Depression, anxiety, feeling the blues. It's been a struggle for about a year now. I have so much support from those around me. Friends, family, loved ones, my Heavenly Father. I'm on a road to recovery, I just can't let myself dwell on how long or short that road will be.
This has been such an eye-opening experience for me. I feel an understanding for things that I've never understood. I feel connections for people going through things that I've never felt connected to before. I think if there's anything God wanted me to learn through this experience it would be empathy. It's an increased love and understanding for my fellow brothers and sisters who are also inhabiting this world.
A little example of increased understanding. In high school, I learned that some of my peers "self-harmed". I was totally confused. I thought, "umm... why would you cut yourself? That, like, hurts, so why would anyone do that?" It made absolutely no sense to me. Along comes depression, and with it, lots of unwanted feelings and struggles. I couldn't control those feelings and they were unpleasant to experience. What I did have control over was what I did about those feelings. Suddenly, I could understand why someone would want to replace emotional and mental pain with physical pain. It's not what I chose to do about my feelings, but depression has helped me see so much clearly why people might choose destructive behaviors themselves.
I can choose what to do with the unpleasant emotions that I face, and I choose to feel them and to work through them (or sometimes to just work alongside them). I can't erase them, but I can prevent them from controlling me, and I can choose to not stifle them out with destructive behavior.
I'm still in the middle of this muddle, so I can't really summarize all that this experience has taught and will teach me. But I'm grateful for the eye-opening-ness of it all. I'm so grateful that I knew about Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon and so I knew what I should do when the mists of darkness came. I'm still in those mists, but I'm holding on, and I'm not letting go, no matter how long it takes.
This has been such an eye-opening experience for me. I feel an understanding for things that I've never understood. I feel connections for people going through things that I've never felt connected to before. I think if there's anything God wanted me to learn through this experience it would be empathy. It's an increased love and understanding for my fellow brothers and sisters who are also inhabiting this world.
A little example of increased understanding. In high school, I learned that some of my peers "self-harmed". I was totally confused. I thought, "umm... why would you cut yourself? That, like, hurts, so why would anyone do that?" It made absolutely no sense to me. Along comes depression, and with it, lots of unwanted feelings and struggles. I couldn't control those feelings and they were unpleasant to experience. What I did have control over was what I did about those feelings. Suddenly, I could understand why someone would want to replace emotional and mental pain with physical pain. It's not what I chose to do about my feelings, but depression has helped me see so much clearly why people might choose destructive behaviors themselves.
I can choose what to do with the unpleasant emotions that I face, and I choose to feel them and to work through them (or sometimes to just work alongside them). I can't erase them, but I can prevent them from controlling me, and I can choose to not stifle them out with destructive behavior.
I'm still in the middle of this muddle, so I can't really summarize all that this experience has taught and will teach me. But I'm grateful for the eye-opening-ness of it all. I'm so grateful that I knew about Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon and so I knew what I should do when the mists of darkness came. I'm still in those mists, but I'm holding on, and I'm not letting go, no matter how long it takes.
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