2

Winter within the Wall

To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your
heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken.
If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must
give your heart to no one … The only place outside of
Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the
dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

—C.S. LEWIS, THE FOUR LOVES

I hated being a Mormon missionary.

Hated it.

It was 2005. I was nineteen years old, and I was serving as a missionary in far eastern Russia, near the city of Vladivostok. To say that my father was shocked would be a bit of an under-statement. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that his own son would one day be living as a missionary in Russia.

Now, some of you might scratch your heads at this contradiction. Wait, didn’t Seth tell us that he’s an introvert? Doesn’t being a missionary demand that you interact with people?

Why yes, yes it does. But despite the image of smiling, singing missionaries in the musical The Book of Mormon, not all of us are as happy-go-lucky about serving a mission.

But the call to serve others is an integral part of my Mormon faith, and I was hopeful that I would somehow (perhaps miraculously) rise to the occasion.

Alas, I didn’t exactly soar with the eagles.⁷

In fact, I spent most of my time wandering the streets of Russia with my eyes to the ground and my mouth clamped shut. I woke up as late as I could, spoke with Russians as little as possible, and hurried to bed as soon as I could. I lay there for hours, filled with an intense feeling of dread about what fresh hell the next day would bring.

About halfway through my two-year mission, I felt that I had reached a mental breaking point. In time, I would be diagnosed with chronic depression: a genetic predisposition to feel sad, anxious, worthless, and lonely. Depression runs in my family, and I had unknowingly struggled with the condition for many years. But at the age of nineteen, I didn’t know that was what it was. All I knew was that I was hurting, and my mind, in a frantic attempt to find out what was wrong, would dig up hundreds of reasons why I might be sad and worthless. This never-ending stream of thoughts only intensified my feelings of depression.

I felt like I was damaged. I thought if people knew who I really was, and if they knew what was going on inside my head, they wouldn’t be my friends. So in response to these thoughts and feelings, I did what so many people with depression do: I began to isolate myself from others.

Little did I know that I would soon be entering one of my most severe struggles with depression—one that would last for almost two years.

There’s a reason why I’m telling you all this, and that reason came shortly after I met another missionary by the name of Erich. He was a very friendly and humble man from Switzerland, and although he was several inches shorter than me, he had the persona of a gentle giant. Something about him seemed to draw others to him. He would listen to people and they would listen to him. Even those who didn’t want to talk to missionaries (and were very vocal about it),⁸ if they talked to Erich, not only softened but brightened a little.

I couldn’t understand it. How was this quiet, gentle missionary so effective at talking to people? What was it about him that was drawing others to him?

One day, Erich and I were working together in the city of Ussuriysk. On a whim, I asked him what it was that made him such a successful missionary.

Erich looked at me thoughtfully and blinked. “Well … I don’t know if I’m ‘successful,’” he said. “But I do know that the only thing that matters is that you learn to love people. If you learn to love the people you are serving, then everything will just fall into place.”

I’d like to say that those words hit me like a ton of bricks—that they changed my life from that moment on—but they didn’t. I brushed them off with several sweeps of sarcastic thoughts. Hmph! I thought. OK, yeah, love thy neighbor and all that nonsense.⁹ Seriously, though. What does he do? Is there, like, a system? A special way of communicating with people? What books has he been reading? Give me something I can work with!

I’ve since realized that when I was asking Erich how to be a successful missionary, I was really hoping he would tell me how I could “have it all” but without any of the people.

I was thinking like the Selfish Giant in Oscar Wilde’s story. I wanted a beautiful garden (a rich and abundant life) without the annoyance of people trampling through it. It was as though I was asking Erich for tips and tricks on how to improve my garden: How can I have a more abundant harvest? How can I increase the flowers and fruits? And like the Giant, I didn’t want people messing up the garden of my life. Excuse me, this is mine. Why are you stomping about? No, no! You’re going to ruin everything. Back off! Get out!

But Erich had hinted at the inescapable truth: A garden is beautiful only when it is filled with people; they determine its beauty. Our joy in life is inextricably determined by the degree to which we love and embrace others.¹⁰

But Erich was asking the impossible. Learn to love these people? Am I not doing enough by simply being here? What more am I expected to give?

As the months dragged on, I continued to build a wall around my heart—quietly pushing people out of my life.

In August, I was transferred to Nakhodka, a small port city tucked away in the most beautiful and peaceful harbor you can imagine. The very name Nakhodka can be translated as “Eureka!” or “Lucky find.”

But despite the city’s name and natural serenity, I found no peace and no rest there. A storm was raging in my heart. Because of the cultural differences¹¹ and the overwhelming resistance from Russians to even listen to us, I had taken offense toward them. My hostility only increased their resistance toward me.

In October, I was overcome by a terrible fever. Its intensity, pain, and duration were unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was delirious. I was in the most excruciating pain, immobile, and perpetually drenched in sweat. The Russians who knew about my condition did everything in their power to help me. During a three-week period, they visited me often and recommended a host of Russian doctors, medicines, and remedies.¹²

You would think that after weeks of enduring such pain, I would eagerly accept help from any source. But I didn’t. In fact, I flat-out rejected any help that came from Russians. Part of that stemmed from sheer arrogance: how could Russian medicines be better than American medicines?

But there was another, more cynical reason why I rejected Russian aid. You see, I wanted irrefutable justification for my bitterness. I wanted to have some legitimate reasons to push Russians out of my life and prove that I was right and they were wrong. Instead of wanting to be healthy, I wanted to be right.

