hi As an adolecent I couldn't believe in a caring father. Mine was miserable. and god never came to get me and take me away from the misery. as a young adult I was attracted to neo-paganism; wiccans and all. So my notion of god is more of a mother to us all. She lets us learn through our mistakes. treats us all differently due to our uniqueness, and is ready to open her and let us cry on her shoulder when we need to. I learned to find what is at the center of my existance. I had to learn to touch the spark of life that animates this assembly of water and minerals. It way after my first depression crash. It was all that was left of me.

Hi Mgl ... and welcome :) I struggled with that question for a long, long time. What I finally came to was very simple: There has got to be [b]something[/b] greater than me and no one says I have to identify what that is. I'm still agnostic ... I believe there's something but my poor tiny human mind can never fully comprehend it. I just act as if there is a god, say my prayers (which consist basically of "please show me your will for me and give me the power to carry it out" in the morning and "thanks" at night). I don't go to church, I don't spend hour upon hour studying religions (as I once did) ... I just decided that god does exist and I'm not it. I used to overcomplicate absolutely everything in my life. I think us depressives tend to be big thinkers and I don't always believe that's a good thing. :) The funny thing is the less time I put into trying to understand spirituality, the more "evidence" of something greater showed up in my life. At any rate, you found your way here in all the billions of pages on the net ... ;)

Spirituality comes in many forms...I believe in God but maybe not in the traditional sense. I believe in spirituality, not organized religion. I am non-denominational. I believe God is the "spirit" or "energy" that lives in everything and everyone and that we all have a purpose, we all come from God and we all return to God when our purpose is fulfilled (except maybe my ex-husband who I'm sure is the spawn of Satan himself). This makes me believe that every experience I have, good or bad, serves an important purpose and is part of God's plan for me. There is a lesson to be learned in everything. Sometimes those lessons suck. Sometimes I get so angry I could scream at God "Ok, I get it! Give me a break already!" I believe that all prayers are answered, even if sometimes the answer is "no". I would probably have to write pages to explain all of my spiritual beliefs and would probably sound like a religious zealot even though I'm probably the least "religious" person there is. But what I belive does help get me through the dark times because it reminds me that no matter how bad things seem, there will be something positive to take away from it. It's that "every cloud has a silver lining" or "God works in mysterious ways" kind of thing. Many times the positives are hard to see, especially for people like us. But give it time and believe in yourself and eventually the positive side seems to work it's way out. I went through a traumatic event in the last year that all but destroyed everything I thought I believed. That was a dark time for me because then I didn't even have any kind of faith to comfort me. I felt like I had been naive my whole life to have believed such things. I'm beginning to see now that I wasn't naive - my beliefs weren't wrong, maybe just incomplete. I see the world differently now and I'm learning to cope with that. In time, I believe that I will be able to take something positive away from the experiences of the last year. I'm not there yet (still having trouble with the thought that the last year had to be SOOOO bad in order to learn something from it - surely God could have taught me the same thing in a less nasty way?) But all in good time... I'm probably rambling now but I guess what I'm trying to say is that there's nothing wrong with questioning your faith now and then. When you find the answers you're looking for you may find that your faith is stronger than it was before. I don't think God is going to strike us down for having our own minds. After all, if He made us, then he should know better than anyone why it is hard for us to believe sometimes...

I just have to reply here. One of the greatest bible studies I have ever done is "Lies Women Believe". It is about Christian women, every day people like you and me, that suffer from depression. While I'll admit that my relationship with God isn't the best in the world, it isn't impossible to believe when you are depressed. My "faith" (belief or whatever you want to call it) comes from years of experiencing God at work in my life. In the bible it says, [i]Seek and you shall find; knock and the door will be open unto you; ask and it will be given to you. [/i]. Another great book I read was by Dr. David Jeremiah about prayer. It says that we have not because we ask not. There are plenty of resources out there for struggling people who want to know more about God. If you don't look for Him, you will not find Him. If you don't want Him, He will not bother you. There are plenty of times that I don't feel very clost to God. One thing I keep reminding myself is that if I don't feel Him it isn't He who has moved away from me; rather I that have moved away from Him. Ever read Footprints in the Sand?

I don't think that you necessarily need to believe in god. God as a philosophical construct can be useful to people who do believe. Someone to dump all your troubles on someone to confess to, all seeing, all knowing all powerful all loving. Great idea and more power to those who can believe. But such a belief, for those of us who are rational(ha, ha, listen to me a nut case talking to other nutters about rationality), is just not possible. And feeling guilty about it is not productive. When my brother committed suicide (over 40 years ago), I wished that I could believe in an afterlife. But it really didn't seem to help my sister ( a good Christian) much. What I think you need to believe in is yourself. Your sight, your knowledge, your power and your love and lovability.

... one more thing came into my mind: I mean, if you are depressed, you do the same with everything else around you: you decline every good idea to believe.. you do not believe, to get ever healty, or to have ever a good relationship or whatever... ... so for me it seems to be the same mechanism... it is really like it is the sickness makes it in you...

Dear Mgl, Just to let you know, I have already read some brochures before I have got really depressed.. and there it stood (for me was very surprising) that people who are religious, it may be a bit more complicated (to get depressed), as depression has an impact on the spiritual life. I do not remember quite well, but I think, it was mentioned that people can not believe in that extension as they have been used to. AND, that makes them to feel guilty, as they can not believe -- a kind of negative spiral. So, try not be too much worried about this... it seems to be "normal" in this phase of life. perth

Mgl, This is a very interesting question and you are bound to get many varied responses. To those who feel comfortable, we encourage you to share your spiritual beliefs whether you have them or not and how it affects you. Danielle, Bilingual Support Specialist

Does anyone else here have trouble believing? I desparately want to, but everything around me tells me "no." I can't seem to take the leap of faith. I am so envious of the people who believe and put their worries in God's hands.