To the Commenter Who Got Under My Skin

About a week ago, I was enjoying a very well-written article on how silence will not solve our nation's suicide problem. Experience has taught me not to scroll down to the comments section after reading something I like on a large website, because I'd rather not see it torn apart, but I was curious to read the conversation that would be taking place in relation to mental illness. And that's where I met you, my friend. You had some pretty strong words for the depressed and suicidal. You used phrases like "wishy-washy crap."   

You scoffed at the suggestion that talking openly about depression could do any significant good. Instead you instructed the depressed to take a firm stand against these feelings and fight for their lives.

You got under my skin.

I am not going to direct a post at you laced with synonyms for the word ignorant. I don't want to shower you with insults, shame, or disgrace. There's too much of that spewed all over the internet these days and it does nothing but make me feel terrible.

For all I know, you're a really nice person.

And kindness always matters. Even on the internet.

I am going to talk to you as if you were my friend. I don't know if we'll get anywhere, but I hope we do.

*****

My friend, I admire you for your strong words. Faith in God is something we have in common.  It is not the only thing we have in common.

It is especially easy for me to talk to you on this matter because I once took a similar stance as you on the topic of mental illness. One day in a college class, the topic of depression came up. I raised my hand and commented that if those who came before us could weather back-breaking farm work, starting over in a new country with nothing, the Great Depression and other such challenges, then surely we could "get over" depression as we sit in our comfortable air conditioned cars and houses.

My words were bold, but cold and unfeeling. They were the words of a person who has not been there. And so, my friend, are yours. I can tell. Had you been there before, if you knew of what you spoke, I promise you would not speak the way you do.

Had you been there, you would understand that living in a body with a severely depressed mind is like living in a madhouse.

It should work just as you said it should. You should be able to seize control of the situation with your willpower and fight your way through triumphantly. But it doesn't. If you had been there before, you would understand how depression hijacks and disables your willpower. It robs you of your sense of self. You think in terms of who you were and who you are now as two separate people. You hate the one for destroying the other.

If you had ever been there, you would know about the demonic voices that screech in your head all day long. Worthless, worthless, worthless, they scream. The noise is deafening. You would also understand the struggle to stay calm on the outside. Though you are in fight or flight mode, you fear what would happen if people knew what was going on inside your head. So you act as if you are fine.

I will not, my friend, tell you to go to hell. But I have considered how a quick trip there could help you understand. You've heard of lakes of fire and brimstone? A severely depressed mind continually runs tours there daily. You've heard of weeping, wailing, gnashing of teeth? If a depressed person can ever get away to a secluded place, they find relief in their screams.

I would not want your visit to hell to last long, my friend. I did not know the meaning of the phrase, "I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy," until I experienced a severe bout with depression. You and I aren't enemies anyway.

I just am trying to help you understand that black pavement roasting in the heat is to the feet what intense mental anguish is to the brain.

In this condition, had someone handed me a contract to sign away my arms and legs to have my sanity back, I would have snatched the opportunity immediately. In fact, I dreamed of a scenario like that daily. That's the way your powers of reasoning function in a body with a severely depressed mind. You hope for the kinds of things that only a person in another dimension would think about. Because that's where you are.

In a depressed mind, this state you are in is your new reality. You are as sure of that as you are sure of the day of the week. Even more so. Because Tuesday used to mean something. Saturday used to mean something, but everything seems to have lost its meaning.

And it is permanent. Of that you are certain, for you have exhausted your heart in your search for a way out.

I know you said the depressed need to fight, my friend. I told myself the same thing. What you don't understand is that that's what so many of them are already doing. They have fought until their hearts have all but quit beating. 

*****

If you have indulged me at all, friend, in trying to imagine what it is like to be severely depressed, I thank you. Let me lay one more scenario before you.

I was a twenty-year old girl with so much hope in the future that I bounced out of bed every morning. Before I was slammed with a bout of depression. After that, considering what the next day held caused me to shudder, forget the next year. My future had become a portrait of darkness.

But every Saturday, my dad would take me on a walk, and he would affirm his faith in me over and over again for the course of an hour. I could not talk him out of it, no matter what I said.

A neighbor stopped by with a pamphlet outlining the symptoms of depression. While I was certain I was dealing with a case of moral failure, reading the pamphlet was strangely comforting. 

