A Conversation on Mental Illness and Suicide with DawnCheré Wilkerson and Kayla Stoecklein

well how's everybody doing good good I'm so happy to look across this room and see so many faces of people that I love and so many faces of people that I don't know that I want to remind you that God knows you he knows your story and he's brought us here for a reason I'm so grateful to have our friend Kayla Declan here can look at our hands together one more time for Kayla thank you for taking the time to be with us thank you for being open to sharing your story what you're walking through today you have such a beautiful story of redemption and hope even in the midst of walking through tragedy and your story I'm always amazed any time you post any time you share because there's so much hope and it's real it's not just words you're walking in such an authentic open way and I'm grateful for that but tonight we're just gonna have a conversation conversation that kayla is gonna share her story I think it's gonna speak to your heart and I think that really for us we just want to get to know you tonight and to hear your story tell us a little bit let's go back to the beginning tell us a little bit about you meeting Andrew about your relationship falling in love reading getting married starting a family tell us a little bit about that so Drew and I met at Vanguard University in Southern California where we're from it was my sophomore year college his year we fell in love asked oh yeah is it okay yeah can you guys hear me okay this happened last time see this is gonna be a thing so we fell in love super fast we were like kissing in the rain after a Coldplay concert by the third day like we knew ringing my spring like it was done so we dated for a year got engaged engaged for a year got married and it was fantastic he reached out through Facebook do you guys remember Facebook that used to be a thing now its Instagram all about it he asked him morever spoke he was super hot he was on a fixed-gear by flexing his muscles tattooed he was a good-looking guy he was special they'd have you this is the second time guys now we can hear you that's all that matters two mics if that's what it takes come on every picture I do an interview it's gonna be super hot like right there okay this one's on you guys good okay um anyway we fell in love really fast he was really special I was super proud to be his wife we got married in 2010 and it kind of just ran hard and fast from there there's so many things I could share about Andrew I could sit here for hours and talk about the beautiful way that he impacted my life he was one of my greatest teachers I learned so much just being married to him for almost eight years there's a few things that I do want to share and the first thing that I'll always remember about drew was his Drive Andrew was super driven and it was super hot it was so driven it was really attractive he was only 19 years old when he started out as a junior high pastor at his parents church and his responsibilities just grew fast from there he had a huge heart and passion for the local church he grew up in the church his parents started it when he was 3 years old so it was really built into him and he was excited and passionate and full of ideas and vision and in 2011 Andrews leadership responsibilities grew even more when his dad was diagnosed with leukemia his dad was the lead pastor of our church at the time so it was devastating for our church and for our family and Andrew stepped up even more he was sitting next to his dad in the hospital we have pictures of them next to each other in the hospital with their computers open planning message series and planning the weekend and scheduling guest speakers and he was speaking often and he was only 23 so he just really hit the ground running with ministry by 26 his dad was getting worse so we felt like it was time to pass the baton so we had a really special service his the way we loved his dad out in a wheelchair and they had a baton that was engraved and his dad literally handed Andrew a baton and it was really really special and so instead of taking a break his dad ended up passing away a few months later and we were devastated and Andrews heart was always for the church and so instead of taking a break he went right back to work he wanted to lead the church through their pain he cared more about their pain than his so he came back after two weeks and gave a series on heaven to lead our church through and to look up to heaven and to have hope he was amazing invincible even it felt like nothing could stop him the second thing I'll always remember about Drew was his deep love for his family Andrew loved his people really well he was a very private person only a handful of close friends but his family meant everything to him his brother Austin was his best friend and he was such a good brother to his sister Paige he would have done anything for either of them and as a husband he honestly made me feel like the most beautiful girl in the room on the stage and off the stage he would say the typical pastor things that I'm sure pastor rich says to like my smoking-hot wife you know super fun but he was also just as amazing off the stage and we had a really special relationship Andrew also loved and honored his parents really well he worked super closely with his mom up until his death and they had a really special bond unlike anything I've seen and a mother relationship and something that I look forward to having with my boys one day when they're older he also adored our sons he was a really good dad I think we had was there a picture of me and the boys maybe might pop up there yeah those are my boys so brave is the little one he's three now and then Jethro looks kind of angry to the right he's four and then Smith is six so he was a really great dad all the boys have big blue eyes like him he adored them and when I would get frustrated and kind of hit my wall as a Mohammed was a stay-at-home mom you know so we all have those moments he would come and he would scoop him up and he would tell them mom is the queen of the house and we need to treat her like