Holding to the iron rod when you have a reason to let go.

I've always debated on creating a blog to tell "my story" so to say.  Many people I've come across, and I'm sure many people I know, would like to know why it was I came home from my mission, just out of curiosity.  Some people know, some people haven't heard the whole story, some have heard nothing, but I've never really told anybody what exactly went through my mind and how I felt while I was on my mission.  The other night when I was driving back to my apartment, I got an overwhelming feeling that it was time to come out of my shell and share my experience.  Although, it's a very personal, spiritual, and emotional experience that I've had that I don't share many details about.  I'm not doing this for entertainment, it is here in the hopes that my experience will help somebody else prepare and do what I couldn't.

Obviously, I'm of the LDS faith and I've grown up in a home where it has been taught and lived my entire life.  I am the youngest of four with three older sisters.  I am 21 and grew up in Heber City, UT for the first 18 years of my life.  I have played soccer my whole life as a goalkeeper, the best position because you stand there until the ball comes flying toward you and you do a cat-like jumping motions to save the ball and everybody cheers.  I moved to Utah County (Provo/Orem area) with my parents after I graduated from Wasatch High School.  I went to BYU then transferred to UVU where I will be graduating in spring 2015 with a BS in Digital Media.  Now that you have a very brief idea of me (unless you already know me) let's get started.

I'll start off by telling everybody that doesn't know, I have depression/mental/emotional problems.  I believe its really been there deep down my entire life.  Some years its been there more severally then others.  I don't know why I have it.  I grew up in a nice house with a loving and caring family.  Because of soccer and church I have always had friends around me to be with, laugh with, play video games with, get into trouble with, just do what friends do together.  For some reason though, those feelings have always been something I've struggled with.  Anytime I begin to believe I have somewhat of ahold on it and will be able to better control it, it finds a way to beat down my barriers to the surface again.  As I went through high school, my groups of friends I would "hang out with" changed overtime, but I still remained friends with those from my childhood and with the friends of my friends.  Not one person knew though that I struggled with this.  Not even me.

Now, my feelings are something that I find difficult to guard.  I am extremely weak and sensitive.  People will say things to me that they could of never guessed could affect someone in that way.  It's a difficult thing to explain.  Even I still have a hard time understanding why I think the way I do.  There were a few times I broke down in front of a few of my friends over these things in high school.  They just remained quiet as I tried to gain control of my emotions again.  When I would get home at night, I'd sometimes just have to be alone in my room until I got all the tears out.  I didn't even know why I would cry.  I just knew that it helped to get it all out.  My family was unaware of this and I wish that the first time I ever cried, over really nothing, I would of told them.  In the middle of my junior year, there were some family problems that came up that I was unaware of until the moment it happened.  It was not something that impacted me hugely, but it had an effect.  It was more of a confusing time for me then a traumatic experience in my life.   I do not believe this experience made me more unstable.  All it did was make me realize that life is unpredictable and you never know what is going to happen.  Moral of the story, don't dwell on the negative in the past, it'll only cause grief, and drive the Spirit of the Lord out of your life.  Instead, focus on what needs to be done.  Grow and become stronger so you can fight the more difficult trials ahead with the Spirit of the Lord by your side.

I got to my senior year of high school.  We got a brand new building, the freshman were moved to be in the high school instead of the junior high, and my last year of playing high school soccer was looking like a good one.  Close to the beginning of my senior year, something happened that broke me down more than ever before.  My sisters saw the side of me that usually doesn't come out until I'm safely alone in my bedroom at night.  I did not show much, but someone saw.  After this experience, I did not want anybody to ever see that side of me again.  It was my goal from that point on to bottle up my emotions and never let them get the best of me again.  I did not realize what monster it would create later in life.  I had struggled with a pain in my wrist all summer.  After visiting a couple specialists, they said I would have to get surgery and would lose a lot of the movement in my wrist.  I assumed that I would still be able to play soccer after a few months of physical therapy, but I feared that I would not be able to play.

I had a custom brace made for me so I could play soccer without injuring my wrist while still being able to fit it under my goalkeeper gloves.  The first game came and boy was I extremely excited.  Soccer is one of the few things in my life that I could do to forget my struggles and just, well, play soccer haha.  I could of never guessed though that my senior year of soccer would be so difficult.  Because of snow, we'd been unable to practice outside before our first preseason game and I wasn't about to be doing any crazy diving on the gym floor!  So, this was going to be the first time playing with my bad wrist.  It was time for our shooting drill that we do literally 15 minutes before kick off.  I was really nervous to take a hit with my wrist from a ball flying at me at maybe between 5-65 miles per hour or faster.  I have no idea, but you get the point those balls really do come fast sometimes.  Literally the first ball I blocked came fast and it was as if I had re-injured my wrist again.  I was on the verge of tears from the pain and from the realization that I might not play this game.  The goalkeeper coach helped me up and started walking me off the field.  I looked back and saw the younger goalkeeper warming up.  It was at this time I decided I was going to have to just deal with the pain or watch my senior year of soccer from the sideline.  Every single game that season I dealt with pain from every single shot.  Even just catching the ball going slow in the air really hurt.  I did not want to appear weak again though even physically.  If you think I'm a wimp, then that's whatever, people have been through worse.  All I know is, it hurt like a mother and continues to to this day.

