Thank you for sharing your story.
I attended church and a Christian based programme until about age 12. In my teens, I wasn't too interested in religion but my school principal was a strong Christian.
I did well at school and gained entry into medical school so that involved moving city for my university studies. First year away was disastrous, I became depressed, and my life unravelled. I dropped out of university to search for the meaning of life. That led me back to my Christian roots and then the Baha'i Faith. I was attending a Baptist church just before becoming a Baha'i.
Once I became a Baha'i I overcame my depression and went back to medical school. I married and had children. I've been on my local assembly for nearly 20 years and I so enjoy being of service and being part of a community.
I've had a lot of hard times in my early life that I wouldn't want to post about here. There are a number of things that could have crippled me emotionally but through prayer and living the life God has assisted me to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and not let my past define me. When I pray and read the writings daily, and do what God expects of me life goes well and I'm happy. When I neglect my spiritual life, I struggle.
Only God knows each of us and what our capacity is. We are the only ones that can read the reality of our own lives. The best we can do is life one day at a time. Thanks again for sharing. Its an amazing privilege to be a Baha'i. We learn from each other and the video link you posted yesterday on another thread about who Baha'u'llah is in relation to Christian prophecy, I've posted twice today. Keep up the great work.
Thanks for sharing your story.
My childhood was one of emotional abandonment by both parents and my husband had the same experience, except he also had some physical abuse. He was raised as a Christian but it never took. His dad was a doctor and both his dad and mom came from upper crust WASP society in Georgia. He saw a lot of hypocrisy in Church because all they seemed to care about were material things. His parents divorced when he was only about eight years old and his father remarried twice. His mother later questioned whether God existed but his dad became a Baha'i after he married for the third time. My husband found out about Baha'i from his father.
My mother found out about Baha'i from my brother and became a Baha'i at about age 60. My dad died about ten years before that, when I was 12, so he never heard of the Faith. I later heard from my mother that he became an atheist after he left Christianity.
All my childhood deprivation caused serious emotional problems I would rather not share here which I suffered through alone for about 12 years; although I was living with my mother we were not close. Then I went to a psychiatrist when I was about 31 and about a year later I got married. We just had our 33rd anniversary. Owing to our childhoods we never had any children, but we have had loads of Persian cats who we love dearly.
It took over 15 years of counseling, 12 step programs and homeopathy to really recover from my childhood issues. I had been on psychotropic drugs for the first five years but they only masked my depression and anxiety, they never cured it. During that time in recovery I was not engaged with the Faith or thinking about God at all. I spent over 15 years in college and I got several degrees, the last ones were an MA in Counseling Psychology and Homeopathic Medicine. I never used those for a career as I had planned to because too many things happened that intervened, so I needed to keep working for the state in order to support myself, since I was the primary breadwinner. My husband also worked for the state for 23 years but he did not make much money.
I am grateful for the Faith while at the same time I feel very overwhelmed by the responsibility because I take it so seriously. I did not have that problem until about the last five years since I had all but shirked the Faith and God. Now I am in for the long haul I guess.
My husband had been a nurse (LPN) for about 20 years before we married and went to three schools for RN, but never completed them. He was a good student but the emotional problems got in his way of the clinical work. So he changed careers and went into clerical work. I was never good in the hard sciences in college, especially the biological sciences.
Since you are a doctor I am sure you know about hereditary dispositions. Both of my parents had depression and anxiety and it was endogenous, so all three of us children inherited that predisposition. The homeopathy helped me a lot but I will always have a tendency to be depressed. That is one reason I try to stay busy all the time and I do a lot of physical exercise.
I only wish I could say that it helps to turn to God, but I think what I have is physical and not spiritual, so I can only do what I can do, but I won't ever take drugs again. It is not really all that bad but life just gets me down and I do have a lot of pressures most people my age do not have; three houses and two with tenants, and 11 cats. That is a lot to take care of while still trying to work full time and serve the Faith.
I am old enough to retire and we have plenty of money and assets, I just cannot make decisions. I suspect it is the depression and anxiety but I am not sure, so I just live one day at a time, fully in the present. If I think about the future, I will surely get depressed but I cannot really say why. I have good health, a nice husband, financial security and a religion I love and believe in with absolute certitude. I just feel overwhelmed most of the time. Probably that is because I am driven and I try to do too much.
I really need to make peace with God before I die. I think that my sharing the Faith is one way I do that. I figure that even if I do not get it right in a personal relationship with God at least a lot more people will know about the Faith as a result of my constant posting. Maybe they will have more luck with God than I have.
I also post on another forum on a limited basis, mostly to a few agnostic and atheist friends I have there who I have known for many years.