How to Battle Depression & Anxiety *our experience* | Mental Health Series Pt. 1

Oh my word. You ready? I think so. I think I've been a little emotional all day because this video. Well hello you guys. Welcome back to our channel. Welcome back to the channel everyone. So if you clicked the video you know that today we are going to try our best to tackle the topic of mental health. If you've been here for a while you know the heart behind this entire channel is to talk about topics that aren't the easiest or you feel like the church doesn't talk about enough and this is always peer-to-peer and from a Christian perspective and so we also want to give a little warning. We know that this can be a very sensitive topic. I mean we've dealt with a lot of these things personally and we're gonna be sharing from experience but we also want to offer you some hope and encouragement if you know mental health is something that you're struggling with right now. So just as a heads up for this entire series, this video we're gonna be sharing more about our own personal experiences and then I think the next one will be like a Q&A for questions you're all submitting. We're gonna do a long-form podcast episode and I think we're even gonna share like some advice on how to handle mental health inside of relationships or friendships like if I'm the one struggling and she's not how can she help me or how can I keep from causing problems. So we're gonna be doing a full fun series on this and we're gonna leave a ton of resources in the descriptions always and one of the main resources we're actually partnering with is called Hope for the Heart which is God's heart on suicide prevention and so they created an amazing resource for you all. It's a PDF you can download it for free. Just click on the link and what's nice is it kind of gives you a strategy to deal with suicide prevention and if you're dealing with anxiety, depression and things like that and I actually got to write the foreword for it where I share a little bit about my story so definitely check that out. But I guess I'll just start from the beginning with me. Yep one of those videos. I don't know if you know this because a lot of people don't really get to see this side of me but I've struggled for a long time with mental health. I've had a lot of depression in my life and a lot of like for several years and I've even had times Lord I knew it's gonna be super emotional. I don't know where it started but there was one year where it got really bad and I think where it started was just little things I would mention to myself daily internally or things I would listen to externally and I think it just kind of it's almost like walking down a hill slowly but you don't you're walking so slow you don't really know where you're going and then one day you fall into the hole of being depressed and being lost and you can't get your way out of it and you don't know what to do and I found myself there. I think that if I were to have a healthier mindset growing up I could have challenged these negative thoughts that were very intrusive because they start with little things like saying like you know if you're a young girl saying oh I'm not pretty or if you're a young guy saying I'm not talented or you know anyone can say whatever but it starts with those little things it's actually interesting a lot of the reason I don't curse is because it keeps me from getting more and more and more angry and starting to negative self-talk against myself it's a way that I combat some of that negative self-talk and I I'm sure you guys see it we did this video where it's like husband answers juicy questions from wife and you'll notice that I answer every question in a way and it's because I think I've become a very deep person and I think that I was down in a deep hole and I was stripped away of all the superficialness of my life and I remember I was I was living in New York this is the year got real bad because I struggled for several years where it was just walking down the hill but then that one year where I fell into the hole I was totally lost I was hopeless I didn't know what to do and I it feels awkward to mention this online but I I wished that I weren't here anymore and for someone who can be as happy-go-lucky and as excitable as I am it was a hard place for me to be and it's hard for anyone you know and I didn't really know how to handle that I didn't know what to do life was so hard and me as a Christian I was like why is my life so hard I thought my life was supposed to be better after giving my life to Christ I was like why is it this way why am I struggling now more than ever because I did have a period where I was really down and I gave my life to Christ in that period I thought I was free from these thoughts and and so I was learning how to process and battle with that and I had my relationship stripped away I had my community being taken away I had my career just plummeting my own pride and my abilities my talents weren't doing anything for me because I wasn't successful in anything and I I kept having things stripped away from me and I was just left with nothing and I mentioned stripped away on purpose because if you read in Genesis with Adam and Eve after they partook of the fruit and they immediately started hiding that's the first thing they did was they they hid themselves and they sowed fig leaves as like as clothes and God knowing where they are said where are you and they said we are here we're hiding he's like why are you hiding and they said it's because we're naked and he said who told you that and I just thought it was really interesting that the first thing they did whenever they were in a down place was they hid and they started covering themselves with things they started covering up with stuff and God knowing what they did ask them who told you that and so there's obviously either an external voice and or an internal dialogue that told you that what you did was wrong and you need to start covering up for this you need to cover up yourself and I feel like