There's a first time for everything.

I don't know if it's the fact that I have a cold or just didn't want to do my homework, but I actually watched a session of General Conference today. You see, that is impressive because,

1. I was actually awake instead of sleeping in until 6 at night, and 

2. Watching conference isn't something I tend to do unless I'm being forced to.

But let me back up.

I don't know of a single aspect in my life that I don't struggle with. As I've gotten older and my depression has gotten worse, I've lost interest in a lot of things that used to be the highlight of my life. Church is one of those things. When I was younger that used to be the only thing that mattered to me, and everything I did or didn't do was because of what I believed.

When your life becomes filled with so much pain that all you can do is hope you'll even make it to the next day, it's immensely impossible to care about something that puts so much focus on the eternal perspective of life. I'm not bashing that belief or ridiculing anything the church stands for, but for me that stuff just doesn't matter anymore. What matters to me is getting through every day without breaking down, and trying to find a reason to even be here. It is hard to find any meaning in a lot of what the church teaches, and the whole concept of it has just lost its importance to me as a whole.

I don't really know where I stand with the church. I don't know if it's that I don't have a testimony, or if I just don't want to have one. Either way, I know I stopped trying though. I gave up trying to always do the right thing, because it was just too exhausting when I never felt anything from it. The mormon stereotype at BYU overwhelms me, because I know that if I ever do come to know anything for myself, I'll still be nowhere near the type of mormon that everyone here is. It's just extremely hard to be around so many people who think they are a terrible person when they go a week without going to the temple, or forget to say their prayers one night. I feel like the majority of people at this school just don't understand what it's like to be different. I don't like going to church, because I don't fit in there. The things I need help with in life are so different than what others need. My mind just becomes trampled by how easily happiness and faith comes to everyone else, and I never leave feeling uplifted.

So many of my family members have fallen away from the church, and it's really hard to just ignore that. People I once looked up to as an example of doing what's right no longer have anything to do with the church, and it's really hard to just ignore that and see past it. It is the hardest thing to keep trying to find faith, or keep relying on God, when the people who once taught me to do so are the ones who gave up.

The gospel just doesn't make me happy like it does everyone else. I don't have that passion for going to church every week, or listening to conference, or reading scriptures, like every member of this church seems to have. I don't know if the reason for that is as simple as because it doesn't make me happy. I don't know. For me, it is so much harder to do any that stuff, because it just all seems so empty. Maybe my problem is that I don't want it to be true or make me happy. Maybe I'm just too depressed for any of it to resonate inside of me. Or maybe I just feel like I don't deserve any of the blessings the church offers because I'm too screwed up. I don't know. The only thing I know is that I feel nothing from trying.

I think that deep down inside of me I believe God exists, or at least I want him to. I think I like the idea of it, the idea of the never-ending and encompassing love he's supposed to offer. The fact of the matter though is that I honestly have no idea if he is there or not. I don't understand how it is possible to feel this alone and unloved if there is a God. It is absolutely beyond me.

There's never a day of my life that goes by where loneliness doesn't consume me. I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't the most prominent feeling in my life. My dog is the only thing in this world that gives me a reason to exist, because he relies on me to take care of him. He is the only living thing who makes me feel like my existence actually matters. Every single night my roommates are always gone, so every night I'm just alone. My dog is the only thing that's ever there for me, and I honestly wonder if I'd still be alive if I didn't have him, because without him I would be completely alone.

He is just a dog though, and he can't really make every lonely feeling I feel just go away. Sometimes it drives me to insanity and really makes me wonder why I was even put on this planet. If I am alone every single night of my life, then how can anyone have room to tell me that my existence matters to them, when they do nothing to make me feel that it does.

Last night was an example of a bad night. Every single thought and feeling that was being built up inside just hit me all at once, and the only thing I could do about it was lay on my floor and cry until I felt numb.

I don't really know what actually made me watch a session of conference today, but the feelings that ran through me when Elder Holland said that he was speaking specifically about depression, I just can't even describe it. One of the few things in this church that I haven't given up on, are the testimonies of the people like that man. Sometimes the thought goes through my head that God just isn't capable of loving people with depression, and maybe that's why he doesn't seem to exist in my life. Something that just really hit me was knowing that I'm not loved only by God, but by understanding church leaders as well.

Out of all the things in life that I don't know, something I do know is this. When I was laying on my floor last night crying my soul out, if God existed I was begging him to take my life away and just let me die. I was exhaustively expressing how worthless I was and how much my life didn't matter. I was terrifyingly alone, and all I wanted was to stop existing.

I wasn't praying, but the prayers I wasn't saying were answered. When I was listening to that talk today, I just couldn't even comprehend how it was possible that this was the subject of his talk. His talk didn't cure anything about me, it didn't just suddenly give me a testimony, but it let me know that he understands and that there's a place in his heart for people consumed with this darkness. He understands that depression is a literal living hell and that people can't just snap out of it by "changing the way they think". He brought light to a very dark subject, and let people like me know that not only God loves us, but he loves us. And I can't help but think that the love I felt through him came from God.

In the 20 years that I've been alive, no conference talk has ever made me cry until today.