Invisible illness and mental health often overlap in ways people can’t see. In this episode, Natasha Minier-Robinson shares her story of living with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and lupus—and what faith and healing look like when they’re not clean or predictable.
What You’ll Learn
- What it felt like to be “high-functioning” while secretly struggling with self-harm and mood episodes
- Why mental health labels can feel like stigma, while chronic illness labels can feel like relief
- Natasha’s lupus story: pain, swelling, ER visits, and finally getting answers
- How she connected food to flare-ups and what changed when she cut processed foods
- The pressure of looking okay while you’re collapsing behind closed doors
- Faith without the fake smile: why sickness and belief can exist in the same body
- Why creativity (writing, art, building, making) can help your nervous system release what it’s carrying
- What she wishes church communities understood about mental health
- A sentence she wishes she heard earlier: “God has not forgotten you.”
Memorable Quotes
- “You don’t see me behind closed doors.”
- “A diagnosis can feel like a label… or a lifeline.”
- “Faking it makes the depression worse.”
- “Healing can look different for everybody.”
- “God has not forgotten you.”
One Tiny Step
Pick one place this week to tell the truth—without overexplaining.
Try: “I’m not doing great today. I’m taking it slow.”
Resources
- EMDR therapy (ask a trauma-informed therapist if it’s a fit for you)
- Natasha’s website: https://natasharrobinson.com
- Instagram: @natasha_r_rob
- Natasha’s books (available on Amazon)
Credits
Host: April Aramanda
Guest: Natasha Minier-Robinson
Music: Audio Jungle
Produced by: The Invisible Illness Club
Transcription
April Aramanda: Today I’m joined by Natasha Minier-Robinson. She’s a mental health advocate, a woman of faith, and someone who understands firsthand what it feels like to live with chronic illness while appearing fine on the outside.
April Aramanda: We’re diving into faith, stigma, grief, creativity, and what healing actually looks like when it’s not neat. Natasha, I’m really glad to have you here.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Hey, thank you so much for having me. Glad to be here.
April Aramanda: Let’s jump right in. When did you first realize that your body or your mind wasn’t functioning the same way other people’s seemed to?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That’s a good question. Looking back, it probably started really young—maybe around 14. As far as openly realizing it, I’d say in my 20s, when I started dealing with self-harm and these random episodes where I could stay up for days.
April Aramanda: Okay. Yeah.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That was the first time I noticed something was definitely not right. That was one illness I was dealing with.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Then a few years later, I started having random, debilitating pain. It started in my wrist.
April Aramanda: Okay. Right.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: At first, I thought maybe I was overexercising. No big deal. Then as the years progressed into my late 20s, the pain got worse. It got so bad I had to go to the hospital because I was swollen and in so much pain—and they couldn’t tell me what was wrong.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Those were the two times in my life where I was like, “Something is not going right in my body. I’m having pain that doesn’t make sense… and no one has answers for me.”
April Aramanda: So many of us know what that feels like. Let’s jump back first to your teenage years and early 20s—the mental health side. What was that season like day-to-day? Were you constantly down and wanting to self-harm, or was it more of a roller coaster?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: In my teenage years, it was more of a roller coaster. It wasn’t every day that I was sad. I was able to function, I just felt this deep “something doesn’t feel right.” A deep sense of, “I’m not okay.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I was in high school, so you function through it. You carry it every day. It’s like a chain attached to you, and you’re still doing life—softball, step club, science club—whatever you’re involved in. You’re going through the motions while carrying all of that.
April Aramanda: When did you receive a diagnosis—something that gave you a chance to take steps toward breathing again?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Honestly, I feel like I got to a point where I was able to hide it pretty well. A lot of us with mental health disorders do. I was very high-functioning. I wasn’t diagnosed until I was 21.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: The self-harm started around 14. I got to a place where I wasn’t doing it often anymore, and I thought, “Okay, this is healed,” because I could function.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: At 21, I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was also diagnosed with chronic PTSD.
April Aramanda: Mm. Yeah.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It was heartbreaking. It gave me answers—like why I could stay up for days, why I didn’t need sleep, why I felt so energized. It gave me clarity, and at the same time it put a label on me, and I was like… “This is what’s wrong with me. This is what’s been going on all these years.”
April Aramanda: Mental health has that stigma with labels—like “Great, now I have a label.” Then with chronic illness, a diagnosis can feel like a lifeline. It’s interesting when you’re living with both.
April Aramanda: Let’s jump over to the chronic illness side. What were your official diagnoses—one or two or fifty, I don’t know.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Right. So like I said, it started with wrist pain. I thought it was from exercise—I was hitting the boxing bag at the gym a lot. I assumed that must be it.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It progressively got worse. Then my whole arm started hurting. Then my hands would swell when I ate certain things. It kept progressing, and I was like, “Okay, something is wrong.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It got so bad one day I couldn’t even walk. My brother had to carry me—I was 24 or around that age—and I had to go to the ER because I couldn’t walk.
