In this episode, Gina has a conversation with Mary Felch MFT, Expressive Art Therapist and Life Coach. Mary shares her story, journey of healing and gives her perspective on the rise of anxiety & depression in this season.
Check out Mary Felch’s Website Maryfelch.com
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When Home is Not Safe
Gina:
I have a very special guest today, my friend Mary. Mary is a marriage and family therapist. She loves Jesus and is one of my favorite people. Mary has an incredible story. She has walked through a lot in her life and is just a living, breathing miracle and demonstration of God’s redemption.
And in addition to that, I just felt with 2020 and 2021, and all the things that we’ve walked through in the last year, all of the fear and chaos that has surrounded us. There’s a lot of people experiencing anxiety and depression and fear that never have really wrestled with that before.
People who have wrestled with that are finding themselves in darker places than they’d ever experienced before. So I asked Mary to come and share her wisdom, her experience, the things she’s seeing, and how her faith merges with her understanding and her education, about emotional mental health, and how that lines up with our spiritual health.
Mary and her husband Keith, have been incredible gifts in our family’s life. We have a lot of history, but I wanted Mary here for a number of reasons, not the least of which – I just think you’re awesome. You have an incredible story.
I’ve been very passionate about testimony lately. I think with some of the earlier podcasts I recorded for this season, talking to some people and realizing that we just don’t hear people’s stories as much as we used to.
Back when I was a kid in the early days in Calvary, every Sunday somebody got up and shared their testimony of how they met Jesus, they stood up and shared their story of how they encountered Him and how their life changed. We just don’t hear that as much.
So you have a pretty profound story and testimony, and I would love for you to share that. But in addition, you’re a marriage and family therapist. You also do art therapy. You also have the best voice in the world. Your voice is like a hug.
So we’re in the beginning of 2021, which is coming at the end of 2020. It’s been a brutal year in terms of world circumstances, cultural situations. There’s just a lot going on, a lot of insecurity and fear, a lot of division, anger, and offense in the world.
People who do not ever struggle with anxiety or depression or fear, are finding themselves facing those things for the first time, and those that have struggled before are having to very hard time. So I would love to talk to you about that as well.
What are you seeing, how have things shifted with people that you see in the people coming to you, and then also, your perspective as a believer. How does what you know about emotional and mental health tie in with spiritual health?
And how we can stand, like Ephesians 6:13 stand, and after you’ve done everything you can to stand, then stand. That’s in spiritual warfare, but I think that spiritual warfare absolutely ties into our emotional, mental, and spiritual health. So wherever you want to start, maybe we’ll start with your story, because that kind of brings you to how you came to be where you are.
Mary:
I had a really hard childhood and I’m still working through some things. I was raised kid number 5 out of 10 children in a large Catholic family that went to mass every Sunday. I went to Catholic school growing up, and nothing against Catholic believers, but our family wasn’t necessarily that.
We had a lot of chaos at home, and my father was a very violent man. So I lived in fear my whole life. I don’t remember not being in fear. Because of that, I witnessed domestic violence. He would hit my mom and, and he was physically abusive to myself and all my siblings. He was sexually abusive, and this was the big secret in the family.
We’d have to get ready and go to church and get ready and go to school and put a smile on your face. But when you’re home, you just never knew what was gonna happen next. So, that kind of fear has gripped me most of my life.
Gina:
I don’t even know how to comprehend that kind of safety violation. Your home should be the place where you’re safe, but when your home is not safe, then what do you have? And the amount of the kind of fear that that must instill must be overwhelming.
Mary:
Yeah, it makes it hard to breathe. And so, um, and we, you know, as a therapist, I learned that about trauma survivors that, um, their breathing is very much tied in with their trauma as well as people who suffer from anxiety.
And so we work on breathing and letting yourself feel your body breathe. And just to do that is an actual exercise for a lot of people, to take a deep breath in and out. It’s very refreshing to realize I can do that purposefully, which didn’t come to me in a natural way.
Gina:
Yeah.
Mary:
My healing has had to be with great intention and a lot of hard work, and I wish that it was magic wand healing by God. But mine was a long, hard journey. But He met me there.
Mental health & The Church
Gina:
I’m so glad that you said that because I think for a long time in the church, there really wasn’t a context grid or even permission for a process of healing. There was a lot of, “Well, once you come to Jesus, read your Bible and pray and you should be fine. And if you’re still struggling then get over yourself.” This really compounds the fear and shame. Because now all that self-hatred and shame that you’ve been living with — the enemy just capitalizes on that, right?
Mary:
You become so isolated. You think that you’re the only one in the world who feels the way you do, or thinks the way you do. It’s so full of shame to admit it. I remember when I used to go to a church, when I was super depressed, I was in my healing process, but I was in the depression stage.
The pastor would talk really bad about psychology, and then he would talk terribly about people who needed antidepressants. At that point, I had started seeing a therapist and I was put on antidepressants. So it was really hard to just go, “Well, I guess my pastor doesn’t understand.”
Eventually we went to a church that had a psychologist on staff, thank God. People have grown beyond that earlier way of thinking, but it was very damaging to be suicidal in church on Sundays and hear my pastor saying that the things that are helping me were not good. I’m glad I found someplace else to go at that time at least.
Gina:
Yeah, absolutely. So let’s go back a little bit. You grew up in that home where fear was constant.That was your baseline. When did you meet Jesus, or at least recognize that Jesus wasn’t just putting on a nice outfit and putting on a smile and going through the motions on a Sunday with your family?
