The Dr. John Delony Show - A Challenging Preschooler, an Angry Brother, & an Unsympathetic Husband

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 3:41: How do I help my aggressive and destructive preschooler? 14:31: How can I help my brother with his anger and bitterness? 28:14: My husband treats my depression like a burden. How do I deal with that when it feeds my depression? 41:17: Lyrics of the Day: "Rain King" - Counting Crows tags: parenting, behavior problems, kids, boundaries, anger/resentment/bitterness, family, depression, marriage These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Hey, on today's show, we're going to talk to the mom of a young toddler with behavior issues. What can she do to help? We're also going to talk to a big sister who loves her 25-year-old brother. What can she do to help him get out of his funk? And we're going to talk to a mom of four young kids whose husband treats her depression like a burden. Stay tuned. Hey, what up? I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. It's a live show where we walk alongside people just like you

who are trying to figure out their life, their marriages, how to be human beings again, how to be pet owners who aren't idiots. We talk about everything on the show, right? Anything, everything, no matter what's going on in your heart, in your mind, or your family. There's so many people all across the world in that booth, especially out there. Today, we've got an audience. Today, we're in this new studio. Everybody is struggling with things, and we're all trying to do the best

we can to get our relationships back together, our workplace back together, our families back together, all of it. So we're here to talk about everything. We might even talk about people who complain at restaurants. Here's the thing. I worked at Burger King for four years. Joe and Linda Turner, two awesome people who hired me back in the day when I was just a kid. Their son, Clay, was awesome. Trained me, taught me. People complain at restaurants. There's three kind of people who complain.

There's those who complain because they're just idiots. They're trying to get free things. Every group of people has a moron in it, and there's always that person, right? And then there's people who are actually trying to solve a problem. They asked for this particular meal. It didn't come out likeon in it. And there's always that person, right? And then there's people who are actually trying to solve a problem. They asked for this particular meal. It didn't come out like they wanted it. They're pleasant and they're kind. And they're saying, hey, I asked for this and I thought I was going to get this.

And then we get it worked out. And then there are those who just love to complain. And they have such little power in their lives. They are so unimpressive to the person they're dating or they're with that they like to use this moment, a poor waitress, or I want to talk to the manager, right? That famous line that just begats control, right? Those people who just want to complain because it makes them feel powerful,

and they say something like, I don't want anything free, or I don't want you to do anything. I just wanted to whine and complain. So if you're somebody who's just trying to fix a situation, good for you. If you're an idiot, thief, whatever. If you are somebody who complains for power

or complains just because it makes you feel good, do this. Find people who love you and talk to them because you don't have enough of them in your life or take an online course that you can excel at do something that is going to help you get ahead in life other than just whining so if you've got a problem

if you have a whiner in your life if you've got people who you love and are just trying to solve problems you know what are the next right crooked wobbly thing to do please give us a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. And as I figure out this new studio, it's still all shiny and lit up and bright and shiny. It's just shiny everywhere. If you're watching this on YouTube, if you're listening to this in your

podcast, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Just imagine the shiniest place you've seen, and that's it. And these shiny, beautiful people out here, this is so weird, good folks, because I've been doing this in a hole in a studio down below us for months now. And now just seeing you is super weird, but it's good to see y'all are beautiful. And even you guys, y'all are beautiful as well. All right, so let's go straight to the phone today. Let's go to Christina in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Christina, let's see what's going on. How are we doing, Christina? I'm doing good. I'm so glad to be able to talk to you. I'm so glad that you called. How can I help? I was wondering, how can I help my aggressive preschooler? Oh, man. So tell me what you mean by aggressive. Well, he often hits or destroys things, mostly hitting other people.

