Depression Sucks!

Oh yes it does!  Totally and completely.  It doesn't matter that I have a very valid reason to be depressed, or that my plate is overflowing with stress and trauma.  It doesn't help to be told that my responses are "normal" *rolls eyes*  It just sucks!

I've fought through depression that comes along with chemicals in my body being out of whack due to small aliens life forms growing inside of me multiple times.  Each time the depression was the same but my perspective of it differed and I knew that it was going to end.  There were many people, experiences and thoughts that brought me comfort to help me survive until my body righted all of the chemical processes.


This is different.  I really struggle to figure out how to work through all of the UNBLOGGABLE that is going on in my life.  I've actually done searches at the local library and on Amazon among other places and there just simply isn't any information on how to help your children heal when the UNBLOGGABLE happens or how to help myself as a mother, daughter, aunt, etc.  The closest thing that is not pure fiction that I've come across is a book of teen girls sharing the horror stories of the UNBLOGGABLE things that happened to them when they were growing up.  So either there just is not much information out there or I don't know the right key words to use in my searches.

I remember hearing folk say "God doesn't give us more than we can handle" and taking some comfort and strength from that in the land of my trials before.  Now when I'm told that I want to scream at them at the top of my lungs that GOD DID NOT PLAN OR CAUSE THIS UNBLOGGABLE TRIAL TO HAPPEN.  THE ONLY CULPABILITY THAT GOD HAS IS IN ALLOWING ALL PEOPLE TO EXERCISE THEIR AGENCY TO CHOOSE!  That's it....God is not in this trial.  My God could not plan for this to happen to any of his children and sadly I know that much worse than what we are going through happens each and every second somewhere or several somewheres on this planet. I do know that somehow, He will help us to get through and move beyond.  He can use this to make us stronger and to learn things about Him and ourselves that we may not have learned about in other ways.  But God did not sit up and push buttons or even remotely dream up all the terrible things that mankind choose to do to their brothers and sisters.

So while I previously professed to be trying to work a little more PolyAnna into my life.  I haven't been posting because truly there is not a lot of lollipops and sunshine hanging out in my world right now.  I'd welcome prayers and if any of ya all happen to know of some resources I would be most appreciative.  Because somehow we will get through all of this and come out stronger and refined just in time to meet the next move of the Adversary on the other side.

Behold, I have refined you, but not with silver; 

I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction. 

For my own sake, even for my own sake, will I do it: 

for how should My Name be polluted? 

 and I will not give My Glory unto another. (Isaiah 10-11)

i just don't know anymore...feeling unequal to it all

I am having a difficult time. I don't feel strong, I just want to give up....in fact today I did give up. Just lay on my bed and watched mind and feeling numbing television and left my children to their own devices. My youngest 2 year old who has pervasive developmental delays was going to scream whether I was trying to interact with him or if he was alone..... maybe I am just making excuses, I don't know. I should be loving this time with Spring Break and all my boys home but it just seems to throw us all into CHAOS.


Practically every item of clothing that I would consider for myself or anyone else in the house to wear is filthy in a pile waiting to be washed. I guess I could clean our drawers and closets out easily by just bagging up anything that is folded or hanging up and take them to the DI. My oven and stove both stopped working last week, my water heater stopped working yesterday. I am so tired of only having energy to go to therapy appointments and meet with specialists. I am tired of having growing and learning being such a struggle requiring direct instruction for even the simplest things. I am tired of being a mom. I am tired of being tired. I'm tired of having others in the neighborhood look at me like I must be the laziest woman on the planet to not be able to keep my house clean, and care for my kids.


Why do I have to do more? Why is there so much to do? Why can't my baby say any words? Why do I feel so alone? Why do I always volunteer to help others and then feel stuck because I feel like I've taken on too much? I signed my oldest up for soccer, that makes one more thing to fit in somehow in this insane schedule. He's been extra loving lately...I think he senses how stressed and worn out I am. So does my husband but he feels so helpless and doesn't know what to do to help.

