The Dr. John Delony Show - Dealing With Divorce, Fatherhood and Bipolar

Episode Date: November 16, 2022

In this episode, we talk with: - A man struggling to accept the end of his marriage - A mom who doesn’t feel comfortable with how her father-in-law talks to her kids - A manager unsure of how much grace to show employees suffering from mental health challenges Lyrics of the Day: Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq 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. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. I've been diagnosed with a bipolar diagnosis about four and a half years ago. How do I live an emotionally healthy life for my wife and our five children? I've made a change recently to something that specializes in mental health, and I see a counselor on a weekly basis. Husband to husband, I'm proud of you. Exit life! Enter night!

What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Man, I'm so glad that you're with us. This is not a show where I sing because I'm terrible at that. But this is a show where I walk alongside you on the greatest mental health and marriage and parenting podcast ever. And we figure out what's the next right thing for you to do. The world's gotten sideways on us

and it has become a mess. And that's what we're here for, here to walk alongside you. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693 six, nine, three, 3291. Please don't forget to remember just to hit the subscribe button. If you're watching YouTube, just click it, click it. And if you are listening on podcasts, just subscribe such a gift

to me. Yes. Self-serving of course, but more importantly, it puts the show in the hands of other people. It puts it in the algorithms in the smoke and mirrors or whatever is going on in the internets. And it shows up on more people's feeds, the more reviews, the positive reviews and the more subscriptions. So thank you so much, so much, so much. It's a way to support the show and other people without having to buy anything, man. Good grief. Y'all are getting beat to death with buying things. So thank you so much for somebody out here in the crowd just bought some books. So thank you so much, man. All right, let's roll off and talk to Grant in Spokane, Washington. What's up, Grant?

I am doing well. Thanks for having me on your show. I'm looking forward to getting some feedback. All right, let's figure it out, man. What's up? All right, I've been diagnosed with a man. What's up? All right. I've been diagnosed with a bipolar diagnosis about four and a half years ago. Okay.

Initially, it was bipolar type two, and then more recently, it's been bipolar type one. My question is, how do I live an emotionally healthy life for my wife and our five children? Hmm. life for my wife and our five children. Did you have a significant manic episode that had them re-diagnose you? They thought that I had more of a depressive episode that were more affecting my life. But according to the diagnosis, you need to have a manic episode for more than five consecutive days. And typically my high phases last seven to 10 days. Okay.

What have you done to manage care over the last four and a half years? Have you kept yourself well? Medication that wasn't working effectively. Okay. I think, I think I was just, I was too loyal to a,

to a health system that, that wasn't specialized in mental health, just kind of general practitioner here in Spokane. Okay. And, um, yeah, I've,

I've made a change recently to something that specializes in mental health. And I see a counselor on a weekly basis and I see my psychiatrist probably, I've been with them about 90 days and I've seen her probably half a dozen times in those 90 days. Wow. Have you seen an uptick in your mood and stabilization? Feeling better? Yes. Yeah, I think so. Good deal, man. Hey, can I just tell you this? Just guy to guy, husband to husband, I'm proud of you.

Thanks. Good for you. And there's days that you feel good and you don't want to take your meds because you feel like, I'm good, man. And you take them anyway, and I'm proud of you. It's hard you take them anyway and i'm proud of you it's hard okay yep i'm proud of you all right so how do you be a good partner to wife five kids what's precipitated this did something happen did you do something what like why why today my wife and i we've been separated about 11 months.

My oldest daughter, she's going to turn 13 in about two weeks. Okay. And she and I are not on talking terms. I've traumatized her and I've said terrible things to her and acted in atrocious ways when I've been unstable. And she just doesn't want me to be in her life at all. And our marriage is hanging on barely. It sounds like it's over, brother. Like y'all have been separated for almost a year now.

It sounds like it's over. Is this you not acknowledging reality or is your wife saying, no, we're still working through this? I don't know. When I called the Dave Ramsey show, I talked to Ken Coleman and George Camel. They said, A, number one, protect the kids. And A, number one, A, is fight to save the marriage. And fighting to save the marriage looks like taking care of my mental health, making my appointments, taking my meds. And then number two, fighting to save the marriage is call before I come over and create positive memories and work on chores with the kids and saying stuff like, I noticed these chores, which one is more a higher priority?

