Mental Health

Mental Health

How my view on mental illness changed after I saved someone from committing suicide

I once thought that those who attempted to commit suicide were weak-willed and selfish individuals who had complete disregard of the love and concern of their loved ones and friends… But my...

Mental Health

In the aftermath of a suicide

A few years ago, I was one of the first responders to a suspected suicide. We received the news through a disruption in a regular meeting: First a knock on the door, then friends whispering …...

Mental Health

My messed-up life … now a message of life

I have always been a sensitive girl. Even in primary school, the smallest actions and words of my friends would deeply affect me. So I pushed them away before they could push me away. I often needed...

Mental Health

The prayer that saved my life

I wanted to commit suicide before I turned 18.  I was sick of life. I was just sick of everything. I had lived in a thick darkness for more than half my life, where my anxious and depressive...

Mental Health

I’ve learned to be okay with not being good enough

The dark, gaping hole of not-enoughness has been part of my narrative for as long as I can remember. As a child with a typically uninterested, uninvolved father, I used to strive to be the center of...

Mental Health

Twenty years on

During the 2018 World Cup, my darling wife Bernice reminded me that it has been 20 years since my struggle with clinical depression. The 1998 World Cup was in full swing then, played to the tunes of...

Mental Health

The psalm of my broken heart

Anxiety and depression. This article will contain pictures of pages from my journal, entries from earlier this year. I have journaled since I was a child. I journal not to capture a forever snapshot...

Health

My journey through psychotic depression

I was diagnosed with psychotic depression eight months after I became a Christian. As a young Christian then, it was a confusing and devastating season. The diagnosis came when I had just started...

Faith

I believed that God’s plan for me was to die

My journey with God started in 2007: A six-year-old child, eyes squeezed shut and chubby hands clasped together in prayer as I sat with my kindergarten friends around a table, reciting grace before...