You Can't Be an Ally Unless You're Willing to Own Your Failures

Okay, listen up fellow white people, we need to talk.

White people seem to bounce erratically between two equally problematic ways of engaging with race: 

1. Doing Something Problematic and Refusing to Take Correction From People of Color Who Call You On It 

This is easy to recognize in non-allies. Wow, what a racist, we think when the Tami Laurens of the world plug their ears and yell "nah nah nah I can't hear you I'm not racist I just think all lives nah nah nah nah nah."

But all too often, liberal, progressive white "allies" will do the same thing. I believe in racial equality, but I think this is taking it a little too far, we say as soon as we're criticized. (Has anti-racism gone too far now that it specifically calls me out???) I can't be a racist, I have "intersectional feminist" in my Twitter bio, we say as we ignore the needs of women of color. I even donated to Black Lives Matter/have a "Coexist" bumper sticker on my car/attended a Muslim ban protest.

 
Guess what, white liberal? You — yes, you — will do something racist. You will be out there, trying your best to be a good ally, and you will eff. things. up. It's going to happen. And if you're lucky, some person of color will call you on it. They'll take time out of their lives and their struggle to offer you some free advice on how to be a better, less racist person.

And all too often, you'll toss that advice right in the trash and whitewash the entire cause you think you're supporting.

My American Heritage professor used this clip to illustrate the following point: no matter how good your intentions are, intentions are not outcomes. And outcomes, not intentions, are what harm people of color.

So no matter how good your intentions are, you are going to screw up and do something racist. I might even be doing it right now; I have good intentions with this blog post, but given Seinfeld's track record on race, it's totally possible that this clip might be problematic and totally tone deaf to share in a post about race and racism. (Please let me know if it is).

And here's the thing: if you ignore people of color when they call you on your shit, at least in this regard, you and Tammison Lohreyn are the same. Both of you are going to continue to do racist things, leading to problematic outcomes that affect people of color, because both of you are too d*ng proud to listen to people of color when they say things. Both of you somehow think your white ass is more qualified to judge what is and isn't racist or problematic than the people you are causing problems for.

So when you get called out, listen, learn, accept it, and move on. Do better.

2. Refusing to Do Anything Unless a Person of Color Holds Your Hand Every Step of the Way and Gives You a Magic Formula to Avoid Screwups In Every Future Interaction With Non-White People Ever

 

In some ways, this is the antithesis of the first problem. Whereas in the previous situation, you were overly brash and insensitive, now you're so timid and sensitive that you can't make any mistakes because you won't do anything at all.

This is problematic for a couple of reasons. The first, and most obvious, is that refusing to do anything means that you do nothing, which means that you sit back in your white privilege and make people of color do all the work to fix the system you're benefiting from.

The second issue is that in addition to leaving all the work to people of color, you're actually creating more work for them. Now they have to validate and coach you through every interaction, instead of using your common h*cking sense. You can treat people of color as humans without step-by-step instructions. You may not believe it, but I promise you, it's possible. Give it a try sometime.

Furthermore, this often leads to situations where white allies tokenize people of color. It becomes tempting, when in this mindset, to ask the nearest person of color to rule on any given issue of race and racism, which immediately puts them in the stressful position of having to give you a perfect magic formula for every situation you'll encounter for the rest of your life. Because they know that as soon as they tell you what to do, you're gonna circle right back around to position number one. (But what I just did can't be racist because my black friend said it's okay...)

White people: do not put people of color on the spot and ask them to give you magic anti-racism formulas! By all means, listen when they tell you things. Actively seek out their opinions. Find more opportunities to learn from them. Listen when they tell other people things and apply that to your own life. But don't expect people of color to be able to teach you enough to stop you from ever effing up. Nobody can teach us white people to never screw up. It's literally impossible, even for Morgan Freeman.

 

So even though this second situation may seem like the opposite of the first situation, they're both rooted in the same thing: a fear of failure. An unwillingness to engage the work without being called out on our racism. An unwillingness to admit to ourselves that we're racist, or put ourselves in a situation where we have to see our own racism.

Refusing to Learn From Your Racism Makes You A Worse Person Than Just Being Racist

 

Here's where I think this fear of failure comes from: from the time we're kids, we learn racism is bad. Only bad people are racist. And you, of course, are a good person, t h e r e f o r e, you cannot be racist. To admit that you have done a racist thing, held a racist belief, or otherwise been problematic about race is to admit that you are a bad person, and your whole worldview about yourself comes crashing down.

But here's the thing: plugging your ears and yelling "nah nah nah I'm a good person nah nah nah also my name is Tomi not Tami nah nah nah nah" doesn't make those racist attitudes of yours go away. In fact, it guarantees that they'll never go away, ever.

We're all a little racist. But being willing to face up to that fact is the only way we can check ourselves before we wreck ourselves and become a little less racist, one cringey mistake at a time.

So, my fellow white people, don't tokenize people of color. Don't put them on the spot and make them a de facto panelist on your conversation about race. Don't expect them to hand you a magic formula that will absolve you of all past and future racism. 

Do learn to admit when you're wrong. Do apologize and try to be better.. And do listen when people of color say things, and be sensitive to when they don't want to be saying anything at all.

Baby Protein Bowls

Hello, and welcome to the second installment of Jaclyn Dabbles In Pretentious Mommy Blogging™.

I made mjadara recently, and Zoë seemed to really enjoy the bite I gave her. Lentils are a great source of potassium, calcium, zinc, niacin, telepathy powers, vitamin K, dietary fiber, lean protein, laser vision, folate, and iron, so I thought I'd see if I could coerce my little cereal-hater into eating some more. Plus, lentils are a novel texture and taste for babies who are ready for slightly chunkier solid food, without posing a choking hazard.

Ingredients

1/4 cup lentils
2 cups water
3 tbsp butter
4 oz jar of vegetable baby food

Directions

1.  In a small pot, combine the lentils and water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes.
2. Drain any excess water.
3. Add the butter and stir until melted. (Saturated fats are actually really good for babies, but if you're morally opposed to butter and happiness in general, I suppose you could substitute olive oil or something).
4. Add a jar of your baby's favorite flavor of vegetables. (I used sweet potatoes, because
   Zoë has no sympathy for the fact that sweet potatoes smell like someone stirred brown sugar into day-old vomit).
5. Separate into fourish portions, and store in the refrigerator or freezer until use.

Zoë kept grabbing at the spoon and insisting on feeding herself, so I'd say the recipe was a success.

Baby Berry Bites

 

 

Shortly after buying a brand-new extra large container of infant cereal for Zoë, she decided that she didn't want to eat it anymore. Fruit was fine, vegetables were fine, and all sorts of grain-based baby snacks were fine, but infant cereal was out.

