As my time as a non-medical student draws to a close, I have been going through my things. I have a lot of paperwork and other crap generally every where. I've come across some treasures though.
My grandmother on my dad's side is a huge scrapbooker. When all of her granddaughters were young she got each of them a box of scrapbooking material. I recently cleaned out boxes from my mother's house as she is preparing to move houses. In one of the boxes I found my scrapbooking box. Inside it were old photos. I looked through them more thoroughly today and came across pictures of each of my siblings when I was in high school. I even have one of my brother who passed away last year. I cried for a bit at that. The picture was taken when he was a teenager and though troubled he did not suffer from the schizophrenia that would later lead him to take his life.
I also found an old journal. As an uncommitted journal-writer, the journal spans the years of 2001-2004, almost my whole time in junior high school. It's a pretty depressing read really. It has the normal stuff - crushes and fights with friends and fights with my mother and feelings of remorse and struggles with body image and questions about spirituality and the reality of God - and it has some stuff I think is now more normal but at the time less so - my struggle with feelings of depression. Some of the entries made me cry as I read them this morning. A young girl who really struggled. "Why do I feel this way?" I wrote. "I miss my old happy self." "Why does nothing make me happy?" There was a note from seminary where the other people in the class are supposed to write something nice about you - people did say some nice things. One of the young men had written, "You seem so happy all the time!"
It confuses me how humans become so good at hiding their true feelings. How is it that we are so disconnected from each other that we don't see sadness underneath the surface?
After going through my journal and photos, I moved on to binders I had. One was made by me on my mission. I called it my Happy Binder and it's full of letters and talks about the choice of happiness. At one point in my mission, I had been out a little over a year, I was really struggling. I became obsessed with my blessing that I had received when set apart as a missionary and I mailed my stake president at home seeking anything he could remember. He wrote back within two weeks and his letter was perfect. He had prayed for help as he could remember little (he was quite busy and it had been over a year). What he could remember was enough - that I had been "blessed with a cheerful, happy demeanor which will entice others to ask questions about you and the Church and what you represent as a missionary." He prompted me to make that choice - that the ability to choose how I react to situations would be a blessing to me throughout all my life and all my choices. He told me to make my service "as selfless as you can. When we truly give selfless service, we become like our Savior, Jesus Christ." And I took his words and ran with them and finished my mission proudly and more happily.
The other binder I read partly through was one my aunt had put together as a gift - the emails I had sent home while a missionary in VA.
As I read through the emails I sent home for the last two transfers of my mission (three months), I was overcome with emotion. I was happy and I was determined to work hard (to "sprint across the finish line" of my mission rather than lumbering along languidly). I shared about the people I taught and had come to love. ("I just love seeing God's children turn their lives to him. It's such a special moment. Especially when it is an individual you have worked SO hard with and have come to love so much that eternal life is your ONLY desire for them!! The Church is true. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored. It is a blessing to preach the gospel to God's children and I thank Him for letting me see countless miracles come out of my missionary service.") I bore powerful testimony of the reality of the love of God for his children, of his plan for our success and happiness and power through trials. I talked about my confusion over feeling both relief that my mission was ending and intense sadness and anxiety about leaving a place and work and people I loved so much.
The difference between my depressed teen self who struggled every day to feel anything and my missionary self is astounding. Hindsight is amazing, isn't it? I wish my missionary self could have written to my depressed self and told her how amazing her life would become, how many lives she would touch for the better, how beautiful she would find the world around her and the people she encountered.
And while that's not possible, I can reflect on what that letter would say and apply it to my down days which we all have and will continue to experience through life.
People say you can't choose to not feel anxiety or feel depression. I actually don't agree with that. The power of choice is the most amazing thing about being a human being and the ability to choose how we react and feel is the most important decision we make every day. As a teen who was struggling with so much and was very wrapped up in her own self, I'm not sure I had the tools to choose not to feel so sad and depressed. But I definitely can as an adult, when those feelings of depression and my struggles with body image try to stick their heads up. Some days it's easier than others and I still make choices that aren't always the best. But I do know that the next day will come, with the chance to choose anew.
