If you are reading this article, you probably know me. Roberta Hess Park was a big part of my life growing up, and she has allowed me to share my story. I chose to write this anonymously, not out of fear or to protect myself, but because I really, extremely don’t like attention. I warn you that this is long, may not be politically correct and may offend some people. I touch on subjects including depression, suicide, loss of faith and addiction. I hope my story and mistakes can help those struggling with any of these issues or anyone in general.
Growing Up
I was born to a family who gave me everything in the way of physical, mental and spiritual needs. I never lacked for anything and had the best possible childhood I can imagine. I had brothers and sisters who I loved and fought with but who ultimately are now my greatest friends. I was and am very blessed.
As a teenager, I struggled with the normal challenges most people that age have: a desire to fit in, to succeed in sports and school, awkwardness, girls and stress. I had some health problems, but other than that, everything in my life was very good.
Depression
Looking back now I have determined my struggle with depression started somewhere between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I didn’t know what depression was and thought the feelings of sadness, tiredness, lack of desire, an inability to get excited or enjoy myself were normal. My mother seemed to recognize it and would give me self help books on how to be happy and positive. Besides thinking it was weird that she would give me these books, I didn’t really think much about it. I have thought long and often about what triggered it, and I have determined some of the causes, which I won’t go into here. For the sake of this article, it lasted into my early twenties in various degrees of seriousness.
Full-Time Church Mission
The first time I realized I had depression was while serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormon). I talked about it for the first time to my companion who was sympathetic and confessed it to my Mission President who was not. He laughed and said that I was fine, and that if I focused on my mission, all would be well. That hurt a lot and all was not well. At that point I determined not to acknowledge or discuss it with anyone else, and I stayed true to that. I put on a good face, finished my mission, started college and struggled with it until I was 22.
Getting Out of Depression
I’ve studied depression a lot and talked with many close friends and family who have dealt with it. It affects people differently and can come and go without warning. For me it affects my happiness the most. Things that I normally enjoy to do, such as playing sports, reading, video games, hiking or a number of other things, lose their enjoyment. When I am at my worst, food loses its taste and eating becomes monotonous and un-enjoyable.
Thankfully, about a year after returning home from my mission, I attended a Young Adult fireside by James E. Faust, an apostle of the LDS church. After listening to his talk, I felt a great weight lift from me, and I immediately began to truly be happy and enjoy life for the first time in a long time. It was incredible and one of many miracles in my life. I have since tracked down the talk and have no idea why it had the effect on me that so many other things did not have. The timing could not have been better as I met my future wife shortly after. If I had not had that experience, I would not have been in a place to pursue, fall in love with and marry her. She had a very similar experience right before she met me that also put her in a similar state of being. It was not coincidence; it was a miracle in every sense of the word.
The Natural Man
Can a person be born with a pre-disposition to sin, as God defines it? I believe the answer is absolutely yes. Everyone has tendencies within themselves that are against Gods commandments. Whether it is a tendency to anger, dishonesty, laziness, alcoholism, drugs, pornography, same sex attraction or a multitude of other habits, addictions and behaviors, we all have things inside us that put us at odds with our Heavenly Father. In the Book of Mormon King Benjamin calls it the Natural Man (see Mosiah 3: 19). Nephi, a prophet of God, calls himself a “wretched man” and laments about his tendencies to do evil and sin (see 2 Nephi 4: 17-35).
Addiction
My struggle with addiction started when I was 23. Unlike some others, it was not forced upon me and did not happen by accident. It was a choice I made fully knowing that what I was doing was wrong, and which I had been counseled many times not to do. The first time I made that choice, I was immediately hooked and could not break away, no matter how hard I tried. I was able to hide my addiction from those closest to me, and thought I could stop by myself. I was so wrong.
The Darkest Day of My Life
After about 5 months of unsuccessfully trying to stop, I confided my dark secret to my wife and a close friend. Telling my sweet wife was the darkest day of my life. It caught her completely by surprise and in many ways destroyed her emotionally and spiritually. Regardless, she was so amazing and immediately forgave me. However, to be short, she has struggled with severe anxiety, depression and inadequacy most of her life and this amplified all of those mental illnesses immensely. Because of the pain it was causing her and the shame I felt, I went into “hiding” again and secretly continued my addiction. I am very good at not showing emotions. No one that knew me suspected or would have ever thought that anything was wrong. Inside, I wanted to die.
Throughout my addiction I tried many things to try and stop. I studied addiction and the effects that it has on the brain and knew that I could not stop by myself. Satan’s great lie is that you can overcome an addiction by yourself, but I knew that was a lie. I stopped feeling the effects of the spirit and going to church and the temple became a painful experience. I questioned everything I knew and continually battled within myself whether or not I should just stop trying and embrace the addiction as something that was normal. In the world’s eyes, it is normal. It would have been easy to stop trying and forsake everything I knew in my heart to be true. I truly considered putting up walls to not feel the pain, shame and agony of the addiction and make it a normal part of my life.
