Dear ________, my boyfriend/girlfriend is depressed (or abusive, or addicted, et cetera)

Someone asked in a public forum: "What should I do?  My boyfriend suffers from depression. He's started getting help, but I feel terrible when I'm with him."

This is my response, more or less, and I think that it applies to any kind of bad behavior, in any relationship:

     If he really loves you, and is not just leaning on you, then he will want you to be happy; he'll be okay with you stepping back until and while he gets help and establishes a foundation of stability.  You should involve his family an a few closest friends if you step back, so that they can step in and support him.  

You do not want a co-dependent relationship.  

     You do not help someone else by putting yourself in a situation where you, yourself, become un-healthy.  In airlines, you put the oxygen mask on yourself first, then help those around you. So, here, keep yourself healthy first, and then help him if you want. (You are not obligated to ruin yourself to support him.)

     Depression and mental illness, addictions, and destructive habits and coping mechanisms are real, as real as any physically observable ailment like a broken leg. They can in many cases be overcome to some degree: depending on the nature of the problem, it may truly be temporary, related to something that has happened to him; or it may be something that periodically affects him throughout his life; or it may be chronic and fatal.  

The good news is, there are treatments and hope for most conditions, but they depend mostly on the tenacity of the individual who has issues.  "Treatment" may mean medication.  It should absolutely include counseling -- for the sick person alone, for the one who loves him/her, and for the two of you together.

Treatment *must* include permanent life changes by the one who is sick -- learning and applying healthy coping mechanisms.  

     Help him and support him through it, if you want, but hold him accountable (this is part of what makes it not co-dependent): he must do those things that are required to make him healthy, or you will *not* stick around; in that case, if he's not doing what he needs to, and you stick around, then you are only enabling him to destroy himself.  And, only you and the Lord can know when it is time to step back, time to push him, or time to leave him. 

     Loving someone also means that you will not enable bad behavior from them.  Ultimately *YOU*ARE*NOT*RESPONSIBLE*FOR*THE*CHOICES*HE*MAKES, and don't ever let him manipulate you into thinking that you are. If that happens, then politely explain that you care too much for him and his happiness to accept his blame for his choices.  Holding him accountable, even to the point of leaving him forever (kindly), if needed, may be the most loving thing you can do, particularly if he will not make the healthy choices he needs to make. Accountability is a life-long requirement.

Even in "healthy" relationships, mutual accountability is a MUST.  There are some things that you *should* do to or for or with each other to greater or lesser degrees.  There are some things that you should never do to or for or with each other.  Marriage itself is a covenant -- an agreement between parties that expresses obligations between the parties.

Now, a word on forgiveness and repentance: nobody is perfect, and everybody needs repentance.   A successful and happy marriage cannot exist without forgiveness on the part of *both* parties, and we *all* need grace.  That said, there are some things that should never happen -- that while these should be forgiven for the soul of the abused, we should not "stick around" and excuse or allow it.  And there are some things that may happen, where a forgiveness and repentance process must take place.  "A successful marriage is the union of two great forgivers" reads a placard on my bathroom counter. 

     I would approach this the same way you might for your children: you love them, but you will not accept some behavior; you lovingly, respectfully, but very firmly set limits; and transgression of those limits will have consequences (not necessarily "punishments"; consequences may be separation or divorce).  You have to make the determination as to what the situation calls is and what the appropriate action is: is it an early stage in their healing/re-training process where they're going to make mis-steps, and they need a firm boundary, a reminder, etc.? Or is it a temporary regression which calls for the same reminder and boundary?  Or is it an attempt to abuse or manipulate? Or is it an unrepentant and/or chronic poor choice?  Remember, we are not helping the abuser/sufferer by remaining forever around and enabling their abuse or continued poor choices: if we truly love them, just as with an errant child, we will hold them accountable and choices will have consequences.

I hope that this helps anyone who might be struggling in this area.

Dear _______, I've been bullied, I hate myself, I feel depressed, and I want to kill myself, and (fill in the blank)...

While I am reluctant to cast my own pearls before swine (this is the Internet, after all), and reluctant because people here wouldn't have the full context or would infer things that are not true, my heart truly hurts for anybody who is feeling this kind of pain in their life.  So, here it is...

(...from experience in the past...)

You are...

