For Teens February 12, 2018 Issue

Out of the depths of depression

Dean Coughtry

In middle school, I began to suffer with symptoms of depression, though at the time I didn’t know what was wrong. A gnawing sadness and loneliness characterized my thoughts. In high school, things got so bad that I tried to end my life—unsuccessfully, as you can guess.

As my interior misery grew, I began to drink with school friends on the weekends, the chief goal being to get drunk as quickly as possible. During my senior year, I even started cutting classes and spent my days sitting in the cafeteria.

I had grown up attending the Christian Science Sunday School, and though I respected and appreciated the men and women in our branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I nevertheless developed a conviction that God did not exist. Sunday School taught me that God was good and only good, but it felt as though the power of the universe had nothing better to do than crush me completely, without mercy. Still, God was all I had learned of as help in the world, and I didn’t know of any other power that could rescue me from the tragedy of a ruined existence. So with whatever faith I did have, I was continually asking, begging, God to please help me.

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