#31 - My Journey Through Depression | Uyanga Love
Uyanga Love, Andrew’s one and only love, shares more candidly about how her experience during pregnancy and mom-hood has caused her struggles. Her vivid recounting of her journey will leave listeners with an opportunity to search within themselves and reflect what it’s like to be a mother or a young parent.
She and Andrew also highlight the importance of a support system for young parents, especially the mothers. Though they had tough times, the Loves represent the daily challenges that young families face, and how love and togetherness will help them overcome and gain the balance and stability every family desires.
Depression is an important label because it helps everyone have a starting point
The essence of motherhood and childbirth is different for every culture
Uyanga recounts her difficult journey in motherhood
The gift of having someone to lean on during depression is valuable
Andrew shares his experience on the birth of their three children
Couples who love each other can pull through despite going through dark days
How crucial it is to look out for those cries for help or attention from loved ones, which can lead them all the more to spiral down to depression
Episode Transcript:
Andrew Love: Okay, welcome everybody. We, we have a special little dealio going on today. Uyanga, my wife, and I, Andrew are here sitting on the ground very humbly in our Balinese estate, I want to call it an estate, that we've been in during lockdown. And today the reason why we're doing this podcast, in particular, is a first of all, the trend of High Noon is that people, Sammy and I had a conversation today and really it's been the Sammy and Andrew song. We've been the ones speaking and representing High Noon for a few years now. But there's a clear need for a chorus. More voices being added to this beautiful choir. Sammy was singing soprano and I was bass and now we have all the notes in between. Jab at Sammy, but, so that's the first reason is we want to include more voices as always, in our webinars and in our podcasts. And secondly, is this is actually a requested episode. Because after the "rantisode" that I had where I was talking about my wife's depression as a part of it, we actually got quite a few people asking us to go into details as to how did my wife really see the other side of depression? How did she get through that dark tunnel? What did we do as a couple? They're mostly interested in her actually because I brought up her story. So, we're going to hear from her so welcome. My beautiful, stately regal wife, Uyanga Love.
Uyanga Love: Thank you.
Andrew Love: You got to speak into the mic, honey.
Uyanga Love: Okay, thank you so much.
Andrew Love: Beautiful, beautiful. So, we're like we're lit- we're on the ground sitting on the hard floor. And we have to kneel in just to speak into, we're sharing one mic. It's very cute. We look like a couple of little kids, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: So today we wanted to talk about your depression, or whatever that was. Depression is a label. And it's an, it's an important label because it helps everybody have a starting point, right? To know that it's not happiness. It's kind of like sadness. But what you experienced wasn't necessarily just classic depression, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: So when did it start? Like it wasn't? It wasn't until after our second son Anand, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah. This, after second birth.
Andrew Love: So, we had one son, and at that point, he was two and a half, and then the pregnancy was fine during Anand. And then after the birth, not immediately after, but shortly after something, something occurred.
Uyanga Love: After his six months.
Andrew Love: Really?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: Okay.
Uyanga Love: And then yeah, definitely something happened to me. I feel that was like a spiritual experience. But and then you know human bodies, physical body, emotional, spiritual, mental all those things are connected and then one thing is affected to another, can connect and effect together and then I feel like after a second birth when he becomes until six months, I think I feel physically very tired and breastfeeding and then nobody around help and then I just although along with two toddler and baby, babies And then Andrew just early morning go out and sometimes very late night come and all that I just with their, my kids.
Andrew Love: Okay, wai- wait, well, we gotta, we gotta catch people up. So, at that time, we were living in somebody's basement, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: In Maryland, in College Park, Maryland. I thought it was beautiful. But, you know, I don't think you love that apartment. I was working as a pastor at that time, which basically means you're running around putting fires out all day long. And I was trying to manage that as well as, help my wife out, help my kids out and but she was at home, together with the kids, you know, all day and she was physically exhausted. Also, Honey, can you please mention the Mongolian customs for what happens after you have a baby? That's important.
Uyanga Love: Oh, yes, yeah, every culture is different especially that birth, during birth and after birth, how to take care of woman's bodies, and in Mongolia, we, and it's a cold country and then after birth especially, and don't put your hand in cold water and just take care of your body very well. And then I remember growing up even women wearing their, summertime, winter hat and put the ear, the plug and no the cold air in.