My spouse. Hold on. So I want to reframe that a little bit, okay? Okay. Taking your meds, getting counseling, moving your body and exercising and putting good food into your body, like getting some sleep. That isn't to save your marriage. That's for you to be well and whole. And when you get well and whole and you get stabilized and you have some coping mechanisms for when your body starts to drag you underwater, which you've experienced, and when your body

duct tapes you to a rocket ship, which you've experienced, when you get some coping strategies and some behavior management strategies during those seasons, then you are in a place to begin to work on your marriage. And it sounds like semantics, but it's a huge difference. Here's why. If your marriage is over, if your wife has all but left you, which it sounds like she has, you still need to take your meds and work on having a good life. You got five kids that need their dad. Okay? You deserve a life of peace, and you haven't had that in a long, long time. Right?

That would be correct. Okay. So our focus right now is getting Grant well and healthy. And that will allow you to focus on the kids. That will allow you to focus on your marriage. And let me try to say this in a right way that's kind. I don't want to paint everyone with bipolar in this in this with one broad stroke okay but um here is something i've seen with the limited number

of folks i've worked with they are very very very smart lightning smart And on up seasons, they're able to, their computational power is so much faster and so much more vast than a normal guy like me. And they're able to see solutions to problems. Sometimes it don't even exist yet, but they create solutions to situations. And that's often good unless those problems are relational. And then what you end up doing is coming up with the ways you're going to save your marriage and you forget to ask your wife. And then you start doubling down on a bunch of activities and actions and they don't work because it's not part of what your wife needs to be whole in this marriage. And then it's agonizing and frustrating. And then your body starts flipping switches on you.

Am I on the right path? I'm trying to keep up with you. Okay. So when's the last time you sat down with your wife and said, what's the status of our marriage? I think at the beginning of October, we, we pushed pause on marriage counseling

for three months and we'd been seeing a marriage counselor on a weekly basis for 90 days or so. Okay. Why,

why, who, who pushed pause and why? I think financially, we, financially, we've come to the end of the financial resources

okay and just not seeing any progress or change or difference I can't point to one thing and say this is different

than the last 90 days okay has she filed for divorce yet has she filed for a legal separation yet? Okay. Let's go to your kids. Your 13-year-old right now is right.

Okay? She's right. You scared the hell out of her. You said some tough stuff. And for a 13-year-old now, what you you're doing. My brother is you're playing a long game Okay, the dad's well dad's gonna take his medication dad's going to not grovel and try to earn your love back But your dad's just gonna keep showing up and keep showing up because I love you And if she says I don't want you in my presence,

you're going to say, cool, I love you. Here's what we want. We're going to play a game. It's a long game. It's 10 years from now. So at 23, here's what I want her to have.

A handwritten letter from her dad every two weeks for 10 years. Telling her how she's doing, how proud of her you are. Make the letter about her. Make her you are make the letter about her make her the hero of the letter not about dad it's just about her

how much you love her how proud of what a beautiful young woman she is what a gritty brilliant young woman she is I want her to have a firm understanding about how loved she is. And at the same time, I want to respect her autonomy

that she gets to choose to not be terrified and scared again for a while. It's both and. Okay? Okay. Is that fair? I think that's fair. Okay. What about your other kids?

our 11 year old doesn't live at home anymore full time she and my wife don't have the best relationship and then we have an 8 year old, a 6 year old and a 3 year old boy so we have an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, and a three-year-old boy.

So we have four daughters and a son. But the younger three, they still want me in their lives. They still appreciate me coming back. They still like me being involved in their lives. My 11-year-old

isn't as hot-spiraling, isn't as prickly as my 13 year old but I think doing the letter thing if I can do it for one of them I could probably do it for each one of them and that probably would be healthy for them to look back on the past

I know I would have appreciated it for my dad and here's a cool thing about when you go have a visit with your three kids that want to hang out with you, you go have a visit with those three

and you'll have a great time. They remember the feelings, but they don't always remember exactly what dad said. And if you say something dumb over the next few years, which if you're a parent, you for sure will, I know I will. Our bodies have a way of remembering the negative stuff more than the positive stuff. And ex-spouses have a more likely to bring up, well, your dad said that, right? Negative stuff.