And it's become more and more of an issue. And I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the stress of this year because this year has been a wreck for everyone. Yeah. Compounded by COVID. One of the things I instantly think of when I hear about kids and behavior, especially little kids, but really all kids, is behavior is a language, right? Behavior is just a signal. So what is this little kid trying to say in whatever environment they are in? So walk me back to the beginning of this year for you. What's it been like for you? You say it's been awful and bananas. What does that actually mean? Well, I was pregnant at the beginning of

the year, so that was one thing. So I had a baby since then okay um and during the time that the pandemic started um there was a tenant who lived downstairs who was an exchange student and he wasn't able to go home um when he was originally planning to and he thought that my kids were just too loud and inconsiderate and and he would pound on the floor, so it would come below, and it would scare us. And we had some frightening episodes that eventually led to panic attacks, and we stayed at my parents' house for a time until things settled down. So you're answering your own question, right? Partly, but he's also been aggressive even since he was a little baby. Because as a baby, he would even hurt himself where we had to hold him down so he wouldn't scratch his face or pull his hair out.

Yeah, and some of that for – sometimes you start trying to look for the cause of a behavior or the reality of a behavior, and you start grabbing data points from all over the place, most of the time, a kid who's an infant who scratches himself or pulls her hair is just simply trying to figure out their own body. That would be unrelated to aggression or some sort of inborn anger issue. Now, of course, there could be some psychological issues, but what you've just laid out to me is a lot of stresses. This kid's, everything this young kid knows, how old is he? Four? Three and a half. Three and a half. Okay.

Everything in this three and a half year old's life has changed. A hundred percent. He had mom's attention. Now he's got to share it. He had a safe house. Now he's got somebody banging on. He had a safe house. Now he's got somebody banging on the floors, making him be quiet. He had a mom who had a life that was somewhat routine, and now you're living at somebody else's house. Everything is dumped over. Where's dad in this

picture? He's been around. He's been working or doing school from home throughout the year. And what type of dad is he? Is he a connected dad, a plugged-in dad, or a everybody shut up, I'm trying to do school dad? What kind of dad is he? Most of the time, like, he's really good at spending time with the family when he doesn't have to work on school stuff. But it's been, like, more and more stressful as the year has gone on.

So, like, he's been a little bit more tense as well right and so children especially young children but almost all kids really they absorb that tension and they process it as though it's their fault and then they spend all of their life trying to mitigate it and for a kid that tension is a broken relationship with their caregivers, which is you and your husband. A three-and-a-half-year-old cannot process a new baby has just moved in. A three-and-a-half-year-old cannot process stressed-out parents. A three-and-a-half-year-old especially can't process mom and dad are present.

They're in the house physically, but they are not emotionally or mentally present because they're having to work from home or do school from home and so everything in your kid's life has gone up in smoke if you will so here's a couple of so so backing out to my original question what's your kid trying to say? Your kid is trying to tell you that they're not safe, that they are disconnected, that there are no boundaries. Things are free-flowing and I don't know where I'm going to live. I don't know who's going to be banging on our floors, et cetera. So here's a couple of things I can give you to help you walk through it. Number one, kids are desperate, desperate for sleep and nutrition. They are desperate for connection and they are desperate for boundaries. Okay. So sleep and nutrition,

tired, exhausted, over sugared kids, kids with allergies or discomfort from food that just feel uncomfortable all the time. Kids who just are plugged into electronics all the time. And so when they are asleep, they're not actually going into their full REM cycle sleep. Kids who are not running around outside and are locked into an apartment. And I know that's so hard during pandemic, depending on what city you live in and what jurisdiction you live in, because some are just shut down. You can't leave your apartment at all, ever. And that's wreaking havoc on little kids. The second thing is they're desperate for connection.

And when I mean connection, I mean the whole world stops. You get down an eye level. You look kids in the eye. You touch them a lot. And you've probably heard me say that over and over, whether it's touching their hands or their feet or their face, having a nighttime ritual that includes lots and lots of safe, heavy touch on a child, whether that's playing, getting down on their level and playing, laying on your stomach and playing Legos or blocks with a three-and-a-half-year-old that's reading age-appropriate books, right?

