After losing her son to suicide, Kay’s passion for mental health and wellness became even stronger. She shares the important role that the faith community can play in helping those who are struggling.
Kate Gosney: Hello, and welcome to the Hope Happens Here Podcast. This is Kate Gosney Hoffman, and I'm so glad you're here. Today, we spoke with Kay Warren. Kay co-founded Saddleback Church with her husband Rick Warren in Lake Forest, in 1980. After their death of their son Matthew who lived with serious mental illness for most of his life, she founded Saddleback's Hope for Mental Illness initiative as a way to support individuals and family members of loved ones with mental illness and suicidal ideation. The initiative also trains others in the faith community how to launch or expand existing mental health ministries. Kay is a board member of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, and is active in mental health and suicide prevention efforts throughout Orange County.
Kay is also the author of, Sacred Privilege: Your Life and Ministry as a Pastor's Wife, Choose Joy: Because Happiness Isn't Enough, Say Yes to God: A Call to Courageous Surrender. And coauthor of Foundations, a popular systematic theology course used by churches worldwide. Kay's story is a powerful one indeed, and has been able to reach so many people with her experience with her son and her own personal journey. She's done amazing work in the world of mental health. Hearing her stories, hearing her insights about this has been very valuable and we were so glad to have her here. We're so happy to have you Kay. Kay Warren is with Saddleback Church in Orange County, and we are here today to talk about mental health, and the faith-based communities, and the connection between the two, and Kay has done amazing work bridging those two things. And I am so excited to have you here on this show today. Kay, can you tell us a little bit about yourself, before we get going?
Kay Warren: Sure. Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate and I love the topic, and so I really appreciate being invited to talk about it. Yeah, my husband Rick and I started Saddleback Church at 40 years ago, so this is our 40th year. 2020, of all years, was supposed to be a year of massive celebration, and we had a couple of smaller celebrations in January and one around of 8th or 9th of February, and then everything else we had planned just... Oh, we have such plans for 2020, they have all gone by the wayside. As everybody knows, this year has not gone the way any of us anticipated. But yeah, this our 40th year, and so we've been a part of the Saddleback Valley in particular so long. I remember when there was a red barn at the corner of Paseo de Valencia and Alicia, and we met in a brand new high school called Laguna Hills High School.
And now there's a beautiful community center there, but we've been here long enough to see those kinds of things. Barns in more rural areas and orchards, and this area just grown. But we feel that we wanted to be in a place where we could just live most of our lives. We could be a part of people's daily lives, the births, the deaths, the funerals, the weddings, the baby showers, the graduation parties. And so, we really had a unique view, I would say, of Orange County over these 40 years and we love it. This is home to us, this is where we raised our children. And, our youngest, Matthew was seven when he was diagnosed with a mental illness, diagnosed with depression. And because he was my youngest, I knew he was different than his older brother and sister. But it just never occurred to me, that the behavior that I found kind of strange, or troubling, or kept me up at night had anything to do with a mental illness. I didn't know children could experience a mental illness.
And so, when he was given a diagnosis of depression, that just rocked our world. Just broke our hearts that our little boy was living with depression. And from there, I would just say, it kept growing. We kept getting other diagnosis, after diagnosis, after diagnosis, then it was panic attacks. And by the time he was 11 or 12, early-onset bipolar disorder and that was when he had his first suicidal thought. And then, we started having to adapt his schooling because he was not doing well in school. A very smart kid, but just school was a torturous experience. And so we did everything from, private school, to public school, to private Christian school, to private Catholic school, to a special school for children with special needs to, I mean, to homeschooling.
We just did everything we could think of, and it just kept getting worse. And then it was body dysmorphic disorder, where he thought he was really, really fat and he wasn't. And OCD, and major depressive disorder, and borderline personality disorder. And I think really what I would say is, I don't really know what all was going on in my poor little buddy's mind and body, but he suffered. He really suffered. I'd say those multitude of diagnoses made it clear that mental illness is sometimes hard to pin down. You can see behavior, or you can see symptoms, but it's really hard sometimes to know exactly what is going on, and it changes. So for me, my introduction into the world of mental health, mental challenges, came as a result of our son.
