Keep on Keeping on: Depression, God, and a Little Harry Potter

Let's talk about depression. Let's talk about why God lets depression happen, about why you probably won't "pray it away."

Depression happens, and it is a Real Thing. Just because it doesn't manifest itself with a broken leg or something does not mean it isn't real. Let's review what my friend Albus Dumbledore said to my slightly-less-cool-but-still-cool friend Harry Potter:

"Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?" (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows)

Dumbledore is the greatest. If you haven't read Harry Potter, I would strongly consider it.

There are a lot of misconceptions about depression. Thanks to modern medicine and the disappearing stigma about discussing the illness, many of these misconceptions are fading. I have noticed that a lot of people seem to think of depression as being sad all the time. This is not necessarily true. It is entirely possible to reach a level of depression where continuous sadness is a "fond dream." Those quotation marks are there because at those depths, fond dreams do not frequently occur. But sadness means feeling. Sadness implies that not all emotion has been sucked into the black hole of depression--the deadness inside that leaves a person without feeling, and without the energy or presence of mind to care that that black hole has taken over. Depression means crying without understanding or caring why you're crying. Depression means the absence of joy.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, an apostle in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a really fantastic talk about depression that was full of excellent quotes. One of the best moments, however, was when he talked about depression as "an affliction so severe that it significantly restricts a person's ability to function fully, a crater in the mind so deep that no one can responsibly suggest it would surely go away if those victims would just square their shoulders and think more positively--though I am a vigorous advocate of square shoulders and positive thinking!" ( https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/like-a-broken-vessel?lang=eng )

I am with Elder Holland; chances are that while positive thinking and square shoulders will probably not cure your depression, they will most likely not make it worse, either. The hardest part will be wondering why the things you try are not working. Keep on keeping on, because YOU CAN. YOU CAN.

Another hard part will be wondering, "Why is this happening to me? Why is God letting this happen to me?"

I admit, I don't quite understand why people say things like, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger," and yet also say, "If there were a God, he wouldn't let bad things happen to good people."

God most definitely lets "bad" things happen to good people (let's equate "bad" with "undesirable" for the moment). Because it's true: what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Or rather, what doesn't kill you CAN make you stronger, if you let it.

If you don't believe in God, that's your call. You are free to believe what you like, and the premise of this post still stands: keep on keeping on. But I believe in a God who loves me. I believe in a God who knows me better than I know myself, who knows what I need and what I don't. I believe in a God who knows that what I want isn't always what I need, the same way I know that even though my daughter wants to stick her finger in the electrical socket, that isn't what she needs. Or the same way that I know that while she doesn't want to eat her broccoli and spinach, because they taste gross, she still needs to eat her leafy greens. And I am right there with her; I am not a broccoli and spinach girl. In fact, I would welcome a tasty recipe for either of the two. Because even though I dislike the taste of leafy greens, they are good for me.

Just because you don't enjoy something in the moment does not mean that it will not benefit you in the future.

And THAT is why God lets people struggle with depression, or with any other hardship, for that matter.

Story time: once upon a time, there was a girl with depression. It was bad, and she felt dead inside, and hardly anyone even knew it, because she was as good at smiling as the happy girls. With a combination of medical attention, therapy, and removal from a stressful situation, she eventually got better. She will always struggle with depression. It is in her DNA.
She is stronger today than she was before the depression took over. Would she want to go back and do it again? No. She has no desire to be that person again. But is she grateful that it happened? Yes. Is her life better for it? Absolutely.

And incidentally, part of her "therapy" was God. Do not roll your eyes at or be angry with the person who suggests prayer as a way to help depression. It might not cure you (or it might, who am I to tell God what to do?) but God will not leave you comfortless. The key is to keep on keeping on. When you're not feeling it, when you're thinking, "I take my medicine. I do everything I'm supposed to. I even pray. And I'm still having this problem." KEEP GOING. 

I am in a really good place now. Really, really good. And the road that led me here was paved both with God and with my depression. I kept going, because even though my heart had given up, my mind and my reason refused to let go. I couldn't control my feelings, but I could control my mind. And logic said, "There is a way out of this." So I moved forward, heavy step after heavy step. And eventually, I came out on the other side. Because I could. And SO CAN YOU.