Soccer and dealing with the pain of my wrist made me forget about my unstable mind I have.  It came back though shortly after high school.  Being the last child and my dad working at BYU the 18 years of my life in Heber, my parents decided to move to Provo to shorten the commute.  I went to BYU, Provo the summer semester one week after I graduated high school.  I got a job there and worked all summer.  The nights there were very lonely.  I had no friends that lived in provo and because of work and class, I rarely came to Heber to visit.  My parents were kind enough to pay for an apartment and get the "freshmen" experience once fall semester came around.  I am forever grateful for the friends I made that year in college.  To this day I am still friends with them and they are the best examples of good men I know of that you can find in this world.  Something was coming up that I did not realize until that semester I needed to do.  A mission.  Since I was a freshmen and had to participate in the, for lack of a better word, freshmen thing that BYU requires for all freshmen, I lived in a entire apartment complex full of only freshmen with a few exceptions.  Everyone around me was receiving mission calls and the question always came around to me when I was receiving it or when I was going.  Because I did not want to appear weak to others or seem different to those friends I looked up to, I just filled out my paperwork so I could receive my call.  I started to struggle greatly with sleep.  I always felt so tired and could barely stay awake in class at times.  I would wake up many times in the night to see that only 30 minutes had passed since I had last shut my eyes.  I tried sleeping pills that only seemed to make me worse.  On top of this, I got a girlfriend that lasted only three weeks who only just messed with my security and made me suspicious, jealous, and insecure in my next relationship.

Having read the Book of Mormon and being worthy to serve a mission, I received my mission call to Kobe, Japan sometime in January and would leave June 1st, 2011.  I honestly don't know how I felt about opening my call.  I know I cried when I was reading it, but I don't know if I cried because I felt the Spirit or if I was crying because I knew I didn't feel ready at all.  I told people I was excited and everything too, but I don't know if I told them because I really was or if it was because I just wanted to feel accepted by everybody.  I just couldn't imagine what people would think of me if I said I didn't want to go because I didn't feel ready.  I got a girlfriend in the month I got my call.  I saw a few of my friends from college off to their missions and friends from high school off on theirs.  A few months later, my girlfriend at the time noticed that sometimes I struggled and would get sad over random things.  Struggling with depression and bipolar disorder herself, she knew she had to tell my parents.  After my parents found out they thought it was best that I see a counselor.  It was the first time that I actually realized I had depression.  I didn't understand it at all, yet it had always been there for years and years of my life.

I was leaving for my mission in 2 months and, to be honest, I really did not tell my counselor all of my feelings.  I played it off and would go in to satisfy the fact that I needed to go, not to help myself.  For those last two months, I started to eat less, and less.  I started to sleep less and less.  I became an emotional wreck, but I was somehow able to still hide it and play it off that I was just sad to leave, when in reality, I felt guilt because I did not feel ready to serve a mission.  I left on my mission.  The first day in the field was really weird.  It did not even feel real.  I couldn't even believe I was there.  I met my companion.  He was older than me and shorter than me.  I tried so hard that day to push that emotional monster away and focus on the duty I was set apart to do.  I did not sleep well that night nor did I eat anything.  Because I did not eat much the months prior, I had a hard time eating food.  It made my stomach hurt and I felt very sick after eating.  I couldn't even remember the last time I went to the bathroom.

I will try my best to tell everything in order and accurately at this time in the MTC.  It is hard for me to remember because my mind was all over the place.  The lack of food and sleep had taken quite its toll  on me.  I tried to find comfort from the Lord and from the friends I knew that were there in the MTC.  It was still so difficult to keep that monster I had kept bottled up deep down inside me for so long.  That evening, we met with our district president.  We had to bear our testimony to our district then go through an interview with one of the members of the presidency of our district.  After I bore my testimony, I was walking back to my seat and got the feeling that in this interview, the monster was going to come out.  I walked in, and sat down in the chair, and couldn't hold in the monster anymore.  I could barely speak from all of the tears that were coming out.  I shared with him the feelings that I had.  I guess I expected to get more comfort than I did.  All he told me was that I was in the best place that I could be and that I needed to continue on.  I could barely stand from all of the emotion that I had just let loose.  He helped me up and let me lean on his shoulder for sometime before I walked out.  I knew that everybody could see I had been crying.  I felt weak, vulnerable, and embarrassed.  I talked to my companion and shared with him my feelings.  He told me the same thing that the member of the presidency told me.  I tried my best to not cry that night.  I just got on my knees and prayed for strength to get through the night.