I had to have all those things that I metaphorically covered myself with which is my relationship my career my community my own talents my own pride I had all those things taken away from me and then I hit rock bottom and and that was the true place where I realized that that rock that I fell onto was the rock of Christ and and that's where I found myself and and I only could find true value in him whenever I was unconditionally loved and accepted and embraced and supported by him when I had nothing I had nothing to gloat about nothing to be proud of it was just me and him and I just felt the embrace of him and that's when I began my journey and processing through mental health issues and I still struggled to know even today was a very down day for me so this is not like something where it's just huge crazy success story but it's this it's this journey that we walk together like Tori shared with you earlier this is a peer-to-peer thing we walk through life together arm-in-arm and we help each other and that's why we're excited to share some of the resources because I I do think if you're someone that struggles with this or if you know someone that struggles with this you need to have a plan you need to have dialogue to combat the downhill track you know you need to put together a system that will help you in those times like counseling I want to do counselors for an entire year and that helped tremendously I even want to get started up again Tori's currently seeing a counselor online yeah they're better help which is we have a code below if you are interested in counseling or you're struggling with this we do have a link in description below first off thanks for sharing babe I know that's not it's not always hard or it's not always easy to you know share really vulnerable things online but we do just want to thank you guys as the masters fam you always have been so encouraging and supportive when we open up to you guys so thank you for making the internet a safe place for us typically it's not and that that's just God's faithfulness and I really have like truly truly truly loved counseling and so like Chad said we will leave that link down there it's just a resource for you guys and we have like a percentage off and we have a code for you guys for me it's really nice to externally process something with someone who's kind of outside of my circle who brings biblical wisdom to the situation and ask me questions that really kind of steer me in a direction of like oh that's not truth this is truth you know and it yeah anyways it's really helped me a lot and as Chad was kind of saying like having that battle plan when you start spiraling when you start hearing those voices come in I think it's the quickness that the faster you can run to the Lord and those moments I think the quicker like kind of how you were saying like if you're falling down a hole it's almost like the faster you can grab on to something you know you don't have to climb back up as far number one I just think something very very practical if you're struggling with like internal thoughts about yourself and about your circumstances and about your life is to get the focus off of yourself and put the focus on God put the focus on others go out and serve I know for me personally when I've been the lowest of low in my own life I had my job stripped away from me I was single at the time there was so many things going on in my life and I engulfed myself in like church life and really being intentional with my mentors and I think it's the only reason truly that I was able to kind of get out of I didn't even know that I was really depressed until I was out of it and I look back and I'm like oh when I don't want to get out of bed in the morning and I have no vigor for life and I have insomnia because I'm so anxious probably not the best sign you know and so just looking back at that having that battle plan of like okay Lord these are the things that I'm feeling right now and I need to talk about it with you I need to talk about it with people because I think in the Christian world sometimes it's hard to talk about mental health issues it's hard to talk about depression because you know people want to say well you should just be happy like you have the joy of the Lord that you can hold on to and and that's true like the Lord does offer that but sometimes it's harder to grasp than you want it to be you know sometimes it's it's simple but it's not easy it's not easy to grasp yeah and something I've even learned I've shared this a little bit on the podcast the Lord created us with the feelings that we have like we are very feely human beings we experience highs and we experience lows and the Lord says that he is near to the brokenhearted which to me says that we're gonna experience moments where our heart is broken mm-hmm and those are the moments where the Lord is gonna be so near like when you share about when you hit that rock bottom and you found out the rock was the Lord you know it's like in those moments sometimes or when you experience God in a way that is so intimate and so close I've shared this on YouTube before too but it was the worst week of my life and I was in the fetal position in my apartment shower just bawling my eyes out and I tangibly felt like the Lord was covering me and holding me and from that point on the Lord became something else to me and I do believe that we experience God and the vastness of who he is and the different aspects of who he is in different seasons of our lives and it's like well we can't experience him as this comforter if we don't need comforting and we can't experience him as a provider if we don't need to be provided for and so I think in those moments when you're really struggling with mental health or depression or anxiety pressing into the Lord and saying Lord how can I experience you in this moment differently you know because your word says do not be anxious about anything but in prayer and supplication and with thanksgiving make your requests known to the Father I think that's like