If there's no abuse and there's no hurt, then connection is a great gift. If there is abuse, if there is fear in a kid, then that connection can be traumatic too. So that's a whole other situation. I don't hear that here. And then the next, the last thing here is boundaries. If a three and a half year old feels like they are running your house, and what I mean by that is if they can scream and not eat something, if they can kick and scream and you'll just shove a TV in front of them or an iPad in front of them, then they are, in essence, running the house. And that destroys a kid. They aren't designed to carry that sort of weight. for mom and dad to put up boundaries, put up barriers that they will lean and press to make sure they'll hold, but they're desperate for them because then it makes them feel safe. It's like

swaddling. I remember the first time I swaddled my son, I thought I was going to kill him. Like, it was a worst nightmare for me that someone would tie my arms in like that until a doctor buddy of mine explained, no, that's when they feel safe. They don't feel safe with these wild appendages flying around, scratching them and pulling their hair out because they don't know how they work. They feel safe when they're bound up. And so when you look back over the course of this year, I want you to be graceful to yourself as a mom because it's been chaos. I want you to be graceful to yourself as a brand new mom because you've got a nine-month-old in your house and now a three-and-a-half-year-old. But I want you to do some things that are going to draw some boundaries.

Here's some boundaries. You cannot hit in this home. You cannot scream in this home. That's not a tool that works for you. I am going to intentionally put down the little one or give the little one to dad, and I'm going to spend some very direct, connective time with you on a regular basis at a regular time if possible. And that way we can build in time boundaries with our kids. We can build in attention, connection boundaries with our kid. I'm going to make super sure that the moment he wakes up, I'm going to give him skin

to skin contact, direct skin to skin contact. I'm going to make sure that before lunch, after nap, and right before bed, there is some direct skin to skin contact. And I also, I haven't experienced this, but I've just heard over and over for moms, when you are in this season, when you're still nursing, you still got a young one at home, your body doesn't feel like yours. And the last thing you want to do is touch another kid. The last thing you want to do is touch your spouse. You just don't touch anybody. But I'll tell you those investments in touch, those investments in eye contact will pay off in a decreased screaming, a decreased biting and kicking and a decreased language of, will somebody please freaking look at me? Will somebody please acknowledge me? And

that's all your three and a half year old is doing with his little language as he has. If things like attention, if things like limited screen time, if things like bedtime routines, where you're getting a lot of sleep, a lot of sleep for a young kid like that, probably 10 to 12 hours for a young kid like that. A lot of nutrition, no sugar, very limited stuff out of a box. Give a kid as healthy food as y'all can afford. If those things don't work, then I'm going to recommend you go see a psychologist. But I want you to spend 30 days, double down on the connection, double down on boundaries, time boundaries, double down on space,

double down on consistency. And here's the hard thing for moms and dads listening to this. This means that y'all are going to have to be highly, highly intentional. You're going to have to be highly intentional about when you wake up and how much sleep you get. About meal prep and meal planning. You're going to have to be intentional about budgets. You're going to have to be intentional about budgets. You're going to have to be intentional about who does the shopping. You have to be intentional. All those things that couples just let roll, especially when you got a newborn in the house,

you're going to have to be overly intentional about it. And then you're going to have to really communicate with your husband. Sounds like he's an awesome guy. Sounds like he's a great dude who's plugged in and trying to help the best he can while doing two or three other things. Here's the other thing. This is a best he can while doing two or three other things. Here's the other thing. This is a season and it will pass. This season is hard. This season sucks. This season is weighing everybody. And if you're in an apartment with an angry tenant surrounding you that does not understand the beauty of little kids, and there's a jerk who's banging on the ceiling like an idiot. And if you've got two little babies in that house, it's just hard. It just is. And so try those things with your little one. Call me back if they don't work. Call me back if they

do work. That would be great to know. And I appreciate your call. All right, let's go out to Erica in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Erica, what's happening? How are we doing? Good. How are you, Deputy? Thanks for taking my call. Thank you so much for calling. What's going on? Cool. I'm calling to get some advice on how to interact with my 25-year-old brother who's becoming a very angry person, particular in what he wants to do with his life career-wise. He has a degree in business administration and graduated about 18 months ago. And since then, he's had four different jobs. One of them he lost because he was the new kid on the block for COVID, so that was kind of out of his control.

