My remarks today may be a bit different from other devotionals. I am speaking about mental health. Several months ago, President Meredith called and invited me to address this topic. He has profound love and concern for each one of you … as do so many on this campus. I pray that the Spirit will teach each of us what we need to learn about this important subject.
For many years, I worked as a journalist. I traveled the world covering the news and interviewing newsmakers of the day. I left my career to get married and have a family. I was living my dream of being a wife and a mother … when I started to collapse into a deep clinical depression, unlike anything I had experienced before or since.
I began to isolate. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus. Little by little, I started to shut down; emotionally, physically and spiritually. It felt like someone had thrown me into a dark cave and sealed the entrance. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t find my way out.
The negative self-talk was cruel and relentless. In this distortion, I started to believe that my children would be better off without me—that my husband deserved so much more. In my mind, I began to plan a funeral, who would speak, and the music to be played. I did not have a plan to act.
I simply wanted to fall asleep and fade away.
It took all the strength I had—and my husband literally carrying me to the doctor—to start getting help. In the midst of my anguish, I had convinced myself that I was alone in my suffering … that, perhaps I had caused the depression … or even deserved it. For a time, it reshaped my reality, how I saw myself, my worth, and even my relationship with God.
In his landmark address on this topic, President Jeffrey R. Holland, speaking of mental or emotional challenges, said that “these afflictions are some of the realities of mortal life, and there should be no more shame in acknowledging them than in acknowledging a battle with high blood pressure or the sudden appearance of a malignant tumor.” [1]
Let that truth settle into your heart. There is no shame in this struggle. None.
Your suffering does not disqualify you from God’s love or from belonging in this community.
So, I’m going to ask you to do something brave right now. If you or someone you know or love has suffered with depression or any other mental illness, would you please stand?
Look around. If there are days when you feel alone in your struggle, remember this moment. You are not alone. Everybody has a story.
After my own painful experience, I started sharing what had happened to me, and soon realized that many people were walking a similar road—quietly, and often alone. I felt that needed to change. So, I spent the next three years interviewing members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who suffered with mental illness—students, moms and dads, church leaders, and professionals all over the country. I collected hundreds of their stories and I’d like to share three themes that emerged: The crushing weight of stigma, the danger of toxic perfectionism and how mental health challenges can affect our ability to feel the Spirit.
Stigma
First, stigma. In societies around the world and across generations, mental illness has often been misunderstood, seen as a weakness, or something we should be able to overcome on our own.
When it comes to physical health, we would never expect someone battling cancer or heart disease to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” or just “push through it alone.” If you had diabetes or a thyroid condition, you wouldn’t be ashamed to see a doctor, take medication, or follow a treatment plan. No one would ever blame you for having cancer—and you certainly would not blame yourself.
Similarly, a mental health challenge is not the result of personal inadequacy. It is not a reflection of your character. When we begin to see mental health challenges as burdens of mortal life—not moral failings—our perspective shifts.
The brain is an organ of the body, and it can fall ill just like the heart or kidneys can. Mental illness requires treatment from professionals, compassion from those around us, and the healing help of the Lord.
Let me tell you the story of Laurie, a young BYU student who finally gathered the courage to visit the campus health center. She was always exhausted. Some days she couldn’t get out of bed at all. And she was having chest pain, shortness of breath and other physical symptoms of panic.
To her deep dismay, Laurie was diagnosed with depression and anxiety. The doctor gave her a comprehensive treatment plan and a prescription for medication. But as soon as Laurie got back to her apartment, she flushed the pills down the toilet. “I was embarrassed,” she told me. “I felt like this was a weakness that I could will myself out of.”
Laurie went on to have many difficult years—denying her symptoms and suffering in silence.
It wasn’t until her third child was born that she finally decided to do something about it. She reached out for help and started to feel better.
My brothers and sisters, you have so many resources here on campus—professionals who are trained and genuinely want to support you. Asking for help is sometimes the hardest part. But it’s one of the most important things you will ever do.
How do we make it easier to take that first step toward hope and healing?
