The Dr. John Delony Show - Eating Disorders, Postpartum Depression, & Long Lost Relatives

Episode Date: October 2, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So, send us your questions, leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291, or email [e-mail]. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 1:53: How do I navigate a renewed relationship with my biological grandmother? 11:10: Dealing with shame and regret after years of anorexia 23:26: How can I help my wife deal with postpartum depression? 36:47: Lyrics of the day: "The Year of the Locust" - Andrew Osenga tags: family relationships, eating disorders, anorexia, postpartum depression   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.  

On today's episode, we'll be talking about life after eating disorders. We'll be talking about how to support your wife when she's struggling with postpartum. And we're going to be talking about reconnecting with a grandmother 30 years after an adoption. Stay tuned. Hey, good folks, I'm John and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. It's a show where we take your calls about your life, where I walk alongside you as you're experiencing relationships, chaos in your life, mental health challenges, parenting,

figuring out how to be a good girlfriend or boyfriend, or dealing with people who are, spoiler alert, lunatics, who are super fired up because they haven't watched The Sixth Sense, which came out, I don't know, like 30 years ago, and they're like, Oh, what do you mean, Bruce Willis? He's dead? What? Why did you ruin that for me? Thanks, Kelly. Or, wait, what? Titanic, the boat sinks at the end. Great, James. I didn't even know. Spoiler alert. Seriously, people watch, watch TV shows, right? Watch TV shows. There is a limit. Three weeks. That's it. Three weeks. And after that, if you haven't watched it, that's a year fault. That's a year problem, right? So whatever. If you're looking for honesty in a world where truth doesn't exist anymore,

or some people still don't know that the boat sinks at the end of Titanic, give me a call. I'll give you a first opinion or a second opinion, and the advice will be pretty much what you pay for it, worth what you pay for it. I'm here to walk with you. So give me a call, 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. Let's go straight to the phones.

We're going to talk to Kimberly in Sacramento, California. Good morning, Kimberly. How are we doing? Fine. I'm a little nervous, but excited. I'm nervous and excited, too. So you go first. How can I help? Okay. On Christmas Day last year, my biological paternal grandmother reached out through

Ancestry. We've been talking since the first of the year, and my question is, how should I handle, for lack of a better word, this new relationship, especially when we meet? Wow. Okay. So are you adopted, Kim? Yes. So tell me about your, how did your adoption take place? How did it happen? My birth mom was 19. My dad was 18. Okay. My adopted mom's hairdresser knew the family, and she knew that they couldn't afford another mouth to feed

and knew that they couldn't handle another baby in the house since I have a full brother who's a year older. Oh, wow. Okay, so your mom already had a little baby when you were born. Yes. Okay. And so was your adopted family, were they wonderful, take great care of you? For the most part, yeah. I don't know, sort of. So have you been in contact with your birth mom or your birth dad?

No. About 2015, I called Ancestry to get a quote for them to find them, and it was too much. Okay. And surprisingly, three days later, I found them on my own. Wow. Okay. So y'all have not communicated, though? You don't email or text or anything like that? No.

Okay. Did you reach out and they reject that, your efforts? No. After finding them on my own, like I said last year, my grandmother reached out and we've been talking since. Okay. But why haven't you reached out? Now that you know who your biological parents are, how come you haven't contacted them? I want them to make the first move because I don't know what to do or say. And how old are you? 30. 30. Okay. So do you want to talk to them? I know we're going to get to your grandmother, but do you want to talk to your parents? Do you want to meet them? At least once, yeah. Okay. So I know that there's the parent dynamic and there's the, well, they should meet.

You're 30. You're like a grown woman, all grown up. So if you want to reach them, you want to talk to them, shoot them a note. Okay? Okay. I'm not an expert in adoption, reconnection. And so I'd expect that to be weird and messy, but it might be beautiful. I'm a huge fan of family restoration. I'm a huge fan of reconciliation and people saying, I'm sorry. And people saying, I miss you and I love you.

