The Dr. John Delony Show - A DNA Test Surprise, ADD Struggles, & a COVID Nurse Opens Up

Episode Date: February 8, 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 NYT Article: Surge of Student Suicides Pushes Las Vegas Schools to Reopen I had my DNA tested and found out my dad is not my dad. How do I deal with all of this? How can I best help my 11-year-old daughter that has been diagnosed with ADD? I am a nurse at a big hospital, and we have been overwhelmed with COVID. My tank is empty, and I don’t know how to refill it in this climate.  Lyrics of the Day: "Healing Tide" - The War & Treaty tag: family, infidelity, anger/resentment/bitterness,, trauma/PTSD, reconciliation/forgiveness, ADHD, parenting, fitness/physical health, sleep, workplace/career 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, what's up? On today's show, we talked to a young man who did a DNA test and found out that the guy he thought was his dad isn't. We talked to a young mom whose daughter has ADD and she wants some practical tips on how she can help support her daughter. And we talked to an exhausted yet heroic nurse who's been in California working with patients with COVID for month after month, and she's just exhausted. What can she do to get her life back? Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show.

I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're walking with us. On this show, we talk about mental health, relationships, what's going on in your life, in your marriage, in your home, with that boyfriend, with that girlfriend, with your kids. When you find that thing out about your sister you didn't know, or your brother, or your grandparents, all of it, man. We talk about everything on this show.

It's about you, right? The good stuff, the rough stuff, the bad stuff, what we can do next. And I learned early on, I can't fake it on this show. So if I'm having an awesome day, I come across a little bit fired up. If I'm having a rough day, a hard day, yeah, I just want to be honest about it, and it's tough. And sometimes I will stumble across something or read something, and it just weighs heavy on me. And so we're going to talk about that here. Whatever's going on in your life, give me a call, 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or if you are the typing type that pretty much sounded like I was

a rapper. If you're the typing type go ahead and type www.johndeloney.com slash show and I've heard recently that you don't need the www anymore so hashtag old guy I don't even know if hashtags are cool. I'm going to start raising the roof here in a minute but go to johndeloney.com

slash show and fill out the form and it goes to Kelly. Let us know what's going on in your heart and mind and we will get you on the show. So here's the thing. A friend of mine sent me an article this morning and it's a masterpiece and it's excellent. It's by Erica Green out of the New York Times. It's called The Surge of Student Suicides Pushes Las Vegas Schools to Reopen. And if you go through it, it really does a great job of diving into a N equals one, the story of one school district in Las Vegas that is wrestling with double the number of child suicides, teen suicides. And these are, man, we've got somebody in here as young as nine, nine.

And these kids have been at home for a year. They've been at home for a year. And Zoom school, I know teachers are doing whatever they can. I know school districts are coming up with all sorts of ways for students to connect electronically. I know students are spending just hour after hour in front of a Zoom screen. And then they are going from that to Fortnite because that's the only way they can connect with their friends right now. And it's killing them. It's hurting kids. And as I read through this thing, it's just, it's what every mental health professional I know of thought was going to happen down the road back in March when we said, man, we cannot shut kids

off from each other. They need connection. And then here's the thing. Kids aren't special in this regard. We all need other people, man. And I know this sounds somber. I know I'm usually trying to make jokes to start this show off, man, but this thing's laying heavy on me because it's happening to adults too. And people are just getting crushed. And so here's the thing. I want to challenge every parent who's out there to be hyper-intentional. I know you're exhausted. I know this year has come with job loss. I know this year has come with just maniacal political uncertainty. I know this year has come with so many challenges. I get that. We're closing on half a million people who've died from COVID.

I get it. It has just been one thing after another. I want you to do the best you can to let anger leave your home. I want you to do the best you can to connect with your kids. And what does that mean? It means you've got to figure you can to connect with your kids. And what does that mean? It means you've got to figure out ways to turn those screens off. When that Zoom class is over, even if that means taking away video games several days a week from your kids, even if that means you don't get to fall down just in front of TV,

dude, I know the office reruns are awesome. I know Schitt's Creek's hilarious. I know all those shows are so good. And then they just keep putting great show after great show after great. I get it. I know, I know, I know. I know Schitt's Creek's hilarious. I know all those shows are so good. And then they just keep putting great show after great show after great. I get it. I know, I know, I know. I know. But I don't know what else to say other than we're at crisis mode here. Our kids are desperate for us.

We are desperate for each other. And we've got to reset our bearings from collapsing at the end of a day to really being able to look at our kids in the eye. And guys, I'm talking about taking a soccer ball to a park. I'm talking about, we had a fruit war in my living room, my kitchen the other day. It spilled off into the living room where my son was working on some project and and I literally just hit him with a banana. And it kind of exploded, and it made me laugh, and he drilled me with it, and it blew up all over me. And then we started throwing more food at each other in our kitchen. My wife wasn't super impressed, but I think she could just see it.

We needed it, and it turned into one of the hardest moments of laughter we've ever had. And that's going to be something that my son's going to tell at my funeral, that time that he pegged me with a banana and hit me in the butt and it exploded everywhere. And so all I have to say is I don't care what it is you've got to do. Spray your kid outside with a hose. Go outside and build a fort. I don't care what it is. But, guys, we've got to do something drastic.

