THE ED MYLETT SHOW - Mental health, suicide, and rebuilding after a tragedy - With Kayla Stoecklein

Episode Date: October 15, 2019

You are NEVER alone. You will never forget this conversation This may be the most important interview we have ever released Kayla is one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. She is the wife of Pastor Andrew Stoecklein who died by suicide just over a year ago. In this deeply emotional interview, we hear Kayla's story of losing her best friend, husband, and father of her beautiful children to mental illness. She’s honest about the time before and after this tragic loss and what it was like to tell her 3 beautiful boys that daddy is gone. Nearly 800,000 people die by suicide in the world each year, that’s one death every 40 seconds and 90% of suicide attempts are impulsive. Kayla discusses with great emotion the impact that this tragedy has had on her family and on her. She also discusses in detail different strategies that should be employed when someone is suffering from mental illness There’s a stigma around mental illness, especially towards people of faith. We often think that suicide is selfish. Kayla will tell you that this is a college falsehood and something she is passionate about correcting. Kayla is very raw and honest about her experience and the grief that sets in each and every day. She also shares what she wishes she would have said and done differently which I believe will help you or someone you love that is dealing with this. This interview is near and dear to my heart and I was beyond moved by the superhuman power this amazing woman has, she is evidence to me that God can give you the strength to keep going through the hardest of times. Mental Illness is a broad term. Just like physical illnesses and injuries, there is a wide spectrum. Physical injuries can range everywhere from a broken bone to something as serious as cancer or a heart attack. Mental illness can range from something like anxiety to anger all the way to clinical depression, bipolar disorder, etc. etc. it is a very broad term The truth is, most people I know suffer from some form of anxiety, fear, anger, all the way to depression and some cases of severe depression. There are so many things you can take from this conversation, but the most important thing I want you guys to hear is that you are NEVER alone. You are LOVED and SUPPORTED by so many people, more than you know. If you are struggling or just need someone to talk to please call suicide hotline [phone] or you can text home 471741 for crisis help. If you guys can do anything for me, it would be that you not only watch/listen to this video but to please SHARE it as I know it could save someone's life. Let’s break the stigma together and continue the conversation. God Bless you all.    

This is the Emerald Show. Welcome back to Max out everybody. I'm Ed Mylett. Today's a very special show that I think you part and remember the rest of your life. So we're going to talk today about kind of a sensitive subject. We're going to talk today about kind of a sensitive subject. We're going to talk today about mental health and even suicide today. And my guest has been somebody that I've been aware of for a while now. And I can truly tell you that I'm honored that you're here today. It's really a blessing. And so this is K-list step-line, everybody. Thank you for being here.

Thanks for having me. It's so great. And I know today I just want to first acknowledge your courage. When you all begin to hear the story today, you'll understand why this is such a courageous, strong, bold, great Christian woman. So let's start with the story because we're going to instantly begin to help people and change their life right now. But why don't you tell everybody a little bit about what took place with Drew, your husband, and everybody that doesn't know this, Drew was a 30 year old man, pastor of a church, and took his own life a little over a year and a half ago. Right, yeah.

And they have three young boys, and so this is obviously an in issue that's very sensitive to so many people. So what happened? What happened through and what happened overall? Yeah. So Andrew was healthy. You know, Andrew and I met in college in 2008. And he was healthy. He was driven. He was running fast, running hard. He knew where he was headed. He started working in ministry at only 19 years old. He was a junior high pastor at his parents' church. And he loved the church passionate about ministry and the kind of guy that was driven for excellence. So he was going to do whatever it took

to put in the hours needed to put in and be there for his team and lead strong. And a few years later we were married in 2010 and in 2011 his dad was diagnosed with leukemia and his dad was a lead pastor of our church. So Andrew stepped up even more. We have pictures of him and his dad sitting in the hospital side by side with their laptops open, planning message series, scheduling guest speakers, and Andrew was helping lead the church at a very young age. And we did that for about four years. His dad battled the chemia, in and out of the hospital, remission, relapse, remission, relapse, he was in a wheelchair at one point and it was a really hard journey.

But Andrew was so faithful and he would step up and he would show up and he would be there on Sunday last minute too. You know, Paul Messendred was back pocket and deliver it. And unfortunately in 2015, his dad ended up passing away. And a few months before that, we had this epic service where we actually wheeled Andrew's dad onto the stage in a wheelchair and his dad was holding this baton that was engraved with Andrew's name and the date. And he handed Andrew the official baton of leadership of the church

at 26 years old. So very young but gifted and called and so just talented and it was very evident to our church. Our church was fully supportive of this position and this decision and he was just so gifted. So his dad ended up passing away and Andrew's heart was for the church. So he didn't take much time off to grieve. He took about two weeks off to grieve and then he came back and did a series on heaven. And he just wanted to lead the church through their grief and through their pain and so he didn't take a lot of time for himself. And that's kind of just how it was for the next three years. He was running fast, running hard, leading strong. We were adding kids to our family. I mean kids and his father, I saw Dave preach several times.