But he comes to me asking for advice and just gets very angry when I either try to give him some advice or guidance or suggestions. Sometimes it's very productive. And then other times it's, I get hung up on saying, well, you just don't know how it is kind of thing based on what he wants to do. It's difficult because I see him starting to turn into an angry person and kind of starting to distance himself from myself and my parents. So where does this, where does your brother get this sort of life from? Is he modeling that? Yeah. Unfortunately, I do start to see some transfer over.

My dad has kind of been in and out of work for the last five years. Yeah. And it's, I don't tend to hear hear the reasoning why he is no longer employed there, but it's always there's other people caused the termination of his employment kind of thing. And so that's kind of put a strain on my mom to handle all the finances on her own. And especially with, you know, all the things on her own. Um, and, you know, especially with, um, you know, all the things that are going on and whatnot, my dad just doesn't really seem to have, uh, much interest outside of YouTube and, uh, and whatnot. So, um, that's where all the good

conspiracy theories are, Erica. Yeah. I mean, well that, and you know, and this thing and that thing. And yeah, if you quit working your regular job and paying attention to your regular family, you could see all the cool things on YouTube, including this mildly entertaining show, right? Well, yes. Of the 33 people that do watch it, I think those 33 get some good advice out of it. That's right. So does your brother have friends? Does he have people in his life that will just tell him he's being an idiot or no? Yes, I would say so. He switched

colleges midway through. And so he has more friends at the first college that he started out with. And he tries, he seems to gravitate more towards them, but they kind of live in a different area than where he lives. He is actually moving out of my parents' house in January, finally, kind of thing. More so, he was trying to save money because it was expensive and then being out of a job, living at home was just a little bit easier. But it's one of those, I'm trying not to be a second mom to him because we're seven years apart. And it kind of always been the joke that he has two moms kind of thing. But, you know, my dad and his brother don't have a good relationship with each other.

But I would like to keep that with my brother. But I also don't want to get hung up on or be polite. I just don't know what I'm talking about kind of thing. Whereas, you know, if you're at a job for four months and you want to leave within two weeks of starting because you didn't get adequate training and then, you know, the suggestion is we'll speak up. Well, no, I can't do that. And X, Y, or Z reason kind of thing. So here's, I'll give you some good news and then some bad news, okay? And I'll go start with the bad news. The bad news is you can do nothing.

Yep. There's nothing you can do here to help your brother do anything differently. Yeah. Especially if he's not coming to you humbly and saying, I need help with a plan. Yeah. Dude, I'm the worst. There's been seasons of my life when I've been the worst brother. I've got an older sister, a younger brother, where I've called them unsolicited, just giving them all kinds of shenanigans.

Like, well, you know what you should be doing? And it's insulting and it's demeaning. And here's the thing. I think I was right. I. I think I was right. I probably still think I was right. But it wasn't helpful, right? Right. So backing out and talking about your brother, here's what your brother is.

He's 25, he said. Yeah. Your brother's terrified. Yeah. And he's terrified of two different tracks. Number one, those feelings he has that people at work don't like him, that everyone around him is out to get him. Those feelings aren't truthful. They're not right.

But they feel real. And that's scary. And depending on how your dad and your mom raised him, guys have very limited skills in responding to fear. And usually it's to puff your chest out and just start swinging, or it's to numb it out. And you can numb out with alcohol, with YouTube, with more work, or with another job and another job and another girlfriend and another girlfriend and another drink, but you're just going to spend your life numbing and running, right? Yeah. The second thing— He's definitely been the person his whole life

that school was hard for him teachers were out to get him right um and when throw my hands up anytime that it got gets difficult and have somebody else figure it out there you go aka mom and dad and that leads me to number two which is he is terrified of becoming his dad and it's happening before his his very eyes It's like watching somebody whose dad is bald, and it's that first time you swipe your comb through, and you just see all that hair come out, and you're like, oh, no. It happens in slow motion to your life. And so here's the thing.