April Aramanda: I know.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Doctors started running tests. Then I moved from the East Coast to the West Coast. The doctor out there had my file—they sent it because I was transitioning to a different healthcare system.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: He started investigating and diagnosed me with lupus—around 2021 or 2022.
April Aramanda: Okay.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That diagnosis didn’t hit me like the mental health one. It was different. I felt like, “I have answers now.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Then I kept getting flare-ups and they were like, “Here’s hydroxychloroquine,” which is the autoimmune medication they put so many people on.
April Aramanda: Yep.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: They basically gave me that and said, “We’ll watch your symptoms and pray nothing else gets involved.” The first five years of lupus is usually when you find out how things are going to go.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It gave me answers and hope, then it was like, “Okay… now what?” Doctors weren’t writing out a nutrition plan. Nobody was saying, “Do this and it will help.” It was more like: “You have lupus. Your joints get involved. That’s why you can’t walk, can’t move, can’t button your shirt.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: During flares, I couldn’t even hold my kids because I was in so much pain. One time I went to the ER swollen and they gave me a strong pain medication to bring it down to a tolerable level.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: A lot of people with chronic illness are in pain and doctors are like, “Here are pain meds.” And it’s like… how do I keep this from happening again?
April Aramanda: It can be a crapshoot finding someone who helps you prevent flares. You mentioned food plays a huge role in your flares. When did you start noticing that pattern?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I went to an event with my brother and ate steak and chocolate cake and chocolate muffins… all these things I don’t eat like that anymore. I had one of the worst flare-ups ever.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I hadn’t had a flare in a few weeks, then I ate all that and ended up in the ER with swollen hands. That was probably the first time I thought, “Okay, maybe there’s something here.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I dismissed it for a while and thought, “If I eat healthy-ish, I’ll be okay.” It didn’t really hit me until 2023 when my now-husband suggested I look into carnivore.
April Aramanda: Of course he did. (I’m kidding.) Did you try it then?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Yeah. I was having flares, they kept increasing meds, adjusting doses—same cycle. I was like, “What do I have to lose?”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I cut out processed food completely and jumped in. I noticed I felt good in the first few days. I didn’t really get the irritability people talk about—the keto flu, sugar withdrawals. Maybe a little.
April Aramanda: Did your husband?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Probably more than me. And with bipolar, mood stuff can overlap sometimes.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Something that irritates me is people blaming every bad mood on bipolar. That’s not the cause of every single thing in my life. Bipolar has specific symptoms.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: With the diet, I started noticing: no flares month after month. Six months—no flares. My doctor asked what I was doing.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I told him I cut out processed foods. No fruit. Nothing packaged. I ate eggs, ground beef, fish, chicken, and olive oil.
April Aramanda: One-ingredient foods.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Exactly. My rheumatologist—who’s been in the field 20+ years—was amazed I had no flares for six months.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Time kept going. I stayed strict and committed. A year went by with no flares, and I was like, “I don’t care what the doctors say. There’s something to this food thing and autoimmune disease.”
April Aramanda: You’re not the first person I’ve heard say that—especially with lupus and carnivore.
April Aramanda: Chronic illness is still chronic, even if you manage symptoms so well it looks like it’s gone for a long time. That’s huge.
April Aramanda: Let’s talk about the “you look fine” thing. You really do look fine now, and you hardly ever flare. What does it feel like to look fine on the outside while not feeling fine on the inside? You can answer from the chronic illness side, mental health side, or both.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That’s a really good question. I feel like I’ve always been what I call a “parent pleaser.” I went out of my way to do everything my parents wanted.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That played a role in how mental illness looked for me and how I handled it. I was focused on pleasing people, especially my parents, not on navigating the illness. Not on asking: “Where is Natasha in this? How does Natasha live with this diagnosis?”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I wasted a lot of time—not taking my meds, going here and there, trying to be everything—until I got to a place in my mid-20s where I was like, “I can’t keep being hospitalized. This cannot be my life.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I got serious about change and medication. They tried me on so many meds—like a lot of people with chronic illness experience. They throw things at you and see what works.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It wasn’t until I admitted: “These are my symptoms. This is the diagnosis. How do I live with this and still have a good life?”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: People expect me to be fine. My parents and family have always been like, “You’re fine. Your life is great. Great husband, great kids, career—what do you mean?”