We've got to make some significant changes. And whatever it takes, we've got to start looking at the data, and we've got to figure out ways to get these kids back in schools. And I'm not going to go down the political trails here, but we've got to get kids back in schools. We've got to get kids around other kids. We've got to get kids around buffering adults. That teacher that gives them a hug,

that counselor that walks down the halls and just winks at your kid, letting them know that they're okay. Man, man, this thing's, this thing's heartbreaking. I hope everyone will go to newyorktimes.com, read this article again. It's, yeah, we'll put it in the show notes by Erica Green. It's hard. Things are hard. Things are hard.

And they need us to be grownups. They need us to be adults. And so that's my public service announcement for the day. Good folks. It is hard. My hope is there's a call for this stuff to start wrapping up this summer. I'm going to tell you, our kids can't wait till this summer. They need to see other kids. They need to see each other and they need to see us and whatever it takes for us. Let's do it. Let's lean in. Let's take the anger out of our homes. Let's take the, turn the TVs it. Let's lean in. Let's take the anger out of our homes. Let's turn the TVs off. Let's just get the poison out of the house,

and let's be about loving our kids. Let's be about figuring out any way we can connect, connect, connect. And that's it. And if your kid hits you with a banana, laugh, because it's pretty funny, man. It's pretty funny. All right, let's go to the phones. Let's go to Brett in Buffalo, New Yorkork brother brett how are we doing man i'm doing all

right john how are you i'm doing okay um so how is buffalo these days y'all doing all right uh coming down with snow like crazy but uh we're doing all right good Good deal, man. So how can I help you today? So my question was, and I just discovered this over the weekend, is I did an ancestry DNA test. Oh, man. kind of revealed a 21-year-old secret that I hadn't at all suspected, that the person that I thought was my father, my biological father, was not my biological father. And I confronted my mom with this news, and it was a very difficult conversation and knowing that there had been i'd kind of been lied to for 21 years um so hey you weren't kind of lied to brother you were absolutely lied to yeah okay and i i just kind of came i i found out that it's something that other people have a lot more people than I thought

had gone through. But, um, I, I, the first thing I did when I thought my life was spiraling out of control is I Googled to see if this was something that anybody had called about on your show and I didn't see it. So I figured I'd call that maybe, and maybe in you helping me, there might be other people out there that, um that could also be helped by any advice that you can give. Man, brother, you've got a great heart, and I appreciate your trust and appreciate you reaching out, man. I'm optimistic, too, that this call will help a whole bunch of people who are dealing with all kinds of secrets that they didn't know about. So is your dad still alive? My dad actually passed away last spring.

He had a degenerative brain condition. I'm so sorry. And I gave the eulogy at his funeral. But we had a tough relationship because he hadn't been around since basically when I was in middle school or so. Um, but I, I kind of this year, you know, there's, there's a playbook for dealing with loss, I think. And I thought I was kind of at peace, um, you know, bad things happen to people. Um, and I got to, you know, say my goodbyes to him. It was, um, so I was kind of at peace with it. Um, and then that was in April. Um, and then I found out, um, just a few days ago, um, that he wasn't my biological father after all.

So tell me about this conversation with your mom. How did it go? What did, what did she have to say about it? So our first conversation, I think because it was so shocking to her that I found out she, it wasn't, the first conversation wasn't as good as the second and the and I just want to know the truth. And her first reaction in shock was, no, you can't stop. You can't talk about this. I don't want you to ruin our family. And I said, mom. You've already done. I don't want you to ruin our family. And then I said, I said,

I said, mom, you've already done that for us. Thank you. Yeah. I said, mom, you can't possibly be the one who's angry in this situation. And then she kind of took a deep breath and the conversation was better after that point, but the initial shock, it was kind of not great. Yeah. So was this just a one-time fling? Did your dad, did the person you thought was your dad, and I'm going to call him your dad because that's the role he played in your life. Did he know about it? To my knowledge, he didn't have any clue about it. Wow.

So was this just a secret? Did your mom have an affair with somebody or? It was a, from what I found out, it was an affair with a longtime family friend that I, that I know pretty well. Okay. All right. So here's, here's the, a couple of things to think through moving forward. Number one, everything is going to feel unmoored to you. You're going to feel completely untethered, okay? And I want you to rest in that. You're not normal.

You're not crazy. You're not broken, all right? You should feel like at the end of a flag waving in the wind, okay? That's a normal feeling um none of this at all um none of this disrespects discounts or loses the the father that you knew right that guy was acted as your dad it looks like he thought he was your dad he he performed the roles of a dad and i'm still going to call him my dad when I talk to Adam. Absolutely. Anybody can father a child.

Very few people actually can step in and be dads, right? This guy did. And so he didn't quote unquote father you, but he was your dad, right? So honor that memory and love that. At some point, you're going to have to come to a resolution and decide what you want to do about your relationship with your mom. And what I will tell you is what she did is unconscionable. It's not right. And I don't want to be in the business of judging what sort of social pressures there were. How old are you? I'm only 21.