And then as he got into his adult years, I no longer had control. I couldn't control whether he went to the doctor, I couldn't control whether he went to see his therapist, I couldn't control whether he took his medication. None of those things were... I no longer had that ability to do so. And he decided at some point in his early 20s that he was not going to be on medication any longer. And so then he would go on and off it, and he just began a very serious decline over a few years, then it became suicide attempts. And then sadly, he took his life on April 5th, 2013.
And that took it from one level of a fight, if you will, or something that was so personal to just shattering grief for our family, shattering loss. And it propelled me, pushed me in to advocacy in ways that I never had before. Not that I wasn't an advocate before, but man I was pretty intent on trying to keep him alive from one day to the next. So I didn't have a lot of energy left over for anybody else's needs, and after Matthew died, I just knew that I didn't want other families to feel so alone, or other individuals to feel like they had no hope. And have done everything that I've known to do as a non mental health professional to use our family's painful experience, Matthew's painful story, for good in other people's lives.
And so that is actually a privilege to me to be able to use our pain and his pain in a way that actually can help others thrive in maybe ways that he wasn't able to. So that's kind of brings us up to today where we are. This is the passion of mine, it is as close and as personal as it could be.
Kate Gosney: Right. I mean it just doesn't get more close to your heart than that, right? And as a mother, as a parent, the feeling of helplessness when your child is struggling with mental illness is debilitating, I'm sure, and-
Kay Warren: Yes. It's pretty desperate place.
Kate Gosney: Yes. Desperate is a good word.
Kay Warren: It's a pretty desperate place. Everything that you try, or nothing that you try seems to make much of a difference. That's a pretty desperate helpless place to be.
Kate Gosney: Right. And then the actual loss compounded on top of that. And I mean, I'm sure there has been... I mean your journey, your experience as parent in the loss and the whole journey leading up to that. The pain that you've gone through I'm sure has been so... The rawness and the vulnerability that you have been able to offer, right? And normalize these feelings in response to these kinds of crises for other parents, for other people. I mean, it's hard to say this and I want to be very respectful of the situation, but for somebody who has been going through that to see somebody be that raw in maybe a position that you and your husband are in can be so healing, I'm sure, to see. "I'm not alone. Look, they've gone through this too, and I'm not alone in these feelings, I'm not alone in this desperation." What was the-
Kay Warren: There is something very powerful about the... As we all know in all sorts of areas of struggle and pain, that those words, me too. So those words, they speak volumes. And when I meet other parents, other family members who've lost loved ones or people who've lost friends, sometimes words aren't really necessary, because we can look into each other's faces. And our faces, our eyes, the way our bodies sort of think a little bit with a deep visceral sigh as we hugged each other, it's me too.
Kate Gosney: Me too.
Kay Warren: I know.
Kate Gosney: I know you.
Kay Warren: And right. That place of identification, that place of lived experience, there's level of, "Oh, I get you, or I get this," is both immensely comforting. And I think it allows a kind of a kind of expression to our grief that only those who have walked in those shoes can know. And so, you're right. Me too, is as a powerful thing and it is something that we have tried to share openly with others knowing how much comfort, how much solace, how much healing, other parents, other family members are in need in the same way that we have been and continue to be.
Kate Gosney: Absolutely. And Kay, can I ask? I mean, I know that the journey with Matthew was a long one, and I'm sure there were many, many chapters in your experience of it and how you felt about his struggles with mental illness, and the diagnoses, and everything. In the faith-based communities, was your opinion about mental illness different before your experience with Matthew, how did that affect the way you saw things? Or was it pretty concurrent with how you were feeling before?
Kay Warren: That's a good question. I think for me personally, because I had lived with and have lived with low levels of depression most of my life. And know that on my father's side of the family there is a pretty long history that I can trace back at least a hundred years of people in our family who have lived with varying degrees of depression. So I think that I didn't know that's what I was experiencing as a child and as a teenager. And it was never to the degree that Matthew's was, but because I think that I knew somewhat of that felt like, I got that it was real, and that it wasn't a failure on my part, or a weakness on my part. And so, when Matthew began to receive all of his diagnoses or just the ideas that he wasn't really well, that his brain and emotions were really in some struggling places.