You have a scared to death 25-year-old little brother that you can't help. All you can do for him is to love him and to say, I, you can call me anytime. Here's my recommendation to you. And it's going to be trite and not super helpful. Um, it will be when he calls you to ask your opinion on things,

I would stop him before he gets rolling, which I'm guaranteeing he's a roller He'll talk and talk and talk and talk And talk and talk and talk And you'll start to try to get in He'll just take a breath and keep going Am I right on that? Oh yeah

I would stop him before he gets going And ask him Do you want my advice Or do you just need somebody to listen to you Because I'd love to listen to you. And let him choose. Because then if you start to pipe up with, here's what I think you need to do, you can always fall back on, hey, you asked me for this. Otherwise, just be a safe, quiet place for him to talk and vent and talk and vent.

And then you need to live your life above reproach. And what I mean by that is, you will be a shining light. You'll be the example for him that he doesn't have. Right. And you may reach out to him with good things that are happening in your life. You may reach out with him just to check on him. You may write him letters that tell him that he's loved and he's a good guy. And that when he does something good, we do that with kids, right? Catch him being good, but write him a actual physical letter that he can hold in his hands that's tactile, that he can see it. And he's a millennial. He won't even know what's happening. He'll be like, what's this

mail thing you speak of, right? But send him a letter. He can open it and see it and touch it and feel it. And he's going to have to learn a really hard and uncomfortable lesson, and that is work sucks. And the real world's hard. And nobody gives you anything. And you've got to fill in the blank, all those things. Sure. And that does lead me to this. It's almost – I don't want to be all ranty today here in this new studio.

It's all shiny. I don't want to get spittle everywhere, but there's a whole generation of young person who's been told this one like fascinating line, which is follow your passions. Almost like it's, you say it, you say it breathy, follow your passions, right? Like the deeper, like a, like a mega church preacher when we were just talking in regular voices. And then they're like, so one day I was walking along the road and then I met God. They have to only say it in a breathy, breathy way, right? It's the same way.

Follow your passions. And for most kids, there's no backup to that. There's no information that goes along with that. And so what passion becomes is a marker for feelings. Follow your feelings. Do the thing that feels most comfortable to you. And if there's any sort of resistance, if things are hard, I want to be an author. Well, just write a book. And then the

first person reads it and they're like, hey, this book kind of sucks. It's not good. Or you've got to pay attention to English class so you can learn how an actual sentence functions, right? Or fill in the blank. I want to be a poet. I want to be a runner. I want to be a whatever. Follow your passions. That means follow your feelings. And then when things get hard, then I feel sad. I don't want to feel sad. So I just abandoned it and quit. I go somewhere else. And that's just absolutely wreaked havoc on a whole generation of human being. And really it starts with my generation. They were telling us, follow your dreams, follow your passions. You can be anything. Here's the thing about follow your passions. You become passionate about the things you're good at and you become good at the things that

you practice, the things that you do over and over and over and over again. And if you're like 99.9% of the world, there's always that one kid that just sits in front of YouTube, learns how to play the guitar and he comes out nine months later and he's just a savant. Every generation has that kid. Good for you. I'm not talking about them.

Most of you are not Steve Jobs, right? Or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. The rest of us practice the things that we were made to do. My parents made me be really good at mowing the yard. My dad was really hard on me about mowing the yard because he said it communicated a couple of things. It communicated how I cared about a customer. It communicated a sense of excellence that was inborn regardless of how much I was making. It was a sense of pride for the homeowner.

All these things came through, right? Joe and Linda there at Burger King, treat the customer that comes in here with respect. You don't know where they're coming from. We happen to be on a route to a hospital and people would stop there to get food to go visit their loved ones at a hospital. Just laughing and bringing joy into that day, brighten people up, right? But we were made to do it. If you treated a customer with disrespect, they called you in the back and they said, you're not going to work here if you're like that, right? And so you're passionate about things you're good at. You're good at things you practice. You practice the things you're made to do. And when you're made to do things, it's hard and you don't like it and it's not fun. And there's sometimes that you are practicing things and you have good days of practice and bad days of practice, right?

