Mental health—on whose terms?

It was the third night since I’d received my prescription for tranquilizers and sleeping pills, which were to be taken both daily and nightly. I was not a student of Christian Science at the time. I was 17 years old, at boarding school, and increasingly unable to function normally.

“I’ve been diagnosed with depression,” I thought to myself. “Can I seriously think of anything more depressing than taking pills for depression?”

I searched for a while. The answer was a very firm “No.” If the problem was depression, I reasoned, it was a state of mind. What could drugs and more sleep do? The disturbing thoughts and troubling existential and moral questions would still be there. I would simply be numbing myself to them by taking drugs. Ultimately, I believed I would be giving up any notion that I could actually think out anything at all for myself by taking the pills. Would freedom of thought still mean anything? I decided not to take the medication again.

It would be nice to report that I was then and there instantly healed of depression and of mental issues, but I remained in a precarious state for several months after that. I was sent back home from the boarding school for a period to recover. With the support of my parents, who approved my decision to try to tackle my “demons” without medication, I did gain enough stability to return to school, finish the academic year, and qualify for university.

I cannot remember exactly when a school friend first started talking to me about Christian Science. Looking back, all those 40 years ago, I can see that I was crying out for it. Of the various “issues” that I was attempting to handle, religion was very much in the mix, although I seemed to be using my understanding of religion and God in general as a weapon of self-hatred and introversion rather than for anything constructive. I had not been brought up in any particular faith, but my parents had sent me to schools with strong Anglican traditions and values, which included regular Bible reading. I had developed a love for the teachings of Jesus and a longing for these teachings to be true—and true now (including the healings)—but I felt very confused, to say the least, by the doctrines, rituals, and what I thought of as the hypocrisy of some people of faith. At that point, I could see why atheism, or at the very least agnosticism, could appeal to many good people, including my parents.

However, I was unable to totally let go of spirituality, since nothing seemed to make any deep sense without it.

So, when I did finally take my school friend’s advice at the end of the academic year and picked up a copy of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, it immediately spoke to me. The ideas in this book resolved too many of my arguments against religion to describe in detail here. At first I sometimes found Mrs. Eddy’s style of writing off-putting, partly because the word God usually gave me the creeps. But I kept reading.

Fortunately, at a very early stage in her book, Mrs. Eddy makes clear that she is not speaking about some cruel, angry myth in the sky as being God. On page 2, she writes: “God is Love. Can we ask Him to be more?” She then continues: “God is intelligence. Can we inform the infinite Mind of anything He does not already comprehend?” A little later, on page 6, she makes the point again: “ ‘God is Love.’ More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go.” Relief flooded my thoughts when I glimpsed that divine Love is the ultimate law of the universe. And Love would never leave me.

I also very early took an advance peek at the chapter titled “Recapitulation,” which begins on page 465 and presents a series of “Questions and Answers.” The first question and answer gave me the key to reading the book and to exploring the Bible: “Question.—What is God?

“Answer.—God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.”

With this definition, I found that whenever I felt too uncomfortable with the word God, I could simply replace it with whichever of the synonyms for God was most appropriate to the given context.

This powerful idea of perfect Mind as distinct from a brain brought relief.

In tackling my unresolved mental and emotional issues, I found two recurring themes in Science and Health to be particularly helpful, and these ideas have continued to provide inspiration, instruction, and support over many years since then. First, all through the book, Mrs. Eddy emphasizes the need for each reader to think and pray things through individually. From the very first page in the Preface, she says, “The time for thinkers has come.” Mrs. Eddy trusts her readers to rise to the challenge of being able to pray about issues in their lives themselves. I liked that Christian Science doesn’t demand blind belief, but encourages the faith that comes from spiritual understanding.

The second theme that helped to bring about my healing of depression and mental confusion was Mrs. Eddy’s repeated declaration that divine Mind and intelligence exist independently of matter. See for example “the scientific statement of being” on page 468 of Science and Health. On reading this statement for the first time, I felt the healing power and release that comes from knowing that whatever is genuinely true remains true, regardless of one’s apparent state of mind. Two plus two, I realized, would always make four, regardless of whether I was one day feeling temporarily incapable of understanding that fact or not. True things are always intact because their existence does not depend on matter, on my brain or anyone else’s. This powerful idea of perfect Mind as distinct from a brain, labeled diseased or otherwise, combined with diligent prayer and spiritually reasoning through my “issues,” brought relief, deep-founded joy, and, ultimately, healing.

Not every single symptom and instance of self-doubt, self-condemnation, fear, and alienation was cured overnight, but during those summer months leading up to my next year at the university, I was able to find meaning in life again. My loving family were at first vehemently opposed to Christian Science, but they eventually—grudgingly and humorously—came to respect that apparently some genuine good had been done, and that I had not fallen victim to a strange religion! In retrospect, their softening almost certainly reflected the fact that, with the aid of a dear Christian Science practitioner, I was learning to recognize that steady, stable thought came from leaning on divine Mind, whose infinite understanding includes all and condemns none. And my changed behavior reflected this understanding. To sum things up: Mental stability and freedom from depression came gradually over several months.

Since then, after completing university and settling into a career as a self-employed translator (while at the same time remaining active in a variety of charitable organizations), I have been able to face periods of intense financial difficulty, crises in relationships, and the occasional physical injury—applying Christian Science with an expectancy of healing, while maintaining poise. When I first threw away those pills four decades ago, I joked that I would rather be “mad on my own terms” than “sane on someone else’s,” or, in other words, relying on someone else’s opinions and intellect to manage my mental wellness. Christian Science gave me a better and more conciliatory answer, which included a humble respect for anyone who had sincerely tried to help me along the way.

The healing of incapacitating depression had not been attained willfully on my terms, I’ve realized, but on the “terms” of intelligent Mind understood, of affectionate Love humbly appreciated, and of absolute spiritual Truth honestly acknowledged and celebrated.