The beauty of having a letter is they can read it over and over and over again. It crystallizes in their mind how valuable and beautiful and wonderful and gritty and smart they are. So says their dad. You see what I'm saying? I guess I do. Your daughter is living with your aunt. Why aren't any of these kids living with you?

Have you had your kids removed? Have they been taken from you? I know that we've had a CPS cases over the last probably, uh, five years. And they were because of actions that I had neglected that probably would be able to be used in a figure pointed at me. What'd you do? I need you to talk directly into the phone too. It's starting to fade a little bit.

Uh, what'd you, what happened? I, I let, I let a two year old go out and, you know, winter scene with snow on the ground and all she had was a diaper on.

I didn't realize that she'd gone out of the house. The neighbor found her, brought her back. Okay. What else? My kids were reporting to the nurse at school that they didn't feel safe at home. Okay. Were you violent with them?

Probably. I don't remember. I don't remember specific instances of being violent towards them. There was a time when I took a door off in the exchanges and showed violence that way towards our house. Okay. And I was out of control. Okay.

So here's what it sounds like. The greatest gift you can give your kids right now is for you to be well. Okay. And this is hard to hear, but you're doing the right things right now you're gonna have to keep working real real hard and there's gonna be a there's gonna be it's just gonna take time

smashing a door off its hinges in your house with four little kids or five little kids is trauma that's what that is and you know that'm not going to kick you while you're down. You can't put that door back on the hinges and you can't sweep up all the pieces of the door that are on the floor and rebuild it and say, hey, it's all good. What you have to do over a long period of time is get yourself stable and get yourself well. And you're doing the right things. You got a full-time psychiatrist. You got a full-time therapist. You're doing the work. Do the work for Grant because Grant deserves to be whole and then do it for those kids.

It sounds to me, my brother, like your marriage is over and I think it's time for some very concrete conversations with your wife. Are you done? Is this entity over? You will always be in relationship with her because you'll share five kids.

Always. Is this done? Because you're spending a lot of energy trying to keep together a unity that might be over. Okay, let's get some very clear answers here. And let's not ever stop taking our meds. Let's not ever hop out of counseling. And let's work a long game to get ourselves well and whole

so that we are safe around our kids. Not so we show them and trick them, so that we become safe in their presence. And kids have a pretty uncanny knack for feeling it. Glassy-eyed dad versus, oh, dad sees me. There he is. That's one, two, three, four years down the road. Let's work towards that, my brother. Okay? Thanks for being brave. Thanks for trying to turn this sucker around. You're worth it. They're worth it. Keep fighting my man. We'll be right back It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel

Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change and you've got a tornado of anxiety Fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new home buyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage.

Churchill is a Ramsey-trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their home buyer edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillemortgage.com slash D'Loni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back. Let's go to Caitlin in Salt Lake City.

What's up, Caitlin? How we doing? Hi, Dr. John. How's it going? Good. What's up, Kaitlyn? How we doing? Hi, Dr. John. How's it going? Good. What's up? Good. Nothing much.

Just hanging out. Nothing much. Yep. So what's up? How can I help? Let's fix it. Yes, I had a question for you. So how do my husband and I set boundaries with our in-laws regarding

disciplining our children? Oh, sweet. Are they trying to spank your kids or yell at your kids or something? Uh, yeah, a little bit. Oh, that's so good. Never go back. I'm just kidding. That's too simple. Um, Oh, can I just be honest with you? I wish this was a really complex answer and it's not. Yeah. You and your husband make very clear what you will or will not tolerate when it comes to your kids. And then you give other adults the opportunity to choose whether they want to see their grandkids or not. It's that simple. Yeah. And if another adult wants to hit my kid, then that adult does not ever get to be in the presence of my child ever again. And that's a choice they've made, not me. If another adult wants to yell at my kid or tell racist jokes

around my kid or swear on my kid, not great. Good for you you you will never see my child again because that's my job and you hear my voice like i don't give a crap who you are you know what i mean like i i absolutely don't care yeah and i've had to have not uh like those are i'm being extreme i'm trying to sound all tough i'm not i'm kind of a wimp but um i'm trying to sound all tough. I'm not, I'm kind of a wimp, but I'm trying to sound tough, but I've had to have conversations with a lot of people in my life that I love and say, Hey, Hey, Hey, you will not talk that way in front of my kid. Yeah. And very clearly that's not going to happen. And I've had everybody respect it, but one or two people and those people don't get to see my kid anymore.