The next day I felt even worse.  I thought I might feel better from getting some of the tears out.  That monster deep down had just creep back into its cave to wait for another moment to break me.  My companion and others saw how much I struggled that day.  They tried to help.  Anytime they tried to help though, I ended up just shedding tears down my face.  I asked my district president if I could call my parents.  I wanted them to know my feelings.  They came in and visited me that day.  I told them everything.  They accepted that I might be coming home with them, but would like me to try and stay longer.  I dedicated the rest of that day to try and figure out if I should stay on my mission or go home.  I met with a counselor their and talked to him.  He was very accepting and said that he would work with me the whole time if I decided to stay.  I prayed that night asking whether or not to stay on my mission or leave.  I did not receive an answer.  The next morning, I knew what my answer was.  I do not know if it was from Heavenly Father or from my own conscious.  I knew that I was not going to be an effective missionary if I were to stay and focus on trying to get this monster under control.  I knew though that I still could stay.  I could stay and experience something that not many people in this world experience.  Something that will help me grow spiritually and see the miracles of the Spirit of the Lord at work.  I realized though that whatever my choice was, my Heavenly Father and Jesus would still love me no matter what.

I've never been the type of person that has been very knowledgeable about the Church.  I'm not a scriptorian at all.  I've struggled greatly with reading the Book of Mormon and the Bible and understanding what it is saying.  Before my mission, I had to buy the children's book of the Book of Mormon and read that in order to even know what the stories were.  I always knew though that it was true.  I never really let my mind wonder too far as to start questioning things that can't be answered or proven at this time.  I am grateful to have what I think is one of the greatest gifts that one can have.  Faith.  Heavenly Father loves us so much that he let us choose which path we wanted to follow and 1/3 part (whatever number that is and if I remember correctly) decided to not follow His plan.  I'm not a Father yet, but if I saw my children follow a path that I did not want them to follow, it would break me.  This is just an example of the unconditional love that our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother have for us.  I felt this love at this time on my mission and knew that whatever decision I made, Heavenly Father and Jesus would still love me.  I didn't care what people thought of me at that point.  I didn't care if I appeared weak.  I didn't care if I told people I wasn't ready.  I didn't care if I cried in front of every single person there.

While I was waiting to be picked up from the MTC, I was in the office of the President or of some other high calling of the MTC.  He told me that because I was going home having not served full time, that I would go inactive.  I would not be able to stay in the Church because I would not be able to deal with the regret I would have from not serving a full time mission.  It would be awkward for me and that I would eventually fall.  I am not bitter from this man saying that.  I know he said it in the hopes to change my mind and have me stay.  I'll just say that he was only half right.  I do not believe that a mission is a bad thing from my experience.  From what I hear it is the best two years that anybody can have and if anybody were to ask me if they should serve a mission I would say yes to go on a mission.  The reason I mention him is because I have heard of alot of people going inactive because of what somebody has said to them in the Church.  It either offended them or shook their testimony to the point that they did not want to return.  I am a living example of someone who has dealt with this the two and a half years of being home from my mission and probably will the rest of my life.  Everybody believed I was unworthy when I came home or they believed that I came home for my girlfriend (I broke up with her 3 months after coming home from my mission. THANK GOODNESS!).  Everyday when I meet someone new they ask me about my mission and all I tell them is that I didn't go.  I say this to save myself from having to explain my very complex experience (I've wrote a freaking novel here).  Coming home from my mission made me learn that it doesn't matter what anybody thinks of you.  The only people that matter are your Heavenly Father, Jesus, your spouse/future spouse and your family you have with her/him.  In the end only God can judge you.

I hope that this post helps somebody.  It is the reason I felt the need to write it.  The advice that I have for those who are in the same place as I was before I went on my mission is to mentally and emotionally prepare for your mission.  Depression is something that is extremely real and that it is not something to be taken lightly.  It will be with you the rest of your life.  No matter what you do it will always be a little sliver hiding deep down inside that could grow into the monster that mine was.  Many people will not understand and you may find it difficult to admit that it's there.  Find someone who does understand.  I went back to counseling after my mission every week and met with my stake president once a month for 6 months before I began to improve.  I was looking to be totally clean until only about a year ago when I began to struggle again.

I am still an active individual in the LDS Church, and always will be, because I don't know how I could live without it.  It is one of the few things I find comfort in in my life and, because of my beliefs, it is one of the reasons that I never considered suicide as an option to escape from the monster that breaks me down so easily.  I am far from perfect, but I believe that one day I, as well as everybody else, can become perfect. Because of what Jesus did for us, we can return to him again someday and live in an existence filled with peace, love, and light for all eternity.  I am grateful for everything in my life and the blessings that I have received and will receive in my life.  If anybody is struggling with what I have struggled with and are just trying to find someone that understands, then talk to me.  I understand.  I will do my best to help you.  Always remember to pray and to seek the company of the Holy Ghost.  It is one of the greatest gifts that our Father in Heaven can give you.  The benefits and blessings He can give us are amazing and will keep you close to our Father in Heaven and His blessed influence always.  And these things I say in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.