Episode 3.03: Religion, Spirituality, and Mental Health, with Nafisa Islam

Have you been told to pray your mental illness away? Nafisa (founder of Children of 1971) and I chat about our experiences with religion and mental health. In this episode we relate the reasons that we rejected religion due to mental health stigma, sexuality, misogyny, and more. Over the course of the episode we dive into how we eventually found spirituality to be useful in our respective mental health journeys, learning to overcome the taboos and stigma of mental health and redefining it in ways that work for us. We also talk about the Hindu/Muslim conflict in India and Bengal (West Bengal and Bangladesh), and how the divisive nature of it from both of our communities pushed us away from religion, along with the effect that the current event political climate in India has had on us, including Hindu supremacy and nationalism. This episode was recorded during the month of Ramadan, but it's release was delayed due to current events and the need for relevant and healing discussions about race, accountability, and COVID.

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See our related blog post on this topic, “God, Mental Health, and Time”