Whatever you feel like, and wherever you've been: you are a son or a daughter of the God of Heaven, and he loves you and knows you and wants you to be happy.  You may feel hopeless at times, but hold onto that truth, and it can be the thing that keeps a little spark of hope in you.

Other People

Now, this may feel like trivializing your pain, but please appreciate that this is a voice of experience, and I am only trying to lend perspective, because everthing is huge under the magnifying glass of our hurt and singular focus; things can get smaller when we step back and see the other things around them:   

The Things People Say

You cannot -- and never will be able to -- control the things other people say about you: you can only leave (and should leave!) the company of those who verbally try to harm you.  Never let yourself get sucked into an argument of this kind.  

You also have a choice here: Nobody can hurt you verbally unless you give them permissions to.  DON'T give them permission to.  Leave them, and remind yourself that they are in pain, and therefore deserving of your pity (or sympathy, or even your empathy), otherwise they wouldn't by trying to hurt you. God loves them, too, after all -- even when they make bad choices. 

If you forgive them, then it opens the door to you being able to forgive yourself.  Life will always have "bullies". But you don't have to let them always hurt you.

The Things People Do

NOW, PHYSICAL ATTACKS (including someone touching you sexually without your consent) are different: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO allow someone to hurt you. Whether you simply leave to get out of reach of the attacker, or turn the other cheek and bear the hurt, as the people of Limhi in the Book of Mormon, or whether you fight to *defend* yourself (by definition, not attacking someone) like Captain Moroni and other Book of Mormon heroes, it is your choice and I suggest it is a matter of prayer.  I believe that it can be helpful to study Limhi's peopel versus Captain Moroni's people, to understand the context and when it might be more appropriate to bear the burden versus to fight to defend oneself. This may seem odd outside the context of the gospel, but Jesus did teach us to turn the other cheek in some cases.  His prophets also taught self defense.  However, I think that this applies to physical attacks, *never* for sexual assaults: if you've been sexually abused, you should never let that happen again: you deserve better!  Get to safety, get help, and get therapy.

I believe that every one of God's creatures, not least of all His children, has a right to self defense.  That is actually a foundational principle of the United States -- Natural Law, as expressed in the Declaration of Independence, and defended in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  You have a right to live without having violence inflicted upon you, and you have the first right (even before the police or government) to protect yourself and your family.

Even so, if someone is hitting you, that is also a crime, and you should consider getting the help of local law enforcement. (Even a significant threat of physical harm can be considered a crime in some areas; I am not an attorney, do your own research.)  A policeman showing up on a bully's doorstep might be enough to quell their appetite for inflicting harm.  Note, however, that the courts are a blunt instrument of justice, and simply seeking justice can easily go awry; for example, there are some crimes for which the police and prosecutors will prosecute without the victim's consent.

Just as nobody else can really *make* you happy, nobody else can *make* you unhappy.  

What can I do about how I feel?

Even with all of the preceding, depression is very real, is formidable, and can be debilitating.  Ultimately, I have found that 

I have a choice

It is my choice: choosing to retreat into my shell and become catatonic will only bring me deeper into the depression. *Forcing *myself* to get up and do things - clean, socialize, walk out in the open air, make yummy food (I *love* yummy food), exercise (very important!), etc., will help me to not sink deeper, and if I'm not careful, I might feel better. 

GET OUT AND DO THINGS, even if it's just a walk in fresh air once a day; surround yourself with positive people and things (I enjoy a local Christian rock station, they're very clean and up-beat).

I am not alone

We all need other people. There are people on Earth that love you and care about you, even if it's only your immediate family, your ward family, or an old friend. Don't sell other people short: there are people who care about you, even if you don't think there are.  If somehow you've burned bridges through bad choices, then reach out and ask forgiveness; most people are pretty eager to forgive, and then... BLAMMO, you've got a friend again.

What if I need a little more help?

In some cases, a little medication might help you get over the hump of depression to where you can climb more ably yourself.  But pray on it, read the labels before taking the pills, do your own research online about what affects people feel from the medications. Every medication has a cost, and in a few cases, that cost can be quite severe; you may decide that you'd rather do all the climbing yourself.  Don't go through this choice alone if possible, and have a friend who can help you watch for any significant negative changes, or in whom you can feel safe to confide if you start having really bad affects from a medication.  And don't be afraid to get medical help if needed.  Even though not everything done by men is good, I believe that God has inspired scientists in many cases to help them to develop medical treatments to help us along our journey.  My advice here is to go into it eyes-wide-open, not just blindly trusting a doctor who tells you "that drug has no side-effects." And understand that many situations just call for a temporary (weeks/months) boost, and don't necessarily mean you'll be on "psycho-active" drugs for the rest of your life.