First. Be mindful of the emotional and spiritual signs that something isn’t quite right—in yourself and those you love. Educate yourself about these issues. While we cannot always control the presence of mental illness, we do have influence over how we care for ourselves within it. Pay attention to the patterns that affect your mood and your thinking. Establish consistent, healthy routines regarding sleep, nourishment, exercise, screen time, and your spiritual practices. The choices you make each day can help change the trajectory of how you feel and how you heal.
Second. Reframe your conversations. I talk about “brain health”—in the same way we so freely talk about “heart health”—with honesty and without judgement. Brain health deserves the concern, kindness and compassion we extend to other parts of ourselves.
Third. Share your story in the right place with trusted people and professionals. Studies show that telling our stories increases empathy and reduces shame. Create safe spaces for outreach and invite sincere connection. The Savior asks us to “mourn with those that mourn … and comfort those that stand in need of comfort.” [2] That can only happen when we’re willing to let others see our struggles, and when we choose to truly see theirs.
Fourth. Trust the Lord with all thine heart—knowing that He will place people, impressions and opportunities in your life to guide you toward healing, one step at a time. “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” [3]
I am often asked: “What if someone doesn’t seem to want help? Or they don’t think they need it?”
Just keep bumping into them with your light and lead with Christlike empathy. Listen—without judgment or a rush to fix it. Validate—with words like: “I’m here. I’m on this journey with you.” And pray—with them and for them.
I have a friend whose son came home early from his mission with unexpected mental health challenges. He was suffering physically, emotionally and spiritually, and pushing everyone away. My friend found a picture she loved of the Savior with His hands outstretched. She attached a small photo of her son into those hands. She kept that image by her bedside; a daily reminder that Christ could reach her son—hold him and carry him—in ways that she could not.
The scriptures teach us that Christ was “a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” [4] He took upon Himself “pains and afflictions” and “the sicknesses of his people” [5] Our Savior has revealed that He “descended below all things.” [6] And as Elder Neal A. Maxwell taught, “Having ‘descended below all things,’ He comprehends, perfectly and personally, the full range of human suffering!” [7]
We must always turn to Him.
Toxic Perfectionism
The second theme I want to share with you is how destructive “toxic perfectionism” can be when it intersects with anxiety, depression, low self-worth, and without the understanding of God’s grace.
Perfectionism is really not about being perfect. It’s rooted in the fear of never being—or doing—enough… the belief that you’re always falling short.
Some misinterpret the Savior’s words in Matthew 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” [8] as a command to be flawless, right now. But the original Greek translation of “perfect” is closer to “complete” or “whole”—not without weakness or struggle, and certainly not without the grace of Jesus Christ.
Elder M. Russell Ballard taught, “No matter how hard we work, no matter how much we obey, no matter how many good things we do in this life, it would not be enough were it not for Jesus Christ and His loving grace.” [9]
A study at BYU surveyed almost six hundred students about their experience with grace and mental health. The researchers found that the more students believed they had to earn God’s love through their own good works, the more they struggled with shame, anxiety, and depression. By contrast, those who reported more fully experiencing and exercising God’s grace, had significantly lower levels of shame, anxiety, depression, and unhealthy perfectionism. [10]
President Holland has this compassionate reminder: “I would hope we could pursue personal improvement in a way that doesn’t include getting ulcers or anorexia, feeling depressed or demolishing our self-esteem. That is not what the Lord wants.” [11]
I met a young military wife named Jackie. She had three little children, and her husband was frequently deployed. She often found herself alone, overwhelmed, anxious, and trying desperately to make everything perfect. She finally hit a breaking point… and one day she began repeating a simple mantra to herself, over and over again: “I give myself grace.”
His grace. That is the power of the Atonement at work in our lives.
Perfectionism is not a virtue; it is a burden. The Savior does not ask us to be flawless. He asks us to come unto Him—weary, wounded, imperfect—and to let Him make us whole. Our only hope for true perfection is receiving it as a gift from heaven—we can’t “earn” it. [12]
But we can accept His gift—of grace—every moment of every day. For we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do. [13]
Ability to Feel the Spirit
This leads me to the third and perhaps most important thing I want to share with you today: How mental illness can have a very real impact on your ability to feel the Spirit.
