A little more about being depressed (but not unhappy)

I am not sure why it turned my picture sideways?!?!?!

Anyway, I wanted to talk about how my depression relates to my spirituality and faith.  I am by no means a writer so I hope I am able to express what I need to. Please bear with me! I think this will help me with recognizing where my weaknesses are and make me better able to enrich my spiritual life. So here goes.

Sometimes my depression effects how I interpret the Spirit. That means that I have to consciously recognize what is the spirit and what is my depression. For example, one on my New Years Resolutions is to prepare for the temple.   Once I set it in my mind and heart that I was going all hell began to break lose in my life. My depression makes me think that all the bad things that happen are deserved because I have committed some sins and am not worthy to go to the temple.  Where as my conscious mind knows that it is one of two things: Satan attacking my weaknesses because he doesn't want me to be happy or to go to the temple, or less likely just a big coincidence that those things happened at the same time as my plan to go to the temple.  That is just the most recent example but it also applies to anytime I receive personal revelation.  I sometimes think that my prayers aren't answered when in reality it is just my depression convincing me that I am not worthy of blessings or answers so I don't make an effort to look for them.

 Depression sometimes makes me feel unworthy of the Sacrament. Let me be more specific here. Depression can manifest itself in things other than sadness like anxiety or anger. Mine shows itself in both ways.  I get anxiety over the fact that I might do something wrong and sin so I get angry at myself, or I get angry at someone else and it makes me feel terrible on the inside, so I convince myself that I am not worthy to receive the sacrament because I am doing something I shouldn't...even though sometimes it isn't that I am doing it but that I might do it.  Kinda like premeditated sin. Does that make sense? Sometimes if I am having a marital issue that is causing me to feel angry or upset I don't take the sacrament either.  I just feel uncomfortable taking the sacrament when my mind is in a bad place.

 Some of my depression stems from my ADD. Like for instance, I may start cleaning the kitchen and come across a toy, so I take the toy to the playroom.  The playroom is a disaster so I start picking up in there only to find a shoe.  I take the shoe to Ashlynn's bedroom closet and see her room is a disaster, so I start cleaning her room, and so on and so on, until eventually I hit the end of the day and I have started cleaning 7 rooms but I didn't finish cleaning any of them.  This causes me to feel unsatisfied with myself and my depression makes me start to think things like "I am a terrible mother/wife".  It has the same effect on my faith.  If I sit down to study my scriptures and 10 minutes later my mind is wondering, I feel like a failure.  So I try to force myself to refocus and it eventually becomes a burden instead of a blessing. When I kneel in prayer and 3 minutes after I started I can start to feel the ADD throwing ideas around in the back of my head, at first it is muffled and I try to get past it but it slowly creeps up until I feel like I have lost all concentration on my prayer.  Then I feel depressed because I can never truly pray for more than 2-3 minutes without having to apologize to Heavenly Father for drifting thoughts.  Then I start to break myself down with bad thought like "How could Jesus love me if I can't even say a proper prayer?" or "Why would Heavenly Father love me if I can't study his scriptures intently?" "How will I ever be able to enjoy the blessings of the temple if I can't even pay attention for 10 minutes of prayer, much less 3 hours in the temple?"

Depression and anxiety often interfere with my sleep as well, but seeing as how I have to get up for church in 6 1/2 hours I should probably try to go to sleep again.  Thank you so much for reading this and leaving supportive comments. I am still trying to figure out exactly what I want to with this blog and how I want to use it as a form of therapy and I appreciate your support while I struggle with this. Thank you for bearing with me and my horrible writing. I am hoping to get the hang of things soon!  I love you all and appreciate your support!