Since depression made the news a lot of people have been blogging about it. I thought it would be good to compile a list of links to posts/articles about what it means to be depressed and LDS.
1. Mormon Matters takes on the issue here and explores some interesting explanations here.
2. Silverrain offers some good advice and some thought-provoking ideas.
3. Tim Malone has some good stuff to add--although he beat all of us by blogging about it months ago!
4. Here's an interesting piece about how LDS ideas about depression have changed in the last couple decades.
5. I love this description of SSRIs at By Common Consent.
6. And in case you feel like you are alone, here's another from BCC that should help.
Do you all have any links you would add?
Monday, April 7, 2008
Saturday, April 5, 2008
Pursue Your Passion
One of the most important things any person with depression (or any person at all, for that matter) can do is pursue something they are passionate about. Finding something that makes your eyes light up or your heart beat a little faster helps shake off the film that depression casts over your brain. I also believe that many of our passions come from God. After all, all good things come from God, and if we are passionate about something--if it makes us feel truly good--then it is probably a gift. So start a blog, climb a mountain, learn a language, volunteer. Do whatever it is that helps you remember you are alive! It might be scary at first, but the focus and the energy you'll find inside you wil be worth all the effort you put in.
For me reading/writing is the passion that brings me back to life when I need it. My writing is in limbo at the moment so I started this blog and challenged myself to read one book each week for this year. I've now read 16 books this year. Here are the most recent (if reading is not your passion then I give you permission to scroll to the end of this post):
Book 11. The Shadow of the Sun by Ryzard Kapuscinski. This book chronicled a Polish journalist's career as his paper's Africa correspondent over the last 50 years. Kapuscinski somehow managed to be at the epicenter of every major revolution on the continent. Reading his accounts and observations was riveting. I found it incredibly sad (so many things go wrong in Africa! It just isn't fair!), but also motivating. The Church humanitarian programs provide so many opportunities to help people all over the world--especially in Africa. Just in case you need a nudge to make a difference, here's the link to the current humanitarian service needs.
Book 12. Bound on Earth by Angela Hallstrom. Every good thing that has been said about this book is true. Everyone should read it! Everyone should buy it! I recommended this for my monthly book club and we had such an awesome discussion. It was marvelous.
Book 13. The Undertaking: life studies from the dismal trade by Thomas Lynch. This book surprised me in every way--which I suppose shouldn't have been surprising given that it was written by a mortician/poet. I came across it through a Frontline episode on PBS. The author was unbelievable frank about everything from the weirdness of embalming his own father to the mess of suicide to the especially vivid flatulence one gets after eating bad curry. He also had a knack for bringing poetry to places that we assume would be bereft of rhyme and reason. A very good read, but I must warn you, brace yourself for thoughts you would never have thought of yourself!
Book 14. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. This is a classic and I'm pretty sure I'm the last person in the universe to read it. So good. And so deep. I guess I need to read it again before I could organize anything interesting to add to what's already been said.
Book 15. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I guess I liked this one. I didn't not like it. Although, I did spend a lot of time while I was reading it trying to imagine how I would have felt about it if I were a ten year old girl. The conclusion: I would have liked it better.
Book 16. The Fattening of America: how the economy make us fat, if it matters, and what to do about it by Eric A Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman. This was pretty interesting. I really like the way economists look at the world; it just seems remarkably realistic. Anyway, this book put an economist's twist on the obesity debate in America. Not only was it funny, but it was quite informative. For the two days it took me to read it I was the sugar-police in my house and I put a little more effort into getting my kids to eat their veggies. If a book can do that it must be well-written!
Anyway, for all you readers out there (all, you know, five of you) what are your passions? What makes you feel alive enough to get out of bed in the morning? Post it here so we can all encourage each other!
For me reading/writing is the passion that brings me back to life when I need it. My writing is in limbo at the moment so I started this blog and challenged myself to read one book each week for this year. I've now read 16 books this year. Here are the most recent (if reading is not your passion then I give you permission to scroll to the end of this post):
Book 11. The Shadow of the Sun by Ryzard Kapuscinski. This book chronicled a Polish journalist's career as his paper's Africa correspondent over the last 50 years. Kapuscinski somehow managed to be at the epicenter of every major revolution on the continent. Reading his accounts and observations was riveting. I found it incredibly sad (so many things go wrong in Africa! It just isn't fair!), but also motivating. The Church humanitarian programs provide so many opportunities to help people all over the world--especially in Africa. Just in case you need a nudge to make a difference, here's the link to the current humanitarian service needs.
Book 12. Bound on Earth by Angela Hallstrom. Every good thing that has been said about this book is true. Everyone should read it! Everyone should buy it! I recommended this for my monthly book club and we had such an awesome discussion. It was marvelous.
