University alum Erica Renee Johnson thought being chosen as a contestant for the CW’s new reality show “13: Fear is Real” would be a fun way to branch out and challenge herself.

Little did she know it would turn out to be some of the most harrowing and difficult weeks of her life.

“I didn’t really have any information about the show when I tried out so I was expecting it to be kind of a Real World type thing in a haunted house, but I was so wrong,” said Johnson, who graduated with a telecommunications degree in Dec. 2004.

“We didn’t get to stay in a nice hotel and drive to do challenges on camera or anything like that. They really just dropped us off in the middle of the Louisiana bayou to fend for ourselves with only a little broken down cabin where we had to sleep on the hard floor.”

But, according to Johnson, the contestants were not the only things that called the dingy shack home. Apart from the alligators they could hear swimming around in the lagoon just a few feet from the cabin’s door, the show’s participants also shared their beds with two types of creatures that Johnson lists as the only things she fears: roaches and rats.

As the show progressed, she found that, although disgusting, the rodent infestation was the least of her worries. In order to win the $666,666 prize, she had to combat her own mind and body as the show’s producers slowly set the stage for them to turn against her.

“A lot of the time we would all just be sitting around and listening to the silence because we had no electricity or entertainment, and it would get so boring that you would actually start to feel yourself go crazy,” she said.

“When you add that to the fact that we were starving because we weren’t being fed properly and only got rice and about a half-cup of peas per person every day, and canned tuna only when people started to look emaciated, you really do start to lose it. Everything starts to seem very real and you are terrified.”

Despite these terrible living conditions, constant disorientation and crippling fear, Johnson said she was determined to finish the competition and would not have changed her decision to take part given the knowledge of what was to come.

“I am just a very competitive person, and I knew I could do anything I put my mind to, and I met a lot of great people and got to see them at their best and at their worst, which is very rare out in the real world,” she said.

“Everyone in my hometown is very proud of me and always calls me after they watch the show so we can talk about what happened because I can’t say anything about the show until it shows on television.”

According to her sister and publicist Cassidy Kassa, the fact that much of what happened on the show is kept secret is a source of excitement for her now and also helped her get through the time when her sister was gone.

“I really wasn’t worried about her when she was gone because we had no idea what was happening and the kind of conditions she was under,” Kassa said.

“When she got back and told me about the cabin and the rats, I couldn’t believe it but I am glad she was so strong and didn’t give up because hopefully it will open a lot of doors for her in the future.”

“13: Fear is Real” airs Wednesdays at 8 p.m.