To Those Who Want to Die

Someone talked to me about suicide today.

And I found myself wondering.

I give a little bit to the humanitarian fund when I hear about natural disasters or people in war-torn countries. 

I give to local fast offerings when I see someone homeless on the street.

I volunteer to go to the church welfare farm when my ward gets assignments to go to the meat packing plant.

And then I go about my life. The good and bad, pain that happens in the world hurts for a moment and is easily forgotten.

But when I hear about suicide?

It rips me apart in a way more personal than anything else.

The US National Institute of Mental Health found that people who are gay have a suicide rate 3-6 times the norm.

A national Danish study found that people with high functioning autism who attempt to fit into society through a common process called "camouflaging" - learning social skills and rules, ultimately expending enormous effort and energy to appear normal, make connections with others, and fit in - have a suicide rate up to 9 times the norm.

An Australian study found that survivors of childhood / adolescent sexual abuse have a suicide rate 10-13 times the norm.

Current US research on individuals with bipolar disorder finds they have a suicide rate 60-120 times the norm.

I have all of those. I'm sure that those numbers can't just be added together or multiplied. If they were added, it would be 82-148 times the norm... multiplied would be a number so high it's meaningless.

I've looked up those numbers before. Been shocked before. Being bipolar was that different than being gay? Or autistic? But even numbers can't really explain reality. 

Numbers can't explain what it meant to spend so much of my life simply wanting to die. The hopelessness that seemed like it would never go away. The intrusive, triggering thoughts that appeared every time I saw a staircase, opened a window, or saw a bridge over running water. The constant pressure to drive into oncoming traffic or off the side of a canyon cliff. Research into the fastest, cleanest, simplest ways to die... along with how I could make my body disappear so that my family wouldn't find me dead.

I never attempted suicide. I had a primary teacher who told us about suicide more years ago than I can remember. She said that if we have the ability, we should never commit suicide... that choosing it would put a question mark on our eternity.

I forget most things in life. But that lesson, given only once that I could ever remember, in the corner room of the Arlington Heights 1st Ward building, stayed with me. And when I found myself wanting to die so badly that I contemplated ways to make it happen, I remembered that I wasn't *allowed* to kill myself. And the autistic, rule-following kid that was me was kept alive.

I prayed to die instead.

Every. Single. Night. I prayed asking to die, for weeks or months or years or however long it took until my patriarchal blessing came and told me my life would be "prolonged upon the earth" so suck it up and stop asking.

Didn't make the want or pain go away. But death stopped being an option then. And I guess I resigned myself to figuring out how to survive. And part of me, a part of me I kept buried deep inside, hoped that someday I could learn to thrive.

I'm alive today, over 20 years after my first episodes of suicidal depression. And not just me. I've watched hundreds of people who were attempting, planning, or contemplating suicide, who were able to find hope and choose to keep living. Seen hundreds of people make it through the darkness and despair and find a portion of light.

To my past self, I want to say that thriving is possible. Really thriving. Trusting God, having Him so close that He fills all my needs. Being able to trust in His vision for me for the future. Being able to find meaning and happiness and fulfillment in the everyday aspects of my life. In the little things and the small things. It's possible to find real, true, lifelong friends even if I'm a messed up guy who has more problems than I can count. It's possible to feel the Spirit even though I once was truly convinced that I was forever lost and damned.

And it's possible for me... even me... to be saved, to have my dreams come true, to be really, truly happy someday.

To anyone who finds yourself wanting to die:

Life is worth it. You are worth it. I hope you find this and that it speaks to your heart... or that somehow this gets to you even if you don't. Someday I hope we can look back on this together and see the growth that comes through pain. The meaning that can only be found in sorrow. The holiness that comes to the few of us who choose life while wanting death.

You can do it. I believe in you. 

And, tonight, you are in my prayers.

Last week marked the launch of the US National Suicide Hotline. Call 988 from any US phone to be connected to someone to talk to, at any time, any day of the year, to get help and hope for you or someone you love.

Sand Castles by the Sea

I want to vent a bit. I had a good conversation today. Started the process of maybe making a friend. And I hate that by tomorrow it will be gone. The issue stems from autism - specifically my own lack of "autobiographical episodic memory." Episodic memory is memory of stuff that happens to me. In simple terms, it means I forget almost everything that happens to me... as well as almost everything I learn about other people... within a day or two of it happening... and, perhaps worse, I forget any emotion or feeling that was associated with any of those events.

