Old Idaho Penitentiary

Healing Negative Thoughts, Depression

These are my personal experiences and opinions in my personal healing from my depression. These ideas are not meant to represent depression or people with depression as a whole.

In my experience with depression, depression doesn't directly give me negative thoughts, but it creates an environment for those negative thoughts to thrive.

...................................

To break this down into a better example:

My brain with depression is like a dark, warm place.

A dark, warm place alone doesn't cause mold , but if a small spore finds its way to that dark, warm place, it grows much more easily and at a far more rapid pace than a normal environment.

Some of these negative thoughts include:

~ critizing myself

"I'm not good enough."

"Who am I kidding? I'll never get through college..."

~self-esteem issues

not being able to look in the mirror

"I'm fat."

"No matter what I do I cannot feel pretty."
[The interesting thing is that self-esteem issues have no relation to how I actually look. It's how I feel I look.]

~founded, and unfounded fear
[On my mission, I became uncharacteristically afraid of any type of change. Normally when I face challenges my thought processes are something like "This is hard, but I can do this." During depression, I am often filled with overwhelming, sometimes paralyzing fear.]

~the self-defeating thoughts
"I'll never get better, so there's no point in even trying."
"I can't heal from depression ,because even if I heal, I will only go through it again."

~being bored with life, the "rat race"
I think this is a special kind of demon I deal with during depression.
I am very aware of the "rat race" idea. I don't like the idea of working really hard in school to work really hard in college to work really hard in a career to eventually retire and THEN do all the things you've wanted to do in your life.
I am very aware that sometimes society makes life feel more like a game than a human experience.
In the midst of depression, I am quick to grow bored with life and stuck where I am.

the scariest one...

I have a boyfriend...

What? Who? Me?

His name is Max and I really like him!

journal excerpts: oct. 4, 2014 (mission miracles)

a mission story

"Miracles from my awkwardess:

We were late for an appointment because we were trying to find parking (our lives in L.A.). We finally found one that was mega-pequeño [super small], but we decided to make it work.

I was STRUGGLING.. kind of frustrated. A man driving by stopped to laugh at the situation. No joke. Rude! But then he got out of his car and directed me on how to park. Haha. It was great. We talked to him afterward and it turns out that he almost got baptized in El Salvador before he moved here -- what! He's in a different area, but we found a former investigator with a baptismal date through not being able to park! Ha.

THEN, we ran into an investigator we haven't talked with since August. We taught him the very next day and he is so ready!

THEN, we met a woman who began crying when we shared a message of the Restoration with her.

COINCIDENCES DO NOT EXIST."

(the best parallel parking job i have ever done in my entire life..)