Most couples leave stroke rehab with a discharge plan, a wheelchair and a list of medications. Nobody tells them how to be husband and wife again.

Brandon Taylor was 35, a football coach and father of seven with an eighth on the way when multiple ischaemic strokes hit both sides of his brain in his sleep.

His wife Lindsey was eight months pregnant and became his caregiver overnight. Nine years later, they talk openly about what that did to their marriage, their intimacy, and their family, and how they found their way back to being partners. Their book, The Waterline, grew out of the conversations they had to learn to have.

Have you ever wondered if your stroke was a punishment from God? Many stroke survivors tell me they believe it. They think the stroke came as payback for something they did in the past, or that it was sent to teach them a lesson.

In this short solo episode I explain why that belief isn't true, and why hanging on to it slows your recovery. If God punished people with strokes, why do so many people who have done terrible things live to 90 without one? I talk about where this kind of religious guilt usually comes from.

It tends to get passed down by an elder, a parent or someone in the community who wanted people to keep showing up at church or temple and didn't know another way to motivate them. I also separate guilt from responsibility. Alcohol, drugs, diet and inactivity can all play a part in a stroke.

Changing those habits is responsibility. Punishing yourself for them is guilt. My stroke happened at 37, when a blood vessel I was born with burst. I was also smoking and drinking at the time. I changed how I lived, but I didn't carry the guilt, and that decision made room for my recovery.

Dr. Robert Hedaya, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine and a pioneer of functional medicine psychiatry, returns for his fourth and final conversation on Recovery After Stroke.

He founded the Whole Psychiatry & Brain Recovery Center in New Jersey. Together, we cut through the nutrition noise and look at a passive therapy called HYLANE, including what it can't do.