“Don’t give up. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it." -Jeffrey R. Holland, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come."
A most excellent talk on depression HERE

charlie had a little horse. or something like that.

maybe i just forgot i had a blog, okay? maybe i forgot for NINE WHOLE MONTHS that i had a blog. don't judge me. 

anyway, in that nine months, i got knocked up pregnant. by my husband, of course. i had a friend tell me one time that if there was anyone she knew who would get pregnant without planning to, it would be me. she might be right, but i wouldn't know, because this actually was on purpose. we just feel it wouldn't be fair to deny the world a baby as cute as ours will obviously be.

my husband and i are both actually very white, but this baby was
SO CUTE that i had to use this picture anyway. look at those eyes. look at them.

i'm just kidding. i mean our baby will for sure be cute, but that's not why we got pregnant. we just really wanted a baby. 

i was a little worried about how people would react, since in general most people wait until they're in their late 20's or in their 30's somewhere to make babies, assuming they plan for such things at all, and that's what's considered the "smart" option. but i'm pretty young. and pretty broke, and still in school and all that.

and of course, when it comes down to it, it doesn't matter what other people think. i know that having a kid is what i'm supposed to be doing with my life right now. but as much as you tell yourself "it doesn't matter what other people think," you usually do still care a little bit. unless you're a saint, or a completely self-actualized and confident individual. which i'm not, i admit. it's true: i like knowing that my friends and acquaintances don't think i'm crazy. i like that. it brings me comfort.

HOWEVER. i am here to tell you that, seven months in, i really ACTUALLY do not care what people think anymore. this was a breakthrough for me. i have felt my baby move in my stomach (sorry if that grosses you out, but they do that, you know, move and such) --please note that i just had to stop typing because i got a charlie horse in my foot, which happens when you're pregnant. charlie needs to keep his horses to himself. hold your horses, charlie.-- anyway, i have felt my baby move. i have seen her sucking on her toes in an ultrasound. i watched her get hiccups during that same ultrasound. and thinking about all those things makes me realize several things:

• it is nobody's business when i have kids. everybody has an opinion. my guess would be that most peoples' opinions are different than mine when it comes to this specific topic. and that's great, that's fine. you do your thing and i do mine. (maybe i like rhymes, okay?) but the only opinions that actually MATTER are mine, my husband's, and, of course, the Man Upstairs. we try to include Him in our decision making.
• people usually give their opinions because they care about me. family and friends who stop me and say "...so...are you sure this is a good idea?" are not saying those things to be hurtful or rude. i know this because if they really wanted to be rude and/or hurtful, they could have commented instead on my (lack of) fashion sense or my hair or something else equally accessible. but they just care about me and they want me to be happy and so they're telling me things that they think would help me be happy, based on their own experiences. --note: there are always, of course, the people who actually don't have any experience on what you're going through, but still feel justified giving their opinions. i'm sure that they love me too, and are just extrapolating their would-be actions, were they in my situation.--
• i love this little baby an awful lot. i mean she's not even here and i'm already smitten. i can't imagine her not being a part of my life. so whatever we need to figure out to make it work, we'll just figure out. it would be really nice to be done with school and to live in a house and yadda yadda yadda. but i'm not, and we don't, and that's okay, because i would rather be in this situation with her as part of our family than without her. she is worth more to me than the knowledge that i was waiting until i was more "prepared" or "ready" or whatever (can you even really be ready for a baby? like really ready? do you really know until you get there what is about to happen to your life? i submit that you do not.)

i guess what i'm saying is that i'm really really happy that i get to include this little girl as part of our family. and that i know that this is/was a good decision (much like many other decisions i've made in the past where people also thought i was crazy. but that's a whole different story). suffice it to say, charlie can hand out all the horses he wants. my little girl is worth it.

chuckle chuckle.

happy january 17th!

snow.

okay, so let me tell you something about me: i'm always cold. ALL THE TIME. like, wearing-three-layers-to-walk-around-my-apartment, constantly-craving-hot-baths cold. and i'm starting to wonder if i've done something to deserve it. am i a bad person? am i too impatient with the kids i teach in sunday school? (i totally am, but i'm working on it, okay?) am i mean to my husband without knowing it? i can change. i can change, i promise. because the weather and the temperature never do what i want. ever.

i live in the northern part of our lovely country and it snows more than any state has any right to snow. i don't dislike snow, as long as i don't have to go outside in it. but that's not usually an option. and the thing is, it's not just continuous snow. if i knew exactly when it was going to be snowing, i might be okay (i might even be able to suffer through the point where the snow on the ground is no longer pretty, but is instead a brown slushy layer). 

pretty snow...