Okay. 21 years ago. Should she have told you? Absolutely, man. Should this have come to light and you'll have these conversations? No question about that. But I don't want to go back two decades or more and have revisionist history on what was in her heart and her mind and how safe she was and all that stuff, right? What I would rather do is spend time living in the now and then moving forward. And if you choose to not talk to your mom, you're welcome to do that. If this is a relationship deal breaker for you, obviously it's a massive fracture in trust, right? What I'm going to

push you to do though is to forgive your mom, okay? Not forgiving somebody only poisons you. It doesn't affect them at all. It might have a psychological, like a balm for them might feel good, but you're the one that's going to carry around this hurt and this pain. And so at some point, I want you to work towards some sort of forgiveness with your mom. Doesn't mean you have to connect with her anymore. Doesn't mean you have to be chums and buddies anymore. I hope y'all can get there. I hope you'll forgive her and go down the road. But that's not for today.

For today is you forgive her so that you're not carrying those bricks around and you can still celebrate your dad, right? And after our first conversation, our conversations were a lot more productive. And I do think I'm coming around and she was remorseful. And from my understanding is that her not telling me, and I do believe her, I think it was misguided, but she thought she was protecting me from information that would hurt me, but I can promise anyone out there, if they're keeping a secret, it hurts a whole lot more to be lied to than anything of this magnitude. It hurts a lot more to be lied to. So I just

implore anybody out there who's keeping a secret too. If they're making that calculation, please just give your family the truth. Secrets destroy families from the inside out. That's for sure. So the question I want to know that everyone listening is going to want to know, are you going to give your dad a call, your father a call? We've already talked once. Okay. And it's weird because I know other people in this situation.

It's a far off distant person in whatever town that someone met 20 years ago. And for me, it's not. It's somebody I actually know in the community. So here's, if it hasn't already, I want you to expect this. I want you to expect the question to rise up in the base of your throat that will rattle in your heart and chest for probably the rest of your life, which is, why didn't you come find me, Father? Right? How did you just sit there on the sidelines for two decades? And that's going to come with all sorts of grieving. That's going to come with anger. It's going to come with frustration and pain. You're

going to get pissed off. You're going to get mad. He's going to give you some excuse. And at the end of the day, you go running for your kid, right? I don't just passively let somebody else raise my child down the street from me. Is that, you know what I mean? And so you're going to, you're going to wrestle with that. Okay. Um, the one thing I, and it, it doesn't make it a whole lot better at all. I'll give you that. Um, and it's kind of one of those hindsight is 2020 things where, um, when, cause my, the because the person I knew as my father was mentally ill, and so my financial situation wasn't great growing up for our family. And this person did provide assistance, but that's not enough. Yeah, no, no, no.

I mean, dude, churches and charity and the government gives us money. Our dads show up. Our dads give us the most precious thing on planet earth that they can never get back once they spend it. And that's their time. That's their touch, their eye contact, right? And so, yeah, I mean, we can high five him for kicking in some money. He had to by law. You're his kid, right? But he let somebody else raise you. And that's hard for me to even hear on your behalf. I can't even imagine what that's going to be like for you as you unpack that. Again, the easy thing for you to do is going to be to go to war with both of them and to say, why didn't you?

Why didn't you? Why didn't you? And you're right to do that. That's fair. But what I'm going to tell you is war only ends up in piles of bodies. It's not going to solve that hole in your heart. It's not going to give you any sort of answer that's going to feel good. And what you need to do is moving forward is decide what level of relationship you want to have. Do you want to get to know folks? You're in a unique situation where your dad passed away. And I can imagine a scenario where this is even more complicated and frustrating if you've got both of these men still alive and your dad finds out about this, that he was lied to for 20 years, right? But the reality is he's passed away. We're not ever going to know what his response would have been or anything like that. What we do know is your mom seems to have loved you. And man, she made it like you, I like your word.

She made a bad calculation. And she kept a secret that poisoned her, that poisoned your father, poisoned your home. And of course, poisoned your home, and of course, poisoned you. And then you got a guy down the street from you that is your father, and he chose to let somebody else raise you. Man, that's hard. So yeah, for anybody listening, secrets destroy families, man.

They just do. They just do. And they create doubt and suspicion and fear and lack of trust in the hearts and minds of children. Don't do that to your kids. Brett, I'm sorry that happened to you, man. You don't deserve that that happened to you. But all you can do is be a person of character and integrity moving forward. All you can do is choose to forgive and not carry around the sins and bricks of your parents and not pass those along to your kids. All you can do is choose to continue to do the next right thing. And that starts with forgiveness and that starts with walking a little

lighter load. I will wish the best moving forward for the three of you. I hope y'all come together and have some sort of reconciliation and relationship, man. We'll the three of you. I hope y'all come together and have some sort of reconciliation and relationship, man. We'll be thinking about you. Um, you're doing it right. You're starting slow and you're starting with conversations. So good for you, man. You are handling this probably more maturely than I would have at 21. That's for sure. I appreciate your call and I appreciate you caring for other people in the country who find out I got a good friend who just found out I may have a brother or a half-brother that I didn't know existed. That happens. And what do you do when you go back in time and revisit why your parents made the conversations

and the decisions they did? Why'd they choose to do that? Why don't you just tell me? It was a different time 20 years ago, 30 years ago, 40 years ago. It doesn't make it right. It just makes it different. And so the most we can do is be graceful and move on. So thanks again for that call, Brett. Oh boy. All right. Let's go to Danielle in Jacksonville, Florida. Danielle, how are we doing? Hey, I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. So what's going on in your world? So my 11-year-old daughter was diagnosed with ADD in second grade. We did try her, we tried her on some medication.

