{"id":5116,"date":"2022-07-04T01:54:40","date_gmt":"2022-07-04T05:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/?p=5116"},"modified":"2022-07-05T22:40:06","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T02:40:06","slug":"4-things-mandisa-reveals-about-her-battle-with-depression-in-her-book-out-of-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/explore\/4-things-mandisa-reveals-about-her-battle-with-depression-in-her-book-out-of-the-dark\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Things Mandisa Reveals about Her Battle with Depression in Her Book,\u00a0Out of the Dark"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u00a0Michael Foust<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0|\u00a0ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The year was 2014, and Christian musician Mandisa had reached several long-time goals. She was winning awards. Her music was playing on the radio. She even had gained mainstream notoriety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside, though, Mandisa was struggling. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A close friend had died \u2014 the same friend who was the subject of the 2013 upbeat tune Overcomer<\/em>. Mandisa was angry at God. She even considered suicide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was close to taking my life,\u201d she told Crosswalk recently. \u201cThat’s when I realized, \u2018This is not okay.\u2019 It\u2019s one thing to feel sad. But this was a long period that I was in this place.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa opens up about her mental health battle in her new book, Out of the Dark: My Journey Through the Shadows to Find God’s Joy<\/em>. Writing it was one of the most difficult things she\u2019s ever done, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was bringing up a lot of things that I had swept under the rug,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026 Some of these things, I’ve wanted to forget about. \u2026 Writing music is very cathartic for me, it always is. This was quite the opposite.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are four things she says she wants you to learn from her new book:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. People Struggle in Silence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa is known as the outgoing, joy-filled singer of positive, hopeful songs. But in Out of the Dark<\/em>, she explains how she often has struggled with mental health, including after her close friend, Kisha Mitchell, passed away from cancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At one point during Kisha\u2019s battle, Mandisa brought her on stage as she sang Overcomer<\/em>, telling her that $25,000 had been raised for her medical bills. Looking to the future, Mandisa imagined a future concert in which she would declare that \u201cGod had healed\u201d Kisha completely, Mandisa writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But less than one year later, Kisha died. Mandisa writes that she felt \u201cbetrayed by God\u201d because Kisha\u2019s story \u201cdidn\u2019t end the way I thought it should.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa wants Christians to realize that countless people around them are silently struggling with mental health battles. She also wants those who are facing such issues to get help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI really want it to be something that sparks conversations, especially in the body of Christ, about these mental health issues,\u201d she told Crosswalk. \u201cIt is something that so many of us are facing, and often are doing it in silence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. Community and Counseling Are Essential<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa considers herself an \u201cambivert\u201d \u2013 a combination of an introvert and an extrovert \u2013 and says she tends to crawl into a shell when facing pain. That, in turn, makes the lonely moments even darker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I experience pain, I like to retreat,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet loneliness, she told Crosswalk, is not part of God\u2019s plan for dealing with depression. Community, she said, is \u201csomething that God cares deeply about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnytime I hear someone say, \u2018Well, I don’t need anybody, it\u2019s just God and me,  and that\u2019s enough\u2019 \u2013 that’s kind of a red flag for me, because I believe that He created us for community,\u201d she told Crosswalk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Community is so important, Mandisa writes in her book, that she moved across town to \u201clive in the area [where] most of my friends live.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She gave her friends permission \u201cto speak into my life and to bang down my doors if they see me going to that place,\u201d she told Crosswalk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa, in her book, says she longs to be married one day but that she\u2019s \u201calso decided I won\u2019t live my life \u2018alone\u2019 until then.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, Mandisa also has found great benefits in counseling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve come to understand that just as I would turn to a doctor for physical health, there are professionals that can help me in these [other] areas that I am not so great at addressing,\u201d she told Crosswalk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. People Cover Their Pain with Idols<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa is open about her personal struggles, writing in the book that for \u201cmost\u201d of her life, she has turned to \u201cfood and emotional eat\u00ading\u201d to comfort her during emotional pain. She calls food and other addictions in our lives \u201cshackles\u201d that keep us \u201cfrom the life of freedom God desires for us.\u201d Jesus, she writes, came to \u201cmake us free.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEven when I was a child, food was always the thing I turned to when I was sad. When my dad and stepmom moved to Texas, I found solace in ice cream and chips,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Idols, she told Crosswalk, are all around us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHonestly, anything that we turn to before God, that is an idol. For me, that’s food,\u201d she told Crosswalk. \u201c\u2026 You can enjoy food, and you can enjoy television. But when you’re doing it to mask something, that’s when it’s not a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

4. Fame Doesn\u2019t Bring Joy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In Out of the Dark<\/em>, Mandisa describes how she won the hearts of countless fans on American Idol <\/em>and recorded songs that her label loved \u2013 and yet she still wasn\u2019t at peace with her career. Her first album, True Beauty<\/em>, debuted at No. 43 on the Billboard chart, but those numbers \u201cwere nothing compared to the record sales of some of my fellow Idol contestants,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs I compared myself to the incredible successes of my fellow finalists, I felt like a loser,\u201d she writes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually, Mandisa realized she needed a change in perspective. In Out of the Dark<\/em>, readers learn that fame \u2014 which is something that millions of us chase \u2014 didn\u2019t bring Mandisa peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI would drive myself crazy if I allowed chart position to be the main barometer of success,\u201d she writes. \u201c\u2026 I would need to set my mind on things above and pray that God would somehow use my offerings for His glory.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mandisa told Crosswalk she hopes the book will launch a discussion. Her\u00a0prayer<\/a>, she said, is the words of\u00a0Psalm 40:3<\/a>: \u201cAs many will hear what God has done, they will be amazed and they will put their hope in Him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hope that as people read it, that it will encourage other people to maybe take steps on their own mental health journey because so many of us are walking through it,\u201d she told Crosswalk. \u201cAnd I hope it will encourage people to walk through it with God and not try to do it on your own.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo courtesy: \u00a9KLove Books<\/em> | Original Article Here<\/a><\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Michael Foust\u00a0|\u00a0ChristianHeadlines.com Contributor The year was 2014, and Christian musician Mandisa had reached several long-time goals. She was winning awards. Her music was playing on the radio. She even had gained mainstream notoriety. Inside, though, Mandisa was struggling.  A close friend had died \u2014 the same friend who was the subject of the 2013 upbeat …<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5116"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5166,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5116\/revisions\/5166"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/youngadventists.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}