So the conversation I had today dies today. Even if I were to write it down word for word, the emotions would be dead by tomorrow. It would be like reading someone else's journal.

And I hate it.

I mean it's great to forget things sometimes. To be able to help someone process horrific events in their life and then not be scarred from it. To be able to survive abuse. To be able to wake up smiling when the night before I felt like all hope was gone.

But I hate it, because I know it's going to hurt me. I'm going to try to build a simple friendship and most likely it's all going to come crashing down since there will never be a solid foundation.

I had a thought not long ago that I have never made a friend. I'm so terrified of people and hurting them and getting hurt that I don't even try to really make friends. It's always someone else making friends with me. Which makes me wonder if I even can.

Maybe?

I hate that I can't remember people from my past. Maybe I have made friends. Maybe they were good friends. Maybe they've even been close to me. Except that I have no memories at all. I probably hurt all of them or made them run away. Or forgot they existed and neglected the friendship until it died.

I tried to capture some of the feelings. So here's a poem-ish thing. 

FYI this is NOT a build me up moment. I know that God makes everything right in eternity, that He is there for me personally, and that the people who are willing to be there with me in spite of the mess that is me are the people meant for me... but the poem doesn't address that. It's sorta depressing and sad. If you want something uplifting or if you need perspective or hope or peace you're gonna have to read a different post.

Sand Castles by the Sea

From the day I woke to living

Til each night I go to sleep

I find myself surrounded

By the dark and angry deep

And then I'm alone with sand

Castles I can build

With walls and turrets rising

Some of them are beautiful

Sublime

Others built too close to shore

Are touched by waves and there no more

Just moments after laying

The foundation

And then

A person stands there next to me

We build a castle by the sea

He says that's sweet

Let's build it higher yet

But each night

My island sinks beneath the tide

Castles don't build higher

Tomorrow comes

And then I'm alone with sand

The person that was next to me

He builds his castles inland

From "stone" and "steel"

And love and hopes and dreams

And next door

There's a castle built by someone else

There's a city

There's a world

Of everyone but me

Who builds castles

While I build sand castles by the sea

The castles that they build

All grow and rise and fall

Each changing as the days or years go on

The simplest ones are stone or mud

Made only days before

The grandest are of gold

Forty fifty years made tall

And everyone is building

Friendships as they talk and laugh

Lovers as they smile

Strangers as they pass upon the street

Castles made of hopes and dreams

Are built in every moment

With every single person that they meet

There's only sand upon my island

No mud or gold or steel

Which makes me think that maybe

None of those are real

Well maybe they are real for all of them

But not for me

I've learned that castles built inland

Can last for ages

That even huts of mud or sticks

Can last for weeks or years

Really?

No matter how I pile up sand

It falls

Even if I fall asleep 

Inside a massive sheltered keep

With walls built tall by many hands

When morning breaks it's gone

And then I'm alone with sand

The people come and go with time

Some build a day or three

But no one ever sees the castles

Drown beneath sea

They think they're built 

Of stone or mud or steel

But mud and stone and steel

Don't disappear

Which means it's me

Perhaps we build a castle

You of wood and I of sand

And days go by and then we meet again

I have no answers to your stories

No insight to your mind

No feelings for your hopes or fears or dreams

No castle made of memory

No proof we ever met

Nothing left but sand beside the sea

So who would spend their days

Building castles that can't be

Except for me?

It's hard to hope that someone

Would choose to live on sand

When others offer mud or stone or steel

It's hard to watch as people build just once

Then walk away

Because sand castles aren't things

They understand

It's hard to watch my castles wash away

Sometimes I end up crying 

As the tide comes in

And then I'm alone with sand

Love and a Handful of Soulmates

 Man this is scary.

Well, it was a week ago when I wrote this. I didn't want to double post and had a busy week, so it's going up now. Here's me wearing my heart on my sleeve.

At a fireside last week I started to tell a random stranger about one of my new central goals in life. She looked at me like there was something wrong, and even with my extremely limited ability to read situations I got the feeling that without a whole lot of background, any forward motion in the conversation would cause it to derail.