The Internets told me that this was fine, because infant cereal for babies is apparently a Big Agro conspiracy and you should really be feeding your babies raw liver. (Please, for the love of all that is holy, do not feed your babies raw liver, there are like ten thousand things wrong with that and I can't believe I actually have to type this sentence). 

Meanwhile, my pediatrician told me that Zoë needed to be getting half her solid food from infant cereal every day, or else. My pediatrician intimidates me a little bit, so I didn't feel like asking "or else what?".

And Zoë kept telling me that infant cereal was only good for spitting out in order to make high chair fingerpaint art.

I decided to let Zoë eat whatever healthy foods she wanted, so while I would occasionally mix cereal in with her fruit or yogurt, I still had this huge box of infant cereal sitting on my counter that wasn't going anywhere anytime soon. So, based on the popularity of "energy bites" for adults and recent guidelines suggesting that babies should be eating peanut butter as early as four to six months old, I went full Pinterest mom and made a trendy homemade baby food recipe.

Ingredients

1/2 cup infant cereal (I used Gerber Multigrain)

1/2 cup berries (I used a ~medley of raspberries, blueberries, and blackberries, because they had been in my freezer for over a year and I thought I should use them up)

1/4 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup Puffs baby snacks, or similar product

Directions

1.  Puree the fruit until smooth
2. Add the infant cereal and peanut butter; mix until evenly combined
3. In a Ziploc bag, crush the Puffs into fine crumbs
4. Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper
5. Roll the dough into small bites (no larger than 1 cm in diameter to minimize the risk of choking)
6. Coat the dough in the Puffs crumbs, and place on the cookie sheet
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. Freeze for an hour to set
8. Store for up to two weeks in the fridge or four months in the freezer. (I made these numbers up. Just, like, don't leave them in your car for a month and decide they're still good to eat. Okay? Okay.) 

They were a little soft, so I'd recommend using a bib for younger or messier eaters. Keep in mind that unlike storebought baby snacks, these aren't designed to dissolve quickly, so make sure your baby is seated and supervised while eating.

Zoë absolutely loved these snacks, and I loved that they're full of iron-fortified grains, healthy fats, and antioxidants. 11/10 would make again.

Election Thoughts: When Good Men and Women Do Nothing

Okay, so I've seen a lot of posts about how it's inappropriate to say that all Trump supporters are racist/sexist/homophobic/Islamophobic/etc. And you know, I do believe that. I am perfectly willing to believe that there are plenty of Trump supporters whose votes weren't motivated by hatred or animus towards any of these groups.

But here's the thing: Trump and Pence are motivated by that animus. They do plan to implement policies that will separate children from their undocumented immigrant parents, that will erode the housing, education, and employment rights of LGBT people, that will lead to even legal immigrants losing their visas, that will attack the freedom of religion of Muslims, that will allow the Voting Rights Act to continue to be attacked in racially motivated ways, and that will do a whole lot more harm that I don't have time to list.

So if your voted for Trump, there are three broad categories I can think of for how you weighed the consequences of these issues:
-You voted out of hatred for these groups.
-You didn't think about these groups at all.
-You thought about these groups, and decided that other issues were more important.

And I understand that there were many issues in this election, that we all had to weigh them, and that some people may weigh them differently than I do. That is your right as an American citizen and you can be a good person while having different priorities than I do. But here's the thing: we all have to take responsibility for the moral calculus that was involved in our vote. We have to take responsibility for our actions, no matter what the motivation behind them was.

So if your motivation wasn't hatred, that's great. Really. I'm heartened to know that you personally don't hate these people. But that still means that you were either indifferent to the suffering these people would experience, or you decided that their suffering was less important to you than other issues.

And you need to own up to that. You need to own up to the fact that even though you didn't vote AGAINST us, you still voted in a way that would hurt us. You need to take responsibility for it, be kind to people who are hurting, and do everything you can in the next four years to mitigate that hurt as much as possible. Otherwise, the fact that you don't actively support the hurt doesn't mean anything, because it will still be happening because of who you voted for.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” - Edmund Burke

It's Been A Year

I published some reflections on the policy change and the anniversary of my coming out on Facebook. I've decided to repost them here.

A year ago yesterday was the policy change, which many are calling the Policy of Exclusion. As I watched the controversy unfold over Facebook, I saw many good people, who I care about, say things about LGBT members that I knew they would never say to the face of someone they cared for. I saw many members claim that the policy was fine, because "those LGBT people" didn't want to be a part of the Church anyways, and this policy would make clear to the righteous that they weren't to be led astray by the rebellions of "those people."

And so a year ago today, I came out of the closet as bisexual. I had many reasons for doing this, but a major one was to show people that LGBT people are not this nameless, faceless, vaguely threatening group of "those people." We are people you know and love. We are in your wards. We hear what you say and write about us. And for those of us who have been born in the Church, many of us want very badly to be a part of it.

I have been fortunate, in that I was never forced to choose between having a family of my own and being in good standing with the Church. For the vast majority of LGBT members, an opposite-gender partner is not a viable option. I have tried to think of what it would have been like for me if I were forced to choose between my family and the Church. From the moment I met Mason, I knew how much happiness he would bring me. Would I have been able to glimpse that happiness, and turn away from it in favor of fifty years of celibacy? Would I have been able to deny myself a family while attending church week after week, a Church that constantly teaches that true happiness can only be found in families? I honestly don't know if I could.

I don't write this to try to convince anyone to change their mind about Church doctrine or even the policy. I write this to ask straight members to have empathy for the incredibly difficult sacrifice that the Church asks of its LGBT members. It is not the same as being as single straight member. Single straight members are encouraged to date. They are encouraged to pursue people who interest them. They are encouraged to hope for marriage. LGBT members are asked to suppress their feelings and wait until the next life to somehow figure this out. It is not the same. It is isolating and lonely and difficult.

Because of this, it is no surprise to me that some LGBT members eventually choose to pursue same-sex relationships in some capacity or another. This does not mean they don't want to be a part of the Church; indeed, many of them continue to try to continue to make our religion a part of their lives. And that's part of why this policy hurt - many felt like the Church was saying, "We don't want your efforts to continue to be involved in some way. You can stay and be lonely, or you can leave entirely."

I have seen many straight members claim that if LGBT members feel unwelcome, all they have to do is keep the commandments and they will feel welcome. This is an easy way to absolve the Church and its members from the hurt that LGBT members feel. It is comfortable to feel that you are not complicit in anyone's pain. It is comfortable to feel that there is an easy solution to pain.

