you are enough

I've thought about this post for months and months on end. I've debated writing it at all and seriously debated sharing it.

However,

I need to write it. For me.
I need to share it. For anyone else who has been there.

I don't know when it all started. It very well could have been while I was still on my mission. I know I was truly carried those last couple of months by angels. I was pretty broken on the inside when I stepped off that plane. Heartbroken and tired I came home completely terrified of what was waiting.

When I came home from my mission no one was surprised (especially not me), by my emotional and kind of up in the air state of being. As the weeks turned into months I wondered how long it would take for me to come back down to earth. A lot of missionaries struggle returning to normal life. A lot of people break up with people they really care about. A lot of people have a hard time fitting in at BYU. I wasn't traveling down a path that was too difficult, it was just life.

At first I was able to live with the weird feelings and frustration at my social situations. I celebrated 2 weddings, Christmas, a family vacation and moved to school. I was busy busy busy and that was a blessing. When life slowed down for the Frodsham family and I didn't have any more weddings to look forward to, I realized more each day that I wasn't okay.

I was tired a lot but it was college and everyone is tired right? So I took long naps. Those naps turned into all day. Then I stopped going to class. I stopped trying to make friends. I just slept because when I was sleeping I didn't feel. When I was sleeping I didn't social media stalk people from my past or look through old pictures or read old blog posts from when I was happy. When I was sleeping I was safe. My Professors probably thought I was lazy. My roommates knew more about what I was avoiding and did all they could to love me. My grades began to slip because I was so anxious going to campus- afraid of who I would see and how I would feel. I stopped trying feeling like I would never catch up on the work I slept through. I couldn't eat without getting sick. I felt completely unmotivated to exercise. I don't remember now what it was that prompted me to call home but I knew I needed help.

...

I sat in soft chair with a box of tissues on my lap. Two kind, concerned faces looked at me as I cried until my head throbbed. I will never forget the grip on my stomach as she said the word 'depression'.

Depression? but I'm a happy person... Megan is happy and loves life and people. I can't have depression.

Situational depression is different from a chemical imbalance. I was told I would get better with time and attention. The process of healing began there.
I was scared of the idea of a mental illness. I couldn't take an antibiotic and kill the infection. My mom couldn't take the disappointed, anxious or sad feelings out of me and make me better. It had to be me and my choices.

Over the last 9 months I have sat with 3 different therapists, kept a feelings journal, read articles and books about grieving and cried more than I thought was possible. I have prayed and fasted and prayed and hoped and struggled. I've been decently open about it because I needed people who truly cared about me. I indeed am blessed with good friends and family.

There were more times than I care to remember that I put it all back in a box and pushed it into the deepest darkest corners I could find. It always found its way back out again and I would start the process of accepting it all over again.

...

This time last year I was just starting the hardest part of my mission. I remember those days and thinking that I would trade anything in the world to just go home. I didn't know then what coming home from a mission would really be like.

I would like to say that it is important to warn missionaries but people told me it was hard to go home. People told me that it was hard to adjust. People told me that they would have gone back in a heart beat. It is just one of those things that if you haven't experienced it, you won't get it.

I think the same can be said about depression. I can try to explain it- the feelings and ups and downs but until you've been there, you won't get it.

It is different from having a bad day or feeling sad or not getting what you had really hoped for although those kinds of feelings apply.

And for that reason I am writing this. Far more people than we realize pass through times of their life when there really is no other way to describe it but depressing. For those people who are currently struggling...

I've been there.

I write in hope. I write in faith. I write believing with all of my heart that one day you will be okay. One day I will be okay. That is the promise of the atonement. Our Savior Jesus Christ is the only person who will truly get it because my depression is different from yours. Our life experiences are unique.

I went back to one of those soft chairs with another box of tissues on my lap at the beginning of the semester. I left that day without using a single tissue. And for the first time in probably over a year- I feel like Megan. I haven't yet felt the need to go back there.

I think that promised peace has come. I still like to take naps but they are now naps full of dreams not avoidance of real life. My heart still hurts when I think about my time as a missionary or my failed romance or my undetermined life plan. However, that hurt doesn't stay and engulf or paralyze me like it used to. It doesn't cause me to stop trying to feel. There are even times I am grateful for that hurt because it offers me a stark contrast to how I know I should feel when I think about my mission or dating or the future.

My Aunt gave me a bracelet at the end of last semester and written on it were the words "you are enough". I wore that bracelet every single day over the summer. Recently the bracelet began to crack and I have found it pretty poetic that it lasted me until now. I no longer wear it everyday because I am afraid of it breaking. There are plenty of moments as a 21 year old girl that I still need reminding that "you are enough". But today and yesterday and I have high hopes that tomorrow- I remember.

I am enough. My life is good. And I am happy.