How the Chronically Ill are Effected Socially

On my blog I focus a lot on how I am feeling mentally and physically and even occasionally emotionally, but one thing that I have maybe mentioned here or there, but never dedicated time to explaining was how a chronic illness, just in general, effects one socially.

I have had my chronic illness since 2013, but I didn't know about it until September 2014. Since then I have had to drop out of college, cut back heavily on my working hours, and move home with my parents. At age 21, when you are culturally in the prime of life, you are going to school, picking a major, internships, dating, going on fun spring break trips with friends, living with roommates, etc. It is all part of the experience that is socially normal.

But with someone with a chronic illness, like myself, it feels like it is everything listed above, and more, that we miss out on. The normal for us is 14+ hour day in bed. A monthly, and sometimes even weekly, trip to the Doctor is the only time you will get ready for the day. And getting ready just means changing into some clean sweats, and actually putting on a sports bra.

So, now that I am slowly on my way to recovery I have to get back into the swing of what wasn't my "normal" for 2 years, it now has to be. So here are a list of a few struggles that the chronically ill struggle with in social situations.

1) "Netflix and Chill"

With the chronically ill the word "chill" should NOT be in their vocabulary, because there is no "chill" about chronic illness. It doesn't exist. Netflix, however, plays a very big part in the life of the chronically ill. In fact, don't be surprised if they have seen every episode of streaming movie that you want to watch. Netflix was invented for the chronically ill that are on bed rest (in my personal opinion), but that doesn't meat it doesn't involve them feeling super sick or in constant pain while watching. Netflix is a way to distract from the pain, not so much a numbing agent.

2) Catch up Conversations

When you see your high school friend that you played basketball with during a holiday break when you know you have to get your christmas shopping done, or you know it won't get done, you play catch up. But eventually, the chronically ill run out of questions to ask (even though they probably already knew their whole life story from spending 5-6 hours on average switching from FaceBook to Instagram), and the questions are turned on them

-"What are you doing in life?"

What runs through my head: "Does getting to know your pharmacist on a first name basis count? I shouldn't mention that I'm only on 20 mg of Adderall Extened release once a day instead of twice, even though that is my biggest accomplishment so far.

Me: "Nothing really, just trying to get better..."

-"How have you been?"

Me: I've been alright, just trying to stay busy.

What I think about saying: I have been better, that's how I've been! I have been in bed for the past 48 hours watching normal people live their normal lives that I feel I want and deserve but I don't get. So I've been depressed, I've even been having suicidal thoughts and have been seeing a therapist weekly along with my regular doctor visits. Thats how I've been.

-"Are you working, school?"

Me: "Yeah I'm just working, saving money..."

What I think: Ha! I'm lucky to get 10 hours a week, and I won't mention that I lost my scholarship because I keep deferring with a hope that I can one day go back.

-"Are you dating anyone, or been on any good dates lately?"

Me: "No not really, just living the single life..."

My brain: Bahahahahahaha haha, hahahaha... *sniff* *wipe a tear away* what dates? Big raisins?

-"Well you look great."

Me: "Oh thanks, so do you!"

-What I want to say: "Yeah my doctor took me off gluten and sugar indefinitely and when I finally had the motivation to do it I dropped 30 pounds in 3 months, he also wants me off dairy but he said I can't lose anymore weight, but now I have zero clothes that fit, I've added 3 extra holes in my belts and everything I own is baggy.

The fact of the matter is, I would actually be fine saying those things, or maybe most of them but then they lead to the big question that is hard for the chronically ill to answer:

3) "What even is..." or "What does [insert chronic illness of preference here] do?"

The moment comes in every single person afflicted with a chronic illness that they can't tell their whole story anymore or they will ring the persons neck. It might just be because it's been a bad day, or you have explained it one to many times recently, or something else. But when it comes, after that you will do everything to avoid having to explain as little bout yourself and your illness as you can, because 1) explaining it won't do it justice and 2) do they even really care? and 3) if so, they still won't understand, so why bother. And 4) how much is too much information?

So what I have found is you can offer the person a short version, or the long version... the only bad thing is, the short version usually is followed up with questions that turns it into the long version.

This is a problem for those dealing with a chronic illness, how long can I go on with my story until they don't care, or until they look at me as something less than human because I make my suffering sound awful, or scare them into thinking they have it... Or worse, have them start chunking medical advice at me? It is a huge dilemma that is very hard to figure out. Sometimes, I think seriously about printing out fliers so I don't have to explain myself.