Andrew Love: So...
Uyanga Love: Take care very well, their body
Andrew Love: ...again. So she, she's living in America, and she has this cultural tradition of when after you have a baby, you cover your head, right? With a winter hat regardless of the weather. You plug your ears because you don't want the wind to go in your ears. What about showering? There's like...
Uyanga Love: Yes and no shower.
Andrew Love: For how long?
Uyanga Love: The long time it waits like one month but now people like, is one week, two weeks, I don't know what's people...
Andrew Love: So, you're not supposed to shower. What are you supposed to eat and sleep and stuff like that?
Uyanga Love: Oh yeah, exactly. And then someone really helps you take care of your newborn baby, and then as much as you can sleep, and then in Mongolia, we will be like, lamb soup. Especially their mothers together and then they're like mothers growing up in that, they are solid food you can eat and, and then through that lamb soup your body recover quickly. Something like that. If during this time, if you take care of your body very well and then you will be very healthy. If not, and then after a lot of sicknesses, a lot of problems have come out.
Andrew Love: Okay, okay. So I'm just trying to catch everybody up that, you know, to make this as useful as possible for everybody, because not everybody was born and raised in Mongolia, surprising fact. In fact, hardly anybody. But what, what is happening is, you know, it's very unnatural human beings right now are in a very unnatural state because we're disjointed, right? We, you and I were both living, were immigrants to America. Our families live far apart. And even when my mom came to a kind of help you, it wasn't as helpful because she didn't, she wasn't aware and as kind of sympathetic about your culture and your traditions, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: And so, Uyanga was starting out in a deficit already because she didn't have really the support to help, take care of her somebody to serve her. I had to take care of our family by making money and doing stuff, right? But there's nobody really to take care of her. She's taking care of a baby, but she never really had time to heal. So, she was in a deficit and she was exhausted, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah. And well during Andrew go out to work and I just with two babies, I think I'm not so much to eat and I even forget about the eating. And I joke at lunchtime and then like cook and that's why I, like, I get so skinny breastfeeding. Yeah, all those things are affected and, and then one thing is all these things are after I physically become very weak and then it's become so connected to the spiritual things and then you mentally become wary, like what's going on with me? You don't and... what is that? Like, nobody explained to you. Don't understand. Something like that.
Andrew Love: Well okay, so if you don't eat well, especially if you don't eat what your body needs. You tend to get a little loopy, right? Like, I don't know if anybody here is. If you mess with your sleep cycles too much, you start to get a little bit loopy. Like, if you're an insomniac, you can start to really break down emotionally, physically, you know, you look terrible. So there's that because you had a newborn baby, you're not sleeping. She's not eating the foods that she feels, she needs and she's not getting the nutrients. You wanted, like, meat. She just wanted lamb and seaweed. That's basically how soup...
Uyanga Love: Soup, soup.
Andrew Love: She wanted to bathe and soup all day. And she wasn't getting that. And so physically, she's, she's malnourished because she also has; when women breastfeed, I've read that the highest calorie-burning activity that you can do, like more than running is breastfeeding. And so she's burning all these calories. She's not eating enough, sleeping enough, and so it puts her body off-kilter. And that's strains the mind because you start to get all these weird mood swings from not eating enough. That puts your spirituality out of balance. So, just throws everything out of whack, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah. Yeah, and then... Okay, and then after I, I've ended up like I feel not so much breathing well, and then like my breathing becomes very short and I struggle with me breathe and then what this thing is happening. And then it ended after one time I was so tired. I feel so tired. And then I was asking Andrew, can I go to this potluck and according to in this sauna, everybody knows that. I want to just go into the sauna and I relax one day, and I asked of him and then I go there. And then...
Andrew Love: Wai-wai-wai-wait. I gotta... That was a crazy day. This is...
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: She really wanted to go to the spa. We were both exhausted. And I was really struggling that day. I was really just frustrated. Because it seemed like, you know, I was losing my wife, right? So from the other person's perspective, when there's a spouse who's got depression, it's not easy on either one of them, right? They both need support. And I didn't know what was happening to my wife, she was kind of, she didn't look like herself. She was not acting like herself. And then, you know, I was like, working overboard. I was working all the work to like, make the money but also really taking care of the kids because she was less and less able to do that. And so then, one day, she's like, "Oh, I need a spa retreat." And at that point, I just was like, spiritually struggling so much. I was just like, "Well, when's my spa day kind-of-thing." Like I had this, like a baby and my inner baby was crying. And so of course, I supported her because I could see she needed it but deep inside my heart I was like, I was really kind of resentful and so I had a lot of, a lot of negative emotions swirling in me when she left that day. I remember the car, I remember you driving away.