I think the fact that our church is a very warm and accepting place that we have a very strong recovery program called Celebrate Recovery. And I mean, thousands of people in our church have gone through that Christ centered recovery program. So it has set the tenure of our congregation toward knowing that people are vulnerable and that we're really fragile. The Bible calls that we're fragile jars of clay, we're easily broken. So I think that I received really lot of support. Personally, nobody knew much about mental illness, nobody really talks about mental illness, but I didn't feel ostracized and I didn't feel he was ostracized. I just didn't feel like anybody knew anything that could help.
So while I feel like our congregation has been more open for a really long time toward people with mental health challenges, that is not necessarily true across the broad swath of faith communities. Fortunately, I see a trend toward more understanding that mental illness is real, that it's not weakness, that it's not failure, that it's, "They need to pray 10 more times a day," and somehow that's going to make it all go away. With that greater understanding, with the more science that shows that there are things that happen inside of the brain that caused these changes. I think all of that is moving us toward a greater acceptance of mental illness as nothing to be ashamed of, and nothing to hide. But it hasn't always been so. So I'm grateful for that progress in the right direction.
Kate Gosney: I'm sure. And me too, I'm glad to hear that. It's so important because the churches is so many people's place for comfort and solace, right?
Kay Warren: [crosstalk 00:15:08]
Kate Gosney: And if they're struggling with something that the shame that already comes with mental health and mental, why do I keep doing that? Mental illness. It's already there, and then to go to the place where they find comfort if they're judged and obviously that's a slippery slope that can send somebody spiraling. And so to have, I mean, your experiences, I'm so glad to hear that you were loved anyway, and not judged, and accepted, and supported even with the fact that it wasn't quite understood it didn't matter, right? It was, "We're here for you as a human being to another human being, as one Christian to another Christian." But I so respect your experience in your opinion about all this, and kind of what you see as the landscape of the topic of mental illness in the faith-based communities. And what do you think the role in the church should be when it comes to those issues, and those things that people struggle with? What would you imagine that to look like?
Kay Warren: Yeah. I was on a webinar earlier this week, with Dr. Harold Koenig who's author, researcher, he's at Duke University and he just gave... I'm just going to tell you some of the things that he said that I wrote down, it's like, "Oh, those are good things. I'm going to pass that on."
Kate Gosney: Awesome. He has [crosstalk 00:16:30].
Kay Warren: Because from his research... Well, first of all, I want do back up and say, even without what Dr. Koenig said, the church and faith communities are made up of people. And one in five people, are going to experience some mental health challenge in the next year. So it's very common. So there's a direct relationship, anything that affects people should be talked about and dealt with in faith communities. And so then specifically, Dr. Koenig was just pointing out the value of how vital social support is to all of us as human beings, and that faith communities have a direct correlation, is one of the best places to receive social support. And he has made the statement that the faith community, if you regularly attend services at your faith community, it is the strongest predictor of health and longevity.
Kate Gosney: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I believe it.
Kay Warren: Yeah. So if you are a regular attender at your faith community services, that is the strongest predictor of your overall health and longevity. He said, "Physically, there's less heart disease, lower blood pressure, lower rate of stroke, less cognitive decline, better immune function, lower death from cancer, and just overall greater longevity." That sort of affects our physical health. And he said that the benefits, I wrote it down because it struck me it was so powerful, the benefit to those who regularly attend religious services, according to his research, is that people are able to cope better with life stresses. They recover more quickly from depression, that they are less likely to die by suicide, that they experience less anxiety, fewer substance use disorders, they experience more positive emotions. They have greater marital and family stability, and they are less likely to engage in delinquent acts and crime.
And all of that was like, "Oh my goodness." I mean, I could have told you that generally, but to have his research support that. So you talked about the role of the faith community and mental health, it's necessary. The more people are connected and get positive social support in the faith community, they will more likely to experience all those things benefits emotionally and all those physical benefits. So to me, it's like, "It's a no brainer. Go to church, you got your muscles." So you [inaudible 00:19:16] on a regular basis it will affect you positively in your overall health.
