YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I gave a pretty exhaustive account of my struggle with depression a bit over a month ago and would like to expand upon it now. I've struggled with both depression and anxiety for a long time, but anxiety was the lesser evil. Depression was always what seemed to define my life, always with me, always lurking. But now all that has changed. For the first time in my life, my depression is under control. I wake up every day, free.

Now it's time to face my lesser evil, anxiety. I don't know when it began, but I know why. When I was very young, my parents used to scream at each other. There was only relief at school, the park and the library. At home, even when they weren't yelling, there was always that tension, that fear of another explosion. Fortunately they divorced while I was still young, finally bringing me a shred of piece. My dad remained a powder keg, but I only saw him on some weekends. My mother calmed herself with religion but that came at a rather high cost.

Religion offered her, offered us, peace, love and joy but demanded fear. Fear for one's salvation, which was supposedly given freely and permanently and yet required one to always read the bible, attend church, pray and pray and pray in earnest. Fear of offending the holy spirit, always pining after the "gift of tongues". There was fear of the ungodly public school system with their groundless evolution science, acceptance of gays and intolerance of prayer. Fear of the sins of our nation, such as legal abortion, for which we were all responsible. And most frighteningly the ever present fear of demons that could be lurking anywhere - in yourself or other people, books, videogames, cabbage patch dolls, movies, etc.

Walk with me, in my shoes for just a moment. We are 10 years old, visiting the library. We choose a magic tree house book and our mother frowns. In tense hushed tones she scolds us -

what are you doing? You know you can't read about magic!

But mom ---

This book has MAGIC in it. Some kids don't know but its REAL! Demons are not something to play with!

We scan the cover. Nothing but smiling kids exploring history. We look up at our mother's scornful face, she continues:

Can't you feel how offended the holy spirit inside you?

We feel nothing, but we obey.

There were always cautions against listening to "secular music" often including instrumental music. I could rationalize not wanting me to listen to some rapper talk about how he wants dat booty, but instrumental music? I was assured that there could be demons in there too.

There was a great emphasis put on one's feelings. If you felt something, it was true. If you felt guilty, a common symptom of depression, you were guilty. This was the holy spirit's way of convicting you. If you felt afraid, like after a nightmare, there was a reason to be afraid. You needed to examine your room, fear could be a sign that you had let demons into your home or into your mind. Medical treatment even counseling was out of the question. This was solely a spiritual problem. As you can imagine, I became rather anxious. I became more anxious yet when I began to doubt my faith. There were just so many inconsistencies... but fear would always push me back. Even as we changed churches and moved to milder denominations, the fear always stayed with us.

As I grew older, I lost one of my three safe spaces, school. By high school, perhaps even middle school, I could see only one escape - my education. I was always bright; any kid who spent as much time in the library as me was bound to be. But it turned out I could not handle the pressure, I got help too late.

Come with me and survey what I was up against.

For one, I was college bound, but university is the stronghold of the godless. All manner of evil had its roots there. There were the usual suspects: sex, drugs and alcohol, but also many more -- gays, transgenders, feminists, athiests! College was where good, God-fearing youth were led astray. There were also financial burdens. It was always clear that my family could not afford to send me to school, even with loan programs we were just too poor. They were always there reminding me, that I had to win a scholarship or I would be a failure. A FAILURE! And there was my crumbling mental health. I had long been aware of my depression, but my mother had always made it very clear that any mental illness was solely a spiritual problem or perhaps a personal weakness. I needed to pray and suck it up.

I couldn't.

I crumbled, slowly at first, then more rapidly.

Since the beginning of this year I've been on the upswing. I have doctors, a therapist and friends behind me. I've gotten my depression under control. But now it's time to look for the next step. I want to go back to school but I am so afraid. I flash back to standing, shaking in the stairwell of the engineering building trying to go to my professors office. I remember sitting at my table and looking at my textbook, comprehending nothing that I know should be clear to me. I remember laying in bed, heavy, wanting to die. Yesterday I put on a radiolab podcast about numbers and it made my heart race and my muscles tense. In the back of my mind there is this doubt that maybe this is as far as I can go, as good as I can be, that I've already wasted too much time, wasted to much money, squandered the hope of every teacher I've ever known. I've always wanted to write each and every one of them, and be able to tell them what I became and how they helped me get there, but what do I have now?

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

But I'm not going to give up, it's not over, I don't know how but I want to find a way. If there isn't one then somehow I will make a way, hopefully.

Thanks for reading.

(sorry for any spelling/ grammar / formatting mistakes. I'm worried that if I re-read this and edit it I'll lose the confidence to post. )

Wow, this is great writing!

Wow, thank you for opening and sharing this part of your life. I wish I could think of some combination of words that could help you overcome the anxiety the way you have gotten your depression under control, but I know even if I could there is more to it than that. I have high anxiety with a side of depression, my anxiety runs my life and I understand your pain in that regard. I also had parents who fought all the time. The household tension, never knowing when things will blow up again... is not fun in the slightest and that anxiety stays with you even in adulthood. I luckily didn't have the religious harm you did, and I hate you had to go through all that. No one should feel the things you were made to feel, and to blame yourself for normal human feelings. I'm involved with a lot of secular groups and have known many people with stories similar to yours and it breaks my heart every time I hear it. You're not alone! I'm happy you have a support system to help you with your depression. Don't give up! You've made progress before, and you can do it again.

Agree that your writing skills are amazing and thank you for sharing!

Oh no! Don't let Radiolab make you anxious! I kid. I totally understand where you're coming from on that point about this being as far as you can go. I doubt very much that is the case for you, and I'm hoping that since your post is a couple of months old, you're feeling in a better place now. I think that Syuni in the follow up post put it well, "You've made progress before and you can do it again."

From a literary standpoint, your story was a pleasure to read. From a content standpoint, it's heartbreaking, and also brings up a lot of areas where I can comiserate and relate. At 32 years old I'm going to try to get my GED and with the anxiety it's causing, you'd think I was having to perform my own brain surgery. I've never been a stupid person, but taking the practice test for the GED made me feel completely worthless.

I grew up with the religious "demons everywhere" too... It's left a terrible impact on me. When I was a kid, if I mentioned that I wanted to go to college, it wasn't money that was mentioned as a barrier (even though we were way too poor), it was always something along the lines of "well, you won't get to go to college because the world will be ending." Nothing like an impending apocalypse to help a kid grow up feeling safe and secure

Best of luck with things.

I'm glad your depression has lifted...I think a lot of people have depression and anxiety. For me, sometimes depression wins out and the anxiety is subdued, but like you, once my depression is lighter, anxiety starts acting up more...that's where I'm at too.
Parents have so much to do with our mental illness...in my head, I know they did the best they can and if I was to become a parent, I would screw my child up one way or the other, but when you are an adult still dealing with the aftermath of your childhood, it's hard to rationalize. My rational head cannot control my feelings. And I don't think you need to suck it up because you are an adult either. It's frustrating at times because you can't change the way you want...you have fears like, "Am I seriously going to be this f-ed up for the rest of my life?" I feel powerless at times. But I think sharing your feelings in forums like this is a huge step to recovery.
I'm a Christian, but I hate churches and sermons. I love God, but not the flawed interpretations of God from humans. They act in authority, but they are just as sinners as we are so it angers me to see their biased hypocrisy. Christians don't represent God, that's audacious. I can go nonstop about it, but I'll keep it short. The church and their interpretations of the Bible made me feel so guilty and depressed for years, but I'm starting to see them as people and not God. We shouldn't treat Christians like they are God.