And so I would hate for you to go through the rest of your life or spend another year or another week or another decade wondering what it would be like to talk to my birth mother or my birth dad, but just waiting on them. Okay. So that's my two cents on that one about your grandmother. So do you want to meet your grandmother? Y'all got talking about hanging out and having a drink together. Tell me what that's going to be like. Okay. Um, she's been really nice, and her husband actually asked her if she wanted to meet me, and she said that it would totally be up to me about when and where or even if. Sure. So what do you want to do?

Do you want to? Yes, I do. Okay. So paint me a picture. Paint everybody listening to this. Paint us a picture of what this meeting would be like. Okay. Like all of it.

Okay, yeah, here we go. Sit down. Perfect. Keep going. We've decided to eat at a restaurant near me. Okay. So it would be on my home turf. Who's paying?

We do small talk maybe and then... Who's paying for the meal? I don't know. Okay. Both of us. Okay. Oh, split check. I like where your head's at.

Okay, so split check. I'll take care of mine. They'll take care of theirs. You make small talk, and then what? So, hey, how's the last, I don't know, 30 years been? Fill me in. What do you want to accomplish by meeting your grandmother? What do you want to know? I don't know. That's a good question.

What part inside of you, and I've got my hand across my chest here, what part of you inside wants to meet your grandmother and why? I've never heard their voice. I want to see what they look like. Okay. So you're tapping into a magical word here, Kim, okay? And it's this word of heritage. We all long to know where we're from and who we're from, right?

And so the reason I was asking those questions is not to discourage you. In fact, I'm all for it. In the age of the internet, there is no more hiding. There is no more closed much of anything. And so I'm a huge fan, like I said, of families getting back together and reconciling. The reason I asked you the whys, why do you want to get together? What are you looking for? What are you hoping for? Is I want to make sure you go into this with your eyes wide open, not expecting a fantasy and unicorns and a bunch of toys to, you know what I mean? You're not going to get 30 years of your childhood back, right?

Yeah. But when you go into it with this notion of, I just want to know where I'm from, who I'm from. I want to see who I look like. I want to see if I've got the weird tics. I want to meet human beings because I love people. And Kimberly, I am 1000% behind you on this one. I think going into it with a plan is wise. You already have set the bar really high, which I love. I'm high-fiving you here from Nashville, which it's going to be on your turf. You're going to set the terms and the boundaries. At any moment, you're going to get up and walk out if it gets ridiculous or uncomfortable or if somebody asks you for money or anything like that. And if anybody makes you

feel guilty or like, why haven't you take so long to reach out to us? And all that kind of nonsense, man, they don't get to do that. But hopefully, they know that happens. And hopefully, it's a lovely get together. And when the waiter or waitress comes and says, how do I want to do this check? And you go first and you just say, I'll take mine on my tab, please. And that will send a message. And hopefully they'll reach out and say, no, no, no, we've got it.

But if they don't, cool, great. And what an awesome moment this would be for y'all. So you leave and you go to the car after this is over. You hug and you go outside. Walk me through your picture of what that's going to look like. I don't know. Are you going to go to your car with a big smile on your face? Are you going to go to your car and just put your head on the steering wheel and cry real hard?

Put me in your space. What's in your heart and mind here? Probably both. Okay. I'd be really excited, but in all that, it just happens. I love it. Because here's the deal. Who knows?

You don't know how it's going to end. I don't know how it's going to end. But again, I want you to have a picture in your head of what it's going to look like. That way you're not surprised. That way the night doesn't get weird. That way when they're like, well, why don't you just come back to our place for coffee? You say, no,

I'm going to head home tonight, but let's look to get together again in a few weeks. If it's a great meeting, right? If it wasn't a good meeting, then you say other things. But again, here's the idea, the one word I want you to keep in your head, control. Okay. I'm going to add a second word, boundaries, right? And so just map those out. Sit down with your husband before you go. You all map this out. Here's where I'm willing to go.

Am I willing to pay for dinner? Not willing to pay for dinner. Am I willing to go have coffee or dessert somewhere else? Or am I not? Am I going to just plan on going home? And what am I going to need when I get home? Am I going to need some space? Am I going to need a big hug?

Paint a picture for your husband on what you need him to do for you when you get home. Should he be up waiting up for you with his arms wide open? What's that going to be? Maybe ask your grandmother what your birth mom is up to. Would it be wise to reach out to her? You might find some things out that are positive or negative there. So anyway, control and boundaries. You're running the show on this deal, but I say go for it. And be recklessly you and not reckless and do dumb things and all that. But just be yourself. You've got nothing to prove to anybody.