For me, depression blocked all feelings, including feelings of the Spirit. So, even though I was praying, reading my scriptures, going to church, and attending the temple, I could not feel the Spirit. I could not feel God’s love like I did before the depression hit. That was the most distressing part of all.
A few years ago, Elder Kim B. Clark was the new President here at BYU-Idaho. He and his wife, Sue, hosted an open forum, Q&A session on campus for a student Family Home Evening group.
Sister Clark told me this story: “During our discussion, one young student stood up and said, “I’m on medication for depression. Isn’t it true that the Lord will take away my depression if I can just be good enough and prayerful enough and feel the spirit enough?”
Sister Clark could see the anguish in this young woman’s face. She replied from her heart: “I also suffer from depression,” she said. “And when I’m in it, I have a hard time feeling the Spirit. Sometimes I start thinking, ‘Maybe I’m not really depressed. Maybe I’m just a bad person. Maybe God doesn’t love me.’ And I begin to feel doomed.”
But instead of surrendering to those feelings, Sister Clark uses them as a cue to take action; to seek encouragement and help from outside sources: a friend, her husband, and her doctor. She also makes a conscious effort to reach outside herself and serve others.
And the Spirit does come back, Sister Clark assured that young woman. You are never alone. There is always hope.
In the midst of a mental health crisis, when the Spirit feels distant, many do not blame the illness—they blame themselves: “I must be unworthy. If I was more righteous, the Spirit would return.”
A young and faithful sister who struggled with severe depression on her mission told me that when she couldn’t feel the spirit, she believed it was because she wasn’t obedient enough or she wasn’t working hard enough—that somehow she was failing the Lord.
She now understands very clearly—and please remember this: Depression is a disease, not a spiritual deficit.
I love the metaphor of a wise psychologist who likens mental illness to a circuit breaker in your house that’s been tripped. When that happens, it’s not that you’ve lost access to electricity.
The power is still trying to get through. It’s just that the pathway has been blocked. God is still there, spiritual impulses are still flowing, but mental illness is blocking Him from our senses.
Fortunately, treatment can start to turn those circuit breakers in the brain back on.
My former bishop at home in Boston, is a medical doctor, and gave me this valuable counsel:
If we rely solely on a spiritual approach to treating mental health challenges, we’re less likely to be successful. Conversely, if we rely solely on the physical components of treatment, we’ll miss out on the spiritual elements of healing. We must bring together the miracles of modern science and the power of faith to tackle these challenging issues.
Again, from President Holland: “If you had appendicitis, God would expect you to seek a priesthood blessing and get the best medical care available. So too with emotional disorders.” [14]
Many faithful Saints ask how they can survive, spiritually, during these challenges. One woman told me that during the depths of her depression, she tried to recall and then write about the times in her life when she had felt the Spirit. She said it was amazing how remembrances would come to her mind. “It changed my thought process,” she said.
One man told me that in the midst of his darkness, he took up a study of adversity. He wrote scriptures and inspiring quotes on little index cards and posted them all over the house, on kitchen cupboards & bathroom mirrors. It helped him maintain hope and perspective that this trial would end.
There is no question, mental health challenges can be like “walking through the valley of the shadow of death.” But the key word in that scripture is through. We walk through the valley. We don’t stop there. Please don’t stop there.
“Broken minds can be healed just the way broken bones and broken hearts are healed.” [15]
Maybe not immediately, but eventually. And in the meantime, the Lord can use our struggles to make us stronger and help us endure.
Paul teaches this lesson. In 2 Corinthians he wrote of his own despair—his “thorn in the flesh.” [16] We don’t know what that thorn was, but we do know that Paul asked the Lord three times to remove it before he received an answer—which did not involve taking away the thorn.
The Savior’s promise to sustain Paul in his struggles—and Paul’s testimony—is one of my favorite passages in scripture:
“… My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly… will I glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities … in necessities … in distresses for Christ’s sake: for when I am weak, then I am strong.” [17]
Let me share the story of one of our most beautiful hymns, “Where Can I Turn for Peace?”
The poetess, Emma Lou Thayne, struggled for three years to help her oldest daughter through a severe mental illness. She’d done everything she could to find peace and help for a diagnosis she knew little about, calling it the “bleakest time I had ever known.”