His father was unbelievable. And so he was this sort of iconic figure in that church too. I didn't know that. So there was really no grieving period through those four years. And his dad was his hero, like best friend, mentor, looked up to him at time. It was a great loss for a church and for him personally a very great loss. So you're having babies, he takes the church over. Just that alone. I mean I want Joe

Osteen taking over his father's church and just that alone was a huge thing to take on at such a young age and for you was a young family too. So did things begin to get difficult even during that time? Yeah, so leading a church, leading any organization at the top, there's difficulties, you know, there's emails that come in, there's staff issues, it all falls on your shoulders, but Andrew was caring really well through and learning a ton, learning so much, I kept telling him to have grace for himself, because he was so driven for excellence, it was hard for him to relax, and it was hard for him to accept some of those blows that would come his way but basically in the fall of 2017 is when things started to change

We had a stalker issue in our family that really sparked the sense of fear in Andrew and the fear sparked panic attacks And he started having very very debilitating panic attacks about two to three times a week. And I don't know if you've ever had a panic attack or ever witnessed a panic attack, but it's like this full body takeover. I could tell just by looking in his eyes that he was in the middle of a panic attack,

you could see the fear in his eyes. And he would tremble and he would shake, and he would paste around the house, and he'd be laying on the floor in the fetal position and crying and doing anything he could do to try to get it to go away. So he was seeing doctors, you know, we were seeing the right specialists to try to see what was wrong with him and at first he thought it was his thyroid. He had struggled with hyperthyroid issues in the past so he thought maybe this is just a flera and if you google hyperthyroid he met like all the criteria. Panic attacks is one of the

criteria for hyperthyroid and he had lost a bunch of weight too. And so we thought okay it's thyroid, easy, kind of fiction, we'll find the right medication, find the right doctor, but as we pursued testing we came to find out it wasn't his thyroid and Andrew's panic attacks were getting worse instead of getting better. They got so bad that he actually was on the bathroom floor just minutes before he was supposed to deliver the first of 70-ster services in 2018. Will they be more pronounced closer to having to be on stage in preach? It was mostly at night when he'd try to sleep because when they would come, yeah.

And then they started happening more during the day when he'd be preparing for messages or before he was gonna go on stage like any little thing could just throw him into a panic attack. So right before these Easter services, it was really bad. Really bad. And I don't know how, but by the grace of God,

he was able to get on stage. I don't even know how. I remember him walking on the stage and I'm standing in the green room and I'm just crying. Because I can't believe he's walking on to the stage or'm standing in the green room and I'm just crying Because I can't believe he's walking on to the stage I just saw him in his office a few minutes before like completely decide himself But he delivered all the Easter services and then the next week he landed in the hospital And we all decided like enough is enough. We can't live like this anymore

He can't live like this anymore. He's suffering. We got to to get to the bottom of why these panic attacks are happening. This is not okay. So we put them on a sabbatical. We had the board of directors over after we got home from the hospital. We all decided this guy needs to rest. He's been running fast. He's been running hot. He's been everything for everybody. It's time for him to actually care for himself and take a break. And we didn't put a time limit on it. We didn't tell the church he was going to come back at a certain day. We didn't even tell him. We put no pressure on him. Just heal and rest and take as much time as you need. So you started his sabbatical in April of 2018. And a few weeks later we went and saw

a psychiatrist and that was when he was diagnosed with depression. And I was shocked. I mean I'll never forget sitting in the psychiatrist office and the psychiatrist told me your husband has depression. And I was shocked. I mean, I'll never forget sitting in the psychiatrist office and the psychiatrist told me your husband has depression. And I was so shocked that I didn't say anything. We just walked like silently to the car and I slid into the hot car and I turned to him and I said, how did we end up here? The strong, resilient man that like for me

was like superman, like he was invincible. He had carried our church and our family through so much and been strong for so many people. And I was shocked that he was invincible. He had carried our church and our family through so much and been strong for so many people and I was shocked that he had depression and he was actually relieved. He was relieved to finally have a diagnosis. Do you think there's any, I'm going to ask you some questions about it. Do you think particularly when somebody has faith that maybe people around them or themselves may think, well this is just some lack of faith you have or you know if you were really strong in your faith and were a believer, how could you be depressed?

Do you think there's a huge stigma with faith and mental illness? I really believe that there is and I think we pull versus at a context to back that up and say you know if you don't be anxious about anything, pray about everything and and God's going to take away all your fear and you don't need to be afraid and we pull these verses out, but it's not helpful. It's a real emotion, it's a real feeling and depression is actually a real physical illness. It's a chemical imbalance in our brain, so it's not the result of not having enough faith. Isn't it interesting that his father, I think everyone needs to hear this, his father, who had leukemia, correct? Nobody thought that that physical illness that Dave had

was somehow connected to a lack of faith, but when someone's afflicted with the illness, or someone's form of mental illness, oftentimes we think we just fight through it, or just simply pray about it, and certainly prayer helps, but also there's a medical fix that can be had or support for something like leukemia,

a broken leg, or something has happened to you emotionally, mentally, psychologically as well. So important, it's not a lack of your faith. So you've taken this break, back to the story. You've taken this break. There's a diagnosis, you're wondering how you got there. He's relieved. Okay.

Yeah, so he battled, you know, he battled depression and anxiety, he had a lot of anxiety from April to August. He battled with depression. And I really never knew who I was going to get coming out of the bedroom if he was going to be happy, if he was going to be sad, or if he was going to be mad. The depression manifested itself in ways that I didn't expect.

And we were doing everything we knew to do to get him to help he needed. He was seeing a psychiatrist every other week. He was on medication. We were seeing counselor together for two hours every single week. He took solo trips by himself to go spend time with God and pray and be in solitude.

We took a two week road trip, just the two of us, which is like really hard to do when you have a house full of kids. But we were doing everything we knew to do to get him better. And by the end of July, but we were doing everything we knew to do to get him better. And by the end of July, the doctors actually thought that going back to work was the next right step for him. They thought too much time away from work would actually make his depression worse.