So background.

Deep inside my soul, there's an empty sphere. In the middle of that is a structure I call my scaffold. Well, there usually is. The scaffold is my own personal purpose. What I live for in life. My sense of existence. My ultimate goal and what I want more than anything in the world. For me, the structure in the middle has always looked like a castle. Or... I guess it actually looked a bit more like a temple. That's awkward. I've thought it was a castle for a long time. Either way, there's a structure made of golden-ish crystal inside this sphere in my soul, and on the outside of that structure hang a ton of little hanging things. Sort of like pendants. Each little hanging thing is a short-term goal, and the ground is littered with them. Every possible short-term goal in reality. Working out is a possible goal, or practicing the piano. Attending more social activities or eating healthily. Depending on the scaffold in the middle, some goals stick and others don't. Stuff that helps to build or achieve the main goal in the center will stick, while anything else won't. A low quality scaffold won't have many goals that stick, or will crumble under the weight of the goals that it requires.

I grew up, as a kid, wanting a family of my own. I'm a diehard romantic and an idealist. I believe soulmates exist even though I know they don't necessarily exist for me. My scaffold as a kid was simple. I wanted to get back to heaven. I wanted to be a missionary. But the biggest part of the structure? I wanted to be a dad. I wanted to find someone, fall in love, and grow old together working through whatever the world could throw at us. My patriarchal blessing even talks about that - that my future wife and I could lean on each other and that together we would be faithful, strong, and able to weather every storm.

Realizing I was gay made that structure seem a bit harder. But I still believed that God could just sorta smudge the lines and make it work. I mean, I've met or heard from hundreds of gay men who have somehow fallen in love with their wives and built families with love.

Yes, there are plenty of gay men who have also married women and ended up ultimately messing up their lives. And often they're far more public. But does the fact that they ended up messing up their lives mean that the miracles God did are any less real? David killed Goliath with the power of God, and ended up damned. God can still kill giants. Solomon received endless wisdom, and eventually turned from God. God is still wise. Just because that guy messed up, doesn't mean I have to. God can do whatever miracles He wants.

But that doesn't mean He's going to.

Most of the guys who've found wives seem to be emotionally stable. I'm not. Most had at least some attraction to women to build from. I'm completely repulsed by women who have any kind of romantic inclination toward me. Most have a group of friends in their lives. Yeah. Let alone the huge host of people who are obsessed with telling me and anyone else they can that happiness and love to a wife when you're a gay guy is impossible.

And I'm getting old. I mean some of the Bible patriarchs were like 100 years old when they found their wives or had kids. Compared to them I'm still a kid. God promises that everyone will have the opportunity for all blessings, which means that if I'm super faithful, I'll find a wife and fall in love in this life or the next.

But hoping that I can have a close relationship sometime after this life is hard. 

All that put together, my scaffold was struggling. There were cracks building throughout, stress and groaning inside the crystal building in my soul. I still definitely wanted to get back to heaven, definitely wanted to be a missionary. But goals started falling off and clinking to the ground. My habits began falling apart. And instead of hope and peace and meaning, it brought me pain. 

So I made the decision to try to be ok with being single. At least for this life. I read that some people have an easier life when they finally give up on wanting marriage or love in this life, or that stuff finally starts turning around for them.

So I took my scaffold - the thing that had always been most important to me - my desire to get back to heaven, be a father, be a missionary, and have an eternal family of my own - and I shattered it to pieces, expecting that I could easily swap something else in its place.

And... yeah.

So it turns out when I shattered the scaffold that held up all of my goals, hopes, and dreams, my life ended up completely meaningless. I struggled to get out of bed in the morning and would honestly rather count the days until my death. My morality went haywire and I made the worst decisions of my life. I accomplished nothing, felt awful, and found it hard to want to survive. Welcome to the last few years of my life. Definitely not an easy swap.

Long story short, trying to rip out a chunk of my soul and be ok being single didn't work. It didn't work at all. It may have worked for some people. Maybe they subbed something specific to their own lives into their scaffold, or maybe I broke way too much of mine when I was trying to remodel it. Either way, in my case, it shredded me to the core and pushed me to dull the pain by melting my soul in hell.