royalty and it was like the best thing ever my heart and all of this is broken the most for my boys I hate that they aren't gonna have their dad as they grow up they were really proud of him and we are and and were very very proud of him one thing I think is really important to say about Andrew is that he was just like you he was a normal guy he loved the Lakers very passionate about the Lakers he had tattoos he had a giant sweet tooth he would eat candy in the middle of the night it was kind of a problem I would hear him pouring the M&Ms onto the bed and sometimes I had rolled over and there would be M&Ms like melted into the covers and in the morning there would be a giant pile of wrappers on his side of the bed it was so funny and to this day it's like one of the things that the boys remember about him and talk about my three-year-old brave will remind me daddy loved sugar so it's a funny memory I love that Andrew never wanted to be in the spotlight he was content with what he had and where he was going and what he was building with the church he was a really good man synchro such an incredible man incredible son incredible husband father your boys are extraordinary spending time with them it's like it's a joy and each one of them so unique so special and when you hear the story of how you guys met and you don't straight the ministry and the move of God that you're watching all around you and even walking through the loss of his father the real question that I think everyone is asking is what what happened what happened over the last few years with his mental health that led him to a place to lose his life so in the fall of 2017 Andrew began to experience panic attacks and if you've ever had a panic attack or witnessed a panic attack you know it's like a full-body experience it would start in his chest with like deep chest pain almost like a heart attack and it would move like all the way down to his feet and all the way up to his eyes I could see it in his eyes when he was having a panic attack it's like his eyes were full of fear and he started having them and at first they weren't as bad just more surprising like what's going on and they continued like three or four times a week he would have these debilitating panic attacks usually at night when he was trying to fall asleep and they would keep him up and it was super frustrating and there was nothing I could do to help he would pace around the bedroom he'd curl up in the fetal position on the floor shaking crying praying like anything to get his body to snap out of it so those kept happening in the whole time we thought it was his thyroid he had had issues with his thyroid before and a few Google hyperthyroid he met like all the criteria for hyper thyroid so we did some thorough testing on his thyroid and it turned out that it wasn't his thyroid and the panic attacks instead of getting better kept getting worse they got so bad that a security guard found him on the bathroom floor just minutes before he was supposed to be on stage to give the very first Easter service April of last year so the next week ended up in the hospital and we all said and is enough we're sick of living like this we got to get to the bottom of this he can't live like this anymore this is torture so we put him on a sabbatical our lead team got in front of the church and told them you know really honestly like he's having panic attacks and he has anxiety and he's tired he never took a break so they were very very gracious and they didn't put a time limit on it they said you know what take as much time as you need and we want you to get better so right away he started seeing a psychiatrist and he was diagnosed with depression I remember sitting in the psychiatrist office when we found out and I'll never forget it the psychiatrist looked me straight in the eye and said your husband has depression and I don't know why but I was shocked like I were sitting in a psychiatrist office so you would think I would know you know what to expect but I was I was so shocked I was stunned like a deer in the headlights that I didn't say a word we walked silently to the car and as soon as we got in the car I just started bawling and I remember saying out loud - Andrew how did we end up here like how did this happen to you this guy that's like Superman like leading our church in our family through everything like how did this happen to you but the doctor was super hopeful they said he was on the low end of the spectrum he's gonna bounce right back like we're confident he just needs to get some rest like no big deal and so it was kind of resting and what the doctor said so from April to July and you rested and wrestled with depression and anxiety he spent most of his days back in the bedroom and when he would come out of the bedroom I wouldn't really know what to expect some days he'd be angry some days he'd be sad he'd walk out crying some days he'd be happy and want to go to the beach you know it's like every single day it was different and I kind of just tried to give him his space and let him do whatever he needed to do to get better he was experiencing some really thick spiritual warfare - that just kept adding fuel to the flame that was already blazing inside him Andrew though was running to God I mean he was running to God I can close my eyes and like vividly remember walking into the bedroom and he has like his big headphones on and he's laying in the bed and I can hear the worship music through his headphones like that's how loud he's playing it and he was trying so hard to beat this thing and he was confident you know that he would we were doing everything to to get him better we were seeing a psychiatrist every other week we were seeing a counselor together for two hours every week he was going on solo trip trips by himself he went and sat with a mentor for a week we went on a trip just the two of us which is a really big deal when you have a house full of kids like anybody that's married with young kids take a trip without the kids like I am so glad we did that that's like such a special memory that I'll hold close to my heart forever so at the end of