There are sometimes you are doing things that you're really good at and then you don't do them good that day. You don't do them good that month. You have a low season. You work really hard on your next big book and it tanks, right? Steven Spielberg has some movies that didn't do well. That's part of it. And being told to do things that are hard, being made to do things that are hard is not mean to your children. It's not mean to your students. It's not mean to teenagers. It gives them a sense of fortitude and grit that comes from the inside out.

The fancy word for that is resilience, not feelings. Feelings are true. You've got to sit down and – I mean, not true, but feelings are real. You've got to sit down and acknowledge them, but they lie to you. And this sounds like a young man that has been told his entire life, yeah, you know what? I know you feel that that teacher is being mean to you. You're right. Let's go get her.

I know you feel like that job's hard. You should quit. They should treat you better. Feel your way through a hundred different jobs, through frustration, through broken relationships, no work to stand upon. And when you don't have any work to stand upon, when you don't have relationships to stand upon, you are nothing. We are made as relationships and we are made to work. Period. That's just the way that is. And so for everybody out there who is doubling down on my,

what's my passion? What's my passion? Go back to the things you were made to do. Go back to the things that you're going to practice over and over and over and over. These poor James and Kelly, Zach, these poor folks, you should see the hours of tape that we have on, they called it radio school. These guys back, it was a beating. It still is a beating for them. I'm still learning how to do this, right? But we had to practice and practice. And then James would say, we're going to be here at this time. You got to be here at this time. And it would be uncomfortable and not good. They made me do it and you get better and better. And now I'm starting to love it. Now I'm starting to like it. It's starting to be fun. I'm starting to be quote unquote passionate about it, right?

So Erica, to answer your original question, there's nothing you could do, man. You can love your brother, be connected to your brother. I'd stop on the advice unless he explicitly asks. And you can feel free to tell him this. If I tell you this, I'm going to hold you accountable to it, okay? And he may not want to do that. He may say, I don't want to tell the most, whatever 25-year-olds with five jobs in four months say. But man, this gets me frustrated, dude. All right, I'm going to quit talking on it. Let's go to Katie in Waco, Texas. Katie, what is up in Tejas? Oh, cold for Texas. It's cold? Yes.

Wow, I just talked to someone from Canada, and they didn't even start the call that way. All right, so how are we doing? What can I do to help? We're doing, doing, doing. Doing all right. We've been having issues in marriage. My husband, as of late, has treated depression issues that I have occasionally as an issue, a frustration, and it seems to be quite the burden on him. And I don't really know how to handle it and go about it when that's kind of just feeds into the depression.

So are you depressed? It's already there. Are you sure? Yeah. Yes, sir. I have issues and this is not something brand new to me or even in our relationship. It comes and goes. Sometimes we have harder times.

Sometimes I have better times. Sure. How long have you been married? We have been officially married for just over a year. Okay. We have lived together for almost three years. I'm 27. He is 30.

Okay. So I want to talk just about you for a little bit, okay? How long have you struggled? How long have you been depressing? How long have you been depressing how long have you been struggling with depression i i mean off and on throughout pretty much my life through seasons or issues or okay kind of whatever's going on um i mean you want to get way, way back. I was in sixth grade complaining of stomach ache so frequently. My mom took me to the doctor and the doctor told her to take me to therapy.

Okay. So for most people, most of the time, depression, anxiety, that's your body's way of trying to protect it. And it doesn't always feel like it's helpful, but your body is doing the best it can to protect you. So what is your body still trying to protect you from? What in your past does it not want to deal with? What relationships are broken? It sounds like it's from since when you were a kid well yeah you know i grew up in one of those homes um

um though you know my parents divorced when i was young my dad was an alcoholic my mom heart would rarely would have touched a drink. Okay. So. But you grew up in a disconnected house with disconnected folks. And that doesn't mean they didn't love you. That doesn't mean they didn't try. But you were launched out, right? And your body's been doing the best it can to protect you for a long, long time. Right?