Can we stay there for a second? Yeah. What I'm sure everybody heard this too, because I heard some things about this. It's important to know that he did try medication. That this wasn't just some, I think sometimes people think, oh, they just, you just, they thought they were gonna pray their way out of this to some extent. And of course, we're looking for God's favor, we're looking for blessing anytime we get,

we're looking for grace, we're looking for relief, but this is a family that also treated this medically. I'm interested because he had not had an extended period of time of being what you'd consider well. Were they changing the medications? Were they trying to find the right cause oftentimes it takes a while to find the combination that's necessary for someone. And again everybody that's with this severe level of mental illness. We're not going right in the medication because somebody's feeling a little bit down or depressed. That's

not the right solution for everybody. But were they still playing with that at that time? Was the on medication when he went back to work? Yes, they actually diagnosed Andrew on the low end at the spectrum of depression. So he was on very low dose of medication and you know what? Medication can have a huge stigma around it and people can blame the medication for a lot of things to say well if he wasn't taking the medication then he wouldn't have died by suicide and Medication causes this and this and this.

And no one should take medication. And then there's not a one size fits all approach when it comes to mental health. And sometimes medication works and sometimes it doesn't. And it's just all gray. It's not black and white. Can we stay there for a second? Because you're clearly a farmworm expert on this, having lived through it than I am. But what you just said is so important.

Medication is not the solution in many cases, and some cases medication makes it better, and in some cases you have to watch this closely, the medication can make symptoms worse if it's the wrong medication, the wrong amounts, the wrong combination. So this area is something we're all learning about and how to treat mental illness when it's necessary. It's just almost like with the torrentendent, is this required surgery,? Does it require rehab? And the same thing is true in mental health as well. And I'll never forget his psychiatrist telling us we know a drop in the ocean of the brain. There's just so much we don't know about the brain and about the mind.

It's such a mystery and that's why you just have to try and figure out what works for you and what works for you isn't going to work for me. Something different will work for me. So we have to have so much empathy what works for you and what works for you isn't going to work for me, something different will work for me. So we have to have so much empathy and grace for people that are struggling and be okay with their decisions that they make to get help. And that's why he was seen as psychiatrists so often was to check in and make sure, hey, how are you feeling? Are you having suicidal thoughts?

Is the medication working? Do we need to try something else? Like, it's very important. So you were doing all of the things that would seem that a family or an individual should be doing to treat this. Perhaps there was a misdiagnosis though, right? We don't know. We'll never know.

Yeah, I don't know right now. And so he decides ultimately to go back to work. Right. And yeah, so he went back to work on August 1st of 2018 and hit the ground running and gave two powerful messages on mental illness. He called the series Hot Mess, and he was using his own experience with depression and anxiety as the example.

He gave out the suicide hotline number, gave statistics on mental health, statistics on suicide, like he knew all the facts. He was quoting, you know, books and scripture and websites and he knew what he was up against and he was helping a lot of people. I mean our church was flooded, people were sitting on the floor on the given the standing ovation, they were so happy he was back and headed into the third week. He just had a really awful day, there was a trigger and unfortunately the next day is when he attempted suicide and we were completely shocked, we were completely stunned. We thought

he was getting better. We thought that we were on the up and up. We thought that he was, you know, back to work. We're doing the right things, taking the next steps. Like, he's going to get better. And so we were shocked and rattled and completely devastated and blindsided. And he ended up in the hospital. He was on life support. the doctors ran all the necessary tests, and basically said there was nothing that they could do. I'm so sorry. And the next day, I went to be with Jesus. Yeah. I'm so sorry.

Was there anything? Sorry. Yeah. It's okay. Was there anything the day of that you saw that you could share with people you thought was a tremendous trigger or not a specific trigger, but there was some behavior you saw within say hours prior that you would warn people that you observed that they would look for or was there nothing like that?

Anger. I'll never forget the night before Andrew was upset. We were all surrounding him. You know, we were right there. We were right there. The way that I describe his death is like a kid drowning in a swimming pool at a birthday party. Like he was surrounded by support and surrounded by love and we just missed it.

We were, he was surrounded. But I'll never forget the night before as we were surrounding him and there for him. He said anger is fear. And he had this fear in him that started with the panic attacks and that was still in there and I would ask him what that fear was and he would never really be able to articulate what he was afraid of. But it was this fear and I still don't know what that fear was

but he had this anger and I still don't know what the fear was, but he had this anger and his depression and anxiety even manifested itself sometimes and angered on all the time. But definitely the day before it was that. And yeah, he had friends that stayed with him till the wee hours of the morning. We were there and we weren't checking on him. So it was just a short period of time that he was by himself. We were helping from a distance. Yeah I have to ask you how

How did this affect you? How did you respond when it initially happened? Where those moments like for the wife now the winner of this 30-year-old handsome Driven articulate blessed favorite, loving father of a man. What's it like for you in those moments? Shocked. Still shocked. The counselors told us the shock can take like five to eight years to wear off. So still shocked, completely shocked when it happened. Never saw it coming. Begging God. You know,

he laid in the hospital bed. I laid on the bed with him, holding him, playing some of the same songs. He was playing over the summer in our bedroom and begging God and telling God and bartering with God, telling him, no, not him. Like you can use him, you can use a story, imagine how many people you can help. So I was shocked, especially because we just lost his dad. I'm like, God, wouldn't allow him to die too. We just lost his dad a few years prior, like two lead pastors within three years,

a father and a son within three years, like so much loss, like shocked. And I'm still shocked. I still have to pinch myself and remind myself that this is my life. And this is my story and that really happens. Yeah. And then you know, I should just tell you that what you did pray for is happening.