She didn't do very well with it. It either made her physically ill or just a totally different depressed little girl. She's very happy, very, you know, like my little sunshine girl, I call her. But so we're not doing medication now. I've read Gabor Mate's Scattered Minds book, but I just need some tangible ways to encourage her to be more disciplined without her feeling ashamed of herself. So give me a picture of like, what was it about her in second grade that made you think, Oh, something's wrong with my daughter. I need to get her medicated. What like paint, paint me that picture. What was going on? So so she her teacher brought it up to me and actually her stepmother too I really just thought she was just she she's there she's the life of the party she's social

butterfly so I just thought it was just that's her personality I really didn't think that she had ADD but her stepmother said her stepmother's a teacher so she said I think she has this and then her teacher also said it, um, or that, you know, she's having trouble focusing. She can't get her work or she doesn't get her work done. Um, her handwriting's really sloppy. Uh, she's just kind of scattered. So then I took her to the pediatrician and they had this test. I don't even know if they still do it now, but it was some FDA approved test to see if they had ADHD. She's never been hyperactive, but she did, you know, pat or, you know, fail or whatever. And they said that she had ADD. So then we started the

medication and it just was, it was not good. Yeah. So what do you see in your home? I love your initial default, which was, she's just a life apart. This is her personality. We're going to have some things that make her unique and beautiful in her own way, like bonkers handwriting. And man, she's going to have to, we're gonna have to really stay on her. What, what have you noticed that has made you think my daughter's broken? Okay. So she, um, if she has, well, when she does homework, I usually have to sit with her the entire time. Okay. Uh, or she, you know, she won't finish it. She just bases out. She, you know, whatever. If I tell her to go do a task, like today I told her, um, uh, pick up the things off your floor. And I usually just try to give her one task at a time, but it seems lately that even just the one task, she gets distracted before she

can get it done. So I said, pick up the things off the floor and then empty your lunchbox and then go clean your guinea pig's cage. So she didn't even get to the first one before she got distracted. How does she do with, how does she do with lists? Like if you sit down with her and say, all right, let's make a list of the next three things you've got to do. And you have a big check mark that would have included those three things. How does she do with those? She does better with lists, but she'll do the funnest thing first. Whatever is the most fun, that's what's going to happen. And then sometimes she forgets to go back to the list even. Okay.

I have done that before, and it's like she just sometimes doesn't go back to the list. Yeah. So you mentioned, and again, I'm going to ask these questions not in a causal blame kind of way. Can you promise me that you won't take them there? Sure. I know it's so hard, okay? I'm trying to get a full picture of your daughter. You mentioned she's got a stepmom. And so one of the tenets of ADHD that I just live by is that it's not a brain disorder, but it's a developmental delay, right? And often with their psychological tension in the home, then that kids start to make sense of their world in a chaotic way.

So she's from a home of divorce. Is that right? Tell me about the home she grew up in. So her father and I divorced when she was two and a half. I think it was two and a half. And she, in Florida, they want it to be kind of 50-50. Her dad lives on the other side of town so she stays with me 60% of the time and then he gets

some of the time her dad also has ADD too so so I mean we her dad and I didn't like yell and argue and fight a lot it was kind of I guess like a deep, like underlying feeling of stress.

It was just kind of, you know, I guess. It's that, yeah, kids absorb what I call that low-level tension that just, that it's that third rail that just buzzes underneath the house at all times. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Children will absorb that. And then obviously the grieving process for both of you after this is over, right?

And so here's a couple of important things and I'll give you some tangible things here. Super important. Please, please, please let your daughter know she's not broken. And I would have a hard conversation with stepmom and dad. We are not going to communicate to our daughter that she's broken anyway, that she has some sort of thing that is going to keep her from having joy or being productive. She's going to need medication for the rest of her life. I will tell you right now, my childhood was hard and I wouldn't trade. I'm off the chart. If you were to give me an ADHD test, I'm off the chart on it and I wouldn't trade anything for it. Nothing. Because of the creativity, the way I solve problems, all of that stuff. And I have to be highly intentional about surrounding myself with

a team of people that keeps me accountable. Just today on this show, James was saying before he started the show, you have one minute and I'm pushing start on the record button, right? Like we're going to do this, right? And so I do have a group of people who will hold me accountable for being on time, which I struggle with because I love just talking to people, being in relationship with folks. I do have folks that work with me on a task list. And this is stuff I've had to grow up and learn how to do, and it's hard and it's challenging, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. Okay? And so, I don't want your daughter growing up thinking she's deficient, busted, broken, not like everybody else or anything like that. Your initial response, that core thing that came out of you, which was,

