Mission-feelings, naiveté, returning, adjusting

One week while I was in the MTC, my brother David wrote in a letter to me that "on your mission you'll experience both the highest highs and the lowest lows of your whole life." It's certainly true that the emotional impact of events on missions is amplified because everything that happens has eternal consequences. Along with that, we have very high expectations for behavior, competence, and results, which is hard for everyone, and coupled with my tendency for perfectionism led to a mild version of the mental and emotional health problems we call "stress," "depression," and "anxiety." 

All pictures on this blog blatantly plagiarized from the Interwebs

One of the things that kept me going during hard times on my mission was the hope and expectation that after my mission, my life would be fine and dandy and I would be able to forget about all the bad experiences and remember only the good, spiritual, faith-building ones, which I would detail in Sacrament meeting to the awe of all 17-year-olds present. I totally expected the crazy high and low emotional swings to stop when I got back from my mission, but they didn't. I expected that my life would return to exactly what it was pre-mission, when everything seemed calm and my life seemed simple because I only had a few goals -- live the Gospel, serve a mission, do well in school, and avoid romantic relationships -- and I knew how to accomplish these goals because I felt I had been absolutely nailing them my entire life. 

On the contrary, my life since getting back from my mission has involved taking responsibility for the rest of my life and facing huge life-altering decisions such as what major to choose, and who to try to date and marry, not to mention how to try to carry with me the positive habits I developed on my mission while somehow adjusting to civilian life. The latter carries with it such challenges as how to spend my free time, and how to not feel bad about watching movies and doing other fun things that don't further the cause of God although they certainly further the cause of my happiness and pleasure. Although that could debatably be said to be part of God's cause. Either way it sure is a big change from a mission, where for 725 straight days I knew exactly how much free time I should be spending and exactly what fun things I needed not do. Other post-mission issues for me to deal with included/include adjusting from being a big, successful, Latvian-speaking fish in a small pond of missionaries to being just another jobless, hobby-less, moneyless, and sometimes friendless 21-year-old RM in the Provo-Orem area; as well as finally confronting my anxiety and loneliness, and the issues that caused them, all of which are things I had been sweeping under the carpet during my time as a missionary so I'd have more time to focus on more important things. 

I believe that in many ways my mission marked the beginning of my (so far admittedly short) adult life. It marked the beginning of me taking responsibility for my choices, my happiness, my emotions, and my abilities. It's hard to be an adult. As Oliver Queen, the crime-fighting Green Arrow's billionaire alter ego, heard from a Russian guy on a prison boat after he'd been shot in the side by their captors and then handed a first aid kit to patch himself up: "life is not for the weak." (If the voice in your head did not read that sentence with a strong Russian accent, go ahead and read over it again. You're missing out.) Sometimes I wonder how my attitude during my mission would've been different if I had realized what hardships lay in store for me after my mission. It seems like it would've been nice to know, at very least so that it wouldn't have been such a shock when it happened. At the same time, I'm not sure if that would've been good for me on my mission; looking forward to such a naive mental picture made it easier to grit my teeth and bear the pains of mission life. 

Thoughts?