It's not ok. Me being eternally single is not ok. It's pain and awful and I'm not ok. I want a family. I really, really want a family, and that isn't going to go away.

So whatever scaffold I have, it has to include a family. So a wife, and kids of my own. As impossible as it may currently be.

At the same time, I've learned something about myself in the past few years. Truth be told, I'm 100% sure I could have learned it without temporarily losing my temple recommend, eroding my relationship with God, and putting my soul in jeopardy. 

While I want guys in my life, I want *good* guys.

Specifically, I want a handful of guy soulmates.

If I had to use adjectives? Bestest bro buddies. Or polyamorous celibate gay soulmates.

Polyamorous? Sort of. But not really. I've realized that, at least when it comes to guys, I just want more than what a single person can offer. I don't want possessive or jealous guys. I want guys who love each other, who love me.

Celibate? At least in their relationships with guys. I want temple-worthy, forward-facing guys who can be there for me and I can be there for. Guys who can look at each other and love without lusting after the body on the outside. Guys who'll do scripture study on their own, who pray, who put God FIRST in their lives, then their families, then the rest of us.

Gay? They don't have to be. There doesn't have to be romance there. As long as they're awesome guys who are expressive, communicative, and loving enough to be soulmates with a handful of other guys. Lol. As long as. As if that were the easy part. Ideally, they'll also all find their own wives eventually even if they're gay. I mean, I want soulmates - relationships that last forever - so we need to all get to the celestial kingdom. Whether they find them in this life or the next, they should probably have it as a goal for somewhere in eternity.

Soulmates? You know the feeling when someone is so close to you that you can trust them with everything... and know they're on the same page? Where emotional interaction takes almost no effort at all because you know that they'll never assume the worst of you and always figure out what you're really thinking, no matter how hard it is? Where you trust each other, literally no matter what happens, because you are committed to being together for eternity and there is nothing that is going to get in your way. Where you're happy doing anything together, where you want to be better for the other person, where you find that everything you do revolves around "us" instead of me and them? I don't just want friends. Or close friends. I want everything close relationships with guys can offer except for sex. I want guys who will be extra fathers to my kids, brothers to my wife, sons to my parents. I want our lives to be intertwined - one family - so we share meals, share stories, share hopes and dreams. I'm thinking we have a massive house with 5 wings or something like that.

That's my dream. My goal. The scaffold inside my soul that supports the rest of my everyday life. It totally fills my hopes and dreams, and it's both strong and expansive enough to hang as many short-term goals as I want. There are parts that definitely need God to make them happen. I mean... I'm gay and I want to find a wife. That requires divine intervention. Also I'm pretty sure that finding *multiple* gay celibate soulmates who all love each other as an autistic guy with major mental issues, alone without God, is a probability of zero. So my goals surround two parts - before and after. First, putting myself into situations where God can do miracles - being more social primarily, and working to address my own social shortcomings. And second, shaping myself so that when the miracles happen, I'm ready to make them stay. Whether that means having enough money to buy a castle with 5 wings or strong enough to lift a fallen beam if that castle falls apart. Working out daily. Started taking supplements. Praying more. Studying the scriptures more. Being more social. Brainstorming new business ideas.

So that's it. That's my goal and the miracle I'm asking for: Love and a handful of soulmates. 

Who knows where the road will actually lead? I don't know what my future will look like. But, for now, I have something epic to work towards. A scaffold that fills my soul. It's exciting. Hopeful. Peaceful. Something that I can really, truly, honestly want and can motivate every moment of my every day.

And that's awesome.

Irrefutable Answer

 Well.

I got my answer.

Figuring out my main, central goal in life - the one that guides and directs and inspires every moment of my life - is important. So I made a plan to get confirmation.

Timing just happened to match up perfectly with this past week, when I went to the temple for the first time in years.

As an aside, I can't explain how much I've missed by being selfish. By taking my life into my own hands, "trying stuff out," indulging circumstances that I know aren't going to leave me with peace. I missed my little sister's sealing. My little brother's endowment. But even after all that I don't think the pain changed me. It had to be *me* to change me.

The first answer came as we drove - torrential rain pouring out of a sunny sky. Rain has been an answer from God for a long time in my life. Torrents out of the blue? Nothing else tells me that the God of the universe loves me quite as much as when He changes local weather patterns on my behalf.