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: And I remember just looking at you and I just had a lot of negativity pulsing through me, because I just felt like, from my perspective, I'm a really ambitious person, and I thought she was just being weak. I was like, why don't you just buck up, you know? Just kind of suck it up and do some push-ups. Like that's, it's such a ridiculous machismo approach but... Then she left, okay? This is, this is what happens, I have all these negative feelings even like this, this weird sense of like, "What if she got into a car crash?" This kind of like real, kind of weird negative anger stuff.
Uyanga Love: Oh yeah.
Andrew Love: And it wasn't like I wanted her to get into a car crash but that's where my mind was going. And then you know, a few hours go by she, I hear nothing from her. And then a bunch more hours and then I get a call from her and she's like "Honey, so I'm in the hospital." "You what?" And then, you know, it turns out she went to the spa and you, you explain what happened.
Uyanga Love: And then, go into that sauna. Korean sauna. And then I saw in front desk there's have the massage things. And then like you know, like, day and night I breastfeeding. My, like, the neck is like, so hurt and I just need like some nice massage and I get the one hour massage. And then I go there and then while during a massage, my body all suddenly, I couldn't breathe in oil, then all my muscle is like tightened up. I cannot. What is that in hand?
Andrew Love: So, she was experiencing rigor mortis. Like her... She couldn't hurt- she went into this full-body spasm and she just tensed everything up. She started to lose, like, she went you like, disappeared like, it's like you, you left your body, right?
Uyanga Love: And even they, I cannot talk to my
Andrew Love: She clenched her jaw. She, yeah. She, and so they, they started freaking out - the staff there. So, they called an ambulance. Then the ambulance came and my wife was just like, in another dimension. And she could see like, the thoughts of the paramedics and they were like, all weird and gross and not really so comforting, right? And then and then they took her to the hospital. And at that point, we were really struggling financially too, got to say. And then that, you know, that spa-day turn into $1,000 spa-day because of the hospital bill. I was like, "Oh my God! This is..."
Uyanga Love: Yeah, that's very interesting things and... Okay, anyway, and then that's the, I think lowest point, and I feel died and born again. I feel like that's a very interesting thing is happening.
Andrew Love: Coz I mean that, okay, this whole thing lasted years. I wouldn't say, it sounds very miraculous when you're like you died and you born, you were born again but in reality this dragged out for years, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: And so, what people really wanted to know when they asked us to record this was like, how did we cope with this? How did we raise kids and how, how did you improve your situation like what? You know, for us, okay, I think we should also explain that you know, depression is nothing to ignore, and it's nothing to be ashamed about. But it's also nothing to be just accepted as well. Like, we didn't really go the traditional route as we asked for a bunch of help from people we knew. But at the same time, we didn't just, you didn't just take, you know, prescription drugs and we didn't just, you know, try to do an exorcism or something like that we went in this middle road of like, you know, eating betters trying to sleep more and like what was this process like?
Uyanga Love: I really feel, yeah, it's for me is going through this process is like, life and death. Things I feel it, I experienced it. And then sometimes I even feel like, I can feel, I can lose my mind even I cannot control my mind that sometimes I feel it and then all those things, today's come out is like, basic things is like a spouse for each other. I really grateful for Andrew, my spouse, really like, during that time is like even we two, no young couple, what's going on and then he is just there for me and he just tried to listen to me. And then...
Andrew Love: So I was, I was trying to understand and I was trying to be sympathetic, but to be honest, like, I was really extremely frustrated too because I just didn't. I saw it as a lack of will and clarity on your part. I was putting a lot of it on you, even though you know, we were fighting a lot back then. It was very intense.
Uyanga Love: Yeah, I cried a lot.
Andrew Love: She's crying a lot. She's not the type of person to cry. I'm definitely the more sensitive one. Right? And then, you know, do you want to describe that day? Then, in the car, when you, she basically gave me this... She scared the crap out of me because we were driving and then and then what did you do? What happened?
