Mental ilness

I've struggled with mental illness on and off since I was a teenager.

Of course I could blame it on genetics, having a history of mental illness in the family.

I could blame it on things that happened in my childhood.

I could blame it on my environment growing up.

I could blame it on the media and the way it targets the emotionally vulnerable for profit.

I could blame it on myself for being so naive and ignorant. 

I could blame myself for giving in to temptation, or for wilfully rebelling against what I know is right.

But I won't pass blame onto anyone or anything.

I can't change the past and I wouldn't want to; I am who I am today because of everything I've been through.

My brother Jared struggled with bipolar disorder and other serious mental health challenges some years ago. I was speaking to him about it the other day and he said something that hit me hard. He said that when he was being diagnosed with this and that, and being told he had different conditions etc he realised something- "Only I could decide who or what I wanted to be." I think the real root cause of mental illness is when we forget who we are, and we don't know who we want to become. When we forget who we are, we lose our true sense of identity and seek to find it in other ways - this is often when addictions begin to form.

There are things everyone can do to boost their health. Of course it comes back to living the word of wisdom to the best of our knowledge and ability. Get enough sleep, eat nutritious meals, don't partake of anything that is harmful to your body. As hard as it is, I know that eating badly is one thing that seriously impedes on my mental health, but it is something that I just find so hard to give up. Eating unhealthily is for me, I feel, my only outlet. But I don't need to cut everything out, I just need to try and find healthier substitutes. It's difficult when everything that is healthier is ten times more expensive. Of course, exercise is another thing that will really help. I walk every day, but I need to try and get my heart rate up by going for a run or a swim and making more consistent efforts throughout the week.

I know that doing things I love will help. Music, singing, composing, writing prose and poetry, spending time painting or doing other forms of artwork, spending time with family etc. And of course the most important daily things: reading the scriptures, praying, fasting etc. I think I can be more diligent with my personal prayers and open up more to heavenly father and really let out everything I'm thinking and feeling. I also know that I need to fast more often and that will help too.

I don't know if this is something I can ever overcome, but I trust that if I am faithful and striving to do all that I can, the Lord can help my weaknesses to become strengths. I know He can purify me and refine me, so that I can be a vessel through which others are able to partake of His love. I know that the Saviour Jesus Christ lives. He lives, He loves me beyond what I can imagine, and He loves all of His children equally and unconditionally.

I hope, one day, i will be able to have the firmness of mind that allows me to feast upon the love of God forever.

Jacob 3: 1-2

Look unto God with firmness of mind, and pray unto him with exceeding faith, and he will console you in your afflictions... lift up your heads and...feast upon his love; for ye may, if your minds are firm, forever.

Self mastery

"Before you can master yourself, my precious one, you need to know who you are." 

-Russell M. Nelson

"There will always be voices telling you that you are foolish to believe that you are swans, insisting you are but ugly ducklings and that you can't expect to become anything else. But you know better." -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” 

-Leonardo da Vinci

We need to know who we are before we can develop self mastery.
For, how do we master our "self" if we do not know the "self" we are seeking to master.

So, who are we?
We are spirit sons/daughters of God with divine potential.
We also have a physical body and therefore are "natural" men and women.

"You consist of two parts—your physical body, and your spirit which lives within your body. You may have heard the expression 'mind over matter'. That’s what I would like to talk about—but phrase it a little differently: 'spirit over body.' That is self-mastery."

-Russell M. Nelson

Self mastery is not about controlling the "natural man/woman", but rather it is about making a conscious choice; it is choosing to strive for our divine potential.We know that the "natural man is an enemy to God"..."unless he yields to the enticings of the spirit." (Mosiah 3:19) We also know that each human being suffers similar temptations. (1 Corinth 10:13)Nevertheless, for each individual, certain temptations are more difficult to resist than others.It is important to ask ourselves, in honesty: 
What are our weaknesses? What are we easily tempted by? 
This is the "self" we are seeking to master.

