Depression and the LDS Church
"I joined the church when I was nineteen years old... after being involved with hard drugs and becoming suicidal and eventually being freed from my torment by comitting myself to a Godly life.
In my early years in the church I remember meeting someone who I was told was suffering from depression. My ignorant response to this was 'surely the gospel has the cure for all ills in this life'
I served a mission to Idaho... I gained a reputation as a 'border-line pharisee' from the mission president (he was being kind). I gave many a companion a hard time if they didn't conform to mission rules. It was true that I was enthusiastic about what I believed was the true church... but I had a lot to learn about the gospel... how to love the unlovable (or who I perceived as unlovable)...all the while not realising that I was particularly unloveable myself.
My main problem was that I was unable to judge others by checking out the beam that was in my own eye first... my beam being an inherent leaning towards sexual deviation (a spiritually destructive leaning, an unfortunate habit from years of abuse and exposure to indecency as a child, perhaps not my own fault entirely).
I left the mission field during the first month out, on my own deciding, I couldn't bear the fact that no other missionary saw the gospel and the mission experience as I did. I travelled across the USA by bus to seek help to return home from some friends who were at Missouri at the time.
I was persuaded to return, much to the mission president's relief. I returned somewhat dissillousioned but still devoted to serve the lord as best I could.
I served an honourable mission, even serving as an AP for a few months... (the mission president was being kind again).
I returned home to Australia, only to become inactive, the cause of old habits and doubts about my testimony.
I am now 50 years old and have been inactive for about twenty years, but I have always had a warm place in my heart for the church and the gospel. I don't drink or smoke and I strive to live the ideals I learnt in the church and what I learn about the gospel today.... and guess what?
Maybe you have guessed already?
I suffer from severe depression and have done so since I was a child as it turns out. This diagnosis being revealed only four years ago, after a psychotic episode from the stress of a difficult job.
I couldn't believe it for some time, but the signs were most obviously there. How could this happen to me?
It has taken almost four years to accept the fact and during those years-medication trials and tribulations to a point now that I am greatly improved and my old self again, (thank God) and thanks to my ever suffering wife who was the first to diagnose the condition (and without whose help, I would not be here now).
What I am trying to say is this... there is hope and help out there, in spite of what some people don't know about the condition. Thank God the issue of depression and other mental disorders is so much more known about today. There are many medications and combinations of medications that can help. I was one of those few that developed 'medication resistant' depression and was looking at a course of Electro Convulsive Therapy as a last resort. My psychiatrist tried a new combination of medications targeting Serotonin as well as Adrenalin levels in the brain and much to my relief... success!
The dark times seem like a distant memory now.
I hope my experience may help others who suffer horribly from this condition and conditions like it. I hope those partners or friends or family who are involved in the lives of sufferers will learn all they can about the condition and understand that it is not because you are not living the gospel, it has nothing to do with the conscience.
A sufferer is not alone, there are others out there who understand the exquisiteness of the suffering and the realisation that suicide seems the only remedy at times.
I apologise to all sufferers for my past ignorance and thank God that I now have a real insight to depression and its debilitating effects...
'For I reckon the sufferings of this present time are nothing compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.'"
In my early years in the church I remember meeting someone who I was told was suffering from depression. My ignorant response to this was 'surely the gospel has the cure for all ills in this life'
I served a mission to Idaho... I gained a reputation as a 'border-line pharisee' from the mission president (he was being kind). I gave many a companion a hard time if they didn't conform to mission rules. It was true that I was enthusiastic about what I believed was the true church... but I had a lot to learn about the gospel... how to love the unlovable (or who I perceived as unlovable)...all the while not realising that I was particularly unloveable myself.
My main problem was that I was unable to judge others by checking out the beam that was in my own eye first... my beam being an inherent leaning towards sexual deviation (a spiritually destructive leaning, an unfortunate habit from years of abuse and exposure to indecency as a child, perhaps not my own fault entirely).
I left the mission field during the first month out, on my own deciding, I couldn't bear the fact that no other missionary saw the gospel and the mission experience as I did. I travelled across the USA by bus to seek help to return home from some friends who were at Missouri at the time.
I was persuaded to return, much to the mission president's relief. I returned somewhat dissillousioned but still devoted to serve the lord as best I could.
I served an honourable mission, even serving as an AP for a few months... (the mission president was being kind again).
I returned home to Australia, only to become inactive, the cause of old habits and doubts about my testimony.
I am now 50 years old and have been inactive for about twenty years, but I have always had a warm place in my heart for the church and the gospel. I don't drink or smoke and I strive to live the ideals I learnt in the church and what I learn about the gospel today.... and guess what?
Maybe you have guessed already?
I suffer from severe depression and have done so since I was a child as it turns out. This diagnosis being revealed only four years ago, after a psychotic episode from the stress of a difficult job.
I couldn't believe it for some time, but the signs were most obviously there. How could this happen to me?
It has taken almost four years to accept the fact and during those years-medication trials and tribulations to a point now that I am greatly improved and my old self again, (thank God) and thanks to my ever suffering wife who was the first to diagnose the condition (and without whose help, I would not be here now).
What I am trying to say is this... there is hope and help out there, in spite of what some people don't know about the condition. Thank God the issue of depression and other mental disorders is so much more known about today. There are many medications and combinations of medications that can help. I was one of those few that developed 'medication resistant' depression and was looking at a course of Electro Convulsive Therapy as a last resort. My psychiatrist tried a new combination of medications targeting Serotonin as well as Adrenalin levels in the brain and much to my relief... success!
The dark times seem like a distant memory now.
I hope my experience may help others who suffer horribly from this condition and conditions like it. I hope those partners or friends or family who are involved in the lives of sufferers will learn all they can about the condition and understand that it is not because you are not living the gospel, it has nothing to do with the conscience.
A sufferer is not alone, there are others out there who understand the exquisiteness of the suffering and the realisation that suicide seems the only remedy at times.
I apologise to all sufferers for my past ignorance and thank God that I now have a real insight to depression and its debilitating effects...
'For I reckon the sufferings of this present time are nothing compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.'"