Yes, sir. And a lot of that protection I'm just gonna guess here has something to do with some sort of withdrawing whether it's somatic pains which is nerd speak for your stomach hurts your foot hurts your head hurts your back hurts what or whether that is disconnecting from relationships from pulling right, from withdrawing. Am I on the right track here? Yeah. Yeah.

So. A little context here. We do have, there are four little boys in our house. What ages are they? So, our new one is almost four months old, and I've got four, five, and seven. Four, five, and seven in four months? Yes. How many of those are biologically yours?

They're all mine. The new one is biologically his the other three are not his but no but he's so graciously and i mean he is a good man he is a very good man i am not going to say he's like some terribly horrible person by any means so i'm going to reframe your husband for you for a minute okay and. And I may be way off and people accuse me of being too optimistic sometimes, but that guy loves you. Do you agree with that? Yeah. Does he love you a lot? I'd like to think so. don't do that does he love you a lot yeah

I think he does he took on three of your kids he has dated you for several years he married you he loves you and there is nothing more painful in the world than watching somebody you love hurt and when you have a depressive episode than watching somebody you love hurt.

And when you have a depressive episode, when your body, for whatever is coming on in your environment, whether it's you got a four-month-old, for God's sakes, or four kids, seven and age under, in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a wacky city that's growing but not growing and kind of growing there in Waco, in the middle of a state that doesn't know what day it is sometimes, right? All of those things happening at the same time. And then some.

And then some, right? And historical trauma that your body is still wrestling with. And your husband looks at the woman he loves more than anybody else in the world and sees her hurting. And it's hard to watch and some guys and by some i mean almost all of us myself included don't always have the right tools to know what to do when i can't run out and just strangle it or i can't run out and write a mean letter to it to solve it right i can't go out and have a stern conversation with her or whatever we were trained to do and so sometimes that frustration that feels like a burden is simply a powerlessness that your husband has over the the pain the woman he loves is feeling yeah right and so i'm gonna

put him to the side i'm gonna assume he's a good guy trying to figure out what he can do, how he can help. And yeah, he's frustrated, and yeah, he's got X, Y, Z, and he's not going to say the right things. All those things right, of course. The question I want to ask you is, do you want to be done with depression? Well, yeah. Who doesn't? But it comes with a cost and that's why I'm asking

and it may not be a conversation that you can complete on this call because it's going to be a more long term thing but if you want to be done at some point you have to go back to that six year old little girl whose dad didn't show up

because he was drunk again, whose mom wouldn't touch a drink. She did all the right things, but was trying to protect you. And if you have any siblings from an alcoholic dad, a six-year-old who's still trying to figure out what she did to make her parents split up, and you're going to have to let that little girl go play. You're going to have to let her off the hook. Because she's still trying to protect you now. And as you have four kids, three by somebody else or more than one other person, you are starting to, the cycle is starting to repeat itself.

And then in steps this guy that loves you. And that's when I ask you this. That's the stage I'm setting to ask you this question. Do you want to be done with it? Because if you want to be done with it, it's going to take some hard work on your part. And it means you're going to have to connect with people in a way that you probably don't have the skills to connect.

And you're going to have to say, the same as you, like, I want to learn Spanish. I want to learn how to knit. I'm going to learn how to connect with other people because I did not get that skill growing up and I'm not going to do that to my four kids yeah they need better no no no they don't need better

they need you they need their mama because I know you love those kids too, don't you? Yes, sir. A lot? Very, very much. All right. So here, I want you to paint me a picture real quick. What is a life free of depression? What does that look like for you? I don't understand

the question. Totally. What does it, I mean, what does it look like? Peace. Yeah, there you go.