You had an adoptive family that took care of you. You are 30. You're clearly doing well. And you have value. You're awesome. And you don't need the approval of your grandmother. You don't need her to love you any more or less. You're just meeting a new person.

And if you go into it with that attitude, that's going to be incredible and great. I love it. All right, let's go to Emma in my hometown of Houston. Emma, good morning. How are we doing? I'm doing good. How are you, Dr. John? I'm doing so good. Hey, listen, I need you to help me with a challenge before we start talking. So, man, this is frustrating. Somebody wrote into the Dave Ramsey show. I co-hosted the show the other day and somebody wrote into the show and they said, I'd like to pose a challenge to Deloney that he get through one stupid episode of anything without talking about being from Texas. And he said, consider the challenge laid down. Now here's the challenge. Here's the problem as a Texan. And you know, this number one, it's kind of a rule. If that's where you're from, you have to obnoxiously talk about it all the time. Cause we're so insecure as a state,

you have to just mention it to everybody. And the other side of it is you're not allowed to walk away from a challenge. And so the challenge is to not talk. I feel like I'm going to spontaneously combust at any moment. So I'm asking you, Emma, what do I do in this moment? Do I quit talking about it or you just say, you know what? Forget it. I'm going to double down. Honestly, I'd double down.

You can't stop talking about Texas. Listen. You just can't. Listen, we are a state. Texas is a state that is the most proud of a battle we lost at the Alamo. We didn't win. That's not true. There was like 11,000 of us, first 14.

Most people call that insane. You know what Texans call that? Yeah, that's right. That's so ridiculous. But anyway, I should have thought nothing less than Emma saying, double down, go for it. Good for you. All right, Emma, that down. Go for it. Good for you. All right. Emma, that is not why you called.

So how can I help? What can I do for you? Okay. So basically, I was anorexic during my college years, and I've slowly rounded that corner. But I'm still struggling a lot with the regret and the shame for the time I wasted, especially now during like these COVID times, because I was already struggling to find community. And this year I was really motivated to try new things and meet new people. Plus, I'm graduating with my master's, so I feel like I should be excited about the future. But I instead just feel like I wasted all my young 20 years.

And because of these times we're living in, I feel like I don't even have the opportunity to pursue like a career and friendships and a romantic relationship. And I'm usually an optimist, but I just don't know how to find hope in this time. Oh, I love that question. All right, so walk me back to college. How long did you struggle with eating disorders? Or disordered eating is the right way to say that. Yeah, it honestly, it probably started like senior year of high school, and then it was probably a good five or six years. Okay. And were you hospitalized? Was it something that your friends and family talked to you about or was it something that mostly only you and maybe a college counselor knew about, but that you knew weighed on you pretty heavy? There were times that I probably should have been hospitalized, but it was just kind of not

something that I talked about with most people sort of thing. And so when you say rounding the corner, paint me a picture of what rounding the corner looks like. Um, well, like, I feel like I've kind of tried to be realistic about like, there just might be some things that are always residual in my life that I have to just fight on a daily weekly basis okay but for the most part like I'm in a healthy enough state now that like I actually want to live a better life you know sure and did you work with somebody were you with a therapist or a nutritionist or a group that walked with you during this journey not specifically okay you just muscled it up and powered through yeah basically so what is a new control behavior that you have often when folks

go from you know from anorexia from from bulimia, from some of this disorder eating, from overeating, and they really just grit their teeth and they power through it, often that behavior gets transferred to a new controlling behavior. Sometimes like another degree, sometimes a new job, like a new, what's the thing that you've focused on now? That you, what's your default go-to when you're struggling when you're lacking control when you are feeling a little bit spun out um i i don't know i mean i'm i still like i know that perfectionistic side of me is also the piece that like powered the anorexia so like I can feel it when I'm like

applying that perfectionism in like work or school or something like that and so how do you let the air out of that perfectionism how do you get back to a you you don't fight the urges you can smile you can talk to people how do you let the air out of that tire I don't know I don't know. I don't know if it's something, like, consistent. I think a lot of times I find, like, I'm really close to my mom and my sister, and I'll just, like, call them up and just be like, just talk through, like, that moment. And so I guess that's the only, like, specific thing I can think of. Very cool.

