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So the first time I experienced depression, the first time
I felt like I actually knew somebody
who was going through it, was as a bishop
sitting on the other side of the desk.
And I had a good sister come in and sit down with me,
a good, faithful sister who had several children.
And all the children were doing well,
and her husband was successful.
And it seemed like the family had--to the eyes of the rest
of the ward, they would probably think this family had it all
together.
She began telling me how dark it is and how depressing.
I had thought depression was just a--you're feeling
the blues.
You need to come out of it.
You're in a dull moment in life, or something bad has happened,
and you just need to pick yourself back up.
And that's how I counseled her.
I tried to tell her, "Just pick yourself back up."
And there was no real reason why she was going through this.
I kept trying to question her and ask
what was causing this, what was bringing on this darkness.
And I was insensitive to her, and I didn't mean to be.
I didn't know how to react and how to help her.
A stake president had counseled us,
if someone comes in with that kind of thing,
to get them in to a medical professional
quickly so that they can get diagnosed and get
the help they need.
And so I counseled her to do that.
I remember thinking, "If she can drink more water,
eat healthier foods, exercise, get better sleep,
that kind of thing, that she'll get better from this."
And that's how I kept counseling her.
So she would come back in a couple weeks
later and still be struggling with it.
And she was leaning on me for more help.
And I'd ask her about, "Are you doing those things
to make yourself better?"
And she was.
And she wasn't getting better.
And so I remember being puzzled.
And what can I do more to help her to get better?
"Read your scriptures more"? "Say your prayers more"?
Because she was doing all that already.
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And it wasn't until I went through my spell
that all of a sudden I realized, "This isn't something
I can just pull myself out of."
It was a real, nine-month hell that I
went through of absolute fear, darkness, and pain
that I had never experienced before.
And all of a sudden the darkness came on
and the anxiety came on, so severe,
so devastatingly painful, that I didn't think I
would survive it.
When it hit me, I didn't know what it was at first.
It was all of a sudden, out of the blue.
And I remember I talked to my wife.
I got up in the middle of the night,
and I said, "Something's wrong."
And I couldn't go back to sleep, and the feeling
was overwhelming.
And she said to just lay back down
and try to go back to sleep.
And I just laid there, and it was horrible.
So the next day I went and saw a counselor
that I'd worked with as a bishop.
She had me come in there and talk to her,
and we worked through a counseling session.
And after our second counseling session, she just told me,
she said, "There's nothing you need counseling for.
This is all chemical.
You just need to get on the right medication."
Medication was a stigma to me.
I never thought I'd be dependent on medication.
And so it didn't end.
It continued on and continued on.
And the anxiety was so severe I couldn't sleep at night.
I went weeks without sleep.
And I was still trying to keep my job
and going to teach seminary, going in there
and smiling for the kids, in the midst of all this pain.
And there's nothing that you could see on the outside.
It was all on the inside.
It was nothing I could describe to somebody what
I was going through.
Words couldn't bring out what I was going through.
And I remember the darkness got so dark.
The lights in the room seemed to be all on dimmer switches,
and everything was dimmed.
And I remember thinking, "This is all in my head.
This isn't real.
This isn't happening.
It's just my perception of reality."
And all of a sudden I panicked.
I had to stop myself and say, "Why am I panicking?"
The panic and the fear that it caused was unbelievable.
Right when it began, when it was really severe
at the very beginning, I remember
thinking, "If I read my scriptures, it will go away."
And I went downstairs, and I was reading out of 3 Nephi,
when the Savior came to the Americas.
3 Nephi 17.
I remember reading how He called the infirm to Him,
and the sick and the afflicted, and healed them.
And I thought, "He can heal me.
This can go away.
I know this can go away."
And it didn't go away.
It took a long time for it to finally be abated.
Part of what got me through it was
realizing that Jesus Christ had suffered for all of it.
Alma chapter 7 says that He will take upon Him our sicknesses.