I am so flipping tired of being a failure with never getting ahead or accomplishing anything for more than 5 minutes at a time. Something tells me that somehow if I could just rest enough and start little that maybe someday I could be the mom who could juggle everything again....and yet the thought of even beginning to do all of that in addition to all that I'm trying to handle now just makes me cry.

Help! I've Fallen and Can't Get Up!

I've been having a rough couple of weeks and have been pushing myself to keep going by trying to think of all the sayings people say when hard times are found in abundance.

When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.

If Life were easy, it wouldn't be hard.

Don't cry over spilled milk.

All's well that ends well.

So what about it? Do you all have some encouraging words to help me get through this rough patch?

Bringing Down the Lights. . .

One of my fondest memories of High School is going to dances. I loved being with my friends, hearing all of my favorite songs, the lights, dancing and just relaxing. I still love to dance, although I have come far from the whole 80’s rocking two-step. It is one of my husband’s top choices and mine when we happen to get a night out together. Being married to a wonderful man whose hobby for the last 15 years has been DJing means that I get a critique of what is going well and what could be improved each time we go out dancing. Since our marriage 5 years ago I have learned that there is much more to being a good Disc Jockey than tossing a few songs on the cd player and plugging in some fancy lights. One of the most challenging things to perfect, and is a sure way to identify an amateur from a professional, is lowering the houselights in the room. Bringing the houselights down requires subtlety, patience and if done well isn’t even noticed by the crowd. I have been pondering the implications of this. We are told in the scriptures that we each bring a light to the earth, the Light of Christ. “I am the true light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” (D&C 93:2.) the Savior said.



As young children we learned how to keep darkness away by turning on a light. My own boys don’t want to go to sleep without their “night light” on in the hallway until they fall asleep. I remember being a teenager at home alone and turning on every light in the house! I realized that the instinctual physical law is also a spiritual law: light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time.





“Light dispels darkness. When light is present, darkness is vanquished and must depart. More importantly, darkness cannot conquer light unless the light is diminished or departs. When the spiritual light of the Holy Ghost is present, the darkness of Satan departs. Beloved young men and young women of the Church, we are engaged in a battle between the forces of light and darkness. If it were not for the Light of Jesus Christ and His gospel, we would be doomed to the destruction of darkness. But the Savior said, “I am come a light into the world.” John 12:46. “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12” (Robert D. Hales, “Out of Darkness into His Marvelous Light,” Ensign, May 2002, 69)





Satan works on us like a Good DJ in lowering our lights. He has had millions of years to perfect his methods. We can be entrenched in darkness before we even notice or realize that there is any dimming of our light at all. I know this because I have been entrenched in a deep depression for three and a half years. Now the depression itself was due to a hormonal imbalance but the additional darkness I was plunged into was very scary and very real. In addition to the depression I found myself letting the essentials of the gospel fall by the wayside. Studying my scriptures regularly was one of the first things to go, then praying became more haphazard, and so on. I never realized how much of my personal darkness was simply a lack of the spirit in my life. I blamed everything on my depression and the lack of understanding on the part of others. As the depression began to lift (much as walking off the dance floor and into the hall) I began to recognize that I had been in the dark.





The Lord is our light and, literally, our salvation. (Psalms 27:1) Like the sacred fire that encircled the children in 3 Nephi:16; His light will form a protective shield between you and the darkness of the adversary as you live worthy of it. You need that light. We need that light. As we study the scriptures, the teachings of the prophets, pray, and learn of Christ we can by obedience to wise counsel, learn to claim the protective light of the gospel as our own. There is only one way to claim this protective light we “must learn to generate that light each day by believing on Jesus Christ and following His commandments.” By our diligence and obedience we will keep so much light inside of us and in our daily lives that Satan will have no opportunities to fill us with darkness.