So I want to challenge you to do a couple of things, and then we'll talk about the hope and the optimism. Okay. Okay. So the next time, well, actually, before I do this, let me ask you one more question in this craziness, in this wackadoo world that we're living in right now, where everything feels unpredictable and we don't know what tomorrow's going to look like. we had plans and now the plans we just watered them up and used them for two-ply right are you feeling old urges re-emerge or are you kind of done with that um i i think i'm kind of done with it i mean there might have been a couple of moments where like the fleeting thought is like, oh, that would feel so like, I would feel so in control doing that. And then I'm just like, no, but like the place I ended up when I went that direction was like a really, really bad place, you know?

Okay. So I need you to hear what you just said. Do you realize how far down the road you are? Yeah. That's a big, big deal. I've met and known and loved folks with disordered eating challenges who are unable to, years past where you are, unable to wrap their head around, here's an urge. Here's a way I can take control of this moment right now. Here's a way I can control everyone around me. But I know where this leads, so I'm not going to do that. That's a huge victory for you. What a gift.

You've encouraged me this morning. Emma, just talking to you on the phone. First, you're from Houston and now this, that's incredible. So I want to challenge you to do a couple of things. One, I want you to join some sort of group. If it's a church group, if it is a Overeaters Anonymous group, and not that you're an overeater, but just a disordered eaters group, whether it's a professional women's group there in whatever part of Houston you live in. I know there's a number of those groups there in town.

And the reason is, is I want you to begin to practice relationships. And I know that sounds ridiculous because that's just a thing we all assume we should be able to do. I have to remind myself to go practice every once in a while. I had a couple and their kids over to my house this weekend. And I realized that I'm out of, it sounds so dumb. I'm out of relationship practice. I haven't been having people over because we moved. We had COVID. We all was crazy. And it's just weird. It's awkward.

And so I'm having to re-experience it. And so what a group is going to give you is an opportunity to practice relearning how to be human again. Okay? So that's the first thing. The second thing is tell me what tomorrow you want it to look like. You said you were going to have a lot of friends. You were going to have, this is going to be the year. You're graduating with a master's degree.

Paint me a picture of what you had in your head. I don't know. I think I just wanted new. Like I'd just been stuck in the same place for so long. I just, I don't know I just wanted something new and fresh and I wanted to like feel victorious you know okay can I can I reframe something for you you spent a part of your 20s in a war that cannot be won and you came out the other side of it. You went to battle with the one person you can't defeat and that's you.

And you've come to make peace with who you are. You've come to re-love Emma again. You have connected with your mom and your sister because you're worthy of being connected to. And now you're on the back end. And now you're walking through the world saying, where can I connect with others? I don't want you to think of your 20s as something that you wasted. I want your 20s to be where you really tilled

some hard, hard soil. And now you're ready to grow. And yeah, dude, you launched out and you are ready to be victorious. I want you to tell you, you're a walking victory right now. And I don't know you from the man in the moon, but I can recognize a victory when I hear one. You're a walking victory. What you've got to do now is you've got to grieve this picture that we

had of 2020. It was going to be this magic moment and that we're going to do the roaring 20s all over again and streamers are going to fall from the sky like when the Rockets won the championship or when the Astros did before we knew they were all a bunch of cheaters and um and you got to grieve that picture and then you just got to be about the business of painting a new one right what's your master's degree going to be uh strategic communication perfect and what do you what did you what was your vision for what you were going to do with a strategic communication degree? I wanted to do like the whole PR, social media management sort of thing. Excellent. Which is something you absolutely can do from the internets, absolutely can do in a wild, wackadoo, monstrous city the size of Houston. And so I don't think that,

