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When I was depressed for months at a time, I quit my job and just sat around the house doing nothing but worrying. At a certain point, I realized that this was not good and tried to do some things to occupy my mind. I watched TV for hours and hours. I cleaned the house or washed windows. Although I felt hopeless and that there was no way out of the way I was feeling, these simple activities helped a bit. They gave me at least a little feeling of worth and accomplishment. I also read a bit, and grace led me to find a book called Psychosomatics (listed in Appendix B), which I read. This book increased my hope as it pointed out a connection between what we think and the illnesses that we suffer from.

When I was depressed, I slept a lot. Sleep seemed to be my only escape, sleep and long rides in the car with my father. I liked the rides, they took me back to a happier time when I was loved and cared for and had no worries. But the paranoia crept in to ruin those times also. I sensed my father's impatience with me and felt that he wanted to get rid of me, that he wanted to kill me. What a terrible feeling! I lived in almost constant fear and that caused incredible anxiety.

The feelings of confusion and depression began in the spring of my first year at college. I was 19 years old; my girlfriend of a summer love went away to college in September, then broke up with me on Thanksgiving. The pressure was there: pressure of a love lost, pressure of college, pressure of growing up, pressure and confusion of being a child of divorce and many other pressures.

I felt so incredibly guilty when I was depressed. I felt that I shouldn't be depressed. People told me that I shouldn't feel depressed because I had so much going for me. That only helped me to feel more guilty. I wanted to know why I felt so terrible.

Having a logical mind, I said to myself, "If I feel this way, it must be because I did something wrong and I am being punished." I was raised with guilt and punishment. That was the kind of thinking I was involved in during the duration of the depression—guilt and fear of punishment. I now see how that type of thinking was self-perpetuating. After several months of deep paranoid depression, I remember feeling so guilty and saying to myself that I may have screwed up everything to this point in my life, but today is the first day of the rest of my life. I will start doing things better. I also started praying every night even though I felt so unworthy. Maybe, just maybe, God would have mercy on me and help me to get better.

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