Just not in the way that you must have wanted to be. God is using him. Right now, he's using him to reach millions of people. And you've been, you're amazing, which we're going to get to here in a little bit about just the unbelievable strength you've shown and good work you've already done. I have to ask you, did he, at some point in the, because I want people to look for any of the signs, anything they can do, those of you that are contemplating this, just remember this, these emotions that she's experiencing, these are the emotions that your family would be suffering through as well. So get help, go see somebody, talk to somebody, had he mentioned this is a possibility to you

during those months he had. Yeah, so I've actually read a blog about that. After it happened, I've been very open about it because I want to help people. He did mention suicide one time. I'm whenever forget sitting at the kitchen counter one night after the kids went to bed and we were having a conversation. And he's like, I was up last night, the kitchen counter one night after the kids went to bed and we were having a conversation

He's like I was up last night in the middle of the night He was looking at his orc chards at the kitchen counter and he told me that about killing himself and I Quickly responded like you could never do that to me and the boys like that's the most selfish thing You could ever do like I said the things you're not supposed to say but I was so tired I'd been taking care of our three boys and taking care of him for a whole summer that I was just tired and I wasn't healthy myself. But I didn't respond the right way,

and I wish that I would have taken it seriously. One of my biggest regrets is not taking that one admission. I feel like it was our only opportunity to know how bad it really was, and I just missed it. I asked him questions, I asked him if he had Googled it and he said no, I asked him how far he had thought about it and he said not very far. So I kind of just dismissed it like okay well he hasn't googled it, he hasn't really thought about it a lot, I think I felt ashamed. I think he probably felt ashamed talking about it as

well and now I've learned you know a lot more things that you're supposed to do in the appropriate way to respond. What do you think? Because when I hear you say that, that sounds pretty appropriate to me. And I hope you give yourself some forgiveness for that. Yeah. But if someone does have that conversation, what would you recommend they do say in a situation like that? I would say to listen, to talk less, and like lean in and listen more, to ask a ton of questions about

why they're feeling that way. What problem are you trying to solve through suicide? How often do you think about it? How would you do it? Like asking very specific questions and questions are powerful. Questions can change the game. Questions can offer solutions.

Maybe they'd never thought about before. And then just having empathy and understanding and empathy is different than sympathy. Sympathy says I care about your pain and empathy asks the question can I sit with you can I share in your pain can I I see that you're hurting how can I serve you how can I take some of that pain off your shoulders and put it on mine. Whoa thank you for that yeah so I wish I would have responded with more empathy and grace and understanding and the posture of, I don't know, I have no idea what it's like to live with depression and anxiety and suicidal thoughts.

Instead of thinking like, you would never do that. I think I just assumed he would never do it and it happened. I would say of everything you just said, because to me, it sounds as if you supported this man and loved him and everything. And you also were grieving days passing during those years as well. But I would say one thing to everybody that is important that you've asked someone like this in your life that I've just experienced. I think typically when

someone's got mental illness or they're depressed, I think the first few times there that way, we are rather empathetic, except it's an an illness which means this may be a long time it may be forever and I think at some point perhaps we need to guard our impatience with our fatigue about it. Would you agree with that? If it comes a point you're like okay we've been down this road we've done this and I think that's when you lose empathy this is someone struggling with a physical mental illness that they're suffering from. They don't want to have it. And I think oftentimes we forget that. You said something really powerful. I'm going to go that I want to

address and I'd like to ask you about the children's, if I can. But you said something about saying to him that that's a selfish act. And I completely agree with what you're about to say because I know your stance on this now. one of the things and I'm impregnating for this interview I had people say to me how could he be so selfish and I think it's one of the great tales of falsehoods that's drifted through time that somehow suicide is a selfish decision by somebody and you've corrected that. And I would like you to speak to that right now

because if anybody has the right to feel that way, it would be you. And even now during this time, you don't feel that way. What's your belief about whether that's a selfish choice or not? Yeah, so I do not believe the suicide selfish. I see the suicide as something that happened to Andrew. I don't see the suicide as a decision.

And actually, there's been studies done on a suicidal mind that show that a suicidal mind is incapable of making a rational decision. You're so out of your mind that I imagine, you don't even know what you're doing. And I don't know what it was like in those moments for him leading up to that. And so I just put it in the same category as a catastrophic accident, you know, and I don't think Andrew chose to die. And that's why the language is so

important. Things like committed suicide and killed himself and chose to take his own life. Like those are words that are not the right words to describe what happened. It's a word that's interesting. Yes, a committed is a word we attach to where it's committed to crime, or committed murder, committed to sin, and the word committed makes it feel like it's a decision. And if someone had a heart condition and had a heart attack, he wouldn't say they committed a heart attack, right?

And mental illness is a physical illness. It's the same thing. It's a physical illness. It's the suicide is the result of an underlying physical illness. So by saying, died by suicide instead of committed suicide, puts it in its right place and shows that it was because of a physical illness, not a decision. Here, amazing. And I appreciate that for me too. And 90% of suicides are impulsive. Or something that psychiatry shared with us as well. 90%. 90% This is important, everybody. So there's two audiences listening.

There's somebody who's ultimately going to deal in their life with someone in their family who has mental illness. That's one part of the audience, the largest part. Then there's the part of the audience who has some form of mental illness. Moderate, anxiety, all the way to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, severe depression. For those of you that are in the severe depression category that have contemplated suicide, although it's not a suicide, a selfish choice, it still causes tremendous pain to the

people that you love. And so you are, it's coming upon you to get all of the help, all of the resources, all of the support you need, so that what we're describing right now will never happen to your children, your spouse, your parents, and your life. And so I have to ask you about this because I want people to experience this. At some point you had to tell these three beautiful boys of yours, correct? How old were the boys at the time, and would you mind sharing with us just howling the world you end up having a conversation like that?

Yeah, they were five, four, and two. When he passed away, I just turned two and I just turned four. And I waited a week. So I instilled my brother-in-law, my boy's stayed with my dad, and I waited a week to tell them. There was just so much to process. And I just wanted to talk to the right people. I talked to child life specialists.