But rain can come from a clear sky. And without the explanation that comes with it, someone could explain it away.

So more answers came.

The second answer was personal to *me.* As if God wanted to tell me, "David. I'm talking to you."

The third answer came during the proxy ordinance itself. The fourth? Words taken out of my journal, spoken in a prayer by someone I had never met.

The fifth answer came in the Celestial room, as I looked at the answers I already had. God and I talked, and He reminded me that He had already given me the answer the very first moment I had asked in prayer. But hey, I wanted it to be special, and it's a *huge* set of miracles to ask for, so it's ok to get confirmation, right? Yes. It's ok to want confirmation. And I got it, more than I could have ever asked for.

So what does that mean?

As we talked, I realized that, in order for the miracles I want to be possible, I need to be the centerpiece. Yes. There are aspects that only God can control. Things as impossible as parting the Red Sea or turning stones to light. But the followup? Making the miracles work in the long run? 

God could suddenly change my life tomorrow. But would I be ready for that? Honestly? Probably not. My life is still a bit of a mess. My room is a mess. No wait. There is probably a lot more mess than not in my life. And if God were to suddenly make all my dreams and hopes come true - if He were to part the Red Sea of my life in front of me - I would probably end up smashing into the walls and making them all come crashing down.

And that's why the greatest miracles of life can't just come from Him. They have to include me. I can't expect someone else to hold my life together. I need to be the one with self control. I need to be the one with faith. I need to be the one to ask for miracles and make them happen.

So I walked out of the celestial room with hopes and dreams, and promptly got my last answer as I fell down the stairs.

Man it hurt a lot. The temple worker at the bottom of the stairs offered me his chair, and even after a minute of deep breathing exercises I turned white, my vision blurred momentarily, and I went into mild shock. My best friend makes fun of me because he went through the Nuss procedure a few years ago (they cut your chest open, then implant pressurized steel bars to reshape the rib cage, and it's supposed to be one of the most painful post-operative procedures)... but I promise I'm not a wimp. 

Well.

The temple worker got me a bottle of water and my face turned the right color again. He found a wheelchair and, by the time I got back from changing out of my temple clothes, had also gotten permission from the Recorder to escort us all the way out to my car in the corner of the parking lot.

Switch that up into an answer from God? Life is still probably going to be painful. Maybe even excruciatingly so. I'm going to mess up. Fall. Get hurt.

But.

Even if I make mistakes, even if I stumble and fall, God is going to be there, beside me, the entire time. He'll be supporting me. Caring for me. Walking beside me.

So I got my answer.

Addiction Recovery Program

I went to an addiction recovery program meeting. My first one for me. I've been a couple times in the past - helping to support others in their addictions - but never for myself. Never for real.

The Addiction Recovery Program is based on AA - Alcoholics Anonymous - and is run by senior missionaries for the Church. At its core, the program is simple: weekly anonymous support meetings for those looking for healing, help, and hope. It follows 12 steps, just like AA, but approaches the addiction recovery process from a gospel perspective that takes advantage of a relationship with God and Church support.

But it's more than that. It's an opportunity to be open, honest, and candid with others who get it. It's an opportunity to listen to the miracles that happen in the lives of other people and to see the hand of God touch them. To get help. To feel belonging.

I was stressed about which meeting to choose. Going to the church website for addiction recovery program meetings (https://addictionrecovery.churchofjesuschrist.org/?lang=eng) was overwhelming. There are roughly 6 types of weekly meetings:

1. For both men and women
2. For men
3. For women
4. For family members
5. For men, specifically for pornography
6. For women, specifically for pornography

I found one for men & pornography at a time and place not far from where I live. I didn't know what to expect, so I emailed the coordinator and he gave me some basic directions. Introduce yourself with just your first name, don't feel obligated to say anything.

I got there a few minutes early and waited in my car. The room was changed, but easy to find... so I was the first one there. 

Meetings are built on both anonymity and trust - something I want and understand, so I'm definitely not going to go into detail about people or the things they shared. 

But my personal experience hit me.

