5 things to know about GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley
4. Credits her faith with helping her overcome PTSD following the Charleston shooting
During her conversation with Faris, Haley cited the 2015 mass shooting at a predominantly African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, as a factor that led her to grow in faith: “It was so painful and it was so hard that there was no one or nothing that was going to get me through that but God.”
Haley discussed how she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder following the shooting: “I felt so guilty because I wasn’t in that room where the murders took place. But that’s when I learned that you can get PTSD by just knowing too much or too much of the emotion or being around it. I knew too many of the details, I knew too many of the people we had lost and had gotten too close to it.”
“I would … do a press conference, come back into the office and I would cry. I would go home and I’d get in the bed and I would cry. I stopped eating. I lost 20 pounds. I was so desperate and at that time, that’s when my physician said, ‘Look, you’re showing all the signs of PTSD.’”
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Haley credited her faith with enabling her to turn the corner in that difficult point of her life: “I remember praying to God, saying, ‘I don’t know how to get through this, I need you.’ And had it not been for my faith, had it not been for God touching me and saying ‘I’ve got you,’ I would not have gotten through that. I know that without a question.”
Ryan Foley is a reporter for The Christian Post. He can be reached at: [email protected]