Book 13. The Undertaking: life studies from the dismal trade by Thomas Lynch. This book surprised me in every way--which I suppose shouldn't have been surprising given that it was written by a mortician/poet. I came across it through a Frontline episode on PBS. The author was unbelievable frank about everything from the weirdness of embalming his own father to the mess of suicide to the especially vivid flatulence one gets after eating bad curry. He also had a knack for bringing poetry to places that we assume would be bereft of rhyme and reason. A very good read, but I must warn you, brace yourself for thoughts you would never have thought of yourself!
Book 14. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis. This is a classic and I'm pretty sure I'm the last person in the universe to read it. So good. And so deep. I guess I need to read it again before I could organize anything interesting to add to what's already been said.
Book 15. Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. I guess I liked this one. I didn't not like it. Although, I did spend a lot of time while I was reading it trying to imagine how I would have felt about it if I were a ten year old girl. The conclusion: I would have liked it better.
Book 16. The Fattening of America: how the economy make us fat, if it matters, and what to do about it by Eric A Finkelstein and Laurie Zuckerman. This was pretty interesting. I really like the way economists look at the world; it just seems remarkably realistic. Anyway, this book put an economist's twist on the obesity debate in America. Not only was it funny, but it was quite informative. For the two days it took me to read it I was the sugar-police in my house and I put a little more effort into getting my kids to eat their veggies. If a book can do that it must be well-written!
Anyway, for all you readers out there (all, you know, five of you) what are your passions? What makes you feel alive enough to get out of bed in the morning? Post it here so we can all encourage each other!
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Depression, Intuition, and The Spirit
For me, one of the hardest things about being LDS and depressed is listening to the voices in my head. I mean, really, I've got a lot of traffic rattling around in there.
The depressed voice in my head is always throwing out things like, "You idiot! I can't believe you did that!" or "Oh, now you've really screwed things up. How on earth do you ever think you can make it right?" or "You are such a *&%$#" Thankfully, that part of my mind is not too creative and I've learned (yay for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)to tune it out.
My intuition voice is also pretty noisy. Unfortunately, since I am a mother of three children, my intuition is usually attuned to things like "She says she washed her hands but you'd better smell them to make sure she used soap" or "The beloved blankey has been stashed behind the wheat in the food storage cabinet" or, my personal favorite, "You'd better get off the computer because someone is sneaking candy!"
And the last but certainly not least voice, the Spirit, is, reserved for spiritual things, like: "A soft answer turneth away wrath." (Since I have so many anger issues it makes sense the Spirit would address those!) More often than not though, the Spirit feels like an urge to do something and doesn't manifest itself as a concrete thought.
And that's where things start to get complicated.
I've learned to manage my depression on a cognitive level and I've kind of figured out how to listen to my intution and the Spirit, but some days I have a hard time telling which is which.
For example: after Number 1 was born I was quite anxious (and depressed, but I didn't know it yet) about her getting kidnapped. This is a pretty normal new-mommy fear, but my anxiety took it to a new level. Not only did I worry about this in public places but I constantly had visions of someone sneaking in her into room and stealing her from her crib while I was in the bathroom. Now, we lived in a third floor apartment but I was still convinced. Whenever I left her out of my sight, which I only did to use the potty, I tried to mentally calculate how long it would take the baby thief to scale the balconies up to our floor, sneak through our sliding glass door and down the hall to her nursery, grab the baby, run out our door and down three flight of stairs to his getaway vehicle. I actually would argue with myself about how likely the scenario was and what I would do if I ran into the thief.
Eventually my worry got so intense I didn't want to leave the house. Every trip to the grocery store (since that was the only place I was still going) was full of stress. I began to develop little rituals to ease my mind. I always parked in the same spot. I always went through the store in the same order. I never walked more than an arm's length away from the cart. I always kept one hand on the baby (that way if someone tried to take her I could tug back). And I never turned my back to her.
I now know that most of the paranoia and need for ritual was linked to the post partum depression, but at the time I wasn't so sure that it wasn't the Spirit trying to warn me of some tragedy that was waiting for me down the next aisle (or at the cart return, those things were so scary to me!). After all, the Spirit communicates to us in our minds and in our hearts and my brain and my feelings were in constant agreement that something bad was going to happen. There was a part of me that knew my worry was excessive but, then again, maybe this was the "mommy mantle" so many women talked about. Boy, was I surprised when I started treatment for the depression and all those "impressions" disappeared!
