Christ and Satan...Duality of Effort

And it's back...I had somehow managed to push my depression and horrible feelings aside for about a day. I was talking to a friend one night, who in essence told me to let it go and get busy and I will start to feel better. So I did that.  I chose not to do my daily routine of late, which is sit and read spiritual books about love, forgiveness, the Atonement. And guess what? The day that I chose to leave all that out...I felt better. Which led me to some thinking about how my thoughts and actions have worked in the past as well.

About 15 years or so ago, I remember speaking to my friend who was the first counselor in the stake presidency about an interesting observation of myself. I said to him that anytime I feel like I am making a big spiritual push in my journey, that things get worse, hard, an unbearable. I told him that I know God must live because I know Satan lives.  Every time I try to do more, pray harder, go to the temple more often, I carry the biggest heaviest dark cloud around me. I feel unhappy. As we talked about it, we talked that it's probably because Satan ups his efforts so that I won't make the progress.

So with the recent events and trials going on about me, I have made an extreme effort to get out of the cycle of unhappiness, sin, hurt, and damage by my actions. I have been doing everything I humanly can to find God. In the course of this, I have felt worse. I have felt Satan. I know his fruits. Depression, anxiety, not eating, not sleeping, discouragement, hopelessness. What confuses me is do  you keep pushing through it till you find God has been there with you? Or do you stop at the knowing that this is making things worse or harder for you and you may not recover. Even as I type this, I know the answer is not to stop.

So does the efforts of Satan always correlate with the efforts of me trying to find Christ? Not sure. Is  it that the fallen angel wants me more than I want to persevere? Does he try harder than I?

All I know is I can't let him win; I will rely on God and push forward, no matter the pushing back Satan does.