I Am A Christian With Anxiety and Depression

I am a Christian. I suffer from anxiety and depression.

I struggle to accept that this is not some kind of moral or faithless failing in me.

My first set-too with depression was in college. I was attending university with no friends, no support group, working, taking 18+ credits, no adviser or advocate, the professor in charge of my undergraduate course (choral education) was prejudiced against me because I was home-schooled and a Christian, my mother was mysteriously ill with heart troubles, my grandmother had contracted stomach cancer, and my church at the time did not support or care for me in any way.

I didn't know I was depressed at the time. I thought it was normal to have no interest in life or activities. I thought I was "just tired and stressed" when I drove to school every morning, fantasizing about a semi-truck crashing into me and killing me instantly. I thought it was normal to have a fog around my thoughts and senses. I thought it was normal to wake up constantly tired.

I remember one evening I was in my room, hanging out with my little brother, and we were joking around and I laughed. I heard mom gasp from the living room, and comment to dad, "It's been so long since I've heard her laugh!"

I realized something might be wrong.

I was blessed that my depression was largely influenced by my circumstances at the time. When I graduated, it pretty much disappeared.

For awhile.

After a difficult relationship, I was once again plunged into depression and this time, its paranoid friend, anxiety and their partner in crime, self-harm.

But God has a higher plan, and He works all things together for the good of those who love Him - something I'm so grateful for.

I did not understand it at the time, but Papa-God was preparing my soul for some serious healing.

I continued walking after God as best I knew how. I was still depressed, frequently anxious, and when my emotions would overwhelm me, I would scratch at my wrists with my fingers, or anything sharp at hand until they bled. I did not think this was strange or wrong, it was just something I couldn't help doing, and it made me feel better.

I believed I was worthless and inherently shameful - so it didn't matter if I hurt myself.

God, in His tender (and humorous) wisdom brought people into my life. I don't understand how He did it, but He gave me two friends who were patient and stubborn enough to start living His love into my life.

My concept of myself as a worthless and repugnant creature was directly challenged, and my sanity fell apart.

It would be easy to assume that experiencing people loving me would make me feel better, but instead it made me feel worse. Confronting the negative and contra-scriptural views I had of myself brought them up into the open, and I was overwhelmed with conflicting emotions.

I would become hysterical 2 or 3 nights a week. I had panic attacks, and lived in a constant state of dreadful terror of my friends abandoning me. The emotions were so constant and overwhelming, I began cutting myself much more frequently. I clung desperately to my friends, and simultaneously pushed them away.

There would be times we were hanging out, laughing and having a good time, and suddenly, I would withdraw emotionally. Very shortly, I would make an excuse and lock myself in the bathroom, overcome by terror and a deep repulsion about who I was. I hated myself so much, I would smell a terrible stench that seemed to come off of my skin.

My friends would patiently wait outside the bathroom, knocking on the door and calling for me to let them in. Eventually, I would tremblingly be persuaded to unlock the door, and they would come in, gently wrap me in their arms as I shook with grief about how repulsive and shameful I was. As I cried, I would choke out a "confession" of whatever shameful thing I was thinking of, sure that as soon as they heard this new horror, I would be rejected and left alone with how disgusting I was.

Instead, I would be met with tight hugs, assurances of forgiveness, and often, gentle comments about how what I did was not wrong, and I was not guilty of my imagined crimes.

Months passed, and I wasn't seeming to get better. I realized that I needed more help than my friends could give. At church one day, a sermon on the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda spoke to me in a very personal way. As the preacher read the passage, he came to the part where Jesus asks, "Do you want to be well?" I felt as if Jesus was speaking those words to me, personally. I whispered yes (and cried, of course). When I arrived home, I promptly made an appointment with a counselor, and began the very difficult work of addressing my past.

It is lamentable that there is such a taboo on discussing emotional problems in the church. I have often met with callous misunderstanding and had verses about joy and peace hurled at me like weapons. I have often berated myself with angry recitations of God's promises about peace and joy, and my apparent faithless failure to feel them.

What I have learned is that anxiety, self-harm and depression are symptoms. Sometimes they are symptoms that something is medically wrong with our bodies. Just as we would not deny an asthmatic or diabetic their medicine, and just as Paul encouraged Timothy to take wine (medicine) for his stomach, we should not "tie up heavy burdens" of guilt and shame onto people's back.

In other cases, depression and anxiety are symptoms of deep emotional and spiritual pain that needs to be healed.

One of the things I struggled (and struggle) with was believing that I should be able to "just pray" and be delivered from my "bad" and "un-Christian" emotions.

You know something interesting? There are many recorded healing miracles of Jesus in the Bible. But there were many other people in the world at the time who He did not miraculously heal. One Bible-recorded person who was left un-healed was the apostle Paul.

I've realized that my desire for a short-cut (miracle) may not be what God will do.

And some days, I'm okay with that. There are other days, painful days, where I cry out for freedom from my soul-wounds and the aching, overwhelming emotions that spring from them.

I am learning that His grace is sufficient for me, because His strength is made perfect in weakness. I am learning that my weakness and "failures" in no way change the depth and passion of God's love for me - something my performance-oriented self deeply needed learn. God's love is not earned by my ability to always be joyful, or to be a perfect example, or to be able to accomplish everything anyone needs. His love towards me is not changed by my emotions or how badly I am hurt or not. His love for me is constant, no matter how depressed or anxious I am.

I love that about Him.

I love too that He is patient and persistent.

After I had initially been in counseling for about two years, I (and my counselor) felt that I had accomplished a lot of healing, and ended our sessions. My depression did not plague me, and while I sometimes felt anxious when circumstances were hard, I had effective coping strategies that did not involve self-harm. Most importantly, I had learned that I had worth. I was not repulsive, I was attractive, and wanted.

On a mission trip to South Dakota, God performed a healing miracle on my spiritual heart. Because of my previous relationship, I "learned" that I was not to be trusted with hearing from the Lord. As a result, I completely cut off my emotional connection with the Lord, terrified of making a mistake. During prayer with one of the leaders (on the interminable drive there), God restored my emotional connection with Him.

He's so sneaky.

I enjoyed three months of depression-and-anxiety free living, complete with a precious emotional connection with Papa-God.

Little did I know, He was giving me tools and preparing me for a severe work of healing.

Gently, He brought to mind a memory that I had long, long buried and forgotten, because it was too traumatic and painful to deal with. However, even with someone as tender and kind as Jesus, this kind of intense trauma is cripplingly painful.

I have once again found myself plagued with depression and anxiety. I've experienced terror and paranoia in these past few months that I did not dream possible. Speaking of dreams, my nights have become haunted with the horror of my past and my inability to stop what happened.

But this time is different. I understand that my depression and anxiety are symptoms of the trauma I experienced - I have every reason to feel depressed and anxious. I am not ashamed of these emotions. They do not reflect a meager trust in God, a failure or sin on my part. They are part of my healing process, and unless God chooses to do a healing miracle once again, they are something to be endured.