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How Depression Affects You and Your Relationships — And Ways to Navigate It Together · Stacked Intent: Your Guide to Authentic, Intentional Living

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Stacked Intent Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We are going to discuss and drop the tips on how you can intentionally stack your life.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Becca Stackhouse Morrison, the CEO and founder of Stacked Intent, and I look forward to having you join us each week during our episodes.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Stacked Intent is a family life education business that is resonating with individuals who aspire to rediscover or discover their most authentic version of themselves.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Too often our society beautifies a relationship via romantic family or friendship, but that doesn't teach the true meaning of healthy relationship boundaries.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: This led a passion to share with individuals through each transition that it is truly possible to live an understanding that is healthy and is possible when you understand your most authentic version of yourself.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: From a place of pain of losing friendships, becoming one-directional friendships, or simply these who were temporary along life's road, it is important to know and practice the keys to creating well-balanced and healthy relationships.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: There are relationship breakups and choosing to be single with much reflection to develop of the authentic version of self.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: From all these places, stacked intent was created to provide these research resources through research-based information.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to look at the ways that you can be your most authentic self and be intentional with yourself.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you're going to finish each episode being motivated to live your life more authentically.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Be with, but with each episode, we're going to have a special co-host, and I'm going to let her introduce herself.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I'm Sarah Bradley, a licensed marriage and family therapist and owner of Hope Grows Therapy and Consultation.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: My practice is located in beautiful downtown Watumka, Alabama.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up in rural Alabama, and my passion is investing in my community by investing in its people.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: At Hope Grows, we seek to do this by working to help people improve the health of their relationships, their families, their businesses, and themselves.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: In addition to talk therapy, we offer consultation services to organizations like churches and businesses to help them improve their organizational health through workshops, conferences, and intensives.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really excited to be here today and looking forward to talking about some of the most common issues that come up in my therapy sessions.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Stacked Intent Podcast.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of Stacked Intent.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And on this episode, we are talking relationships and we are talking how does depression affect you and your relationship.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna jump right into topic one, which is the inward experience of depression.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the inward experience of depression?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: So that refers specifically to how you are experiencing depression yourself.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: So it manifests itself in a couple of different ways.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: So emotional and cognitive symptoms being things like low mood, hopelessness, shame, guilt, irritability.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of people don't associate irritability with depression, but bam, there it is.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Negative thought patterns, self-criticism, worthlessness, catastrophizing, stuff like I suck, I will always suck, I have no worth at all, and it's never gonna get me better.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: If I don't continue this, then I'm gonna lose my job, I'm gonna lose my relationship, my kids are gonna hate me, the world is going to end, right?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Catastrophizing.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: It has the word catastrophe built right into it.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then we also talk about loss of pleasure.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: People don't think about that one, but it's I hear the words I hear are I don't find anything fun anymore.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Nothing feels good anymore, right?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: I used to have all these hobbies and now I don't enjoy that.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: I used to, I used to love cooking and working with food, and now stuff's just tasteless, right?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: I feel no pleasure with that regard.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: My sex drive is gone, all that kind of stuff.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it actually has a fancy name.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: It's called anhedonia.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_02: Anhedonia means loss of pleasure.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_02: So another thing that shows up, and I put this under both emotional cognitive symptoms and physical and behavioral effects, which we'll talk about next, but something called flat affect, which means that your affect, which is what was our face, right?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Our face, our emotions that show on our face, are anything that, you know, the eyes are the window to the soul, right?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: That means affect.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_02: So in therapy, we say someone has flat affect when their face does not reflect their emotion.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_02: So your face just is flat.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's still, it's like still water with no ripples.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you can be happy, you can feel sadness, you can hear something shocking from someone else, and your face is just kind of like, oh, okay, here it is, here we go.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you kind of it and it kind of stems from multiple things.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_02: You're not as connected to your emotions.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: When you're in depression, everything's kind of smushed down and squashed beneath a heavy rate of depression.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very difficult for your for your face to remain flexible and mobile and show all of your emotions, which leads us into the physical and behavioral effects, which are things like low energy, your sleep and appetite changes.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: Some people can't sleep, some people sleep for way too much, some people can't eat, some people eat way too much, difficulty focusing, being present, kind of withdrawal and numbness.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: So, not from lack of love, but from just the sheer emotional depletion of trying to get through the day-to-day of life, right?
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that I don't love you, it's that I can't even think about that right now.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just sitting here staring at the wall.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: I don't really even feel anything.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: And right back to that flat affect, right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: I smile at you, I look at you, I try to engage with you, and it's nothing.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's totally flat on your face.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: So this is really hard.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: This is really hard to experience.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: And right now we're talking about how you experience depression, right?