July the doctors actually thought that it would be better for Andrew to go back to work they were seeing progress I wasn't really sure but they thought too much time away would actually not be good for Andrew so they thought going back would be the next right thing so he came back on August 1st less than a year ago and he gave two powerful messages on mental illness he called the series hot mess and you can actually go online and watch the messages and in it he was super honest he was talking about depression he was talking about anxiety he gave out the suicide hotline number he gave out information from the Nami website like he knew you know he knew where to go if you were struggling he knew the statistics he had all the right answers but unfortunately on August 23rd just a few weeks later he was gearing up for his third installment of the hot mess series and he had a really bad day in the office there was a trigger and kind of spiraled out of control and unfortunately the next morning is when he attempted suicide and we were shocked stunned never saw it coming not him like rattled he ended up in the hospital we had him on life support and I remember you know hospital beds are pretty small and I remember laying like as as far as I could you know kind of close to him on the hospital bed and holding him and crying and begging God like God please like this is not happening like God we need a miracle I was playing the same songs he was playing in the bedroom there's one song in particular by mosaic I heard they're gonna be here next week they're amazing there's one song called miracle that we were playing over and over and over and over again in that hospital room and we were begging God for a miracle and unfortunately that's why I'm sitting up here we didn't get the miracle we were looking for and on the 25th he went to be with Jesus way too soon a man with so much potential only 30 years old and I was absolutely in still and absolutely devastated even as you say that I think for all of us listening you say it so bravely and with so much strength I think for all of us in this room it's it's impossible to even take in the weight or the gravity of what you're speaking out right now what you've lived through I think it for all of us it brings up a litany of different questions of feelings of emotions how have you processed your own emotions and feelings towards Andrew during this time that's tough with suicide I mean there's such a stigma surrounding suicide and it's been a process the last 10 months for me and processing those feelings towards Andrew and it can change from day to day there's some days where I'm just miss him and then there's some days where I'm like talking to him at the cemetery like ah you know like frustrated but the most important thing I want to stress is that this was not Andrews fault there are days where I walk around my house and I literally shake my head and say out loud Andrew Andrew Andrew you did not want to die like that's the most frustrating part about suicide is that they didn't want to die you know he did not want to die he had so much to live for and I truly believed to my core that the suicide was not a choice it was not a decision and that's why we say the phrase died by suicide instead of saying chose to take his own life or committed suicide it's not a choice so we say died by suicide Andrew loved his life Andrew loved his family Andrew was in his dream job we were living in our dream home he had everything he could ever want this wasn't supposed to happen to him but I do know it wasn't a selfish act that's also a misconception with suicide as people think it's selfish I was getting my nails done a few months ago and it just came up with the lady that was doing my nails I'm very open probably too open sometimes with my story and I just told her you know my husband died by suicide I'm a widow and she like without skipping a beat looked at me and said that is so selfish and I was kind of taken aback and I had a friend sitting next to me and she was like I could tell like ready to pounce this lady you know like she was shocked that she was saying it - and I looked her straight in the eye and I said it was not a choice and it was not selfish and he was sick and it was ultimately the illness that took his life and I will stand by that until I get to see him again I think we can all say that we look forward to meeting Andrew one day on the other side of eternity a great man and he loved well he loved Jesus while he loved you well he loved his sons well and I heard you say a couple times the word spiritual warfare and there is a huge difference between spiritual health and mental health can you talk for a minute just about your experience with both and the difference between the two yeah I would say in Andrews case he was suffering like immensely from both and they're both real spiritual warfare is very real there's a real enemy who wants to kill steal and destroy and Andrew was experiencing that like in a very real way I think he had a gift too where you know he could sense things and see things and feel things differently than most of us do and it was very intense for him very real for him and mental illness is real too and so I think the best thing we can do is address both separately they're not the same thing we can't treat them the same way there are real tools we can use to fight against the spiritual realm like prayer and community and fasting and spending time in the word and there are real tangible things that we can do to help battle our mental health like doctors and medication and therapy there are two completely separate things I believe in miracles and I believe God can heal anyone at any time so I'm not trying to limit God when I say this but I will say that I think it would be ignorant to think we could simply pray someone's mental illness away mental illness is not a byproduct of not being spiritual enough or spending enough time with God we have to do a better job of that of loving on people that are suffering it's a real okay another thing that I want to say is that we need to become better learners instead of critics we jump