The Prayer That Broke a Decade of Depression

I want to be careful how I tell this because I believe in medicine and therapy and I am not suggesting anyone should stop either. I had been on antidepressants and in regular counseling for ten years. The treatment helped — I was functional, I was not in crisis. But there was a heaviness that never fully lifted, a gray film over everything. Last spring at a women's retreat in the Kentucky hills, during a time of personal prayer, something broke. I do not have a better word. I felt a weight physically lift from my chest — perceptible, real, not metaphorical. I wept for a long time, not from sadness but from relief. I talked with my psychiatrist afterward, who has continued to monitor me carefully. Over the following months he reduced my medication twice. I am now on a minimal maintenance dose and feel more genuinely well than at any point in the previous decade. I am not saying medication is not necessary — it was necessary for me for a long time. I am saying something happened at that retreat that accelerated something no dose had managed to touch.