...significantly less pretty snow.

but that's not what happens. the snow will gradually fade out. the weather will be gorgeous for like a week, as it should be in march and april. april showers, right? not april avalanches. i will get super excited that finally the weather is going my way. 

and then, the next day, IT SNOWS. 
it knows. i swear it knows.



i hope you're having the dandiest of mays.

i do.

i love looking at wedding dresses. i'm already married (to the hottest man on earth) but i have a few friends who are now starting to move in that direction. so, naturally, i have taken it upon myself to use this opportunity as an excuse to look nonstop at all kinds of wedding dresses. and, obviously, to overdose on Say Yes to the Dress.

i'm lds, which means a lot of things, but in this case, it means that i like to wear clothes with sleeves and just decent coverage in general. i googled "wedding dresses with sleeves" and here's the majority of what came up:

these are not sleeves. they only think they are sleeves. they are actually two little chunks of lace the designer felt bad throwing away.

there are some really really gorgeous gowns out there. flattering, sophisticated, and just overall perfect...and then there are the not-so-gorgeous gowns. i feel kind of bad saying that, because i'm sure that some of the dresses i look at and wrinkle my nose at are perfect for someone else.

take this one, for example. maybe someone out there really likes this awkward pink corset/petticoat dress. maybe for them, it's The One.

or this one. but i have nothing to say about this one. i am genuinely speechless.

and here's what i'd like to tell this gem:
1: you are overcompensating, and
2: everyone can tell.

and another thing. have you ever looked for prom dresses with sleeves? it can be really rough. primarily because you turn up with a lot of dresses like this.

see what i mean? if i had turned up at my wedding in any of these dresses i think my husband probably would have said "i don't," or maybe, "you can't make me."

now disclaimer. if you have fallen in love with any of the dresses you've just heard me make fun of, that's okay. i will not judge you. i'm really picky about my dresses. if you love something that i don't, i'm happy for you.

i will leave you with a slightly better taste in your mouth. some gorgeous gowns (in my opinion...)

happy saturday.

out of the mouth of babes.

so my husband and i teach sunday school every sunday to a group of five-year-olds. two hours of interaction with these cute little humans. two hours of loud noises and runny noses.

it's fun, but it's actually really intimidating. what if they don't like me, not for personal reasons, but because i didn't bring cookies? what if they like my husband better than me? (they totally do. it's because he does this thing where he picks them and their chairs up and moves them to sit around the little table when we color and it's a fun ride to them. i just do not have that kind of muscle.) because the thing about kids is that they don't sugar coat anything. they tell you what they're thinking and they will neither care nor notice how it makes you feel. i am still trying to decide how i feel about that aspect of children.

and let me just say- the option of praying with your eyes closed is a luxury not afforded to sunday school teachers.

things that happen in sunday school on a regular basis:

conversations like this:    
     question -why do we wear shoes?
     child #1 -so we don't step on pokies in the ground!
     child #2 -you might step on a cat and it might claw your feet.
     child #3 -my grandma has a cat!
     child #4 -i have a grandma! but she doesn't have a cat.

things like this:
     maybe you might be trying to teach the kids what it's like to listen to the spirit telling you what to do instead of what the world tells them to do. maybe that involves walking through a maze with a blindfold on, only you can't find a blindfold so instead you just put pillowcases over their heads. only since they're five, maybe the pillowcase falls past their knees. maybe one little girl gets upset because she's scared of the dark. congratulations. you've just terrified an adorable little girl. during sunday school. at church.

situations like this:
     there are twenty minutes left in class. you are out of teaching material. the following ensues: two games of red-light-green-light. one game of simon says. coloring page.

and situations like this:
     maybe you ask who wants to say the closing prayer. maybe all of the kids raise their hands and shout that they want to. so you let them. all of them. five closing prayers. in a row.

observations like this:
     nothing will ever be as cool to a child as the new watch that they got for their birthday. you will feel like a heartless fool if you deny them their request to pass it around the class so that everyone else can see it too. this includes yourself, obviously, and you will feel the need to make a big deal about how cool that watch is so that you can see their little face light up.

but also things like this:
     you walk into class and sit down and the little girl with the pigtails will run up, unexpectedly throw her arms around your neck, kiss you on the cheek, and tell you she loves you.

sometimes these kids make me baby hungry. other times they're a fool proof birth control. 

happy wednesday friends.