I have two things to say to that. The first is that as a commandment-keeping, temple-married LGBT member, who doesn't even have to deal with the loneliness that most LGBT members experience, I can tell you that that isn't true. Simply keeping the commandments does not suddenly make the Church a welcoming place. There are plenty of things that have been done and said, from comments made in Sunday School all the way up to things said in General Conference, that have made LGBT members feel unwelcome, regardless of the status of their temple recommend. I am not referring to simple teachings of true doctrine. I am referring to hurtful things that have no place in the Gospel of Christ and no need to be said, ever, by anyone. And I am referring to the silence that implies agreement in the wake of those comments, the silence that says that we are not important enough to stand up for.

The second thing I have to say is, if possible, more important, and it is that as members of a Church that bears the name of Christ, we have the responsibility to do all we can to make sure that everyone feels the love of Christ through us, regardless of the commandments they are or are not keeping. Christ ate with publicans and sinners; He didn't do as the Pharisees did and wait for people to attain a certain standard of "worthiness" and then come to Him on their own. While teaching the Nephites after his resurrection, Christ taught:

"And behold, ye shall meet together oft; and ye shall not forbid any man from coming unto you when ye shall meet together, but suffer them that they may come unto you and forbid them not;
But ye shall pray for them, and shall not cast them out; and if it so be that they come unto you oft ye shall pray for them unto the Father, in my name.

Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up - that which ye have seen me do. [...]

And ye see that I have commanded that none of you should go away, but rather have commanded that ye should come unto me, that ye might feel and see; even so shall ye do unto the world; and whoseoever breaketh this commandment suffereth himself to be led into temptation. [...]

Nevertheless, ye shall not cast [people not keeping the commandments] out from among you, but ye shall minster unto him and shall pray for him unto the Father, in my name [...] ye shall not cast him out of your synagogues, or your places of worship, for unto such shall ye continue to minister; for ye know not but what they will return and repent, and come unto me with full purpose of heart, and I shall heal them." (3 Nephi 18)

The Savior makes it clear that it is not enough to simply passively say "Well, everyone is welcome at church if they really want to be there." We are supposed to *minister* to people. We are supposed to *actively work* to welcome them, just as He actively left the ninety and nine and sought after the one.

As a missionary, I brought all sorts of people to church and saw members make an effort to welcome them. People with prison tattoos. People reeking of cigarette smoke. People who were clearly not living the gospel. And I saw members go out of their way to make them feel loved and welcome. I saw members fellowship the same investigators for years, making them feel welcome and not judged while they explored the often complicated path of reconciling their life with the Church.

So don't tell yourself that LGBT people will feel welcome if they'd just keep the commandments, because there's no reason that they should be the exception to the fellowship that exists in Christ and has the potential to exist in each one of us. I have seen it in action. It is wonderful. It is healing. And every one of us LGBT members, whether we are keeping the commandments or not, needs that healing, because there has been so. much. hurt.

At minimum, I beg of you all to be very careful to not add to the burden that LGBT members carry, regardless of their activity level. But we are not a church that asks for the minimum. Don't settle for not adding to our burden. Please, help to bear it. Don't tell us that we're not doing enough to bear it on our own; all too often, those who are perceived of not doing enough have simply collapsed under the weight of it. Don't wait for us to come to you. Come to us, seek after us, welcome us, lift our burden upon your back, and help us return joyfully together to the peace of Christ's fold.

Adventures in Domesticity: The Couch

Okay, SO...

We moved into our new apartment, and since we still had the U-haul trailer until noon the next day, we figured we should take advantage of this opportunity to get a couch while we actually had a way to transport it. We could have just gone to DI or something and paid $40, but I wanted to see if we could get a couch for free, because college.

Someone on KSL was giving away a really nice green couch. Not a gross, someone-could-have-puked-on-this-and-I'd-have-no-idea green, but a contemporary green that would actually look nice. It looked a bit like this couch, except it had those armrests that curve on the inside and are straight on the outside:

Not your Grandma's weird green couch, is what I'm saying.

It was apparently just out on the curb and was free to whoever got there first. The only problem was, it was in Murray, which was about an hour away with traffic. Nevertheless, I decided I'd rather go on a vain quest for free furniture with a questionable history than unpack the apartment. Mason agreed to come along and we recruited my friend James to help lift it into the U-haul.

SO we had a really enjoyable, relaxing drive up through various highways and sub-highways while trying to merge with a trailer blocking our view out the back window. Despite the best efforts of other cars to get into pileups with multiple semi-trucks, we arrived in Murray. We turn onto the street, and pull towards the house only to see some jerk with a blue minivan in the process of loading the couch of destiny into their car.

Like, we literally got there five minutes too late.

There was another couch available in West Jordan, and the owner had said we could come by at 8 pm to pick it up. It was about 3:30 pm at this point, and I definitely didn't want to waste my gas and avoiding-near-death-highway-collisions quotas on going to Provo and coming back. James agreed to prolong our adventure and stop by the West Jordan house to see if anyone happened to be home.

After many, many, many detours, thanks to the stellar combination of Apple Maps and Utah road construction, we arrived on a quiet cul-de-sac and knocked on the door. A woman answered, looking confused, and I had a sudden flashback to my mission. All of my instincts insisted that I should start asking her about her religion, but instead I managed to communicate that we wanted to take her couch.

She shrugged and opened the garage, revealing a structurally sound couch covered in various types of gross. Mason and James loaded it into the car, and we agreed that it would probably be good with a vacuum and maybe some fabric cleaner. It seemed that our adventure had reached its successful conclusion.

Well, it seemed.

(Foreshadowing is hard, you guys. Also, you don't even need foreshadowing, you just need to follow me on Twitter and you'll already know what happens next.)

Ahem. Anyways.

So we're driving home on the I-15 and everything seems great. Of course, the combination of the trailer and Utah highways seems to be causing a little shaking, but we weren't worried about it.

The car began pulling to the right. We figured the couch had shifted, and kept driving.

The shaking got worse and worse. It seemed to be in line with the bumps that were regularly placed along every five feet of the corrugated road, though, so I thought everything was just fine.

But the shaking got worse, and suddenly we decided we needed to pull over RIGHT NOW. As we did so, a piece of rubber went flying past our window.

Oh.

Strangely, I had been suppressing the urge to swear over completely minor moving things all day, but in this moment, the only thing that came to mind was "shoot."

To backtrack a bit, I had JUST FILLED UP THE TIRES the previous week, and everything seemed fine then. So I'm 91% sure that this blowout wasn't due to some sort of car maintenance negligence.

Anyways. So we're pulled over on the I-15 with semi trucks whizzing past us at 70 mph, and even though the shoulder is large enough to easily accommodate our car and trailer, I can't resist the feeling that I'm about to become a Jaclyn pancake.

Fortunately, a Highway Patrol guy shows up and puts his lights on behind us, which makes me feel safer. He supervises the tire change and loosens a few lug nuts (which were initially so tight that Mason and James had to stomp on the wrench and Mason got a pretty impressive bruise from it).