Mary:
In 10th grade we moved to a new county and I had to go to a new school and I didn’t know anyone. The first group of people that welcomes you are the lovely people who do drugs. So I started hanging out with them and they were nice, but it scared me.
I watched my sister go hang out with another group of people and I thought, maybe I’ll check out her group, and she was nice enough to let me. It ended up being this group of people in high school that sat around a tree at lunch and played guitar and sang and opened their Bible and read it.
They were nice to each other, and it blew me away. You know how people in high school are in categories. You have the nerds and the cools and the whatever, and like I would see people of different groups talking to each other and hugging each other. I was like, “You guys are breaking the rules.” It was just amazing.
That is where I first witnessed that verse, “By your love, they will know you are my disciples.” That’s what I saw, and I was attracted to it. So I kept coming, and then one morning I prayed with someone and accepted Jesus.
Gina:
Praise the Lord. That’s awesome. Let me also just say — Church, this is what we’re supposed to be. How amazing would it be if we could get back to different groups from different places, from different walks of life, from different likes, dislikes, hobbies, sitting around together, opening the Word together, singing songs and praying for one another, and bearing one another’s burdens, so that by our love, people will know that Jesus is real and He’s among us. That’s powerful.
Mary:
So then I started dating the Bible study teacher for several years. Then we got married, and that’s my husband Keith.
Gina:
And you were married young?
Mary:
Yep. I was 18 and he was 19. But we knew. So many people warned us, but it was the right thing for us. I don’t encourage everyone else to do that.
Gina:
It was right. You guys were amazing together. So you and Keith met, you got married, which really was a vehicle of getting away from that horrible place. So now you can start this process of really kind of regaining and rediscovering what life could be.
Navigating Pain
Mary:
Yeah. I didn’t know at the time how much unprocessed pain would follow me after I got out of that house. So, now that I’m writing my book, the memories are coming back. So, I had a son when I was quite young, and I remember wanting to always give him a better life.
But when he was like two, I would just be so angry inside and I could look at my life and say, “There’s nothing here to make you mad.” So I knew it didn’t have to do with my current life. So I took that anger and I went to go see a therapist at that other church and I began to put the pieces together that I had a lot of leftover anger and other feelings from my childhood that was so difficult.
We went through a long process of sorting that out and healing. My healing has been tremendous. It’s amazing. I can’t believe it. Yet it took a long, slow time, and I almost didn’t make it.
Gina:
You’re a miracle sitting across from me.
Mary:
I will say that I am.
Gina:
You’re a huge miracle and your marriage is a miracle. That’s redemption, and that’s also redemption of a legacy though breaking that pattern, breaking that cycle so it’s not passed on, and allowing God into those broken, hard places so that he can bring beauty from ashes. But that’s not a pretty road. it’s a pretty excruciating road, but it’s beautiful at the same time.
Mary:
Yeah, and some of the deepest steps, of my hardest part of my depression, at times I felt an intimacy with God that was just incredible. I felt his nearness and other moments I didn’t, and it was very scary. I’m glad I kept going forward with God’s help.
Gina:
That was a big deal. What are you thinking?
Mary:
Well, I’m just reflecting on that. I almost didn’t make it. I was suicidal and I did try to kill myself, and I I nearly succeeded. Actually, what’s shocking is that I didn’t do it more than once. The fact that I survived, is the Lord that people saw me and called 911 and all that.
It was a slow and gradual healing, and I wished it would’ve been fast and easy. But I didn’t know how to connect with other people. I didn’t know how to trust people. In many, many ways, even though I had friends and people who cared for me, I was separate from them, because I couldn’t let myself really feel it and believe it.
Gina:
Yeah. And that’s so interesting because we’re really made for relationships. So when that violation happens and that mistrust gets established, then the things that we set up for protection end up also being the things that keep us from healing, right?
Mary:
Yes. It’s survival skills.
Gina:
Those kind of become strongholds that we then have to go in and deconstruct, so that we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable and trust.
Mary:
And find connection.
Gina:
But there’s risk in all of that, right?
Mary:
Yeah, it’s a scary place. And when it feels like life or death, why would you risk it? So as a therapist, I learned that the very first stage that a baby learns is trust versus mistrust. And I learned mistrust. So it was always safer for me to mistrust.
I had a therapist who went deep with me and I gradually learned to trust. I thank God I married a good husband who I could trust, but even then, I didn’t really know how to trust him, that has come over time. All the things that you do to protect yourself are the things you need to lay aside in order to really grab hold of real life.
I was still learning one of those this week, I was asked, “How do you think others feel when they see you walk into a room?” And I was like, “Oh, they don’t see me. No one sees me when I walk in a room.” And I realized I still believe I’m invisible. That was one of my coping skills.
But I thought, “I’m probably friendly, but that’s only if I realized I need to be friendly.” But the first thought was I’m invisible, and it was my superpower. Many survivors have that feeling of being invisible, which was safety. And now, being here on your podcast, I’m being seen, or at least I’m being heard! But it’s about being visible. and it’s okay.
Gina:
Wow, that’s powerful. So you went on this journey, and God spared your life, you weren’t successful in taking it because He wasn’t finished with you. You kept going down that road and it was a long road, but in the process of that, you went to school.
Check out the first part of this conversation: Jesus and Psychology & Jesus and Art Therapy
Check out the Dwell Meditations
