Trigger warning. Please don’t read on if discussion about depression, abuse, and suicide will trigger you.

This post starts very, very personal and is a little unusual for my blog, so my apologies for that, but I think it’s relevant.

Lifelong depression is really, really …. Well, I can’t even think of an appropriate word. Awful, terrible, horrible – these all understate it. The word horrific has the feel to me of something acute rather than ongoing, although in one sense my depression often does feels like a never-ending acute sharp pain. I once described it as evil to someone but they immediately jumped on the ‘it must be demonic possession’ angle, and it isn’t demonic possession – at least mine isn’t.

I have what is today called Complex PTSD, or CPTSD, related to various traumas I experienced through my formative years. Not everyone who experiences trauma develops PTSD, nor do they necessarily experience depression – mental health is much more complicated than that. I’ve never been one to ask, ‘Why me?’, but I do spend a fair amount of time trying to understand what’s going on inside my head and why.

Now, if I want to heal, I need to confront and deal with a host of emotions buried deep within my psyche, but anti-depressants suppress emotions. So as part of my therapy, I need to reduce my medication, but they’ve been the only thing keeping me on the right side of suicidal thoughts for a long, long time. That means that in order to heal, I need to potentially expose myself to an increased frequency of suicidality. So, things right now are … tricky. It’s one reason why the risk of suicide can sometimes go up when someone is engaged in therapy.

For as long as I remember, I’ve loved the gospel of Jesus Christ. I love my family immensely. I’ve had periods where I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my employment. And yet, actual moments of joy have been just that – moments – and usually few and far between. Running alongside all of this has been an unyielding sense of not wanting to be alive. Wishing God would take me. Not adding anything of value to the world or to those around me. My whole existence being pointless, painful, troublesome.

As I write this, it is my birthday¹. My wife gave me a book this morning with various uplifting thoughts and quotes by Matt Haig. The first one reads:

‘Imagine yourself as a baby. You would look at that baby and think they lacked nothing. That baby came complete. Their value was innate from their first breath. Their value did not depend on external things like wealth or appearance or politics or popularity. It was the infinite value of a human life. And that value stays with us, even as it becomes easier to forget it. We stay precisely as human as we were the day we were born.’²

Now, I really love children and I can’t help but smile whenever I see a baby. I really want to be able to feel like that about my baby self, but ….

I’ve always been comforted by the stories of the Old Testament prophets Moses and Elijah, who both pleaded with God that He take away their lives. By the Book of Mormon Jacob, whose father pleaded with him so that he might feel some joy in his life. By Job, who similarly wished for his life to end.³ (Here is an old post I wrote about mental illness)

Unless I spoke about it, most people wouldn’t guess this about me because, like so many, I’ve mastered the art of putting on a mask. Here’s a very current example. The last couple of days I’ve been feeling quite intensely the desire to no longer be on this earth (nothing to do with my birthday). My therapist has called this my ‘cold rage’ – the desire for self-annihilation. The anger of a life-time that has been suppressed over decades is ready to explode, you see. Taking my therapist’s advice, I went into a boxing shop today and explained to the assistant that I was looking for a punching bag to take out my rage on, and he looked at me like, ‘Rage? Really? You?’ I just don’t come across that way. But it’s all there. I feel it constantly, it’s just focused on my self instead of others.⁴

Why am I speaking about this today? Because I know that within the LDS community I am not alone. Despite Mormons professing to be amongst the happiest people in America, suicide rates are higher than average in Utah⁵, anti-depressant use is higher than the national average in Utah⁶, cosmetic surgery is higher than the national average in Utah with one national magazine calling Salt Lake City the ‘vainest city in America’⁷, paid-for online adult services (pornography) ranks number one in the nation in Utah⁸, sexual abuse rates are higher than average in Utah⁹. Any one of these things we could argue is a product of complex issues skewing the data. But putting it all together suggests deep-seated mental health problems in LDS dominated communities. We should be very grateful that as a people we don’t use alcohol or illegal drugs or Utah would probably lead the way with those as well!¹⁰

We talk about Jesus Christ healing all wounds, but if we truly facilitated that as a people and a church, Utah would be amongst the best performing states in all of these areas – not the worst. We really would be the happiest people, not just say we are when asked in a survey. We are clearly getting something drastically wrong.

As a people, we have to look like we’re happy and we have to say that we’re happy regardless of the reality behind the facade. And while I’m sure some people genuinely are happy, a great many decidedly are not. That is clear. Just look at the high child abuse rates and we can immediately see that there is a lot of childhood trauma that will be manifesting in teen and adult mental health issues. There is uproar in some places because of the shockingly poor record the LDS church has in handling child sexual abuse cases, with it being one reason some people cite for leaving the church.¹¹ I’ve written about this before.