I guess. Yeah. I'll paint you some pictures, okay? I'll put some things out there. You've got four knuckle-headed little boys,

and your body feels good enough that you can roll around on the floor with them and have a big dog-pile wrestling match every afternoon. And you cannot react loudly. You cannot react through yelling or screaming or withdrawing when one of them acts like a 5-year-old or a seven-year-old or a four-year-old. And that you and your husband can have a budget meeting together. You can have a, hey, we're not having enough sex conversation together,

and you can have it in a way that's not a fight, but just more of a, hey, I need you to lean in on this area more, and I need to lean on that area more. Or, hey, you've been working a lot of hours. I'd love just to have some time with you. I'm sleepy, and I'm just going gonna go to sleep with no meds right i'm gonna take time to read a book that's i'm gonna do something that's not a netflix special i'm gonna go for a walk out there by the river there in waco that's what i'm talking about not that you're not gonna have sad days and frustrated days and angry days but the word you gave me is peace. And here's the thing. If you learn how to not be depressed,

which you can do, you're not going to be healed. You're going to be empty. You're going to have to learn some new skills. And if you go into this that way, if you lean into learning new skills, giving yourself permission to fall down and be graceful, let your husband know. Tell him to give me a call too, okay? But I want you to hear me say this, Katie. Those four little boys deserve this. That knuckleheaded husband of yours deserves this. And more than anybody, you deserve to let that little girl go play.

And you deserve peace. Thank you. Do you believe me? Yes. Okay. So here's the deal. I'm holding you accountable to this. In 30 days, I'm going to email you back.

I'm going to email you back, and I'm going to find out if you've gone to see a counselor there in Waco. I'm going to find out if you and your husband have sat down and had a conversation about what does healing look like? What are some things he can do, not to give you advice, not to get frustrated, but to start helping in the house, helping around the house? What are some little wins? What are some things you can start doing? I'm going to commit to taking a walk every day. I'm going to take my kids out for the walk. We're just going to go walk around the neighborhood. I'm going to commit because I'm going to be a steward of my body. I'm going to be a steward of my mind. I'm going to be a steward

of fill in the blank. I'm going to go back and watch all these videos on YouTube of this show. I'm going to really go down the rabbit hole. I'm going to read or get audio books. I'm going to do the things. I'm going to begin to learn some of this stuff. And then the hard stuff, I'm going to start practicing it. So I'm going to email, I'm going to put a note on my calendar, Katie. I'm going to email you in a month. I'm going to check in on you, see how you're doing. I don't want you to be honest with me, but I believe in you. And I believe that this is the season that that cycle is going to get broken because you're going to choose. I don't want to be depressed anymore. I believe that this is the season that that cycle is going to get broken. Because you're going to choose. I don't want to be depressed anymore.

I don't want to live in that life. I want to be peaceful. I want to be somebody of peace. I'm so glad that you called, Katie. And tell that husband, look your husband in the eye and say, hey, I know you're frustrated, but I talked to a guy on the radio. He told me it's just because you love me, I'm hurting and you don't know what to do. And so then give him a big hug and then give him a big smooch. Just tell him I love you. That's not going to help a lot, but that'll be fun for me. All right. As we wrap up the show here.

Oh man, this actually is, I went to this show. I went to watch these guys open up for john mayer and i love john mayer i think he's extraordinary he's a great songwriter he's hilarious he's an like one of the best guitarists of my generation but this band came out and they made art on a stage in a way that i don't think I've ever seen anybody do. It was extraordinary. But this song kind of went quiet on their hit record, their 1993 record, and it's one of my favorite songs ever. And they came out and opened the show to this, and that stuck in my head, one of those live performances that just stays with you forever.

So after 1993, August and Everything After record, the Counting Crows wrote Rain King and Adam Sings. When I think of heaven, deliver me in a black winged bird. I think of flying down in your sea of pins and feathers and all the instruments of faith and sex and God in the belly of a black winged bird. Don't try to feed me because I've been here before and I deserve a little more.

And I belong in the service of the queen and I belong anywhere but in between. And she's been crying and I've been thinking and I'm the rain king. I said, mama, mama, mama, why am I so alone? Because I can't go outside. I'm scared I might not make it home. Well, I'm alive.

I'm alive, but I'm sinking in. And if there's anyone at home at your place, darling, why don't you invite me in? Don't try to feed me because I've been here before and I deserve a little more. And I belong in the service of the queen. And I am the rain king. Woo-hoo!

This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.