He will take upon Him our infirmities.
He will take upon Him death.
I remember reading that one time and seeing the word "will,"
that He will do this.
He will.
It's not conditional.
It's an absolute that He will take upon Him
all of our pain, sicknesses, infirmities, and even death.
I remember the support my wife was.
I remember how I leaned on her.
And she was so strong.
And then she went on a trip with her sister
and took a photograph of themselves
and sent it to me on my phone.
And I remember looking at her face,
and I could tell she'd been crying.
And so when she got home, I asked her,
and she said that she does cry, that it's heavy on her, too.
She just doesn't want to show it in front of me
because she knows that I'll worry more
about her than I will myself.
My mom, bless her heart, even though her and my wife
had never gone through anything like this,
it seemed like they understood.
They were given almost like the gift of tongues--the gift
of understanding, to understand what I was going through.
My mom said if it wasn't for the Atonement, nothing would heal.
This would never go away if there was no Atonement.
And she said she believes the modern medication,
the other things that have been given in our day
to help us get through these type of things,
are indicators that the Atonement is at work.
Otherwise there would be no such thing as healing.
And I remember my mom saying that.
And I remember thinking that it will heal someday.
If not in this life, if I have to continue on
through the rest of my life like this,
can I smile through the pain and the darkness
and have the hope that the future is bright,
that there will be a resurrection, that I
will be made whole?
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Once the medication worked, once I got on the right medication,
it just all went away, like the curtains opened back up.
The darkness was gone.
I still deal with it on a daily basis.
I still have to think positively and not
allow my thoughts of the future and fear of the unknown
to take over and to cause me to be thrown back into it.
I have to take care of myself.
I have to sleep.
I have to get enough sleep.
The serotonin is restored in the brain
after a good night's sleep.
I have to eat the right foods.
I have to keep stress at a minimum.
I remember Elder Holland in his talk "Like a Broken Vessel,"
he talked about the stress he'd gone through
with finances and fatigue.
And he talked quite a bit about fatigue
and about how to keep yourself from being fatigued.
So I realized what my limits are,
and I try not to run faster than I have strength.
I realize that I'm more fragile now than I was before.
I also have to stay close to the Lord.
Scripture study and prayer--I've never prayed like I prayed when
I went through it.
I even found myself, at one time, yelling in prayer,
expressing my anger that this wouldn't stop,
at the frustration that I knew He had the power
to take it away, and yet it wouldn't go away.
And I remember yelling in prayer.
And I remember afterwards thinking,
"How could I do that in prayer?
How could I yell in prayer?"
But I thought, "He knows my heart.
He knows my frustration.
He knows how I feel."
And so I was just expressing how I felt.
And it seemed as though He was taking my anger as well
as my pain--not taking it from me,
but allowing me to express it to Him.
Elder Holland gave his talk in October.
And as I was listening to that talk
and listened to what he was saying,
several people were text-messaging me during it
and said, "Is this what you went through?
Is he talking about the same thing you went through?"
And I said, "Yes, this is it."
Finally I felt vindicated that an Apostle
was talking about something that I had suffered with.
I remember talking to a friend who'd gone through it
as well, that I had met going through this.
And she said that she would rather have anything else that
could cause her that much pain.
She'd rather go through that than go through a depression.
So I went back--after I was done being bishop,
after I'd been released and I'd gone through this
experience--and I talked to this dear sister.
And I said, "I completely understand
what you've gone through now.
I understand the feelings of darkness.
I'm going through it right now."
And I could tell in her face that she
was happy that I understood, but sad that I
had to experience it, that I was going through it
at the same time as she was.
I love the Lord Jesus Christ.
I love Him because He first loved me.
I love Him because of His tenderness towards me,
of the people He sent in my life in moments
of absolute distress.
I think the hardest part of this life
is, we're just really homesick.
I know I am.
I want to be with Him.
I love Him.
I love Him with all my heart.
And I want to be just like Him.
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