4) Finding a conversation that you really find interest in

It is hard when you have been sick for so long, and dealt with real things like depression, political awareness of your illness, insurance holds on medication that you will willingly give up your arm and leg for, and even sometimes suicidal thoughts, to suddenly get thrown into a conversation about the latest celebrity gossip. Or about the "big game" or the latest new album. Those are hard to not feel like you are wasting time and energy, when you haven't practiced them for a while. And it might sound silly, or selfish. But it's not so much that the chronically ill is thinking "I have so much more pressing matters to worry about." but it's more like "How do add to this conversation, I know nothing about any of this stuff." Or they could be thinking, "I can't think about this when I'm worried about when my next seizure will be, or when I can go back to bed again." So many other things are pressing on their mind, they can't mentally connect with the conversation.

There are ways others can help the chronically ill. They can really sincerely listen if they choose to open up about something. They can notice if the chronically ill aren't adding much to a conversation, and not judge, or feel like they have to include them, sometimes it just doesn't work for them. Let that be ok. Ask if they feel comfortable sharing their story, before diving in. If they say they don't feel like sharing about their disease, that doesn't always mean no, and never ever. It might just mean, not right now. Catching up is hard, instead of asking them how they are, ask how they have been improving, or if they don't look so well, ask if there is anything they need. It is up to them to then be honest about themselves, something that I have found is sometimes super hard to do generally, not just for the sick. Whatever happens try not to let them feel more awkward than they probably already are.

All in all, the social aspect of being chronically sick is hard, and challenging. It is never easy to just get back into the swing of what is socially normal after being out of commission for so long. But if you don't want to feel even more of an outcast than you already are, you have to work to get yourself back into it, socially. It's almost like a healing process all on its own. It just goes to show that it is more than just your health that suffers in with Chronic Illness.


-The Lyme Warrior

LDI "Overdose"

Hello! A ton has happened lately and I'm sorry I haven't been around to blog about it.

This post is just a quick update about my shots. But I should have a longer post coming sometime this week as well. 

My LDI shots have come to a complete hault for 7 weeks. You see since they have been shooting me up with dead Lyme Bacteria every 10-14 days I have been doing much better. And when day 12(ish) comes along and I feel it wearing off I get another booster. The only thing is they dilute the shot less and less each time. They can't give you the full blown dead bacteria because that would cause awful herxhimer reactions because the antibodies aren't built up to fight it off. It would sorta be like cannon balling into the worlds hottest hot tub. You need to slowly work your way up to where your body has just enough stamina to fight off the LDI (and thus reprogram, essentially your immune system to fight off the Lyme). As your immune system gets stronger the idea is you will then need less and less of the booster so that your body can just take care of the Lyme itself. 

I am at the stage where they are still finding just the right amount of dilute to dead Lyme, so that I feel good for a full 2 weeks with a decrease in symptoms. The ideal way to find it would be to just have me say "these past 2 weeks have been great, let's see how long I can go on this booster until I feel I need another one." Like I said, that's the ideal pathway of the concept of LDI for Lyme... But that's the key, it's Lyme, it throws a wrench in everything somehow, it finds a way.

December 22nd I went in for a shot I started at "15c" and had worked my way to "9c" (I'm not sure what the "c" stands for), I still felt like it was wearing off at day 9 or 10. So naturally they went from 10 to 9. And it was too high! It sent my body into a huge Herxhimer Reaction! I am still feeling the effects. My doctor had told me that I would know if it was too high because all my symptoms would come back, and I'd herx (if you want to know what a herx is click here)... 

December 23rd I had a mental break down. I was aching all over. My depression and anxiety kicked in full swing, with in one day I went from excited for Christmas, to not even wanting to participate in the season at all. With my thoughts dark again and myself feeling like I was being hit with emotional tidal wave after tidal wave, I was a mess. I knew it was too high. I had gone a month and a half without needing a nap, and I had gone 3 weeks of sleeping all night! Suddenly, I am now laying awake until 2 or 3am... Or waking up at 1 and not going back. My brain fog has kicked in full swing again. I'm in pain. It's just all super frustrating. 

