Shake It Off!

After getting married in December 1990, I experienced one of my first long-term episodes of depression. I had thought that once my dream of marriage came true, happily ever after would then occur. But that didn’t happen. I could not figure out what was wrong with me. I chastised myself in my journal. I wrote that I should feel happy and felt ashamed for not being able to be more grateful and positive. But I couldn’t Shake It Off. 

Toxic Shame

In essence, I was blaming myself. Blaming myself is an evaluation process. Blaming myself too much is taking too much responsibility for a failure* and not recognizing that there are also other causes involved. Blaming myself too much results in Toxic Shame. 

*Failure - I use this term to represent when anything is going wrong or is not where I want it to be regardless of who or what is to blame. I’m not saying I am a failure because I experienced depression. I use the term objectively.

My motivation behind attributing the cause of failure to myself is that I like to be in control of things, especially over how I feel. If I can find the cause of failure in my choices, that’s easy for me to change. I just have to figure out what it is and then work to change it. Success, then, replaces the failure. And I have to admit that I am a success junky. Toxic Shame isn’t about taking upon myself the responsibility to change. That’s actually a good thing. Toxic Shame is when:

• I take on more of the burden than I can handle 
• I try to change things about myself that shouldn’t be changed
• I try to change things about myself that I don’t yet (and in some cases will never) have the ability to change.

Toxic Blame

Blaming others or attributing the cause of the failure to sources outside of my control is also an evaluation process. And objectively it is true that most failures have multiple causes. Blaming other sources too much as the cause of failure and not recognizing that there are things that I have control over is Toxic Blame. I am motivated to engage in Toxic Blame evaluation about specific failed events or relationships that:

• Are in the past and I can do nothing about now
• I don’t know how to resolve the conflict
• I have worked hard and long to resolve a conflict and it’s still not resolving. 

Attributing too much of the cause to sources outside of my control leads to missed opportunities for growth, change, and personal development.

I now believe that when I blamed myself for my state of depression as a newlywed, I was diverging into Toxic Shame. Because I didn’t know then what I do now, this is understandable. But how I was evaluating the cause of my depression reminds me of an incident in high school.  

My coach told me to Shake It Off!

It was my sophomore year and I was on the softball team. At one of my home games at Santa Teresa High School, I was a runner on third base. My coach gave me the sign to steal home base if the pitcher tried to catch the runner at first from stealing second. She did and I took off for home. The other team recovered the ball and threw it home. From the sidelines, my coach shouted, “Down!” This meant to slide. We had practiced sliding for several weeks so I knew what to do, and I loved doing it. I slid into home base just as the catcher caught the ball. “Safe!” the umpire called. I got up and walked off the field, my coach patting me on the back. 

Standing on the sidelines at the end of the batting order, I felt a pain in my right knee. I walked around, stretching and flexing. My coach noticed and asked if I was okay. I said, “yeah.” He told me to Shake It Off. So, I tried. After the inning, I grabbed my glove and went back out to my position in left field. The pain was increasing, rather than decreasing. “What was wrong?” I wondered. “Why couldn’t I just Shake It Off?” There was no apparent injury – no cut, no blood, no bones sticking out. And I could walk. Usually, when I had collisions in softball, soccer, or hide-and-go-seek, my body hurt at first but then the pain would go away after a few minutes. But this wasn’t going away. Finally, my coach saw I was struggling and took me out of the game. 

A little while later, my mom picked me up from the school parking lot and brought me to the emergency room. The x-rays showed that I had not broken anything but had strained the ligaments in my right knee pretty badly. I had to wear a brace and use crutches for the next six weeks.

Trying to Shake Off spiritual strains

So back to the newlywed story I started with: After I was married in 1990 and was in my senior year at BYU, I felt like something had been spiritually strained, but I didn’t know what. Nothing bad had apparently happened. Only good. I just got married, for heaven’s sake! It’s only in retrospect as I have analyzed my past experiences with wiser eyes that I have been able to more accurately evaluate what was going on. 

And as I said, in my journal I tried to write happy thoughts, express my gratitude for my husband and my life, and think of some things about me that I could change to make things better. This was my attempt to Shake It Off. In the past, I might have felt sad about something specific that happened. Usually, I would understand why I was sad because the reasons were apparent. And the subsequent sad feelings were normally fleeting. I would rebalance after a short period of time. This time, however, there didn’t seem to be any cause for the sad feelings. I didn’t know what to change and I couldn’t Shake It Off.

All I could do was pray for help. And help did come in time. It wasn’t much longer before we moved from our first apartment to a little blue house next door to a family in our ward – Dennis and Susie Shaver and their four children. They were the ones who told us about the house and encouraged us to move in. We developed a close friendship with them. I interacted with Susie a lot and loved babysitting or just hanging out with her kids who were always coming over to our house.

Our relationship with this family made a big difference for me. The depression significantly decreased. I never imagined additional good relationships were what I needed. Note: I didn’t need toxic relationships with people who treated me like crap. I needed relationships with people who were examples and who were compassionate, patient, and kind. Susie and Dennis were.

The influence of attainable goals on depression

After I had Aaron, my first baby in October 1992, I started walking with Susie early mornings. This got me up, out of the house, and back to exercising. When the weather turned cold that Fall, we walked along the indoor track in the Smith Field House at BYU. That’s when I first saw and heard the intramural aerobics classes. The music was loud and dance-inducing. I wanted to join in, but I felt intimidated. I didn’t think I could do it because of memories of awkward, uncoordinated, failed dance lessons when I was a teen. But after listening to the music for a few weeks, I decided that it had to be done. And I thought that if I started at the beginning of the semester, it might be easier to learn.

After the new year - January 1993, I started on the back row with 2-month-old Aaron in his mint-green car seat right behind me. I was nervous about being able to keep up with what I thought would be a complicated routine. But I soon found out that while it was hard, it was doable. I realized that I actually craved the challenge to get the steps down flawlessly while keeping up with the instructor and the beat. She taught us in a way that enabled our success. The music was so fun and motivating. I absolutely loved it! I went 3-4 nights a week. Over time I was able to leave Aaron home with my husband and go on my own. Over a six-month period, I graduated from the back row to the front. I told some of my friends at church about it and soon I had a car full of women coming with me. With this activity and a healthier diet, I lost all of my pregnancy weight.

Healed from my first episode of depression 

I didn’t realize at the time but looking back I can see that the depression decreased and then entirely went away because of the Shavers, the aerobics instructor, my fellow aerobic-eers, and the successful achievement of my goals. Reflecting upon these people enables me to see the atonement of Jesus Christ in action for me. They were answers to my prayers. They brought light, excitement, motivation, and joy back into my life.

Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge

Knowing this about myself, I am able to troubleshoot other persistent incidents of depression that come up in my present life. I believe applying things that are known, seen, and apparent to other situations where things are presently unknown, unseen, and not apparent is what the following scripture on faith means:

“Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.” ~Book of Mormon, Alma 32:21

I have learned that these things are true:

• I need loving and compatible relationships that give me enough of an opportunity to serve and be served. If I am too much alone or that opportunity is not great enough, I experience depression.
• I need to have goals that challenge me enough to develop the skills and talents I value. Even if I’m very busy, if I’m not working on developing a talent I value or one that I sense the Lord wants me to work on, I get bored and depressed.

My specific life circumstances have changed since then. My relationships have changed. But the principles I learned about myself are still applicable. If I’m experiencing depression and can’t Shake It Off, I know what I need to do and what I need to ask for.