When you don’t feel the spirit for a prolonged time, it is easy to justify and rationalize almost anything. It is easy to get angry at God and the Church for making you feel so much pain for something the world encourages and accepts as normal. I want to be clear. I felt so much pain and shame from this addiction that I seriously considered killing myself. I was angry at myself for doing something that was against God’s commandments and against everything I had been raised to believe and knew to be true. The teachings of the church can put you in conflict with yourself because of the feelings and tendencies you have that are against God’s commandments. It is extremely painful and can bring a lot of shame, confusion, resentment and anger. I continually thought to myself, why would God put desires within me that were so strong that I couldn’t overcome? I wanted so badly to be at peace within myself and to enjoy life again.
Suicide & Forsaking Faith
While in this state, many people struggle with the choice of what to do. You can kill yourself and end the pain. Many people take this route, and after going through what I have, I will never judge them for that choice. They honestly, although erroneously, think their family and friends will be better off without them. When you are at your lowest low suicide seems like the best way out.
Another choice is to forsake everything you were taught in the church and at some point believed. This choice can bring relief and allows people to move forward in life by embracing their natural desires and tendencies. Once again, I will not judge people who choose this route. It is their choice, and they truly want to be free of the pain, guilt and shame that they feel every day.
Both of these choices can be very difficult for family and friends to accept and understand. It can cause the same feelings of pain, guilt and shame that the person who made the choice feels. Family and friends also need the same amount of love, respect and understanding that the person making the choice needs.
A Life Saving Choice
The last choice that I want to talk about is also very difficult and requires a lot of time, pain and struggle. First though, I need to continue on with my experience.
After struggling in my addiction for about 5 years after I initially confessed it to my wife, a series of events that I consider miracles happened in my family’s life. About two years ago as I was at the worst point in my addiction and struggle; I was seriously contemplating taking my life and ending the pain and shame that I felt. My wife was struggling with serious anxiety and had recently confessed to me that one night she almost took her life. That night she pulled out a bottle of medication and was moments away from downing the entire bottle in an attempt to end her life. I don’t know what stopped her, but I consider it a great miracle in my life that she did stop. However, after she told this to me, I determined I could never tell her that I was still addicted in fear that it would push her over the edge. Thankfully, we were able to seek out help for her from a caring bishop who recommended a wonderful Therapist. Through therapy and by completely relying on the atonement she was able to make huge strides to overcome her mental illnesses.
As my wife was getting help for her problems, I continued to struggle within myself of how and when to seek the help I knew I needed to be able to overcome my addiction. It terrified me to think about confessing to my wife again, and I was still worried about what it would do to her. Once again, I contemplated ending my life and truly felt it would be easier on my family then the pain I would cause from confessing my addiction. A few things stopped me from doing this: my love of my wife, my child and a miraculous intervention from someone I had never met before. I had been sincerely praying for over a year on what course I should take. I hadn’t felt the spirit for a long time and was to the point of giving up on my belief that God cared or was hearing me.
A Life-Saving Miracle
It was at this time that I got an unexpected call to meet with my bishop that week. We had been in the ward for a couple of months and I’d never spoken to him before. He was a new bishop of a newly created ward, and I imagine he was completely overwhelmed with everything. I expected a calling or an assignment to speak in church. I went to the meeting, sat in the chair across from him and these words came out of his mouth, “I don’t know why I called you here today. I saw you walk in at the back of the church the other day and had a strong impression that I needed to talk to you. Do you know why?” I cannot begin to explain how those words saved me, spiritually and physically. I will forever be grateful to that Bishop for listening to the Spirit. If he hadn’t, I don’t know where I would be today, or if I would even be alive. I told him my story, why I was keeping it a secret from my family, and he agreed to meet with me each week in secret until we could figure out the best course of action to take.
A Miracle of Getting Fired
The next miracle happened in an unexpected way. My wife got fired from her job through some unexplainable events at her work. It caught us off guard and put us in a difficult position financially. We determined to sell our house, downsize and make it work off of my salary alone. We had tried to sell our house the previous year for 6 months with no interest. After my wife was fired we put it on the market at a higher price than what we had previously listed it at, and within a week we sold the house! The amount we sold it for was almost exactly the amount we needed to pay off a huge student loan and other debt. This allowed us to be able to downsize enough to live on my salary alone. It was truly a miracle. The greatest effect of my wife being fired was on her mental health. She was much less anxious, stressed or depressed, even though we could no longer afford to continue her therapy sessions. Mentally, she was in the best place she had been in a long time.
The Darkest Day – Part Two
The second darkest and hardest day of my life was when I confessed to my wife the second time. Once again it caught her completely off guard, but because she was stronger and is such an amazing person, she forgave me again, and we determined to do whatever it took to overcome this. To her everlasting credit, she decided to save our family and me. Years ago I had decided that I would never blame her for wanting to leave me when she discovered the truth. She would be completely justified in my eyes, and I would have supported her in her decision. Thankfully, she chose to fight for our family, and I love her more than she can ever know for that decision.
