“My depression and anxiety slowly cleared up”

By: Elise Dunlap

I grew up in a household divided by food. One parent was more focused on healthy eating than the other, and it was always a subject of contention in our household. Like most Americans, I have a family history of cancer, autoimmune diseases, strokes, heart attacks, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Growing up, everyone I knew considered our family to be healthy. Fruit and egg burritos for breakfast, salad with our “real” dinner every night, but donuts and pizza on the weekend. You know, “balanced.”

The first time my health took a dive was when I was in high school (around 2013). I started dealing with lots of tension, especially in my shoulders and neck, sometimes to the point of tears if they were even lightly touched, so I started seeing a chiropractor, which seemed to help quite a bit. I also started experiencing fatigue and intense depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. After an intense episode of depression where I laid in bed all day and skipped school without telling anyone, I went to see a therapist and got put on some typical antidepressants (Wellbutrin and Prozac). I didn’t feel like myself at all. The medications seemed to suppress my emotions and make things feel really one-note, but it was enough of an improvement that I wasn’t feeling as suicidal as I had been.

Feeling overwhelmed by school, I dropped out of two of my three Advanced Placement (AP) courses. At this time, I was exercising pretty intensely. I would wake up and do P90x with my parents in the morning, and I had swim practice after school. I was very fit. Despite the brightness of my future everyone was always telling me about, I always dreamed of something better than how I was experiencing my day-to-day reality.

After graduating, I left for college at Southern Virginia University. Living in a dorm, I was required to have a meal plan. I’ve always been a big eater and a binge eater if there’s desserts within a ten-mile radius, and the college buffet was now all mine for the taking. I ate plenty of fruits and vegetables, but I also indulged in all kinds of sweet treats and fried foods, including the ice cream bar after every lunch and dinner. I would gorge on three breakfast scones and smuggle three more of them out of the cafeteria for later.

At college, I was taking a karate class and still managed to stay “fit” with that two-hour class each week. However, my coursework was suffering, and my mental health was plunging again. I was “that roommate who was always asleep.” I would sleep ten hours at night and take a five-hour nap during the day. My depression and anxiety continued to worsen.

Realizing that I had no money, I started to rent out my bishop’s basement the next spring and got a job at a Wendy’s just out of town. I sat in on some courses, but I wasn’t getting credit anymore because I had debts with the school that I had to pay off first. I ate lots of Frosties, chicken sandwiches and burgers because of where I was working, and unknown to me, I started to gain weight. I also started having terrible seasonal allergies which were worse than I thought could exist. My depression and anxiety became crippling. I had a panic attack at work one morning after dealing with a rude customer. I soon realized that I needed to go back home. I was sick, depressed, and out of money.

I drove home and started living with my parents again. My mother, concerned for my health, spent many hundreds of dollars on blood tests, doctor consultations, diet plans, and SO MANY SUPPLEMENTS. She was studying to become a health coach, and I appreciated all of her efforts and investments into my health. For about two or three years, my head was spinning with each new barrage of tests, each new diagnosis (or suspected diagnosis) of Candida, Leaky Gut, food sensitivities, low cortisol, and the addition of ten new supplements to my already bursting regimen. On top of that, every test and diagnosis came with new dietary restrictions and rules to learn.

My weight dropped from my college weight (about 145 lbs) to about 126 lbs, close to my high school weight. I got off of my antidepressants because they weren’t ever very helpful to begin with. I was still feeling depressed and exhausted, though, with growing anxiety over accidentally putting the wrong food in my mouth and ruining a diet or food or elimination plan. Eating with other people became almost impossible and at one point, I had to ask my bishop if I could use cooked carrot instead of bread or any kind of grain or nut substitute for the sacrament. It was exhausting.

At the time of our wedding in October of 2018, my diet consisted of pureed carrots, baby food, and beef or chicken. My husband and I moved back to Virginia, to the college town where we had met. I stopped being as strict about elimination diets. I always cooked with whole foods, but our diet still included lots of meat, eggs, and dairy. For the first nine months of our marriage, I continued to struggle with depression and anxiety and my husband had almost daily migraines that he had had since he was a young child. Pain-free days for him were an anomaly. At least every month, the pain from his migraines was so intense that he would throw up for most of the night. He relied on OTC migraine painkillers with caffeine in them to help, which didn’t always provide relief and caused frequent rebound headaches.

