My testimony of overcoming obstacles

Yesterday I had a wonderfully long drive down to Utah to do some Mary Kay parties and I got to be alone with the most wonderful thoughts. I felt the spirit so strongly as I looked back at my life. It was interesting because I don't like to look back. I (who I am now) don't like who I have been up until the last three or four years.

I'm not writing this for myself, I'm writing it for other people. Everyone has a hardest thing, something particular to them and who they are at that point in time. Our hardest things are specific to our personalities, situations, dreams, and nightmares. I endured one of my hardest things and it nearly destroyed me. Some of the damage was due to my responses to someone else's behavior, but a lot of it happened because of that behavior, which was subtle emotional abuse I endured but did not yet recognize.

During this difficult period I had the most severe depression I've ever had. For an entire month I lay in bed, head under covers, crying over my personal living hell. I thought it was all my fault, so I didn't tell anyone what happened. The tricky thing about emotional abuse is that it's difficult to identify from the outside, let alone from the inside.

After about a year and a half of enduring by myself I finally recognized my abuser as abusive. I decided to get out. This is not my first move in my life toward personal happiness, but it is the first defining move.

I know what it's like to feel like you can never be happy again, to be ashamed of yourself and of your entire life. I also know what it's like to overcome it and find joy that surpasses anything you'd ever experienced up until that point.

When it was over I stayed a victim and I'm probably not alone in this. I wore my experience on my sleeve, keeping it a secret, and labeling myself as damaged. I did not handle my rehabilitation into normal life gracefully in most respects, with one exception: from this point on I knew I was worth something, and would never allow someone else to convince me otherwise.

A few people knew what happened (I opened a little bit, it's always easier to do that after the fact) but their knowledge and understanding didn't help much until I told someone who had the power to help me heal. I hope anyone who has endured heartache can learn from that experience. Talking it out helps best when you talk to the right person. I told a few close friends, and my family knew as well. All of these people are incredible and were very comforting, however, when you are broken, you don't need to be comforted, you need to be healed.

This is my testimony of the healing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ. For a long time after my experience I tried to be perfect. I thought that I could heal on my own by helping people, going to the temple, and reading the scriptures. These are all good things that should always be done, but I needed more. I had used the atonement to repent and to forgive, but not to heal. After a couple of years I told my (new) bishop. This man was almost a stranger to me, just barely called, but the gates of heaven were open to him. He set me on the right path and I started to move forward and let go. He had the power and the authority to lead me to peace in my heart.

Jesus Christ is the only being in the universe that has the ability to heal me or anyone else who suffers.

My eyes opened to how I had labeled myself as damaged, and in doing so limited my personal growth. This was my experience and it was over, the atonement works, and so then matters a lot less than now.

I am writing this because it is over and I want to tell everyone who is suffering or recently suffered that my experience ended. I know what happened, but I don't remember it. You don't remember the bad stuff, you only remember the good when you use the atonement. My life right now is incredible, I have fantastic memories. I have the best husband, he is a good man with a pure heart.

I feel like I've become a functional and powerful woman. I like myself and intend to continue becoming happier day by day. Life can still be hard, but every day it gets progressively better. My goal is to share my convictions with everyone I have the power to touch so they can feel the way that I do now.

I love my savior and am so grateful that he not only atoned for my sins, but all of my sufferings. I'm still learning to give him my burdens, it's really difficult for me to admit that I can't just fix it/let it go myself. Every day I feel like I unload so much on Him, just to get a good nights rest. When I mean it, when I repent, He always helps. I am writing this to promise that if you use the atonement, too, those horrible experiences will stop being a part of who you are and happiness will come.