Strength in Vulnerability: How Mental Health Strengthened Our Marriage

What happens when the blissful journey of marriage collides with the unexpected thorny path of mental health, particularly depression? In our podcast, we unravel our personal experiences, discussing how depression unexpectedly sneaked into our early years of wedded bliss, casting its shadows on our relationship. We journey back to the time postpartum depression first introduced itself, and how the sheer lack of awareness combined with the underestimation of the power of uninterrupted sleep began exerting pressure on our bond.

We have an open conversation about preserving the health of a marriage amid mental health struggles, underlining the significance of unity, teamwork, and the collective strength of seeking help. Our special guests, Danny, Ray, and Kimberly, join us in reinforcing the belief that marriage, akin to a team sport, demands joint efforts, particularly when faced with unexpected hurdles. Together, we aim to reassure you that you're never alone, and the bravest thing you can do is to allow yourself to be vulnerable. It’s a dialogue about the trials and triumphs of marriage, a heartfelt narrative about partnership against the odds, and most importantly, a testament to the enduring power of love and unity. Tune in on our honest expedition through the terrain of marriage and mental health.

Transcript

Marriage and Mental Health

Danny Ray 0:20

Well, welcome back. Today we're going to be looking at strength and vulnerability, specifically with how mental health has strengthened our marriage. We've gone through a lot in the last 27 years, but I'm gonna let you talk a little bit about where we're going today You're throwing me the ball to talk about vulnerability and my stuff. I think we both have to be vulnerable in this and learn to navigate mental health issues as those arise.

Kimberly 0:50

Fair enough and arise. They did not that we were expecting them at all. So for me, I would even start my journey back in college when we met and I was studying psychology as an undergrad. And you touch on depression. Nothing super specific back then, but certainly I never in my wildest dreams thought I would struggle with depression. That wasn't my predisposition, it wasn't anything that and I'll add to that.

Danny Ray 1:29

So you're saying you couldn't have warned me and let me know no, no, I could not have warned you exactly.

Kimberly 1:34

If I had thought that would be my issue, I certainly would have tried to give you a heads up, but that's not the case, and I think that's the case for all of us. It's hard to we don't know what challenges we're gonna have in marriage and in life. So I thought the one thing that I was gonna be relatively good at when I was younger I babysat every kid in the block.

Danny Ray 2:01

That was a one thing you were a rock star.

Kimberly 2:03

Well, I loved it and I loved being with the kids and I thought, okay, that's the one thing that I will do. Well, I've done like a lot of training, a lot of studying on kids and how to work with them and well, fast forward to having our first child. And it turns out not that we knew at the time, but there was definitely some postpartum depression.

Danny Ray 2:29

I think even before that, though there was when you were put on bed rest that really started to just kinda change. That may have started it.

Kimberly 2:37

Yeah, to be honest, I hadn't thought of that as the beginning, but yeah there were three months of bed rest to.

Danny Ray 2:47

I think it started to just change our normal dynamic of going out, being up, as you were literally on bed rest.

Kimberly 2:57

Yeah, yeah, so that, yeah, so yeah. Three months leading up to the delivery of our first born.

Danny Ray 3:03

And let me back up to my education when I was in seminary, and so I'm 22, so we just got out of college.

Kimberly 3:12

You were 22. Yes, yes, I'm not 22 and been married 27 years. That's impressive. I am a magician, all right fair enough, no.

Danny Ray 3:22

so at 22, I'm in seminary and I remember taking a class on pastoral self-care. One of the lessons was on depression and I can remember my. I'd only been a Christian for five years. I came to faith in Christ at 17. But just how naive I was to this situation. So whoever the prof was, I don't remember, started to talk about depression. What I remember is I tuned out, going like Christians, depressed. Why don't you read?

Kimberly 3:55

the word oh, you're like in my head. Oh, hey, I am really. I'm saying, oh, because that's I kind of crazy, and at the same time, wow, right, God humbled you.

Danny Ray 4:06

Intentionally checked out of whatever that prof was saying. I'm like oh, I'll never deal with that. Little did it.

Kimberly 4:15

I know Little did either of us know that that would be, and I think at this point in our life that's certainly a theme and probably for most people that you go huh, the things that I may have anticipated that we would struggle with. None of them were right. They were all things that came out of left field, that we had no idea that these would be our issues, so postpartum depression being one of the first ones that we struggled with and it didn't realize it until baby number two I probably somewhere in there where I got pregnant with baby number two and, yes, there was a bed rest again with that one and all those things and essentially what we learned years later is that a big part of that is a lack of sleep that contributes to postpartum depression. That's why so many moms With your serotonin levels.