The good thing is, we know that "9c" is too high. So now after we wait 7 weeks for my antibodies to calm down and it all to get out of my system, I can drop to "10c" and stay there. And work my body into it. That is the new plan with moving forward. It's a minor 7 week set back. But the doctor thinks within 2 or 3 years of these shots, and spacing them out I won't need them anymore, I can officially be in remission! And that's the goal. That's the destination. 

So here's to a new year of fighting Lyme in a new way! 

-The Lyme Warrior

Acceptance

I remember when I first had it suggested to me that I was depressed. It wasn’t just that I wouldn’t believe it, but I couldn’t believe it. I knew that depression wouldn’t just jump at me when I was doing some of the best things at the time in my life when I was loving life. I was serving a Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It was fun hard work. I loved it, but why was I feeling not just sad? It was like I emotionally could not be happy. It wouldn’t happen. So when it was suggested to me that I see a doctor and get professional help I just could not believe it.

Then when I eventually had to break down and go to a doctor and get put on some anti depressants I was embarrassed, frustrated, confused, but most of all I couldn’t accept it. I kept saying “this is not me.”

Then when I came home early from my mission I was diagnosed with Lyme Disease which mimics other illnesses, the Lyme in my brain was mimicking Bipolar Disorder and Manic Depression. So at that point it was easier to accept that there was a cause to the disfunction inside my brain. I just didn't realize how much worse things were going to get.

From the Herxhimer reactions, to the brain fog, to the nausea to less and less sleep at night, plus the constant dark cloud of depression and anxiety hanging over me, I found myself wishing it was just Bipolar disorder again. In my brain I thought that if I accepted what was going on all around me it would make things worse. If I said "ok I have Lyme." It was like me saying "Ok, I am Lyme." and there is a big difference that I didn't know about.

If someone decides they are going to be a brain surgeon and they are going to start school, they can't say, "hey I'm a brain surgeon." They can say that they are going to become one, or that they want to be one. But that doesn't mean they are yet.

Maybe that is a bad example... If you are going to go cliff jumping, and haven't ever been, you can't say "I have cliff jumped before." It's a lie, you haven't experienced the thrill, or butterflies in your stomach as you jump off the cliff. You haven't felt the wind rushing past you as you fall down to the water with a splash. And right before you jump, there is a moment, where you have to accept that you are going to jump. you are going to allow your feet to either step off the cliff and fall, or to run and leap off. It is your choice, but I know for me, the first time I jumped, I took about 5 minutes to allow myself to accept that I was going to jump. It is scary, and your brain is probably screaming at you not to. I know I had a list going of everything that could go wrong with that first leap. But when you finally just go, it is a thrill, and your brain doesn't hold you back anymore...

It took time, but the moment I was able to say, to myself, "ok, I have Lyme. It doesn't mean Lyme is me, but I do have it." In that moment when I said it and accepted it, I could then start healing the healing that needed to take place that wasn't exactly physical. With any chronic illness that last for long periods of time, you have to heal physically, but you also have to heal mentally, and emotionally. Something happens to a person when they have been sick for a long period of time. The inability to function as a normal person should be able to, can do mental, and emotional things to said person. As the chronic illness takes over the body physically, the time starts to take over the mental and emotional well being of a person. 

So, how do you accept it? How did I accept it? I am not a professional at acceptance, but there are a few things I have learned about accepting hard things.

1) Meditation

When you have a chronic illness you start to have a lot more "you time" then is probably healthy. You can A) binge watch netflix B) depressingly stalk all your friends on Instagram and see how awesome their lives are as you fall farther and farther behind where you want to be. OR, you can practice healing techniques of the mind. There are so many studies done on how healing the mind, can help heal the body. Take time for yourself, (netflix doesn't count) go for a walk outside, if your too sick to do that sit somewhere quiet and focus on your breathing. I don't want to sound  like a hippie or some crazy mainstream hipster. I just know that mediation can help with healing, but mostly acceptance. 

2) Trust a medical professional

This one is probably really hard for anyone with Lyme, and many other chronic illnesses. You see, trust in a doctor, or doctors (plural) is hard when you go from doctor to doctor telling you "it's all in your head." Or where you go to one physician and they tell you something totally different from the second opinion you just sought out. Trust is so hard. But I know when I had no idea what was going on, and why I was having crazy mood swings, and after I had come home early, I was stuck. I was in pain, and I went to my chiropractor. He had helped me through many out of place ribs and bruised tailbones during my high school basketball career. And so I went for an adjustment, just to try and relieve some of the pain. He told me there was something more to my depression. He knew me very well. He said he didn't know what was wrong, but he wanted to help relive me of pain until some doctor that I was seeing at the time could figure out what was going on. The fact that I had someone outside of my family believing me, and in the medical field was such a relief! 

