Well. I think I have had at least 4 different blogs over the past few years. I cannot ever seem to keep up with them.. BUT. I am turning over a new leaf and making all sorts of life changes this summer.

I am currently up at BYU Idaho for the seven week summer break. I decided that since I am only taking two classes and have very few friends up here, that I should make good use of my time by making and keeping some goals. I decided that I am cutting out all caffeine, energy drinks, and soda from my life. I am also committed to getting into shape again. I am training to run a 5k in under 30 minutes (which I know is totally possible, but i HATE running. So it's a big deal for me). I have become so out of shape and bleh since I was home in the winter. I was literally sick and bed-ridden for four months straight. You would think that it would cause someone to lose weight, right? Wrong. Muscle goes away and all that chocolate pudding catches up to you fast.

My goals are mostly about fitness/wellness because I feel like getting back into shape will positively influence all other aspects of my life.

This past spring semester I struggled with anxiety and depression like no one's business. I had a severe panic attack while watching the NBA finals right around midterms, and literally thought I was dying. The whole left side of my body tensed up and I got light-headed, shaky, and confused. My heart was beating irregularly and I was just overcome with this sense of something was really really wrong. My roommate Christa took me to the hospital and they gave me some good drugs. It was after this experience that I realized that I had been living with anxiety for basically my whole life, but it had never gotten quite that bad. I was a mess for a week after that. I could not do ANYTHING without having a panic attack. . I finally decided that I did not have time to let this control my life, so I went to counseling.  That next week I absolutely lost it. I could not get myself to get out of bed in the morning. I had no desire to do anything. I stopped making an effort with my friends, stopped going to church and FHE, stopped going to class. I just sat and cried all day. I realized that maybe I had been dealing with some depression issues for a while too and I told my counselor. He gave me a prescription for Paxil.

It has been an extremely hard semester. My grades suffered. I felt alone in a crowded room with some of my closest friends. The worst night was the night before the Fourth of July. I got so fed up with the suicidal thoughts and negative feelings and how everyone was just telling me to "just be happy!" Seriously. If I could just be happy, I think I would have done that. It was probably 2am and I was just laying in bed sobbing, so I decided to drive up to the Rexburg Temple. On the way there I was just hoping and praying that someone would just hit me. When I got to the temple, I felt so guilty for the negative thoughts in my head that I felt even worse. I finally called my friend Marissa and just sat in her living room in the dark and just cried and spilled everything in my head. Poor girl, she just stroked my hair and didn't know what else to do.

Since then, I've been getting better. I still have days that just entirely suck. I still look at pictures and videos of me and long to be that happy and free-spirited again, but I know that this experience will make me stronger.I needed to get my own emotional baggage sorted out. I needed to figure out who I was and why I am the way I am. I got a new psychologist and he is really helping me to come out from behind the walls I've built around the real me. My self-confidence is slowly returning. I know that I have unlimited potential and that my Heavenly Father  has a plan for me. I have faith in the Atonement of Christ and that he felt exactly what I am going through and that I can find strength in Him. I believe that I'm at the point in my life that everything that happens is preparing me for my future as a person, a wife and a mother. This experience has taught me empathy. It has taught me to love myself. It has taught me patience. It has taught me that I have true friends who love me for me. It has taught me of God's love for me. It has taught me hard work and how to get out of bed in the morning even when everything inside me screams not to.

Oh yeah! This relates to my goals because I feel like by working out, I will feel even better. Obviously, all the endorphins will make my brain happier, but I also think that by creating goals that I can realistically meet and achieve will increase my self confidence. Being healthy will make me feel better anyways, too.

Speaking of working towards these goals, I ran nine whole miles straight today. That is nine more miles I've ran in the past who-knows-how-long. It felt so good. Definitely worth it. Definitely a good idea.

If there is anything that I would hope people get out of my blog and and my experience is that there are a lot more people struggling with things like depression and anxiety than you might think. It is kind of a taboo subject, people don't really talk about it. It is a very personal and hard thing to deal with, and a lot of people do not understand how challenging it really is. As soon as I started to open up about what I was feeling and experiencing, friends began to reach out to me and tell me they have struggled with the same things. People I would have NEVER had guessed could be unhappy were. There is a lot more to people than what they let everyone else see. I wish more people could realize that. Nobody is perfect. Everyone is struggling in this life. It is our job to help those around us. Who knows, they might even help us without us even realizing it.