April Aramanda: A million things to be thankful for, so no problems allowed.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: And even now, I’m going through grief. I lost my sister not too long ago, and I had a miscarriage not too long ago.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Even with that—on top of mental health and chronic illness—people still expect me to be fine.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: My parents and I have grown a lot and they give me space now. People on the outside are like, “You have everything. Why are you sad? What do you mean you’re depressed?”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: And I’m like, “Because you don’t see me behind closed doors.” You don’t see me on the floor crying. You don’t see me texting 988 because I need someone to talk to. You don’t see me praying and asking God for healing.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: You see me doing things, and you assume I’m fine. And yes, I can function, and I also still deal with pain sometimes, fatigue sometimes, depressive episodes sometimes.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I believe I’m in the process of healing. It’s still something I’m carrying day by day—trying to find what helps in my diet, my spiritual life, how I show up.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I want to be authentic. If someone asks how I’m doing—sometimes I’m not okay. You asked.
April Aramanda: It’s their fault for asking. I’m saying.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I’ve learned: show up authentically how you need to. Faking makes depression worse. It intensifies symptoms—especially with mental health—when you’re overdoing it to meet people’s expectations of who they think you should be.
April Aramanda: I agree. Have you ever questioned yourself because people minimized what you were feeling? Like: “Do I really have bipolar? Do I really have lupus?” Did it ever make you doubt yourself?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: In a way—when I struggled with self-esteem. I’ve heard, “If you were stronger, you could get through it,” from loved ones when my symptoms were really bad.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It made me question: “Am I weak? Is that why I’m depressed? Is that why I self-harm? Is that why I feel empty?”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I questioned whether it was real or whether I was being dramatic.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: And I think my symptoms came out the way they did because I was trying so hard to please people and not letting myself be where I was. I was fighting myself: “You want me to show up like this? Fine—I’ll show up,” even when I had nothing left.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That made my mental health worse.
April Aramanda: It does. And based on what you’ve said, I’m guessing you grew up in the church?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Yeah, pretty much.
April Aramanda: Same. Depending on the kind of church, mental health can be treated like a problem because you can’t see it. It creates stigma, and people question themselves: “Do I not have enough faith? Did I not pray enough? Am I not strong enough?”
April Aramanda: You can have mental health struggles and still love God. You can have chronic illness and still love God. God doesn’t always take it away. That’s a whole other episode.
April Aramanda: So what did all of this do to your relationship with God through the process—and where are you now?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: In my teenage years, I was in and out of church. My parents divorced and left the church we grew up in. We were kind of going, kind of not.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I felt far away from God. I didn’t include Him. I’m being completely transparent.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: When I was self-harming as a teenager, God wasn’t part of my life. I was also in the military, and I think some things that happened exacerbated symptoms—that’s why I got the diagnosis when I did.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Even in my 20s, I felt like I was seeking God, but I was really seeking what I thought was best for me. Anytime I felt better, I stopped taking meds. It was all about what I wanted.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I think in 2021 I got baptized and recommitted my life to God. I still knew I was ill. I still knew I had healing to do. I started seeking God in ways I never had before.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I found a church where I was living at the time. I’d been searching, and something kept being off. Then I found my people, and it felt like God saying, “This is home.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I started doing Bible studies, getting in the Word, getting understanding of who God is and what He wants for us.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I did counseling—natural counseling—and also spiritual counseling with our pastor. I realized: I’m going to be stuck in this cycle forever if God isn’t part of it, because I’m doing it in my own strength.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I wanted to fully surrender—not “I go to church on Sundays, so I’m surrendered.” I wanted to give God everything—talents, money, everything.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: So I got to a place where I was like, “Okay God. Yes. Yes to your will. Yes to your way.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Over the last few months my relationship with God has gotten even stronger because of the loss and miscarriage—knowing God knows best. Despite what I go through, He has always shown up for me.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Even when He was outside of the picture, He showed up for me. Before I left for the military, I got into a really bad accident. The car flipped over. I truly believe God protected me, even when I wasn’t seeking Him.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It became clear: surrender and worship is more about how you live than what you say.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I still have bad days. I still struggle with grief, irritability, and fatigue sometimes. I know God is a healer. I know I am healed from where I started.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: God has brought me far using different methods: acupuncture, EMDR therapy, therapy, counseling with our pastor—different ways God has stepped in and used people to help me heal.
April Aramanda: EMDR is no joke. I love it and hate it in the moment. If you’ve never looked into EMDR, especially with trauma, it can help.
April Aramanda: What’s something you wish churches understood better about mental health?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: You can still have a depressed day or a depressed episode and still love God and still be walking with God. You can’t say, “You’re not a Christ follower because you’re depressed.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: We have accounts in the Bible where people were sad—Jesus wept, Paul was in jail. We experience emotions.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: The determining factor is: who or what are you reaching for in those moments? Are you reaching for God, or reaching for an addiction, swiping, whatever?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I wish churches would acknowledge more: you can be sick and still love God, still walk with God, still be used by God.