Cards appeared on the doorstep, "You're going to be okay, I've been there."

"I am worthless," I told one trusted family figure. "Some days I never even get out of bed." And he went on to tell me about the times he would come home to find his wife curled up in a ball just where he left her.

And I will never, ever forget the day my doctor told me during his personal bout with depression a number of years earlier, he had had a suicide plan. He knew what it was like down there. His words told me so. And he had gotten out. For the first time, I felt real hope.

You see my friend, every time someone was willing to reach out and talk to me about depression, indirectly or directly, they handed me a shred of light. Over time, my collection became bright enough that I had not only the strength to get up and fight again, but this time I had hope on my side.  

The article was right my friend. Depression insidiously reigns over the minds and the hearts of so many because they are afraid to bring it out in the open. But oh how I can attest to the fact that each time you talk about it, its grip loosens ever so slightly.

*****

If you ever visit the place we have discussed, I will know. I will hear it in your words. If we ever chance to meet, I will see it in your eyes.

But should you never, and that is what I earnestly hope, with this little glimpse may you be among the ones that those who are suffering can trust will have a heart willing to listen and then encourage.

In so doing, you might save a life.

It's a Love Story

When this blog was just an idea in my head, I wanted it to do two things for people: (1) expose what depression can do to a person, and (2) demonstrate that an extremely fulfilling life can be lived afterwards. I wanted to create something that could have infused me with so much hope had I stumbled across it during that period of my life.

The scary thing about depression is that everything is permanently permanent in your head. I was certain marriage and motherhood were long-lost dreams. I would have been happy to live the rest of my life just not loathing myself anymore.

In the Book of Mormon there is a scripture where the prophet Alma talks of a time when for three days and nights he was "racked, even with the pains of a damned soul...racked with torment." I could relate to that scripture terrifyingly well. But in the weeks and months of my recovery, I could also understand these beautiful words: "...My soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain." 
  
And this boy who entered my life in the midst of it (making my parents a little nervous) played a major role in it all.

 *****

(For best results, read in a charming Chilean accent. Like instead of "Brittney", say "Breetney".)

For Valentine's day Brittney has asked me to write a "Love story" about how we met.

Before I begin with the story, let me tell you a little bit about myself.  I'm from Chile and I have been in the United States since I was 13 years of age. Since I immigrated to the Unites States, I've always been drawn to my culture, therefore I've always been involved and socialized with Hispanics.  With few exceptions, I've always dated Hispanic girls, so naturally I thought that's the type of girl I would marry.

My family was baptized into the LDS faith when I was 3 years old. I have been active in the LDS church all my life and served a full-time mission for the church from 2003-2005. When I came home from the mission my goal in life was to go to school and marry when the time was right. I was in no hurry to get married. I dated, had fun with friends, went to Young Single Adult activities and enrolled in school.

Brittney came out of nowhere.

I first saw Brittney during a Family Home Evening activity at a friends house.  Brittney was there accompanied by a mutual friend Vanesa.  A friend and I were leading the program and I noticed her and thought she was pretty.  I don't like to rush things or be pushy so I didn't talk to her at that time, but since I knew her friend, I knew I would see her again.

I saw her again during a fireside at a chapel in Kaysville. It was the perfect chance to go talk to her, and, since she was there with Vanesa, I had a way in. As I approached them I of course said hello to Vanesa, but then immediately drifted to this new comer.  I had to find out a little bit more about her. I found out that she is fluent in Spanish, has a beautiful smile and learned the language in college. She was enrolled in the teaching program.

After the fireside I invited a big group to come to my house and watch the movie "Charly."  I like to give girls their space and I was still feeling the situation out so I didn't sit next to her during the movie, but sat in between two other girls. My wife to this day still gives me a hard time for doing that.

I guess I wasn't indifferent to her either.  After the movie I sat next to her while I showed her a few pictures.  I remember she smelled nice and I also remember feeling little tickles in my stomach when sitting next to her.

We hit it off from the beginning and after a few days I got the courage to ask her to come Latin dancing me. It was an experience she'd never had. Later, she tells me that her dad asked, "Isn't that kind of dancing a little steamy?" hahahahha! Pretty funny stuff.