I wanted to be careful and really right people. I talked to child life specialists. I wanted to be careful and really feel ready when I told them. So I brought some friends to my house and actually cleaned out his stuff right away too. I wanted what I was sharing to match our environment. I didn't want them to walk in my room and see all of his stuff and be like, where's Daddy? Is he coming back? So I gave him each a fruit snack and sat him on the couch and told them, like remember how daddy was really sick because they had seen him. They knew he wasn't well. They knew he was going to the doctor a lot. They knew he was back in our bedroom a lot. He spent a lot of his time back in our bedroom through the

summer. So I told him, you know how daddy is really sick and daddy's been sleeping a lot. Well daddy got so sick he ended up in the hospital and daddy did something that caused him to die. And daddy died and daddy's been sleeping a lot. Well, Daddy got so sick he ended up in the hospital and Daddy did something that caused him to die. And Daddy died and Daddy's in heaven with Papa. And immediately when I said that my five-year-old got up and just walked into the kitchen, like he was needed to escape the moment. My other two went outside and played.

A lot of kids processed through play. But my oldest had lost his Papa. And so I think he knew what that what what that meant and he knew that daddy It wasn't gonna be coming back So I followed him into the kitchen and how did we both just left in the kitchen and Yeah, I spent the whole day Processing that and looking at pictures and talking about him and it's still it's gonna be a lifelong process for them Oh, of course you How are they doing?

They're doing okay. You know, they're so resilient. You wouldn't know unless you knew. You really wanted. Lost as part of who we are as a family. We talk about Andrew every day. We look at pictures of him every day. It's part of our daily conversations.

For a while, I would do daddy talks every night before bed. But yeah, I mean, we talk about him a ton and try to keep the memories alive. And overall, I mean, they're happy, busy, wild boys. They're fun. They laugh a lot. They're into sports. They like to play outside. They laugh coming to the beach. Like, they're fun, amazing, amazing boys. And you really wouldn't know what they're walking through if you didn't know. Are there situations that ran down one of them? I was reading, I was prepping,

and it's really you read something and you just can't stop crying. I was reading about on Father's Day. I think it was your youngest. Am I right? Didn't he make a coffee cup that he wanted to give his dad for Father's Day? Is that right? I thought the way that you handled that was so powerful.

Would you mind sharing this? That's great. Yeah. She's not over it. She's not over it. She's not over it. She was heart-wrenching. It was so heart-wrenching.

He had made a mug at school and he had brought it back from the classroom and we were going to get in the car and said, I want to give this to Daddy and read this for Daddy, I want to give it to Daddy. And I had to tell him, you can't give it to Daddy. And he wanted, he's like, well, I can take it to heaven when I die and I had to explain to him, no, you can't take it to heaven when you die. So there's so many layers and kids just don't understand. There's so much that they don't understand. And so I told him to make it pick somebody else special and his life, they could give it to, he looks up to, and so he gave it to his uncle Austin, super special. Uncle Austin's been a great, my husband's brother, a great role model for them, and loving

them, picking them up from school, taking them on special days, and being there for them. You're remarkable. I just think you're remarkable because there's there's no playbook for this. However what you're starting to do is to start the you're starting to write the first pages of a playbook and you're not going to do everything perfectly. But I must say I think it's just amazing how you handled the conversation that we've later how you've handled these incidents that come People would obviously want to know from you how you are doing

Do you know even how you're doing? I think that's a fair question I think you could still be in that shock state. You said that five day at your window But how would you say that you're doing? It's really one day at a time Honestly, no people say that but it's so true. I can only handle a day at a time, and I'm still completely heartbroken, and I'm still completely shocked. And I'm still just sad. Most days, I'm just sad. And I just miss them so much.

And I miss, there's so many things that you miss, you know, about doing life with somebody that you love, and especially raising kids. Like, I, for me, it's grieving not having him here to watch his kids grow up, and thinking about, man, how much they've changed in a year and a half, and how much he's mistowed on already, and it's just gonna keep me in that. So, yeah, I still broke in, still grieving,

still so devastated. But also I have this peace that can only come from God that I've had since that first week, this peace about life and about my own life and about what God's doing. And I'm so grateful. I've cried equal tears about the goodness of God as I have over Andrew's death. And God has been so kind to us and so good to us and we're heartbroken and we're grieving. It's the sorrow and the joy and it's the tension between the sorrow and the joy. And my five-year-old

Smith described that so beautifully. I did this Mother's Day makeover at his school in March and he had those fill in the blank you know super adorable Mother's Day things. I love it when my mom does this or this or that. And there was one sentence on there and it said I love it when my mom takes me to the cemetery and takes me to Disneyland. Literally the happiest place on earth and the saddest place on earth in the same sentence, and that's our life. It's like we have really awesome beautiful moments and really beautiful days and really beautiful

opportunities and then we're sad and devastated and heartbroken and it's living in the tension of the two. Oh my gosh, I was beautifully said. It occurs to me when you say that, that is life, just the Lord gave it to you in the most extreme possible ways. We all have those spaces in between. Did you, at some point, that this caused you at some point to question your faith, all of these believers out there that are listening to this?

Is it beautiful, godly woman? Was there a point where you just went? I just don't know. It's a wrestling. It't every day wrestling with God I'm often find myself at the end of the day on my knees and my bedroom asking God why in the world Did you trust me with this why in the world? Did you allow this to happen? Mm-hmm. And what in the world do you want me to do? So it's this I still believe in God and I still believe God is good and I still believe

God is kind and I believe that this broke God's heart. I believe this absolutely broke God's heart and that it wasn't God's plan A for Andrew's life. But God has been so kind to us and I've been able to lean into his kindness and fall into his kindness and just fall into the life that he has for us now. And I feel like him and I together are rebuilding this beautiful life. I call it rebuilding beautiful. It's the sprays that I have. And, you know, I had a beautiful life and I loved my life with injury.

