I worship an imperfect god

I am an atheist.  My father is an atheist.  His father before him was an atheist.  Growing up in the Bible Belt, this lack of religion made my family circus freaks.  Not that I told anyone.  When my religious fifth grade teacher asked, I said I was a Unitarian.  Close enough

Even at 10, I knew I would rather just avoid uncomfortable subjects.  I don't like arguing with people, and I don't have a problem with religion.  All religions have their problems, but they are useful to a lot of people.  I think of them as a framework to hang your beliefs on.  If you believe in kindness, you embrace that aspect of Christianity.  If you like judging people, you focus on that.  If you want to be wealthy, you tell yourself that God wants you to have all the land between two oceans (see Manifest Destiny).

Also, I do think prayer and meditation are good for your brain.  To sum up:  what do I think of religion?  Eh, it can cause good and bad things in the world.  I'm not a cosmic scale.  I can't weigh it out for you.

But I do have faith in science.  I realized this when I took a seminar on the Copernican revolution and realized I couldn't understand the mathematics that prove the earth goes around the sun.  Geniuses through the ages have assured society this is correct, so I believe it.  And if it turns out that it is not true, I have faith scientists will figure it out one day.  In the meantime, assuming the earth goes around the sun is accurate enough to send people into space and forecast eclipses.  One of my chemistry teachers was fond of yelling out "it's just a model" when we were learning about Bohr's model of the atom.  Even when a scientific turns out to be "wrong," if it can predict behavior of a system, it's still useful.

So now we come to the part of the story when my faith is tested.  Almost 10 years ago, I had my first bout of depression.  I cried all the time and had no idea why.  I used a very scientific online checklist to diagnose myself and then I read Depression for Dummies.  That book told me that 60% of depressives get better with therapy.  It said that like it was great odds, which of course it isn't.

I didn't see how therapy would make me better.  Being shut up in a room forced to talk about myself while someone stares at me is my idea of hell.  I only managed to drag myself there every week because the psychology field assured me it would work.  After a few months, I felt slightly better, but I was getting better so slowly that I wasn't going to be able to function in the real world much longer.

So I put my faith in drugs.  I was nervous about taking something that I worried could change who I was.  Then Klonopin changed who I was, and it was terrific.  I was happy all the time.  I had so much energy.  I didn't worry about the little things anymore (what do they think of me?  do I look okay?  will people think I'm weird?  do I have to leave the house?).  But scientists really know very little about how these medications work.  I have gone to a few different psychiatrists and their methods are the same.  Prescribe a widely-prescribed anti-depressant.  When that doesn't work, just keep going down the list.  Use combinations of 3 or 4 of them.  Ask the patient what side effects she wants to avoid.  When one stops working (and it will), prescribe another.

Let's just say it's been an interesting 10 years.  Do I think my medications are currently doing me any good?  I have no idea, but I have faith science will figure it out some day.  Probably far in the future, but I'm willing to be a guinea pig.  I've had brief periods when the pills have worked, and I want everyone to have a chance at that life.