Kimberly 5:11

Yeah, yeah, that they say. The research shows that we need a minimum of six to eight hours uninterrupted sleep.

Danny Ray 5:20

What mom gets six to eight hours.

Kimberly 5:23

No mom, no mom gets that and so, but it's something I had no idea right. Just no awareness of that thought, so probably even times where you offered to get up in the night and I know, no, it has to be me. Well, had I known kind of about this, the importance of sleeping through.

Danny Ray 5:43

Did I offer to get up in the night?

Kimberly 5:45

I'm gonna assume that you did, because I'm gonna give you the better of the doubt. There were definitely times.

Danny Ray 5:49

I can remember walking the children in the middle of the night.

Kimberly 5:53

Yes, yes, yeah, cause baby stage was not easy in our house.

Danny Ray 5:59

With number two, with number one and that was another. Like unplanned is number one. We weren't up as much in the middle of the night. And then number two with multiple ear infections, and so I mean, one of the lessons I would say in this is learning to plan for the unexpected in knowing how.

Kimberly 6:20

How do we plan for the unexpected?

Danny Ray 6:23

I think by some of the things that we've talked to couples for years is go to people that are beyond where you are, where you look up to a particular couple or in a particular ministry or a particular person or business, and get mentored and get discipled and ask people for wisdom.

Danny Ray 6:42

I think that's one of the ways. It's not that you'll never have things that are unexpected, but I think later on we started to implement some of those things to seek out wise counsel, intentionally to help navigate those things that other people go. Oh, this is probably going to happen. You might wanna be aware, and even with the stage that we're at now with being in empty nest is, we've talked to people. We've asked people hey, what did you do?

Kimberly 7:12

How are you navigating and?

Danny Ray 7:13

we're navigating it with Taco Tuesdays and more date nights, but now we're way off topic.

Kimberly 7:21

So getting back, yeah. So asking other people that you look up to and seem to have solid marriages or they've come through a really rough patch in their marriage and have come out the other side stronger and better.

Danny Ray 7:35

So, yes, that is definitely yeah the way Proverbs puts it in Proverbs 15-22, plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisors, they cede. And we've just learned and we're still in the process of learning this, of getting people that can counsel us and to help us to navigate, because with many advisors, not just like one- but with many, we'll find more success in those areas that we're struggling at.

Kimberly 8:06

For sure, and that can be really humbling. So on our journey that was an experience of of showing up at a doctor's appointment when we had, so by then, two little ones, and you came with, my mom came with and I had to say to the doctor like I am angry a lot of the time and I'm frustrated and I so depression. I wanna back up a little bit there. So depression doesn't always show up the way that we see it in the movies and in the books, where oh, I can't leave the house, I can't do anything. I don't want. You know, I'm gonna just lay here in my bed all day. I could get up and function, but I was angry.

Kimberly 8:56

And I think the anger was masking the depression, Depression yeah, yeah, but come to find out that's a part of it.

Danny Ray 9:02

Yeah, okay.

Kimberly 9:03

Right, because I didn't identify why I was angry or what was going on underneath the anger. So it was wrapped up in that and it was a warning sign, but I had no idea. That's not something we were taught or has even talked about a whole lot today.

Danny Ray 9:20

Yeah.

Kimberly 9:21

And actually it was a girlfriend that I went to and I think she shared it, maybe at a mothers of preschoolers meeting or something, or maybe she just shared it with me on her own, I can't remember. But that was life-changing because she shared her story, I was able to identify mine, that I was in, and I was like, oh my gosh, that's what I'm experiencing, that's what I'm in. And so, yeah, huge blessing that she was for doing that.

Danny Ray 9:47

So let me give two practical things here really quickly. One is sharing your story is essential to experiencing health, especially when we talk about mental health. Is isolation is a dangerous place to be. So just wanna encourage whoever's out there listening to share your story. There might be somebody that could come alongside that could help you to navigate that. And the second thing is the open and honest communication as a part of that story and not trying to make it sound better than it is but, being open and honest with whether you're talking to a counselor, a pastor, a friend is or your spouse is.

Danny Ray 10:34

Here's what's really going on and being as open and honest as you can be.

Kimberly 10:39

Yeah, yeah, and so it was because she was honest about it. And then I think I'm sure I went to you next and said okay, this was the conversation I had, and I think there's some postpartum depression going on here and that wasn't even easy, I think you were still in the mindset back then of, well, we would just pray this away, like, is that fair to say, that's or that? It was hard to reconcile, I've definitely changed my views on depression.

Danny Ray 11:10

I went from just being like.