I truly loved it. I loved being a pastor's wife. I love sitting in the front row on the right on Sundays watching my guy on stage. Like I loved all the behind the scenes stuff, like I loved my life. And so to have this life that you love stripped away and you have to start all over it from the dust, it's this rebuilding and I'm doing that with God. Like more intimately than I've ever known. Yeah, I feel like I've gotten to know God and my faith has gone so much deeper than it was before. Amazing. And you're serving God. You know, you, it's obvious to me

having met you. I've heard about you. Many of you may not know this, but their church is in the town basically that Christian and I grew up in. And my entire family lives there and some of my family goes to church there. And so I had heard about you, but it's so obvious when I'm in your presence, why the Lord would choose you to carry this burden in this message because you don't always feel it, but you're ready for this. And as you see, this great blog, you should all see called God's Got This, dot com dot com God's Got This. dot com dot com. God's got this dot com. You may have a great beautiful blogs on there.

And that blog actually started when Dave had his leukemia battle. Correct. And everyone praying for Dave and just interesting that that now it can be used for this purpose as well. And the Lord using you this way. I just think you're you're remarkable. And it's just striking me as I'm in your presence

because there's some people you meet in your life that just God's grace and God's goodness is all over them. When you look at you, you see it. It comes out in your voice. And I just want you to know that God's favor is on you. I can see it. And I think you're just remarkable. I'm still taking them away with you.

It just blows my mind. Let's help some people somewhere because you're certainly doing that. But if you went back and looked at this again and did Drew show sides of this prior, in other words, when you met him, did he always start to struggle with being down when you were younger even in your courtship? Or was it just this the time with dad and then taking over the church? Or did you see even some predisposition so to speak for this guy? Would you say? Yeah, Andrew, he had a very intense personality.

He was driven for excellence, had a hard time relaxing, so kind of just had this bent towards not being able to relax. Well, yeah, this driven typical CEO, businessman, just ready to go. And so he just had more of a bent towards that. I'm a bit more serious, he would think he was more serious and more introverted if you met him, which is surprising for, I think a lot of people think pastors are extraverted just because they're on the stage but most of them are probably introverted. And so not a large circle of friends, not very outgoing, had a very tight circle, a couple

of close friends and his family was everything to him. So not huge signs of mental illness, but definitely a bent towards just being more of an intense driven person. huge science of mental illness, but definitely a bent towards just being more of an intense driven person. I feel like you just described me, and I think people listening, this would say that, but you also described a lot of people who listen to the show, and I was telling you off camera if I'm being candid with my audience, that I think all different types of people suffer from mental illness, so there's not a type by any means. But one of the things that people listen to the show are for the most part people trying to

achieve. And I was telling you this off camera and you agreed I want everyone to hear this. The number one thing on my show when I started with all these achievers was, I wonder what the hell had in common. Are they all brilliant? Well they all super hardworking. You know, they it was there's some luck that happened. And in all their cases there's you know, they, it was there some luck that happened. And in all their cases, there's some variables, but what shocked me was the number one category I could put them in. After I got to know them all, is they, not all, but a majority of them suffered with some

form of depression, some form of anxiety. And I think it's because, and you were saying this with Drew too, I think to some extent, they wanted their perfectionist, they wanted to do so well, they set this standard for themselves that they're just never living up to. And although that's a healthy formula for achievement, it's not always a healthy formula for peace, for fulfillment. And if you have a bent so to speak towards mental illness, there's a road you must be careful you don't go down. For most people that in congruence, he's very healthy.

But if you also have this other bent, I love your word, you need to be mindful of this. Would you not agree that he sort of fits that profile too? Yeah, I think people that are driven like that have a really hard time having a solid community around them, taking time for themselves, taking time for their friends, taking time for their family, and all such as resting, allowing them to have margin to rest. Andrew could have taken a year off of work and no one would have said a peep about it.

But he did, he had that pressure on himself, and I think a lot of men in those positions and women in those positions put that pressure on themselves. And no one else is putting it on them, but that's just how they're hardwired. You're right, and there's this thing now, so glad you're saying this, because I've made this mistake. There's like this thing, especially in personal development

or business or sports, there's like this nobility or badge of honor and fatigue. In work all the time. Grined, grined, the grind. And I'm a guy who's preached to some extent some of that. Yeah. But I've learned that the rest in between, there's a reason why there's a Sabbath day. Right.

The Lord gave us that day for a reason for rest, right? And there's a, you need rest in your life, you need recuperation of your spirit, of your mind, of your body, all of it, all of you achieve, and listen to that, you've got to give yourself some rest, because there's, although it may not lead to you harming yourself or your family, it would just lead to you not being the best version of you, of you burning up. One thing I admire so much about you is you've honored him since his passing, the things you post on the blog. It seems to all it's honest but you you really seem to still honor and love this man so deeply and I think that's wonderful one

as your children grow up seeing that. Because I don't want people to think earlier when you say, well, I've removed these things of him. This man has center in your world. You talk about him regularly. Talk about that for a second. Was that a conscious decision, or is that just born out of your love for him anyways?

Or did you choose to speak about him the way you do still? All of it's been so organic. I pretty much from the first week I wrote in this letter that we put on our blog and the letter kind of just went viral or stories spread like wildfire, like all around the world. I was getting messages from people all around the world in my social media, blue-eth, and really, I think from the beginning I just wanted to protect his name.