look at our unique daughter, look what she brings to the world and to each social interaction she's involved in. That's a kind of spirit. And so what I tell parents often is this is a context, not an excuse. Okay. You have a picture, great. You still got to clean your room, right? So there's a balance between going to war with a kid and coming up with strategies that are going to help them be successful. So what I've seen highly successful in my own personal life and with kids that I've worked closely with and with families is breaking tasks up into bite-sized chunks, especially for young kids is a big deal. Holding out the fun one, you're going to do these two and then the fun one and then i'm

going to give you this card and then we're going to set the timer and i'm going to come check on you in 10 minutes this is going to be harder for you for the next couple of years for both you and your husband and stepmom right uh or for your ex-husband and stepmom y'all gonna have to lean in and so with one of your kids you might be say, hey, go clean your room and they're going to come back in 30 minutes. I have found it helpful to walk into a room and say, all right, we're just doing shoes now and all the shoes are up, come back and find me. And they may come back in three minutes, they may come back in 30 minutes. And I'm going to go check on them. So it's breaking up jobs in bite-sized chunks. And here's what we're looking for. We're looking for little wins. We're looking for little successes to build on, not a cumulative amount of failures to point out.

Does that make sense? Okay. A phrase that guides my life is this. Don't forget to remember. And I took that from Dr. Mate, but don't forget to remember. And so often kids who are experiencing this symptomology of ADHD, they will walk through a room and they won't see their clothes on the floor and they just literally are not processing it, right? They're just running right to the next thing.

But you know what they know? They know feelings. And they know how good it feels when the room is clean. And so I will get out of my truck and there'll be seven glasses in my truck when I get home. I don't know where they come from. They seem to grow in my car, but I will go start my truck in the winter and then I'll put a cup of coffee in there and then I'll run upstairs and be like, I need to get some coffee before I leave the house. And I'll come down with another one. I'll have two in there. I'll drink them both on the way to work. And then

I'll come out of work and I'll have two. I don't know where they all come from. But here's the thing. I remember how good it feels when my truck is clean, when I get it in the morning. And so every night I remember how good it's going to feel tomorrow. And for whatever reason, that fuels me. That gets me to stop what I'm doing. I know how good it feels when I have that little thing I put over my windshield and it's not covered in ice, right? So don't forget to remember. So if you point out feelings, not failures for a kid who's struggling in this way, remember how good it feels when you do the fun thing. Remember how good it feels when all of your clothes are picked up. I want you just to get your dresses and then come back and find me.

And just get your tennis shoes and then come back and find me. And we're going to celebrate those little wins. And you, mom, are going to get exhausted, okay? It's such a beating. You just want to go do your thing, right? And it's going to celebrate those little wins and you mom are going to get exhausted. Okay. You're going to, it's, it's such a beating. You just want to go do your thing. Right. And it's going to be hard. Um, the you're teaching her how to have little wins in her life. And these are going to pay off big time down the road. A couple of other things, um, is exercise is huge. Okay. And we often think of exercise as burning off energy. It's not. It's a way to get different chemicals pulsing through a young body, okay?

And it's good for her. It's good for you. And that could be walking. And when y'all go on walks together, hold hands. Make sure she's getting physical touch from you. And make sure that you have skin-to-skin contact with her as much as humanly possible. Make sure your husband is doing that as well. And I'm talking about kind of obnoxious amounts.

Like I'm just going to hold your face for a second, and this is super weird, and I'm your mom, and I'm going to be super weird, and you're going to just have to get over it. And she'll go, Mom, this is so weird. And you'll be like, I'm just a weird mom. I'm going to hold your face. And you're going to look at me in the eyes. You're going to count the little creases in my eyes. Count my wrinkles. I dare you, right?

Something like that. But I want her to start consciously getting skin-to-skin contact and eye contact. And then sleep is major, okay? And sleep can be wartime for kids that are struggling with this. But a sleep routine that no matter what is going on, ever, ever, ever stick to that routine. And something about a kid's brain that has sleep just slowly over time turns those alarms off. Okay. Schools, I think, are almost borderline criminal for how early they make kids get up,

how early they, how much work they give these kids in the evening time. And they got kids going to bed at 10 o'clock and getting up at 5 o'clock to be at school by 6.45. It's literally insane what we're doing to these children's brains. And that may mean that you have to start getting ready for bed at 7.30, and you're going to feel weird, and then have your kid in bed no later than 8 o'clock, 7.30. We do real early bedtimes in our house.

As you can imagine, my kids, they look a lot like their dad, and sleep is everything. A couple other things, play with your kid. Like, play, like, hey, let's, you may have heard me earlier talking about do silly things, like if you've got, you know, go outside and play catch the tennis ball have water fights but tangible things that they can touch back to i'm normal and i'm laughing and mom's normal and she's laughing and we're all doing stuff together nature walking around

outside barefoot some of these things that are going to sound really weird and not like like kooky try them out for 30 days and. And I almost guarantee you that your kid will have a reorientation to you and to just a more peace, right? Peace. And if it's about connection with your kid, if it's about playing with your kid, if it's about joy with your kid and not about what they didn't do, those alarms in her heart and mind can start to slow down and quiet a little bit, which then, of course, gives her an opportunity to be a little bit more successful with cleaning up, a little bit more successful with seeing how good that feels when she gets something done, and so on and so on and so forth.

And this is going to be hard for you. Can I tell you one more thing for you? Please. I want you to forgive yourself and carry no baggage about this in your own heart, okay? Okay. Will you promise me that? Yeah. Moms and dads absolutely beat themselves up for this.

