As the prevalence of mental health issues increases and affects an ever larger number of our friends and family, it becomes essential that we create spaces for folks to talk about how they overcame or persisted despite mental health challenges. Here, we’ve tried to create a safe space for people to come together and discuss their stories, experiences, triumphs and failures with managing their mental health issues.

Odalys

Honestly, my relationship with God is what has helped me through my mental health issues. Thats not to say im “cured” I just know to look outside myself now and turn to God for His strength rather than my own. Thats not to say im perfect at it because I definitely am not but I have come to learn that I dont have to be perfect. God will meet me exactly where I am and this gives me hope. Read More>>

Miist

To me, I know the word trauma is overused, but in my situation, it is real. It’s very real in many ways and
in my life I spent a lot of time avoiding the triggers, but until I became a mom, I realized I could no longer
avoid my triggers anymore because most of my triggers of the trauma were from my childhood and
raising my daughter was watching myself growing up again.  Read More>>

Alexander Yakush

Mental health challenges have been some of the most difficult – yet most defining – moments in my entrepreneurial journey. There were times – especially during the collapse of my business, my wife’s departure, financial pressure, and personal losses – when I felt completely alone, lacking motivation, energy, and faith in myself. That’s when I realized: mental health isn’t just about ‘mood.’ It’s biology. It’s hormones. Read More>>

Hannah Jackson

I am someone who is really open about my past and current mental health struggles. It wasn’t always that way though. Growing up I suppressed my emotions and coped with my mental health struggles in unhealthy ways. I was definitely nervous to become a business owner because of my struggles with anxiety and depression, and nervous about how I would cope through new challenges. But now that I’m one year into business ownership I can confidently say I have turned my pain into passion.  Read More>>

GRACE OTTO

In a lot of ways, I’m still learning about myself and the mental health issues I face. With our current mental health system, getting a diagnosis is difficult and expensive, even with the privileges I have. One thing that has helped a lot is the practice of radical empathy. When I have depression, anxiety, or am completely overwhelmed by whatever’s going on, I ground myself in that moment and get curious about why I’m experiencing those sensations rather than completely shutting down.  Read More>>

Andrew Palermo

For most of my life, I thought I was just a “glass half empty” kind of person. Sensitive. Intense. Moody. But in the final year of my marriage—when it was unraveling in real time—I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder. I was 44. And honestly? I was relieved. It felt like someone had finally handed me the missing piece of a puzzle I’d been furiously trying to solve with the wrong picture on the box. Read More>>

 Ziyan Bai

During my transition from nursing to art, I went through a period of intense emotional turbulence. The pressure of changing careers, cultural expectations, and the uncertainty of becoming a full-time artist often triggered anxiety and self-doubt.

What helped me persist was turning those emotional experiences into creative material. Through oil painting and printmaking, I explored themes of body, memory, and vulnerability. Art became not just my expression, but my therapy. I also learned to set boundaries, prioritize rest, and seek help when needed. Read More>>

Nathan Clarkson

I was diagnosed at a young age with multiple mental health conditions and learning disabilities. I can still remember the conflicting emotions I felt that day in the psychologist’s office, the first being relief that I could finally put a name to the mental struggles I had faced my entire life, but then almost immediately a sense of separation from the world around me. I all of a sudden had to face the difficult reality that my mind didn’t work like most people’s did. I was different. Read More>>

Jennifer Le

My journey with mental health has been a lifelong one and is something that I constantly work at every day. I’ve dealt with anxiety since I was young, but didn’t know I had it until I was in undergrad when I started having panic attacks. Growing up in an Asian household, mental health was not really talked about, so I never thought about it until I started experiencing the unpleasant physical symptoms that occurred along with constantly worrying and feeling like I was annoying people around me because of it. Read More>>

Nonny Perry

”If darkness is what we’ve having, let it be extravagant.” – Jane Kenyon

I’ve always felt I was born clutching a bleeding heart in one hand and a leather dress in the other.

A lifetime of depression and sadness has lived in my bones, so deeply rooted and tangled in emotion and creativity. My imagination has always been my escape; an endless flight soaring to deliciously dark fantasy worlds. In these worlds I’m my own muse- dressed in my own fashion sketches, dripping in the glamour and tears of poetic darkness. A world where life is a stage and I’m the performer, never wanting my applause and encore to end. Read More>>

Love For All

REACH: When my mental health was at its lowest and darkest, what helped most was remembering that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. For me, that light is Jesus, and keeping my focus on Him through prayer, reading His Word, and maintaining godly friendships allowed me to keep going on the hardest days. It also gave me the perspective to write music that was dark and authentic but never without hope. Read More>>

Yana Reynolds

I stopped pretending I was okay.

For a long time, my strength was my mask. I was the dependable one. The go-to. The fixer. And I wore that identity like armor, even when I was falling apart underneath it. What most people didn’t see was that behind the high-functioning version of me was someone quietly battling anxiety, waves of depression, and the weight of grief that kept piling on—starting with the loss of my childhood best friend. Read More>>