We were going to meet up with friends, but things worked out in our favor and we ended up being by ourselves. I led her by the hand to the dance floor. She was a pretty quick learner. I held her by the waist, laughed, twisted and turned, we had an amazing night.

We could talk for hours! it was like a part that had been missing in my life that didn't know was there was finally filling the void which I did not know it was even there to begin with!

How did you ask her to be your girlfriend you ask? Around two months after we met we had "the exclusivity" conversation. Brittney was dropping me off at the Macey's parking lot where I was parked. We were sitting in her car for a long time, after we had enjoyed some ice cream at Cold Stone. I don't know, during a moment of silence I found my self lost in her gaze, I leaned over and kissed her. After catching my breath I said, "Brittney, what have you become of me?" Right after and a little scared I asked her "What are we? Are you my girlfriend?" and she replied, "Only if you'll be my boyfriend."

Everything advanced pretty quickly from there and three months later we were married in the Salt Lake Temple.

We are not perfect. Merging two different backgrounds and cultures has not always been easy, but I can tell you that it has been worth it.  I love how much of a better man my wife has made me. I love the beautiful children that she has given me. I love how hard she inspires me to work in order to be a good provider for my family.  I love how my wife and children are attached to me for all time and all eternity.

Brittney is truly my forever after, my joy and my everything.

Happy Valentines mi amor.

On Bad Hair Days

It was one of those times you ask a question and you are totally floored by the response. I was a senior in high school getting my hair cut a couple of miles from home. My shoulder length hair and the way I styled it had become overly plain for me. I was tired of it and I wanted something new. So I asked. "What kind of hair would you recommend for me other than shoulder length?"

"Nothing," she said.

Wait wait wait wait.

"Nothing," she repeated. "Your hair is so thick, it would be bushy short and unmanageable long. You're going to have to keep it shoulder length all your life."

I wanted something new and exciting and instead I got a life sentence.

I never went back and on that day I was determined to prove she was wrong. 

*****

Long hair has always been good to me in all those years since. I can truly say I went a full decade without a bad hair day. Hair not working for you one day? Pull it into a pony tail, wrap it on top of your head in a bun. Braid it. It's hard to go wrong.

Truly the only complaint I have from the last several years is that it is hard to get a fresh new look. Every time I go in for a trim, the instructions are the same. Keep the length, just cut off the dead stuff. And when I come out, nobody bats an eye. And so then I come home and keep doing it the same way I have been doing it for weeks and months and years.

In January, I finally snapped. I wanted something new, something different, and since I like the color of my hair, it was going to have to be the length that I played with.

I told my friend and hair stylist that I wanted to my hair to be as short as it possibly could while still falling in the long hair category. So she took it from tickling my elbows to a couple of inches past my shoulders. 

She styled it and it looked fantastic. This was a good move.

And then a couple days later I washed it, and I was on my own during the styling process. When I was through, I bore a dangerously close resemblance to my senior class picture. And I panicked.  And I put it in a ponytail.

That had to be a freak accident, I thought. But the next time I curled my hair, I got the same results. And I cried a little. And tried really hard not to resent every woman in public who had hair cascading down her back."My hair is just as long as yours... in my heart!" I wanted to cry.

I cried the next time I did it, too. It finally occurred to me that the difference between the way I was doing my hair and the way my friend had styled it in the salon was that she had curled it away from my face, and I was curling towards it.

A few years ago, I mastered the art of curling hair with a flat iron. It takes a special flick of the wrist and when I'm done, not even I know how I produced a spiral curl with that flat-plated contraption. Somehow I was going to have to reverse the process so that the curl twisted the opposite way in the end.

I was pretty sure it involved standing on my head, but I would figure it out.

And I did.

*****

As I looked at myself, crying in the mirror over my hair last week, words from Elder Holland's talk, Like a Broken Vessel, echoed through my mind.  "When I speak of [depression], I am not speaking of bad hair days, tax deadlines, or other discouraging moments we all have. Everyone is going to be anxious or downhearted on occasion."

I knew I had made a pretty significant recovery from my serious bout of depression the day something trivial made me sad. I don't even know what it was. But I remember I was in the living room of my grandparents' house, living there while they were on a mission. 

Maybe I found out I could have gotten more money back for my text books. Maybe some plans I had been looking forward to had been cancelled. Whatever it was, I sat there, disappointed. And then the way I was feeling sunk in. And joy overwhelmed my soul.