I don't think for one stinking second, 2020 is over for you. I think the victory is going to look different. You might have to go back to the starting line and go a different direction through a different set of paths in the woods. But before you head off, I want you just to exhale, Emma, and listen to this. And if you're

watching this on the YouTube, I'm making direct eye contact with you. You are a walking victory. People don't get to the other side of disordered eating with their urge, their ability to control urges, to connect urges with outcomes. That's a major step to then be able to be open and vulnerable with their mom and their sister, to be able to go to get a graduate degree and say, I'm going to go help other people communicate who they are out to the world. You're a walking victory. So I'm proud of you, proud of you, proud of you. You've got to get other people in your life, Emma, now and practice relationships. And I hope everyone listening to that, I hope you're driving going, practice relationships. That sounds stupid. You've got to practice relationships. You're sitting there in front

of the YouTubes all by yourself, hanging out with just me and be like, practice relationship. Yes, you and you practice relationships. That's something that we've got to work on, especially in the time of COVID, right? And the last thing is paint a new picture. And that's best done with other people. Maybe invite your sister over, call your mom, do a Zoom meeting, whatever that looks like, and paint a new picture of what moving forward is going to look like. Let the picture, grieve it, let it go of what 2020 was going to be. And then you're going to find peace because you're a stud.

You're an absolute rock star. God Almighty, Emma, it's so good to talk to you. All right, I'm going to take one more call. Let's go to Calvin in Montgomery, Alabama. Calvin, what's up, brother? How can I help? Hey, John, thanks for taking my call. And I speak on behalf of a bunch of people.

We really appreciate the dynamic that you're bringing to the Ramsey Group. Hey, thank you so much for calling. It's a blessing to be here, man. How can I help? Well, in a nutshell, I'm afraid that my wife is falling into a little bit of a postpartum depression. Okay. And I'm really wondering how I, as a husband, can walk with her through this season. So tell me what's going on.

She does have a history of depression. We've been working through this since really it was 2017, 2018. Okay. We've been blessed with three beautiful kids. The first one dates all the way back to 2015 in the summer. He actually was delivered at 36 weeks through an emergency C-section. Okay.

We had some medical issues there. And so that was very quick. We had to get him out, but he's been fine. Our second came a very quick 18 months later. You kind of chuckled there as though you don't know how that happened. All right. Well, you know. All right. so you have 18

months later then then the next kid right right then the next kid came in and she was literally born the week before christmas okay so this was december of 16 we um bring a new baby home everyone's excited everyone's down for the holidays and then here comes january everyone's left i have to go back to work, and now here she is going into January and February with two little kids in her lap, like, okay, well, now what? So lots of exhaustion there, and then it just kind of spiraled downhill from there over the next couple years, and then lots of just sleeping through the day

and other issues like that. Going into 2019, she actually contacted her OB that spring, and they actually gave her an anxiety medication prescription, which helped. It did help. But then that summer, we actually went and saw a therapist. I went with her for the first one, she continued afterwards for a couple of sessions. We came out of that with a couple of tools in our belt and we were progressing. We made good headway on it. She's remained on vacation ever since, but she was in a good place. Now,

fast forward to where we are now. We were just blessed with our third child. He was born in July, but when we were in the hospital, we actually had a three our third child. He was born in July. But when we were in the hospital, we actually had a three-day NICU stay. And that was just tough. I've never seen her that emotionally dark ever before. Through lots of prayer and blessings from the Lord, we were able to get home. Everyone's fine, progressing as expected. So definitely a blessing there.

And about three weeks ago, she's telling me she's in a good place. She's excited. Everything's going great. And then seven to ten days ago, she confides in me that we kind of, everything kind of took a left-hand turn on us. She confided into me that she's having weird dreams. One specific one that she told me was she dreamed that there was an accident with a baby and the anxiety of having to call like our parents and explain what happened it literally gave her a minor panic attack sure shortness of breath it just was tough I have

since then she also she called back to her OB and they increased her medication again to get get through the season I've already pleaded with her to find a therapist I do have to admit She didn't feel like she connected very well To the one we saw back in 2019 So I'm pleading with her to find someone That she could connect to now To talk with and develop some tools

Let me ask you this Let me interrupt you here So number one Thanks for sharing that That arc of that narrative is really helpful here. What kind of husband are you, man? How do you solve problems? I'm a fixer.