We get the spare tire put on, finally, and drive the rest of the way from Thanksgiving Point to Provo. Now I'm paranoid of every strange sound or smell, which is complicated by the fact that the shredded tire is in the trunk and filling the car with the scent of destroyed rubber.

So eventually we get home, clean up the couch, and decide to go to DI for the rest of the furniture we need.

I'm pretty sure the money we saved on the free couch is going towards fixing our tires now.

Totally worth it?

Adventures in Domesticity: The Pie

This post originally appeared on Facebook. I realized I have a lot of similar stories, and decided to make a series of it.

So today I got my homework done early, so I decided to make a casserole for dinner and do the laundry. I still had time in the evening, so I was like, hey, why not make a pie?

For some background, I had a bunch of frozen blueberries in the freezer and I had decided a few weeks ago that making a half-apple, half-blueberry pie in my divided pie plate was the most logical way to use them up before moving. I have no idea where I got that idea.

So I make the pie dough, and come across my first problem: my pie crust recipe makes enough for THREE TO SIX pies. THREE TO SIX, you guys! I started panicking and trying to think of contingency plans that would let me get rid of three to six pies in the space of a week.

Then I go to put the filling in the pie crust, and I realize I've made WAYYYYYY too much apple filling. So I'm like, no problem, I made about the same amount of blueberry filling, so I'll just make two pies. I thought I was halfway to solving problem #1.

Apple pie goes great. I put it in the freezer to make later in the week. Then I get out my other pie plate, and it's HUUUUUUUGE. Guys, I have no idea why it's so huge. But the blueberry filling only fills about 1/3 of the pie shell.

So I decide, okay, I'll stop by South End Market on the way to pick Mason up from work and buy more berries. Guys, blueberries are FIVE DOLLARS for a TINY LITTLE CARTON at South End. They're out of raspberries and I don't want to pit a trillion cherries at 9:30 pm, so I end up buying $7.50 worth of blackberries instead.

Now my blue- and blackberry pie is in the oven, an apple pie is in the freezer, I have some pie crust cookies ready to go, and my back hurts.

I have no idea why I thought blueberry pie would be the best way to get rid of my blueberries, but on the plus side, between the pies and the casserole I think I've completed 90% of the cooking I need to between now and moving.

Visiting the University Accessibility Center

This post is part of my Mental Health & University Series. To start from the beginning, click here.

After visiting a professional and being diagnosed with a mental health condition, it's often useful to visit the University Accessibility Center, or UAC. (Note: my goal by the end of this post is to spell "accessibility" correctly on the first try.)

The UAC can provide you with accommodations if your mental illness has a negative effect on your schoolwork. (It also provides accommodations for physical disabilities and other issues.) Some examples of accommodations are:

• Someone to take notes for you in class.
• Extra time on exams.
• Exams divided into smaller sections, which are taken individually.
• Flexibility with exam dates.
• Leniency with absences.
• Flexibility with due dates for assignments.
• The ability to take exams in a distraction-free room.

A full list of accommodations available at BYU can be found here. Usually, students only need a few accommodations, but having them can make a world of difference.

I went a few semesters after getting diagnosed with depression and anxiety before visiting the UAC. During that time, some of my professors were willing to give me extensions on homework or exams after I explained the situation to them, but some of them were not. Having official UAC accommodations gives the professor a deeper obligation to provide you with the help you need.

When you receive the accommodations, you get a letter on official BYU letterhead addressed to each of your professors, which explains that the University Accessibility Center has determined that you need accommodations X, Y, and Z. Oftentimes, mental illness is seen as a less legitimate excuse than physical illness. This letter can help reassure your professor that you aren't just "making it all up." Furthermore, the letter doesn't give your professors any details about why you need the accommodations; just that you do, and how to go about providing them.

To meet with the UAC, you first need to fill out some intake paperwork, which is available here. The paperwork is really, really long, and trying to fill it out with a mental illness kind of feels like walking to the hospital to get your broken leg fixed. If you have trouble with motivation or attention span, I would suggest breaking it into small chunks, or enlisting the help of a friend or family member.

After that, you call them at 801-422-2767 and set up an appointment. At the time of your appointment, you need some sort of documentation of your disability, such as a letter from your counselor or a form filled out by a doctor. This documentation needs to be current — within the last two years for most mental illnesses, the last five years for ADHD, or the last seven years for a learning disorder. A full list of possible documentation can be found here.

During your appointment, they'll probably go over the intake paperwork with you. They also discuss how you're currently dealing with your condition, and what "strategies" you can use. Frankly, I found myself getting irritated during this discussion, but I understand why they have it; they don't necessarily know how many times you've seen a counselor, or whether your doctor discussed it with you beyond explaining how much medication to take. Accommodations can only go so far; you have to use them effectively.

Anyways, after they finish re-telling you how to manage your mental illness, they'll discuss accommodations with you and decide on which ones would be helpful. They'll ask you how many copies of the letter to your professor you'll need, and you come back in a few days to pick it up. The accommodations are valid for two years, and you can get letters every semester by asking at the front desk. After your accommodations have expired, you can meet with them again and get them renewed.

When you get the letter, it's up to you to deliver them to your professor. I personally felt a little awkward about it, but I found it was pretty low-key to just show up to class a few minutes early and hand them the letter while saying, "I was supposed to give this to you." If they want to talk about it, they will; if not, you can just go sit down.

Personally, I think visiting the UAC is a good idea so you can cover all of your bases and feel more legitimized in asking your professor for the help you need.

Things I Learned in English 316

My professor for my technical writing course last semester has ADHD, and he's great. This is a selection of things he's gone off topic about in class (representing about four lectures of tangents):

• Robert Frost, TS Elliott, and Shakespeare. Specifically, several poems and soliloquies recited from memory, and what they said about death and suicide. "LIFE IS MEANINGLESS!"
• How to troubleshoot your vintage Volkswagen Bug when it breaks down on your way to ski at Snowbird for $7. "So the damn thing stopped."
• A class poll was taken to see how many people would be in favor of caffeinated beverages on campus. "I have a 12-pack of Diet Coke in my office."
• Whether girls are really less shallow than guys, since they don't like to date men who are shorter than them.
• Why his high school typing teacher was terrible, and how he had to take shorthand from her the next semester.
• How he got into college without taking the ACT or the GRE.
• A story about how he got "fired" from piano lessons at the age of 6, and no piano teacher in his town would take him on. "I thought it was great."
• "This is a book I wrote about the history of prostitution..."
• An explanation of how he's trying to cut down on swearing, except "damn" and "hell," which are in the Bible.
• "Donald Trump just needs to grow up and realize he doesn't have any hair."
• An explanation of how the word "bitching" has become more pejorative today than when he was our age.
• "This is a picture of my foot in Moab..."
• Diet Coke has a distinct smell compared to Pepsi, which is crap.
• A detailed description of which documents he prefers to type and which he prefers to write by hand.
• How is Keith Richards still alive with all the drugs he uses?
• He's not afraid of bears, is totally fine with being 20-30 yards from a bear, but flying terrifies him.
• Different types of old guns and how they work.
• Different types of trees.
• Different types of women's hairstyles.
• Different types of mud.
• Different types of deer.
• The cost of parking in Seattle (which is apparently Bernie Sanders' fault).
• How complicated recycling is (also Bernie Sanders' fault).
• The merits of Orrin Hatch, who has never changed his mind about anything in his life.
• How he bought a cherry pitter from a State Fair and couldn't figure out the instructions to assemble it.
• How carburetors work, and how to maintain them in old cars.

