I Healed Depression Without Medication

By Rev. Marilyn L. Redmond , BS,ABH. IBRT

Depression is not recognized from the origin of the condition, butby the symptoms in medicine. Through my own experience and those of my clients,I found the source of this dilemma.   Years ago, I never heard theword depression but my misery and despair were running my life. I was emotionally3 years old until I was in my fifties. I felt like life would always beterrible, horrible, and awful. Being raised in a family of mental illness,domestic violence, addiction, with abuse, was all I knew.

Therefore, I married what was familiar to me. I recreated mychildhood in a marriage with the same dynamics.  As abuse escalated, myhusband was trying to kill me and I was trying suicide to escape.  Theanxiety I felt led me to seek help. The psychiatrist prescribed Valium.  Iknow now, that this stuffed my feelings so I could endure all the pain. However, becoming addicted to the pills was a surprise.

I was looking for help and found myself in another dilemma. Iended up in treatment for addiction to mind and mood altering drugs and learnedthey acted on the body the same as alcohol. The truth was one pill and onedrink was the same as six times the effect. I was in the last stage ofalcoholism. The treatment doctor said to take a pill or drink would kill me.The answer in treatment was to follow a spiritual path to replace themedication and drinking. The 12 steps program of recovery became the basis formy recovery. With 39 years of being sober and taking no prescriptions, I have alife beyond what I thought was possible. In my search for answers, I sought tofind the cause of my conditions including depression.  Surprisingly, Ifound the answer to all sickness.  "It is all healing involvesreplacing fear with love.  "A Course in Miracles" P. 147

I had never felt loved as my parents were never loved and couldnot pass that on to me. I was walking in the dark. Now, I was on a search forthe truth. When I limit the mind, I am not of one mind and that is sickness. Imade the decision to heal my mind from being split and bring oneness into my life.This meant releasing the darkness in my mind for the light to dissolve thedarkness of fear. Fear was depressing the light from my reality. My fear fromabuse had built walls around my heart because I thought love hurt.

I did not want to be hurt again. I could change my feelings. Inreacting, I actually was pushing away the love I truly wanted. Opening up tothe light of truth was a long process of releasing all the fears from my pastto replace them with love and grace. It was possible to move out of the darkdepression by turning to the 'Father of Light'.  The light is within mysoul and the soul is a piece of PURE LOVE in my heart that created me.

Learning where my thoughts were coming from brought a newperception. In examining my beliefs, I found they were not benefiting me. Somewere thoughts I had taken on from my parents or religion. Learning that torecognize unseen negative influences could also be released along with their influenceswas the answer for moving into reality.  .

The progression of identifying all the fears, anxiety, guilt,shame, and other negativity emotions for releasing them took time to process. Iwas separating the truth from the false. As I brought in the light with eachone, I felt better like a light bulb being turned on, I felt thedifference. My perceptions of myself transformed into seeing me filled with thelove of creation. My error of limitation had stopped my progress in growingbeyond my fearful life.

Real forgiveness is to overlook the errors of the past, Whenreality dawns, the fantasies are gone. You come into the reality of awareness.This awareness heals. It is the awareness of truth. For years, I was afraid myfather would beat me as he beat my mother. I was afraid to be close to him. Inpraying about it, I found that their fights were between them and were neverabout me.

In forgiveness, I found the truth and later came to see how muchhe always loved me. I gave up the past for a new day. The truth brought thelight. My father always loved me. I saw he always treated me like his princess.I no longer saw this situation as a defenseless three year old. With the lightreplacing the darkness, I came into the awareness of reality.

I find the lesson in each experience and more and more light hascome into my life. Today, I have no darkness from past fears, but accept theperfect love of God and know that I am dearly loved. I live in joy, gratitude,compassion, love, in celebration, in the presence of my Creator's light andlove. Love heals.

My book "Paradigm Busters" at Amazon has the details ofhow I achieved my victory over depression https://www.amazon.com/s?k=Rev.+Marilyn+L.+Redmond&i=digital-text&crid=8MUSPYY42KU8&sprefix=rev.+marilyn+l.+redmond%2Cdigital-text%2C156&ref=nb_sb_noss