A Life Update & Some Thoughts On Why H8rs H8

Being in Rexburg for the last year has been the one of the harder experiences of my life. Adjusting to Rexburg from Provo was hard. My depression and anxiety spiked drastically when I got married, and I felt completely alone and isolated in a town where I had little to no support. When I tried to reach out and explain my frustrations and my heartache, I was told:
"Well, at least you're married" and "You can't complain because you have a husband. I'm single and life is so much harder when you're single." (what)
"BYU-I is better and if you don't like it you should just move." (what?)
"I'm offended that you don't like it here. I love it, so why shouldn't you?" (what???)
And my favorite, "Maybe you don't like it here because you're having ~spiritual issues." (WTF??????)

These were people I barely knew, people I hadn't talked to in months, people I did not regularly talk to, people who knew nothing about me except what they might have gathered from my social media. The next logical step for these people, then, was to come out of the woodwork and tell me everything I was doing wrong through a Facebook comment or message, even though they didn't really know or care enough about me to learn about my actual struggles. (No normal, compassionate individual does stuff like this, right?)

First of all, marriage is not some fun easy thing that you are granted when you grow up. It's work. It's like getting a new responsibility at your job, just like working through college or having a baby or buying a house. You can get some pretty sweet blessings, but you have to work to get them, and you also get more stress, strained patience, petty arguing, serious arguing, and nights you sleep on the couch and think, "What the hell am I even doing?"

My life is not any easier because of marriage, it's in fact much more difficult (Ammon can vouch for this). Working through my PTSD has been much more difficult as well. It. Is. Hard. Sometimes in healing Ammon has been so helpful, and in general he is so kind and so loving and so patient, but it is so difficult to allow another person to see your problems, as ugly as they may be, and then help them learn to how to help you even if you don't know how to help yourself. Does that sound fun and easy? Isn't that sexy? Wow, it's so ~hot we need to get a room. So that I can cry for three days because I feel broken and Ammon can sit next to me and hold me but feel completely helpless as to what he can do. (This applies regardless of if you have an illness or not; there will be days like this in a marriage between two people who aren't suffering mentally.)

So if you're single and find yourself thinking that your married friends shouldn't be complaining because "at least they're married," congratulations, you understand very little about marriage and you are cordially uninvited to have any opinions on the subject. (I'm angry af, I'm not holding back tonight kids) (Being married doesn't magically make my brain chemicals balance out wOW so sexy)

Second of all, apparently it is a crime against God Himself that I was not immediately obsessed with Rexburg. I hated it at first because I felt like my depression got much worse when I moved there (it super did.) I've worked hard to get to a point where I genuinely enjoy Idaho and I'm grateful to have the opportunity to live there, but I miss BYU. Some people like Rexburg better, some people prefer Provo, and that is a-okay.

Provo was my place, those were my people. I found my niche there and had a strong support group. Despite my illness, I was able to thrive. I have not found this in Rexburg. No crime, just a preference (one that somehow does not make me spiritually inferior, incredible). BYU-I is great, not the best fit for me, but I'm still going to finish up my two remaining years in Rexburg so Ammon can get the education that he needs. I left my friends and stability, Ammon took one for the team and married a crazy person. We all have to make sacrifices.

Lastly, I cannot even quantify how many people I see at my own school, people who made the same covenants I did, that do not know Christ nor do they understand Him. If you understand Christ, you are able to have His compassion by accessing the Atonement. In our mortal capacities, we don't always have the ability to freely love. It can be hard to have compassion for someone who has hurt you, or someone who is difficult, but through the Atonement we can be filled with the light of Christ and have the ability to love others in a deeper, more meaningful, more divine way. It broadens our perspective and we're given a glimpse of the bigger picture, essentially taking a look through God's eyes.