April Aramanda: Yes. Even the two of us right here—we’re still sick and still walking with God.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That’s true. And I believe in healing. I believe my healing is coming. Healing looks different for everybody.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Healing might not mean a test is clear and the disease is “gone.” It might look like not having flare-ups for 25 years. Healing can look different and come in different ways.
April Aramanda: Sometimes healing can be physical. I’d love that. We all would. And healing can also be emotional and mental. Chronic illness does a number on us internally.
April Aramanda: And there’s also the final healing—no more pain.
April Aramanda: You’ve talked a little about creative outlets. How does creativity help you process what your body can’t hold?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It manifests as a physical problem. You’re right.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: For me, writing has always been my go-to. Even as a little girl I wrote poems. They were silly, but looking back, that was my brain trying to process what was going on.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: In my 20s, when I wrote my first book—ten years ago this October—that was me trying to put the pain somewhere.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Back then, God was over there and I was over here. I was carrying pain on my own. Writing was where I could put it down—telling my story in a poetic, storytelling way.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: God gave me a gift to express things so people connect. That writing was my freedom—then that freedom led me to God, which is true freedom.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Writing let me breathe, even if only for a few seconds before the waves came back. Those moments mattered.
April Aramanda: Creativity is massively underrated for healing—especially emotional healing. What would you tell someone who’s numb and needs a creative way to get this out of their body, even if they can’t talk to someone yet?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: First, acknowledge where you are. If you’re numb, write that down. Paint it. Sing it. Whatever connects with you.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Find something that gives you joy and take that pain and energy and put it into something. Healing looks different for everyone. You have to find what fulfills you in that way.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: What has God given you that helps you get that pain and those feelings out?
April Aramanda: And we all have a way of being creative, even if we’re not artsy. I can’t draw. My husband can. Some people build programs. Some people work on cars. It’s all creative.
April Aramanda: Creativity can help you name what you feel and get it outside of you, where you can see it.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Yeah—and sometimes it’s hard to sit with emotions. The other day I wrote a new piece called “The Body Keeps the Score,” inspired by the book.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: You have to sit with shame, guilt, misery—those uncomfortable things—and push it out. Say, “This doesn’t have to live here.”
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That’s hard. We’d rather numb ourselves than feel it. Writing that piece was hard, and it was freeing.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: God doesn’t want us in bondage to pain and misery and what happened to us. Tapping into creativity is important. God put that in us.
April Aramanda: Creative expression can make it easier to sit with an emotion because it becomes a little outside of you, while still being part of you.
April Aramanda: As we wrap up, what’s one thing people get wrong about mental illness?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: It depends on the diagnosis, because some have more stigma—like schizophrenia. I’m a nurse, and I’ve worked in behavioral health. The stigma doesn’t match what’s really going on.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Give people a chance. Do your research. Don’t judge someone because they have bipolar or depression.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Don’t assume you know their personality or how they act. Body chemistry and symptoms can look different for each person.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: For some people, a manic episode looks like staying up, gambling, and doing all that. For me, a manic episode can look like getting everything on my to-do list done.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: You can’t assume it presents the same way. Give people a chance.
April Aramanda: I know you don’t have many flare days anymore, but what comforts you on flare days?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: If I do have a flare, I’m like, “What did I do different?” I start going down the list. I’m like, “No. I’m not going back.”
April Aramanda: So you don’t let yourself be comforted—you go detective mode. I get it.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I try to figure out what I did wrong. At the same time, sometimes I’m tired and it’s a mini flare—fatigue is common with autoimmune disease.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: I try to give myself grace and say, “It’s okay that I’m here today. It’s okay that I’m tired today.”
April Aramanda: Is there one sentence you wish someone had said to you earlier in your life?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: God has not forgotten you.
April Aramanda: Love that. If there’s a woman listening right now who feels unseen, spiritually confused, trying to figure all this out—what would you say to her? What’s the most important thing she needs to hear?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: That she’s loved. That she was created for a purpose. Her pain isn’t pointless. God sees her. He knows her. He made her.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: A lot of times people get lost in the noise of the world and forget what God says about them and who He made them to be.
April Aramanda: Natasha, where can people connect with you, get your book, and find what you’re doing these days?
Natasha Minier-Robinson: They can find me at natashaarrobinson.com. I’m also on Instagram at Natasha__rob. And my books are on Amazon.
April Aramanda: Perfect. All of that will be in the show notes so you can grab the links and get to know Natasha more.
April Aramanda: Thank you, Natasha, for joining us today—for talking about mental health, God, chronic illness, and how all of it fits together. I appreciate you being here.
Natasha Minier-Robinson: Thank you for having me.
April Aramanda: We’ll see you next time.