We have interviewed 15 people who have overcome struggles with the help of religion. These stories show that religion and faith are some of the most powerful ways to overcome struggles of mental health.
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I’ve interviewed 15 people who have been helped by religion, and here are the top 5 struggles that these people have overcome:
In our many years of publishing helpful mental health content, we always received questions from our readers about specific situations. While we have a lot of helpful tips to share on how to be happier, we simply can’t offer advice for every situation.
That’s why I’ve set out to interview folks with every type of mental health struggle. My job as an interviewer is to categorize these interviews and present them in a way that is most helpful to our readers.
“There were constant thoughts that I wasn’t good enough. If my own parents could leave me, and I wasn’t enough for them to stay and want to be part of my life, despite all my great accomplishments, anyone can and will.”
Struggled with:
Anger
Childhood
Self-sabotage
Suicidal
“What if it could prevent someone else’s journey from taking the destructive twists and turns mine had? What if it could help caregivers and medical providers anticipate the road ahead and help the survivor navigate? What if MY journey could have been a little smoother because I had read or heard about someone else’s journey? Before I knew it, I was on a path to publishing.”
“Do not listen to people who have achieved nothing in life, especially if you are an overachiever and ambitious person, if you have a dream, run after your dream, God has plans for you and he gifted each one of us with something. My gift was in the arts and since I was 14 years old I’ve been after that dream, even if my own family has tried to “cut off” my legs. Fight for your dream, when things are being the hardest and you’re ready to quit, that is when you shouldn’t quit because big things are coming.”
“One of the aspects of PTSD is depression and with depression comes irritability. Living with depression was like walking through molasses. Everything was more difficult, irritating, and unrecognizable. I knew something was in the way that needed to be cleared. It’s hard to be happy when you feel like that.”
Struggled with:
Depression
PTSD
Helped by:
Religion
Self-improvement
Therapy
“At my worst, I would hurt myself so I had an escape and a release. There are points where I feel so out of control in my body that even breathing is a task. I hold my breath. In truth, I have night terrors about what my funeral would be like, who would show up? Would I be missed? Would people come out of the woodwork when I was gone? If I left this body here would I hurt less? I battle every single day with loss. Your mind begins to play tricks on you.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Cerebral palsy
Childhood
Depression
Suicidal
“I did not have an internal sense of self. It didn’t matter how much I accomplished or how many people I helped. I only measured positive outcomes by how others perceived and recognized me or my actions. The sooner we let go of labels, expectations, or the pain of past experiences, the sooner we will feel joy in our hearts.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Cancer
Childhood
Depression
Identity crisis
“No matter how much I’d accomplished, because my life wasn’t excelling at the rate that I desired it to, I believed something was wrong with me. I would compare myself to others, and do things I wasn’t interested in or enjoyed, just to be accepted, and in doing so I lost my identity and my ability to be my true authentic self.”
“When I started recovering, I realized that I had lost myself during that time. Not in a bad way but I had lost my confidence, purpose, and hope. That was when I came across a purpose mentorship program by a Zimbabwean author, entrepreneur, and purpose mentor Ralph Kadurira who has still remained my mentor to this day. The program was everything I needed to get back on my feet.”
“Don’t hate yourself for the trauma. The path to happiness is not a single one. There are many ways to be happy so the impossibility to turn back time before trauma does not mean you can never be happy. You can be happy again. You can trust others again. Don’t lose your hope to survive. Someday, you will be thankful for your past self who did not give up your life.”
“Healing just doesn’t come without suffering. When I failed for the first time academically, it hurt. I cried… a lot. And was down for a while until I felt I needed to know myself better. I started meditating and thinking about who I am. What’s my purpose? What am I doing with my life?”
Helped by:
Meditation
Religion
Self-improvement