Looking back on it now, I often wonder if that sickness was a manifestation of a much deeper sickness in my heart.

As I started to get better physically, I made the decision to leave Russia and return to the States. I was done. I obviously wasn’t designed to love people, and I was only causing problems there. My inability to “love people” had frustrated me for the last time. Why keep it up? Why try anymore?

In November 2005, after lying to myself and others, I turned my back on Russia and boarded a plane for the States.

But there was a hollowness to my homecoming. Though I stood in the house in which I had grown up, something inside of me was lost. In coming home early, I was unknowingly following in the footsteps of the Selfish Giant. After a prolonged absence, the Giant “determined to return to his own [home].” But there was a bitterness to his homecoming—a winter in his return.

Once the Giant had finished building his wall, it underwent a bitter transformation. While the surrounding townsfolk enjoyed the blossoms and birds of spring, it was as if the season had intentionally neglected the garden of the Giant. “The birds did not care to sing in it as there were no children, and the trees forgot to blossom.”

Sitting by his window and looking out at his cold, white garden, the Selfish Giant couldn’t understand why the spring was so late in coming. And although he hoped for a change in weather, “the Spring never came, nor the Summer. The Autumn gave golden fruit to every garden, but to the Giant’s garden she gave none.”

In the weeks and months that followed my return from Russia, I spent most days lying in bed, trying to sleep my life away. I was bruised by my decision to emotionally wall off my heart and distance myself from other people. My world began to wither and my relationships started to rot.

It didn’t seem logical to me. I thought my decision to come home was the best thing for me and for others. Why would anyone want to deal with my depression, anyway? Who could love someone like me? Since I had so little to give other people, why not protect what little life I had? Wouldn’t sharing my life mean that I lost it? I made my decision to protect others as much as myself, so why was I feeling so depressed?

All around me, people lived and laughed as though it was spring and summer. But I would look out the window of my life, and, like the Selfish Giant, I could only see a dark and wintry world.

This internal winter became so oppressive that I lost all sense of sentiment. Instead, all I felt was just all-consuming emptiness. Overcome by the need to fill this void, I sought any means of escape or relief, and I quickly became addicted to painkillers.

My addiction only accelerated my desire to serve myself, driving me further and further into isolation, secrecy, and self-centeredness.

In his short story, Oscar Wilde masterfully illustrates the pain and isolation of depression through the use of four characters that personify different elements: Snow, Frost, the North Wind, and Hail.

“Spring has forgotten this garden,” they cry, “so we will live here all year round.” They then take turns gleefully beating down the garden and home of the Selfish Giant.

In a similar way, I felt like all of my life was being beaten out of me—as though all the color in my life was fading away. Entirely focused on the theater of my own wintry world, I grew numb to the needs of others and started to crumble against the onslaught of depression.

Then one day, after years of carefully constricting my own world into a sphere of suffocating selfishness, I decided that I could no longer endure the winter. It was at this point that I made the decision to commit suicide.

I went to work that day; gave a dull nod to Ariel, my sister-in-law and supervisor; clocked in for about an hour; and then clocked out. I drove home, parked the car in the garage, and scribbled goodbye letters in my journal as I took half a bottle of painkillers and a full bottle of sleeping pills.

Once I had finished, I went into the garage and climbed into the car, fully believing that I would never open my eyes again. At the same time, my dad was at work when he was overcome with a feeling of intense dread. He called everyone in the family but couldn’t get hold of me. Unable to shake the ominous feeling, my dad left his office and came to the house.

Finding the empty bottles on the counter, he went from room to room, frantically searching bathrooms, closets, and even under beds.

When he got to the garage, it was so dark that he could barely see me reclined in the driver’s seat of the car. As soon as he recognized me, he rushed to the car, opened the door, and started to pound my chest.

Lost in a drug-induced haze, I could vaguely feel several dull thuds on my chest and lazily opened my eyes. I saw the outline of my dad and distantly heard him shouting my name. He pulled me out of the car. I staggered forward and collapsed. He lifted me up and shook me to prevent me from going to sleep.

At one point, I remember being on my bed and hearing my dad on the phone with my mother: “Lyn, come quick! Seth’s hurt! I think he tried to take his life!” Then he called 911.

The next thing I remember was being on the couch in the living room, surrounded by three paramedics. Between their movements I saw my three-year-old niece, Kelty, eyes wide, holding a juice box—my mother had brought her to the house. Amid the noise and clatter I heard my mother sob, “Seth, what have you done?!”

I have a distant memory of being given something to clean the drugs out of my system as I was rushed to the hospital. I saw my brother Sean in the ER with me. Tears were rolling down his cheeks.

Looking back on it now, I shudder to think how close I came to ending my life. I would have succeeded had my father not found me.

You see, despite my efforts to make my life “my own,” there were people who valued my life as though it were their own. They had already learned that their lives were not just for them and had wrapped their hearts around mine, whether or not I chose to accept it.

I remember waking up in the hospital that night and realizing that I had failed to commit suicide. Not only was the weight of winter still omnipresent, but I felt that my failure to commit suicide had now brought my family into my circle of pain. Overcome by a fresh wave of grief and despair, I buried my face in my hands and wept without restraint.

As I awoke in the hospital the next morning, I had no idea that the real awakening was about to begin. The doctors and hospital equipment may have preserved my life, but my family was about to give me one that was far more abundant.