I'm still reading "Heartwounds" by Tian Dayton. So much of the material in this book explains so much about why I struggle the way I do. I've mentioned, and others have too, having trouble feeling acceptable to God or close to God, or just plain feeling the spirit, while affected by depression and mental illness. Here's a paragraph in this book that helped me to make more sense of it.
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Loss of trust and faith reaches toward the spiritual solution of anchoring to a faith in God or a Higher Power. Trauma ... produces a loss of trust and faith. The relationships that we depended upon were profoundly disappointing, which made us lose faith not only in relationships to others but also in relationships with self and life. It is, in a sense, a spiritual crisis that begs for a spiritual solution. The confusion, disappointment, and disillusionment attendant upon bottoming out leave a survivor feeling an existential despair. But out of this despair, hope can come. It is deeply strengthening to go through pain and struggle and to survive, to know that you can surmount life's difficulties. It is at these moments of despair that we meet God and self, that we go within and look for strength, that we learn to trust ourselves, and through this relationship with self that we recognize God's presence within us.

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