I hope you find your faith again. For many it provides great joy and strength at the hardest of times. I'm far from the expert on that, but if you search long enough I have to imagine you will find the church or people that make you feel spiritual.

When I think back on my life I always had depression. Since like second grade I would act sick a lot so I didn't have to go to school. I missed maybe 1 day a week. I was always really intelligent and I never failed a grade, but in retrospect it was the strong desire to withdraw that subconsciously led me to do it. I always wanted to sleep a lot. A normal sleep for me is twelve hours. I can't do that because of work and family.

My teens it got worse. I think I started having suicidal ideation around 14. I had my first attempt at 17.

I think the point it got at its worst is when I discovered who my parents were. I had lived with mom and dad and they split up when I was 8. I chose to live with dad. When I was 16 a cousin told me that the man I was calling dad was not my biological father. My mother had an affair with her sisters husband. At the time I had no idea how to process that. It also made the wheel click about why my dad's family treated me differently. My dad loved my brother and I the same but it stopped being equal there. I often felt like a burden and just wanted to hide. After I found that out I felt like I didn't belong. I should have talked to my father about it. I didn't even know how to have the conversation. "Dad, why do you love me?". I didn't have a way to understand or get help. My dad passed when I was 18 when made things really bad. My mother wasn't very involved. She isn't a bad person, just isn't good at being a mom. My son is two and she has only seen him twice. So when I lost dad it was like being an orphan. I was 18 and wasn't hustled away to some shelter. I lived in the same house with my brother and uncles.

I think I can understand some of your pain with losing your faith. You have this thing in your head that is the absolute truth. Then you lose that and don't know how to view the world or possibly yourself.

My depression hasn't always been severe. Before 14 I think it was there and affected me. After 14-19 it was severe. 19 I got some therapy and met what is now my wife and started putting my life in the direction I wanted it to go. I think it started to reoccur my 4th year of college. I just threw myself into school as a way to cope. If you totally overworked it becomes a point where you can't feel anything, like how empty and sad you used to feel. The greatly impacted my marriage. Not directly but behind the scenes causing distance to form and resentment from my wife. That came to a head and we almost divorced but decided to try marriage counseling and I decided to go to therapy and get treatment. That was three years and 4 months ago.