My Recovery
Now we come to the last decision I want to discuss. It is the decision to completely surrender everything to Jesus Christ. Like the other choices we discussed, this one is hard, but in a different way. It requires a complete change of heart and habits. It requires forsaking an addiction that is now a part of me. Those who are addicted need their addiction like a person needs food. Thinking about abstaining from that part of themselves causes panic, anxiety and stress, which are all feelings that trigger an addict to indulge in their addiction. It can be a viscous cycle that renders an addict helpless, hopeless and frustrated. I have felt and experienced all of that through my recovery, and I believe will continue to feel from time to time for a long time.
The payoff though, is of infinite value and something that Lehi described in this way when describing the Fruit of the Tree of Life, “As I partook of the fruit thereof it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy; wherefore I was desirous that my family should partake of it also; for I knew that it was desirable above all other fruit.” (1 Nephi 8: 11-12) For the first time in my life, I have truly felt that! That is what Jesus Christ offers us. The world has so many things that it professes to bring you that joy, but it is counterfeit and fake. It has taken me almost 30 years to experience the fruit that Lehi describes. I have felt the Spirit many times before now, and I have had glimpses of this joy. However, as I’ve been compelled through my addiction to completely give my will and life over to Christ, I have tasted of that fruit, and it truly is desirable over any and all of the instant gratification that the world and my addiction offers. It’s not even close.
I wish I could transfer this feeling to those that I interact with on a daily basis; to those I know who are struggling and want to find relief. If people only felt a glimpse of the extreme joy and peace turning our life over to Christ gives, all the struggles, anxiety, wars, trials, addictions and pain would become extinct! It is that rewarding and enjoyable. It dispels all doubts and worries that our harsh world delivers. It gives strength to live a Christ-like life in a world where that life is steadily growing to become hated and persecuted. It is the Pearl of Great Price that the Christ refers to as, “when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it” (Matthew 13: 46).
Once again, I want to reiterate that turning our life over to Christ is hard and is a constant struggle. It will not instantly and immediately remove our addiction, shortcomings or problems from us. Don’t fall into that trap and lie from Satan. It requires constant work. For addicts, or those wanting to remove any weakness, flaw or imperfection, it requires doing whatever is asked of us from our Bishops, Therapists or Group Leaders. My personal road to recovery requires me to see a Therapist regularly, my bishop once a week, daily reporting to a sponsor, weekly attendance at a 12 Step Addiction Recovery Program, and then the daily, even hourly application of everything that I learn at those meetings. That is how I surrender my will to Jesus Christ and begin to live as he would have me live.
It is from the meetings, application of the 12 Step Program and my persistent prayers that have started to slowly change me. It is the constant application of everything that I’m learning in my recovery that has allowed me to feel the Atonement. The Atonement is all encompassing in its reach. It can never be used up, and there is no one so far gone that cannot access its power and peace. It literally saved everyone. Everyone will be resurrected and receive a degree of glory! President Uchtdorf said in a recent conference talk, “His “grace is sufficient for all [who] humble themselves before [God].” His grace is the enabling power that allows access into God’s kingdoms of salvation. Because of His grace, we will all be resurrected and saved in a kingdom of glory.
Even the lowest kingdom of glory, the telestial kingdom, “surpasses all understanding,” and numberless people will inherit this salvation.”
Continually Struggling and Growing
I still struggle with my addiction. I am 4 months into the 12 Step Program and have made a lot of progress. I no longer feel stressed, anxious, ashamed or worried from my addiction, and it feels wonderful. I have setbacks yes, but I’ve learned to move forward and not look back. I don’t know how long it will take for me to be fully recovered. One of the hardest steps to recovery is being OK with God’s timetable and not mine. I will continue to work every day to be worthy to feel that incredible joy that comes from turning my life over to Christ.
12 Step Recovery Meetings
As I’ve sat in my Addiction Recovery Meetings and listened to everyone’s story, I have learned that anything and everything can be overcome by following the steps from the meetings. I’ve seen it in my life, and I see it in those at my recovery meetings, from my family members and from close friends who have struggled with all sorts of problems. It doesn’t matter what addiction, affliction, or desire you are struggling to overcome; turning your life over to Christ will help you overcome anything and everything.
The Recovery Meetings have been the most spiritually uplifting of my life, and I believe that Christ and the Holy Ghost attend those meetings as much as any in the Church. If you want to see and feel the Atonement in your life, don’t think you are getting enough out of your Church experience or are struggling to overcome something, meet with your bishop and start going to one of those meetings. Yes, it is uncomfortable and awkward at the beginning, but you get over it quickly, and you will start to have a mighty change of heart and feel peace.
Find those in your life that you can confide in and trust. God has put people around you that will be guardian angels to you. You will be amazed at how much sympathy, empathy and support you will get from people you open up to. My wife has been one of those people and is my constant support. My little child is my daily joy that keeps me striving to be better and overcome this addiction. Christ is my rock and foundation that never fails. It is through believing what he has said and turning my life over to him that I have found happiness again and that has given me the strength to overcome my addictions, doubt and struggles. Anything and everything can be overcome through Christ. I know that to be true.
Mercy Me – Flawless – This song has so many truths about Christ’s Atonement. For those who respond to music best, the message shared here reiterates what I shared above.
Leave a Reply