I HAD ALWAYS THOUGHT of myself as a pretty happy person. I think that's how most other people saw me, too. And, as a lifelong Christian Scientist, I had trusted God to be my first and only Physician. That is, until I went to college.
Soon after I began my studies, I couldn't wake up in time to get to classes. I found no joy in most activities. I felt riddled with depression, anger, and anxiety. I found solace only by staying in my dorm room and even then felt extremely anxious. Sure that I would flunk out of school if I didn't do something fast, I went to a psychologist. Although she was kind, gentle, and genuinely interested in my well-being, she had a grim diagnosis for me. She said I needed medication for severe depression. She said I would need to take it for the rest of my life, likening my condition to a life-threatening disease. This scared me even further. I felt beyond all hope.
Ashamed to call myself a Christian Scientist because I had not turned to God for healing, at times I felt like the honest thing to do would be to withdraw my membership from The Mother Church (which now I'm so glad I didn't do). I prayed often but felt as though I'd betrayed God and my church. I felt totally alone and imprisoned by my situation. Thinking that my fellow branch church members wouldn't want me, I stopped going to church. I studied the Bible and Science and Health alone in my room, clinging desperately to the truths I'd learned since childhood. But I still felt stuck—unloved by my church family (or so I thought!) doomed to take medication for the rest of my life.