Kate Gosney: Right. Exactly. It gives me chills, just the pairing that belief and with the research to see, no, this is real. This has a tremendous benefit on your overall well-being. Health, mental, emotional, all of those things. And to have what you have experienced firsthand in life actually, be backed by that research is so powerful. Right? And it speaks so much to the power of the human connection. It's everything.
Kay Warren: Yeah. Well, I mean I remember a few years ago there was a study and a report called the Depths of Despair, and it was reporting a higher than usual... I mean, statistically affecting the mortality rate in the Rust Belt areas of the nation. And one of the causes that the authors speculated, Dick was one of the researchers, was that there was less and less regular-based community attendance.
Kate Gosney: Wow.
Kay Warren: And as they saw a decline in, in that's particular story, I think it was church attendance they began to see an uptick in deaths by suicide and substance use disorders. And they speculated that was part of that, and they called it Depths of Despair. So I love, as you say, that we can put the science and the research along with what we presume to be the benefit. And see that it genuinely that regular, regular attendance and social support that's received there is critical to our emotional and physical health.
Kate Gosney: Critical. Exactly. And what comes to mind and thinking about exactly that point is what we've experienced with, in the last, what, eight or nine months, with COVID. Have you noticed anything in terms of the landscape of mental health in your community, and people not being able to attend, or have they still been attending, or what has that looked like recently? And-
Kay Warren: Yes. I think that is one of the things that has increased the level of depression, and the level of people just being weary. Whatever your social support system is, it's truncated, it's declined, it's not what it used to be. And so we are seeing... Particularly, I can speak specifically at Saddleback as I've talked to our pastoral care team, they have clearly said there have been many, many more calls from people feeling desperate. And receiving calls from people around the nation, because maybe their local faith community is small, and can't stuff a 24 hour care line or something, the way that we can. And so, they're reaching out because they know that Saddleback has that. And just the stories of loneliness, of weariness, of exhaustion, of growth and hopelessness. I don't know that we fully yet are aware of the price that is being paid right now because of COVID, in the emotional and physical lives of Americans.
I mean, it's obviously around the world, but in our birth place, in our home, those are the things that are experiencing. So I know we're seeing it here. We've tried to offer as many things as we can online. Saddleback was already offering our weekend worship services online, and we've done that for many years. So for us, that was seamless. We've been able to continue doing that, even as we've not been able to meet in person. I mean, it's such a large place that there's never been any one of those tiers that we were in and those colored-tiers that governor Newsom and the Orange County health department, or whoever figured out all those tiers. I felt that it was good for us to be able to meet safely. I know some other churches have, we haven't felt like it was a safe option for us. So we've continued to meet online. We'll offer a lot of our support groups online, Celebrate Recovery online.
Trying to address some of the practical help that people need by offering grocery distribution all over the county. Massive amounts of free food given out, just to a lay a little bit of the fear and the anxiety that families who are struggling financially are having to deal with, which then contributes to their emotional and the mental health. But yeah, I had read one researcher, Dr. Bruce Perry, who said that he thinks that the effect on children will continue for a decade. That this is not just short-lived, that the effects of what kids are experiencing will stay with them. And it's very sad.
Kate Gosney: It is troubling.
Kay Warren: As a mother of seven it could get scary.
Kate Gosney: Absolutely. Yes, exactly. And we had Steve Pitman from NAMI on here recently, and we were talking about this as well. And he was saying, I think the word he used was a swell. That there's a swell happening, right? We're not really sure what it's going to be, what it's going to look like, how big it's going to be, the results of all of this, but we're in the swell right now. And boy, that feels so daunting talking about, definitely for our children and for all of our mental health. And to kind of reframe a little bit, we can also in just sort of calling it or naming it and saying this is real, this is what's happening. Empowering ourselves to prepare in the best way possible and do what we can do now to provide support for our communities, now and in the future, I think is so important.
And one of the main reasons why we wanted to get this podcast going now, is to talk about these things and it sounds like you and Saddleback church is really on it. You're doing everything from grocery services, to online services, and everything in between. Is there anything else that you're feeling like the faith-based communities should be doing right now to support mental health in our communities, just in general, and given the certain circumstances?