If a truck is broke, I can find the part. I can fix it. So you can't see this, but on my notes here I'm holding up, I wrote down problem solver. And you sound like somebody who loves their wife more than life itself. And you sound like somebody who loves their kids more than life itself. And what you're looking for desperately is a set of solutions, an instruction manual on how to fix your wife because she's hurting and you want to make that pain go away. Is that fair? That's absolutely right.

And I understand that I can't fix it. I can't. There's not a broken bolt somewhere. I can't. It's not that easy. That's right, brother. That's right. So here's a couple of things that are going to be really important for you and for her navigating this water.

The first thing is this. You can't be the person who gives her instructions. You can't be the person who gives her a set of guidelines or operating rules or new tools or tasks. You're one job on planet Earth, and you may have heard me say this over and over again, and sometimes just hearing it directly changes. So I'm going to keep saying it and keep saying it and keep saying it. And sometimes I'm saying it to myself, dude, is your job is not to fix your wife. Your job is to be with her. Okay? She's going to learn a set of tools.

She's going to work through this depression. And it could be all kinds of stuff. There's a couple of things I wrote down here that I'll talk to you about, but she needs you on a daily basis when you wake up every morning, before y'all get out of bed, before you go try to solve the baby's challenges. And I know this is hard. I've got a little kid in my house too. I want you to hold her for two minutes, one full minute, three minutes, and tell her some wackadoo quack on the radio said to do this. And this is important that you get skin-on-skin contact,

not as something to solve, but as a person that you love and that you can be with. And then before you get out of bed, I want you to look her directly in both of her eyes and say, how can I love you today? How was last night? And if she says, I had these really intrusive thoughts, I had these really hard dreams, I want you to say, that sucks and I hate that. You're a great mom and I love you.

Don't say, well, remember last time and have you checked in? Have you made this call? Don't do that. She knows to make the calls. She knows that things aren't super right. She just needs somebody to be with her and to listen. Okay?

And so I want you to replay that three or four times a day. How can I keep loving you today? How can I love you today? And at the end of the day, I want you to hold both of her hands and look her in the eye and say, how did today go? How was today? And most of the time, if somebody's in the throes of this postpartum hell, it's not going to go great. And your default setting when your wife says, I'm hurting, is to think, who is the dude's nose I need to go break? And what you're going to have to do is look her in the eye and say, that sucks and I hate that. I want you to know that I love you and you're a great mom.

And that's that. Okay? So, and it's going to be a spiritual discipline. It's going to be a spiritual practice for you to stop giving advice, to stop trying to fix her, and just learn to slowly be with her. Okay? If she's got a history of depression, so if she had struggled with depression, so I'm backing out a little bit. She struggled with depression before kid number one.

Did she have that in her teenage years or during college, that kind of stuff? Not that I'm aware of. Okay. I was with her through college, but I didn't really see the tendencies. It really didn't start coming in super prevalent until the 2018 time frame. So I'm speaking into something that I can't experience because I'm a guy. But I've read about this and I've heard it anecdotally from important women in my life. When you are raced off to an emergency C-section, there is this notion that my body failed, that my body didn't work the way it was supposed to. Women who struggle with infertility challenges, there's this existential crisis that goes deep into your core, into their core, which is,

I was put here on earth for one thing, and my body's not doing that one thing. And often guys can't understand the depth of that trauma, how much that weighs on somebody. And so getting rushed to the hospital and having to be saved by doctors, by having a baby cut out of you, there's something that sits in your soul that says,

my body is supposed to do one thing and it didn't do it. And that can really wreak havoc on folks. The second thing is after emergency C-sections, you get all kinds of hormonal and biological responses that aren't – I don't say aren't normal because C-sections have become normal, but it just, it's playing whack-a-mole with hormones and with body chemicals and stuff. So calling an OBGYN, making sure she's connected with her doctor is critical and important. And getting connected with a therapist that's going to help. Being on meds forever, I don't think that's a great solution. So you've got to find someone who can help with hormone re-regulation, who can help with diet,

all those kinds of things. And again, it goes back to something that you mentioned that's magic is finding somebody that you can, that you trust, that she feels comfortable with, that she can feel like she can be in a relationship with. Another thing is this notion of a woman's body becomes, it becomes a machine, right? When you got two little kids and then a third one, you're just an exhausted tractor. Everybody's using you for a thing, right? Everyone wants you to accomplish these set of tasks. I got to feed this kid.