We had an opportunity to share something positive in our lives - a tender mercy - if we wanted to. We read the 12 steps, then read the details of one specific step a paragraph at a time. Some people shared their thoughts on the step itself. Then we moved into the sharing portion, where we had the opportunity to share our own experiences.

And this is where it hit me.

>>>

Hey. My name is David.

The other guys: "Hey David."

I'm a recovering addict, from X.

This is day ###.

(Claps from the other guys)

And then I was able to honestly talk about me. My life. My issues this past week. The up, the down, the places I saw God and the places I struggled. Without fear of anyone thinking I was weird. Without fear of someone getting angry because I hadn't shared before. Just simple acceptance from a group of strangers who will be there next week to cheer me on.

Thanks I'm David

"Thanks David"

I didn't know what to say about my addictions. I wasn't really sure of the definitions, or the days, and to be honest I felt inadequate and alone.

I didn't know anyone. I wasn't sure of myself. But as I listened and watched and felt, I felt something there in that room that has only rarely happened before.

I felt like I belonged.

Here's a handful of guys who want God in their lives. Who are willing to own up to their inadequacies and sometimes talk about them. Who have their own lives, their own struggles, their own motivation, but once a week they come together into a room and bare a piece of their souls, "This is Day 1," or like the guy who did a 5th Sunday Meeting in my ward, "This is day 3000 and something."

There was something powerful there. A sense of camaraderie, a sense of hope, and the simple presence of God there reminding us all that He cares. It's the feeling I've always craved from Elder's Quorum and other meetings. 

Complete safety. Complete belonging. Completely someplace ok for me to be me.

I don't know anyone in the group. And anything they said, like most everything people say thanks to autism, disappears from my memory overnight. But there is something powerful about the fact that I can come again a week later, and see some of the same faces. Listen again to their lives, applaud the hope they have for themselves, be there for them and them for me. I find myself hoping that all of us will be able to add more days to our counts and wanting to keep them in my prayers.

They'll probably never read this. But thanks guys, for being there for me.

And to any of you here at (G)MG. Anyone who has ever lived with addiction - whether it's pornography or sex or video games or anything at all, far in the past or still in the present - I'll make a rare invitation.

Try it.

You don't have to be a member of the Church. You don't have to be a faithful member of the Church. You don't have to commit to going every week. You don't have to say anything at all. 

But try it.

Look up a meeting online. Find one close to you, or find one that offers videoing in if that isn't possible (I saw some offered that). Email the coordinator if you're stressed about it. Download the Addiction Recovery Program manual on the Gospel Library app, or get one for a couple dollars at a distribution center. Go, for yourself, and really be present.

And hopefully, your experience will be like mine... and you'll find a place where you can be yourself, surrounded by people who can support you week after week, in a place where God resides.

Ask Him for Miracles

 Is it ok to just write here? I think it is, right? Sometimes I worry about writing the "right" thing. Something that's meaningful, impactful, something that can reach out and be worth your time.

I guess I worry about you a lot. The people who find (G)MG and spend your moments here reading. Something made you come here - whether it's something as light as wanting to hear about my life... or as deep as wanting hope and help and perspective and hoping that something here will somehow help.

And then I feel inadequate.

I mean, right? Who's kidding me. If you get anything from reading here, it probably has nothing to do with me.

So.

Tonight I'm just writing. I'm not going to promise to write more regularly. I am trying to write more, as a coping mechanism for some of the messes inside my head. But I'm not going to make a promise only to forget about it and then break it and not feel bad until I remember it sometime somewhere far in the future when I think about making it again. Some of my thoughts, some of my hopes. 

This week I felt... dead. Different from depression. When I'm depressed, I feel bad about myself. But this time my emotions disappeared completely, and I felt like there was nothing inside me. On the upside, all the bad emotions that have been holding me down disappeared for a day as well. No anxiety, no... anything. So I worked out at the gym. I talked with my parents about the issues in my life for the first time in a long time. My mom knew a therapist from her ward who was able to give references and I'm going to start therapy again. Well, at least try again after going through maybe 15? 20? therapists in the past and feeling a disconnect with all of them. Simply finding someone who can communicate with me, and get where I'm coming from... I don't have high hopes, but then again you can find meaning in the most unreasonable places. That's what (G)MG is right? So why can't I find a therapist that works for me in the same way? 