I had never been so grateful to be sad. It was a regular kind of sad. The fact that healthy, normal feelings like sadness, frustration and irritation were registering inside of me again was extremely noteworthy.

On that day, a bad hair day would have been reason for celebration.

Isn't it amazing the way the things that happen to us in this life can completely change the way we look at things?

Or which way we curl our hair. ;)

What's Working this Winter

So you may be under the impression that depression consumes my life.

There was one 12-month period, the one described in my depression story, where it absolutely did. A lot of the time in my mind, I divide my life into two periods, before, and after 2005. Grateful to have emerged from that severe bout with my life, I vowed that I would do whatever I could to help others who find themselves in that pit. That's why I describe what it's like down there in detail, to assure others that there is a way out.

Since that time, I have only dealt with mild bouts. Usually they are a few weeks long, usually just once or twice a year. And usually always this time of year.

However, this winter a collection of circumstances have come together to make a super pleasant January.

Number one. Little girl going to school has added blessed structure to our lives. Our day used to be divided into two certain events... waking up, and going to bed. Now we wake up and get sister to the bus. A few hours later we pick her up from the bus. We do homework. A few hours later, it's time to get dinner together. Bedtime follows not too long after that. I fill in the little windows with one-on-one time with brother and other things I want or need to do.

Number two. I spent over a thousand hours of my childhood either in lessons or practicing piano. So that I could what... dust a piano? This winter I have gotten out my piano books regularly, like a few times a week, and am trying to commit a few new pieces to memory. It is good for my fingers, and it is good for my brain. I can feel it. And filling my house with music makes me happy.

Number three. When I am depressed, I keep to myself. Sometimes choosing staying home over going out is okay, but getting out can be so good for mental health. I have a new church position that involves visiting a different woman from church in her home every week.  I have had the most satisfying conversations with women in all different stages of life. I have loved it.

I often think back to my days as a college student or a career lady and how winter never got me down. It was because life didn't stop for the weather. Sure I had to de-ice my car at the end of the day, maybe participate in three or four white-knuckled drives home, but otherwise, winter did not affect me much.

As a mom of little people, it changes your whole game plan. You go from the splash pad and parks from morning til night, to the house. All. Day. Long.

I think part of my job of being a mom is learning how to install the things that have made this January different, like structure, music, and friendship into all the winters to come.

My motto in past Januarys has been, "Survive 'til Spring."

Now it's more like, "Thrive inside."  

P.S. My bulbs are still there... just in case you had forgotten. ;)

Depression is Not the Hardest Thing

When you tell people about the hardest thing you've ever experienced, and don't leave out the parts that make you vulnerable, it makes people more prone to open up and share things on that level with you too. I've had a few people tell me their stories since I published my blog in September. I feel privileged to have their trust and had my eyes opened wide in awe to what these individuals have endured.

It made me finally want to cry out, on my blog where I write about depression, "Depression is not the only hard thing!"

Depression is hard. And not very well understood... and that is why I write passionately about it. In the hopes that it can be better understood, especially among people of faith. But it's suddenly become important to me to make it clear that there is no contest to decide whose hard thing is the hardest.

The hardest thing is whatever it is that brings you to your knees.

It's whatever introduces you to desperation and causes your soul to cry, "I am certain I can't do this."

Chronic pain is hard. Loneliness is hard. Losing a loved one is hard. Abuse in all its forms is hard. The list of possible hard things is long. Some are meant to be lived through under His care. Some, through His help, we will escape. But all of them have the potential to do two things for us.
One.

They connect us to people in ways that just wouldn't have been as meaningful because of what we have gained from our hardships. We are more compassionate. We realize more and more how much we are all in this together.

And two.

They help us realize just how much we need Him. We join the ranks of those who know that He really does have the power to exchange "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

And there is no sweeter joy.

The Gospel Won't Pull You Out of Depression

I am grateful to readers of every faith who read my blog. This post is particularly written for people of my faith, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (to keep it easy I am going to refer to us as Mormons), but everyone is welcome to keep reading.

If your house were on fire, would you run outside, kneel down in front of it and insist that if you pray hard enough, you will be able to put the flames out? NO! You would get yourself and your loved ones to safety while making sure the fire department was on the way.  And pray.

