At 31 a therapist finally unlocked the mystery inside Joan Kopczynski and told her she could manage her mental illness. But first she had to reconcile a series of traumatic events that would plague anyone with or without this disorder.

Anna Runkle calls herself the crappy childhood fairy and has helped a million people deal with their complex PTSD. But it took 11 therapists and dozens of self help books before she found a name for what she has and a practice that worked.

When Heather Straughter’s son got sick, her perspective shifted. She discovered how fragile life is. She had to keep pivoting, when she was forced to change her expectations and recalibrate hope. 

After years of telling people to face their fears, therapist Michael Brady has taken his own medicine and released an album because he wanted to confront his perfectionism but it’s still difficult to let go.

For years Sonia Kahlon succeeded by her parents’ and husband's standards, but it was only after getting sober and volunteering at a women’s prison that Sonia found her true calling.

After years of relying on cocaine and caffeine to focus Kathleen discovers she has ADHD. The diagnosis and subsequent tools help her achieve her dream of becoming a therapist.

After years of capture kill missions Kervin Aucoin now employs his military training to help people thrive. He says sharing his story keeps his PTSD at bay.

At 15 Meghan Callaghan was left alone with her grandfather for the day. What started out as a seemingly ordinary day became a defining moment in Meghan’s life.

Rod Nordland doesn’t plan to die from an incurable brain cancer. He’s a survivor — of abuse, war, and now disease.

Shawna Beesley, known to most as Adaline, says there’s no dopamine hit like saving someone from hell. Today she finds that high performing on stage. She discovered she had to shed her golden child identity and reconcile with her evangelical upbringing to be true to herself and come out to her family.

Laurel loves stories but she has realized when she’s consuming stories, she’s tuning out the world and her inner voice or source of creativity. This a story about what happened when Laurel learned to get still.

Lauren’s heart stopped for 24 minutes and it took almost dying to realize she couldn’t get through life on her own.

Joshua "The Jedi" Loya lost his eyesight at 15, but that didn’t stop him from skydiving, surfing, Ju-Jitsu, and stand up comedy. Joshua says choosing sometimes the scary thing makes him feel authentically himself and helps him to live well with PTSD.

It took a life threatening situation to give Kafi Joseph permission to make her own rules about what she needs. She learned that burnout was a symptom of a deeper worry that she wasn’t valuable unless she was driving hard. Now this West Point grad uses her can-do attitude to take care of herself.

Morgan O’Kane spent much of his young life searching for meaning and a high, but it wasn’t until he sacrificed alcohol for the love of his child that he reconnected with his true nature. Through train-hopping, mountaineering, music, fatherhood and two very special dogs, Morgan O’Kane found his way home.

After decades of telling people what she believed they wanted to hear, Helen Sneed shares openly her struggles with mental illness because it provides hope and ultimately saves lives, but it took many agonizing years of therapy, hospitalizations, and finally finding community to get here.

Wenche Fredriksen is on a mission to help people accept they are enough after perfectionism took its toll on her. She suffered from years of chronic illness and back pain before a doctor told her she needed to recover from burnout.

Yohance Lacour creates luxury hiphop sneakers because they represent both his humble beginnings as well as the high fashion person he became, but it took a decade’s long prison sentence to learn how to make the shoes and to work toward the greater good.

Valerie Milburn was getting help for her mental illness but it wasn’t until her husband told her she couldn’t come home from the hospital that she turned her life around. It was then she began to fight for her recovery and to find the right treatment for her bipolar disorder and PTSD.

Alex Reegan became a reverend after two decades of feeling disconnected from God and rejecting his ultra conservative evangelical christian faith. Today he helps other LGBTQIA folks on their spiritual journey.