I think that sometimes suicide just has this bad reputation and he blamed the person and their shame. And a lot of families won't even say that their loved one died by suicide because they're ashamed. And they think that by saying that people are going to speculate that it was their fault or what was wrong with them and there's such the shame that surrounds that. So I, from the beginning, wanted his life to always be defined by the way he lived, not the way he died. So it's been so important for me to protect his name, and I've just done that organically since the beginning by writing a written series of letters to him, and yeah, and talking about him and all of it, you know, honest, just how I feel about him,

and I still love him deeply and still care about him so much and can't wait to see him. Again, life is so short I'm going to see him again soon. Yeah. There's been talk that someone with any kind of melted illness shouldn't lead a church, which means people think someone suffering from mental illness shouldn't lead a company, shouldn't lead a sports team. And that somehow that disqualifies you, especially in the faith space, that if you struggle with anxiety or you struggle with depression or you struggle with any kind of mental illness, even

anger issues, somehow that disqualifies you. I'm of the opinion that we're all center-save by the grace of God and it's our vulnerabilities and our weaknesses that help us connect with other people and our churches and our companies on social media and business and sports. But what does your take on that? Have you heard that? Is that something that's been messaged to you? And I think that's the reason why a lot of people don't admit that they're struggling. I think a lot of people struggle silently in the dark and that they really struggle on

their own by themselves with suicidal thoughts, with depression, and with anxiety because they're afraid if they actually tell people how they're actually doing, they're gonna lose their job. Are they gonna lose their business? Are they gonna lose their family? And so they struggle silently, and it's so heartbreaking, so we have to break the stigma. We have to create space for people to be willing to step

into the light and raise their hand and say, I need help. And for people to be receptive to that, and allow that to happen, and it doesn't disqualify them from ministry, it doesn't disqualify them from their vocation, it doesn't disqualify them from anything. It's just sometimes we struggle, and sometimes we get sick. It's the same as any other physical illness. If someone got cancer, you wouldn't pull them out of their position, right? You would walk alongside them and try to get them the help that they need.

them out of their position, right? You would walk alongside them and try to get them the help that they need. And I think at some, you know, at some point, it probably is good to take time off and rest if you're struggling and you've been running fast for a long time and you feel burnt out. There's nothing wrong with stepping away from a season like Andrew did and saying, Hey, I need rest. I'm going to come back and I can't wait to come back, but I got to take some time and have that self-care time for me. But you've got to find that rest, but if you can't take months come back, but I gotta take some time and have that self-care time for me. But you gotta find that recipe, but if you can't take months off,

it's finding hours after work where your phone just must be down or it's taking that weekend or certainly your Sunday or if you know, I was reading this article the other day about the amount of unused vacation days in the United States. It's this massive number, I'm forgetting the statistic. It's like 60% of all the vacation days in the United States. It's this massive number, I'm forgetting the statistic. It's like 60% of all the vacation days afforded to employees in the United States

aren't taken and used. That's so sad. And the average person only gets two of them a year. And the average person is not even taking these two weeks to rest and recuperate. That's a very much an American thing. It's this grind work thing is this the attachment to it isn't admired and respected all over the world. It's in

some places but it's something in our country that rest is almost frowned upon. So I'm so grateful that you that you point that out. I think social media just made that so much worse. It's a striving. It's a seeing that everybody else is doing and trying to keep up and striving and going and especially for pastors too. It's just I got to keep up with everybody. I know. It's the growth of the size of the church and and I think that it's important for everybody to know that in my opinion and and I know you've experienced this now because you're getting so many messages. I think mental illness and enough itself that gigantic umbrella and it is a huge umbrella variations. It's the most prominent illness suffered by human beings on earth today. It's not hard to use, it's not cancer. It's mental illness. And so if you are struggling with a touch of it or to a large extent of it, join the club. There's a vast majority of people who are struggling with some to some extent.

And there's all kinds of meditation, there's prayer, there's moving your body, there's certain dietary things, there's all kinds of things you can do for the mildness forms. And then there's treatment therapy and at the end, the most extreme medication for those you that need it there too. I just want everybody to hear this. First off, I want you to know something. You have a friend here that if you already prayer, help anything you ever need, I want you to know

that I'm 100% here for you and there's now millions more people. They may be praying for you. I have a couple more questions for you. But so God's got this.com as your blog. And then on social media because they're gonna want to follow you where they're gonna want to follow what's going on with your family. I'm sure for the next 10 years is these beautiful boys by the way all three of which look like they're daddy so much especially

a youngest boy but all three of them look like they're big blue eyes. They're so handsome. They look so much you both you give you guys there's a good DNA conference between the two of you, but they're such a beautiful voice. So how do they find you on Instagram or any social media? My handle's Kayla Stec, and we have a God's Got This Instagram that's underscore God's Got This. Okay, so it's Stec, Kayla Stec, we'll put it up on the screen on the YouTube.

Okay, two sets of advice from you. The first one is to a family member or friend who thinks they may have somebody who is at the more severe end of the spectrum on mental illness. Maybe they've mentioned suicide, or they've really had bouts of anger. I think it was a great point that you made earlier. They're going through some panic and anxiety attacks. What counselor advice would you give them right now? I would say, get help.

I would say find a surrender stuff with the team. And the team includes friends. the team includes family member, the team includes a counselor, like sign up for counseling. PsychologyToday.com is a great place to find a counselor. You can put in your zip code, you can put in your healthcare, insurance information, and find somebody locally to go to. Counseling is incredible. I go every single week.

