This is a draft of an article I'm sending in to the Ensign. Comments and suggestions are beyond welcome--- they're what I'm looking for!
This was a battle I’d been fighting
for quite some time. The dark feelings
of hopelessness, irrational anxiety about my future, and the sureness that
nothing could save me from my own imperfections plagued me at all the wrong
times. I was raised in the church being
taught that none of these feelings should occur if I was being righteous, and
according to the tools I’d been given, I was being righteous. So why did these feelings persist, especially
during my personal scripture study, sacrament meeting, and moments of
pondering? What was wrong with me that I
couldn’t feel what I’d always believed?
I didn’t pay these emotions too much heed until the second to last
transfer of my mission, when my episodes of anxiety became frighteningly
overwhelming. I had a wonderful
companion who knew my history with depression (which followed my fiancé calling
our wedding off one week before the date).
She urged me to call our mission president and tell him what I was
feeling. “Soeur Barros, there’s no
reason you should be feeling this; you’re working so hard and we’re having so
much success!” I called up my brand new
mission president who gave me advice directly contrary to what I thought was
best. Having faith, however, that he was
called of God, I took his advice and managed to keep this anxiety at bay for
the remainder of my mission.
I, as many returned missionaries
do, lived in a lovely land of denial after my mission. I was still riding on that strong spiritual
high when the episodes returned. About
six months after my return home however, denial abruptly ditched me and left me
with cold hard reality. Yick. I didn’t like reality. Not only that, but without denial, my
episodes became stronger and more prominent.
I would be sitting in Sacrament meeting when an episode would start
up. First came the feelings of “I need
to do better,” which developed into “I’m so terrible because I’m not doing as
much as I could,” and then quickly progressed into “I’m such a useless person I
can’t do anything right or well enough to satisfy God.” Obviously, none of those were true. But they felt so real that it shook me down to my core. I created a habit of praying like crazy when
I started feeling this way. My prayers
never shortened or softened the experience, but feelings of peace and love
never failed to creep into my heart as the fear subsided.
Anyone in my family can tell you
that I’m horrible at hiding my emotions.
My dad frequently tried to warn me that what I was thinking was written
on my face. Though this attribute has
often been a gift, at this point in my life it was a curse. I’d have exert every ounce of willpower and
energy I possessed to only allow silent tears down my cheeks and not the
violent sobs of distress that my heart so desperately wanted to express. After I was called as the ward organist and
required to sit on the stand, it became ever imperative that I hold it in. Though, after a while, I found my calling to
be a tender mercy: members often tried to console me after the meeting about my
less than amazing organ abilities, assuming that that was the reason I cried
every week. Who knew: because I played
wrong notes, no one caught on to the fact that I was losing my emotional grip
every week.
I rationalized and ignored these
episodes a good three months before I told my parents that I needed to speak
with someone about it. I’d come to
realize that this wasn’t a spiritual matter, but an emotional and maybe even
chemical one. My family has a history of
depression, and, like I said earlier, I had experienced it before. My dad, a bishop in another ward, gave me the
name of an LDS therapist that the stake president liked to refer people
to. I called him up and made an
appointment. While certain aspects of my
life started to improve, my episodes did not. In fact, they worsened steadily. I remember two episodes specifically that
show my never ending and drastic deterioration.
My normal episode pinnacled with an
unshakeable feeling of hopelessness about my future. Literally, when I tried to think about my
future, I saw and felt nothing expect bleak, black, darkness. But this episode culminated with my
irrational but very real question of “what is the point of planning my
future? What is the point of having a
future? My future holds NOTHING for me.” That was a distinct progression from my
normal “ehh… my life is junk.”
The second episode was much
scarier. My heart jumped off the cliff
of hopelessness and dove down to “I have no point. Nothing in this world would be different if I
didn’t exist. I wish God had never
created me because… because I’m useless. There’s no point to my life.” Alas, that was
not the bottom—not yet. No, I knew I’d finally reached the bottom of the
depression ravine when I “knew”, and this “knowledge” was very appealing, that I
didn’t have to have a future. I can disappear.
When my heart crashed into those
rocks, my soul shuddered.