I'm going to talk about depression in much the same way.

If you haven't been happy in a long time, if you are consumed with feelings of inappropriate guilt, worthlessness, or self-hate, if you are having thoughts of harming yourself or others or killing yourself, you are severely depressed. Your mind is broken. And probably your heart, too.

Your mental and emotional house has essentially burned to the ground.

That sounds dramatic and serious, doesn't it? It happens to people more often than you ever hear about. For some, a stressful event sets it off. For others, brain damage from an injury causes them to sink into despair. Chemical imbalances within the brain can also be to blame. But depression is real. 

Depression is not a reason to be ashamed. It is not something that can just be "snapped out of." And please, my fellow Mormon friends, understand, it is not a question of worthiness.

My response when depression set in after a difficult break-up was to immerse myself in activities that demonstrated my faith. I did not know what depression felt like, nor did I think I had it. I was just very, very sad. Terrifyingly sad. If I could just show enough faith, everything would be okay again. So I tacked on an extra 15 minutes to my scripture reading. I made plans to be in the temple for baptisms once a week. I prayed hard.

I felt worse. Dark thoughts were growing in my mind. Time to work harder.

I sought advice and direction from my parents and bishops (from my singles ward, and my home ward). Fast Sunday was too far away, so I would fast now. I received priesthood blessings from my dad. When I continued to plummet, I quietly sought blessings from each of my grandpas, too. 

I started to question whether I was beyond help. Each attempt to demonstrate my faithfulness seemed to sink me deeper and deeper into despair and I did not receive the peace and relief I sought. Suicidal thoughts surfaced and what terrified me most was that they made sense. Surely I was dragging everyone who cared about me into my despair with me, and the future didn't hold any promise. Each day, despite my very best efforts, was progressively worse. Getting out of their lives would be, in the long run, the best and most selfless thing I could do for the people I loved.

I was attending church and institute regularly, and I was suicidal.

I thought my soul was in trouble, which is a common misunderstanding when people of faith are depressed. Actually, it was my mind that was sick. 

When you are under the grip of what Elder Holland has called "the dark night of the mind and spirit", the gospel alone won't pull you out.

You cannot pray depression away anymore than you can pray the flames of a burning house away.

You cannot bless it away with the priesthood.

You cannot fast it away.

You cannot drown it in the scriptures.

It won't even leave you alone in the temple.

Like a burning fire, it demands to be dealt with. 

When you are depressed, your mind is broken. Your brain is sick. That part of the equation must be dealt with. Do not abandon the time-tested true principles of the gospel. However, there is supreme danger in ignoring your mental health, even when you are living the gospel to the best of your ability. You need them both and one will not make up for the other. Ask those close to you to pray with or for you as you seek proper treatment and care for this mental illness.

The house is not burning because there is something wrong with the house. It is burning because it is on fire. You are not depressed because of some character flaw or defect. You are depressed because you are participating in the human experience and have been dealt a heavy blow.

*****

This post has been on my mind for a long time, but I struggled to give it a title. "The Gospel Won't Save You..." or "The Gospel Won't Rescue You in Your Depression" wasn't right because the gospel did save me in my depression. Once I accepted it was my mental health that was in trouble and was more receptive to treatment, I began to improve. But it was knowing there was nothing and in my case no one so broken that Christ could not repair which truly started to bring me out of the darkness.

Just as He would help me rebuild my life out of the ashes were my house to burn down, so He did with my broken mind and heart.

So He will do with yours.

And I bear testimony that we are under His watchful care through all of it.

He Told Me to Quit Reading the Scriptures: Untangling Depression and Faith

Depression seemed to break the rules about most everything I had understood to be true about life. 

The concept of a Heavenly Father who created this world and loved me and all the people in it made sense to me early on, and I cherished the understanding. As I went to church and seminary, I learned about His dealings with people in ordinary and extraordinary circumstances in the scriptures and clung to the fact that there was nothing life could throw at me that God and I couldn't handle together.  

When the gloom and despair of depression began to set in during my severe depressive episode, I amped up every way I knew how to demonstrate my faithfulness. I would read the scriptures for longer, I would worship in church as sincerely as I could. I would serve people. I would express gratitude for my blessings. I would attend the temple. I would do it all as long as it took.

