As we start experiencing shorter days and longer nights this time of year, I am reminded of depression.
Almost exactly twelve years ago, I was driving home to our apartment with my screaming ten-month-old in the car seat. I had a troubling and false belief that I couldn’t comfort my own flesh and blood, and had the distinct thought, “My boys will be better off without me.” I daydreamed about leaving my family and driving far far away.
These feelings of inadequacy and depression came during a difficult year as a first-time mom. My son was born with a bowel disease and needed two very invasive surgeries–one when he was five days old (story told here), and another when he was eight months old. The first surgery was to place a colostomy.
The second surgery was to remove the colostomy, reroute his intestines and eradicate the parts of his large intestine that were missing the nerve endings needed to move his stool to his rectum. This was a five-hour surgery and the post-surgical care involved making saline, lubing a catheter, and giving him an enema. We had to pin him down to do this, and it was traumatizing for all involved. We had to do it every day for almost two years, or risk him getting enterocolitis. He needed diaper changes upwards of 15 times a day for those first couple months, including through the night. We were sleep-deprived first-time parents worried for our baby. It was the most challenging time of my life–wanting to help and heal my baby but feeling like I couldn’t even comfort him as his mom. I knew he was in immense pain.
So, it was around that time that my thoughts of leaving my husband and baby came. I called my Obstetrician’s office, asked to speak with a nurse, and could barely get the words out of my mouth, “I am worried that I’m not okay. I think I have postpartum depression. I need help.”
“How old is your baby?”
“Ten months.”
“Oh, we can’t help you here. Call your doctor.”
She may have said something else, but I don’t remember anything registering.
With a lot of courage, I searched for a primary care physician in the area, got an appointment, and admittedly, with a dose of shame, I started the medication Citalopram (Celexa). After about a month, the medication did its job– it took the edge off, and the intrusive thoughts went away.
A couple of months later, I visited my parents out of state with my now one-year-old. I was really nervous and told my parents that I had gotten on much-needed medication to help with my recent challenges, and one of my parents exclaimed, “You don’t need medication! If you just exercise, read your scriptures, eat healthy and pray then you won’t need to be on it!”
At the time, their reaction absolutely devastated me. I was, indeed, exercising, reading scriptures, eating (mostly) healthy and praying my heart out.
Here are some falsehoods that existed in my world at that time:
- Righteousness is tied to happiness. Wickedness never was happiness (Alma 41: 10-11).
- Therapy and medication are for weak people. This was my outlook on mental health–only people who are not disciplined and who are probably making bad choices will struggle with their mental health.
- If you are feeling depressed, then it’s your own fault and you need to take action, talk to Heavenly Father more, and examine your life for things you need to repent of.
- If you are grateful and express that gratitude, then you won’t be depressed.
These ideals were ingrained in me, and I absolutely judged others for having any mental health struggles. So, this response from a parent broke my heart but also did not surprise me. Today my heart goes out to anyone who was raised that way. Being raised with those ideals is potentially very harmful. Is there some truth to those statements? Absolutely. But if I had let those mindsets on medication rule my life, I worry about where I would be today.
Elder Holland’s talk “Like A Broken Vessel” in 2013 was groundbreaking. That General Conference talk gave members of the church permission to start seeing depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues as conditions to be treated and talked about versus my default reaction–to suffer in silence and feel ashamed and unworthy. Now, the church offers several mental health education resources and even emotional resiliency classes.
Many have situational depression or Seasonal Affective Disorder and perhaps can wean off of medication eventually. Others depend on medication just to get through each day. Women have hormonal challenges through menstruation, pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause and menopause that include mental health difficulties. I have tried going off of my medication a few times through the years, and have always come back to it. I feel more like myself when I am on it. I am so incredibly grateful for the decreased stigma associated with depression and anxiety since the year 2012. And as it turned out, this parent got on the same medication that I did shortly after that conversation. I hope that with my vulnerability and openness in sharing my struggles and getting on medication they could find the courage to do the same. And I hope the same for any of you.
I am curious–did any of you grow up with those same inaccurate and harmful ideals in your family or church circles? Have you felt any shame for having depression/anxiety?
11 Responses
A comment was made in my relief society recently that all negative feelings come from satan. No one challenged this idea and the teacher even referenced it later in the lesson (To need fair, I didn’t offer another viewpoint. This was in part related to the challenges of being almost the only one who will speak up).