Parents who get divorced absolutely beat themselves up for this stuff. And what I'll tell you is that tension that you feel, that shame that you feel, that hurt inside you, that you feel, she absorbs that and she blames herself for that feeling and tries to fix it. Okay. Okay. And so I want you just to be at peace. This is what it is. Your daughter's beautiful.

Sounds like she's fun. She's going to be hilarious. She's going to be the life of the party. She's going to be an awesome person to be employed by. And she's going to have to have a really killer admin assistant that keeps her on track, right? That's the way she's going to have to work. And she is going to have to learn some skills that mom can't be calling her at college saying, did you do your homework? She's going to have to learn how to fail.

And she's going to have to learn that mom's not going to pay for college when she fails. And so she's going to have to figure it out. And she will, right? Especially if you start these connection practices now. I also want you to be super graceful with her in this season. I don't know a single kid in the United States of America that's not struggling right now. COVID has been a train wreck on these poor kids and they've been locked in front of screens. They've had weird associations. Even when they're at school, they're wearing masks. It's just been a mess.

And so every signaling receptor system a kid has, which is eye contact, face contact, watching people's mouths, laughing, shoving each other in the hallways, all those things, all that's gone away overnight. And so if you have a kid who leans towards being a little bit hyperactive, if you have a young girl who's hyperactive, which sometimes looks like they shut down, man, this just messes with them. It just melts them. So be graceful, too. And I'll just tell you, your daughter's lucky to have you, man. I love, love, love hearing from my mom, hey, I read about it. I'm learning about it.

What are some tangible things? So do that for 30 days. I'd love, please, please, please call me back, Danielle. Let me know how this is going. I'd love to know how your daughter's doing after 30 days of intense, intense sleep, man, movement, little, little wins, and a lot of contact from mom. And mom forgiving herself and dropping that brick of shame and moving on and being joyful too. That's awesome. All right, let's take one more call.

Let's go to Laura in Los Angeles. Laura, how are we doing? I'm doing okay. How are you doing? Same. I'm doing same. And I see you're from Los Angeles, and so I just automatically, stereotypically assume things are extra hard for you guys right now.

Y'all doing okay? Yeah, I'm a nurse, so. guys right now y'all doing okay yeah i'm a nurse so so no you're not doing okay you call my show and you're and you're lying laura my gosh a nurse in los angeles so tell me how we're doing um struggling yeah definitely um my feeling totally tapped out just fried huh yeah huh? Yeah. Every tank. And my tolerance level for pretty much everything is at a zero. Yeah. Very much.

Hey, can I tell you? For ways to stress manage. You earned it. Okay. Yeah. I hate that for you. But you earned it. Full stripes, right?

Yeah. So for folks who don't know what it's like being a nurse the last 12 months, give us some insight. Oh, wow. It is very, very challenging, especially the last couple of months, you know, since Thanksgiving. It's just been, I know I'm not so square on the radio but you know it's in the show yeah and an h yeah yeah you can say what you want to it's all good this is a podcast

man didn't even count here yeah i mean there's there's things that can make your toes curl when you hear about it and you see these people and it's horrifying. It's genuinely horrifying. And then in the same day that you have just coded a woman who is your age and was chatting with you about her kids 10 minutes earlier, and the same day you have a neighbor say to you, is it really that bad? I mean, I didn't feel like it's that bad. It's so frustrating and it's demoralizing. It's depressing. It's disgusting. All the D's except Deloney.

Hey, look at that. Hey, you know what? Now it's Deloney too. You've brought me into this, Laura. Thanks a lot. So how are you navigating this? I am struggling. I am definitely normally a very mellow person.

I'm pretty quiet, and I manage stress in my own dysfunctional ways that don't affect most people around me. What is that? What is that? Oh, eating. Okay. Yeah. And, yeah, just mostly eating. But lately, I've just been zero tolerance for my kid, my husband, people on the freeway. You know, it's LA, so that's pretty much an everyday thing, but it's worse now. And then unfortunately, I had a patient the other day who was very ungrateful and insulting even, and it took everything I had not to just go off on her. And that's not me. I feel really terrible for these people. And I understand that she's upset because of her situation,

not because of me. And I'm not taking it personally, but it's hard to not internalize it. I'm sorry, man. Hey, I'm like, for real, I'm sorry that you're doing this, that you're going through this. This was all fun and good and everyone was chanting nurses' names the first three or four months in. I don't think anybody expected this to still be going to full tilt a year later. That's a long time to live in the trauma of other people and to live in the politicalization of the hands you're holding every day, right?

Right. It's a nightmare, right? And then, oh, by the way, you're still a mom too, right? And then every, I don't know, once a month, you got a husband that's like, so tonight, tonight is the night, and you just want to stab him in the eye with a fork, right? Oh, Laura. So what does a full tank look like for you? What does, like, take me back two years ago. And what I want you to do is this.