On "Defining Yourself By Your Sexuality"

So as I've said before, I'm bisexual.

That seems to make some people uncomfortable. Some people think I shouldn't talk about it at all; others think it's okay to talk about it, as long as I don't use the word "bisexual." The most common explanation I've heard for this idea is that calling myself bisexual means I'm defining myself by my sexuality.

I don't really get that. I'm not defining myself by my sexuality; I'm defining my sexuality by using the word in the English language that most accurately describes who I am attracted to. To me, coming up with a euphemism to describe my sexuality is unnecessary, because there's already a word for it — a word which, by the way, is completely neutral. "Bisexual" doesn't tell you anything more about me than "experiences same and opposite gender attraction" does, and it has the advantage of being 34 letters shorter.

Frankly, I don't think it's anyone's business whether I talk about my sexuality, or how much, or why. However, I will say that I feel like it's an important conversation to have. Far too often, especially in an LDS community, conversations about LGBT issues occur when straight, cis people talk to other straight, cis people about this group of "other" people. And while many of these conversations are well-meaning, the fact that they primarily occur among non-LGBT people contributes to a feeling of othering. It's much easier to accidentally say something insensitive about a nameless, faceless group of people than it is to say that thing about someone you know.

For this reason, I felt uncomfortable talking about LGBT issues when people assumed I was straight. I felt like I was perpetuating the problem instead of helping to solve it.

(Plus, I'm not uncomfortable with my sexuality, and having to censor all the pun opportunities it affords me simply because I hadn't said the words "I'm bisexual" to anyone was just really annoying.)

You don't have to agree with or understand why I chose to come out, but at any rate, I'm going to use the word "bisexual" when my sexuality is relevant to something I'm trying to say.  And if you have a problem with that, I just want to make one thing clear:

If you think that after one word, you know anything about how I feel about my sexuality — if you think you know what choices I've made about it — if you think you can make assumptions about the state of my marriage because of it — if you think you know my feelings on Church doctrine or policy — if you think you can make assumptions about my activity in the Church — if you think my sexuality is going to be an issue — if you think I'm being "divisive" somehow — if you feel like you know what role it plays in my life — 

And if any of the things you think after just hearing the word "bisexual" make you so uncomfortable that you feel the need to tell me I shouldn't use that word —

The issue isn't that I'm "defining myself by my sexuality."

The issue is that you are.

Counselors & Doctors & Stuff

Original image by mondspeer

Guys, do you like my Microsoft Paint skills or what?

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You don't have to answer that.

Anyways, I'd like to start off this post by addressing a popular misconception: you don't have to have a mental illness to go to a counselor. For myself, and a lot of people I know, one of the biggest barriers to deciding to see a counselor was feeling like your problems weren't big enough to see a counselor about, or like you probably didn't really have depression, anxiety, OCD, etc., so wouldn't you feel really dumb if you went to a therapist and they were all like, why are you even here? Just suck it up and deal with it like a normal person!

The thing is, there is no sign saying "Your mental or emotional problems must be at least this crazy to see a psychologist." There's not, I checked. Trust me. In fact, people go to psychologists for a number of reasons. You may be really stressed, or have difficulty coping with something that happened in your life, or you might be experiencing problems with your attention span or motivation. Counselors are trained to teach people practical, practice-able skills to deal with almost any problem. Mental disorders are what happens when some of these problems go way beyond what most people experience, but even people who are experiencing these same issues to a lesser extent can benefit from the same kind of therapy. 

So if you're worried about your problem "not being real enough," or getting diagnosed with some sort of scary problem, don't be. Honestly, going to a counselor before your problems become big issues makes them easier to treat, and ideally, you can practice what you learn and stop them from getting any bigger. It's kind of like going to the doctor and getting antibiotics within the first few days of strep throat, instead of waiting a few months and risking getting scarlet fever or getting so sick that you have to miss a month of classes.

Counseling

Making the Appointment

College is a great time to go to counseling, because your university usually has a free counseling center. For BYU, it's the Counseling Center in the Wilk. If you're not at college, I would probably start by seeing your primary care doctor and asking for any referrals to psychologists in the area.

Guys, it took me SO LONG to see a counselor at BYU, because it's behind these doors and shuttered windows and opening those doors just felt like stepping into the unknown and it felt way more scary than they probably intended it to be. They keep it like that to protect the privacy of anyone hanging out in the waiting room, but it was still intimidating. I tried to find a picture of the waiting room for everyone, but I couldn't. It looks kind of like this, except with a detached reception desk instead of one built into the wall and a BYU blue color scheme:

(Image source)

It literally just looks like every waiting room ever on the inside, trust me. At the front, there are usually two students manning the reception, and behind them is an older lady. You can talk to any of them.

Before you make an appointment, you have to do some paperwork. It's easier if you do it before you come; just follow the instructions here. The first few questions are pretty open-ended, kind of along the lines of "why do you want to see a counselor," and it can be hard to think of what to write. It's not really a big deal though, because the rest of the form is checking a bunch of very detailed boxes with a multitude of symptoms. They just want a brief overview in your own words — it can be as simple as "I feel disproportionately stressed a lot of the time," "I'm having trouble concentrating on anything," or "I feel down/blue/unmotivated frequently." Seriously, feel free to put that exact phrase in there if you can't think of anything. It's fine.

After that, you can either call them at 801-422-3035 to schedule an appointment, or you can walk in and talk to anyone at the desk. If both of those feel intimidating, recruit a friend, family member, or roommate to come with you or help you call. In either case, all you have to say is "I'd like to schedule an intake appointment." They'll ask you if you completed the paperwork, to which the answer is yes, and you'll set up a time!

Again, the procedure will obviously be slightly different at other universities, but the general idea may be the same. You might have to talk to someone at the desk to get the paperwork, depending on how they have things set up.