We all experience blind spots, usually in the area that we have no problems with. Once we live through a particular adversity, we become more sensitive to the issue in our own and other’s lives. Depression, financial lack, family problems, unemployment all take on a new perspective with experience. I would be a much better bishop now after my life experiences, but it would s a duty I would never seek.
What a beautiful post. Thank you for sharing. I’ve watched young mothers I love suffer from depression and we didn’t have language or resources or understanding about what was happening to them and then the resulting shame of “what is wrong with me?” And “I’m a terrible mother” — until now! Also, growing up, my mom suffered from clinical depression but never received medical help or medication until after I left the house. I’m so so glad that culture and society is changing and becoming more informed about the real and often invisible suffering of women, mothers, and people with mental illness.???????? Thanks for sharing your experience. This is how we continue to change our culture!
Thank you for sharing your experiences in this lovely, vulnerable post. I’m so glad you found the medication that helped you. It’s distressing when people see it as (or are taught that) it’s a moral failing to take medication for things like depression. I think I was taught that through LDS culture and I internalized a bit of that shame myself growing up. I’m glad I know better now.
But I know that these ideas are still around in LDS culture. Within the last decade we had a special stake fireside with a psychologist whose message basically boiled down to, “You can pray the gray away.” It was horrifying.
That way of thinking “if you have enough faith you will be healed,” as you aptly describe it, was pervasive in my home growing up. The lack of anti anxiety of antidepressant care left several family members with intergenerational scars.
To those who still think this way, I use the following counter argument “would you deny life saving daily medication to an epileptic?” or “would you deny glasses or corrective lenses to someone with extreme myopia?” God gives each of us some weakness or other and we make the best of it and we pick up our crosses and follow Christ, but that doesn’t mean we forgo those things (I.e. medications, glasses, etc) that support us in our weakness.
I made the following comment to a family member this past week, that perhaps some simply cannot function without that aid (I.e. RX, glasses, crutches, surgery, brace, etc.) . Some simply cannot feel the spirit without that RX. Why would we deny them that balm until we are each healed someday by Christ?
I’m so impressed you continued to find care after being turned away. It is scary to seek care and admit you need help mentally. I found that for myself when seeking a therapist to talk to. I was so intimidated and the push i needed came in the form of a women in a PTA meeting talking about seeing a therapist. I thought, if she is openly admitting this, that can seek help too.
I’m so glad you got the help that you needed, and amazed at the example you set for your parents!
After years of infertility and many interventions including infertility we decided to be done with trying to get pregnant. My husband was graduating from law school and we were moving across the country without bar results or a job. We beat our furniture there and slept on the floor. It was a very dark time. One morning I got a feeling my parents were going to die, I immediately got on a plane and flew to see them. I told my mom I had a feeling, a spiritual impression that something horrible was coming. My mom looked at me and said, “I think this is medical, not spiritual “. They got me into their doctor the next day and he said this was a classic panic attack. I wasn’t so sure until he gave me a pill and my “spiritual impression of doom” went away. That was over 20 years ago and I got on antidepressants and take anxiety meds as needed. Mental illness is no different than physical illness, we need meds.
I read Silent Souls Weeping by Jane Clayson Johnson years later and immediately put together a book study. We need to understand depression and mental illness and never let anyone make us feel less than or weak because we didn’t “pray it away”.
Including IVF it should say
Thanks for sharing all this! Wow, but you and your son’s experience sounds just exhausting and soul-crushing. I’m so glad you were able to persist and get help with an anti-depressant!
I also learned from more fundamentalist-leaning voices that help for mental health concerns was decidedly suspect, if not downright satanic. I’m a fellow depression sufferer, and I’m thankful that others in my family who suffered earlier broke the ground and normalized getting therapy and/or medication. Like you, I really need my anti-depressant to make life feel like it’s worth living at all. I’m glad LDS stigma around mental health issues has declined, but of course, leaders’ unwillingness to disavow anything means that all the old talks are always lurking, ready to ambush unwary searchers.
Beautifully written and so relatable. Having a baby or young child with complex medical issues is so so hard, especially when you have to cause them distress when helping them. I’m so glad you advocated for yourself, got on medication, and are a continuing advocate for mental health! What a blessing for you and for your family.