Kay Warren: Yeah. There's a whole lot of things that I would say under normal circumstances that I think all the faith communities of any size, no matter what size of a group, or what city, and maybe we can talk about that. But in terms of COVID, I think just be creative, look for work around, look for ways to... So we can't do it this way, can we do it this way? For instance, we did, they called it a Trunk-or-Treat at Halloween. And there was a limited amount of people who could come in at a time, to our church, out in our giant parking lot, where there were cars decorated that kind of traditional Trunk-or-Treat idea. But they were all spaced, a far distance from each other.
Saddley groups had to wear masks, had to stay together. You had to stay minimum of six feet apart the whole time, only certain people were allowed in at a time. The candy was like, it was... The people doing each individual car, maybe they would make a little shoot and cardboard shoot, and they would take the candy from that bag and it goes right into the kids. So you didn't have to get close to the person giving it, you didn't have to touch. So they did it, not in a way that we would ever have done before. We used to have giant fairs and, bounce houses, and animals, and all those kinds of things. So if you can't do it that way, is there a way to do it in a creative way? Don't just automatically assume that things can't be done, look for the work around, look for creative way.
And then I would say for us, as we talk to folks it's, listen this... As Steve says, there's a swell, what is a wave coming of grief, so much grief that people have experienced. Not just the deaths from COVID, which we know is astronomical here in our country, there's also the smaller grief of the weddings that people didn't get to have. The people living in skilled living or assisted living, and family members didn't get to be with them or say goodbye to them and didn't get to hold funerals especially in the early days. The kids going off to college for their first year of college are now sitting in their bedroom on a computer taking online classes, so many places. So there's so many grief and losses that if the faith community can build our knowledge, our expertise, our resources, so that when, not only just now, but as things normalize, which I believe they will eventually, then there's going to be a huge opportunity to serve people as they grieve and mourn things that maybe they can't even grieve and mourn yet.
Kate Gosney: Well said. Absolutely. And I think grief is such an appropriate word, right? For what's going on right now and things that people might not even realized. Having not been able to do in, quote/unquote, 'normally" right? Even the Halloween, like you were saying, kids that didn't get to trick or treat or do anything like that fun, it doesn't seem like a big deal but it is. These small little things do add up, and then there's also the bigger losses as well. And what I'm hearing from you is just to have preparedness in mind. And as the faith-based communities exist to be a soft place for those to land when it is safe to do so, and be able to provide the right support and the resources necessary. So that it doesn't feel overwhelming and it doesn't feel like you're not prepared.
And it seems there are ways to do that. To be able to have a realistic outlook on what that looks like and what we need to kind of educate ourselves around, and prepare ourselves for. But I think, you also mentioned that you have a lot of thoughts about what needs to be improved when it comes to caring for those with mental illness in the church and everything in general, outside of COVID. And I'm still interested in your thoughts about that.
Kay Warren: Yeah. Well, I think that one of the biggest hurdles has been to acknowledge that mental illness is real, and that it's common, it's not just for a few strange people. No, it's about 43 million people living in the United States right now experiencing mental illness. One in five adults, one in five children. And so that's the biggest hurdle, and once that is addressed and accepted, then I think... Austin clergy respond with, "Oh my goodness. I have no idea what to do." Because unfortunately, mental health, mental illness, those things are not typically taught in seminary of any kind.
It's a pretty unusual seminary that trains pastors or rabbis or imams to be able to deal with mental health challenges. And so, even if somebody responds with a compassionate heart, they don't necessarily know what to do. And so, there can be this default idea of, "Oh. Well, that's a medical problem. So the medical world should deal with that. Oh, mental health professionals should be the ones that, that deal with it. So I will just push this person off to mental health professional, because there's nothing here that we can do." And I think that's such a tragic mistake, because with a little bit of education, a little bit of training, a little bit of willingness to learn. I feel like every faith community can do six really practical things that could be game changers for people living with mental illness in their families. And to me, it starts with a decision to become a caring and compassionate congregation, to not just say, "Oh. Well, gosh. Be well,' I here now, "Go and well. I hope you do okay." But without any responsibility to care for that person.
And so making a decision to care, it doesn't cost any money. You don't have to have a lot of people, you don't have to be an affluent congregation. It's about the mind, it's about the heart making a decision that we will be a warm and welcoming and, as you say, a soft landing for people and their families. We can offer practical help, when I was diagnosed with breast cancer, there were so many people that signed up for a meal train. Want to bring us meals, they wanted to take my kids to school for me, they wanted to clean my house for me, make sure that my laundry got done, pick up groceries for me. I got so many offers of practical help and assistance.