Uyanga Love: Yeah, and then at that time, I feel like Andrew is like, not enough time, spend with us. Like, especially for me like, "Honey, like, how are you doing?" Do you know? Like, around me, because I really remember he is very busy working. And then I asked, "Can you just stay with me? Like, can I buy your time? Like what? How much? I really need you. If you leave me now like, you go into a meeting, I'm going to die!" like, "It can't happening." My hand is like, again that muscle is tightening and I cry like crazy, and then he saw it and then like, "Please stay with me like I wanna buy your time, come you know like..."
Andrew Love: She pleaded with me. And at that moment, I was so frustrated, but at the same time, I could feel deeply, spiritually. It's harder to say it any other way than spiritually like I felt it in my veins, all my, all my hairs are standing up on my arm that, all my senses are saying take this seriously. And that was the beginning of when we...
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: She basically, it boils down to this is like, she needed somebody, I don't know if you've seen what dreams may come out there but like this, this idea that if your spouse's in hell are you willing to go down into hell with them, to liberate them, to help them, to show you, to show them that no matter what you're there with them, and at that point, I felt like, that's the only thing, you know, like, there's no winning unless we're together, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love 19:23
And so, from that point on, I could see how, I could really feel how serious this was, I saw that she was losing herself. And she needed an anchor and there's nobody in this world that could provide that for her. But for me, and that's what I signed up for when I got married and blessed to her right? And that's the moment when we actually started. We just said, "Okay, let's change everything." You know, it wasn't, wasn't long after that.
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: Well, we started planning a new life and we packed up our things. We sold a bunch of stuff, we gave a bunch of stuff away, and then we, whatever we could fit into our car, and then we, we've been traveling pretty steadily ever since.
Uyanga Love: Since then. Yeah, since then.
Andrew Love: And it came from a need of like, you know, okay, you're used to living in a place. How important is that? Is it more important than the sanity of your spouse? And not everybody needs to take such drastic measures. But we did. We had to get out of everything we knew in order to rebuild from nothing. 3
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: Right? And so, was that helpful for you? Was, was moving and leaving that environment, leaving Maryland and starting to travel, was it helpful? And if so, why was it helpful?
Uyanga Love: Yeah, I think that's really helping us because since then, like, I was really looking for the like, mother, like someone really close to me are still with my kids and really like, try to understand. They explained to me what's happening, you know, looking for down and then not really can find and then that's all we need to get out from there. And then find like, "What is this?" You know, and then healing and looking for the, we as a family, we're looking for the healing process. And then that's the year, one year, two years. And then eventually last year we go to Mongolia and he needs to travel all over Europe. And then Mongolia wasted four or five months and during summertime, and then it's kind of Mongolian shaman and they do massage and really like kind of spiritual healing, physically, spiritually together. And then I get a bunch of that and go through healing that process. And then and that's really helpful for me. And then also, more important things are like, I really stand up, like, I'm going to, you can like, you know that mentally very strong. Is it like I am lot allowing to myself like die just like under the sickness, just forever still like that. Or you really like, I wanna get up, I want to donate these things, you know? And one night I was really determination and then that's healing me that. And then also together with the meditation, that was the big process.
Andrew Love: So, meditation has really healed our family a lot. My wife and I had severe anxiety because I was in over my head with this whole situation. And it was bringing out a lot of frustration in me. And then, you know, meditation helped to calm me down so I could not get swept up in the emotion of the situation. See things more clearly. And then also, she's been on this journey with meditation as well to, to see through all the, all the stuff to see more clearly. And, you know, you went to Mongolia. So it sounds like, you know, when you have debt physical like, you know financial debt, you have the original balance, but then you have interest that accumulates over time, which we've experienced in the past when we had a failed business. It's a painful experience because you just see that amount growing and growing constantly, it's almost impossible to pay off some debts, right? And then you have to go bankrupt. And the same is true mentally, emotionally, spiritually, like you were, you were physically and then mentally and then spiritually in debt for quite a while. And then when we were traveling, it seemed like you were kind of paying off that debt because you were able to relax more. We had less of a financial burden on us so we could enjoy kind of relaxation more, moving up, you know, in the Maslow's hierarchy and then slowly, relaxing more mentally, slowly enjoying more but then, right when we thought everything was going well, there'd be, we, you know two steps forward two steps back and it felt like some days like, like we were right back to square one, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: Coz we'd be traveling and then you would have another, another you kind of lose yourself again.
