I'd been depressed for as long as I could honestly remember, but circumstances had worsened the depression to the point where, if I got out of bed before noon, it was a remarkable occurrence. I had lost all motivation, slept all the time, was intensely suicidal, and had tried to run away quite a few times already.
My great aunt, Jeji, was living with us at the time. She was straight from India, and considered herself somewhat of a prayer healer. Her mentor was the self-styled 'Prophetess of Nandayal', a woman sought out by her community, for prayer, healing, and blessings. They both firmly believed that all illness, mental or otherwise, was purely Satanic attack, and needed only the prayer of faith and the binding of Satan in order to be dismissed. Therefore, upon being confronted with my obvious depression, my great aunt determined that I was possessed and in need of serious spiritual help.
So, I was repeatedly roused at night by her marking the sign of the cross over me, sprinkling (and soaking) me with holy water, and commanding the demons to depart in the name of Jesus.
Granted, hiding under my blankets, crying and screaming at her to get out of my room because "I hate you!", probably didn't do much to dispel the notion that I was possessed.
This continued for six terrible months, until she returned to India, leaving behind bottles of prayer water and further instructions for my exorcism. I hated her, and she, I believed, hated me.
My mother was convinced that Jeji could do no wrong, therefore, she and my grandmother took to praying against the perceived demonic influence which I was under, almost nightly.
I remember waking up countless times to hear my grandmother praying against the evil spirit she believed inhabited my body. She dragged me in front of the TV every single time a faith healer claimed to miraculously heal an audience member, reminding me in a trembling voice that if I simply cried out to Jesus and if hands were laid on me in prayer, I would be cured. Or, at the very least, unpossessed.
I tried.
I tried so hard. I did everything I thought they wanted.
I was baptised. I tried to pray constantly, and rededicated my life to Christ at every opportunity. My reading materials consisted of my Bible, The Journals of Jim Elliot, and every single book on being a godly woman that I could lay hands on. I beat myself up over the smallest sin, and tried to adhere to a set of legalistic rules in order to earn Gods love and freedom from what I was told was demonic posession. I covered my head in church. I tried to convince my dad not to send me to college. I wrote stifled journal entries to and about God. I even went through a phase of wearing skirts only.
I tried to do everything right, and please God, thinking that if I just grew closer to God, I wouldn't be possessed, right?
Wrong.
Instead, my depression worsened with every attempt to hide or dismiss it. By the time I was sixteen, I had become an expert at hiding it, and pretending to be normal. My parents thought their prayers had worked and I was no longer under demonic influence since I had learned to mask the visible signs of my depression in order to avoid being labelled "possessed".
I remember the first time I learned what depression was, and that it was the result of a chemical imbalance in my brain, and had nothing to do with possession by demons.
My first reaction, I'm ashamed to admit, was disbelief. I dismissed it under the thought that secular science couldn't be relied upon to tell the truth.
The conversations I had with my parents during that year didn't do much to reassure me. The few times I had tried broaching the subject, I was met with a united front telling me that depression was a spiritual sin, failure to stay in communion with God, and could be cured by constant prayer, Bible reading, and positive affirmation.
It didn't help.
Their reactions, when they learned I had been self harming, confirmed my worst fears. Besides just not understanding, they repeatedly asked what occult forces I had been dabbling in that had made me think that slicing my own skin was even remotely okay. Their first thought was that I had turned into a Satan-worshipping, blood-drinking, demon-possessed, emo cult member.
Because. Normal people - unpossessed people - don't cut their skin. Right? It must be some demonic force driving that action. Such as in the story of the possessed man in Mark who would cut his skin with sharp stones while living out among the tombstones.
There's even names for these demonic forces. I've heard so-called healers pray against the spirit of depression or the spirit of suicide or the spirit of anxiety.
So, when I landed myself in the hospital due to a failed suicide, my greatest terror was how my parents would react.
And although they blew my minds with their willingness to accept the real physical ailment I was suffering from, the lingering mentality remains.
Like my fathers insistence that the medicine they prescribed wasn't what changed things. What changed, he believes, was that I started reading my Bible, and began to want to live. And how do I explain to him that even now sometimes I do not wish the pain of life yet I refuse to allow myself to be sucked again into the darkness.
Like my best friend telling me that all mental illness is spiritual, and accusing me of wanting to believe in chemical imbalance so that I don't have to take responsibility for my depression. And part of me fears that she is right - that I don't want to believe that somewhere along the years, somehow, I opened the door to the occult.
Like her older sister's attempts at helping, which basically entailed grilling me as to whether or not I had ever checked my horoscope, touched a oujia board, dabbled in witchcraft, or attempted spells. And then sending me verses on 'returning to the Lord' and cleansing yourself of anything with possible negative spiritual implications in order to be healed.
Like being sent a sermon on Nebuchadnezzar and the direct link between sin and mental illness which claimed that chemical imbalance is an unproven, unscientific opinion, and therefore illegitimate. And how I sat in my room crying, desiring nothing more than to hide away from the cruelty of the world and yet at the same time feeling unbearably selfish for my anger towards the person who sent it to me.
Like women's group last night, where moms friend brought a lady who claimed that the spirit of The Lord resided in her bedroom, and that if she prayed for someone for only five minutes, whatever ailed them, be it depression or suicidal thoughts, or cancer, it would be cured. Because, "everything can be cured with five minutes prayer". Any failure to be cured is a lack of faith. And words failed me to explain to them that God is not boxed in by a formula of five minutes prayer and sometimes he doesn't work that way and that's alright too.
Like crying to my father that night, asking if my depression was just a lack of faith, and he responded by attempting to find a starting point for the depression, an event which triggered it, and insisted that if I kept reading my Bible and remaining close to The Lord, there was no guarantee I would be on medication long. And I was choked with the terrifying though of what if I spend the rest of my life on medication? Will he assume I have failed to adequately draw close to God?
I don't know.
I just don't know.
I want so desperately to believe that I am not possessed, and my depression is simply a result of living in a fallen world, much the same way diabetes or cancer would be, that it frightens me.
And I can't help wondering if, perhaps the very fact that I want it so badly to be true, means it is false.
I just don't know.
I don't know and it scares me.