Your First Appointment

At your first appointment, just go up to the desk and say, "Hey I have an intake appointment scheduled for [time]." They'll probably ask for your student ID number or your initials, and then you sit there and wait until your therapist calls your name. You'll go back into a little office and usually there's a couch and a few chairs. You can sit anywhere you want. Modern therapy doesn't actually look like the whole "lying down on a couch" trope; you just sit face-to-face and talk.

They'll probably ask you a couple of open-ended questions about why you're here and what you'd like to get out of therapy, so come prepared to describe what's bothering you. I had trouble answering "Why I'm here" because it was kind of like, "...um...to make all of these feelings not be the way that they are? Duh?" If you're struggling with that question, a good thing to say might be something along the lines of, "[Symptoms] are impacting [school, relationships, etc.] really negatively, and I'd like to reduce them to the point where they're not interfering with [the things] as much."

At this point, you'll probably talk about future treatment options. The two big options, at least at BYU, are individual vs. group therapy. Your experience will vary depending on who your counselor is and/or who is in your group therapy, but this is my experience with the two:

It's totally okay to choose one, the other, or both. When I first started going to therapy, the idea of talking to a group of people about everything was really intimidating, so I went to individual therapy only for a while and then eventually added group therapy. They're both great in their own way.

Continuing Therapy

BYU has you complete a 40-question survey before each appointment. (If you have trouble accessing it or forget, the people at the front desk have iPads you can take it on before your appointment). Some therapists make more use of it than others. Both therapists I had primarily looked at your overall "score" to get a rough idea of how you were doing from week-to-week. This also helps them evaluate how treatment is going; once your scores fall below a certain range, they'll typically bring up tapering off the therapy. BYU's therapy model is short-term, which means they have the goal to help you learn skills that will allow you to manage your mental health independently in the long term.

Sometimes, the first therapist you get may not be right for you. A friend of mine explained it this way: expecting your first therapist to be the right one for you is kind of like expecting to marry the first person you go on a blind date with. If your therapist doesn't seem to get you, it's perfectly fine to transfer to another one. I did, although mine was going on maternity leave anyways. You don't have to worry about offending them — it happens all the time. Just say something like, "I've really appreciated having therapy with you, but I don't feel like we're clicking. I was wondering if I could transfer to a different therapist?" They'll probably ask you a few questions about why you feel that way, but don't worry; they're just trying to get a better sense of who would be a good fit for you. Alternatively, they might realize that the things you're describing are easy for them to do differently, and they'll change their approach slightly. Either way, it's a good idea to bring things up so that you can get the best experience possible.

Doctors & Medication

Most counselors, therapists, and psychologists can't prescribe medication. For that, you need someone who's been to med school. You don't need a referral from a counselor or anything to see a doctor about medication. You can just book an appointment with your primary care provider. On the BYU Health website, you can even schedule the appointment online and select the "mental health" category.

You'll go in, check in like any other appointment, and the nurse will call you back. He or she will probably weigh you and take your blood pressure, and ask you what you're here for. You can describe your symptoms, or if you've already seen a counselor and been diagnosed with something, you can say, "I have [disorder] and wanted to see about trying medication for it." They'll probably give you a form to fill out to rate the severity of your symptoms while you wait for the doctor to come in. He or she will come in, look at the form, and prescribe you something.

I only have experience with antidepressants, but typically, medications aren't a life-long thing. With antidepressants, for example, they'll typically start you on Prozac or another common one, and wait a few months to see if it works. If it works, they'll keep you on it for 6 to 9 months, at which point, you can choose to go off it or continue. If you go off it and relapse, they'll put you back on for twice as long, at which point you can again choose to discontinue. If you relapse again, that's when they'd recommend you take them permanently. Sometimes, the first medication they try for you won't work, or will even make things worse in rare cases (Prozac definitely exacerbated both my depression and anxiety), and they'll try a different medication. Once they find one that works, they'll follow the same procedure.

Typically, the doctor will make a followup appointment about a month from your first appointment to see how the drug is working. Depending on how well you're doing, they'll give you a refill for a longer or shorter amount of time, or switch you. If your condition proves resistant to most common medications for your condition, they'll give you the option to consult with a doctor who specializes in psychiatric medication to help you find something, if you want to keep trying.

The generics of both Prozac and Zoloft cost less than $0.80/month on the BYU Health Plan, so you don't have to worry about breaking the bank.

So, Which One Do I Choose?

Before I get to the actual pros and cons of both kinds of treatments, let me note that a lot of the things that will help you deal with mental illness in college require documentation. Getting accommodations is almost impossible without a letter from a counselor or doctor to verify your condition. In my experience, counselors write better letters, plus you see them on a regular basis, which makes them easier to request as part of a normal visit. For that reason alone, it can be useful to meet with a counselor at least occasionally. However, if you really don't want to try therapy, a doctor can also provide medical documentation. Additionally, neither counselors nor doctors are allowed to ever tell anyone else about your treatment without your consent; your privacy is equally safe with either.

As far as effectiveness goes, the thing about mental health is that it's very individual, with a lot of different causes. Some people may do better with therapy, some with medication, and some with both. For mild to moderate depression, for example, medication isn't more effective than therapy; however, severe depression often can't be fully treated with therapy alone. ADHD, anxiety, OCD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other disorders all have their own unique needs, as does every individual person.

Neither therapy nor medication needs to be long term. To a certain extent, it depends on what you feel the most comfortable with. In my personal opinion, therapy is always a good idea to at least try. If your disorder is being heavily influenced by certain ingrained patterns of thinking or reacting to situations, medication may not provide a long-term solution. However, if your disorder is more biological in nature, therapy may not provide a permanent solution.

The thing about therapy is a lot of the things you learn are little "rope ladders" of their own. Therapy requires effort, and if your mental state is really severe, you may not be capable of climbing those ladders right away. For instance, a lot of things that help with depression are getting enough sleep, maintaining a regular schedule, eating enough nutritious food, staying as on top of your responsibilities as you can, keeping your apartment clean, and exercising. A lot of the effects of depression are insomnia, an inability to get out of bed in the mornings, loss of appetite or eating too much, and not having the motivation to shower, let alone complete responsibilities or exercise.

You can see where this can run into problems. If you have mild or moderate depression, your therapist can help you find strategies to start doing at least some of these things, which can improve your mood and help you build up to doing all the things. However, if you can't even start doing any of the things, medication can provide a jump start to help you work on the things you learn in therapy. Think of it as a prosthetic arm that helps you climb the ladder. Except in this case, the more ladders you climb, the more likely your arms are to grow back and help you eventually climb out of the hole entirely, and you may not need that prosthetic arm anymore. Or, I guess, maybe your arms don't grow back but the prosthetic arm helps you climb out of the hole. Everyone's arms are different.

Analogies are hard, you guys.

Now if you'll excuse me, my prosthetic arm is giving me a weird compiler error and I need to do some troubleshooting.

