but alive. 

Vivian celebrates her new life by visiting Italy with Faith, Shane and his partner, Luis, a trip she has dreamed about someday taking. She realizes that her strength and growth would not have been possible without her multiple challenges—the death of her parents, her abduction, her sexual assaults, the deaths of her grandparents, and finally, losing Carl and becoming stranded in the wilderness, forcing her to use every bit of fortitude to survive, and even thrive.