     

     

fashionista.

i don't consider myself much of a fashion girl. i mean i like clothes, but i don't like spending money, and unfortunately the two are mutually exclusive. or at least they are if i correctly understand the term "mutually exclusive." and something unfair that i've noticed about clothing is that all the cute, classy clothes are EXPENSIVE. want to look like a hooker? here, ten dollars. want to look like a lady in a simple dress? i'll just take your dowry and first born child.

$15.00- wet seal. cheap hooker (sorry wet seal, it's nothing personal.)

$2,000.00- victoria beckham collection. 

who even has 2,000 to spend on a DRESS?

i do think that your clothes should say something about you, even if that something is "i like purple" or perhaps "i provide relatively inexpensive 'services'" or maybe "i dyed all of my clothes black in an attempt to look like all the other kids who hate their lives." so, without further ado, a (long) (REALLY long) list of clothing that speaks volumes about who i am:

cute, friendly, and creative. 

amen.

they're in love. who doesn't love love?

oh dwight, you fiend.

my favorite episode was easily the one where
ponyta evolved into rapidash on the final
stretch of the race, thus leading ash to victory. 

r2-d2 will forever be the cutest robot.

i just really like cupcakes, okay?

see seahorse sweater.

this one made the list because it's gorgeous.
all you really need in your closet is yellow and flowers.

word.

this speaks to my soul.

fantastic.

also fantastic.

i do enjoy a good flannery o'connor reference. 

you tell em.

it's true. i don't.

my man will forever make fun of me for being a hufflepuff, so this gryffindor cardigan is just for him. but i am not ashamed. i know in my heart that hufflepuff is the house for me.

so yes, i guess you could say i'm less than super fashionable. i've worn the same worn out moccasins for four years because they're so ridiculously comfortable. the sole on the left shoe is falling off, actually. it's kind of bumming me out. i like t-shirts because i don't have to worry about pit stains. i know, i know; elegant. i will wear absolutely anything if it means staying warm in the cold. i actually have a pair of grey slippers, grey sweats, and a grey sweatshirt and when i wear them all my husband says i look like a little elephant, in a non-fat way. he thinks i'm cute. 

happy april.

ps- if you read this entire post, i am really proud of you, but also a little worried that you're not being as productive as you could be. but only a little worried. mostly i'm proud.

swoop swoop.

one fell swoop: the name of what would undoubtedly be the coolest band around, if i were to start a band. it has become fairly apparent that starting said band is not in my future, so my ultra-cool name got demoted to blog status.

i've always wanted a blog but i'm not cool enough to travel, so no travel journal, and i don't have kids, so a mommy blog is out of the question. i can't cook (bar cereal and macaroni and cheese, obviously) so no cooking blog. i could blog about eating but i can't afford the kind of food that's worth blogging about.

promising, i know. but hang in there. although it's really possible that you're wasting your time reading this, it's also a little bit possible that you're not.

i recently invested in an iphone. i wish i could say that this was a lifelong dream finally realized, but really, they just don't sell flip phones anymore. i love me some flip phones. this new non-flip-phone is  nice and shiny and i would like it to stay that way, so i've been searching for the perfect case. i'm not sure what i want, but after my search, i know exactly what i don't want. please be warned: some of the following are really awesome. some of them are really not.

 

pokemon. excellent choice. i personally find it hard to resist a little squirtle every now and then.

is han solo ever NOT attractive? in the words of my husband concerning the rumored return of harrison ford, carrie fisher, and mark hamill to the future star wars movie: "i could care less about the other two. just give me back my ruggedly handsome harrison ford!"

i guess i'm just confused. about everything. this is not acceptable. not even a little bit.

so here's my thing with this. if it were a really bad rendition of something else--ANYTHING else--it would be an unfortunate but somewhat humorous mistake. however, it is trying to be boobs. this is what it was actually supposed to look like. and i just don't understand. my heart goes out to whatever factory worker had to physically create this lumpy rubber thing.


ideally, i would get a cute little yellow floral vera bradley case. but i would rather buy a week's worth of groceries, for like half the price. especially since my fruits and veggies get expensive in the winter. everybody knows that it's not avocado season, but i can't help it. they're so creamy and delicious and who doesn't like guacamole? or just avocado straight out of the skin, i'm not picky.

happy friday kids.