Stay tuned for more posts about mental health in college, or read the series introduction to start from the beginning.

Mental Health & University Series: Introduction

Some of you may be aware that I've been having a really fun time with depression and anxiety over the past year or so. Some of you may not have been aware of that. It's been fun, though, trust me.

The good news is, college is full of useful resources and accommodations for people with physical or mental health conditions. The bad news is, nobody seems to know about them, or if they do, they're not entirely capable of accessing them.

Here's an analogy:

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You have no arms. (This may seem weird, just go with it. It's relevant later.)

Anyways.

So you have no arms, and somehow you fall into a hole. Or are pushed into a hole. Or you're just walking along and the hole opens up underneath you. Or maybe you run and jump into the hole on purpose. The thing is — and this is crucial — it doesn't really matter why you ended up in a hole. A lot of people seem to miss this point, including the people (professors, petitions committee members, etc.) who are supposed to help you. Yeah, there's a time and place for examining how you got into the hole, and maybe you could have prevented it, and it might help the university to figure out how to put up fences around the holes or prevent them from spontaneously appearing in the first place. However, the time and place for that isn't while you're still in the hole. If you're still in the hole, the first priority should be to get you out.

The point is, you're in this hole, and somehow you've managed to convince the people standing outside the hole to stop interrogating you about how you got into it and they're willing to try to get you out. You need to get out, because you can't really do your homework in the hole, or go to the testing center, or shower, or really do anything. The hole is pretty boring, not to mention unproductive. It doesn't even have WiFi.

Your rescuer lowers a rope ladder, says "Here you go! Don't forget to hand in your paper on European portraiture on Tuesday!", and walks away.

"Wait! I can't climb this ladder! I have no arms!" you yell as they leave. They keep walking.

Several days later, they come back. You have a couple of bruises from trying to climb a rope ladder without arms, and you're pretty hungry and greasy. "Why didn't you finish your paper?" they demand. "You can't stay in this hole forever. I even gave you a way to get out!"

"Being stuck in a hole isn't an excuse to blow off your assignments."

"But," you protest, "I couldn't get out of the hole. I can't climb a rope ladder with no arms."

"Look. You shouldn't have fallen into this hole in the first place, but we've given you all the resources you needed to get out. Just because you have no arms doesn't mean you get to be self-pitying and take no responsibility for yourself. Rope ladders have helped plenty of people climb out of holes before. You have everything you need — you're just not using it."

They walk away and leave you in the hole.

Somehow, being stuck in a dirt hole for days on end is less upsetting to you than the fact that you're failing Art History.

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That's the thing about mental health. Just because various resources are made available doesn't mean you're capable of taking advantage of them on your own, or that they're designed in a way that's actually helpful. And that's assuming you even know about the resources! If you don't, it's more like being told, "If you dig around in the bottom of this hole for a while, you'll find a set of directions to find some rope. If you follow those directions, you'll find another note, which tells you that the rope is back in the first place you dug. Dig around a little longer, and you might stumble upon a length of rope and a couple of stakes. Tie the rope into a ladder, attach it to the top of the hole with the stakes, and you can climb out!"

Then, if you don't manage to follow all those steps and get out of the hole, you have to convince someone to lower a ramp into a hole, and whether or not you get the ramp is dependent upon your ability to justify why you couldn't just use the resources they already provided, or why you need a ramp instead of another ladder. Somehow, I don't have any freaking arms isn't an acceptable answer.

Fortunately for me, between the stars aligning and the support of my husband, I actually managed to climb the ladder somehow. However, between my experience and talking to friends of mine who have had similar experiences, it's come to my attention that most students don't know what resources are available to them, or if they do, they face significant challenges in using them. As an attempt to help with this, I'll be writing a multi-part series that addresses as many relevant topics as I can think of, namely:

• Counselors & Doctors & Stuff
• Visiting the University Accessibility Center
• Talking to Professors
• Withdrawing vs. Incompletes
• Withdrawing as an International Student
• Petitioning the Scholarship Office
• Petitioning After the Withdrawal Deadline

These posts will lay out the basic process for completing these tasks, explain how to know when you need to make use of these resources, and provide examples of emails, petitions statements, and hypothetical conversations for anyone you need to talk with. While these posts focus on BYU, most of the ideas within them should hopefully be applicable across a range of institutions. As the posts are written, links will be added to this page.

If you're experiencing a mental illness in college, or if you know someone who is, please share this information so that people can get the help they need.

The Completely True, Doctrinally Accurate Story of How I Inadvertently Created Donald Trump

Archangel, holding a clipboard: "All right, everyone, for today's brainstorming session Michael has assigned our group the topic of 'Minor Inconveniences of a Fallen World.' He would like them to be as ironic as possible, so let's start throwing out ideas!"

Angel 1: "Not getting enough sleep makes you tired, but sleeping too much also makes you tired!"

Angel 2: "All the tasty foods are unhealthy, and all the healthy foods are especially hard to get children to eat."

Archangel: "Good, good, keep them coming."

Angel 3: "Spiders control the population of all the other gross bugs, but they are the most disgusting and fear-inducing of them all."

Me: "Wait...guys..."

Angel 2: "Avocados and bananas are healthy and delicious, but they stay unripe for two weeks, are ripe for half a day, and promptly become disgusting."

Angel 3: "The more often you clean your hair, the faster your hair gets dirty."

Angel 2: "Actually, let's just make that true for the entire body."

Me: "Guys..."

Angel 1: "How about a disease that makes you need to pee more frequently, but also makes peeing really painful?"

Archangel: "I don't know, that seems like it would fall under the 'Illnesses and Afflictions' group. Is there any way you can tone it down a little?"

Angel 1: "What if it mainly affected women?"

Archangel: "Sounds good to me."

Me: "Wait, how does making it mainly affect women suddenly downgrade it to a 'minor inconvenience'?"

Archangel: "Well...um...uh...look, if you're not going to contribute any of your own ideas, you can't criticize ours. Do you have a better idea?"

Me: "Gee, I don't know...how about 'people thinking they're right when they're clearly wrong'?"

Angel 1: "Hey, great idea, how'd you come up with that?"

Me: "I have no clue..."

Archangel: "All right, let's put it down. Our next topic..."

Me: "Wait, I wasn't serious!"

*no response*

Me: "I have a bad feeling about this."

(image source)

Donald Trump: "I'm here to make America great again!"

I Didn't Think This Would Be My First Post

So I've had this blog hiding on the Interwebs for the past few weeks, trying to come up with a good blog post and the motivation to write it. I started this blog because I wanted somewhere I could talk about ideas and interesting stuff in addition to my personal life (which is often less interesting), but the first post felt like a lot of pressure because I didn't want people to pigeonhole my blog into one category or another based on what I talked about first.