to criticism so quickly and instead we need to seek to understand there's four little words that my mother-in-law shared with our church a few months ago and the words are I have no idea I have no idea these four words have the power to change the way we approach people they have the power to change us and stop us from saying something critical of others so the next time we're headed towards criticism we can change our heart when we stop and say I have no idea about their story or their history I have no idea what burdens they're carrying I have no idea what it's like to live with what they're living with I have no idea what's going on inside their mind I have no idea that's the truth we have no idea what it's like to walk in anyone else's shoes but our own that's security we have no idea I think that that's something a phrase that we all need to take to heart and that we need to use in our everyday language and conversations what have you learned about supporting those that you love who are walking through mental health issues whether it's a spouse whether it's a co-worker a friend a family member what have you learned about the best ways to support hindsight's really 2020 I have a very very long list of regrets huge list of regrets I wish so badly I could go back and save him and with suicide the first like three six months are spent doing that in your mind you go back and you think about all the different things you could have done to save him one way I've been helping people and reaching out to people and sharing my story is through our family blog called Scott's got this it's God's got this calm we started the blog when Andrews died was it diagnosed with cancer and we made these little wristbands I have one on and they say God's got this on him and we've sent them all around the world it's been a really cool phrase powerful phrase for our family and means so much to us it reminds us that we are not alone that God has a Redemption plan more beautiful than we could ever fathom and that he's with us no matter what we're up against so when Andrew Weil died I went to the blog and started sharing my heart right away our story really went viral and spread fast and there was all this speculation going on about him and people trying to define who he was and so I felt in my heart you know I want to honor him and protect him so I wrote a letter to him and I wanted his life to be defined by the way he lived not the way that he died so I've kind of just been blogging since its turn kind of turned into this living breathing journal for our family and there's one blog post in particular going back to your question about how to help people there's one blog post in particular that I share really often I have people reach out to me every single day every single week asking what they can do to help it's a 1 in 4 1 in 4 people suffer from mental illness so the chances of you knowing somebody that's walking through it are the chances of you knowing somebody that's loving somebody that's walking through it is pretty high so I wrote this one blog called uncharted territory and in it I share three things that I wish I would have done the first thing is to take it seriously I'll never forget the one and only time that Andrew vaguely mentioned suicide and it was so vague that I missed it he kind of shrugged it off as like a passing thought I asked him if he googled it he said no I asked him if he would do it he said no like and we have this shame around suicide so I was like okay cool he said no I don't want to ever talk about it again you know I kind of put it away and never brought it up and didn't tell anybody that he said it kind of acted like it never happened and if I could do it all over again I would have called the suicide hotline number right then in there and just asked what to do it's a resource it's not a number that you call when someone's in Act it's a number that you call anytime and I could have called and just been like hey my husband said this what should I do the number is 1-877-443-6276 [Music] I'd I grieve because I loved him so much there's this beautiful quote that says human love takes us into dark places where we are taught the hardest things those we love suffer and as we love them we suffer with them ultimately we lose them the hard work of love is to see each other through in sickness and in health and often into death we can't mourn what we haven't loved those who mourn are those who love the cost of love is great jesus knew that all too well it cost him everything the beautiful thing is that we know our grief won't last forever this is just the first inch of life we were created for a person and a place and the person is Jesus and the place is heaven yeah we're gonna have trials in this life but we serve a God who will never let us down no matter how great the pain no matter how deep the loss no matter how high the mountain God will heal us guide will hold us God will guide us and God's always got this amen that's that although that's the name of your site and what you've really held on to as the declaration as you walk through sorrow and grief I think that the practicality that you just laid out so clearly could change the trajectory of relationships in all of our lives if we would really take it to heart you you so beautifully described how we can support but now if you don't mind what can you share with us the things that haven't helped on your journey because I think some of us our deepest desire is to help and when people that we love dearly are going through the toughest times in their life sometimes we don't know what to say and sometimes the things that we say hurt even more that the things if we weren't to say anything at all and I think that all of us in this room we want to learn how to support by what to do and what not to do tell us tell us some things that haven't helped along the road yeah we all walk through pain no one's exempt from pain we're all gonna walk through a season of pain in our life there's one phrase that I that I despise it's I know exactly how you feel no one knows exactly how you feel it's like that phrase I have no idea you