I got to change this kid. I've got to clean this thing. I got to cycle and repeat. I'm going to sleep two hours. I'm going to get up and feed. And then you just, again, it's an exhaustion that many men can't understand because it gets into your soul. And it's countered with this narrative that these are supposed to be so lovely and wonderful and what great times and la la, right? And so you've got this messaging going in your head, these stories that we're telling ourself, and it doesn't play out that way in real life.

And then the final thing is this. I can't put my head in the heart of a woman who's been through heavy postpartum, who struggled with this, whose body didn't work the way that they had drawn it up, the way that the stories had been told it was going to work with an emergency C-section. And all of a sudden, your baby's born, baby number three, you've been down this road, and then you've got this emergency NICU stay. That is a, that's a recipe for all kinds of existential challenges for biological responses, stress responses, hormone responses are going to be flying all over the place. So you're just going to be in a hard, hard place.

If her doctor's response is, well, let's just crank up more meds. Let's just crank up more meds. Let's just crank up more meds. I want to challenge her. I want to challenge you to get connected to another doctor that you trust, get connected to probably a team, probably a team of medical professional, a psychological professional who's going to walk you through this. And they are going to be the ones that give her tools. They're going to be the ones that get feedback from her and support from her. And you are going to be the one who walks alongside and is just serves as somebody who is with her, who is holding their arms up when

she's exhausted, who is supporting her and loving her. And your relationship is going to continue to fuse closer and closer together. You can't fix her brother. You can be with her and you can love her. And I know for most guys, when I just said that, that is what love is, is fixing. And if I can shake every dude listening to this out there and let them know your wife is not a puzzle to solve and she is not an engine to fix. She is someone to love and be with.

Let doctors and psychologists and counselors be folks who give new tools and then y'all grow together. Man, hey, listen, brother Calvin, I'm thinking about you and your wife. She needs to get with the right professionals. And I'm going to, man, I say this over and over on the show, just an endless, well, just keep upping the meds. That's not a solution long term. That's not a solution long-term. That's not a solution long-term. My prayer is that your wife will go sit down with somebody and say, I want to learn to make peace

with my body. I want to learn to make peace with my hormones. And I want to learn to make peace with my own emotional and physical and psychological state. And so I want someone to give me some tools and I want to practice moving forward. Let me know how this goes. I want her to find a therapist that works for her, that loves her. And it's probably not going to help for you to keep beating her on the head with that one, dude, is maybe a recommendation here and there. You start seeing somebody and let her know, hey, I'm going to talk to somebody because I'm going to love and support you the best I can. And maybe she'll follow that lead there. And I hope she's going to get with folks who can walk alongside her, professionals.

So thanks, brother, for the call. As we wrap up this show, man, what a perfect song. On the way to work this morning, I was listening to my friend Andrew Senga's CD. It's his latest record called The Painted Desert. And good folks, we hear about the Beatles and the other greatest band of all time, Poison. We've all got our favorite rappers and whatnot. Occasionally, you've got a buddy who's like, hey, I got a new CD out. And you listen to it.

I remember hearing the CD a few years ago. It was at 4 in the morning, and I was on the way to a trip into the woods. And I almost called him, but I was crying. And then I thought, we're friends. I don't know you that well to call you at 4 a.m. and tell you that your record's making me cry. But on that record, the Painted Desert record, is the single greatest song ever written in the history of Earth. When the Earth started spinning, people started singing, and

all the songs up until now fall behind this song. It's called The Year of the Locust. It's track number two on the Painted Desert record by Andrew Osenga. Here's the lyrics. We try our hardest not to think about it. Who are we fooling? We never stop. The longing, the hurting, the doubting,

worn out from waiting for a parachute drop. Hey you, in the reflection of the rear view of a hit and run at the drive-thru, slow down. What you're chasing isn't something. It's just a screenshot of a rumor in town. And then the spirit moves upon the water. But listen, take comfort and rest in the heart of an uncivil war

and you're taking a beating. There's blood red on your chest. He will restore the years the locusts have eaten. We're all aching for Eden, and he will restore the years the locusts have eaten. Whoo, Andy! This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. Thank you.