It's Not About Faith: Mental Illness, Conversion, and Healing (w/Anne Myers)

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Love, The Converts

Religion & Spirituality


Dear Muslims: can we pretty please stop telling one another that mental illness is a sign that your faith is weak? Can we stop telling people who are struggling with their mental health that prayer is the solution to everything? Can we please acknowledge that mental illness is as real, as tangible, and as life-affecting as physical illnesses are, and can we please support one another in seeking the support we need? And please, let’s recognize that mental illness is so much harder to deal with when you don’t have a strong support system.In this episode, we interview Anne Myers, a chaplain and Harvard Divinity School graduate. We discuss her own experience with mental illness, how it affected her choice to convert, and how her struggles with mental health have both challenged and bolstered her faith and made her such a compassionate chaplain, as well as how her faith has helped her to cope with her issues—in tandem with doctors and pretty strong medication. Around minute 28, Kaighla talks about a seminar she attended in Texas in 2014, given by Omar Suleiman, Saadia Yunus, and Sheikh Harun Ameen. It was called "Depressed or Possessed?" It directly addressed the common misunderstandings Muslims seem to have about mental health, jinn possession, black magic, and sorcery, just to name a few.