know no one knows exactly how you feel don't compare or lost that's another thing you know people try to do just to try to relay it it's not out of bad intentions it's just trying to relate but the truth is you can't relate because everybody's pain and grief and loss is different grief can be really awkward and uncomfortable but the best thing you can do mean the worst thing you could do is to not show up for your friends so the best thing you can do is to keep showing up don't be the friend that stops showing up six months in a year in two years and be the friend that keeps being there for them their life will never be the same even though your life has moved on and your life has kept going and hasn't dramatically affected your life their life has changed forever and they need friends the best question you can ask somebody that's walking through pain is how can I serve you so good how can I serve you I think all of us can think of people in our life that tonight we could ask that question that we get to reach out and pose that question and really desire to meet the need you know as you look across this room today how would you want to encourage the people in this room to be proactive in caring for their own mental health I think a lot of us would say we're not very good at this it's easy to encourage others to care for their mental health it's easy to tell a family you should work out or you should see a counselor or you should rest or you should eat better and we don't do the best job of actually like modeling that and doing that ourselves so we can all do better at that I wanted to say something quickly about pastors specifically and that is pastors are people to pastors aren't super human they're human they're not invincible we're all just broken vessels giving it our best shot to be a light in a really dark and desperate world the best thing you can do to support the mental health of your pastors is to pray for your pastors for my experience as a lead pastor's wife I know how hard and lonely it can be at the top lead pastors these days are under so much pressure to perform it's easy to see the lead pastor in the position that they hold and think they don't need prayer but the truth is that they do leading a church is a really heavy burden to carry one that is very costly so we can pray for them as a staff you can create a staff culture that's unified and we can encourage our pastors to also take care of their mental health the key to being a bright light for anybody no matter what your vocation is is to be intentional about our mental health we have to do a better job at caring for ourselves so that we can keep caring for others we must give ourselves permission and margin to heal and rest and here's a couple ways we can do that the first is to take a Sabbath I would encourage all of us to take like one day a week off completely off and to fill it with things that you enjoy things that fill your tank maybe it's going for a walk at the beach maybe it's grabbing coffee with a friend maybe it's laying on your couch all day and not moving at all you know whatever you need to do for me it's paddle boarding I love paddle boarding I love being out on the water I feel connected to God I feel connected to Andrew I feel like the pole of heaven like that's my spot find what you want to do on your Sabbath and do it whatever it is just make it relaxing and fun the other thing is to celebrate often I know you guys are good at this that vu it's one of your values here right celebrate Austen's you guys already doing a good job with that but have people over for dinner make life fun make everything a celebration even the little things and the other thing is a personal retreat day and this is different than a Sabbath this is like a once a month day to go and have solitude time with God solitude is different than Sabbath solitude is intentional solitude is sitting with God and praying to God and journaling and reading the Bible and just soaking in God's vision catching God's vision for your life it's not scrolling through Instagram it's not binging Netflix it's not the laying on your couch day it's a day where you sit by yourself and figure out where you're headed with God and the last piece of advice that I have is just counselling I mean counselling is like the best thing you can do for anybody at any time in your life like I've been in counseling the last year and I'm gonna be in counselling for a really long time but it's been incredible for me and it's it's a tool it's a resource it's work you know like I had kind of dread going cuz it's work it's like working out where you like dread going and you're like no I don't want to go but then after you feel so good you feel like relieved and that's one of the best things you can do and you can share everything with your therapist maybe you don't have people in your life you can trust that you can share things with and that's what a therapist is for for you to be able to sit and share everything without worrying about losing your job without worried about losing your friends like there's things that come up during the week that would not be good to tell your friends you know you can like pocket those and save those for counseling so counseling has been great the last thing I want to say is if you're struggling to help somebody don't let your secrets be your downfall find one to two safe people in your life and tell them everything and maybe it's the counselor if you don't have those people in your life the enemy wants you to feel isolated the enemy wants you to feel unloved and worthless but I'm here to tell you that your life matters your story matters and you are loved and you are valued more than you could ever imagine and God has a great plan for your life no matter who you are no matter your past no matter your mistakes no matter your mental health God's got you God's got this and God can do impossible things [Music] [Applause]

Channel: VOUS Church

Views: 41,234

Rating: 4.9100718 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: SFmoLTVxdgA

Length: 35min 28sec (2128 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 12 2019