A Raw, Searing, Beautiful Post about Depression and Faith

He has questions I have asked myself before. But he has a premise — that God has placed him in new surroundings, etcetera — as if God directs his life. I don’t believe God does this as much as I once believed he did…so I kind of checked out of his comments.

I posted the following:

Hi Patty,

I am touched by your realness. Sometimes we semi-rationalize the suicide of others by saying to ourselves that it was only a matter of time. My hope is to do my part to dispel such notions. I understand that a suicidal period may be pretty short and then may not reoccur for a long time or perhaps ever. My point is that your efforts to lift others and their efforts to lift you are not wasted. Thank you for sharing with us your efforts to “fight the good fight.”

I believe that relationships MATTER!!! (long term or short term and in every other sense of the word.)

He has questions I have asked myself before. But he has a premise — that God has placed him in new surroundings, etcetera — as if God directs his life. I don’t believe God does this as much as I once believed he did…so I kind of checked out of his comments.

I believe I am familiar with most of the approaches that people take to understand why things happen in their life. One of these approaches is to believe that it is part of a grand design. I believe that this sentiment is the predominant one in the LDS faith. I don’t find it useful to understand my life, but I have no problems with others that have that understanding.

Even better, she doesn’t claim that her life troubles were largely fixed, or reduced, or made meaningful once she finally came to the “true” perspective, or accepted Christ more fully as her savior, or some other adjustment in her thinking. At least in the context of her post – her struggle continues. She didn’t seem to cause it and there doesn’t seem to be any solution on the horizon. It is life with all the loose ends and ambiguity that come with it.

Thanks for posting this. I replied directly to the blog. This hit very close to home for me.

I hope I am not out of line with my comments and questions here but I feel a need for a little support. I don’t want to start a new thread because it relates to this thread. It concerns mental illness.

Curtis, I read this blog post and I read your blog post. I have read the comments here. I did not realize there were so many like me here. About 30 years ago I was put in a mental institution for 5 weeks. I was diagnosed bi-polar. I was put on some pretty powerful drugs. They had little effect other than making me sick. About 20-25 years ago they tried zoloft and I got some relief. The problem I have now is I am maxed out on dosage. I hope I can hang on. About 6 years ago I thought I was done. I ended up making it through the next few painful days. Since then I have been pulling myself out of that hole. I don’t feel like I have climbed up alone though. I went through the church’s addiction program. I feel like it was there that I did find Jesus. (btw, I am a life long mormon and returned missionary so I thought I had already found jesus.)

I hope that little background can help somebody understand my questions. First, can a mentally ill person ever find happiness? I am not sure I understand what happiness is. I laugh a lot. I have fun but my heart aches a lot. For instance I love my kids but I hate being a dad. Fatherhood brings me down more than anything.

Along those same lines, by taking medication, I have evened out my life. I miss the highs of bipolar but the lows are just too low. Is there really any way to find happiness? I am mostly just trying to avoid unhappiness.

One of the side effects of my mental illness is that I feel there is nobody, including God, that loves me. I always feel like people just tolerate me. On the outside nobody in the world would even suspects this of me. I am the best actor in the world.

The final question I have is… How do I find happiness? I have tried to find it both in and out of the church. I believe I come closer through the church but rigidness just destroys my inner self.

If this is too much or the wrong place for this just let me know. I don’t get offended easily.

This idea of happiness is what I think started my faith crisis years ago. What I have come to believe is that happiness is not a common thing, nor is it a state of being. I think there can be happy moments in life, but they are usually things that we have to decide to interpret that way. I think having a mental illness can certainly make it harder to be able to interpret moments as happy, but I don’t think people who don’t have mental health problems are necessary more happy. I like the Buddhist teaching that “Life is Suffering” (I hope I got that reference right). I think suffering is the natural state of life, but humans are creative and have found ways to mitigate suffering and even create times and experiences of happiness.

The feelings you have that no one loves you, I think that is definitely the mental illness. We call them mental because they disrupt our ability to perceive things rationally or honestly. I’ve experienced severe depression–and I’ll be honest–to the point of suicidal thoughts. When I was in that state of mind my thoughts seemed rational to me, but afterwards those negative thoughts did not. This is probably the worst part of a mental illness is how it takes that ability to think clearly away from us.

In sum, I think you have to decide to find happiness in things that can be perceived that way. I’m a parent too, and know how hard it can be, but I also know there are sometime sweet moments with children, and those could be things that you see as happiness. Or if you like nature, you can feel that peace it gives you and recognize that can be happiness. Or a hot bath, or watching a good movie. I think we are all good actors to some degree, since otherwise I’m not sure how the idea that happiness can be a state of being came about. I don’t think anyone has that!

Thank you journeygirl and roy.

Sometimes I think my expectations of joy and happiness are just too high. Maybe it is just the little things that can bring happiness. Of course those are hard to recognize. It is a lot easier to recognize the negative.