Feeling almost trained for this by my own experiences, I started keeping a food diary for his headaches, and we noticed patterns start to emerge. The really bad migraines that would have him throwing up all night coincided with every time he ate pork. We cut out pork, and the intense migraines that made him sick to his stomach stopped, but he was still having headaches that would keep him up all night. We tried cutting out eggs and the headaches went away even more, now only occurring once or twice a week and never at the intensity he’d experienced before. After eliminating the caffeinated migraine painkillers, they became even more infrequent.

Around this time, I was starting to feel confused and anxious about my diet. There were so many conflicting opinions, and I had been tossed on those tumultuous waves of professional opinions before. Figuring that God would help me find answers to this question once and for all, I remembered my patriarchal blessing, which advised me to be “strictly adherent to the Word of Wisdom” because the values of the world were changing.

I decided to revisit Section 89 and take it more seriously. I got excited by the counsel I read, especially in verses 12-15, seeing it like I’d never even read it before. Immediately, I felt the Spirit confirm the words in the scripture. I was overwhelmed with peace and gratitude. My husband got excited with me, but he wasn’t sure he could jump in with both feet like I was prepared to do (he didn’t grow up eating vegetables and fruits and didn’t like them very much). Given the tension that food caused in my parents’ marriage, I decided it would be better not to pressure him, even though we both knew it would further help his health and improve his headaches.

The guidance given in Section 89 was my golden standard. As I started learning about health, I filtered out anything that contradicted the counsel given in the Word of Wisdom. I told my mom about what I had learned, and she told me about the Discovering the Word of Wisdom Book Support Group on Facebook. I joined and started educating myself. I read How Not to Die and The China Study and all of the Church’s resources on the Word of Wisdom, food and animal stewardship (I really enjoyed “The Gospel and Animals” by Gerald E. Jones). I watched documentaries and eliminated all animal products from my diet. It took me a little longer to eliminate oil and sugar completely, though I did cut back significantly. (So Delicious’s coconut-based cookie dough ice creamwas my weakness for months until I started finding it sickeningly sweet and no longer desirable.)

I started noticing improvements in my mood and energy. It wasn’t overnight, but my depression and anxiety slowly cleared up. My allergies got much better. I felt like a fog hanging over my mind was being lifted, and I started to enjoy life more and more each day.

Now, I feel better than I ever have. I don’t take any supplements (besides B12). I have lots of energy to do the things that matter to me, and my emotions, weight and appetite all feel stable and healthy. I’m much more in tune with my body and its needs, and I feel like I’ve found spiritual rest and peace when it comes to taking care of myself. Whenever I get around to exercising, I have a lot more stamina than I used to, even compared to when I was doing intensive training every day. “Run and not be weary” definitely applies more to me now than it ever has before.

I feel excited, and I want to share what I’ve learned without forcing my beliefs on anyone or shaming them for not living like I do. I’m not sure who I’ve influenced, and maybe it’ll take years for anything I’ve ever said to really make a difference, but my life is better than it’s ever been and so is my health, so sometimes it’s hard to keep it to myself. Whenever people ask why I eat the way I do, I tell them a shortened version of what you’re getting here, usually something like, “I was sick and depressed, but I revisited the Word of Wisdom and it changed the way I ate, and now I feel better than ever.”

My husband made more gradual changes to his diet, but he’s fully on board now (I don’t think he would be on board if I had pushed or shamed him about his diet). Zach and I compete to see who can get the most checkmarks in the Daily Dozen app and we’re having a great time doing it. We’re expecting our first baby (due December 2021) and I’ve had a very healthy plant-based pregnancy so far. Although I was occasionally nauseated, I never threw up during my first trimester (common in my family) and haven’t experienced any extreme weight gain or mood swings. I feel wonderful.

There have indeed been great treasures of wisdom gained from being more attentive to my diet. My mental and physical health have never been so good. I’ve never had more peace on the subject of my diet, my body, and my health, and I feel confident in my ability to raise healthy children. Like Lehi at the Tree of Life, I want to share the wonderful truths and wisdom I’ve found with those closest to me and everyone I meet. They may not all be open to it, but I hope that my example might give people pause and encourage them to ask questions that will lead to a life full of joy and health, safe from the “destroying angel” that takes too many people too early because of the lifestyle designed for us by “conspiring men in the last days.” If you’re considering eating this way, I pray that you’ll give it a try and reap some of the many blessings it has to offer.

Elise (24) is living with her wonderful husband, Zachary (27), in Nampa, Idaho. They have the blessing of spending most of their time together, each working on projects and hobbies that interest them. They’re working towards becoming debt free and becoming their own bosses. They’re expecting their first child soon and can’t wait to have that child in their arms to bless their home.