We have interviewed 53 people who have overcome struggles with the help of social support from others. These stories show that friends, family and colleagues are vital to overcoming struggles of mental health.
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I’ve interviewed 53 people who have been helped by support of others, 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 wasn’t sure how to feel better for a while. People talk about ‘getting help’ but that’s a blanket term and unfortunately it’s not a band-aid you can just put on and suddenly be yourself again. It takes time to find the right therapist, medication if that’s what you decide to do, to find a new rhythm with family, and in my case, I really needed friends locally.”
Struggled with:
Postpartum depression
“When one is home alone, all day, with nothing to do, nobody to speak with, stuck with their thoughts both good and bad, it’s easy to slip back into a depressive state. Feeling unneeded, unwanted, no happiness, no joy, no reason to get out of bed – just suffering with “the blahs”.”
Struggled with:
Depression
Loneliness
Helped by:
Self-improvement
“I do not recommend having a breakdown when trying to raise boys. I would cry, eat all the time, and feel like my brain was full of fuzz. I could barely function. There was that day when I got home from taking the kids to school, and thought to myself that if there was a gun in the house, someone else would have had to pick them up from school that day.”
Struggled with:
Depression
Divorce
Stress
Helped by:
Journaling
Therapy
“Over the past decade, I have struggled with substance abuse immensely leading to anxiety, depression, and PTSD. After losing thirteen corporate jobs and ending up homeless, beaten up, and absolutely broken on the streets I have finally come to terms with my situation and am finding a path towards long-term sobriety and happiness.”
Struggled with:
Addiction
Anxiety
Depression
PTSD
Helped by:
Mindfulness
Rehab
Religion
Self-improvement
“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 used alcohol to deal with stress, anxiety, boredom–essentially any negative feeling that I didn’t want to experience. I was also using it to try to generate positive feelings–to celebrate, to have fun, to socialize. Turning to alcohol for so many different reasons made it hard to control. I started by setting rules for myself, like only drinking on the weekends and only after a certain hour. But I consistently broke those rules, so they kept getting looser and looser.”
Struggled with:
Addiction
Anxiety
Depression
Helped by:
Exercise
Rehab
Self-improvement
Therapy
“We’re all comfortable with sharing cute photos and stories about our pets, but do we feel equally comfortable sharing the depth of our grief when we lose them? My personal experience challenged me to reevaluate my own understanding and openness to discussing the hard things too. It doesn’t always have to be sunshine and rainbows.”
Helped by:
Reinventing yourself
Therapy
“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
“Closing yourself doesn’t help in such situations. It took a lot of effort to get out of my comfort zone, but I’m glad I did it. I consider myself an introvert, but you do find like-minded people in group events. You just have to push yourself, get out of your room, and be part of these meetings.”
Struggled with:
Loneliness
Stress
Helped by:
Self-improvement
“The abuse expanded over time. My mother could be incredibly kind and would have given Martha Stewart a run for her money. The problem came when her mood and personality would flip on a dime, her eyes in slits, and I would be beaten, almost to the point of blacking out, for what reason I couldn’t understand.”
Struggled with:
Abuse
Childhood
Depression
PTSD
Suicidal