But unfortunately, when somebody receive a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, or major depression, we don't typically rally around them in that same way and say, "So how can I help you practically, can I drive you to your doctor's appointments? Can I watch your kids while you take a walk by yourself, can I bring you dinner tomorrow night? I know it's a hard day tomorrow, maybe your first appointment, can I bring you diner?" We're not as good as that when it comes to mental illness, but there are practical things that every congregation can do for their congregants. And then as I said, we can all train and utilize volunteers. Every faith community is full of people who when challenged to serve will often serve.
Serve other people, they'll do it. They just need maybe a little bit of training, we can do that. And we can remove the stigma. Every congregation can remove the stigma around, and again that doesn't cost any money, it doesn't cost any training. It's saying, "It's not a sin to be sick. You are not a failure, you are not weak, you are not a bad person, you are not someone that we are ashamed of. You are a fully incorporated member and participant in our congregation." And we can remove that stigma by having clergy give sermons about mental health, or mention it in their sermons, or pray publicly for people living with depression or people who've lost someone to suicide. We can let people's who lived the experiences, tell their stories, because when they tell their stories, it normalizes.
All of a sudden, it's not the homeless person shuffling down the street talking to the fire hydrants that some people might be frightened of or turn away from. But all of a sudden you look at that person, you go, "Oh my goodness. I've sat next to you every weekend for the last 10 years. I didn't know you lived with depression." So it normalizes and humanizes people.
And then, I think that we can collaborate with the community. Pretty much what we're talking about right now, what Be Well is trying to do is increase collaboration amongst all the various sectors and domains of society. Well, the thing community can't solve the mental health crisis by themselves neither can the mental health professional world, but together. If the mental health professionals common and talk to congregations and say, "Listen, you might not know much about mental illness, but I do. And I'd love to share with you what I know, what I've learned." And so there can be collaborative efforts that actually give us traction toward making a dent in the numbers of people who are feeling alone, living alone, and even dying by suicide.
And then I think every faith community, again, costs no money, doesn't take a lot of people to do it, this is offered hope. Because without hope, none of us are going to keep going. We all need hope to live, to thrive, to have a sense of wellbeing and the faith community specializes in offering hope. It's really not up to the medical community to offer hope, I mean, they do, they try, and they do well, what they do. It's not up to the business community to be purveyors of hope per se. They do what they can do.
But man, it is up to the faith community to offer hope, it's in our DNA. And we can talk to the soul of people, persons, not persons with an illness, but persons with an illness. We can shift that away from a medical model to, this is a person and this person in front of me needs compassion, needs kindness, needs hope. And so, I think those are six things that are just at a basic level that require nothing but a commitment, and a determination, and intentionality, that a faith community can do to make a difference. And then there's all sorts of support groups that can be offered, recovery groups that can be offered, food services to people. They're just so many things that could make a difference in the lives of people who are suffering.
Kate Gosney: I wish we you could see how hard I'm nodding my head right now. Listening to you, and smiling because your words are so beautiful, and it makes so much sense to me, and how much power the church has just embedded in. Like you said, it's in their DNA to offer hope. It's there, it's built in, it's a resource just by being what it is. And a thread that I heard through all six of those things was talking about it, bringing it above board, de-stigmatizing it by making it okay to talk about. The more we talk about something, the less stigma it has, right? And the less avoidance one who's struggling with these issues will have in talking about it, because it's already there. It's already normalized, like you said, and it's just so vital. And hearing you say the words, "You are not a bad person, you are not a sinner, you are not somebody that we have to be ashamed of. You are a human being, having a human experience."
And there's just all these people flashing through my mind, past patients of mine, family members, people like that, that if they had heard those words when they were in the depths of the despair that they were in, would've changed their life. So there's so much power in that. And all the more reason, I'm so grateful to you for all the work that you're doing and have been doing all these years in the community and beyond.
