person122

I now can understand your dilemma. The definition of mental illness has become very broad. Maybe there wouldn't be so much misunderstanding if they put these things into more categories. I have been going over it and going over it my head. It is good for me to know and think about because it would be so easy to hurt someone's feelings because I didn't know how broad it is. I'm confused because I think if I had gone to counseling or a psychologist at certain points in my life I would have been labeled as having a mental illness. And I don't mean that sarcastically or anything.

Now are you talking about mental illness being changed from learned behavior? Example: Parents came from home where physically abused. Therefore grow up emotionally damaged, marry, have children and kids learn unhealthy mental ways to cope with life from parents? Or do you mean a change from mental illness like schizophrenia to normal mental health?

Maybe we could discuss what our different definitions of mental illness are.

I can't say I was ready to take out my covenants. I was ready to do it with the knowledge and desireI had at the time. I loved it and was personally changed. There was a definite difference. Not on the outside. The promises are real. From taking out my endowments to my sealing, it was the most powerful day if my life. Not because I could see it all at the time. But because I grow and see and experience it more. Even if someone can't see it ot feel it, it is there. I couldn't imagine starting my marriage without it. So many times I have felt a protection over our marriage because of the blessings. Would we have made it after I found out I wasn't so good at marriage? No. Knowing I made temple covenants to my Heavenly Father that I would do it kept me in. My husband is a convert and he didn't want a ring ceremony or anything after. To him, what the sealing was more important than anything else. His family waited in the waiting room.

I think the problem is everybody defines mental illness differently according to their knowledge and experiences. Also the atonement is one of those things each of us has a different view of also.

I thought he was talking about grace.

The problem is there are people with real mental problems. Now, if you are talking about people who are healthy but some thought practice, upbringing or poor choices and such are causing a problem then the atonement can work. The problem is His ways are not our ways. We try to fix our own problems according to the way we our natural unhealthy self would do it or the way others would have us do it. It is a hard concept that there are some problems only Heavenly Father can fix. And then when He does try to fix us we don't like it. We don't realize that the pain is part of the process. It hurts. It really hurts and most of the time we don't know why we are going through it. It isn't until afterwards that we can see why we went through it. Just like everything else we have to go experience it to start understanding it. Big atonement fan, too!

I'm still wondering. Are they calling people mentally ill if they become severely depressed because something bad happened to them? For instance : A spouse passing away. It sounded like that according to Elder Holland's talk, but I can't get my head around it. My thinking has been that mental illness is something wrong with brain chemistry or.. sorry, I'm trying to find the right words so I'm sorry if I come across wrong.. like someone who is bi-polar or someone hearing voices hearing voices. Something out of their control. I thought someone who doesn't have mental illness and then has something bad happen is going through a trial.

So, would they be able to take out their endowments before the year is over? Or would they have to wait for the year mark?

Lack of morals have also changed weddings. Once a person has been doing things before marriage, a lot of times the pomp and ceremony or the expensive honeymoon are the only things that make it special.

I personally am going by Pres. Hinckley's 2001 talk "The Times in Which We Live". He said, "I cannot forget the great lesson of Pharaoh’s dream of the fat and lean kine and of the full and withered stalks of corn." Is it a coincidence that seven years later almost to the day the economy took a nose dive? Wondering what is going to happen in 2015. Is the economy going to get better? Or is that when things are going to get really ugly? Don't know. All I know is I wasn't surprised when they changed missionary age to 18.

I know a lot of other churches have programs where they send people to volunteer in other countries. Maybe they would have some good ideas. Or maybe you could join one of their volunteer groups.

The Old Testament was disturbing to me. It seemed so opposite of what we have been taught. The Israelites were told to destroy all the non-Israelites off of the land including women and children. The answer that I got was He knew His children were in spiritual danger because of the inhabitants idol worship. He knew they would become unfaithful and He would have to let go of His protection over them. Nobody would like to see their childen destroyed. I think of the Book of Mormon like that. It is a warning to us that faithfulness brings protection. Both are a testimony of what is to come. Also, there has never been a time where there has been so much peace. Most people in 1st world countries don't even know how to kill or clean a chicken. So the violent descriptions can be more disturbing to us because it isn't part if our culture. Now, in the Middle East that is their culture. There wasn't modern psychology. Psychology and our modern life of ease has changed our culture dramatically. If there had been counselling in the times of the Patriarchs, boy would those stories be different. People living in the scripture times were not evaluating their decisions by wondering how it was going to affect the other psychologically. It was much more primal. The Book of Mormon shows us that the Lord's way is peace and satan's is war.

Is situational MDD being lumped in as "mental illness"?

Loved it (not) when I confided to husband about problems in adversary category. He looked at me and said looking shocked, "You need to stop thinking about it. That makes it worse." Not what I needed. I'm sorry but I didn't know I was in line for this when I had kids. And no, I have NEVER had post partum depression.