I grew up in a dysfunctional family. My mother, who was a Christian Scientist, was the only sane person in the household. My father was antagonistic toward Christian Science and called himself an “agnostic pragmatist.” Three months in a mental hospital eventually greatly helped him, but not before my two sisters and I had become casualties of his illness, becoming mentally ill ourselves.

 Although I grew up in a Christian Science Sunday School, Christian Science went in one ear and out the other. However, fortunately I imbibed the idealism of Christian Science. Although I did well in school, in sports and other extracurricular activities, during the end of my high school experience, I became increasingly depressed, to the point of being obsessed with the thought of committing suicide. I was also concerned about the worsening symptoms of mental illness I was observing in myself: for example, there were times when I said and did very inappropriate things which I later deeply regretted. It seemed as if the mental illness was taking over, and that at times it was the mental illness which was speaking and acting rather than me.

 During my senior year in high school, I sank into deeper and deeper, longer lasting depressions, with shorter and shorter periods between depressions. I began to fear that I was about to go into a deep depression from which I would never emerge. I read all sorts of philosophy, but I didn’t find it at all helpful.

 Finally, one day I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom, thinking about my desperate, hopeless situation when a thought came to me clearly and distinctly, almost as if a voice were speaking to me, “Why don’t you try Christian Science?” I thought, why not; I had tried everything else I could think of. There was an almost unused Science and Health sitting on a bookshelf in my bedroom. I opened the Science and Health and began reading receptively for the first time. I remember vividly thinking, this is what I have been looking for all my life.  I remember drinking in the healing truths on page after page of Science and Health as if I had been lost in a desert without anything to drink for some time.

Shortly after this mind-blowing, wonderful experience, I realized that I had lost all desire to commit suicide: I realized that I had experienced an instantaneous healing. I now had a purpose to live, with wonderful goals to achieve. Although this happened decades ago, I have never again had a desire to commit suicide.  Also, I have never again sunk into a deep depression nor was I afraid of sinking into a deep depression. The healing of the most severe symptoms of mental illness was permanent. I am very grateful that I had an instantaneous healing of the most severe symptoms of mental illness, which never terrorized me again.

JL
Springdale, AR