And I don't care. I don't care. Right? Yeah. Because they're grownups and they make grownup choices. Tell your jokes. Do your thing. I don't care.

It's not going to see my kids. See, I mean, I hope you're getting my sentiment. I don't owe you anything when it comes to my children. I agree. Okay. So what are you experiencing? I'm talking all over you. Clearly this is like a, like a button for me. Like, what are you, what are you working through? So I guess it's not so much that we have decided that we want to talk to our family about how we think is appropriate to talk to our children like i would

just rather them not do anything at all personally um but it's it's really hard for my husband to talk to his family because they're not like, they're just not the nicest. Poor husband. Poor husband. I kind of want to hug him. I hear there's a deal. I don't care. And I don't want to talk bad about your husband if he was on the phone. I would be harder on him.

It's his parents. Get over it. Suck it up. Tell him. Yeah. Like you're a grown man. He went and got married and had kids. It's his parents. Get over it. Suck it up. Tell him. Yeah. Like, you're a grown man. He went and got married and had kids. He made that choice.

Yeah, I agree. And you, sister, don't have to put your kids in that situation. If your husband's too much of a coward to talk to his family about how they're treating his children, then you might have to step in and say, well, then my kids aren't going. Yeah. That makes sense. Does that make sense? What, what, what are they doing now? I just know I've been talking crap. You're going to be like, well, they throw cotton balls at him when they get mad. Like, what are they doing? And it's not like every time. Oh, that's, that's, Hey, that's abuse. Apologizer. I don't care if it's that every time.

Just one time. If you hit my kid with an iron rod one time, that's enough. It doesn't have to be every time it was this time. No. And it's not, it's not hitting. Um, but like, I'm trying to think. So she's, she's one, she's turning too soon. So she's just barely gotten into like the throwing tantrum phase where she freaks out you know um and like he'll make almost like

not dog noises at her but like it's a sound that you would make to correct a dog if they were doing something that wasn't okay. Dude, you're getting like, ah, it's getting under my skin. I guess it's like, it's like crawling on me.

Cause I know, here's what I know. Exactly what it is. That's that. Oh my gosh. You know what that is? That's, that's a, that, oh my gosh. You know what that is? That's, that's a,

that is power. Yeah. I have dominion over you, pet. And you know what one-year-olds do? They just get sensory overload. A temper tantrum by a one-year-old is not a character flaw. It's not a defect.

They're one. Now, there's proper ways to deal with it as a parent right and yeah hey that is not the way to handle it no i mean she's she's a person yes and so here's the deal somebody has to stop and say hey hey, hey, you're not going to treat my child like a dog in that tone of voice. Yeah. I'm going to pick up my kid. Nobody's going to whistle. And here's my, I don't know how to, I don't know how to say this without sounding all woo-woo. Kids are radar systems for tension. And if they get put in the position of somebody that thinks they're a pet or that holds that sort of relational hierarchy with them, I am better than you.

I'm superior to you. I've got bigger muscles than you. Here's a little lump of human that will do whatever I say. Kids feel that. And seven-year-olds don't want to go visit granddad. Yeah. 13-year-olds run away from granddad. One-year-olds just light up like a Christmas tree because that's all they know how to do.

Right? And so it wouldn't surprise me at all if a kid who's had to travel to granddad's house, who's exhausted, mom and dad are tense because you're going to in-laws house and the kid's absorbing that tension, you'll show up there and then this shows up. Yeah, that kid's going to have a temper tantrum. You know why?

That's exactly how he was made. Good for him. He's letting you, his mom know, not safe, not safe, not safe. And then he gets treated with a dog whistle. That just like straight pisses me off. I'm sitting here getting fired up for you. It's not even my kid.

Oh, trust me. We both do. I just. That is an in the moment correction. And I will pack up my stuff and go home. I just don't care. You know what I'm going to have on the way home? More fun.