Kay Warren: That made me think of one of our mental health ministry, a mental health initiative at Saddleback is founded on something we call the Hope Circle. And it is just a circle, and it was born out of the conversations that I had with my son for so many years, because he really did develop a terrible, self-loathing, a sense that he didn't matter, that he didn't fit in anywhere, that he really didn't have any choices, and that he really had nothing to give. Other people had gifts to give, they had contributions to make, but he did not. And while I won't ever know exactly what were all the combinations of things that caused him to take his life, I do know I heard those things from him often.
And so from that, I created something called the Hope Circle that is to help people build toward hope. It's not this magical thing. "Oh, if you think of these things, and I can get you to believe these things that everything will be just great in your life. We'll tie a bow on this pretty package." But that it's a journey these beliefs is if they can become cemented in a person's heart, and in their psyche, that it can lead them toward hope. And so to combat the deepest part of self-loathing, which is, Matthew used to say, I hate myself. He would tell me all the time, he hated myself. And to counterbalance that it was to come back across with, "No, you are loved. You are loved." And in the context of the faith community, I could bring it to, "God loved you and made you. He loved you before you even knew he existed. You are loved."
So whether you had a good day, or a bad day, or a terrible day, or all you did day was get up and brush your teeth. You at the end of this day can put your head back on the pillow knowing you are loved. And then I would hear him say, "I don't matter. My pain doesn't matter. The universe doesn't care, nobody cares. It does doesn't matter. Sometimes the universe is a cold place." And to be able to say to him, "You have a purpose. You were created for a purpose and meaning, and your life matters, your pain matters, you matter." And then I would hear him say things like, "I don't belong. I don't fit here, I don't fit there, I've never really fit there." And I know in his most desperate places, he would have the sense of, "I don't even fit in the human race. I'm not even sure I'm human."
Well, what agony to live in that place of not even sure that you belong in the human race and to be able to, again, through what I believe the tenants of my Christian faith has taught me is that there is a place for everyone in God's family. You do fit. You may not fit here, you may not fit there, but man, that church there is a place for everyone in God's family. And then when he would say, "There's no choices." For him, it was like, "To take my life is inevitable. This is what I have to do, and this is what I'm going to do. And there are no other choices because nothing's ever going to be any better." And to try to convey to him and to others that I've talked to since Matthew died, that you do have some choices. Even if all that you can get out of your mouth on a particular day is help. That is a choice to reach out and invite other people in.
There are choices to get well, to go to therapy, there are choices to take medication, there are choices to try recovery one more time. There are choices to call somebody, and not isolate. There are choices even within serious mental illness, even if it's the tiniest of choices. And then, the rest of that Hope Circle, it kind of concludes with his sense and that I've heard from so many other people, "I have nothing to give. Really, I have nothing to give." And to really help people understand that they are needed. Truly your contribution in this world is unique. It's yours. We need what you're bringing to the table. You are a unique and dearly loved, and purposeful, and belonging person, and what you bring we need.
And so our mental health ministry at Saddleback has been born out of Matthew's deep pain, but I've heard it over, and over, and over, from other people who will be very honest about where they are certain points. And to try to build it around that, here's the way toward hope, it is knowing and believing these things about yourself and where you fit in this world can give you hope on a day when everything conspires against you having hope. right. Sorry, I went a long time on that, but there may be somebody who needs to hear that.
Kate Gosney: Absolutely. I mean, this is why we're talking, is because these things are talking about is exactly what we should be doing. And I'm so grateful to you for de-stigmatizing it in all these ways, and having these support groups for all types of people going through all different kinds of things, but feeling that they are on the outskirts of society, and feeling different than and in these shame spirals. And you've seen it firsthand, you've witnessed what happens, and to be able to sit with somebody and give them hope in Matthew's honor. I mean, it just is so beautiful. We do have to start wrapping up I feel like I could keep talking to you for a very long time about all this, but I'm curious what that has been like for you, seeing people maybe, I'm sure you've seen many people recover and find that hope you're talking about and change their lives for the better. And I'm wonder what that has been like for you, given the circumstances that this has all been rooted out of?