A change of heart

What a wise thing it is to change our questions. To quit asking “How can I get control of my life, my children, my situation?” and start asking “How can I experience the mighty change of heart? How can I yield my will to His? How can I put God first in my life and trust Him totally? How can I remember that God is in charge, that all things happen for a purpose, and that all trials are tailor-made for our growth and individual instruction? The relief that comes from asking the right questions is transformative, comforting, freeing.

"The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature." -Ezra Taft Benson

“A new heart . . . will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh” (Ezekiel 36:26).

"Master, with anguish of spirit

I bow in my grief today.

The depths of my sad heart are troubled.

Oh, waken and save, I pray!

Torrents of sin and of anguish

Sweep o'er my sinking soul,

And I perish! I perish! dear Master.

Oh, hasten and take control!"

Note the difference in the final two lines of the following poems. The first poem is entitled "Invictus" by William Ernest Henley. The second poem is a replica of the first, but replaces self-mastery with the Saviour's ability to captain one's soul. The second is entitled "My captain", by Dorothea Day.

"I am the master of my fate;   I am the captain of my soul." Contrasted with

"Christ is the Master of my fate,
 Christ is the Captain of my soul."

Some steps towards Self Mastery:

Observe the law of the fast
As funds are contributed from meals missed, the needs of the poor may be met. But meanwhile, through your spirit, you develop personal power over your body’s drives of hunger and thirst. Fasting gives you confidence to know that your spirit can master appetite.

Observe the Word of Wisdom
Remember, it contains a “promise, adapted to the capacity of … the weakest of all saints.” (D&C 89:3) It was given “in consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days.” (D&C 89:4)

Exercise
“Glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Cor. 6:20)

I would not want you to neglect your body. It deserves daily care. Physical conditioning through regular exercise requires self-mastery too. But our motivation should never be to attain physical longevity.  Our desires should be to serve God and His anointed. Those faithful in “magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies. They become … the elect of God.” (D&C 84:33–34)

Serve others
President Spencer W. Kimball observed: “To be unselfish totally, always thinking of others before one’s self, is a great step toward self-mastery.”

Never give up

A small child learns to walk by falling and getting back up. Self-control often comes the same way. We must never get discouraged. Are our only two options perfection or failure? No! We need to be happy with progress, no matter how small.

Fill your life with goodness

We must make sure that we FILL our minds with goodness. It is not enough to merely cast out all evil thoughts, if our minds consist of nothing else. We must be "anxiously engaged in a good cause"! We must give our mind options of other thoughts to think! Our minds cannot survive without nourishment - thoughts. Emptying all negative thoughts, with nothing else to sustain our minds will lead to a natural resistance as an act of self-preservation. It is not enough for an ill person to cure themselves of disease, if they do not give their bodies all other life-sustaining substances. One who quits smoking by simply stopping breathing will die. Sure, they are no longer breathing in smoke, but neither are they filling their lungs with anything that sustains life. Thoughts of the Saviour are the most life-giving thoughts one can think, for he is the "life and the light of the world."

“May we be convinced that Jesus is the Christ, choose to follow Him, be changed for Him, captained by Him, consumed in Him, and born again” -Ezra Taft Benson

"Christ is the Master of my fate,

 Christ is the Captain of my soul."

Let virtue garnish thy thoughts

Proverbs 31:10 

Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

We were warned at the beginning of this dispensation that sexual immorality would be perhaps the greatest challenge we would face.

"Sometimes people try to convince themselves that sexual relations outside of marriage are acceptable if the participants love one another. This is not true. Breaking the law of chastity and encouraging someone else to do so is not an expression of love. People who love each other will never endanger one another’s happiness and safety in exchange for temporary personal pleasure."
(True to the Faith, Chastity)

"Why is lust such a deadly sin? Well, in addition to the completely Spirit-destroying impact it has upon our souls, I think it is a sin because it defiles the highest and holiest relationship God gives us in mortality—the love that a man and a woman have for each other and the desire that couple has to bring children into a family intended to be forever. Someone said once that true love must include the idea of permanence. True love endures. But lust changes as quickly as it can turn a pornographic page or glance at yet another potential object for gratification walking by, male or female. Love makes us instinctively reach out to God and other people. Lust, on the other hand, is anything but godly and celebrates self-indulgence. Love comes with open hands and open heart; lust comes with only an open appetite."
("Place no more for the enemy of my soul" - Jeffrey R. Holland)

"True love can alter human lives and change human nature." 