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: We'll get to how that affects your partner in a minute, but this is a really difficult place to be.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: And over time, it can kind of shift your identity.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: Um, instead of, I have a problem, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: This is this is something I struggle with.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: I have depression to I am the problem.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_02: I am depressed.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: This is who I am.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_02: This is part of my identity right now.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: And you you can feel like such a burden.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: It can it can be such a heavy weight every day just to carry yourself around that supporting the weight of a relationship feels absolutely impossible.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and then it makes it hard to your support, not just a relationship, but support being a parent or support being the caregiver to aging parents, of like if you are having all this negative feeling and sense about yourself, then it makes it really hard to be present for those other places in your life.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And you might feel like a burden on them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times this is where harmful decisions come from other people.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And the the farther deep into depression a person sinks, the more self-focused they they uh tend to become, not as a selfish, not in a selfish sort of way, but I I like to make a metaphor of somebody getting into a hole.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're deep in the hole, the deeper you get, eventually you can't even see above the ground anymore.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: All you can see is the sides of the hole.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: So it's very difficult for you to think of anyone else's perspective or imagine how anything, any of your decisions impact someone else, because all you can see is your own misery.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's a really dangerous place to be because people can make really irrational and damaging decisions in a place like that because they're not thinking about the fact of thinking about how their actions impact anyone else.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_02: It's something I've seen several times in therapy.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's a really difficult place to be because you're down in a hole, there's nobody down there with you.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that is that is antithetical to intimacy, that's antithetical to relationship.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_02: So you feel like you're getting deep into a hole, and the person that loves you feels like you're getting farther and farther away.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's one of those places that you can get in and not realize you got there.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's about can be really important to be able to be aware of what shame might do or a low mood or that negative self-talk.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes sometimes you you don't understand, you don't realize that you've gotten there, sometimes you do, and there's nothing you can do about it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: And your loved one comes to you and says, I don't feel like you're present with us.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like you're just sitting and staring at the wall, and you're like, I know, but I don't know what to do.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_02: I'm stuck here.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really tough.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And and this the thing that I've seen with this is that it's not the time to go find something new.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's the time to dig into the relationships that you have and the relationship with yourself and really figure out where you are there because otherwise it's just gonna follow you into that next place.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: It can, it really can.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_02: And also looking at if I look at my system, if I look at everything surrounding me, is there something that's maintaining this?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: Is there something that's maintaining this depression, right?
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_02: Do I have a terrible job where I go and I'm surrounded by highly toxic coworkers or a very difficult boss every day, and I'm carrying that home with me?
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_02: And okay, so does that mean that it's time to find a new job?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_02: And if we can't find a new job, because let's face it, the economy is not great right now, then how what are some things I can put in place to help me cope and help my relationship cope while we're in this season so that we come through it intact instead of this being something that ends us?
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it takes a lot of self-awareness.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: And if we go back to depression, that takes energy and depression tends to sap that right out of you.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it can be time for additional resources like therapy, even medication, right on a short-term basis or even long-term basis, depending on how significant your depression is.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_02: It can be something that can be really helpful to correct some of those chemical imbalances because sometimes we have chemical imbalances because of childhood experiences or genetics.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes we have them because of environmental or situational stuff.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't, I don't have the energy to get up off the couch.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_02: And if your therapist is saying, Well, you need to go outside.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_02: You need to go hang out with your friends and you need to go bowling because you used to love that, or maybe try watercolor because it's amazing and you can't get up off the couch, then none of those amazing suggestions are gonna benefit you.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: But if the medication can help you get up off the couch, we might actually get to get to go do some of those things and we might get somewhere so you can make some of those changes for yourself.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so that the flip side of it is the impact on our intimate relationships.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna have an impact because it's impacting you as an individual.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna impact your emotional availability and communication.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the difficulty you've got in connecting with your emotionals or being responsive, that that's going to affect your intimate relationships.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Misinterpretations might also be one of you're too overwhelmed until you shut down, or you don't care.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so it gets interpreted, but it's really your depression that that's that that is that forefront.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what about the changes in intimacy and closeness?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: What can it do to that?
