Overcomer

Joy Unspeakable

Life is never easy. And that painful truth hit home for Mandisa with blunt force during the last three years. While fans and industry professionals wondered where the Grammy winning singer had disappeared to, Mandisa silently withdrew from the spotlight and was even hiding from family and friends.  She had watched a dear friend lose her battle with breast cancer, leaving behind a husband and two young sons.  Suddenly, the world didn’t seem to make sense anymore.  Reeling from the pain, she isolated herself from everyone, gained back the weight she had fought so hard to lose, and sank into a deep depression.

 “To be honest, that’s not how I thought things were going to happen,” she says of her friend Kisha’s passing. “I just shut down, isolated, and started turning to my old friend food for comfort.  My loved ones were reaching out and I would ignore their phone calls and text messages. It got to the point where I had friends who, out of love and concern, came to my house banging on the door and I just put in some ear plugs and pretended I wasn't there. I was angry at the world.”

 Yet inside Mandisa was still the same woman who had encouraged a multitude of people from all walks of life with the triumphant hit anthem “Overcomer.”  “I still don’t have all the answers, but I’m in a better place now,” says Mandisa, who is working on her sixth album, due in May 2017.

These days she has more to say than ever.  One of the turning points in her battle with depression came when a circle of friends sought her out at a movie theater. When Mandisa walked out of the theater, she was surprised to see her car papered with stick-it notes from friends proclaiming their love and concern for her. This shocking sight was followed by her awareness that these friends had been sitting in the parking lot waiting for her for over three hours. The resulting "intervention" convinced her to go to counseling to deal with her grief, and helped bring Mandisa back from the darkness that had enveloped her since Kisha’s death.

Mandisa is back with a renewed passion for her music and a willingness to be totally transparent and vulnerable about her journey.  She’s reconnecting with people, losing the weight she regained during her depression, and writing and recording such potent songs as “Prove Me Wrong” where she lays bare her soul and voices her questions, “I’m Still Here (The Best is Yet to Come),” a comeback song that proclaims that she's still here and not giving up and “Unfinished,” saying…

“Not scared to say it; I used to be the one; Preaching it to you; That you could overcome; I still believe it; But it ain’t easy; Cause that world I painted; Where things just all work out; It started changing; And I started having doubts; And it got me so down”

“My hope is that people will be on this journey with me,” she says. “When I began, I was in a really dark place, but where I am today is so much better and so much lighter!”