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: You remember that?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: And then even so you know after we left Maryland...
Uyanga Love: Were they, like that, was like we have three sons, that was like starting from the second son and then even two down, we have the third son and then that was like even a strong hit me, as you know, some more I like, really like struggling with the breed and then I just as you know, I'm going to die like every second, every time I really fighting with that feeling, like I'm going to die. I don't want to die, like, three small children like that was my everyday...
Andrew Love: Wait. So you're saying when you were pregnant with our last one. So, the last trimester of our last, our third son. You know, I was, I went, I traveled to Korea to give a presentation. And I actually had to come back early. I had to get on an early flight because I was getting notice, notifications from our midwife that Uyanga is in panic and she's starting to panic and her anxiety was causing early contractions and she almost went into early labor and I like, I literally got back just in time to calm her down. So that you know, we had our last son, two weeks later, he almost came to a couple of weeks early. And so she was still dealing with, with stuff. It would, there would be these spikes, even after going to Mongolia because, in order to fully pay off the debt and the interest, that's where I was kind of going is you really have to spend. If she needed a month's rest after our second son and she didn't get it. Well, now she needs more than a month accumulated, right? And that, that keeps on growing and growing. So you know it's really taken, even now we're in, we're in Bali and we've really she's been relaxing a lot. Things have really changed, you know in the past maybe six months you know, a year even they keep on getting better and better because we're just paying off that debt. Spiritually, mentally, physically. You know, for her and for me too, because it was taxing on the whole family.
Uyanga Love: Yeah. Okay, and then let me explain that when I go up to Mongolia, I basically find out what is the sicknesses and then yen basically Andrew explained this like in, we are like Western Eastern people. I'm from Asia, in Eastern. He is from Canada.
Andrew Love: I'm the whitest man in the West.
Uyanga Love: Western culture and then that medical system is also very different, you know, that an Eastern medical and more tradition. Western is more like a hospital, all those things and then he basically all you are stressed out you are like depression, what are all those words is like except what's exactly means, but I go to Mongolia and then I really find out this is like, a woman after giving birth, they go through like that. And then if, then not really understand the sicknesses and then they will be ended after like, lifetime, mentally ill, they cannot or like even they can go...
Andrew Love: Crazy?
Uyanga Love: Die or like that. And then yeah, I meet with the people and there was explaining and then this is like crazy sickness. The main part is like, you look totally fine. People will say you are fine. And then for your, for you, for you is this is like, life and death, you feeling it? And then this will be like, around your people like, around your family members, it's very difficult because you give it to them, I'm sick, I'm doing the sun and then they look like fine. And then what's wrong with you and doesn't understand each other and then a lot of that argument things will happen. And then yeah, a lot of explanation. They give it to me and then basically, I, myself find out, what exactly this meant, and then how I can deal with it. And then yeah, they were saying this is kind of like, mental sickness and then you really need to dominate your mind. The meditation will help you a lot. These kinds of things and then the energy healing there. Doing a massage and things like that.
Andrew Love: Well, can I just step in because for me, like, you know, we had, she's incredibly strong. And all three births were totally natural, you know, and I was there and right by your side and I saw how strong she is. And when you go a route that is, that deviates from the norm, right? And in the West, the norm is very medical, very pharmaceutical, and all this stuff. If you go outside of that, you have to really have a firm belief and you have to be willing to trust your intuition. Even when some people tell you you're wrong. When we had our first son. We had an ob-gyn, this doctor guy, and then I started doing research about midwives. My sister had her first child with a midwife, and I asked this ob-gyn you know, "What do you think about midwives?" and he said, "If you want to kill your kid, then go get one of those witch doctors," and I was like, "Geez! So, intense!" And so I, we went with a midwife but I had that on my conscience that this guy in a lab coat and with a very nice clipboard told me that my actions were to kill my kid. And I had to take full responsibility. That's intense, that's very intense. And so the same thing went for her mind you know, a lapse in her spiritual, is like the western way was not sufficiently satisfying our curiosity. And so we went to the East and for me, the East especially Mongolia is very ethereal and there's like a lot of gaps, in there, in the explanations like, "Oh, it's, you have this, you know, spirit with you and we just have to you have to jump up and down", or whatever, right? There's like all these things that the shaman do. And I wasn't willing to go full blown Mongolian either, because, you know, it's so new for me. So it's kind of like we both, that was the beautiful part of our, of our blessing is that we didn't go fully Western or Eastern, we found this middle ground. And that's what we found is the best approach is this integrated. East meets West, take the best of both, right? And so we, we, you know, meditation is now kind of popular in the West, but you got some wild treatment out on Mongolia, where the woman was saying that the problem was you had too much air, inside yours?