Yeah. Right. I'm going to eat at Arby's and Taco Bell and just get the rockets all the way home. Love my life. Don't care. Yeah. Why won't your husband talk to his parents? Well, so it's, it's just his dad. Um, no, mom's's in on it too because mom can step in and say something too they're divorced oh okay that's cute okay well i wonder i wonder if i wonder if she liked being talked to that way her during her marriage yeah yeah we've had these discussions. But I think a lot of it is because he was treated the same way. So very like degraded, like even as an adult, like if he does something,

his dad thinks is weird or dumb or something, he'll be like, why are you such an idiot? You know, like he just, he'll be like, why are you such an idiot? You know? Like, he just... He just... Berates him sometimes, honestly. And it...

It drives me crazy. Of course, because you love this man. You know he's not an idiot. He does dumb things because he's human, but he's not an idiot. Yeah. And you don't want anybody talking to your husband that way.

I don't care who you are. Exactly. So, I think for him, he just, he mostly struggles with like the confidence to stand up to his dad because he knows, he knows fully well that when he does, he's going to get crap from him, that he's an idiot

and he doesn't know how to parent a kid right. Cool. Bang up job you did, dad. Way to go. it for crushed the marriage too way to go dad yeah wait knocked it knocked it out of the park dude way to go yeah right so when my dad tells me about parenting i have to listen because i look at the fruit of his three kids, he did a good job. Yeah. Right? And so even when I don't want to hear it, I do owe him that respect because it's played out. Right?

Your husband doesn't have that same luxury. Here's the deal. If he refuses or can't or won't it's won't he can if he won't then at some point you say me and my baby are not going to visit him anymore and if he your husband wimps out and tells his dad she don't want to come see you anymore she doesn't like the way you talk to the baby um and again i hope you can see how cowardly that would sound but that's probably how the conversation would go Um, and he calls you you might have to tell him I'm tired of you calling my husband an idiot because he's not he's a good man I'm tired of you talking down to me. I'm a good wife. I'm a good mom tired of you whistling at our kid

Like he's some kind of like he's a cow out in the pasture. I'm not good mom. Tired of you whistling at our kid like he's a cow out in the pasture. I'm not doing it anymore. Until you treat me and my family with dignity or respect, we're out. Yeah. So you think it's a correction when it's happening? Absolutely. Because that's a power dynamic. And here's how that will probably end because nobody stands up to a bully like that.

It will probably end with y'all packing your crap and leaving. Okay. Because I don't, just based on what you told me, he ain't going back down. He's going to stay on his ground. Because that's what we do around here. Yeah. It's hard to know because they're just so- Dude, listen, I know this guy. You know why?

Because I grew up with this guy. I know this guy. And that's why I got such a visceral response to him. Dude, I moved here from West Texas. Like, I just, I could feel it, man. I can feel it. Yeah. It's just an arrogance that the world bends to me.

And I don't care if it's a business deal. I don't care if it's a home. I don't care if it's your kid You bow before me I don't care if it's a one-year-old that just misses mama is tired Good grief whistling at a one-year-old unbelievable Um, I do think your husband needs to suck it up And have a hard conversation Okay And

It won't end well And he's probably going to look at you And say this is your fault Because he doesn't understand what relationship is Because he's never seen it Okay Yeah We're pretty on the same page I mean we're Okay Yeah I mean

Well we're We're pretty on the same page I mean we're Probably the complete opposite From both of our families So Good for you Hey y'all are creating something new

Good for you Why do you even go? Why be in this dude's presence? I don't know Can I tell you what I think it is? Fantasy. This is the way these are supposed to go. The picture I had when I had a kid was that he was going to have a great grandparents and we're going to have holidays that look like this. We're going to have Christmases that look like this. And we're going to have hunting trips and fishing trips and shopping trips.

And the adults in your life have chosen that that's not going to be a reality. And so as soon as you're able to, you'll need to create a new reality based on the data in front of you. Based on the relationships that are in front of you.

Not based on how you wish it was, because wish it was isn't happening right now. And if your father-in-law has one iota of reflective ability, hopefully he would ask at some point, hey, why do y'all, what do you mean you're not coming for Thanksgiving? Dad, we're just going to do it on our own this year. I'll come down and visit you.

