A Dark Past, and The Bright Future

Forewarning: This post is me in a raw form... very few people know about the things you are about to read.

So a few things have been weighing heavily on me over the past few weeks. I have been looking back on everything I have done. The reason I have been doing this is because of something a co-worked said to me. More like a conversation that we had. He is an inactive latter-day saint and considers himself an anti. So me being me and carrying a missionary attitude with me I asked him about his story. Basically he had some bad experiences within the church to make him not want to go, because nothing about the church seemed right. As I was listening to his story I felt sad for him and the experiences that he had had. Although when he finished his story he said something to me that really left me quite offended. He said something to the effect of, I wouldn't understand where he was coming from because of the location of where I grew up. Basically I am naive to the world outside the church. Ok for one thing, that is completely untrue. He doesn't know my story or what I have experienced in my life. It was a really backhanded way of saying I'm stupid because I grew up an active member of the church.

Side note: I really don't get along with this co-worker, 80% of the time he is a ok person to be around, but for the other 20% I find it almost unbearable to be around him for the sheer fact that he is completely negative towards me and how I live my life ie. within the church. Its like he resents me for having a positive outlook within the church. ugh.. anyways. back to my story,

So, after reflecting on my past, I feel as though I have been harboring this darkness that very few people know about or understand. If you have read my previous post you know that sometimes I feel very insecure. After I graduated high school and finished my first year of college this anxiety doubled, no tripled. There were things I was dealing with within my family. My dad and I had a very rocky relationship, and according to my mom I treated her very badly in this point in my life. Although I have no recollection of any of the things that she says that I said to her. I'm pretty sure I was in such a high stress, anxiety, depressed state that I would mentally black out and pretty much take out all my frustrations against my dad on her. {my mom and I are an fantastic terms now, so don't worry}

At this point in my life I was suffering severe depression and anxiety. My friends and family could tell, my mood swings were crazy. When I say crazy I mean CRAZY! One moment I would be fine and the next I would be crying for no reason and then I would be fine. This depression was just the start of the severe downward spiral that I was about to ride. In 2009 I was hospitalized for 4 days and for 3 of them I was on 24hr suicide watch. After a few months I moved for the first time to utah on my own. lets just say it was not a successful move. Before I could really get settled I was fired from my job for not smiling enough {yea that was what the boss told me} and then I was dumb and got a $535 speeding ticket. I was lucky that the car didn't get impounded. I had no job and no way to pay for this ticket so my parents made me move home, I was using their car while I was down there so I had to do what they asked of me. Little did I know that I would be walking into a war zone. I spent the next three months wanting to be back in utah where my best friend at the time had moved. I honestly threw a huge three months long hissy fit till my dad said he would pay for me to move there. {I was such a spoiled brat} At the time my mom had put her foot down, basically saying that if I wanted to be treated like an adult that I needed to act like one. Meaning while living on my own in utah I would be receiving little to no help from them financially. At the time I had no idea what this really meant. All I knew is that I had money and I thought it was going to last forever.

Moving to Utah for me was a good and bad time for me. While living in Utah I made several bad decisions. While living there I hands down was at the lowest I have ever been. For a long time I was homeless. I fell away from the church. I had coitus with multiple people {not at the same time}. I started partying with people I barely knew. I starting drinking, and doing pretty much anything to keep my mind away from how miserable and sad I really was. It wasn't until I moved apartments and reconnected with a boy that I went to school with at SVU, that things started to change for me. At the time he was preparing himself to go on a mission and being around him made me want to be a better person as well. SO, I stopped all these bad habits cold turkey. For a few weeks I felt as though I was coming out of an addiction because I was having withdrawals from the things that were keeping me "happy". I was still not really praying or reading my scriptures. I honestly didn't feel like I was worthy of asking my Father for help because of how I had acted in the recent past. One day I finally prayed and man it was like when you haven't had a good cry and then you start to cry and the tears just keep on coming. I prayed for almost a complete day. It was amazing and still hard. I was still sad about my life and really didn't think that I could make such a big change that could last. Based on things that I had done or things that had happened to me in the past,  I doubted that I could succeed at something. I had put so many people that I loved and cared about through so much pain and anguish that I felt I hardly deserved to come out of the dark. At that time I remembered something I think  Jeffery R Holland said, "fake it till you make it" So thats what I did. The longer I "faked it" the more I started to believe that I could make changes. It took me a full year to repent of all the things that I had done and at that point I didn't really know what to do in my life next. I had finished one school year but I was unsure about what else I wanted to do in life.

