From YA Weekly
How Can I Find Joy When Depression Has Left Me Numb?
We were sent to this mortal life to have joy.
During bouts of depression, I find it difficult to see meaning in my life. When even my favorite activities become dull, I feel like giving up and going back to bed. I spend days—sometimes weeks—without the ability to feel much of anything.
During such times, it’s hard to remember that things will get better, and I find myself asking:
How can I find joy when I can’t seem to feel anything at all?
Accept Your Emotions
Usually the last thing I want to do when I’m depressed is talk or think about how I’m feeling. However, I’ve noticed that accepting my emotions often helps me find relief. This includes accepting that I’ll feel bad sometimes while also accepting that I’m allowed to feel joy.
I recently learned of a technique used in baking sourdough loaves called scoring. Bakers create beautiful patterns in the outer layer of the prepared dough before baking. The patterns made in the dough allow a natural place for steam to escape and for the bread to expand during the baking process. Without scoring, the bread would split and burst in undesired locations.
Like a sourdough loaf that hasn’t been scored, holding back painful emotions caused by depression (or steam), causes my emotions to numb and eventually explode. Without a healthy place to release, these emotions cause hurt and damage to myself and others, furthering the negative, numbing cycle of depression.
Just like scoring bread, I’ve had to find healthy ways to release emotions—either through talking about them, prayer, exercising, art, attending the temple, or other means. It can be painful—like opening wounds I’d rather leave closed—but doing so lets me process the emotions I’m feeling, freeing me from them. Only then does the numbness seem to loosen its hold. I begin to feel life’s joy again.
Opening up about feelings can feel impossible when depression holds you in its grip. But with the Savior’s help, it is possible to let out sadness and depression and make room for joy. Like President Jeffrey R. Holland, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said, “Please remember tomorrow, and all the days after that, that the Lord blesses those who want to improve.” The simple desire to find joy is a great starting place.
God Created Us to Experience Joy
When I feel the cloud of depression hanging over me, I often turn to 2 Nephi 2:25: “Men are, that they might have joy.”
OK, so we’re here to have joy. But that doesn’t seem very comforting when depression makes it so hard to feel. Earlier in the chapter, however, we learn that without opposition we would “remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery” (2 Nephi 2:11).
So we wouldn’t know good existed without experiencing the bad. In fact, without opposition, we wouldn’t feel anything. We would be numb forever. Those hard times are necessary for us to have and recognize joy at all.
It’s hard to believe such painful experiences could possibly be beneficial—but I would not want to spend eternity in such a state of endless monotony with no progress. My times of sadness, pain, and numbness are exactly what allow me to rejoice when I feel joy with my family, mountain biking, reading, or through daily repentance.
Christ Knows You
President Bonnie H. Cordon, former Young Women General President, taught, “[Jesus Christ] knows our suffering … and calls, Bring forth the anxious and depressed, the weary, the prideful and misunderstood, the lonely, or those who ‘are afflicted in any manner.’”
I love my Savior. I know He suffered and died for me personally. Turning to Him will allow you to overcome anything you face—even the overpowering fears that depression can bring. You may think you’re alone at times, but Christ will not forget you, for he has “graven thee upon the palms of [his] hands” (Isaiah 49:16). He sacrificed His life for you, and He was perfect. If He believes in you enough to do that, then there is certainly hope that joy will come.
If you feel that the darkness will never end, please remember President Holland’s words: “In a world that so desperately needs all the light it can get, please do not minimize the eternal light God put in your soul before this world was. Talk to someone. Ask for help. … Help is available, from others and especially from God. You are loved and valued and needed.”
For me, asking God for help is often the first step out of depression’s cycle, and like climbing a mountain, sometimes I just have to focus on the next step. I know that through Christ I will feel joy again as long as I continue taking steps on the path of discipleship.