We have interviewed 46 people who have overcome mental health struggles with the help of self-care. These stories show that self-care is one of the most powerful ways to overcome struggles of mental health.
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I’ve interviewed 46 people who have been helped by self-care, 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.
“I’ve learned that finding the right people to confide in, those who offer genuine support and empathy, can make a significant difference in navigating these challenges. It takes time and trust to build those connections, but they are invaluable.”
“Then something happened. On about day 3 or 4, the group spoke and I realized that their way of thinking around food, their rituals, and their tendencies, were all the same as the things I would do. It was wild because I thought I had made these things up myself and here I was with a room full of people who did the same things.”
Struggled with:
Abuse
Depression
Divorce
Eating disorder
PTSD
“My relationship with myself was pretty broken and I had no self-belief, I had low self-esteem and I resented my family. It was through yoga that I found the truest feeling of comfort, self-compassion, and courage to move forward, grow as a person, and fall back in love with myself and life again.”
Struggled with:
Depression
Insomnia
Stress
Suicidal
Helped by:
Exercise
Meditation
Mindfulness
Self-Care
“I remember being floored with a horrible throat infection, and I was just crying. I was done suffering, I couldn’t do it anymore, I was really broken down. That was about 2 years ago now, and it shifted something in my brain. Instead of going down the drain – and keeping that negativity going – it suddenly hit me that I’m the only one responsible for how I feel.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Chronic pain
Panic attacks
Stress
“I’m sure that other people around me knew that I was struggling, but I only shared this with a couple of people. People in my immediate physical ecosphere didn’t offer up any kind of empathy either. In fact, the exact opposite. Which I think made the condition even worse.”
Struggled with:
Chronic pain
CPTSD
Helped by:
Journaling
Meditation
Self-Care
“I clearly remember feeling like I was stuck deep down at the bottom of a dark hole where I could barely breathe. It was especially disturbing because I didn’t care if I stayed down there and never saw light again. Looking back, I realize that my severe depressive episode had been building for years, but I didn’t really notice it.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Chronic pain
Depression
“I used to have a mindset of: “poor me” – “I’m just a victim” and “none of this is my fault”. Eventually, I knew I had to change that narrative to one of control. I had to take accountability for the things that I could change, and be honest about the things I was doing that were making everything worse.”
“I found that practicing breathwork and working on my breathing was more than 50% of my battle. Not breathing correctly caused my anxiety to be triggered easier and with my breathing being shallow, it made it hard to talk at length. I believe this kept me in fight, flight, freeze mode for prolonged periods of time.”
Struggled with:
Anxiety
Depression
Stress
Helped by:
Mindfulness
Self-Care
Self-improvement
“The dual journey of recovering from a traumatic neurological event while also protecting my sobriety has felt daunting, perilous, and isolating. It felt like I’d been just practicing recovery from alcoholism for the past seven years just so that I’d be ready for the big test this year.”
Struggled with:
Addiction
Depression
Stress
Stroke
“My immune system became very weak and I was sick nearly every week. Then, when I did feel better, my resting heart rate was so high I could hardly workout without worrying about my safety. On top of that, I started having issues with anxiety around people and new situations and began having panic attacks at night.”
Struggled with:
ADHD
Anxiety
Panic attacks
