For months I have been getting emails from the church Relief Society lauding this fireside that they were going to be putting on this past weekend. The emails talked about how they had this FABULOUS author (what about me? I am a FABULOUS author) that was going to come and put on a workshop about the atonement. While I hadn't planned on going (there is just too much college football to watch on Saturday nights to go anywhere), I made a command decision to go as I figured that since they were making such a big deal out of it, it would have to be good.
Turns out that the workshop was NOT about the atonement, it was about CLINICAL DEPRESSION. The lady, who was MORE than HIGHLY BORING, spent an hour and a half talking about how she has had depression for the last 25 years. I don't think she had one single variation in her voice - it was dull and lifeless.
She talked about how her first fiancee was killed in Vietnam and how her second fiancee was diagnosed with schizophrenia a week before their wedding (she didn't end up marrying him). She also went on to talk about her THREE suicide attempts, how she couldn't get up in the morning, how she lost her ability to write, and how her son, who also has depression, tried to commit suicide twice.
She ended by saying that she had been miraculously healed and the only thing I could think was, "If this is you "miraculously healed", I'd hate to see you when you were depressed."
The entire time I was sitting there trying not to poke my eyes out, thinking of a way I could leave without appearing/being rude. Here I thought that I would be spiritually uplifted (I waited and waited for the part about the atonement to come and it didn't) and if not, at least entertained. The only entertaining part about the whole thing was that crazy Bobbi King was there, making inappropriate comments. Other than that, I just wanted to get out of these as soon as possible before she did any further damage to my psyche. I mean, if you didn't have depression going into it, you most certainly had depression coming out of it.
And, as if that wasn't enough, they had a "sister's conference" on Sunday during Sunday School and Relief Society where the same lady gave the same talk. I didn't go. I didn't think that I could handle her two days in a row.
5 comments:
There's a reason why in all the church lesson manuals they have specific guidelines on where the lesson is supposed to go...things like those just drain my energy and give me a headache. At least now you can say that your life isn't that bad. What a downer...
Is it too much to ask to be a LITTLE entertained at church?
I just have to say that was probably the most entertaining post about church that I've read in awhile. People wonder why we don't show up to stuff like enrichment and firesides- umm... THIS IS WHY! At home I could do something really uplifting that I would enjoy more- like scraping the floor around the toilet, or hanging drywall. Kudos on getting out of there for the second time!
Amen, Sister!
That is too funny!
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