Philippians 4 16 I think you're right okay I was close it was Philippians 4 6 & 7 it says do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus yeah he says do not be anxious about anything do not be worried trust me and I will protect you I will protect your broken heart I will protect your mind that is struggling but we have to make our requests known with Thanksgiving yeah with Thanksgiving and I feel like that's another thing like another battle plan is when you're struggling with depression that is sir circumstantial right circumstantial depression there's clinical depression which is different it's not circumstantial but circumstantial depression write out a list of all the things that you're thankful for write down a list of all the prayers that the Lord has answered in your life and look back on them and remind yourself of how good God is and how he is there for you and yeah yeah well I was just gonna say that's exactly what the hope for the heart provided is you have your own personalized plan you can put a little scrolly thing here but yeah you have your own personalized plan to combating that and it's almost just like you know when people are like pregnant and they're getting ready they have like a what's it called a pregnancy plan or a birthing plan a birth plan you and it rarely goes according to how you want it to but you have a plan and a plan B because you're preparing for something that's so important I think if you have any takeaway from this video it's just like maximizing the importance of your mental health because you know like that's that's your consciousness who you are you know and and you have to take it seriously whether that's investing your your your time into protecting it and investing your resources into a growing your mental health and and and also protecting it you know it's just these are things that they need to be protected I said it another video where I see some I saw some of these athletes that are spending one to two million dollars a year just on their physical health yeah personal chefs personal trainers massage therapists all this it's like they're saying health is wealth and it's saying what we're saying is your mental health and is what you need and you need to protect it take it seriously because it's not going to happen on its own yeah it doesn't just like take care of itself because otherwise if you aren't taught something you're just gonna react to everything and we've said it in our podcast a lot lately you are so much more than a reaction you can take captive your thoughts you can bite your tongue you can withhold yourself from reacting in a way that would lead to a worst place and yeah that's what I have found that in my like in my depression and my dark places what I found is that I disguise it with another thing or I I self-medicate I run to this thing or and then and then I'm feeling bad about that and I run to another I feel bad about and I just keeps going and it cycles and then you find yourself deep in a hole you're just like how do I get out and that's why we as a community have to support each other because sometimes you do have to have people leaning into that hole to pull you out yeah and so I'm I am excited about about this whole series I know I don't sound excited right now because it's just an emotional topic but you know it's like we can share home updates all day but I mean let's talk about this home you know the home where the Holy Spirit lives and so let's talk about protecting that and building that out and writing verses on all your bones and yeah Lord that'll preach anyways go for it I'm just saying that that'll run off we need to take care of this home and so we're gonna keep unpacking this in more videos if you have an Instagram I'll definitely keep checking our Instagrams where we put little boxes because that way you can stay anonymous because we don't want you to put anything too personal in the comments yeah one last little thing I got this quote from got questions dot org if you ever have like very specific questions about the Bible or topics in the Bible it's an amazing resource for sure and I just thought this was a really good quote it says we are better equipped to handle mental illness when we are steeped in God's truth and in an active relationship with him and I just think that's really powerful like we're all we're better equipped when we have his armor on and so we have to be proactive in putting that armor on every single day well yeah it's like instead of putting on the clothing of the world like the fig leaf sewing it ourselves to say this says this about me this is this because that's what we do our pants are our careers our jackets our relationships our shirts and our shoes are our talents and our money but instead we put on the full armor of God and we protected as we walk forward in God's anointing which I'm sure you've heard me say that analogy I'll show that in a different video yeah and so I think that's it for now everybody wants to be anointed but nobody wants to be crushed you know you don't get anointed without being crushed can I have it the oil squeezed out mm-hmm anyways we love you guys we hope this was encouraging make sure to check out those resources below make sure to reach us forward in the hope for the heart PDF it's really powerful and that resource in general is very powerful and also if you are open to Christian counseling there is a link for better help down there as well yeah and don't forget of all the resources that we'll have in a description and as we get more resources we're going to keep updating the YouTube descriptions where there's like the hope for the heart PDF that they made for you all in us you know you can download it you can save it on your phone and you can send it to a friend you can keep it and and it's just a great resource and the same thing for better help in the Christian counseling great resources all linked below yeah that's it I think that's it that's all folks we love you guys love you be talking to you another day I'll see you in the next video