'William James, a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher, wrote, "The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."' (Thomas S. Monson's 'Living the Abundant Life': https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/01/living-the-abundant-life?lang=eng)
My grandmother on my dad's side is a huge scrapbooker. When all of her granddaughters were young she got each of them a box of scrapbooking material. I recently cleaned out boxes from my mother's house as she is preparing to move houses. In one of the boxes I found my scrapbooking box. Inside it were old photos. I looked through them more thoroughly today and came across pictures of each of my siblings when I was in high school. I even have one of my brother who passed away last year. I cried for a bit at that. The picture was taken when he was a teenager and though troubled he did not suffer from the schizophrenia that would later lead him to take his life.
 |
| David and Kirsten Snell - about 2000? |
I also found an old journal. As an uncommitted journal-writer, the journal spans the years of 2001-2004, almost my whole time in junior high school. It's a pretty depressing read really. It has the normal stuff - crushes and fights with friends and fights with my mother and feelings of remorse and struggles with body image and questions about spirituality and the reality of God - and it has some stuff I think is now more normal but at the time less so - my struggle with feelings of depression. Some of the entries made me cry as I read them this morning. A young girl who really struggled. "Why do I feel this way?" I wrote. "I miss my old happy self." "Why does nothing make me happy?" There was a note from seminary where the other people in the class are supposed to write something nice about you - people did say some nice things. One of the young men had written, "You seem so happy all the time!"
 |
| 2006 |
It confuses me how humans become so good at hiding their true feelings. How is it that we are so disconnected from each other that we don't see sadness underneath the surface?
After going through my journal and photos, I moved on to binders I had. One was made by me on my mission. I called it my Happy Binder and it's full of letters and talks about the choice of happiness. At one point in my mission, I had been out a little over a year, I was really struggling. I became obsessed with my blessing that I had received when set apart as a missionary and I mailed my stake president at home seeking anything he could remember. He wrote back within two weeks and his letter was perfect. He had prayed for help as he could remember little (he was quite busy and it had been over a year). What he could remember was enough - that I had been "blessed with a cheerful, happy demeanor which will entice others to ask questions about you and the Church and what you represent as a missionary." He prompted me to make that choice - that the ability to choose how I react to situations would be a blessing to me throughout all my life and all my choices. He told me to make my service "as selfless as you can. When we truly give selfless service, we become like our Savior, Jesus Christ." And I took his words and ran with them and finished my mission proudly and more happily.
The other binder I read partly through was one my aunt had put together as a gift - the emails I had sent home while a missionary in VA.
As I read through the emails I sent home for the last two transfers of my mission (three months), I was overcome with emotion. I was happy and I was determined to work hard (to "sprint across the finish line" of my mission rather than lumbering along languidly). I shared about the people I taught and had come to love. ("I just love seeing God's children turn their lives to him. It's such a special moment. Especially when it is an individual you have worked SO hard with and have come to love so much that eternal life is your ONLY desire for them!! The Church is true. The Gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored. It is a blessing to preach the gospel to God's children and I thank Him for letting me see countless miracles come out of my missionary service.") I bore powerful testimony of the reality of the love of God for his children, of his plan for our success and happiness and power through trials. I talked about my confusion over feeling both relief that my mission was ending and intense sadness and anxiety about leaving a place and work and people I loved so much.
 |
| 2011 with J. Nerdin |
The difference between my depressed teen self who struggled every day to feel anything and my missionary self is astounding. Hindsight is amazing, isn't it? I wish my missionary self could have written to my depressed self and told her how amazing her life would become, how many lives she would touch for the better, how beautiful she would find the world around her and the people she encountered.
And while that's not possible, I can reflect on what that letter would say and apply it to my down days which we all have and will continue to experience through life.
People say you can't choose to not feel anxiety or feel depression. I actually don't agree with that. The power of choice is the most amazing thing about being a human being and the ability to choose how we react and feel is the most important decision we make every day. As a teen who was struggling with so much and was very wrapped up in her own self, I'm not sure I had the tools to choose not to feel so sad and depressed. But I definitely can as an adult, when those feelings of depression and my struggles with body image try to stick their heads up. Some days it's easier than others and I still make choices that aren't always the best. But I do know that the next day will come, with the chance to choose anew.
'William James, a pioneering American psychologist and philosopher, wrote, "The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."' (Thomas S. Monson's 'Living the Abundant Life': https://www.lds.org/ensign/2012/01/living-the-abundant-life?lang=eng)
Comments