Kimberly 11:13

Christians. That can't happen. Yeah, you should just. I've got the joy, joy, joy down in my heart Like what do you need?

Danny Ray 11:20

You got joy get rid of that depression, and so I think it was a really naive and lack of understanding of relationships and the struggle of mankind, of humanity, as you look at the Psalms, and we have a hard time talking about lament or about sadness but David was really comfortable calling out to God in both the great times and the times where he's weeping and going to bed full of tears.

Danny Ray 11:55

So my understanding of mental health has changed over the years. It's hard to pinpoint when that might have changed for death away. I didn't have a great understanding at that season. And it was learning for both of us, for sure, and we both started to read books on that and had healthy conversations with other leaders about depression.

Kimberly 12:19

Yeah, yeah, so, and you probably sought out some of your own kind of mentors in that, or at least research or right, because on my side, I'm trying to understand you. Right. And what is going on with her? She's broken.

Danny Ray 12:34

Yeah, and I love you, I want the best for you, but it was almost like there's not much I could do to help you feel better. And so that's where you know, with some wisdom of doctors, the medication that was able to help navigate continuing to pray, continuing to create a plan of how do we go to a place of health mentally again. And one of the strategies that somebody gave to us that we still use to this day is doing a check in on a regular basis of like where are you and what can I do to help you. So we use a number system, Like one. I just want to end it all and 10, Jesus just came back like it's the greatest day ever.

Navigating Postpartum Depression and Expectations

Danny Ray 13:23

And usually I would say like a good day for you is it like seven or eight, and six, five, you're starting to like slip into. And so I found that if you're, you know, at a six, you know I talked to you about what would help getting to a level seven, a 6.5, move you up a little bit, and oftentimes it was which is foreign to me at that time of understanding the connection to a clean house, to your health, as I'm like. The place is a disaster. The kids have destroyed it, I've destroyed it. There's food everywhere. What's the problem?

Danny Ray 14:03

You know right, Looks like my bachelor pad is perfect.

Kimberly 14:06

Yeah, yeah, no, that was not perfect.

Danny Ray 14:09

Learning to on my side, to know that, for your sanity, having things clean isn't just like this make believe isn't just like oh, I just want you to be my slave driver Right, you know, clean up some things it really was putting you in a position to function, to function yeah. And so I was learning those things about how to bring more health and help to the situation, instead of, you know, coming home from work at that time and going like, hey, why is stuff everywhere?

Danny Ray 14:45

And you know realizing like you've been dealing with crazy kids all day and trying to come in with a servant's mindset.

Kimberly 14:55

And you did.

Danny Ray 14:55

You were good at that.

Kimberly 14:56

Yeah, I learned to be good at it. That's fair. So, backing up, as far as the journey or the process came to you, came to my mom, the three of us went to a doctor's appointment. Fortunately that doctor is a believer and that did play into. He said I love that.

Kimberly 15:19

He asked about how's your prayer life and I had to I'm sure through tears look at him and go. I can't even do that Like. I know that I should. I know I want to and Prayer. Life wasn't where I had struggled ever before either. So it was definitely an indicator that something is definitely off here, and so I love that. He asked that question and with all the other questions that he asked, he said okay, you know, this really sounds like postpartum depression, and I think we were all well. I was definitely surprised by that diagnosis at the time. But anyway, fast forward to once. We accepted that we did try different medicines. Fortunately, that did work for me. We found the right one, and that has been a huge blessing in my life and yours, to be honest.

Danny Ray 16:17

I'll take that.

Kimberly 16:18

Yeah, I think I've definitely been able to function at a level that I could not have without the medicine. But I will say we didn't solely rely on that either. It was a combination of medicine and therapy and prayer, I think, are the top things that we really utilized. So I did start therapy at that time, going to a counselor, and one of the biggest things I learned so for anyone else struggling with postpartum depression was that my expectations of myself and my children were too high and they weren't even obtainable. So therapy definitely get help.

Kimberly 17:01

If you're struggling with any sort of depression. I would encourage you be willing to take the leap of faith and try different medication, obviously under a doctor's advisement, if that's what they think is best to not be afraid of that. But I won't go much further into that. But back to the tools that you were sharing. That scale of one to 10 was a game changer for us and we still use it to this day with different things.

Kimberly 17:34

There were years fast forward from the postpartum. There was a year where I definitely struggled. Again. It came out. It felt like it came out of nowhere and that depression I definitely hit the lowest point and that might have been when we came up with a, or somebody told us about the scale of one to 10, or maybe we just had forgotten to use it for a while, we didn't need it, and then we brought it back up. But anyway, that scale of one to 10. For us. You've already explained how the 10, for me was an incredible day. That's great. One is not. But what was huge in that is that the goal is not a 10. The goal doesn't even have to be a nine. We don't have to be living at our peak all the time. That's unrealistic.