The answer came suddenly. One day while I was at a 4 hour long job interview, which was at the same time as general conference, when I got out I heard the great news that the missionary age had changed for both elders and sisters. But at the time I didn't really think anything of it because I was older than the previous sister missionary age anyways. My cousin however had started her papers. I was so excited for her. One night a few weeks after her papers went in I was talking with my bishop and I was telling him about how happy I was for my cousin going on a mission. Previous to this my uncle had always asked his nieces if we ever thought about going on a mission and usually the answer was something along the lines of, "no I want to get married before a mission." haha. This time the question was rephrased into a statement. My bishop stated that I should go on a mission. Right then I was hit with a wave of warmth from the spirit and I knew it was the right thing for me to do. So I started my papers and 6 months later I had received my call to the Texas Dallas Mission.

 My mission was great I loved every bit of it. Although it was very short. About midway through my second transfer I started feeling pain in my feet. It was slowly getting worse even though I was trying everything under the sun minus surgery to rid myself of the pain. I went to see three doctors, one chiropractor, and had a set of orthods made for me that did nothing but make things worse. It got to the point where I did little to no walking and was in the car for most of the time. I was in pain 24/7 and didn't tell my companion or mission president about it because I thought I could tough it out and just learn to deal with it. One night I finally broke down in tears and told my companion that even though I had been saying that things were getting better it was just the opposite. She said that we needed to call the mission president. I begged her that I could handle it and that we didn't need to call him. We prayed about it and she convinced me that it needed to happen. That night I didn't sleep at all. I prayed through the entire night. I didn't pray for anything but to be comforted  and to be happy with whatever He had in his plan for me. To be ok with things if I had to be sent home. I had never prayed so hard in my entire life. When I woke up in the morning my prayers had been answered, I felt blanketed in comfort and calmness. Over the next week we waited for our mission president to get back to us on my fate in the field. The call came that the next morning I would be sent home. I was glad that my prayer had been answered because as heart broken and stubborn as I had been to stay out on my mission and do the Lords work, I was seemingly ok with this and the only thing that I was really anxious about was how people would view me coming home from my mission so early. {its still something that I deal with,} would people lose respect for me for coming home this early. would they think that I quit. I was ok with leaving the mission but was scared of what faced me at home,

When I got home I saw my doctor as soon as possible and he immediately knew that this was no ordinary foot problem. He diagnosed me with Tarsal Tunnel Syndrome... basically carpal tunnel in my feet. Within two months of being home I was going in for the first of two foot surgeries. Being laid up in bed for a month, I had some thinking on my mind. I was headstrong and stubborn that once better I was going to back out on my mission. However the Lord had other plans for me. The first time I prayed about it I felt influenced that I should go back to school instead of going back out on the mission. This is not what I wanted to hear and at first I was angry that I was being pulled in that direction more than returning to the mission. It was even tough to be around the people because they were constantly asking me when I was going to go back out into the field. It broke my heart that I felt like if I did what the Lord wanted me to I would be letting down all these people whom I cared and respected so much. I kept it a secret from everyone but my mom and I think my brother for the longest time. When the truth finally came out that I would not be returning to the mission and instead would be going back to school, I was very surprised with how much support I received from everyone. So I started school at Brigham Young University Idaho, and it has been the best thing for me! Before I really didn't like school and didn't care about taking classes. After a semester of going there I realized I love school, I love going to classes and learning! I love the environment that comes with this school as well.

As of now I am a few weeks away from starting my third of eight semesters. I am rather old compared to everyone else but thats just because it took me longer to figure out that this is the place that I am supposed to be at. I love everything about my major and I am looking forward to finishing it but I am going to enjoy the ride along the way. My mind is open to learning all I can, my heart is open to meeting new people. I have such a bright future ahead of me, and I am so thankful to the people around me who support and care for me. Its amazing to look back at where I have come from, what I have overcome to be at the place I am at now in my life.

I love my life,and excited about whats to come. I know that as long as I cleave to my Father, Brother Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost, things will work themselves out.