Louie Giglio and Josh Howerton get real about battling anxiety — ‘I thought I was going to die’

There was a time when Josh Howerton — BlazeTV host of “Live Free” and pastor of Lakepointe Church — thought anxiety attacks were “a Gen Z way to say you had a bad day.”

But when a crushing season of anxiety threatened to cripple him, his perspective changed.

“I've never experienced a hell like that,” he tells Louie Giglio, pastor of Passion City Church in Atlanta.

Giglio has had his own journey with anxiety — a journey that was so significant, he wrote an entire book about it. “Putting an X Through Anxiety” is the longtime pastor’s account of his battle with anxiety as well as practical and spiritual tools to help readers understand anxiety’s roots, address anxious thoughts, and find freedom and rest in Jesus, the Prince of Peace.

On this episode of “Live Free,” Howerton and Giglio address the mental condition that now has millions of young people in its grip.

“I was like you, you know, when people talked about they suffered depression or anxiety, I was sympathetic, I think, but definitely not compassionate and understanding until I thought I was going to die one night,” Giglio tells Howerton.

“I was having these physical symptoms that were crazy ... heart blowing up, then face totally numb, arm totally numb, and legs convulsing,” he recounts.

After a hospital visit and some medication, Giglio assumed everything would “be OK” again, but the trial was just beginning.

“I think I had a nervous breakdown. So I don't think I really had an anxiety attack or a panic attack. I think it was way more significant than that,” he says.

“I cracked, and I ended up in a heap in the corner for about four months of life. I was out of commission. I mean, I didn't go to work. I didn't go to meetings. I didn't preach. I didn't think I was ever going to be normal again, and I thought I was losing my mind.”

But God was faithful to deliver him from this darkness, he says. “By the grace of God, I found my way out. He led me out. Worship led me out.”

Part of Giglio’s recovery involved speaking the truth to himself — and that’s one of the pieces of advice he gives to people struggling with anxiety.

“You have to take the mic and say, ‘God is with me, and I am not crazy. God did not make me crazy. God is with me,”’ he says.

Giglio shares that during his crushing season of anxiety, he would wake up every night at 2:00 a.m. feeling like an “elephant [was] on his chest.” No amount of advice from others could lift the dark cloud, but preaching to himself did.

“To the Lord, I said, ‘You didn't heal me yesterday, and You didn't heal me today, and I don't know if You're going to heal me tomorrow, but I do know You're a healer ... I'm going to praise You not because You healed me. I want to praise You because You're a healer,”’ he recounts to Howerton.

Out of this dark night of the soul, a song was born.

“This little spontaneous song dropped into my heart, and I started singing it, and it was like a little pinhole, Josh, in the canopy of the darkness. And a tiny ray of light came in that night,” says Giglio, calling worship “a weapon.”

“I didn't wake up the next day, take a shower, put on a suit, and go to dinner with friends, but I had a song the next night at 2:00, and eventually the song overtook the cloud.”

That song eventually became “I Lift My Hands” — a Grammy nominated song recorded by Christian music giant Chris Tomlin.

“I went on tour with Chris not long after that, and we were doing basketball arenas, and every night I would stand up and tell that story,” says Giglio.

“And I am telling you, Josh, people did not expect a Christian speaker at the concert to talk about falling in a hole of depression, and I was just seeing this wave of freedom go across people.”

To hear more of Howerton's and Giglio’s personal battles with depression and anxiety, watch the episode above.

“Live Free with Josh Howerton” is available on BlazeTV+, YouTube, and major podcast platforms. Join BlazeTV+ and start watching Josh today at blazetv.com/JOSH. Use promo code JOSH to get $20 off your subscription.