I started taking supplements and at least one of them gave me crazy dreams and anxiety and insomnia. So maybe I should take it in the morning. Except I designed it to be taken at night. So I'm gonna try it for a week and see if it keeps happening before I switch it up. I don't want to take a slew of pills so it's just 3. A combination supplement with Ashwagandha and other stuff that my family business sometimes makes. Omega 3 krill oil. NACET. It's ironic that I designed supplements so long ago and have the most issues of anyone I know and yet I don't take them regularly. I think it might be the NACET that gives me crazy dreams.

But I also had a conversation with God. Like a real conversation. I talked to Him and told Him everything. That I felt so lost. That I wanted something to be a guiding goal. That I felt so messed after feeling like I had lost the central aspect of my faith. Twice during the conversation someone knocked on my door. Just to tell me they loved me. That only happens when I have intense conversations with God. Yes God, I know You're there. And that You love me and want me to get the message. I knew it already. It's not like I forget. I think. But even You sometimes make a show of love. Like a knocking door in the middle of the night.

We talked, and I thought about what I would want, if I could have anything. Truly Anything anything. If God could do a miracle, or a dozen miracles, what would fix my soul? What would fill my heart?

And I thought of what I want.

It's a lot.

It's more than I have ever felt like I could ask for before. Partly because it's more than I've ever seen someone have. And more than I could ever accomplish in a handful of lifetimes. I calculated, and playing with the stuff I've got, I'm pretty sure it would be tough.

So we talked. I asked God for a handful of miracles. And then I started to figure out what I should do on my side.

Reality: nothing I do will really make a difference when it comes to what I'm asking for. Saving a couple of cents will never bring world peace. That's the difference I see in scope.

But that's how my past conversations with God have gone. He asks me to be better. To push myself. To do things that I wouldn't normally do. To be a person that I wouldn't normally be. And He fills in everything else.

So I have a list of things I feel like I need to do. Stuff that, as soon as I asked God for miracles, I knew I had to do on my side.

And I'm doing them.

And I'm already seeing stuff.

I mean I went to a potluck tonight with like 800 people. I knew maybe 3 of them. I sat at an empty table, left to grab food, and when I got back there were a bunch of other people. And 4 of them have adult kids with autism. And wanted to talk about it.

Um.

Autism in 2000 was around 1:150. Which means in a group of 800, there are around 5 who are autistic, assuming they have half a dozen close family members, maybe 30 max would have autistic kids. That 4 out of those 30 would sit at my table, just by percentage... yeah I don't remember percentage calculations. 8 spots at the table. 100 tables. 799 people could sit next to me. There's less than a 30% chance that one would sit at the table... let alone one.

So as I tried to be social, I found myself surrounded by people who wanted to listen to me. Who gave me an easy role to play. Who asked me more questions than I wanted to answer, but who really wanted to know the answers. One of the roles I know, one of the things I can do. And, yet again, I knew that God cared.

Yeah.

I'm here. I'm trying. I'm wanting to be a better guy. I'm putting myself in the right places. And He's here right beside me.

I have to get confirmation on my goals before I share them here. I want to go to the temple and feel like they're ok to ask for before I put them on the internet. Before I tell all of you what I'm wanting. Because maybe it's what I've wanted for forever, but I haven't been willing to want it for real. Or maybe I haven't been able to believe it was possible.

And it probably isn't. Yet miracles happen , right? And if I've learned anything at all from my conversations with God, it's that I don't expect enough. I ask for little miracles. But not the ones that would change my existence forever.

So do it.

Whether you're me as a kid, looking for hope when you feel all alone, or me today looking for meaning and hope when everything feels lost.

Talk with God. Tell Him everything.

Commit to changing. To doing anything He asks.

And then ask Him for miracles.

There is Peace in Christ

My cousin's farewell was today. It brought back some memories of my own mission years ago.

I thought I was hot stuff as a missionary. I knew all the scripture masteries and felt I could easily teach about gospel subjects. I learned Italian faster than anyone else in my MTC group and was fluent enough to teach a lesson on the plane flying out.

Yet.

I was clueless.

I had little to no social awareness. I didn't understand interpersonal relationships, and I'm sure I dragged my companions through the pits of despair. I tried. But building a relationship with someone who forgets everything you talked about just two days prior is tough.