Kay Warren: Well, there's nothing that brings me to tears, but they're tears of joy, if I tell my story or I speak somewhere and someone comes up to me afterwards and says, "Hey, I just want you to know I've taken suicide off the table as of today. It's no longer on my list of options on my life. Matthew's story has touched my heart, and I just want you to know that that's not an option for me right now. I am in fact, not going to be an option." And when I hear things like that, like I said, it always brings me to very deep tears. Sadness that my Matthew wasn't able to live, but his illness was very, very serious, but that there are other people for whom his story is hopeful and gives him courage to hang on. And yeah, it's thrilling, it's moving, it keeps me going. It keeps me reaching out, and telling his story, and offering hope to people because I do believe there is hope. I believe there is always hope.
And I do believe that there are many people who would live if they had some of the support that they need, some of the resources that they need, some of those safe places. That can produce guilt for people who are loss survivors, and I would just say to any loss survivor, this is not your fault that your loved one died. Your loved one was on their own very serious journey, and you did the best you could for them. And just like sometimes with cancer are not able to be cured, even though they are dearly loved by many, many people. And like I said, I will never know all that went on with Matthew. All I know is I miss him. But to hear other people say, "I have hope now," is deeply, deeply moving to me, deeply satisfying.
Kate Gosney: Absolutely.
Kay Warren: Deeply healing.
Kate Gosney: Healing, yes. That's what I was curious about, if that's... I mean, nothing will ever replace your beautiful boy, obviously. But he is sharing his journey through you, and you are healing through that, and at the same time other people healing because of it. And it is so powerful, and the legacy lives on. And it is truly beautiful work, and I thank you for that. And I know that we only scratched the surface on all of the things that you've offered in this community, the initiatives you've started, the devotionals you've done. And there's just a wealth of resources that I know you have to offer. So before we wrap up, is there anything that you would just like to share about resources for our listeners that they could go to should they be struggling with any kind of mental illness at all? Or just in general, not maybe feeling lonely?
Kay Warren: Yeah. There are the celebraterecovery.com. There's Saddleback support groups, if you go to saddleback.com, and you can find the support groups there. There's other online groups, Grace Alliance, Fresh Hope. There's betterhealth.com for a low cost counseling. NAMI got great stuff. Once a month we host a hope for mental health community online, 4th Sunday of every month, and it is designed to be a place of encouragement for people living with mental illness and their families. We always bring in mental health professionals, that she would talked a lot about.
Racial trauma and different experiences of people of color, and the intersection of that in mental health. So yeah, the once a month, my website, kaywarren.com has a lot of free resources downloads. My team and I compiled all sorts of free resources that people can... I just remember when Matthew was so ill, I didn't know where to go. It felt like any time I'd get on the internet, I was entering into Deep Space Nine and was never going to find the bucket of it. So on my website, have tried to just pull a lot of things together so that people don't have to look very far to get links, downloads, and resources to existing mental health services.
Kate Gosney: Gosh. Thank you for that. Thank you for having that in mind. I was curious about, as a parent what you wish you were told or what people did for you when were in the depths of things with Matthew. And that is certainly something I know from my own personal experience in my family looking for help for a loved one. Deep Space Nine is the best way to put it. I mean, you don't know where to go, and when you don't have any experience with it, it's so overwhelming and you just feel as stuck as the person suffering. So to have a one-stop shop, for at least a comprehensive guide of resources and is just such a godsend in a lot of ways. So I appreciate that very much, just hearing that as well. And thank you so much for all the work that you've done, intersecting the faith-based communities with the world of mental health. It is just so crucial and with what you were talking about with the research and everything, and just the importance of having them both there and having them compliment one another just so powerful. And you are certainly in the crux of helping make that a reality. So I truly thank you for all of that work.
Kay Warren: Thank you.
Kate Gosney: Yeah.
Kay Warren: Thank you Kathy. Thank you for the opportunity to talk to your audience today. It's meaningful to me. And if I had that a closing line, I would probably just say to anyone listening, "We all struggle. Don't struggle alone. The faith community stands ready to be a place to struggle with you and for you when needed, but definitely know that we all struggle and that you don't need to struggle alone."
Kate Gosney: You are not alone. Absolutely. Thank you so much Kay. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Appreciate you very much and I hope you have a good rest of your day.
Kay Warren: Bye-bye.
Kate Gosney: Bye-bye.