No, thank you. We're going on a trip. We're going to go somewhere on our own. We're going to start our own family traditions. You don't like me? You don't want to see me? We're tired of you calling me an idiot. I'm done with it, Dad.

I put up with it my whole life and I'm done with it. And I got my own son now. I'm my own daughter now. And we're not doing this again. It stops with me. That's gangster right there. You know what that is? That's family tree changing. It's generational. That's legacy. That's saying no more. Hang on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of On Your Past, Change Your Future. You and your husband can read it together. There's not a chapter on how to have grown up hard conversations, but there is a chapter on owning reality. This is what is. And then there's a whole back half the book on here's what we're going to do now. Good for you for loving that kid. No more people talking your child like they're a pet. Good grief. We'll be right back. All right, we are back and I have

a better attitude now after the last call. That got under my skin. All right, let's go to Susan in Phoenix. What's up, Susan? Hi, Dr. John. It's great to speak to you today. You too. What's up? Well, I'm a co-owner of a small business, and one of my roles at the company is to manage HR in the office. Oh, no. Hiring, firing.

How small is your office? We have about 10 people at any given time. So it's pretty small. HR in an office of 10 people is like managing brothers and sisters and cousins. Exactly. And there's always a couple of weird cousins. Oh, geez. Good for you. Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. So sorry. Yeah. What's up? No worries. Um, so I've noticed kind of an increase in mental health issues that have arisen probably since COVID, but frankly, just generally speaking, I think the world is kind of creating a lot more mental health issues in people. So my broad question is just in my role,

how do I show empathy and compassion for individual struggles while still getting work done in the office and getting productivity out of my staff. So, you know, people are struggling with depression. They're, they have, you know, divorce issues that I've been encountering, marital problems, uh, crippling anxiety. You know, these are all things that are really impacting, you know, their productivity. So, um, do you have any suggestions and I can get into specifics if that would help. Let me make some broad suggestions and then come back if I don't answer your question, okay? Okay.

And I'm having this conversation all over the country. I've talked to business leaders all over the United States on how to create these systems in their businesses. And here's a couple of operating principles for how to do this. Okay. So first and foremost, good for you for being a business owner that cares. Good grief. Thank you. Thank you. For not treating your customers like widgets or like robots for you to make more money. Thank you for being somebody who sees people influx. There's just a kind of a big reveal and it happened overnight here in the country. We're all kind of figuring out what to do with it. Everybody's talking been a, what I would say, not healthy oversharing that has happened. And I think it's, it's chat rooms or something have bled over into real life where people are announcing in staff meeting, I cheated on my wife and now she's left me. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, dude, we, we we make boxes like that's between you and your therapist and you and your pastor or whoever you and your friends um and so there's been this weird culture of oversharing that's emerged overnight and here's the deal it's a weird moment in history where

somebody can drop that kind of grenade and if you say the wrong thing, you're the bad guy. Right. Like if you stumble over like, well, uh, you're evil because you didn't fill in the blank, right? You didn't accept me or you judged me or now I'm more anxious or whatever. Right. Yeah. So, um, here's, uh, I'll give you three, three things that I would recommend, um, you, you do to create a culture of both mental health and, hey, we still have a business to run here. It's compassionate, but it's also, we got stuff we got to do. The first one is, this is about relationships with appropriate distance. And you're going to let your people know, hey, we are a safe place. If you're struggling, let us know and we will support you the best we can.

Here's what support means. I do not want to know your diagnosis unless it's coming from a medical doctor and you need an ADA accommodation for your workplace. I don't want you, like don't ever come in and say, I've never told anybody this, but I'll stop somebody and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, I shouldn't be the first person you tell. I don't even know what you're about to say, but it shouldn't be me. I don't know you that well. I'm your boss. Or

you might tell me something that as your supervisor, I have to act on. Okay. If somebody comes in and says, hey, I'm really struggling with anxiety. When I get anxious, I steal stuff. Well, you can't work here if you're stealing from us. And the response isn't, oh, I've got anxiety though. No, you can't steal. It's both and. Okay. So I tell people this is a safe place. Here's what that looks like. Hey, I've been struggling a lot. I'm seeing a counselor. Can I knock off at four once a week? Absolutely. I'll even pay you for that hour. That's what relationship with appropriate distance looks like. Hey, everybody, I've posted a list of 10 counselors in this local area.