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you look at your partner and you're sharing about your day, you're saying this really important thing happened and their face just stays flat, like that flat affect that we talked earlier, then you it's really easy to think you just don't care, or you're not paying attention to me.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: I that is that is antithetical to closeness.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: So when it comes to intimacy and closeness, things that require emotional intimacy, communication, physical closeness, it may feel like rejection.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I may not want to be physically intimate with someone who I don't feel like cares about me emotionally, or who I feel is not being present for me emotionally.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is particularly difficult for women.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: So if it's my partner is rejecting me, right?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_02: Or it feels like rejection, my partner's not able to connect with me, or maybe I'm the one who has depression and I'm not able to connect with my partner.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: So libido is one of the things that gets hit really, really hard when depression enters the relationship on either side.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: So you've got this sort of internal tug of war as wanting this connection, but you lack the energy, you lack the capacity, and there's just this feedback loop of I feel terrible, I can't connect.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I can't connect with someone.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_02: There's more distance from my partner, I feel worse, and now I can't connect even worse.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_02: So I push farther away from my partner, I feel even more terrible.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: And it's just this cycle of this spiral of yuckiness and depression that can get you lower and lower and lower.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: And your partner is confused and hurt and rejected, and they're pulling away to protect themselves, which makes me.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: And so they they're feeling confused, they're hurt, they're they feel helpless.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what else to do, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: I'm reaching out for you, I'm talking to you, I'm saying, hey, I don't feel like something is right.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_02: How can I help you?
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: And and they're not getting those answers.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_02: There may not be an answer that is satisfying.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know why I'm sad.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know why I feel this way.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: And that's terrible.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's just an awful place to be.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I want to fix this.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I want us to be better.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And so, for you to tell me that there's nothing I can do, how do I know this is gonna end?
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_02: How do I know this is gonna get better?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that can be where therapy can be really helpful, couples therapy and individual therapy, like, hey, my partner's going through a season of depression.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know what to do.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: Can you help me cope with that?
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_02: Or, hey, let's come in as a couple and partners going through a season of depression.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about what that might be, how can we figure out some ways to tweak their system so that things might get a little better?
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: And how can how can you we support you as partner, as the support person for your depressed partner, but also support you individually because this is really hard to walk through with a depressed spouse.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's learning to navigate and being willing to kind of figure out what that can look like.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it doesn't mean it's gonna be easy, doesn't mean it's an overnight fix either.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's navigating it.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: So navigating depression within relationships can come from communication and honesty, and so it may be naming the experience.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is what I'm going through.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: It may be language suggestions of feeling what the symptoms are without feelings of shame.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And also maybe that on both sides you have some validation and empathy that are coming into play.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: And being able to talk, being able to have language around, like you said, without shame and without and minimizing the frustration.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because what's wrong with you?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: Why are you sad?
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: These are very frustrating questions and thought patterns that most people who have a loved one with depression will experience at some point because cause and effect, right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: We learn that in kindergarten.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so if you are sad, there has to be a reason.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Did I do something?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: There's something going on at work.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And that no is a lot harder because if that's a no, then I don't know what to do.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I just have to sit here in my misery and your misery and hope against hope that it's going to get better.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really scary.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_02: So figuring out how to show up for your partner without trying to fix them, right?
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: So knowing your role as supporter, but not therapist, there's there's a reason, there's a difference.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: So thinking about your boundaries, thinking about your self-care, thinking about your mutual wellness.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_02: If the only thing you do is sit around the house with your depressed partner and try to make them better, you are going to drive yourself into depression as well.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely 100%.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: It's heavy, it weighs on you.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so recognizing that, hey, I know you don't want to go anywhere on Saturday, but I haven't seen my friends in weeks and I need a morning out.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna go out with my friends if that if that's okay with you, right?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: So recognizing your own needs and that your job is not to fix.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Because if our job is to fix, then when we can't fix, we feel like failures.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_02: Then we we're not doing a good enough job.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: Our relationship is a failure, and that's uh that's a yucky, icky, toxic thing to say to yourself.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's a damaging standard to set up for you to try to and jump to up to, and you're gonna constantly be exhausting yourself trying to make it better, as opposed to maybe I sit with you and maybe I love you in ways that you'll allow me to.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you can't give me the deep emotional verbal connection that I want right now, but maybe we can sit together or lay together and you can put your arms around me and we can hold each other.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_02: And I can feel you there with me, even if you can't show up for me verbally right now because you're lost in whatever's going on in your head.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_02: And I can support you by setting, helping you set up an appointment with a therapist as opposed to trying to be your therapist because that's not my job, that's not my training.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_02: And there's a reason therapists don't therapise their own family, it's not a good situation, right?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_02: The therapist relationship is one-sided, and a spousal or partner relationship is two-sided, it's mutual.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so if all my energy is going into taking care of you and making you better, then we're setting up ourselves for a little bit of trouble in the future.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Makes sense.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's if you're if it's uh you're not in a partnership and it's a friendship you're looking at, it may still be some of those same things of being able to help them set up a therapy appointment, help them set up some reconnections, whether it be through helping them with some shared goals or celebrating an outcome, helping them build some community and emotional resilience and together.