Now, I realize that some people probably think they will never trust a doctor ever again. Some people might not even know what is wrong with them, they just know whatever they have is chronic and no doctor will believe them. So have at least one person in your life that trusts you, that believes you are really suffering, and don't lose that. My sister knew it wasn't really me. While my parents supported me all through this of course as loving parent do, I knew my sister knew that something else was going on. When I told her I couldn't do something, she believed me, and left me alone. My parents would still try to get me to go places with them, when I knew I couldn't get up off the floor, this was their way of supporting me, I know that. But it was probably the least helpful thing at the time. My sister realized when to give me space, and she gave it perfectly. And I'm so grateful for that.

3) Find Hope

Once you have found trust from a doctor, and trust that what is going on in life will have some common relief, you can now search for hope, for more meaning. I have so many reasons to hope. I hope that my trust in my doctor is the right choice for me. I hope I can get through a day doing more than just functioning. I hope my Savior is there carrying me when I feel like that dark cloud of depression is looming so close to me that I can't breath. I hope that the medication I've been prescribed is not withheld from me by my insurance. 

There are always things to hope for, but unless you have trust, or faith behind that hope, the hope is more like a wish. I came home knowing that I just wanted to help people. That is what I did on my mission, and I loved it, and that is still, to this day, what I want to do. But when you can't get out of bed, how do you help people? My new hope was to figure out a way to help people while I was in my state. And that is what I did. I started this blog, to try and help others who were suffering through the same thing. This is my hope, that I can help spread awareness about my condition in hopes that it will help someone. Whether it's someone suffering with Lyme, or someone who has come home from their mission, or if someone just really struggles with depression. I don't know! I just know that finding a way to still help people kept that hope alive in me. And when I have that hope I have a renewed purpose.

4) Understanding

For me, acceptance can only be found as you gain more understanding. For example, I know my parents didn't fully understand how i was feeling, they still don't. But when they have an understanding of what is going on with me medically it is easier for them to accept, and for me as well, what is going on. If someone doesn't believe or accept a religion, lets say, it might be because they don't understand something. I have talked about, in pasts posts, how there is a fear that comes with one doesn't understand something. If an elderly person is afraid to upgrade their old dial up internet to new Wifi, it is probably because they have a lack of understanding. The more I understand what is going on with my body the less scared I am of Lyme, and what it is doing to me. I have learned that you can't have acceptance of something where there is fear. It either needs to be shoved aside, or given time to gain understanding.

5) Loneliness 

There are things in life, that we have to understand, and they are hard. And one of those things is that somethings we have to do alone. With any chronic illness nobody truly understands what is going on with you. And when you realize that, and accept that, it can be lonely and depressing, but when you can accept that loneliness you can realize that some things you just have to experience on your own. It's just part of life. You can look at it as a negative hard and sucky thing, or you can choose to allow yourself to grow during the times of loneliness. This one I struggled with for a long time.


All in all, acceptance of any chronic illness, not just Lyme can take a very long time. It did for me. and these are just a few ways that I have come to acceptance of where I am at in life. There are many other things that can help us accept where we are. Reaching out and finding others that are feeling the same things we are is also a way for us to gain acceptance of where we are at. Reaching out to others as played a huge part in my acceptance of not only lyme, but also coming home early from my mission. Acceptance is gradual, but it is crucial in the gateway to healing.

-The Lyme Warrior

The Powers of a Lyme Warrior

So here's a confession: I'm a bit of a nerd... I thought I was getting sick of all the super hero movies, but then I got hooked on a show on the CW called "Arrow" and then of course you can't watch "Arrow" and not watch "The Flash" because of course they have to interconnect the shows to get me even more hooked! But yes I am a nerd. I accepted it it long before my diagnosis even before the tick bite. I'm a nerd. And being sick a lot gives me time to be a nerd. The End.