And so if you come across an individual who is struggling, especially someone who suffers from a mental illness, and your first reaction is to tell them what they're doing wrong and that they are a bad person for feeling the way that they feel, you straight up are not doing great at that whole "love thy neighbor" thing (Ellie translation: you're terrible and I'm having a hard time compassioning you). Go learn the Gospel as it really is, not as it suits you and your bias, and only at that point can the Spirit teach you how to truly love. (Plus, you're gonna have a pretty rough time if you're looking to get married or are already to that point but then you lack any kind of humility or charity.)

These types of people greatly hindered my ability to heal; what I've desperately needed is compassion and what I've gotten is what Satan wants us to feel: judgment, degradation, isolation, worthlessness. (Being a dick doesn't help someone who is very depressed become less depressed or less suicidal, thanks.) Do not let your obsession with being right or being safe on your high horse become a greater priority than being humble to others and loving and seeing them as Christ loves and sees them. In the end, regardless of your beliefs, how you view and treat your fellow humans is the only thing that matters and is one of the only things you will be remembered by.

In my therapy, we're focusing on compassion. Because of the lack of connection in Rexburg, I was giving out compassion but not receiving enough in return, which was what triggered the beginning of feeling terrible all the time and wanting to be just so #dead. Because I am so depleted it is much harder for me to reach out and to connect (it was already hard because of the PTSD; a huge lack of trust in others had been ingrained in me following my experiences).

I am having a hard time. I don't know how to cope with trauma, even after a couple months of weekly therapy, but I am trying. Most of the time I feel weak, emotionally exhausted, and incapable of living another day because the thought of having to endure even one more hour of depression is so incredibly overwhelming. However, in working on building my compassion back up I have been able to strengthen my interpersonal relationships, strengthen my intrapersonal relationship, and use Christ as a compassionate image to help me see the bigger picture, to open my spiritual eyes (when I'm in a right enough mind; doesn't work as well when I'm in the middle of an anxiety attack or unable to get out of bed because of deep depression). If you wanna get REALLY zen here, there is no battle between me and others, only a battle that exists within themselves. (whooooaaaoaoaaaoaaa !!!!!!)

And so over time I was able to come to that conclusion. Working through everything I need to work through is exhausting enough without having to deal with people who care nothing about you trying to worm their way into your life. I haven't posted on Facebook much all summer because of it; if I'm going to be real with someone and their reaction is to judge or attack, I'm not gonna have a great time and I'm probably not going to continue to trust that person in my current fragile and vulnerable emotional state.

It is very late so this is the best I could write something with the emotional and mental capacity I currently have. I want to be real with people and be vulnerable, but at the emotional place I'm at it just hasn't been possible until tonight when my guard is down and I'm feeling very #emosh.

Regardless, I hope someone can learn something from this. I hope we can all learn to love and to see people as they really are, not just as they present themselves. I hope others can learn to love me better so that I can heal in a safe and stable place, which will eventually in turn give me a higher capacity to love. Let's deepen our relationships so we can have steady flows of compassion between one another and feel the blessings and the joy of having the pure love of Christ. Feeling that love in me and being able to direct it at others has been instrumental in keeping me around as long as I have been. There have been many days I wasn't sure I would make it to morning, but I've done it every day of my life so far so I hope I can continue to make it in the long run.

I'm gonna be real to the people who chose to be judgmental of my uncontrollable and undesired mental illness instead of reaching out in love like a mature human: Just unfriend me, okay? Also *thumbs down emoji*

Thanks to the people that have been actively or even quietly supporting. Depression wants me to think I am alone, but when I remember all of you I'm able to keep walking and keep fighting. The suicidal thoughts are not things that are controllable; it's a very dark place to be indeed, and no sin or fault of the person feeling it. But I am trying so hard every day, usually to the point of tears, to get out of that place. I want to feel good, I want to be happy, and I want to be in full control of myself again.

I'm hoping I can get there, and I hope you can overcome your trials through approaching Christ and through the compassion that exists in your relationships. Life is hard, mental illness makes it vastly more difficult and more complicated, but having deep compassion can create a strong and unstoppable you.