The first time it happened was in middle school, and I didn't really understand what was going on then. I just knew that everything was dark, and it was weird, and I don't know. Things were just off. And then it wasn't until my senior year of high school, when I kind of slipped into it again, that I realized, "OK, this is not normal. This is not good. This is something that needs to be addressed." So I got a medication, and I was like, "Cool. This is great. This is something that I did once that was hard, and now I'm over it." And I went to college and then went on my mission. And you come home from the mission feeling like you can just, like, conquer the entire world and that you're just going to be perfect, right? And a few months later, things started to feel off again. And I should have recognized it because I'd been through it before, but I didn't. I just knew that all of a sudden, I didn't really care about work. I didn't care about school. I was avoiding my friends. I was avoiding my family. And I would just go to school and go to work and then come home and just sleep or just cry in my bed. And I didn't know what was going on. And I was afraid, because I was off my mission, that it was because I wasn't living righteously enough and it was because I wasn't studying my scriptures enough, and this was what the lack of the Spirit felt like. But that's not it. And so at the end of that semester, I crashed really badly. It was like as soon as I didn't have to go to school anymore, I just gave up and I just stayed in my bed. And I couldn't make myself get up to feed myself or to, I don't know, answer the phone. I couldn't do anything. I just sat in bed, and that's all that I could do. And you feel dead. You feel like--at first it really hurts, and then after a while it just feels numb. And I felt like I was just kind of an empty shell of a person walking around, that the rest of me was dead, but I was still in a shell, still pretending to be alive. But when you're in that position, you get to the point that you think, "Well, why? Why am I even pretending? What's the point in pretending if I'm pretty much already gone anyway?" And that's when you start just wishing that you could not exist anymore. And it's not even that I wanted to die, because I believed in a life after death, and I didn't want to keep going ever. I just wanted to be completely wiped from existence because that's the only thing that could make me stop hurting like I was. I think that the hardest things, the saddest things, is that--like I said, you feel numb for a while. But then every now and then, it's like all the emotions you haven't been feeling just kind of, like, rush at you. And I would just be crippled by emotional pain, and I didn't know you could hurt that badly. It's like physical pain, but it's not. And I would just sit there, and everything was so dark, and I would just hurt so much. And there's nothing I could do about it. You just hurt, and that's all you can do. And you feel so trapped, and you feel so helpless. I tried, you know, "I'm going to read my scriptures more," or "I'm going to have a better attitude," or "I'm going to try to serve other people more, because that will make me happier, and that'll fix this." And it doesn't. Not that those aren't good things to do, but you can't solve a medical issue by helping other people. And so I tried everything I knew how to make it stop hurting, and it just didn't. And that's when you crash and you just sit in bed and just think about, "How great it would be if I could just not be alive anymore."

I went to a doctor and, you know, explained what was going on. And we tried some different prescriptions until we found one that was working, and that's great. It took a little trial and error to find something that was working. I also got really into exercise because exercise is really supposed to help too. And that was another way to just kind of outlet all of my feelings. I was thinking, "I'm just going to try everything that I can. I'm going do everything that I can and then hope that God takes care of the rest." But you cling to the idea that there could be hope. And that--yeah, you just hope for hope. So even if you can't hope, hope for hope and keep going, even if it's just for one more day. And then eventually, after a really long, dark tunnel, you start to see light and you start to feel light again and you start to feel joy again. So just because it doesn't end soon, and just because it feels like it's never going to end, just know that it does.

When you're in the middle of depression, your brain is not functioning normally. But I have to remember, like, "This is not me speaking. This is not how things actually are. This is just how they feel right now." And so being able to recognize the difference between depression thoughts and normal thinking is really important because I think that's how you keep yourself grounded and realize things aren't what they seem. I felt like Heavenly Father was disappointed in me and that He--I thought, you know, "OK, yeah, He probably loves me, but I think He probably just looks at me and is just disappointed. He sees one of His children that He wants to be better, that's just not. And He sees that I can't get out of bed in the morning, and He sees that the thought of talking to someone makes me ill, that I can't reach out to people, I can't help other people, I can't even help myself. And He's probably just so disappointed in me." And that's when you feel so broken, when you realize that you can't do anything. You can't be yourself. And that's when you feel just so, so broken. And I don't know exactly how I learned this, but Heavenly Father really just does love us for our intrinsic value as His children--that He does not love us because of our strengths or weaknesses or because of anything we do or anything we don't do. It's not something we deserve, and it's not something that we earn. And there's nothing we could do to make it go away. It just is. And it's always going to be there. And so when I realized that even though I felt like this pile of brokenness on the floor, that Heavenly Father still loved me, I think that's when I was able to then realize that I was worth loving and it was worth getting better. And that's when I let the Savior start to heal me and realized that I'm feeling a lot of pain and that this is really hard, and it didn't go away immediately like I wanted it to. But the Savior's pain didn't either. He suffered more than anyone else, and He didn't do anything wrong. And so when I realized that He had suffered so much that He didn't deserve, that it was OK that my suffering wasn't ending, because then I could love Him more and appreciate Him more. And I felt a lot closer to Him because of that. And then when you think that Jesus felt that in an immeasurable amount, and He did it for me because He loves me, is an incredible thought because when I was in that pain, I just wanted it to end. I didn't care about anything else except for making it end. But Christ did it because He loved me. And I'm grateful that Christ was there for me when I was going through this, even though I didn't feel like He was. For most of it, I felt like He wasn't there and that He was just like, "Sorry, I'm busy with other people. You can do it on your own." But I realized that He was there the whole time and that He was loving me the whole time. And knowing that gives me a lot more strength to go forward and move on. And I realize that if this does come back and I continue to struggle with it, I know that the Savior is going to be right there with me always. I know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of all mankind, that He knows and loves every single person that lives or has ever lived, and that the Father loves us just like the Son does. And I just love the Savior so much, and I'm so grateful for everything that He was willing to suffer for me. [MUSIC PLAYING]