Number one, I'm going to tell you things you already know this, right? That being angry at somebody on the highway is just like that old AA saying, right? You're just poisoning yourself hoping somebody else is going to die and they're not, right? You know that. And I also know that there's, when our brain processes are trying to protect us and we stop hearing the alarms, they get louder and louder. And what your brain's trying to tell you is, hey, we've had enough. We got to tap out for a minute. And I don't know what that looks like for you. I don't know if you've got a sabbatical program or if you've got an ability to walk in and tell your boss, hey, I need a minute. Like this is a lot. And by a minute, I need like two weeks.

But nurses are warriors and you don't want to leave your fellow nurses because you know someone's going to have to pick up the slack, all that stuff. So walk me through what does it look like for you? I want to leave this call with a plan for you is what I want to do because there's a bajillion people who are just like you, Lauren. You're such a gift. And whether they're nurses, whatever it is they're doing, they are struggling and they've had enough. They can't do anymore.

And then we're saying, well, maybe until June and maybe until July and maybe in the fall if people will chill out and stop being dumb and, and, and. Then we, you know, it's just like I can't do anymore, right? So let's get a plan together. So tell me, what does it look like? What is your, when your tank's full? I don't even remember. I'm a terrible patient, you know, like I don't pay attention to myself.

I don't take care of myself. So I don't really... Why not, Laura? It's been a very, very difficult few years, actually, because my daughter was really sick when she was a baby. And then we almost lost our house in the fires in 2018. And, you know, it just seems to be piling one on top of the other. And then with COVID, it just feels like I don't know how to find my way back to feeling that sense of calm. So here's how I like to, what you're experiencing is trauma all over

the place, right? And you know that. And we often think of trauma as a gunshot or a car wreck. And you're experiencing it with a sick kid who may not make it. You're experiencing it with your house burning down, your neighborhood's on fire, literally. You're experiencing it with the political mess. You're experiencing it with all the secondary traumatic stress of being a nurse. And your body's telling you, I've had enough. I've got to stop. And the thing that you know, that I know, that we all know about our bodies is if you won't stop, it will stop you at some point, right? Absolutely. And it's showing cracks all over the place. So what does processing this trauma look like? What does getting those bricks

of a fire in your backpack and a sick kid and all of the marriage stress that goes with this and not being able to see your friends and trying to solve everything with gummy candies, that's what I do, and with bourbon and what do you do to get those bricks out of your backpack? Because here's the thing, you have to start taking care of yourself or I'm going to call you out and tell you that you don't love your patients like you say you do. Because you can't take care of them unless you're okay. You got to put your oxygen mask on first. So what does that look like? I guess I probably need to enforce taking more time for myself, not spending the time that I do have to think about things, to worry. I spend a lot of time worrying about stuff.

Yeah, but that worry is just part of your alarm system, right? And that sucker spun out. What does it look like to what shift do you work oh my day shift okay so what does it look like to get off of work and to sit down with your husband and say hey i need some help around the house um i'm i'm kind of cracking and he's gonna smile and say yeah we know and my is wonderful. He cleans more than I do. Oh, that's awesome. He's really good.

I have a very good support system. Partner. Awesome. So what does it look like? Well, how about this? I won't put you on the spot anymore. I'll give you some ideas, okay? Tell me, please.

I'll give you some ideas. Number one, I'm going to call you out. I'm going to call everyone listening to this. If you don't take care of yourself, you are saying, I do not care about those who love me. And that's a mean way to say that, but I've got to start being more upfront to people who are working in the hard lives of other people. And I've got to say that to myself. If I choose to not take care of myself, I am choosing to be less of a good dad and choosing to be less of a good husband and a good connected community member. I've got to put some of my wellness and health needs first.

Otherwise, people around me are not going to get my best self. And so what does that mean? That means on certain days when my alarm goes off, my wife's hand will slide under the covers. Not where you think, Laura. She will just grab my hand and we will sit there and hold hands for the first four or five minutes that we both wake up. And occasionally we'll just touch feet. This isn't a sexual thing. This is just skin to skin contact. Okay. And there's all kinds of physiological and biochemical research that comes with that, but it just is a grounding. It lets your body know I'm tethered and I'm okay.

You are also blessed. You've got an awesome old man that lives, a husband that just loves you, loves you, right? And so that's the best. The second thing is, is you're not going to like this and I don't like it either. This is me. There's a pot talking in the kettle here. We've got to take care of our nutrition. We have to. We've got to fuel our bodies in the right way. And that may mean two or three weeks of just utter hell getting off of sugar and getting out of some of the cyclical nonsense of

more grains, more sugar, more grains, more sugar, crash, whatever. And that may mean a fun adventure of sitting down with your husband saying, hey, we got to wrap some stuff up because I'm coming. I can't keep putting water in the gas tank, right? The next thing is you got to get off of work and especially you get off at seven. You're going to have to be militant about staying away from screens and you got to be militant about doing active things. And that's hard after you've been on your feet all day. But it might just be simple like taking a walk with him saying, hey, will you make me take a walk and hold my hand while we walk? And if you can get away with it, walk around in the grass and walk with no shoes

on. And there's something about the grounding effect of being still and being present that being barefoot and holding somebody's hand does for you. The other thing is where you can, I know this is exhausting. Again, you're lucky you've got a guy that's stepping in, is have people over to your house or go places where you can. I don't even know what the rules are where you are. But you've got to get with community and not talk about nursing stuff and not talk about coding people and not talk about death and not talk about sickness and not talk about politics,

but just talk about life, just talk about sickness and not talk about politics, but just talk about life, just talk about laughter, just talk about whatever, but learn to practice to be a person again. And this is, again, the pot talking to the kettle, man, because people who work in trauma, they all hang out with people who work in trauma because that's where the only ones... Exactly what I was going to say is I don't really know anybody.