And I posted it in the break room. And I've got a deal with them. If you tell them you work at our place, I'm going to pick up 25% or half the tab. So your visit will be 50 bucks. Go in there. You don't even have to let me know. They'll just bill me directly. Okay. Okay. That's way, like you are letting them know you care about them. Here's a resource, but I don't know what to do when you tell me you have major depressive disorder and you can't come to work, but you still need me to pay you. I don't, I don't know. I don't, I'm not trained to deal with that. I'm not trained to deal with

your suicide response. That's why I'm going to, if you tell me you're suicidal, I'm calling 911 every single time because that's not my core competency. I'm not trained in that. Okay. Okay. And you're providing them resources to the professionals that can get them the help they really need. Right. Right. The second thing is this, and this isn't popular, but this is reality. Mental health challenges in the workplace are a context, not an excuse, okay? Yeah. I am a guy who has suffered profoundly from anxiety in the past. I don't struggle at all with it anymore, not even a little bit.

But in the past, it laid me low. I had two responsibilities there one I had to get my job done that my boss was paying me to do and I had to do the work on my own to go get well and in my particular office place I let people know a few people privately hey I've got a knockoff to go see a counselor. Is that cool? Absolutely. That's great. Hey, I'm not going to be able to come to this event tomorrow night because it's me and my wife go to marriage counseling and I'm going to have to miss it. Great. Or, hey, I've got to move my counseling appointment because I've got this really important work thing and I can't miss it. Okay. Or my wife and I took a $70,000 household income pay cut to go from me running an entire university to me, us moving to another city and me taking a assignment with a smaller,

with several hundred students instead of several thousand students. So that for the next several years, I could get myself well, that was on me, not on the other institution. Does that make sense? Yeah. So it's a context, not an excuse. If the job comes second to the, it ends up dishonoring the person that has hired you guys for help, for your service. It's a dishonoring to them if the job doesn't get done. And someone can say, hey, I just woke up this morning with lots of anxiety. I'm just not coming in today. That's not an acceptable response. Yeah, that's what's happened historically. Okay. So they can wake up and have anxiety. And if you have a business that allows them to come in late, great. Sometimes people are like frontline customers. I need someone to unlock the door.

And you can't call me 15 minutes before work starts and say i've got anxiety this morning. So i'm not going to be there Um, that's that's unethical. It's it's not integrous. Okay It might be that I got to get myself to to the office and open the door and i'm going to call some people to come In and cover my shift for me because I can't I gotta go and i've been there before I gotta get out of here, but I still had to go open the door and I'm going to call some people to come in and cover my shift for me because I can't, I got to go. And I've been there before. I got to get out of here, but I still had to go open the door. And maybe it's creating a phone tree so that if somebody wakes up and they are really struggling and you've met with them and you've got a note from their therapist or from the ADA office or whatever, that you've got a phone tree that that person can reach out and call, but it's going to be their responsibility to make that call. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah, it does. It's a both and. You have to take care of business. You can't just not show up to work or you can't work here. Okay. Right. Here's the third one. You have to model this.

You have to model this. You have to model it. That means you have to be open about what you are experiencing and your personal challenges with appropriate boundaries. Okay. Meaning that I'm supposed to tell them what's going on with other people? No, no, no, no. Never, ever do that. Or myself? I'm saying here,

if you are struggling with something, if you get tired, if you get exhausted, you get burned out, you're going to marriage counseling, that during a staff meeting, you let everybody know, hey, I'm knocking off on Tuesday

because I'm going to go, I'm seeing a professional to work through some stuff. You are modeling, oh, that's okay. And you're also modeling, I'm not telling you that I've got depression. I'm not telling you that my husband cheated on me

and we're going to marriage counseling. I'm not telling you any of the gory details. I'm just telling you that I'm going to take care of myself. And then later on, you point back to the way you did it as the model. So when someone says, I'm struggling, say, stop, whoa, whoa, whoa. Remember when I did it?