I guess the fact that I wasn't planning on blogging about this freed me from that self-imposed problem.

(Spoiler alert: I'm not having a crisis of faith or making any big drastic changes in my life, so all of my relatives who are already getting nervous can start breathing again.)

But you see, I am bisexual.

(Cue heart attacks starting again.)

That's not the point of this post; I just wanted to get it out of the way. (If you want to know the point, scroll down to the bolded phrase "the point is this".) While it's a big struggle for a lot of people, for me personally, it hasn't affected my life a lot. This is partly because I was in denial about it until well after I'd decided I wanted to marry my husband, so the most difficult part has been answering his question about whether Anna Kendrick or Emma Watson is more attractive. 

And that wasn't very difficult, because the answer is obviously Anna Kendrick. 

In fact, I probably would have been comfortable telling almost any of you in the right moment; I just wanted it to be relevant to something, because I didn't feel it warranted a big "coming out" moment all on its own for me.

I just didn't expect it to become relevant to something quite so soon.

Unless your Internet has been down, you've probably heard about the Church's new policies regarding same-sex marriage by now; namely, that same-sex marriage is considered to be a form of apostasy, and that children of same-sex couples must wait until they've turned 18 and moved out of their parents' house before being baptized, and must denounce the practice of same-sex marriage and obtain First Presidency permission before doing so.

I was surprised by the news, as a lot of people were. Well, the first policy wasn't too surprising – "apostasy" is a really strong word, which I think hurt a lot of people, but the idea that participating in a same-sex marriage is grounds for excommunication wasn't exactly new. In fact, I'd been expecting a clarification of this sort ever since the Supreme Court decision, since I had heard some people express the idea that perhaps a legally wed same-sex couple wouldn't be breaking the law of chastity. I expected the Church to eventually comment one way or the other, and again, while "apostasy" is a strong way to say it, the policy hasn't actually changed and if that was all it is, I feel like it would blow over.

The policy about children was a little different. I had a lot of questions about it immediately. At the same time, though, while I was surprised by the policy, I wasn't surprised that I had questions. There have been a lot of hard things in the Church that have caused people to question – persecution of the early Saints, starting polygamy, moving to Utah, ending polygamy, making the Word of Wisdom a requirement for a temple recommend, blacks not being able to hold the priesthood even after the civil rights movement, blacks being allowed to hold the priesthood in 1978, the Church's response to some aspects of second-wave feminism, the September Six, Proposition 8, the Ordain Women movement, and hundreds upon hundreds of issues that are more local in scope that I haven't even heard of before. 

People have questioned these things. Heck, even though I have a lot of potential answers to some of these issues, I don't know if those answers are the right ones and how to explain it in some sort of conclusive, all-encompassing way that would defy any objection or criticism. What I do know is that I've had enough spiritual witnesses of the Church and enough glimmerings of possible answers for these issues that I have faith that someday in the eternities, I'll be able to look at God and say, "So...what was that about?" and He'll be able to provide me with an explanation that makes everything clear. As Paul says, "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." 

I'd reached the conclusion on my mission that it was virtually impossible for me to live my entire life in the Church without arriving at an issue of similar weight and importance. So when I heard the policy announcement, while part of me was confused, a part of me was like, well...there it is! (The first one, at least.)

As Mason and I talked about it, the conclusion we arrived at was that we can't see the eternal perspective. Because of this, our sense of what's right and wrong often depends on preventing people from hurt in the short-term. We don't always have the ability to judge whether or not something hurtful will be better for us in the long term. God does have that ability, and therefore, He is able to make different decisions than we can. (If you want an article by a non-LDS philosopher on that point, email me or use the contact link on the FAQ page.) We can try to look for possible answers (some can be found here, although there are definitely objections that could be raised to that article), but in the end, all we can know is the peace of God that passes all understanding (Phil. 4:7). 

As we talked together, as we prayed and read the scriptures, I felt that confirmation. I was reminded of times when I felt the Spirit witness to me that God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith, restoring their Church upon the earth with a promise that it would never again be taken away from us. I felt a reminder of the love of God that He has for all His children, and a knowledge that He wants to give every single one of them the best possible opportunity to return to Him. He has a plan, and I don't know it, and I don't know exactly how or why this plays into it, but in the very least, I knew that it was going to be all right.

Despite how much time I've spent talking about that, though, that's not the point of my first post any more than me being bisexual is. The point is this:

Everyone has to arrive at this spiritual witness individually, and that doesn't always happen right away even when you want it to. So far on the Internet, I've seen a lot of people argue that it can't be right, and I've seen a lot of people argue that it is right and that anyone who disagrees isn't sustaining the prophets, or doesn't have enough faith, or isn't humble enough to accept the answer, or is too concerned about what the world thinks, or any number of things. Even when people don't necessarily mean to imply that about those who are troubled by this issue, that's often the message that people can hear.

The thing is, whether straight or gay or somewhere in between, a lot of people who are upset by this issue are responding from a place of hurt. It's tremendously difficult to be LGBT in the Church, or to be friends or family with someone who is LGBT. I've been lucky that my life and beliefs ended up dovetailing relatively easily with the Church's teachings, and I've avoided a lot of that difficulty as a result. Despite this, upon hearing the policy change, I felt hurt. I felt uncomfortable with a sexuality that I had come to terms with; I felt worried for people who were more affected by it than me; I felt ashamed of anything I had ever said about LGBT issues ever because suddenly I was doubting my ability to balance tolerance and doctrine. And I felt confused. This isn't because of a lack of faith in the prophets or humility or anything like that. I think it's a pretty normal response. 

I started seeing people post the number for the National Suicide Hotline on Facebook in connection with this, though, and on the other hand I started seeing people get all feisty about anyone who even questioned what was going on, and that probably made me the saddest of all – knowing that somewhere out there, people were feeling exactly that bad, and some people were responding by saying they didn't have enough faith. Elder Holland's recent talk and Elder Oaks' remark on Kim Davis were tremendously inclusive, and when you're facing a long and seemingly endless struggle, feeling hope only to have it crushed again sometimes feels worse than not feeling it at all.

So I guess what I'm saying is, right now I'm fine. Don't worry about me. Seriously – Heavenly Father and I have worked it out on a personal level. But when you talk about this issue, remember that questions are not a sign of sin. Remember that people are hurting. Remember that somewhere in the world, some child or teenager has already learned they can't be baptized for years to come and they feel crushed or angry. Remember that LGBT members who are anticipating a lifetime of loneliness are feeling discouraged and alienated. Remember not to judge people's reasons for struggling with this policy, or any other issue for that matter.

Remember to be kind.

Remember to pray.

Remember to hold to what you know to be true and not be ashamed to stand up for your beliefs.

And remember to extend compassion to others as you do so.