"He found out I liked cats, so he started sending me kitty pictures. I haven’t told him how many times those pictures and check-ins once or twice a week saved me." --Alex
Depression doesn’t care that you just graduated from college and landed your dream job, or that you escaped a controlling religion and are finally free. It doesn’t give a damn that you have people and pets you love and care about. It makes you feel empty, day after day. Depression isn’t sadness. It makes you unable to feel anything at all, really.
Alex has been dealing with it for most of her life.
“I call it ‘going numb’ – it’s like you are encased in a shell that is keeping those emotions out. You learn to fake them and paint pretty pictures on the outside of that shell, but the inside is the same disturbing silence,” she said.
Alex is 22 years old and holds a Bachelor’s degree from BYU. She’s an assistant genealogist working for on online genealogy service, her dream job. She owns an adorable cat and likes reading, writing, and music.
Three months ago, she posted to r/exmormon asking for help. Her depression was becoming overwhelming and she was contemplating suicide.
Finding the truth
Alex’s mother converted to the LDS church when Alex was five years old. She was baptized at age eight and hit all of her Mormon milestones, like serving in leadership roles in Young Women’s and attending BYU. During her senior year of college, though, Alex began to question her faith. She was working on the Nauvoo Polygamist Project at the time, an undertaking that researched Mormonism’s early pioneers – including the men and women involved in polygamous or polyandrous marriages. Alex had known about the LDS history of polygamy, but the polyandry was new and troubling. On top of that, she was horrified by the prejudice, racism, sexism, and homophobia she found at BYU.
Until then, Alex had avoided the exmormon subreddit, fearing it was “anti-Mormon.” But with all of her questions, she waded into the threads, looking for hard facts and truth about her religion. She found both, and decided to resign her membership after she graduated.
Reaching out
Faking a good Mormon life while she was still at BYU only strengthened Alex’s depression. After she resigned, the cold silence of her Mormon friends and neighbors, who were suddenly “too busy” to talk to her, didn’t help. Though she was free, the damage had been done, and she spiraled into planning her suicide. After she posted about it on the exmormon subreddit, volunteers sent up a Tapir Signal asking people to reach out to Alex.
“I was guided through what to do – what to expect. I was told that everything would be okay and to rely on the community. So I did, tentatively at first,” Alex said. “People reached out to me: Hiking1950, hasbrochem, a girl called _Emma_stoned_, and T_the_Initial. T was a big help for me. He found out I liked cats, so he started sending me kitty pictures. I haven’t told him how many times those pictures and check-ins once or twice a week saved me.”
He and his wife even took Alex out for dinner one night when she was struggling, reminding her that life is worth living.
Everything’s not magically better and her depression hasn’t disappeared, but Alex is finding good days mixed in with the bad ones. She was initially embarrassed that a Tapir Signal had been sent up just for her, but the more she’s worked with Signal volunteers, the more she’s come to appreciate them, she said.
“The volunteers showed me a love I hadn’t felt in a long time, even within the church: the love of non-judgmental support.”
She knows how difficult finding that can be, especially at BYU. If you’re enrolled and struggling, she said, “Leave if you can, but if you must stay, find an outlet, a healthy one. And remember that you aren’t alone.”
If you are in need of help, you can reach us here.
If you are feeling suicidal, please call the National Suicide Hotline at 1-800-273-8255 or 1-800-784-2433.
If you are LGBT+ and need to talk, please contact the LGBT National Hotline at 1-888-843-4564 or find them online here.
Know you are safe and among friends and we will do whatever we can to help.
Lastly, if you would like to be involved or volunteer, you can reach out to us here.
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