It's like building a sand castle with someone. You can make something beautiful, something meaningful, but it's also ephemeral and fleeting. I have to look in my copy of Preach My Gospel to remember the names of my companions, and find photos of them to remember their faces. And with the exception of a few moments, my memories of them are completely gone.

Realizing now that episodic and autobiographical memory issues are common in autism makes it easier for me and the people around me now.

But during my mission I didn't have that perspective.

And yet somehow it still worked out.

God still accomplished His work. Even through me - a broken, messed up, bipolar, autistic guy who, if I had been diagnosed beforehand, probably wouldn't have been allowed to even serve.

And that's the point.

God doesn't ask me to be perfect. He doesn't ask me to be ok. He doesn't ask me to be able to connect with everyone emotionally or be an amazing friend to everyone I meet. 

He just asks me to do my best, even if that is far less than the ideal I wish for. And that best is perfect. I am a part of His plan, meant to grow in the place I'm planted. The growth I experience, the messes I make - they're all part of the plan for me and the people around me.

There is peace in Christ. God knows me, He knows my needs, He knows the people around me, and life and all its circumstances is designed to help all of us come as close to Him as we can be.

Longing

There's a feeling that sometimes calls out to me. It's like a current that's cutting through my mind. And when it hits, it makes the world around me almost disappear, and I find myself unable to look away. It's like a pressure pressing down on my heart and lungs and soul, like a hidden fire that wants to be set free. Yet it's also like a calmness - like an ocean wave that's heavy, dark, and deep - and I know that if I fall inside I'll never get out. Or maybe I'm already in it.

It's a feeling that brings an odd clarity of mind, like the moment before depression's going to hit. It gives me a chance to my laundry when I had no desire at all, or it gives me space to go work out when I had no plan to. Or tells me to stop and write when there was no reason to write at all.

It's a feeling of loss as if my soul has been carved out. As if I'm missing something that was part of me once before. It brings a sense of urgency - that I'm supposed to be *doing* something. That I should *be* somewhere. That I should be writing, or working, or moving, or doing something more. 

It's a feeling of loss. A feeling of wishing, for that something to return. As if I just were immersed in a storyline and got ripped out, but worse. A feeling that makes me feel alone in a massive world. It's a feeling that, once it settles in, is on the verge of hopelessness... as I realize the pain has only started to begin.

I call it longing. Yearning. It's a feeling beyond the hold of my ability to disconnect. In most cases I can separate what seems like logic and emotion. I can process feelings separately when the time is right. 

But with longing, somehow, nothing else exists.

There is no other feeling. There is no other thought. It's as if my life and history stop for just a moment and they're gone, and I'm alone with longing, unable to tell exactly what is wrong or if it's even wrong at all.

In the years that I've felt longing, I've fought a war within my heart. I've tried to drown it or to bury it, or tear it apart. I've tried to figure out what it is telling me, to follow if it's asking me to move or do or be or try something new.

And I don't think it is.

I've tried connection with others. I've tried falling in love. I've tried indulgence in the worst way I knew how. I've tried reading, writing, service, temple worship, prayer, exercise, supplements, or healthy eating. But everything I tried, whether good or bad or in between, did nothing to staunch the feeling. Sometimes they could cover it up. Sometimes they could pull my mind away. Sometimes they could even bring me peace. But deep down inside, in the core of my soul and being, it is always there. Always waiting. Always existing, never changing, unwilling to move no matter what I do or think or try.

I don't really think I understand longing. But I'm most inclined to think that maybe longing is just a feeling that comes from ripping my soul away from heaven. A side effect of both being alive... and glimpsing or imagining, somehow, the fulfillment that comes from Heaven. Maybe since my mind's so broken I can feel it every now and then - a desire in my soul to go home. It would make sense if that's the case. Though the thought that there could be a feeling that transcends mortality - like pain or longing of the soul - makes the science part of me cringe a bit inside, that could be used to partially explain why it seems to override the presence of other feelings or thoughts. Maybe?

Maybe it's something different. But like I said, I've tried a hundred thousand things. And while love, connection, success, growth, learning, and service all bring me peace, they don't really interact with longing. 

Or at least what I call longing.