So, next time you’re seated on the stand at church, look out over the congregation and acknowledge that 1 in 7 of the people you see were sexually abused as children (if you live in Utah) – some might be currently being sexually abused at home during the week. Others will probably have been raped when older. Many will be taking anti-depressants. Some will be contemplating suicide. Many will be addicted to pornography. A lot will be unhappy with their bodies.

Of those who read this post, some will have experienced the trauma I’ve referred to, while others will have experienced many other types of trauma I haven’t discussed here. Some may be going through it now. To you, I want to validate what you are feeling. If you want to cry, or scream, or punch a punching bag, or break something, or curl up in a ball and hide, or leave this world, or are completely dead inside – any and all of these reactions is perfectly reasonable. It’s understandable. It’s okay to feel that way. I hope you can talk to someone – ideally a trauma-trained therapist. I hope you can take medication if that’s what you need. I hope you have someone you can lean on and be your true self to. Of course you can lean on God, You can lean on Jesus. I hope you also have someone who can literally hold your hand and on whose shoulder you can literally rest your head. Imagine yourself as that baby I quoted earlier on – pure and innocent and worthy just because of your existence.

To the many who read this post and can’t really relate … Next time someone isn’t reliable in their church calling, or gives a terrible sacrament meeting talk, or doesn’t say hello to you, or who is short with you, or any number of other things that might not live up to expectations, please realise that you have no idea what that person is going through. You don’t know what they’ve been through. Maybe they considered suicide this morning but talked themselves into coming to church instead. Maybe they don’t think there is anything worthwhile in their existence. Maybe they need a non-judgmental hand to hold and shoulder to cry on. Maybe you can’t be that person because of your own circumstances, or maybe you can be. Allow me to finish by paraphrasing a well-known passage in LDS scripture:

If you can be kind to others all your days and help save it be one person to feel like they have worth, how great your joy will be with them in the kingdom of God.

© Copyright Jeffrey Collyer 2026

1. Not the cheeriest thoughts to have on your birthday, but there you go …
2. The Comfort Book, Matt Haig, Canongate Books, 2021, p. 5
3. Job is made up of three distinct parts. First, he begins with enormous success, wealth and happiness. Second, he loses everything and suffers immeasurably. Finally, he has all his former blessings restored double. An intriguing way to read Job is to see these three parts as equating to our pre-mortal, mortal, and post-mortal lives. I think this approach is strengthened by the fact that immediately upon losing his blessings in the first chapter Job refers specifically to birth: ‘Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.’ (Job 1:21)
4. Yes, I got a punching bag and some boxing gloves. It’s my birthday present. Although it might take a little while to get it set up, just putting on the boxing gloves and thumping them hard against each other was surprisingly satisfying.
5. Different analyses provide different statistics, but they all agree Utah is among the highest. This report gives the Utah suicide rate at 19.5 per 100,000 compared with a national average of 13.7 – that’s over 42% above the national average; https://www.kff.org/mental-health/suicide-deaths-national-trends-and-variation-by-demographics-and-states/ 
6. See this study https://www.statista.com/statistics/1133632/antidepressant-use-by-state-us/?srsltid=AfmBOopQpKMDGMHVlFfUM3uSDcXp-IPfOtfCkuXUzJjUovjdnDgfMRzC; there is a theory that altitude adversely effects depression and suicide, but it isn’t settled and some data contradicts it. For example, Switzerland (a country based in the mountains of Europe) has antidepressant and suicide rates far below those of Utah
7. https://www.usu.edu/uwlp/blog/2017/cosmetic-surgery-and-body-image-among-utah-women , Breast augmentation rates are the highest in the nation in Utah, which surely says something about the importance of physical appearance Utah/church culture puts on women)
8. https://www.deseret.com/2009/3/3/20304992/utah-no-1-in-online-porn-subscriptions-report-says/
9. Utah records up to 59 cases of reported rape per 100,000 people, over 40% higher than the national average, https://www.usu.edu/uwlp/blog/2022/sexual-assault-among-utah-women-2022-update ; roughly 1 in 7 children are estimated to be sexually abused in Utah (1 in 5 in girls), compared with 1 in 9 nationally, nearly 30% higher than the national average, https://www.usu.edu/today/story/usu-uwlp-releases-research-on-child-sexual-abuse .
10. Although apparently prescription drug abuse and overdose rates are higher than the national average in Utah
11. See Jeff Strong’s new book, Torn