It's ok to not be ok

I just want you to know that it's ok. It's ok to not be ok. Being a person that has suffered from mental illness for most of my life, it has stolen many things from me. It has overwhelmed many of my true wills. My will to be happy, to be more active, my will to be better, more helpful, to be more of a wife and mom, to be more outgoing, or even to leave the house, some days to just leave the bed. It is pain that is annoying to talk about because you can't really explain it. It has become not as taboo to talk about but I still don't feel it has really become fully acceptable to openly talk about. But we are getting there. You want others to understand the anguish and constant million miles an hour thoughts and emotions that go through you in a minute. Looking at statistics, there are quite a few that understand yet each one of us feels alone. After suffering from anxiety and depression since I was 11, and experiencing all its varying degrees of hell, it has lead me to wonder what I think a lot of people with any type of illness, affliction, horrible tragedy, handicap, or life long suffering might ask. Why would God- or the universe, whichever you believe in- let this happen? Since I believe in God, that is who I will be referring to. Why would an all powerful being who knows me personally but also created worlds and universes not just take this away from me? He knows how much it hinders my true potential. He knows the pain it puts me in how it negatively affects my family. So what the heck?! What's the point?

So at one point in my life I sought out the answer to these questions relentlessly. Although I have struggled and continue to struggle with anxiety and depression and the pain it brings, there was a time where it became an everyday, every minute mountain to climb.  I served a volunteer mission for my church. This 18 month mission proved to be one of the hardest and most painful mentally , emotionally, and physically. Every.single.day was a minute by minute struggle. I can't even begin to explain. My spirit was so eager and willing to go out and talk to people and to talk about things I knew to be of worth and value and most of all true. But my body prevented me from being able to fully use that eagerness. My anxiety and depression held me back from speaking a lot, being able to think. Most of the time, all my effort was spent on not crying, holding myself together, and making it to the next door or appt. While the other part was trying to figure out what I was even so anxious or depressed about. None of it made any sense to me or anyone else around for that matter. The only respite I got was in lessons when we had the spirit there with us. That was the only time everything faded. I was the true me. I was free to speak, to feel feelings other than anxiety and to speak the words I came thousands of miles to say. Once we closed the prayer though, the anxiety came back like a big punch in the stomach and there I was back to square one again. Not only was the work exhausting, but so was my anxiety and eventually deep depression took its place. Since I tried to mask my severe anxiety, my insides started tying themselves in knots. At one point they thought I had appendicitis. Emergency CT scans and a colonoscopy came up empty with answers. Every day I was using half of my capacity to be ok and all that stress was being held inside.

So why would God let that happen. I was giving up 18 months of my life to do what He wanted me to do. He knew that if I didnt have that handicap then I could do so much more with that time and be so much more effective. So why would He let me be hindered by my own body? Why didn't he just take the pain away? Why doesn't he take the pain away now?

Here's what I came to understand. Pain allows us to learn.  Before we came to this life we knew we our mortal bodies would be subject to pain and afflictions among other things. We accepted that law before we came to earth. We knew we would have trials, we understood that even though trials and other things like them SUCK, in the end we CAN learn and grow and become something more and get closer to the potential God sees in us and knows that we can achieve- whatever capacity that is.  The pain I have endured, just from this affliction alone, has created a whole new side of empathy for me. I am slower to judge, quicker to hug, and more open minded to others and their lives. I now understand so much more about this life, myself, and its purpose because of my struggles. Ive been in the deep valley of despair, and took, what might seem to most to be small and insignificant steps, to make it to different peaks. And every day I take more steps to the next. Along the way I have not been alone. Sometimes it has felt that way, but when I am able to have clarity from the dark mist that my illness brings, I can see that I had angels around me, tender mercies from the Lord, and a small voice of hope inside me. Though those 18 months were the longest and most painful, they were also the most cherished to me. I became better, I understood more about my purpose about who Christ and God are a people, their plan for me and others, and I have never felt so much joy at that time than I did in that 18 months.


      "And I have been supported under trials and troubles of every kind, yea, and in all manner of afflictions, yea God has delivered me from prison, and from bonds and from death; yea, and I do put my trust in Him, and He will deliver me." (Alma 36:27)
It all goes back to Christ and the atonement. The atonement will not take away pain, trials, or afflictions. But it gives us the strength to grow from them rather than shrink away. Something that has always brought me comfort is the fact that Christ himself asked if could just not do it. If there was any other way. He was allowed to choose not to but was sent an angel for strength and understanding. - Just as He sends us. Whether that be in family and friends, in small tender mercies, in strangers, neighbors, or in kind thoughts, rushes of happiness for no reason, or prayers from people you didnt even know were being sent in behalf of you.
God sent Christ down to experience pains, afflictions, and trials of all kinds. He experienced every single one of our own personal anguishes, anxieties, disabilities, etc while in Gethsemene and up to Galgotha, and still while carrying his own cross, being whipped and being nailed and hanging on the cross.  None of know how he was able, but He was half God, so I know there was a way. But he stood in line for each person who has ever lived and will ever live and experienced all that. Why does that matter? Because he overcame it. He also experienced your joy when you make the small, and what might seem insignificant to others, victories of just getting out of bed, or talking to someone, or smiling to yourself in the mirror. The small efforts and big to just make the best of whatever situation this life has you in. Christ was allowed to choose to not experience all that. Not to have all his millions of tiny capillaries break and bleed of every pore on his body because of the weight of the pain and anguish he had to experience. And yet, He did. So that you didnt have to be alone. We are never alone. Never alone. Christ went on with conviction and faith in the face of all in surmounting doom.  But the best part is, after all the doom, He overcame. He came back from the dead, healed, glowing, and with a knowledge and understanding of this life and its purpose like no other. Our pains, our afflictions, our disabilities and things that hold us back that we can't control God knows that. He knew we would have these hinderances. But he also knew we were strong enough to continue on with them. It might not feel like we are strong enough, but neither did Christ. Thats why God sends us angels in all forms.


I just want to let you know its going to be ok. And that it's ok to not be ok. But there is a hope. Know that you are not alone in your fight against this black pit of struggle. That some days or weeks or months feels like a horrible steep mountain to climb. Even if you can't see me, I'm a fellow traveler making her way in my own sphere. My anxiety and depression did not go away when I got home. It was much more manageable. After having my daughter it came back in the form of post partum depression. Another low mountain to climb. I still sometimes have to fathom that these diseases will never go away. Know that you are worthy to take every step you can towards that peak. And each landing you land one while you are on your way there, take in the view. Know that each small step is worth something. If it doesnt mean anything to anyone else, know that I know how much it took to make even one step. The big guys upstairs do too. And while maybe you specifically might not believe in them, or pray to them, or believe in something completely different, I believe that we are believed in by something bigger and greater than we are. And that one day, I don't know when, but one day we will get to see ourselves, as we are right now. And we will smile, because even though we could have just not done it, we did. We chose to climb. Whether it took us a while or not to do so, we did.


I hate depression and anxiety. I don't enjoy them and hate when they over take me. But I can definitely say that by having them, especially on my mission, I have become a much stronger person. I use what I learned from that time every day. Ive learned Im stronger than I thought. I don't think I could have become that strong in the ways that I have without them. They dig into every single vulnerability and insecurity I have. And yet each year I look back at myself and I have can see that small steps I've made in my campaign against them. Not everyone feels that way. Some feel as if they are losing the battle. And to you I want you to reach out, to me, to family to your cat or your dog, To God- I can teach you how to pray, the universe, someone. If you know someone reach out to them by spending time with them. Watch a movie, clean out their fridge, paint their nails, just be there in some way. You can be an angel.