About Me

Welcome friends, to the Become Strong Blog + Podcast. This is a project that is so near and dear to my heart. It is something that I feel blessed to be able to create, and so excited to share with you.

Let me just tell you a bit about how this came to be... About three years ago, my life was shaken up a bit with a mental illness diagnosis that left me feeling very angry, bitter and resentful. Angry with myself, with my family and, quite honestly, mostly with God.

As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have always been taught about my my relationship to God - that I am His daughter and am loved by Him. But that can be a big truth to understand, and really make sense of on a daily basis. I also know that I existed before this life, and am here for a short time, and will continue to exist after this life. And accepting this is maybe the most crucial piece of the puzzle, that has lead me to where I am today. You see, most of my memories and experiences from the first thirty years of my life I can categorize into these three sections: life before my diagnosis, life during and immediately after, and my life lived since then, alongside Jesus Christ. So I'm going to tell you a quick story, and then we'll get to the meat of why we're here, in this space, together.

Life Before the Diagnosis
I lived my life, a lot (maybe most) of the time, wrestling with either depression, anxiety or disordered eating - not realizing (as maybe you are or are not right now) how common it actually is to have to watch life through those foggy lenses. It is far more common than I thought before, and so I often struggled silently. Not really even accepting for myself what was happening, just knowing I was unhappy.  I had watched others around me suffer in these ways, but never knew what they did to cope, and so assumed that everyone was just getting life done on their own - just powering through.
Shortly after having my first daughter, Cecelia, I knew that the way I was feeling during that time of my life was not quite as I wanted it to be, and I searched for help to make that better. Through the support of my husband, family, and a family doctor I trust greatly, I was able to find it. And it blessed my life tremendously. I assumed it might return each time I had a child, but now that I knew what it was, my husband and I were confident we could face it again, and that we'd know what to do each time it resurfaced.
These dips in mood were occasional, unwelcome visitors, who we would escort out of our lives, gently, quickly and quietly.

My Diagnosis
After my second daughter, Isla, was born we expected the depression to come back, and thought we were ready for it. It did, and I immediately started the same treatment plan that we used after Cecelia was born. But this time was still different - harder still - and things did not work out the same way. When Isla was about 18 months old, and I was finished nursing her, and I felt like life should be getting back to normal, I started to notice patterns in my behaviours and moods which were very  troubling and alarming to me. I'd heard stories about my maternal grandfather, I'd done a little research in university, and I could see it playing out now. I knew, before talking to a doctor, "I am bipolar".
I made contact with a psychiatrist at our local hospital, I went through an evaluation process, and I was indeed diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder. I spent about 3 months trying a few different medications (each of which came with its own cocktail of hideous side effects), and trying to create a treatment plan with this psychiatrist. I was told that this is a disorder that does not go away (like I was used to with my previous experience with mental illness), and that it will be a lifelong struggle for me to find my new normal - my own version of peace and calm.
This was a dark time for me. I remember feeling so much anger and frustration with myself. I remember being so confused and completely paralyzed  each time a mood swing came. I remember months of keeping it to myself, without even some of my closest family members knowing, because I didn't want to lose the last little bit of public dignity I was able to maintain. That first year was one of the hardest of my life.

I Cannot Help You if You Don't Help Yourself
Facing, living with, and treating this disease continues to be the hardest things I have to do. On one particularly hard day, I knelt and prayed and I begged Heavenly Father to take away a bout of depression that seemed to be dragging on and on. I felt a distinct impression, almost like a voice (the only time in my life that I have ever experienced anything like that) say to me "I will not heal you of this, but I will teach you how to live with it". That night when Eric got home from work, I had to leave the house. I started driving and I ended up at the bookstore. I started browsing and I ended up going home with two workbook style books about bipolar disorder, and I can honestly say that that night has changed my life.

In a way that I never thought possible, I have started to understand the purpose of this struggle. Through a promise that I have never understood, I have watched this weakness of mine be turned into a strength (The Book of Mormon, Ether 12:27). And that is what I have been exploring since then. That is what I want to share with you, and learn more about. Jesus Christ has made a promise to us that He can "make weak things become strong", and I have seen it in my life, and in the lives of others, and I want for you to be able to see it too.