I still struggle with it though. Like on days when I wake up feeling like garbage and I don't want to get out of bed but I do because my kids need me and then I yell at them and the thought "No success can compensate for failure in the home" goes ringing through my brain and I feel worse than I did before. Was that a spiritual reprimand? Or, was it my depression mocking me and trying to discourage me? Or maybe it was my intution telling me that I am a failure and no matter what I do nothing will make up for the way I'm screwing up my kids. Or maybe it's some bizarre concoction of all three. . . Either way, there are plenty of times when I can't tease out the depression from the Spirit. Or my intuition from my depression. Or my intuition from the Spirit. All the urges seem to run into each other and trying to distinguish one from the others is like trying to keep track of which hat the magician put the little ball under. They just keep moving faster and faster and my best guess is only a shot in dark.
And really, I guess there's no real way to know--well, maybe in the next life the Lord will explain it all to me. Personal revelation is one of those tricky things about our Church. It's a gift from our loving Father in Heaven, but it certainly takes effort to figure out how to interpret it and use it. If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know!
The depressed voice in my head is always throwing out things like, "You idiot! I can't believe you did that!" or "Oh, now you've really screwed things up. How on earth do you ever think you can make it right?" or "You are such a *&%$#" Thankfully, that part of my mind is not too creative and I've learned (yay for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)to tune it out.
My intuition voice is also pretty noisy. Unfortunately, since I am a mother of three children, my intuition is usually attuned to things like "She says she washed her hands but you'd better smell them to make sure she used soap" or "The beloved blankey has been stashed behind the wheat in the food storage cabinet" or, my personal favorite, "You'd better get off the computer because someone is sneaking candy!"
And the last but certainly not least voice, the Spirit, is, reserved for spiritual things, like: "A soft answer turneth away wrath." (Since I have so many anger issues it makes sense the Spirit would address those!) More often than not though, the Spirit feels like an urge to do something and doesn't manifest itself as a concrete thought.
And that's where things start to get complicated.
I've learned to manage my depression on a cognitive level and I've kind of figured out how to listen to my intution and the Spirit, but some days I have a hard time telling which is which.
For example: after Number 1 was born I was quite anxious (and depressed, but I didn't know it yet) about her getting kidnapped. This is a pretty normal new-mommy fear, but my anxiety took it to a new level. Not only did I worry about this in public places but I constantly had visions of someone sneaking in her into room and stealing her from her crib while I was in the bathroom. Now, we lived in a third floor apartment but I was still convinced. Whenever I left her out of my sight, which I only did to use the potty, I tried to mentally calculate how long it would take the baby thief to scale the balconies up to our floor, sneak through our sliding glass door and down the hall to her nursery, grab the baby, run out our door and down three flight of stairs to his getaway vehicle. I actually would argue with myself about how likely the scenario was and what I would do if I ran into the thief.
Eventually my worry got so intense I didn't want to leave the house. Every trip to the grocery store (since that was the only place I was still going) was full of stress. I began to develop little rituals to ease my mind. I always parked in the same spot. I always went through the store in the same order. I never walked more than an arm's length away from the cart. I always kept one hand on the baby (that way if someone tried to take her I could tug back). And I never turned my back to her.
I now know that most of the paranoia and need for ritual was linked to the post partum depression, but at the time I wasn't so sure that it wasn't the Spirit trying to warn me of some tragedy that was waiting for me down the next aisle (or at the cart return, those things were so scary to me!). After all, the Spirit communicates to us in our minds and in our hearts and my brain and my feelings were in constant agreement that something bad was going to happen. There was a part of me that knew my worry was excessive but, then again, maybe this was the "mommy mantle" so many women talked about. Boy, was I surprised when I started treatment for the depression and all those "impressions" disappeared!
I still struggle with it though. Like on days when I wake up feeling like garbage and I don't want to get out of bed but I do because my kids need me and then I yell at them and the thought "No success can compensate for failure in the home" goes ringing through my brain and I feel worse than I did before. Was that a spiritual reprimand? Or, was it my depression mocking me and trying to discourage me? Or maybe it was my intution telling me that I am a failure and no matter what I do nothing will make up for the way I'm screwing up my kids. Or maybe it's some bizarre concoction of all three. . . Either way, there are plenty of times when I can't tease out the depression from the Spirit. Or my intuition from my depression. Or my intuition from the Spirit. All the urges seem to run into each other and trying to distinguish one from the others is like trying to keep track of which hat the magician put the little ball under. They just keep moving faster and faster and my best guess is only a shot in dark.
And really, I guess there's no real way to know--well, maybe in the next life the Lord will explain it all to me. Personal revelation is one of those tricky things about our Church. It's a gift from our loving Father in Heaven, but it certainly takes effort to figure out how to interpret it and use it. If I ever figure it out, I'll let you know!
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