Uyanga Love: Supposed to be your heart that's why you struggling with the breath.
Andrew Love: So she had too much air. The explanation of Mongolia was that it was hard for her to breathe because she had too much air in her body, inside her body, and especially close to her heart. And I think that a lot of medical practitioners would laugh at that. But you know what, it really helped my wife more, much more than any pharmaceutical could have. Right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: That isn't to say that, you know, that's not some people's path. It's like this is we're just trying to testify to what, what we did, right? And we weren't comfortable. I know some people on some pretty harsh, you know, antidepressant meds. And I just, I know this for some people, it's a life sentence. And we didn't, we didn't we, that was like a last resort for us. But first, we wanted to explore other paths. And so I just wanted to explain that because if you're hearing this most likely, again, you're a Westerner or maybe you're an Eastern. It's hard to explain this, but it's really that, that there's no, one right way like the East isn't always right. The West isn't always right. You have to really trust your intuition with this stuff. Because at the end of the day, regardless of all the opinions you have to accept it within your marriage that we chose us and it has to be a decision that you can both live with, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: And so I was really trying to, it's really hard, to be honest, to take a lot of what I was hearing from this Mongolian side seriously because I didn't even understand any of this stuff, you know. But I trusted that my wife believed in it and that was enough for me to just move out of her way. It's her, it's her feeling, right? It's her life. So, I have to shut up sometimes and not give my googled scientific opinion.
Uyanga Love: Yeah, yeah. And then also, one thing is I really grateful. That was really. Now, 2020 that was starting from 2016. We go through the four years. And I feel now our family and me, basically our, basically understandings these things and we in our with search and our coming and then today's this level is like really awesome. I'm grateful for God and I could die, you know, like in Mongolia was one last doctor with massages lady was saying, she was talking about a bunch of their experience people go through these things you know, that they just died, you know when leaving the small children that I really grateful like, that was, that can possible to happen, you know, and then you really listen to your original mind, heart, and God and then also, the, your spouse, there for you, really helped. Together, we overcome the situation as a family.
Andrew Love: Yeah, it's a really, it's a family affair, but it's, it's really focused on the couple and like, we love each other so much more because of this, right? 's, I wouldn't recommend that anybody go through some of the dark days that we went through. But at the same time, I can say I love you all, all I want to my wife, but she knows that there's nobody else in this world that will kind of take care of her the way that I do. There's, there's no doubt in her mind. And likewise, you know, we're really there for each other and we've proven it, it was like a test, you know. And it's still not over, you know, but at the same time, the dark days are so much fewer and farther between, and we have more tools to kind of deal with them. And again, you know, we use the term depression very generally in the West, it's, it's a very easy label. But this was definitely like she, she had all sorts of symptoms from like, like having delusions, you were listening to podcasts, and feeling like the guy, the podcast guy, she was listening to like a lot of entrepreneurs, they were talking directly to her and I was like, "Honey, no, he's just speaking to everybody," like, "No, he was talking to me." It's like, "Oh, my God, Honey, are you okay?" It was so scary, right? And so stuff like delusions to just sadness. Her body didn't want to move. A lot of times, there's like a lot going on there. But to just label it, "Oh, she's depressed." You're just talking about the result. But it was really this imbalance of all the elements that make up a human which is your mind, your heart, your spirit, your body. They were, they were all suffering. They were all low, you know and we had to spend time to charge them back up, to plug them back up.
Uyanga Love: Yeah. Yeah, that's why I feel like if, like Andrew, how he helped me. It was like, the different person, like oh like you look like fine you know, just different way to talk to me or approach to me or like doesn't care and then it really go through the difficult, the more suffering and because of the, how he tried to understand me, support me. So I'm just so grateful.