-Thomas S. Monson

Thomas S. Monson speaks about the courage we need in three aspects of our lives:

• First, the courage to refrain from judging others;
• Second, the courage to be chaste and virtuous; and
• Third, the courage to stand firm for truth and righteousness.

"To be entrusted with the power to create life carries with it the greatest of joys and dangerous temptations. The gift of mortal life and the capacity to kindle other lives is a supernal blessing. Through the righteous exercise of this power, as in nothing else, we may come close to our Father in Heaven and experience a fulness of joy. This power is not an incidental part of the plan of happiness. It is the key—the very key." ("Cleansing the Inner Vessel", Boyd K. Packer)

The deadly plague of Pornography

“You live in a world of terrible temptations. Pornography, with its sleazy filth, sweeps over the earth like a horrible, engulfing tide. It is poison. Do not watch it or read it. It will destroy you if you do. It will take from you your self-respect. It will rob you of a sense of the beauties of life. Stay away from it. Shun it as you would a foul disease, for it is just as deadly. Be virtuous in thought and in deed.”
-Gordon B. Hinckley

In our day the dreadful influence of pornography is like unto a plague sweeping across the world, infecting one here and one there, relentlessly trying to invade every home, most frequently through the husband and father. The effect of this plague can be, unfortunately often is, spiritually fatal. Lucifer seeks to disrupt “the great plan of redemption,”; “the great plan of happiness.”

Pornography will always repel the Spirit of Christ and will interrupt the communications between our Heavenly Father and His children and disrupt the tender relationship between husband and wife.
The priesthood holds consummate power. It can protect you from the plague of pornography—and it is a plague—if you are succumbing to its influence. If one is obedient, the priesthood can show how to break a habit and even erase an addiction. Holders of the priesthood have that authority and should employ it to combat evil influences. 

("Cleansing the Inner Vessel", Boyd K. Packer)

 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.  (Romans 12: 21)

Elder Hales expresses that "ironically, standing strong sometimes means avoiding and even fleeing from the world." We see this clearly in the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Genesis 39:12 - And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and FLED, and GOT HIM OUT.


..." let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God" -DnC 125: 45

There is hope!
There is always repentance; the Saviour waits with open arms.
Isaiah 1: 18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

In the scriptures, there are countless references of men and women "hardening their hearts" and thus turning away from the love that Heavenly Father and the Saviour desire to bless us with. For anyone who has ever experienced a broken heart, I'm sure they can agree that it is much easier to harden your heart than to forgive and open our hearts again. If we forgive and soften our hearts, then we become vulnerable and there is a fear that we might be hurt again. If we submit to the Saviour, he can help us to heal and move on. "Perfect love casteth out all fear." - 1 John 4:8


Alma 39:4 
Yea, she did steal away the hearts of many; but this was no excuse for thee, my son. Thou shouldst have tended to the ministry wherewith thou wast entrusted.
I often read this verse and feel a great sense of pain and sorrow for my sins. Yes, many people are led away to by the evils of our day, but that is "no excuse for thee my (daughter)". As members of the Lord's church he trusts us to be disciples of our Saviour, and I feel that we must strive to be more diligent in maintaining higher standards of chastity and virtue.


Moroni 10:30 
And again I would exhort you that ye would come unto Christ, and lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift, nor the unclean thing.


We must continue to be vigilant in keeping ourselves morally pure and virtuous.
Hopefully one day, when we have done all we can to remain pure and worthy the Lord will say to us:
"Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."
(Matthew 25:21)