Even mostly healthy people get help to stay healthy, or if they feel sick; don't be ashamed.

What if I feel like I'm in crisis?

Know if you're in real personal danger.  Talk to someone about what you're feeling.  Pre-arrange with someone close to you a catch phrase, so that you can let them know that you are in crisis and need serious help: it's better to stay in a hospital for a week or a few to re-gain your balance than to take your own life and miss out on all that your future life will have to offer.  And there's a difference between having a thought/suggestion of suicide lurking out at a distance -- the same way the Adversary of our souls might tempt any of us with anything, and we push that thought away because we recognize it for what it is -- and feeling yourself get to the point where you are seriously tempted and might actually hurt yourself.  Recognize that "I feel really awful about myself," for which perhaps everyone has bad days, doesn't have to lead to "and so I will end my life and miss out on all my future happiness."  You have a choice. But, get help if you feel yourself going to the tipping point.  Especially if you have children for whom you are responsible, be very sensitive to this and get help early. You love your children, you don't want to let yourself get to a point where they could be hurt, and so you will get outside help early rather than waiting.

If you broke your leg, you'd get immediate help, and it doesn't mean it's permanent.  If you feel broken somewhere else inside, it's okay to get competent help, and it doesn't mean it's permanent.

My Feelings are Real

I hesitate to say this to anyone who is in crisis; it may feel like a condemnation, a conviction of the person who feels very badly, or a dismissal of what are very real feelings. I hope you will try to understand the spirit in which I mean it.  And understand, again, that this is coming from an empathetic perspective of experience:

YOUR FEELINGS ARE VERY REAL... but they are not necessarily TRUE.

In fact, if they're very negative and only see the bad, then they are most certainly not true. Even in the deepest, darkest pit, if you look sky-ward you will see a light (this is God's promise; there are no lids on the wells of the deepest trials of life); so, if you don't see the light, then your feelings are deceiving you.

There is almost always a gap between what is real -- what is really, really true -- and what we feel.  Accept it.

We all have feelings.  It's part of our basic make-up.  And that's okay.  But it is not okay for us to be ruled/fueled solely by our feelings.

Our physical, natural (animal) self is governed by four basic urges: Fight, Flight, Feed, Mate.  They're all centered around keeping us alive.  If faced with danger (and whether it is real, actual danger, or just a perceived or imagined danger, it is the same), our physical selves will feel the urge to "fight" or to "flee".  These can in some situations be very good things. In some situations, these can be very bad.  Some verbally or physically abusive persons (including bullies), it may be said, are responding to their own personal fears with an overcompensated Fight urge, acting aggressively as a pre-emption to ward off some percieved threat, or to suppress or assuage their deep-seated fear. (This is perhaps related to why many bullies were themselves abused in their own pasts.)

Our rational, thinking selves (which are still part of our physical self) may respond to a feeling of being threatened in many ways: to problem-solve; to analyze the circumstances of our fear; or to go back and "review the facts", to critically consider what we see, and to look for perhaps distortions in our perception -- the thinking self acknowledges that reality may be different from our perceptions, and tries to dig deeper to see what the truth (reality), really is.  Just as our thinking self also gives rise to other positive higher-order and rational "feelings" such as commitment (love) and self-sacrifice, it can produce negative "feelings" that go beyond the purely animal and that may still deceive us if we are not disciplined: false pride/confidence, infatuation or allegiance, prejudice, etc.  If we are driven by our physical self, then our thinking self may respond to danger with doubt (again, perhaps driven by the physical "fear" urge), with submission (giving up, or perhaps acceptance), with rationalization / justification (making excuses, whether valid or contrived), or in any number of other ways.

Our spiritual selves may respond to a feeling of being threatened by exercising faith to seek refuge or deliverance, or by exercising faith to accept the will of God, or by exercising faith to learn from the experience, or to seek the strength to overcome the challenge; we may feel spiritually strengthened as we come through a threat.  Our spiritual selves help us to feel patience, true Christ-like love,e tc.