Andrew Love: Yeah, and for anybody out there I want to say husbands but this goes either way. If your spouse is giving you like, is crying for your attention, take it seriously because I really feel like that day in the car when you, I just remember her. "How much do I have to pay you for your time?" Like this kind of thing. She was so desperate for me. And at that point, my cup was so full. I was like, "Are you kidding me? I am working so hard to try to keep our family together, to make sure the kids are okay, to keep on..." You know, I just felt like I was doing everything I could and for her, it wasn't nearly enough. It wasn't anything. But I could see how serious she, she was and how desperately she needed me that everything else had to go away. Even if I had to lose my job. Even if we had to live on the street. It doesn't matter. You just at that mom- I feel like if I didn't take you seriously then, you would have died.
Uyanga Love: I go to again to the hospital, I just, the same thing happening.
Andrew Love: Yeah. I think it would have been really bad. I don't know. I don't even want to entertain that, too much. But it was a defining moment. And so please spouses if you get those cries for attention, those calls to action, take them seriously because the only reason we're here, right now we have three beautiful sons and we don't have perfect days, but we have many great days. You know, and they're getting better and better all the time is because we double down on each other, right? Because I was very ambitious. I was like, ah, but I'm trying to do all this stuff. And it's like, well, what the hell is the point of doing any of this stuff? If my wife is not okay. All that stuff is meaningless if my wife is not okay, if my kids are not okay, so yeah, it's just this is we're trying to give you as much of an accurate account of, it was hell, it was, it was two years was like pretty, pretty intense. We experienced moments that we know what hell looks like and feels like and because we were locked in there for a while.
Uyanga Love: Especially like, if you guys, people have that around you, your family, your friend. It the very close to your heart. The person is there for you, all those things will be easy but we were like, you know, looking for and couldn't find really someone and then like that's why I was asking to Andrew, even I asked him to, my son was five, six years, five years old he just, "Please take care your brother, like, you know like, I'm, I'm not so feeling good." Even he understands like, my mother is struggling with depression, she's sick and goes to the hospital like that. And if there's them, just two or one, even one great person around you, things will be better.
Andrew Love: Yeah.
Uyanga Love: That's how I like, thru in this experience, I appear to really want to help to people, who go to and I can talk like in all those things, I really experienced.
Andrew Love: Yeah, so they're, I mean, there's some stuff there, right? What we mentioned, what she mentioned, what Uyanga mentioned is that she was feeling something that nobody in her life, myself included, could understand. She felt like it was life or death. And I just was like, "Can you just try harder?" And for her every time I said that it would make it worse. So, if you are struggling, you know, please reach out to somebody. And if somebody does reach out to you, especially somebody that you're married to, please try your best to exercise your empathy muscle as much as possible because trying to force them to just get over it really just makes things worse, right?
Uyanga Love: Yeah.
Andrew Love: So do you have any advice as somebody who's doing much, much, much better? Do you have any advice for anybody out there who might be struggling with this kind of thing with depression, with loneliness, again, such an easy label, but...
Uyanga Love: Yeah, I think these days is you know, like, through technology we connect like, like wherever but, and I experienced this, the heart is not connected like, you know that's why you go through a lawn, like things like the, you looking for someone like I'm dying, I'm dying. Who I can call like, you know we really think about heart during that time when people's life and death can, and then I just want to really connect with each other heart to heart. Really you can express your heart and then you really, to listen to other people's heart. That is the most important thing, go through this kind of thing together, we can overcome. Others, yeah, the Mongolian that lady was explaining to me, that was no connection. That's why people died. That's why they go through.
Andrew Love: So the connection is key, everybody. Just remember that. So thank you, honey.
Uyanga Love: Thank you.
Andrew Love: Thank you for joining this podcast. And I hope that was helpful for everybody. Please reach out if you have any questions. This is just our experience. Again, we don't make any hard recommendations to do one approach over another other than, learning to trust your intuition and listening to each other, and coming to a solution that you can both live with. And if you need, anything at all, please reach out to us at High Noon. You can find my wife on social media. She'll, she's, she's there. And yeah, thank you so much for joining us say, goodbye, honey.
Uyanga Love: Thank you so much. Thank you.
Andrew Love: Thank you, everybody.