There are always answers

Always answers

5/17/18

So, in therapy yesterday I had a revelation of sorts. There are always answers. For what I do, what I see, and what I question in life, there are always answers. Now, this may not be the case in everything in life. There are many questions that people are asking for which there is no answer, at least as of yet. These topics are lately around black holes, and deep space topics, and they are not what I mean when I say, “There are always answers.”

I am referring to those things we deal with on more of a daily basis. Life as we know it. There is always an answer. Sure, sometimes that answer might change as new learning comes out. At one point in history, the answer was that the sun revolved around the earth. But there was an answer.

In my profession, in the medical field, there is always an answer. If you have an infection ‘Y’, we know that drug(s) ‘A-C’ will work, and depending on other possible factors, we have a few options to treat you. Sometimes, especially within the mental health realm, we don’t know exactly what will be the drug that will make the difference for the patient, but something will. We just have to take the time to trial and error our multiple options until something works. But in the end, there is something that will help, 99.9% of the time.

When I started to think more about this revelation I have had, I started to look at other aspects of my life in a similar light. My current marriage problems, my issues with the church, and my own mental health being the top three items. And it still stands true.

I’ll start with my own mental health, because really, we need to make sure that we are set before we go out and try to work on other topics/subjects/items in our lives. For me, I struggle with depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts. My full diagnosis is severe depression with suicidal ideation. As of late, I have literally had to fight a battle within my own head to not kill, or at least want to kill, myself on a daily (sometimes multiple times a day) basis. Depression is something that I have had for a very long time. But have not taken the time to be honest with myself and seek help until rather recently.

For me currently, we are still in the seeking process of the answer to what medication(s) will be the one(s) that help me to rise above the darkness in my own mind. Right now, as I am typing this, I am in the process of coming off of drug #3, and starting on #4. Let me tell you, the trial and error sucks!

Most of these medications take 6-8 weeks to make any noticeable difference to the individual. I’m not including the possibility of the placebo effect that some patients do experience. I ignore that because I don’t have it, likely due to my intimate knowledge of these medications, how they work, and how your body responds to them. Now, while they may take that long to “kick-in,” the possible side-effects can start to happen much sooner. There also are multiple side-effects one encounters as they stop one of these medications. This is why they almost always come with the warning to not stop them abruptly, and to council with your doctor prior to discontinuing them.

The process of discontinuing a medication will depend on the medication itself, the dose, and how you personally respond to it. Everyone has a different chemistry, so no two people will experience the same level of these effects. For me, right now, I am discontinuing a medication that is giving me some really ugly, and rather creepy side-effects as I am slowly decreasing the dose. While the medication databases have a large list of possible side-effects for what is labeled, “Discontinuation Syndrome,” the effect that I have seen that is most annoying to me is usually labeled as, “electric shock-like sensations.”

For me, it really feels like an electrical shock that appears out of nowhere, and usually lasts a couple of seconds. While I have never been electrocuted, or shocked with anything more than an electric fence having grown up on a farm, this is the best way to describe it. It is like getting hit by an electric fence. Much stronger than putting your tongue on a 9 volt battery. It doesn’t always affect the same area of my body, and again, only lasts up to around five seconds.

This may have seemed like a very odd tangent, but there is a reason I went into it. Because of the need to slowly decrease the medication prior to stopping, so as to avoid these Discontinuation Syndrome symptoms; and then the lag time of up to 2 months before you see effects from the new medication, you may only be able to try 4 medications a year. All the while, with each medication that doesn’t work, you are fighting the darkness that much longer. Time is not really a friend to the depressed and suicidal. If you don’t have other ways to help you get out of that slump, this is when I find myself sliding deeper into the darkness.

So, all of this talk about it taking so long to find something to work, all of the side-effects that may very well push you deeper into the darkness itself, where is the positive? The positive is this, there are answers. Because we are each different, there is no one magic pill. But there is something that will work. Yes, it may take time. It might very well take a bit of time being in a facility where you can be monitored and kept safe in the meantime. But there is an answer to be found, eventually.

Now with the church, so many times growing up I remember hearing, “It’s not for us to know that at this time.” “We will have to wait and ask God.” “Maybe we will learn that in the next life.” Yet the entire time, the answer was staring us right in the face. In this type of a situation, it’s not something that needs more research. This isn’t finding new evidence that reverses the old. If this truly is God church, on the earth, and the prophet speaks to God and acts as his mouthpiece, then the answers should be provided. If there is no answer, the church instead resorts to these phrases to push the problem out of mind. Yet the answer is actually right there, looking you straight in the eyes, you just have to be willing to see it. That answer, it’s all made up!

I’m not going to go into a debate of theism or atheism here. My purpose here is to show that those answers that I always seemed to have growing up, and after finding groups of others willing to talk, and admit to it, had those questions too, exist. The answer is relatively simple. If there is “no answer” in this world, then that is the answer to the ultimate question. And you then need to look to a question further up the chain. If they don’t know (or claim at least to know) why the racist teachings of very early prophets continued for so long, then maybe we need to ask, “Was he (they) actually a prophet?”

So, if there is a chance, that, say Brigham Young, was not a prophet, how would we show that? Well, let’s go with the church answer, by their fruits or whatever. So, fruits of BY. Staunch friend of Joseph Smith. Awkward encounters with females whilst in Nauvoo. Not actually named successor by JS (no one else was either), and basically had to fight with other members of the early leadership for control. Lead the people like a “modern day Moses” to the SLC valley. Avid polygamist (including teenage girls while he was in in 50s). Staunch racist. Set up a theocracy where the church ruled all, with an iron fist at that. Evidence suggests he knew of, and approved of the plan for what has since become known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Approved leadership that committed other horrible atrocities (i.e. castration of a young man who was intent on marrying a young lady that a much older leader had his eyes on). Appointed his son to be an apostle (at an extremely young age none the less).

Yes, I have sources for each of these points or claims. If they are needed or wanted, just ask!

So, just looking at this small list, that is a hell of a lot of fruit. Yes, there is plenty more out there. And yeah, I may have cherry picked out mostly bad ones. But, as we learned in the book of Mormon, if one branch of the tree is bad, it will end up corrupting the whole tree. So via that logic, the whole of Brigham Young is bad, and not a true prophet.

So, are there answers to the questions that I have been seeking? Yes, there is. The issue is, it is not an answer that you would be looking for. It doesn’t answer the actual question of, whatever. It doesn’t answer why Got would deny the priesthood to those of African descent for so long, for example. It can’t answer that question, because that question shouldn’t exist because of the real answer. And that answer is that it was all crap. It was a load of crap when polygamy was introduced into the church. It was a load of crap when the priesthood ban was introduced. And, if you really dig into it, you will find that both the first vision, and the Book of Mormon are both a load of crap as well.

There is always an answer. Sometimes is just takes a bit more looking to find it, and the ability to admit that other possibilities exist beyond where you are looking. It also might taking some soul searching in yourself to be able to open up and admit that everything you might believe, could well be wrong. And in my opinion, that takes a lot of humility.