The point is not that we must deny our feelings (whether of fear or hopelessness, of attraction or love, of strength or confidence).  But we must put them in their proper place, and seek first to understand what is real?

Think about it: many a person with terrible skills has appeared in a (name-that-reality-talent-show) audition only to be told that they were not as good as they thought; the person felt very confident; perhaps their mommy and daddy had always told them that they were the best singer in the world, but mommy and daddy did them a disservice by not helping them to objectively assess reality.  Then, not being able to see what is real, the auditioner was not in a position to really improve themselves. Yes, they felt very confident. And then they felt very indignant and betrayed when they were rejected. All those feelings didn't help them to get where they wanted to be.

Don't be ruled by feelings: temper them with what you know, spiritually and rationally, to be true.  Force yourself to be honest with yourself: if you only see darkness and loss, then you are not seeing everything that is there.

For example, one abused person will never leave their abuser, because they feel a sense of loyalty, or they have fear of the unknown, etc.

Another abused person comes to the understanding that, "I love (the abuser) as a child of God; but they are hurting me, and I will not permit them to hurt me any more, because I am also a child of God; I understand now that I am not helping that person by allowing them to continue to hurt me."

...or any person who arrives at "I love [a friend, a child, etc.] enough to say 'no'."

In the context of depression, I believe this understanding and proper placement of feelings may look something like, "I feel like I am worthless, I feel like i have no friends, and I feel like I just want to disappear from this life; but I believe that there is a God in Heaven who loves me; I don't know anything for sure, but I have hope that I can get through; and I know that I want to be happy, and that nobody else can do that for me, but I believe that I can do that for myself -- with Heavenly Father's help.  So I will hang on; I'll get help; I'll not douse my hope."

No matter how I feel, I can make a difference for someone else

Sometimes, when I'm having a rough day, I decide to make it my purpose to brighten someone else's day. That always works.  I go out and walk around and try to give everyone I see a big, warm, *sincere* smile and a "hello!".  Pretty soon, I'm so happy I can't wipe the huge, silly smile off my face.  I'm sure some people wonder what's so funny that this guy is smiling so big at them, but I think that for someone, just receiving a smile and a warm "hello" probably brightens their day.  And it is like I've got my own secret.

The other day, I was feeling pretty negatively about the world. So, as I was out for a walk, I decided that everyone I saw, I would say silently in my heart "Jesus loves him/her; and they are my brother/sister."  I was feeling better pretty soon, and it helped me to really internalize that even when people make mistakes, Jesus loves and forgives them, so I can love them and forgive them, too -- and, by the way, I need Jesus's forgiveness and their forgiveness as much as they do, too.

If you can no more than desire it, then still hang in there

Alma 32:27 teaches us that, to develop faith, all we need is to want to develop faith.  I believe that this is true in the context of dealing with depression, sadness, etc.

In a sense, depression is -- or at least can lead to -- a kind of despair that exists only in the absence of faith and hope.

So, if you are in the deepest sadness, if you can no more than just want to get to a better place: that is enough!  Stay with it and hold onto that wanting.

To want it to get better can grow into hoping it will get better, which, if you're not careful, might lead to believing it will get better or even it getting better.

And don't despair: It WILL get better, if you hang in there.  Do just a few things to help it to get better. 

And, you are never alone.  You can shift your burdens onto your Savior.  At several decades of age, I am just starting to understand this principle.  But it starts with a little prayer, "Heavenly Father, I can't do this all by myself -- it is too much; but I hope, I believe, I have faith that my Savior, Jesus Christ, can help me to get through this; he has borne the suffering for my sins, and I believe that he can help to bear the pain I am feeling now.  Please help me to stay faithful, to follow my Savior, and to let Him help me."  Remember, "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. (http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/isa/53?lang=eng)

Power up!

Heavenly Father has placed people and things around you to help you on your journey -- a special friend or family member; a church leader or adviser; prayer; a competent doctor or a Christian professional counselor; conference talks and scriptures.  These are like "power ups" along your journey -- think of your favorite video game, and when the hero has been hurt, his life-meter starts to get low-- you are the hero, and you need some power-ups. Take advantage of these power-ups that are in your life.  You have not lost YOUR agency. You can't control what other people do, you can't control what life throws at you. You *can* control what you do with it. YOU ALWAYS HAVE A CHOICE.  Choose well, I know you can, and you can -- you eventually will be happy.