Why It Was Easy To Leave, Part One

These are going to be in no particular order, by the way.

When I was a teenager, I often struggled with depression.  No surprise; I was a teenager, and that kind of thing is perfectly normal.  However, my depression generally coincided with a period of intellectual rebellion from the Church.  I wasn’t living a licentious life of sin or anything (nothing unusually licentious for a teenager at least), but I was critical of the Church and generally did not belive that it was “true.”

When, for a number of reasons, I decided to get my life back on track and go on a mission, the depression eased. I went into a period of my life, almost a decade long, when I was living the gospel and not suffering from severe depression.  Yes, I’d have my moments, but they’d never last.  Generally, I was happy, and I attributed it to living the gospel (well, and to having a sweet, fantastic wife, but I met her through the Church and we were married in the temple so, same thing, right?).

That was fine.  I had no reason to seriously question the gospel or the Church for years, because I was generally contented with my life at the same time that I was living according to the Church’s teachings, and even trying to have a good attitude about it.

Until last year.

Don’t get me wrong; I loved living in New York City.  There are few places like it on earth, and my wife and I (and our baby, who was born there) made some of our most precious memories, and a lot of very good friends, while we were there.

However, for a host of reasons and probably some I still don;t understand, I plunged into the deepest, darkest, most relentless, soul-crushing pit of depression that I have ever been in.  This was not the kind of fog of darkness that comes, settles, and then goes away after awhile.  This despair persisted for most of a year.

During this year, we were active in the Church.  I was magnifying my calling for real for the first time- and it was rewarding (I was the ward mission leader for the Harlem ward).  We made ourselves a part of the community of the ward.  I kept the commandments asbest as I could- even reading the Book of Mormon all the way through like the prophet counseled.  It was the first time I had read the Book of Mormon all the way through, or really with any kind of serious effort, since my mission.

And all the while I was facing daily thoughts of suicide.

I was in the most horrible emotional pain, sometimes so intense that it felt like physical pain, of my entire life.  And the gospel wasn’t helping.  Not even a little bit.

I’ll grant you that it is possible that the gospel helped more than I realize, that without the gospel I would have been far, far worse.  But I can’t know that, and I do know that at no point did I feel like the gospel or the Book of Mormon or even prayer was any kind of solace or port in the storm.  Our bishop was helpful, but that’s because he is one of the best people I have ever known, not because he was the Lord’s anointed.  Mostly what got me through what was arguable the most difficult time of my life was antidepressants, psychotherapy, and my wonderful, wonderful wife (to whom I owe so much).

A major foundation to my testimony was the fact that while living the gospel, my life was so much better.  It was basic Alma 32 seed-plantin’.  But then the darkness of last year came along, despite the fact that I was living the gospel enthusiastically and to the best of my ability.   I know intellectually that bad things still happen to people who live the gospel (blah blah Job, which is in my opinion the least helpful scripture example ever when you’re actually going through hard times), but that isn’t the point.  A fair chunk of my testiony was that the gospel made my life appreciably better.  And all of a sudden it didn’t, not even a little bit.

This didn’t actually play into my thoguht processes until long after my doubts about the Church had fully materialized, but it’s the kind of thing where I look back retrospectively and realize how significant it was.