I was speaking to someone and he laughed at me for believing in God. I was in the middle of typing my testimony to him, when I thought, maybe I should make a separate post where not only I can share my testimony, but others can share their testimony as well. Maybe reading our testimonies would inspire people to be less judgemental and less intolerant to people who believe in God. I will start with my testimony.
I used to be a pretty shitty person until about 22-23 years old. I was a loser thug always in the streets using and selling drugs(damn near every drug I can think of including quite a few research chemical drugs), drinking, fighting people, beating people up for no good reason, stealing, robbing, vandalism, lying, betraying people, pretty much anything I can think of besides murder, grape, some frauds, kidnap, and maybe a few other things. I used to interact with like 200+ people a day and everyone knew me and many feared me. I was a literal piece of shit basically. I didn't believe in God or any religion.
One day around 22-23 years old, I was crying in bed questioning life and what I was even doing or meant to do, because I became sick of myself and how f**ked up I was. I was in a depression hole. I decided to try to repent to God and ask for help and if he was real he would help me. While I was doing that, all of a sudden, I felt a rush of euphoria through my entire body and next thing you know, I was knocked out(I was not on drugs by the way lol).
When I woke up, I felt very different. I didn't feel depressed, angry, ready to go out into the streets again, or any of the common feelings that I had prior to that day. I felt like everything was good and that I was a new person with a new life. I even physically felt lighter somehow. I also felt like my brain had "unlocked" if you will, and I was able to use by brain and think way differently and better than I was able to prior to that day. Zombie brain was cured. I was off of auto pilot.
Since that day, I have not felt depressed one single time and still going strong today. I do occasionally feel sad or upset about something very temporarily, but it would never turn into a depression. I have not done drugs besides cigarettes and weed since then. I pretty must quit my old life cold turkey over night which I still wonder how I would have been able to do that without the help of God. I'm having a hard time quitting cigarettes today, but somehow quit a whole lifestyle overnight on that day.
At this point, I had faith that I just have to be Grateful, and do as much as I can to become a better person every day. I remembered learning some character traits in the alternative highschool I went to for teens with behavior problems. I wrote as many character traits as I could find online onto a piece of paper. I studied the character traits and their meanings, and began to self identify every flawed character trait I had and work on them all. Turns out I was a natural with many of the character traits, but they were just either suppressed, or used for bad before. I realized my strongest and favorite character trait was empathy.
This process basically became me behaving like I was my own project, which lead me to also realize that psychology is my strong suit as well. Now I use these strengths and lessons that I have learned to maintain myself and to get better by the day in as many character traits as I can. It is a forever journey, and it was and is all with the help of God. May God bless and have mercy on us all.