Depression is a very scary scenario for people who have learned to rely on faith.

There is something you must understand about depression.  It clogs the channels that allow God to communicate with us--our hearts and our minds. Feelings of love, reassurance, peace, and comfort have a very hard time getting through. It is a condition of the body and mind however, and not an indication of the worth of a soul.

As I demonstrated my faith in those many ways I listed, I hoped to be blessed with love, reassurance, peace, and comfort. I felt nothing.

My spirit began to panic. I knew the drill for times of struggle, I had put it into action, and I wasn't receiving the peace I hoped for.

In the meantime my mind was becoming a madhouse. I was wrestling with the kinds of thoughts I was too afraid to mention out loud. They were dark and disturbing. I was formulating plans for killing myself. What during normal periods of my life would have been an entirely ludicrous thought now made more sense than any other option I had in front of me.

Surely the desire to live again can't be restored. I had reached the point of no return.

I had tried to be true until my heart had given out. It was still beating, but entirely defeated. My faith hadn't failed me. Somewhere I had failed my faith.

And the self-destruction continued.

 *****

With the monstrosities going on inside my head, it was hard to surprise me. But this blessed encounter did.

I had been given the opportunity to chat with a trusted friend of the family who was also a doctor and a bishop. Even in my depressed state, I found all these credentials comforting, but then he really got my attention. He said that as a young father in medical school during a serious bout of depression, he had laid out a suicide plan that ensured that his wife and baby would be taken care of, and better off, when he was gone.

No one had ever dared admit to me that they had been suicidal. I had thought highly of this man and his family for years. Light shined on my soul for a moment as I considered that a life, even an incredibly fulfilling life could be lived after suicidal thoughts. I was certain that this man's desire to live had been fully restored.

And then he gave me a peculiar piece of advice. "While you are going through this particular bout of depression," he began, and I smiled. Everyone thinks I have depression, I thought to myself. But I really respected this man and wanted to hear him out, so I played along. "Stop reading the scriptures."

What?

"If you're anything like me, when I was in there, every time I was depressed, you don't relate to the Nephis or the Josephs of Egypt. You relate to the damned, those in the lakes of fire and brimstone that are weeping and wailing and gnashing their teeth."

It had been months since I had connected with another human so deeply.

It makes even more sense today. The channels that allowed God to communicate with me were jammed because of my depression. And so, reading the scriptures in my weakened state of mind was fueling my depression, my hopelessness, my despair, my deprecating thoughts.

*****

You'll hear depressed people of faith say things like, "I just have to show that I have enough faith."

And it causes me to shudder, because the path I followed with a mindset like that was a very, very scary one. Their faith and their depression are entirely tangled up in each other. Many of these people are completely emptied of hope, confused, and afraid, and this is what I want say to them.

Depression seems to break the rules about most everything you know to be true about life. But they are not really broken. It seems like it, because the channels you are used to using to communicate with and receive peace and comfort from God are jammed.

As downright adamant you are that it is not, this truly is a condition of your mind and body, and not a reflection of your soul. As Elder Holland has said, broken minds can be healed just as broken bones are healed. In those prayers you are saying that you feel aren't being heard, pray for help to know how to best find healing and health again for your mind.

I am not saying that every depressed individual should quit reading their scriptures, but make some kind of mental break between depression and your faith. They are not one in the same. Depression is a serious illness, not an indication of your standing before God.  

If you are suicidal, know you are not the first to walk this path and that your fate is not sealed. "Do not," as Elder Holland pleads, "vote against the preciousness of life by ending it. Trust in God and hold on in His love."

In the midst of my despair one day, my dad felt impressed to tell me that my Heavenly Father was near. That it was as if I could reach out and touch Him. I clung to that. As things got worse, I resented it. Because if He was, He was not making me aware of it. At least not in ways that I could see.

But I now know that as Elder Holland calls it, He was at work making repairs. 

As a result of this period of your life, you will know deep despair, pain, and darkness. But you will know compassion to a more satisfying and sweeter degree. It will have sunk in a little more deeply why your Father in Heaven sent His Son to Earth, and you will rejoice in that fact more deeply than you ever had before. 

Read my full depression story here. 

Every reference made to Elder Holland in this post is from his talk, Like a Broken Vessel.