In the midst of that heartache, Sister Thayne was asked by the Church to write music for a youth conference. One day, she retreated to a quiet room in the basement and penned these pleading, sacred words (in part):
“Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole? …
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.
He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and friend.
Gentle the peace he finds …
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.” [18]
After writing those beautiful lyrics, Sister Thayne called her friend Jolene Meredith and asked her to compose the music. Sister Meredith had battled mental health struggles of her own. “She understood every word I’d written,” Sister Thayne recalled. “She sat at her piano … and as I read a line, she composed a line. By noon, we had our hymn.”
The two women privately referred to it as the “Mental Health Hymn”—and the Gethsemane they were both thinking of… included the mental suffering and emotional anguish that the Savior took upon Himself for all who suffer. [19]
What I love about this story is how these faithful women used their suffering for good!
Because whatever perspective from which you are viewing mental illness, I truly believe that once you’ve experienced it—yourself or with someone you love—you have a particular responsibility to show greater love and empathy for others who suffer, and to use your experience for good.
So, today, I encourage you to take these conversations from a whisper to a song. Release the stigma. Reach out for support. Take care of brain health. Share your story. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.
And know this: If you are suffering right now: You are not weak or broken. You are not a disappointment to God or anyone else. One of the most courageous things you can do is recognize: “I need help.” And one of the most Christlike things anyone can say to someone in crisis is: “Let’s walk this road together.”
Because depression thrives in secrecy and shrinks in empathy.
I never thought I would say it, but I am grateful for my journey—for what it has taught me about compassion and empathy. I know what it means to “mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.” And I wouldn’t trade that for anything.
God lives and loves us. He will bear our grief and carry our sorrows. That is our promise.
This I know and I do testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notes
[1] Jeffery R. Holland, “Like a Broken Vessel,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2013.
[2] Mosiah 18:8–9.
[3] Proverbs 3:6.
[4] Isaiah 53:3.
[5] Alma 7:11–12.
[6] Doctrine and Covenants 88:6.
[7] Neal A. Maxwell, “Apply the Atoning Blood of Christ,” Ensign, Nov. 1997, 23.
[8] Matthew 5:48.
[9] M. Russell Ballard, “Building Bridges of Understanding,” Ensign, June 1998, 65.
[10] “Grace, Legalism, and Mental Health among the Latter-day Saints,” BYU Studies Quarterly, Jan. 1, 2020.
[11] Jeffery R. Holland, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2017, 40.
[12] Jeffery R. Holland, “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2017.
[13] 2 Nephi 25:23.
[14] Jeffery R. Holland, “Like a Broken Vessel,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2013, 41.
[15] Jeffery R. Holland, “Like a Broken Vessel,” Ensign or Liahona, Oct. 2013, 42.
[16] 2 Corinthians 12:7.
[17] 2 Corinthians 12:9-10.
[18] “Where Can I Turn for Peace,” Hymns, no. 129
[19] Jane Clayson Johnson, Silent Souls Weeping, 46-47.
About Jane Clayson Johnson
Jane Clayson Johnson is an Emmy award-winning journalist, widely known for her work in network television at CBS News in New York, ABC News in Los Angeles, and as a regular guest host on two nationally syndicated programs on NPR, based in Boston.
Jane began her career at KSL Television in Salt Lake City. She attended Brigham Young University on a violin performance scholarship and later graduated with a degree in broadcasting.
Jane is the author of two best-selling books. I Am a Mother chronicled her decision to leave her career in network news to have a family. Silent Souls Weeping is a candid and personal examination of those who suffer the ravages of clinical depression.
Jane and her husband, Mark Johnson, are members of the President’s Leadership Council at BYU-Pathway Worldwide. Jane has served on the boards of Deseret Management Corporation and the Wheatley Institute at BYU. She was recently appointed a Trustee at the U.S. Naval Institute Foundation. Jane currently serves as an Emotional Resilience facilitator in the Longfellow Park YSA Ward in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where her husband is the bishop.
This summer, Jane and Mark sent their son on a mission to Stockholm, Sweden, and entered a new season as empty-nesters.
A transcript of Sister Johnson's devotional address will be made available soon.