I let y'all know I'm going to get help and care. What's what your diagnosis is, is between you and your therapist, between you and your doctor. Right. Does that make sense? And, and you got to come to work. You got to be at work. So, so for people that aren't coming into work, because that's kind of one of the issues

with the, around anxiety, um, do anxiety. Do you allow them to work remotely? My fear is that they're not going to work remotely. Or do you let them take the time off, but then it impacts other people that have to take over their workload? I mean, at some point, it's just not going to work out. But up until then, how do I handle that sort of a situation? I don't have any problem, and this isn't popular with large corporations. When you get super big, it becomes very unwieldy. And so that's where you get these big blanket policies that we don't do this or we do this.

When you have a staff of 10, I like it how my boss, Dave Ramsey, did it once. He stood up and said, we are growing company size, and there's a particular leader who's got a particular situation and I'm the boss. And so here's how I'm helping him out. Here's how I'm helping her out. And it was a one-off situation and there's been multiple one-offs. Here where I work at Ramsey Solutions, every leader's got the ability to do some one-offs with their people. But here's the catch, for a limited time. So it might be someone come in and say, I am doubled over with anxiety. I'm really struggling. I just can't breathe.

I need some time. And you might be able to say, I can do two weeks. For two weeks, someone else is going to pick up your shift. You are going to have to come up in that two weeks with, are you able to work here to get your job done? Do you have a workable solution? We are a work in the office company. And so we are not ever going to transition to fully remote. And so, or we are slowly moving towards remote. We're going to practice it and we're going to let you be the guinea pig, right? But I don't have any problem with one-offs. What I don't like about one-offs is when they become very secret.

Hey, don't tell anybody, but I'm going to let you do it. I wouldn't do it like that because it never stays secret. And then it looks – it can be discriminatory. You let that person do it. It's better just to open it up to the floor. So-and-so said I could share with you all that she's really struggling or he's really struggling. And so for the next two weeks, they're not going to be here. It means you're going to have to pick a little extra.

It means you have to pick a little extra. And then within two weeks, we're going to have a resolution on what happens next. Okay. But it's time limited, right? And it might be you need to reach out. I wouldn't even get in the business of calling the therapist. I take that back. But it's time limiting.

And at some point, you have to sit down and say, um, you're unable to complete the core tasks of this job, the bona fide occupational requirements of this position. Right. And this is a hard, hard conversation. And maybe, I think the workable, I think the workable solution idea is a good one. Um, cause you know, one thought I had was, well, you give them a month to not do that anymore. But then if there's no solution attached to it, they'll just resort back to doing it when they've returned. Right. And I want people to struggle with, is this anxiety or is this exhaustion? Is my body sounding the alarms that I need to go get help? Or I'm just annoyed this morning

I don't feel like going in because all of us have those days all of us do And I remember how hard it was when I was trying to relearn what my body was trying to tell me And my signals were all jumbled up because I ignored them for so long and I wallpapered over them with Busyness and work and my crushing workout, all these different addictions I had over it. And ultimately, I had to learn, okay, this is my body saying things are not as they should be. This is anxiety. This is what this feels like. This is me being really exhausted.

This is me having a large pizza and half a two-liter bottle of Coke all by myself. This is all right, fill in the blank, fill in the blank, fill in the blank. So I do get, it takes some time to parse that apart. And I want people to struggle with that. I think that's the path to healing for all of us. The challenge as an employer is you can't do other people's healing for them. They've got to be invested in it themselves. Again, thank you for being somebody who cares, Susan. Try these out, relationships, but appropriate distance, context, but not an excuse, and model it. Give those a shot, and then holler back at me if I can help moving forward. Thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically

stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. We are back and we're going to end the show full circle. Kelly just brought these in because this is your favorite. I think this is how we're opening Ballad Bands next year. I 100% am on board with that. I think it would slay. I think this is how we're opening Ballad of Bands next year. I 100% am on board with that. I think it would slay. I think so.

From the great James Hetfield and gang. Song is by Metallica. It's called Inner Sandman. And these lyrics will brighten your day. Say your prayers, little one. And don't forget my son to include everyone. I tuck you in, warm within, and keep you free from sin till the Sandman comes. Sleep with one eye open, gripping your pillow tight.

Exit light, enter night, and take my hand off to Never Never Land. Something's wrong, shut the light. Heavy thoughts tonight. And they aren't of Snow White. I don't ever think of Snow White. I don't know what to tell you everybody. Hey we'll see you soon. We love you. Take care.