Well actually, it's not the end. Ya see I've tried to show how Lyme takes things from it's host, but also show that it is still possible to try and find the silver lining in life. I always want to try and find something good, even when Lyme is kicking my butt. Even when I feel all alone with my disease. Even when I've painted on that fake smile because I know people don't understand what I'm going through... I think everyone with Lyme does that.

With me trying to find the silver lining in life, finding the tiny miracles, the tender mercies in everything is sometimes hard, it's a challenge, and I don't mean to say I'm anywhere near level-expert at doing it. And because I'm not super good at it all the time, I use my imagination a lot. My constant go to day dream, is seeing everyone understand a little bit more what I'm going through, and I know that won't happen until the CDC accepts Lyme as a real disease and there starts to be real funding for Lyme Research. But  I've also been having other big imagination adventures.

We see all these super heros now days, whether it's Marvel or DC, or My Little Pony, or maybe Little Enstines, I don't know. But I've been watching all these super hero shows and movies and sometimes I wonder... How come they never get sick? Like what if Batman gets bit by a tick and ignores it for 2+ years, starts getting sick and finds out he has Lyme?  What would Batman do? 

I mean, most of these Super Heros are part human, at least... I mean, what if Captain America got bit before he had his muscle upgrade? And all this stress of saving the world is just now making the symptoms kick in?

Is it weird that I think this way? It's not so much like "What would The Flash do?" But it's more, how would they handle it? Would they use their powers/strengths/skills to help find a cure? Or would the CDC still say, "Ehh we think Spiderman is faking it, just like everyone else! Go get some psychiatric help ya freak!"

Anyways I've been thinking a lot on the super hero idea, and I realized that kids look up to those super heroes. It is so cool that they always come out not just the winner in their fight for truth, freedom, or whatever, but they get to beat down their opposition. Like literally beat down! And I think about how that is comfort to those kids that watch those shows, maybe more of a subconscious comfort, that they can feel like they can do anything, at least that is how I feel when I watch. But as I watch them, I think, man, Lex Luther just doesn't give up! He always comes back to ruin Superman's life.

And then I think about how Lyme Disease is like that to me. Like that annoying bad guy that keeps coming up with annoying ways to destroy me. And when I think about it that way, I realize that my powers aren't anything special at first, some new drugs prescribed by the doctor, 14 hour sleeping sessions, and 2 or 3 naps during the day. But I also think, how every time a new symptom appears its like I have to figure out mentally and emotionally (as well as physically) how to not only fight this new symptom off,  but how to stay strong until this one passes. And I realize with that thinking, subconsciously I gain more stamina and strength each time I fight off this new symptom. And sometimes the road is long to getting it taken care of.

A lot of the time it feels like Lyme is winning more than me. But I think I have realized that as I get put into this sucky situation, I may not save the world but I save myself, overtime I decide I don't want to give in, even though sometimes it sounds really nice. And that is when I realize any lyme warrior's super power is not giving up, and not giving in. Like I feel every super hero says at one point or another "I have't got a choice." Batman has to fight Joker. Nobody else can. I have to fight my Lyme, I don't have a choice, nobody else can. And giving up isn't an option there is no choice but to fight.

I don't really know where the rest of this is going, I just came up with this analogy off the top of my head to make sense of why I have been binge watching Arrow and The Flash on Netflix, and rematching all the marvel movies. And now I realize it's because I feel like I can relate in a much much much more smaller and menial way. And because, lets be honest, there is no such thing as an ugly actor picked to be a super hero am I right?

But in all seriousness, as I fight the fight that is going on inside me, I can see the strengths come, and also where my weaknesses are as well. The Lyme Warrior should be a name given to anyone fighting Lyme Disease because they are their own super hero. They are saving the most important thing they can, the only thing that is really truly theirs... Themselves. Any lyme warrior knows this deep down, or eventually figures it out. I'm just now figuring it out for myself.

-The Lyme Warrior

Another ER trip opens my eyes

Saturday night I started feeling sick, more so than usual... I was told that you get a chronic sore throat once you start getting in the ending stages of killing all the Lyme in your body. I wake up every morning with a sore throat, I have these medicated lollipops that I can suck on that help. But Saturday night it wouldn't go away. And I started to feel achy, I couldn't focus on anything that was being said as I sat and ate dinner with some of my co-workers.

The next day, Sunday, I was in bed, wondering if my inability to sallow from the pain was more than just the lyme. I had some left over amoxicillin from when I was talking 2,000 Mg every day for a couple months, back when I was doing antibiotic treatment, so I took a few to try and feel better, but I felt worse overtime I took them.

