The Gospel & Mental Illness

It’s days like today that I am reminded how thankful I am for the gospel of Jesus Christ in my life.  Living life with a mental illness can give you some pretty rough days but I have come to learn that the Lord can help lift any burden.  In Matthew 11:28-30 the Lord says, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”  

I have come to learn that the best way to struggle with a mental illness is to rely on the Savior.  He can help us through all of our troubles and trials in this life and that includes physical or mental limitations.  That doesn’t mean that He will take our illness away from us, but He will help give us the strength we need to keep pressing on and help us to find meaning and true joy in our lives.  And our Heavenly Father and Savior, Jesus Christ, will always be there to love and support us, no matter what we are going through.  By giving our lives, as well as our pain or struggles, to the Lord, our burden becomes lighter due to the power of Christ.  He really does make our burdens easier to bear, not by taking them away, but by helping give us the strength we need and by carrying some of our burden.  

One thing that I love to do is pray.  I pray for guidance all day every day and I cannot say enough about how powerful it is.  I have a strong testimony of prayer.  It works.  I promise that you have a Father in Heaven who knows you and loves you.  And He is there.  He hears your prayers and pleadings and, in His time, He answers them.  I can testify of this.  I can’t tell you how many times that I have had a panic attack or was over stressed to the point where I can’t think straight (I personally struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder, so over reacting to stress is a big problem for me) and I felt the prompting to pray.  I would cry and plead with my Heavenly Father to help me to feel peace and calm amidst all of the confusion and fear.  And I do.  When I rely on the Lord and pray for His help, I am still scared and stressed out, but I feel peace and His guidance in my life. And I am reminded that He loves me and I have worth.  Sometimes those are the two things that I need to hear most when I am going through a hard time.    

I’m still at the beginning of my journey with mental illness, but I know that I can still live a happy and healthy life if I continue to live my life for the Lord.  God is the only thing that can help fill the holes in my life.  Nothing else that I could own or do would ever compare to the lasting, eternal joy that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ offers.  Nothing could compare to the joy of obediently living the gospel.  I didn’t always believe or understand that, but I do now.  I see the hand of God in my life each and every day in both simple and big ways and I know that I wouldn’t have gotten this far without the Lord.  And I know that I can go so much farther if I continue to put Him first in my life and live by faith.  

Living by faith can be hard for someone with anxiety because I want to know what to do about everything.  And it can be hard for someone with a dark past who constantly has to live with the reminders of the awful mistakes I have made or the pain caused by others.  Depression and anxiety can make living by faith hard, but that is all the more reason to work day by day to get there.  I have felt so much relief and peace in just giving it all to God.  My questions, concerns, fears, depression, anxiety, all of it, can be given to my Savior when it all becomes too much.  And I am so thankful for that.  
Another I wanted to address is getting help.  There seems to be such a negative stigma about getting help for mental illness.  Like if you go to counseling or take medication then people are trying to fix you or you aren’t normal.  People find it acceptable to seek healing for physical infirmities but as soon as it comes to mental health, we seem to not want to talk about it.  But do you want to know something?  Getting the help you need is ok.  Needing help to feel happy is more common than you think and it is totally ok.  The Lord is there to help us, but He has also blessed us with some great tools on this earth to help us.  There is no reason to be ashamed for doing what is best for you and to help you heal mentally.  

I love my Father in Heaven so much.  I am so proud to be a daughter of the most high and I strive to make Him proud every day.  I love my Savior, and older brother, Jesus Christ more than I could express.  He has done so much for me when I didn’t ever feel that I deserved His love.  He suffered on the cross so that I could have a second chance at life after I turned my back on God.  He endured all of the griefs and pains I ever would so that He would know how I felt during all of the heartache and confusion and He would know how to help me.

“Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5).  Another great scripture that helps deepen my understanding of what the Savior did for me and my love for Him is Alma 7:12, “And He will take upon Him death, that He may loose the bands of death which bind His people; and He will take upon Him their infirmities, that His bowels may be filled with mercy, according to the flesh, that He may know according to the flesh how to succor His people according to their infirmities”.

Isn’t that comforting?  To know that the Savior understands everything that you are going through and you are never truly alone?  It makes me love and grow closer to Jesus every day.  How blessed we are to have a Heavenly Father who knows and loves us so much and is always there to guide us.  And how blessed we are to have a loving Savior who not only suffered and died for us but who understands us and is always there.  Life might be tough at times but we have no need to fear if we stay close to the Lord.