Danny Ray 18:24

I think when you think of nine, you're talking like that might be a family vacation, that might be your birthday. Yeah, we have those moments, but day to day, there's work, there's things that we're doing and, I think, in terms of expectations, if the expectation is I'm supposed to have a 10 every day, if I'm not having a 10.

Kimberly 18:48

So, yeah, we want to be clear on that. That's not the expectation of the goal. Yeah, so trying to figure out what is like a.

Danny Ray 18:53

This is the way I would say in terms of like the depth of a relationship. It's like when you look at a river, that's just like you know bubbling over and super fast, but the depth is really low usually at that point. But when you look at a lake, you know it's still, but it has a lot more depth and I think that's as I've come to understand, like my own days and trying to make the most of every opportunity. Every day is like that. That might be an eight that I'm consistently hitting, but the, the nines, I would say, are more like real special moments in life and the 10 is if Jesus comes back, so, so nine is kind of the highest in my book.

Kimberly 19:36

And all that to say, all that matters with that is that your scale.

Danny Ray 19:40

You need to talk to your spouse about it, right, right.

Navigating Mental Health as a Couple

Kimberly 19:44

So that you both understand what those numbers are. You don't have to use ours, but but at least make sure that it's clear between the two of you. And then with that scale we just have to Kind of move that needle just a little bit right. So when I said I was at a five, then you Were like it wasn't okay, what can I do to get you to a nine? It was okay, what can I do to get you? Just, you know what would help you and I didn't have.

Danny Ray 20:14

Yes, you would do helping and, yeah, navigating and and those were like great days for us. But there was a lot of five, six and I found when you hit like a four, there was very little I could do to really help you but you know I in this.

Danny Ray 20:33

This was a really difficult part during that season is it was like at that point I could clean the house, I could take the kids, and oftentimes you wouldn't. You wanted to stay in control, like you didn't want to let me take the kids and that was hard, yeah, yeah. Why don't you get out for a little bit? Just have some time on your own?

Kimberly 20:54

have and.

Danny Ray 20:56

But it was, it was very difficult to move from, like that, four to a five or five to a six, or six to a seven was True, easier, true, but those are times where you, I think you just have to be with your spouse and just Encourage them not to give up.

Danny Ray 21:11

That you're with them, no matter what and and go Through that season with them and that's, that's not easy because I, especially on my side, I want to fix it, I want to make a? Yeah, I want to you know, get you better, and that's sometimes not With mental health, that's. That's just not a solution. Isn't always what the other person needs. They need to have you be there and to navigate this with them. I want to Wrap up with with a couple things. Okay. One is our, our.

Danny Ray 21:50

Our struggles aren't necessarily your struggles right Sure this isn't like saying, oh, this is how to deal with. It's saying, hey, let's be honest with where we're at with our own mental health and Talk to one another about that. And you know, today we, you know we're looking at, you know Kim's Struggle that way and how I navigate it on the other side, we could talk about my mental health on a different episode and talk about.

Danny Ray 22:21

How we've learned to navigate those things we the. The point isn't to try to hit every mental health issue out there, but to say these things are real even as followers of Christ. It's not that everything's going to be perfect.

Danny Ray 22:36

We live in a fallen world with fallen people, where people die, we experience loss we experience, maybe losing a job, loss of a friendship or a broken friendship, loss of a child, all kinds of things that can put us into a tailspin, and we want to encourage couples to Stay strong together, to go through the heart wrenching loss at times Together, to deal with mental health issues together, not to feel like you're isolating. You have to do this on your own, but as a couple you become, a couple that overcomes together and that can really strengthen your marriage for sure. So today, like all the stuff we looked at, those were moments of a pain and hurt for us but they strengthened our marriage.

Danny Ray 23:35

They didn't Push us apart, but those things pulled us together to go. We want to navigate these things together and be stronger together Through the obstacles that come in this lifetime.

Kimberly 23:47

And that's the key. Right there, though, is being intentional about doing it together right? It could have pushed us apart any of the depressive. Episodes or however you want to put that right. There was potential to, but we made a decision even during like no, nobody's doing this on their own. This has to be something that we turn towards each other and and work through together as a team.

Danny Ray 24:13

Yeah and I. I think we'll leave you with that is. Marriage is a team sport. Work together, stay together, get the help you need together. Yes, this is Danny, ray and Kimberly with we do whatever it takes.