That night I was at my worst, I always think that pain and I have come to a similar understanding of each other after the past year or so. But my throat felt closed off it was so painful. I hadn't been eating or drinking in over 24 hours when around 8pm that night I passed out, I started to not seeing what was infront of me, and then my mom was talking to me and I couldn't hear her... next thing I new I was on the floor and hearing my dad talking to 911 on the phone.

After the ambulance came and checked me out I was on my way to the ER, now I wasn't only fighting a super sore throat and body aches and a fever that had been rising and falling all day, but I was having a panic attack over going back to the ER (if you want to understand about my past fears of the ER click here).

The frustration of educating nurses and Dr's over my disease is indescribable as I am lying there with my throat nearly closed off and sweating like a sinner in church out of panic and the fever that had spiked again. But after educating my nurses and a positive strep test I was told I couldn't leave until I drained 3 bags of IV fluids and antibiotics.

Me in the ER

As I was laying there in the ER sucking up IV juice from a bag I started to think about my disease, and how far I had come, where as how far the world had come. I was still having to explain to nurses and Dr's about my disease. I still wasn't getting covered for medicines that I needed from my insurance, infant recently I was being denied some very serious ones that I needed, and had been taking for over 6 months.

I was thinking about all of this and getting more and more frustrated with the Government. I didn't want me, or any one else to have to suffer because of either the CDC's pride, or stupidity, or maybe both. I became more and more angry as I was lying there in the ER. I had to go to the ER to find out if I had strep because I wasn't sure if it was Lyme or not, because there is hardly any funding for testing of the most vector bourn illness in the United States.

I remember the last time I was in the ER I was terrified and frustrated because I didn't understand what was happening to me, and why I was being put in the padded cell in the "special room" in the ER. And now I felt terrified and frustrated because I didn't understand why people couldn't just at least know about my disease. And know how to if not protect themselves, at least sympathize for those who have it. I know I can't expect empathy from people, because they have no clue how I feel, what it's all like. But I think there are also people who can't even have sympathy for those with Lyme because they don't even know what it is.

In my post on fear I said that the greatest reason for fear is the lack of understanding. And I still believe that is true. But I have another fear, and it's fear of and for our medical system. I have a really good LLMD but one scary stat that I can't seem to shake is that the average person that is bit by a tick takes 2 years to diagnose correctly with Lyme...

Imagine if you had Cancer and it took 2 years to diagnose your illness because Docters didn't understand what it was because the government said cancer didn't really exist... I mean I can't tell if that sounds like communism or just the plain old dark ages!

Either way it is wrong, and I shouldn't have to go to the ER for help and educate my doctors and nurses on my illness. And the only ones to blame for that are the CDC and the government. And it needs to end. Now!

-The Lyme Warrior

How to Recover from a Mission

These are from conversations and from personal experience, I don't wish to speak for the whole church or for every early return missionary. But my personal belief is that we go through things so that we can help others along the way, and that is my reason and hope that pushes me to write this.

They say being a missionary is the best years of your life, if that is true, then what happens if you have to end early, suddenly. It all comes to an abrupt halt, sooner than planned. Well, from my experience, and from seeing others it ends a few ways, sometimes depression, sometimes it gets to the point where they just leave the church... there is so many negative reactions that can happen to this negative big event that ruins the best years of your life, to that point in your life anyway. So here are a few ways I have found to help one "move on" but in a positive way.

1) Allow yourself to be sad.

It is ok to be sad, to mourn the time that is lost and gone now. Don't feel like you have to come home and just get over it and put it all behind you. When I came home after an honorable medical release with depression and anxiety I was pushed into even more depression. But the society we live in, the LDS Community, thinks that we just have to push it behind us. Pretend that it is ok. Move on. Square your shoulders and fake it until you make it. I don't know anywhere in the scriptures where it says that. In fact one of my favorite scriptures talks about how even the most perfect person to ever walk the earth "wept"... That's right, even Jesus Christ cried (John 11:35).

In my personal opinion, if it is ok for my Savior to cry, it is ok for me, an imperfect person to cry, to feel sad, and to mourn the loss of my time on the mission. In mourning for Christ being crucified the earth trembled and shook, and there was 3 days of darkness covering the whole earth (3 Nephi 8). If we can get past the very false thoughts and beliefs that we need to suck it up, and just be happy all the time, then we can begin to heal, and move on, in our own time. Allow yourself time to mourn the loss. It is ok. But you need to give yourself permission to do it.

