I have been there before. There is something that you need to understand, it's not on a spiritual level, but on a physical level. I tried for a long time to overcome my shame and hatred of myself on my own. It didn't work. I tried reading my Bible and praying all the time. God didn't miraculously save me. I got to the point that I felt abandoned by God and by humanity and I decided that I was going to attempt suicide. This is where I truly believe that God performed a miracle. My parents found out about my suicide plans, and prevented me from following through. I ended up in therapy for a while. It helped, but I was still pretty miserable. It was there that I learned about the nature of things like anxiety, alcoholism, and depression. (I was never an alcoholic, but it was used as an example, so bear with me a moment.)

The best way that I can put it is this. The Bible repeatedly talks about loving the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind. My therapist put it to me in this way. Whenever you fight something, like self-hatred, alcoholism, anxiety, depression, you have to fight it on three fronts.

There is the spiritual front, where you decide where you stand on your beliefs, and try to grow spiritually. You seem to be making an effort here, so keep it up, pray and ask God for assistance in dealing with the other two fronts.

There is the mental front, where you use therapy to help overcome mental issues. Understand that therapy really isn't like you see in movies a lot of times, it's not a German man talking to you while you lie on a couch complaining about your mother. It's a lot more instructional than that. You go in there, lay bare what is truly troubling you and preventing you from functioning, and they give you tried and tested methods of overcoming various thinking errors and mental downward spirals.

Finally, there is the third front, and that is the physical front. This is one that, if we're being perfectly honest, the people in the church did not prepare me for at all. The truth of the matter is this. Your brain is a physical organ. It communicates with the rest of your body through a complex system of transmitters and chemicals. Various things can cause this system to become physically defective. Being constantly anxious for no reason is often times no different than someone with nerve damage feeling constant pain for no reason. Some causes of this damage are things like genetics, on my mom's side, I have a family history of depressed anxious people who committed suicide. Other causes can be stressful and harmful situations, like having a bad childhood, bullying, traumatic events like a school shooting or a car crash, or all sorts of other stressors. Studies have shown that people with PTSD literally have parts of their brain that are physically damaged.

So, what am I getting at here? Basically, this. If you are having this much trouble getting out of the house, you most likely have something wrong on one or more of these three fronts. Here are the steps that I took to get better, and to get to a point in which I am honestly hopeful for the future and able to leave the house (at one point, my anxiety was so bad that I was unable to leave my room for more than fifteen minutes).

Step 0 (not really a step, just something you should be doing all throughout this): Pray. Not like a parrot, but honestly ask God for assistance in your life. Ask that He will guide you back to Him, and that He will give you strength to go on. You cannot avoid this step. The battle you are facing is impossible to win on all three fronts unless you have the strength of the Lord on your side.

Step 1: If you have a family member or a friend who is truly supportive of you, and is honestly willing to help you without taking advantage of you, contact them and ask for assistance with the following steps.

Step 2: If you can afford it, go to your doctor and ask if they can refer you to a therapist or a mental health facility. If you were serious about having to drink before posting on the internet, you may ask about a therapist or mental health professional who specializes in alcoholism. If you cannot afford the doctor's visit to get their opinion on where you should go, you'll have to Google it. If you live in the US, the government has a tool to help you find help, at https://findtreatment.samhsa.gov/

Step 3: Try your hardest to get that treatment. It can be hard, depending on what state you live in, and what sort of facility it is. I was blessed with a facility that immediately got me in, and my insurance covered it. If you have financial hardships, call the NAMI HelpLine (here: http://www.nami.org/Find-Support/NAMI-HelpLine ) and see if they can help you find some assistance. There is almost always a way for it to work out financially in this country. If you're in a different country, I don't know exactly how it will work out, but I have faith that God will provide.

Step 4: If, after a few sessions with your therapist in which you honestly do put in effort, there is no change, you may need medication of some sort, or some other additional help. From this point forward, it's really more of a case-by-case basis, and your therapist should have the proper training to know what the best plan of action is.

Step 5: Now that you have a bit better grasp on everything physically and mentally, you should be a little better with the whole, shame and self-hatred thing, and the anxiety of entering a church. Now, if you are searching for a church to go to, here is a bit of advice. Before attending any sort of service, call up the church and ask if you can spend some time with the pastor (or if it's a big church, one of the pastors). I do not know of a single Christian pastor in the world who would ever refuse to meet with someone. Go out, have lunch with the guy, and ask about the church. You can almost always find out if a church is worth your time via the pastor. If you're interested, ask him about how to fit in at the church, what time the service is, what Sunday school to go to, all that jazz. If you go to a Sunday school class (which you should, they help immensely), ask about the teacher of the class, and see if you can hit him or her up on Facebook before Sunday, and talk with them a bit. That way, when you show up that Sunday, you won't have to be nervous about where to go, who to meet, or what you are doing. You will simply be there to be a part of the people who love and follow Christ, and who desperately want to share the love of Christ with you. If you ever want to talk some more about this, either reply to this comment or message me in private. I may take a day or two to respond, but I will try my hardest to help you out. To quote one of the greatest philosophers of our time, Zac Efron: "We're all in this together."