More background on me

Last updated 11/30/17

So, a bit more background on me. I was raised in Utah, full blown LDS. I graduated seminary and everything between. It was during high school that I started noticing that I had some issues with depression, but was able to focus on school and my 1-2 close friends to help keep me sane.

At 19 I went on my mission. I was sent to the “southern” United States, AKA, the “Bible Belt”. We joked that we did less converting as we did defending the church. While we didn’t like to “bible bash,” we usually fell into it as just something to do. On the best of days we would teach a lesson or two. In my “best” areas we would have maybe 4-5 “investigators” at any given time. We always seemed to have 1 or 2 people who liked having us over for “bible study” as they called it, but never moved on past that point. I guess I can be a bit more specific these days, I was in the Arkansas, Little Rock mission. At that time (not sure if boundaries have changed or not) we covered Arkansas minus the West and South boarders, the bottom tail of Missouri, Tennessee as far east as Jackson, and the top bit of Mississippi including Oxford (I don't remember if Tupelo was in the mission or not, been too long now).

            Bible bashing became less of a dirty word as the mission went on. It was hot, and humid. So if they invited us in, we took them up on it. There were many instances where I knew that going into the house was just going to end up in a bash session, but they had air conditioning, and I was cooking in my own skin.

            At the end of my mission I looked back at it with a new set of eyes. You hear guys talk about how it is the “best two years” and that they would “give anything to go back to it again.” No, I didn’t say that. I would say that I learned a lot during those 2 years, mostly about myself, and more about how the human mind works through problems surrounding religion. But you couldn’t get me to go back and do it again for a million dollars (a billion, maybe).

            During the mission I again felt some depression issues come on. But like they say, “Forget yourself and get to work,” or some line like that. So I did. It didn’t stop the depression, but I just pushed through anyway. 2 years feels a lot longer when this is the mentality you have, trust me.

            After getting home I did the normal dating and marriage thing. I did find the love of my life. Looking back as we were both in college, I don’t know how we survived, literally. But we made it through both earning our bachelor’s degrees. From there I had planned on going further with school. During my last year of undergrad, I spent a lot of time and money applying to professional schools across the country. I took the entrance exams, I did the interviews, jumped through all the hoops.

            We ended up getting to choose between a few different schools that we would spend the next 4 years of our life at. I think we ended up picking the perfect one, and so we moved to the Midwest for our “next chapter” as it were.

            The church was simpler there. We lived among other students, many of them LDS from Utah and surrounding "inter-mountain" states. They were in a similar situation as we were. New-ish families, away from “home” and families. They became some great friends. Outside of these individuals, the rest of the ward was the “locals.” Many of these folks were converts, or had only been in the church for a generation or two. Because of this, church was not the headache that it seems to be in Utah. Without fail, we would have some very strange doctrine taught or brought up in classes. So there seemed to be a lot of time spent building the basics of the gospel. They didn’t go too deep, they just didn’t have enough water to even try.

            Following school we again moved for a quick time to finish training in my final discipline. This was a trying time for us. The ward here was a fair bit more stable, not used to having students move in and out every 3-4 years. And it almost seemed that since we wouldn’t be there that long, the locals didn’t want to bother getting to know us. It was a crappy time.

            Luckily I was able to land a job back near family at the end of training. We came back to Utah. It was then that I really came to hate the “Utah Mormons” and the culture that they truly have.

            Utah Mormons are their own special breed. Many of them have deep roots in the church. They are cocky, and full of themselves. No, I’m not speaking about every single person, but as a group, they sure appeared that way to me. It was back in Utah that I started to try and distance myself a bit from the church. I didn’t want to be like that, that mentality.
          Making friends as a couple is hard. First, you have to find someone who both you and your significant other like. Then you have to ensure that your kids get along with their kids. We ended up getting VERY lucky. We made some amazing friends in our new neighborhood with some “previously LDS” individuals and their kids.

They were awesome. They knew where I was coming from when I needed to whine about the church. They understood the lingo that the church has. They were chill. They didn’t pressure us into anything, and we didn’t pressure them either. We had a mutual understanding of each other, where we all stood in life, and what we actually believed in.

So, here we are, back near family (as was always the goal after school). Working, had some fantastic friends, doing well overall, what a perfect time for that depression, that has always been camping out somewhere in my head, to come out again. This time however, I knew that it was not going to be something that I could ignore. I gave in and started treatment. Depression sucks, there is no clear cut treatment. There are a slew of medications, and every one of them has its own pros and cons. During the search for what medication worked for me, I dropped lower than I had ever been up until that point. It was bad, I didn’t feel anything, and that alone was scary.

After some trial and error, we finally found a combination of medications that worked for me. Enough to get me back to a point where I wasn’t in trouble of killing myself. I was able to find a better situation for work, and that helped a bunch.

As life has it, we ended up moving again for a new job, as did our friends shortly after we left the neighborhood. They moved across the entire country, we just moved valleys. This time the house we found was in a VERY new neighborhood. I’m talking first house on the street new. The ward was the same way. It consisted of a few new developments that were constantly bringing in new people. Entirely too many opportunities to serve as a moving crew.

Here, being the first in the neighborhood, there is no one to make friends with. That’s a hard thing to do under the best of circumstances, finding a family that your family gets along with. Both husbands and wives getting along, kids of similar ages as well as able to get along too, nearly impossible. But this situation, being the first house on the street, whole new level of being alone.

The ward wasn’t much help. As wards go, it was typical Utah. The EQ president seems overly full of himself. The RS president seems cool, not that it affects me so much as my wife. The primary president is a total joke; while she has kids of her own, she clearly has no idea how to work WITH the children. The Bishopric is another story.

While I haven’t had many run-ins with the counselors, the bishop I have talked with on a semi regular basis. He comes across as more business oriented, much less “touch-feely” style. He is a nice enough guy, but more focused on getting it done than the path that is required. Which for me, I understood. But for many others, it rubbed them the wrong way.

So that brings us to this point. It was during this transition period that while some things were going alright, others were not. As part of the not, my depression had once again flared up, bad. So bad that I ended up spending a week as an inpatient for safety (suicidal, plan and everything) and to be monitored at a hospital facility. Quick note on that, while it was great for me mentally, it would have been just as effective, and much cheaper, to have just flown to the Caribbean for a week. 

Through a series of other things, I came to be challenged/instructed to read the Book of Mormon within the next year, I did it twice in the next 4 months. And this is where, if you are following along at home, you can pick up the story with the post, My Letter.

Again, more information can be found via https://www.reddit.com/u/anyonehaveanswers