2) Don't self shame.

The majority of people that see you home early won't give it more than a second thought. However, there is a culture in the LDS Community to self shame. To talk yourself down. And to make yourself suffer even more than you already are. You cannot begin to heal and move on until you cut yourself some slack and stop shaming yourself. There is a big difference between guilt and shame. And sometimes guilt gets a lot of the credit, when we are actually feeling shame. Guilt is something that we are... If I still a candy bar I am guilty. I feel guilt because I did something wrong. A lot of the time shame comes from what we think we are. If I hit my brother I will have some guilt because I probably shouldn't punch him in the face. But I will feel mostly shame, because I feel bad and the fact that I don't want to face him and say sorry tells me that I am ashamed.

If I come home early from a mission and I have an honorable release I can tell myself that I feel guilty, but why? What is the reason? I didn't do anything wrong, I developed a sudden onset of depression and bipolar symptoms that after 6 months over took my work in the field... So why did I feel guilty? Once again, guilt was taking the credit of shame. I put myself down, I called myself a piece of crap loser every time I got a letter from a past companion. I told myself I screwed up and was not a real missionary when I would go to a friends homecoming. I told myself everyone was judging me when I would go to church. I did the shaming. Nobody else. And why?

Because I grew up in the LDS Community, where if you don't go out on your mission now at age 18 as a boy, you are probably not going out because you have a sin. Or, if someone is open about their depression and anxiety at the pulpit on fast Sunday they are doing it for attention. Or if a man gets a temple divorce he must have been cheating on his wife. So I wonder where I got it in my head that everyone would was looking at me as an "early return missionary", even if they weren't?

I told myself that people were judging me because 1) Sister Missionaries don't have to go out, so they can get an honorable release from just about anything. So therefore people thought I couldn't hack it. That the mission was too hard on me so I was a wussy and gave up, I told myself that was what people thought, and that I deserved to have them feel that way towards me because I came home early. 2) I judged other sisters who went home early, so therefore I had to be judged the same way. Karma.

I told myself I deserved to feel this way. It was karma all coming back because of how I had thought about some other poor early return missionary. It was the Lord humbling me, so I had to take it and let those people think those things about me...Here's the problem, if it worked that way, then everyone else would eventually have every single bad thing happen to them, that they thought about someone else. I should have been pulled over 5 times today, because I wished 5 other people would be pulled over for driving fast past me. But I didn't. Because that is NOT how God works.

3) Don't Wallow.

Go to school. Get out of your town. Leave the past behind. Once you have allowed yourself the time to mourn, and to be sad, and stopped shaming yourself, MOVE ON! I know some people who can't get past their mission because don't go and do other things. This was super hard for me, after serving 1 year I came home, but then was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, a super serious a debilitating illness, that has taken away 2+ years of my life! Once I got over the sadness and stopped shaming myself I was still too sick to move on, to go to school, to figure out my life, even to date! So what did I do? I wallowed, I couldn't do what I wanted so I fell back into the cycle of self shaming. DO NOT WALLOW!

4) Remember the good times.

Like any sad situation, whether the loss of a family pet, losing friendships, leaving a mission, it is ok to remember the good times, and to even see the growth from the hard times. That has been the biggest blessing for me. I may not be able to pin point exact blessings, but I can see my growth that has come from coming home early. I once heard a friend say that they learned more coming home early than anything they would have learned staying out on their mission. And where I don't think that is very true for myself, I am able to see my growth. And I am able to understand that it's ok to see those things, and to look back. And if you feel like you are in a place where you don't think you will ever find good, or find how you have grown from a situation, go ahead and go back and repeat these steps, you might be skipping ahead.

Again, these are just from personal experience as well as conversations of others who have gone through, to some extent, what I have. I don't wish to speak for every early return missionary, but I think and hope, that some of my experiences may have helped others.


-The Lyme Warrior

Here's what no one tells you about having both anxiety and depression

Found this on Buzzfeed! What an awesome article, with so much truth to it!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/annaborges/20-feelings-that-sum-up-having-both-depression-and-anxiety#.drYBqze6x

-The Lyme Warrior