I know. So, I know you have to and it's going to be awkward and weird listen when I moved to Nashville I knew the science I knew the data and it was super weird you know what I did I had a couple of two couples at my house and me and my wife had them there at our kitchen table

and I said this is going to be weird, but we would like to ask you to be our friends. There was an awkward silence, and it was like, hey, here's what this means. We're going to show up, and when you need something at 2 a.m., we're going to show up, and we may call you. And we'd love to have you involved in our kids' life. And it ended up being an awkward, messy, beautiful conversation. Because here's what I know. My tendency is to retreat and only hang out with people who do graphic,

gross things for a living. And I know the science tells me that trauma is cumulative. And so, when I get home and I play Fortnite or I get home and I watch some awesome Netflix show that is just about serial killers and murderers, and then I get the podcast, another serial killer podcast when I'm working out. All that is just trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma, dude, and my brain can't take it anymore, right? Totally, yes, absolutely. And then the only thing that feels better, makes things go away, is pizza,

and the whole two-liter Coke, and then the only thing the next morning that feels better is starting the whole stupid cycle over again. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And so start. I just would love to be at your house and you have this conversation. Tonight, you're going to tell your husband. Starting tomorrow morning, when the alarm goes off, I want you to reach under the covers and hold my hand, pervy. Hold my hand. And then I want you to slide your leg over and I want you to reach under the covers and hold my hand, pervy. Hold my hand. And then I want you to slide your leg over and I want to just touch our bare feet. And we're just going to lay there for five minutes. And you can say some wackadoo on the radio said to do this.

And then tell him you're responsible for making me an awesome breakfast. And it's got to be something with high fat and high protein that's healthy for me. That's not just going to make my blood sugar crash at 10 and make me hit the vending machines. And I want you to text each other throughout the day and check in with one another. If you've got friends that you can text funny, silly things to, awesome. Hug, hug, hug, hug, hug that little one. When you get home, go for a walk. Don't just plop down. I want you to go for a walk, barefoot if you can, whole hands if you can. Here's the final thing, either in the morning or in the evening, I think for you in the evening, it's going to be better. So I want you to start keeping a gratitude journal. Start every day, I mean, end every day with five things I am grateful for.

You can name patients. You can make a pseudonym in your book just to be hypocopiant, but you can name patients. You can name a doctor that helped, a fellow nurse. You can name your kid. You can name your husband. You can name whatever doctor that helped, a fellow nurse. You can name your kid. You can name your husband. You can name whatever you want to. But just begin to orient yourself away from all I see is people dying. All I see is people trying to politicize hurt. All I see is people trying to tell me that I'm crazy. All I see is a sweet mom that I'm talking to about her kids. And then she just passes away on me right in front of me. And all I see that over and over, I want you to begin to orient

yourself towards looking for beauty, looking for joy, looking for the good, because there is good. We just have to go find it during the season. And I'll end it with this. If you know a nurse, if you know a, man, somebody in the healthcare professions right now, I'm just calling on everybody to get this. Go do something nice for them today. Call them, pay for a meal, go over to their house and sit on the front porch, bring cough. I don't care what you bring. Show up and be in the lives of people who are in the nursing profession, nurse practitioners,

people who work in hospitals. They are just out of gas and this thing's not stopping. That we've got to have them whole. And that starts with us being good community members and reaching out. Laura, thank you so, so much. I want you to try that. Give me a month. Give me a month and circle back and let me know how it goes. You can say like, hey, I did all that stuff and I still hate my life and you're an idiot, Deloney. I'll play that on the radio. That'll be fun, but it's not going to happen that way. All right, so as we wrap up today's show, man, I went to a concert a few years ago

at the Ryman Auditorium. I went to see a band that I loved from back in the day, and there was an opening band there, and it's only happened one other time where the opening band just, no, two other times in my life, but the opening band just, no, two other times in my life, but the opening band just walks away with the show.

By the end of the opener's act, everyone is standing up on their feet, yelling, singing along, and it was just a sense of joy and compassion and beauty that I've rarely ever seen in a live performance. Their records are just astounding. And this is one, my favorite song of theirs, one of the best songs ever written, ever. It's from a beautiful, wonderful married couple who are veterans. It's called War and Treaty. And the song is off the album The Healing Tide. The song itself is called The Healing Tide out in 2018. And it goes like this. What if I told you, you would be the one to bring world peace? What if I told you a willing heart and soul is what you need? What if I showed you how to make a good out of something wrong? What

if I wrote you a song from the heart of your world? Would you let me be your boy? Would you be a part of the healing tide, a part of the healing tide? What if I told you you'd be better off the second time around? What if I told you that not all goes up will come down? What if I told you how to take the bad and make something good?

What if I gave you my heart from the state of your world? Would you be a part of the healing tide? War and Treaty, check them out. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.