Article March 21, 2011 Issue

Healed of bipolar disorder

Name removed by request

As a kid, I lived for the excitement of Little League baseball. I loved the anticipation of pitching for my team and the determination it took to win. I never could have imagined that as a teenager I would be wishing life was like a light switch that I could just turn off.

Today, I often think about one of my favorite passages in the Bible, from the book of Galatians: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would” (5:16, 17). I am grateful to be walking in the Spirit and receiving the peace that a God-centered focus brings, and I am grateful to say that finding this walk in my life freed me from diagnosed bipolar disorder.

I didn’t grow up in Christian Science—or any other religion—as a teenager. Although I was invited to a few church groups, I didn’t think they were for me. I was often filled with fearful thoughts, and by the time I turned 16, I was smoking cigarettes, drinking, and getting high as much as I could. All this came to a head just before my 18th birthday, when I had a bad experience hallucinating on drugs. It brought me to my knees, and for the first time in my life I felt very strongly that there was a God. I prayed to Him to help me. I was deeply troubled and paranoid, and I remember thinking that if I killed myself, all this would end. But God had a better plan.

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How have you seen prayer combat depression?