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you are single, it's being able to find that that group or that community that's able to help you come out of your depression.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because sitting in it alone in a space all by yourself, that's definitely not gonna help you either.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's finding a self, a safe space to heal.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: But in all of this, it's remembering that not every space in friendship and relationship, family relationship, even in therapy, not all of those are created as equal spaces.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so you might have to try a different therapist because therapist one didn't jive with what you really needed.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I say that as a therapist.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_02: I tell my clients in the first session, I want you to get what you need, even if it's not for me.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that a lot of times I'm just not not everyone's cup of tea, and that's okay.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: Not everybody's my cup of tea, and that's okay.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: So not every friend is going to be your cup of tea.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: Not every relationship is created equal.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_02: So finding the relationships that can help you and sustain you, and the bigger and stronger your system, the better.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: But even one person can make an impact because isolation is the enemy when it comes to depression.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: Depression wants to isolate you, it wants you to be alone and it steals your energy from you so that you can't reach out to someone else.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's that's an abusive relationship.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: I'll just say that.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: That's an abusive relationship with an inanimate force is and so finding finding ways to to combat that.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe I'm not saying going out with a friend is gonna make your depression go away, but over time it can help change some thought patterns because if the only voice you're hearing down in that hole is yours, then those are the only words that you're gonna listen to.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: Those are the only words you have to listen to.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so having someone to speak truth and love into you can be so vital and powerful in working through and overcoming depression.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it could be something as simple as a hobby of like a pick or something like gardening.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: It is the time of the year that you could do some planting and really get in some dirt with your hands and be outside some, and that can be a healing method, or simply reading some kind of books or finding some ways to really give yourself not living in some isolation.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Isolation is really a feeder to depression and really can give us a bad environment.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so maybe you find a new hobby.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know that like my grandmother, I just I loved watching her after my grandfather passed away because he passed away, and then she spent another 20 plus years, but she she drew a line in the sand.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: This was her life with my grandfather, and then she recreated herself several times.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: So she learned to paint in her 80s, and so it may be that if you're going through something, you learn something new, and you're able to do it.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: So depression is one of those that can definitely affect us, and it can affect us in so many ways.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: It can be that thing that sneaks in and we don't even know that it's there.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: If we don't take the time to address it, it's going to eat us.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what is a call to action that you've got?
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then I added one to it as well.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the call to action that you've got for people as they're looking through depression and how it affects them?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I would really encourage you if you're struggling with depression or if you love somebody who is, to remember first that you're not alone.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_02: There are millions of people who are going through just what you're going through right now.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: And there are lots of resources and tools.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: This is something that our culture is fighting today.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: So you don't have to be alone in your fight unless you choose to be.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: So I encourage you to reach out to friends.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: I encourage you to pursue some therapy.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: Get yourself in with an with an individual therapist near near you.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: And there's also some resources that can help, right?
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: Especially because we're talking about depression, depression's effect on relationships today, right?
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, couples therapy, also things like the paired app, P-A-I-R-E-D.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: That can be a really helpful tool for couples because it asks couples questions every day, and the couple is supposed to respond, and it can be something that increases intimacy over time.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you can't have an emotional conversation with your partner because depression has got its hold on you right now.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe you can answer this question on this app.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe that's a little bit easier, and that's something.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, there's there's guards, there's like cards, there's lots of relationship resources on the Gottman website, G-O-T-T-M-A-N.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_02: I know my nose is stuffy, so I hope all that's coming through properly today.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, these allergies.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_02: But that can be really helpful conversation starters when you feel depression can steal your ability to have good conversations.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: Something like that can help give it back a little bit.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: And also this 15-minute check-in that we've talked about before, and Becca can link the PDF to that in the in the show notes.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, that's five minutes of sitting with your partner and telling them something that they did today that made you feel loved, honored, valued, cherished, and respected.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other, them same going the other direction.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_02: And something that didn't go so well, right?
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_02: Something that could have gone better, and then and then another five minutes just saying, This is something I appreciate about you.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, journaling can also be really helpful.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: Let me track that this is what's happening for me, this is how I felt about today.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: It can really help you kind of get to the root of some things that you're dealing with, even that you may not have been able to articulate before.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I always recommend that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then what I've got is encouraging you to read some different self-help books.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I've got a couple of blogs, I'll link of books that I've read throughout the years that have really helped me in this, that might be encouraging of ways to help you really dig into yourself and really get to know you.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Or one that I've personally had really helped is go to a retreat, a retreat that really focuses on some self-development, self-tools, self-relationship tools.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got one of those that's coming up, but it's finding different tools that can help you rebuild into yourself.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you guys for joining us today in our conversation about depression and how it can affect you and how it can affect your relationships.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: That brings us to the end of this episode of Stacked Intent.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you love this episode as much as I did, head on over and rate and subscribe so you will never miss an episode.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: New episodes are gonna be dropped on Thursdays.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Until then, this is Becca, and don't forget, enrich your life by being intentional.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: This podcast was created, produced, and recorded, and edited by Stacked Intent.