The episode slowly ran its
course. I found the desire to pray,
which was quite a breakthrough, actually.
I hated praying during these past few episodes because it brought me no
consolation, and in reality, I just ended up yelling at God; I was too deeply
lost in the depression to truly pray. The
moment did come where I found enough faith to pray and ask Heavenly Father to
help me. “Help me feel like I’m worth
something,” I sobbed. “Like there’s a
point to me. Like my future is worth
living for.”
No big response came. I was still so upset that I wouldn’t have
been able to hear it if one had. I did,
however, feel an undeniable and unmistakable peace. The calm was almost palpable, like a blanket
wrapped around me, protecting me from my anxiety and depression. A cliché, I know, but the feeling was so
physical there is no other description. My
breathing slowed and my heart began to beat at a normal pace, allowing me to
fully exit the scariest experience I’d ever had. The peace continued to fill my heart and
surround my being. I had the wistful
thought “I wish my patriarchal blessing spoke about this.” I chose not to look at my blessing. I’d honestly NEVER had an experience where
what was specifically written spoke to me in a time of need. Sure, sometimes the Spirit would calm my
heart if I read my blessing, but never any of the words. Not in this kind of situation. And I wasn’t yet in a state to understand the
Spirit in any way beyond the peace I was already experiencing. So I decided to open the scriptures and read
a few verses, which pulled me a little further out of the dark abyss that was
my mind. My hunger was not yet satiated,
and like a child needing breakfast to fully wake up for the day, I had the desire
to feel more. My patriarchal blessing
again popped into my brain. Not able to
deny the urge any longer, I decided that I was far enough beyond the episode to
be able to hear the Spirit speak to me.
So I pulled out my blessing and started to read.
I never got beyond the second
paragraph.
I didn’t have to.
In the first few lines of my
blessing, the words that I so desperately needed to hear were written on this
paper printed nearly ten years earlier. Declarations
of my divine lineage and priceless worth pierced through my cloud of
self-depreciation and self-loathing straight to my soul. I read with disbelief the specifc qualities
and purposes Heavenly Father had given me, qualities that directly contradicted
the deep and penetrating emotions that possessed my heart not ten minutes
earlier. Amazement washed over me and
practically knocked me to my knees, prompting me to pray once again. I poured out my grateful heart to my loving
Heavenly Father for the words of love and encouragement He prepared so many
years earlier for this specific experience.
For the comfort He so readily gave me at the end of each of my manic
episodes. For the love that He
possesses, a love that doesn’t tire of my repetitive depressions, but continues to attend my needs.
I have no words to describe the
peace and joy that filled me. I can only borrow the words of the scripture in 3
Nephi where it states “no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any
man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great… [was] the joy which
filled [my] soul.”
Believe it or not, I’m also
grateful for the severity of that manic episode. That episode was so scary so quickly that it
woke me out of my pride and got me to tell my therapist what was going on,
after months of living in denial.
Through his help and the help of my doctor, we established that I suffer
from a mood disorder, specifically a mix between depression and bi-polar
disorder. I take medication for it, and
my episodes have all but disappeared.
I’m grateful that Heavenly Father has given us modern medicine which helps me
regulate this chemical problem. I bring
this up because I don’t want anyone to think that I believe prayer and faith is
enough to overcome issues like depression or other mood disorders. That is not true. Some things are physical and require physical
remedies. Heavenly Father gave us these
resources for a reason. And, as I
learned through this experience, it often takes faith and prayer to have the
courage to use them.
The other half of this, and maybe
the more apparent half, was that He was ready for me when I came to Him. Yes, He showed me my weakness, and used the
moment to show me that His love is always there, ready to comfort and reassure
me—especially in the place that I least expected.
I know that Heavenly Father is
aware of each of our needs. He loves each
of us in such a unique and individual way.
I am grateful for the knowledge I have about my relationship with my
Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, through the restored gospel. No man can convince me to turn from the
gospel. Not when I’ve had experiences
like this one that help my testimony grow.
“For behold, ye shall be as a whale
in the midst of the sea; for the mountain waves shall dash upon you.
Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds
have gone forth out of my mouth, and also the drains and the floods have I sent
forth.”- Ether 2:24