Counseling can have a bad reputation, but it's really beautiful when done, right? Yeah, I go every week Counseling is incredible. I go every single week. Counseling can have a bad reputation, but it's really beautiful. When done, right? Yeah, I go every week. I love it. And then also, just talk about it and take it seriously. And there are hotlines. I give someone's telling you, like, I'm going to die by suicide. I'm going to commit suicide. Call the hotline. Call the suicide hotline. There's a crisis text line. You can just text home to 741, 741 and get advice. There's people ready willing to give you advice. And it doesn't even have to be in the moment. I think I thought it's like if someone tells you

you call right then, but it can just be calling at any point to ask for advice like, hey, my husband's struggling with anger and I think he's been having panic attacks. Like, what do I do? You could call those hotlines and ask advice for those things. It doesn't have to be to the extent of like they're about to die by suicide.

So hotline, counselors, friends, family, like do everything that you can to surround this person with the right team, and then go to every single appointment with them if you can. I think it's really hard for somebody that's sick to advocate for themselves and be able to because they're mind is sick, to be able to articulate how they're actually feeling, so to have somebody go with them that can help speak that and tell the doctors how they're actually feeling, it's one of the regrets I have is not going to every single psychiatrist

appointment with Andrew. So yeah, showing up and being there and just like you would if they were struggling with some kind of other physical illness. Great advice. And then I'd like you to speak to somebody who's considering something so severe. You can speak for their family because your family's gone through it. What would you tell that person who's right there, right now they're listening to this and they're thinking, you know, I'm a mother with a couple children at home. I don't want to be here anymore either. Yeah. What would you say to that person?

I would say tell somebody. I would say if you tell somebody and feel like they don't get it, keep telling people until you find somebody that you feel like is empathizing with you and understand how you're feeling. And I would say hang on. Like things will get better. And if they don't get better, like still hang on, I know it's hard, I know it's painful, but escaping that way and dying by suicide, all it does

is take all that pain that you're feeling and heap it on to the shoulders of the people that you love the most. And you can get through this and we need you and we love you and tomorrow needs you and you make today better. Like all those things are so true and all those things are things that I wish I could say to Andrew, you know, that I love you and I'm here for you and I'm not going anywhere ever. And that you, if you are struggling with those thoughts, you have more people that are for you and that are with you and that are love that love you than you know, you really do.

All right, last questions because I'm watching someone do this and I know there's a part of you that's like they think I'm a whole lot stronger than I am or they think I've figured all this out and I haven't but your evidence of the superhuman power that God can infuse into us in our worst times and then when everybody hear that the Lord can give you superhuman strength and power when you need it most. And it may be in spurts, but he'll give it to you when you need it. Both if you're grieving or if you're the person struggling with this, God can give you that strength. And it's so important because you are evidence of this. It's this. You think it's these big tall tattooed buff guys like Andrew was the pastors of their strong, but guess who else the Lord gave the superhuman power to? Caleb. And so the last question I have is just dealing with grief. And

let me ask you what I mean. I'm gonna tell you, let me tell you what I mean by that. There's people in any form of grief right now. They're grieving, they're grieving a company that failed. Look at, they're grieving a financial loss. They're grieving a relationship that's ended. Maybe they're grieving a company that failed. They're grieving a financial loss. They're grieving a relationship that's ended. Maybe they're grieving the death of a loved one. There's a lot of grief in the world. You've been dealt a hand of the most extreme type of grief in the most probably shocking way.

The mother of three children and an incredible husband who was also a leader. That's a significant amount of grief. I also hope just your story gets people perspective on their grief. But what advice would you give for someone who says, I don't, I'm going to grieve, but I want to live again. I want to live again. Would you say to somebody who right now, any of those circumstances, they're struggling

with? Yeah, I would say run to your grief. I would say the only way to get through your grief is through. You can't go over it, you can't go around it, you can't go under it, you have to just face it and walk through. I had read this beautiful quote, it was talking about grief and how you can't, the fastest way to reach the sun isn't to follow the sunset. It's actually to plunge into the darkness and find the sunrise.

So you have to go through the darkness to be able to find the joy and lie in the sun. And that's possible. Like, it's the both for me. Like, I'm extremely sad, but I also have days where I'm happy. And both are possible in grief. So, give yourself a lot of grace with the grief, and allow yourself to sit in your feelings, and allow your feelings to lead you to some extent.

Like, sometimes I'll feel this really extreme pull just to go sit at the cemetery, and so I'll go sit at the cemetery, and sit there until that pull goes away. You know, sometimes I just need to sit and cry, and I'll just sit and cry and let it out Like all of that needs to come out and then also just find the right people to talk to Hang out with friends. Don't isolate yourself and go to counseling

Go talk to somebody and that you can get through this and you can survive this you really can And that life can still be beautiful again. And that you don't move on. You never move on. I'm never going to move on from losing Andrew. I'm going to move forward with it. And I'm going to build this beautiful life around the loss. The loss will always be with me,

but the beauty is still possible. Wow. You're the other thing I see you doing. I see you serving other people. And I have found in my own life that to some of my own grief, I to no extent am I doing what you're doing. But you've also found this other little clue, which is that you're starting to give yourself

as the gift to other people. And through that, I'm sure there's some healing from that as to. I want to tell you that I just want to thank you on behalf of everybody listening or watching this and all of us collectively tonight that are hearing this or watching this are going to pray for you and your three beautiful boys and that we owe you a debt of gratitude. You really honored to drool today with what you did here and

I'm touched and moved beyond anything we've ever done on this show and I'm so glad I started this show because it led me to today and and I'm just emotional about so thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me Just amazing the honor is all ours believe me everybody. I don't feel like promoting the two-minute drill today Just you guys know there's a two-minute drill on Instagram that you can participate with what I would ask you to do This is important You need to share it today shelves with people. You need to let this spread the things that go viral

We need as many people as we possibly can to hear Kayla's message and I'm gonna ask you to please do that today So God bless you all share this with many people as you can max out This is the Edmonton Show.