Mental health can be a touchy subject. No one likes to admit they may be struggling. For a long time, struggling with your mental health was considered a sign of weakness at best…a sign of being “crazy” at worst.
And sometimes it feels as though once you admit the struggle, you’re forever labeled by it.
I do think we’ve grown as a society. Some of that stigma has dissipated, and conversations about mental health are happening more openly than they once did. But the stigma is still there. No one wants to admit—or even think of themselves as—having a problem.
And then there’s the stigma that can exist within the Christian community.
Mental health can still be an uncomfortable subject in the church. Whether anyone says it out loud or not, there can be an underlying message that if you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, or your mental health in general, maybe you just aren’t leaning on God enough.
Maybe you need to pray more.
Maybe you need more faith.
Maybe you need to trust God more.
But what happens when you love God, you are praying, you are trying to trust Him…and you’re still struggling?
I want to be clear before I go any further: I’m not a mental health professional. I have no clinical training or expertise in this area. I’m not writing this as someone who has the answers. I’m writing it simply as someone who has struggled.
And I have struggled.
And I don’t mean just because of the affair, although that was definitely a huge catalyst. If you’ve read my book or followed me for any length of time, you know I’m a huge believer that one trauma often begets another.
I believe that was the case for me.
For years prior to the affair, I struggled, but it was the unnamed, unacknowledged kind of struggle. It was the battle against thoughts that told me I was a horrible mother. A horrible homeschooler. That I couldn’t stack up against anyone.
I was ugly. Untalented. Basically an afterthought—a wart on the edge of society who couldn’t produce anything of value or substance.
I was never enough.
Throughout my life, I would go through periods when thoughts like these seemed to take over. But because I never really saw them for what they were, I never learned how to deal with them.
Until the trauma of the affair, that is.
That brought absolutely everything to light, in more ways than one.
For the first time, I began to recognize what all of those negative, destructive thoughts were doing to my mental health. And once I could recognize them, I could begin to offer myself grace. I could start learning how to respond to them instead of simply believing them.
I’m not saying I have it all completely figured out. Far from it.
In fact, just today I found myself battling some of those same dark thoughts.
In the past, I probably would have crawled into bed and let them consume me. The difference today is that I recognized what was happening, and I knew I needed to do something.
So I kept moving forward.
I got on my bike. I exercised. I took some time for myself with my coffee and my Bible, and I read.
And guess what?
I’m not perfect. The thoughts didn’t magically disappear.
But I’m better.
Maybe that’s why the recent news about Hayden Panettiere has been weighing so heavily on me.
I didn’t follow her life closely. In fact, I mostly only remember her from Remember the Titans. But I have seen that she’s struggled. She has spoken openly about that during her life.
And something about that has always broken my heart.
Here was someone I saw as beautiful, talented and successful—someone who, from the outside looking in, seemed to have so much. And yet she had spoken openly about struggles that, in some ways, I can understand.
But beauty doesn’t make someone immune to pain. Success doesn’t silence the voice that says you’re not enough. And sometimes the very people we’re comparing ourselves to are fighting battles of their own.
Of course, I can’t know exactly what her battles felt like or what was happening inside her mind. None of us can truly know another person’s struggle.
But I do know what it’s like to battle your own mind.
I know what it feels like to have one day when you feel like you’re doing okay and another when your own thoughts tell you that you’re the worst person in the world. That you’re a horrible mother. That you’re a fraud. That you’re failing everyone around you.
It’s a battle.
And it breaks my heart to think about how many people are fighting that battle quietly. The celebrity whose life looks glamorous. The mom sitting next to you at church. The teenager who seems to have everything going for them.
Your spouse.
Your friend.
Maybe even you.
We simply don’t know what another person is carrying.
I think that’s part of why her story has affected me so much.
When we’re struggling, we have a tendency to compare everything we know about ourselves—our failures, insecurities and darkest thoughts—to the small piece of someone else’s life we can see. She’s prettier. More talented. More successful. More put together.
And somehow, we always come up short.
But beauty doesn’t make someone immune to pain. Success doesn’t silence the voice that says you’re not enough. And sometimes the very people we’re comparing ourselves to are fighting battles that look a lot like our own.
I hate the thought of anyone believing they have to carry that dark pain alone.
I don’t believe that’s what God wants for us. He doesn’t want us hiding our pain because we’re ashamed of it. He doesn’t expect us to paste on a smile, walk into church and pretend everything is fine when inside we’re barely holding it together.
And I certainly don’t believe our struggles mean we’ve somehow failed Him.
Scripture is filled with people who struggled. People who grieved. People who despaired. People who cried out to God and asked where He was. David poured out anguish in the Psalms. Elijah reached a point where he didn’t want to go on. Job wished he had never been born.
God didn’t erase those stories from the Bible because they were too messy. He left them there. Maybe because He knew we would need them. Maybe because He knew there would be days when some of us would need to know that loving God and hurting deeply can exist at the same time.
There is no shame in struggling.
And there is no prize for struggling alone.
Seeking help doesn’t mean you’ve stopped trusting God, and it doesn’t mean you are weak. We were meant to walk in community with others. We were created to lean on one another. Sometimes that means sitting down with someone you trust and finally admitting, “I’m struggling.” Sometimes it means a counselor or a doctor helping you carry something that has become too heavy to carry on your own.
It doesn’t mean you will always need that help. But some days, maybe you will.
And that’s okay.
But I also want you to remember something I’ve had to learn myself:
Just because your mind tells you something doesn’t make it true.
You are not worthless.
You are not a failure.
You are not a burden.
And this pain does not get to define the rest of your story.
There is hope, even here.
Not because God promises us a life without pain, depression, grief or heartbreak. He doesn’t.
But He does promise to meet us in it.
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18
Near.
Not disappointed in us.
Not waiting at a distance for us to get ourselves together.
Near.
Maybe today you need to pray.
Maybe you need to get outside and move your body.
Maybe you need to open your Bible.
Maybe you need to call a friend.
And maybe you need to make an appointment and tell someone, “I need help.”
Whatever your next step is, take it.
Because struggling doesn’t mean your story is over.
And sometimes hope begins simply by believing that there is still more of your story left to be written.
