The Dr. John Delony Show - Family Boundaries, Bipolar Disorder, & Keeping Mentally Healthy this Winter

Episode Date: October 12, 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 3:23: My sister has anxiety but uses it as a crutch to avoid responsibility. 12:56: How do I move on past a friendship when my friend has unhealthy mental health habits? National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-TALK (8255) 21:19: Teaching segment: Staying Mentally & Physically Healthy This Winter During COVID 30:35: My wife is bipolar and things have gotten bad; how do I salvage my marriage? 44:07: Lyrics of the day: "Little Wing" - Jimi Hendrix tags: anxiety, family, boundaries, suicide, self-harm, mental health, depression, despair, counseling, fitness, nutrition, creativity, bipolar disorder, marriage These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we're going to be talking about being in relationships with people who are struggling with mental health issues. Talking about brothers and sisters, spouses, friends. And we're going to be talking about living into the winter seasons. We know we've been inside and it may get worse. So what are some things we can do right now to take care of our hearts, our minds, and our mental health as we head into the winter months? Stay tuned.

What's up? I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show, taking calls about your life from you, by you, and about you. Talking about relationships, your relational IQ, mental health, parenting, your marriages. We're going to be talking about people who wear vintage band t-shirts to bands not only they haven't seen live, but they don't even know who the band is. They don't know songs. They don't know lyrics. And here's the thing. When I see somebody in a band t-shirt, I instantly think, same team or I don't know songs. They don't know lyrics. And here's the thing. When I see somebody in a

band t-shirt, I instantly think, same team or I don't like you. It's a good way for me to divide the world up instantly. And now they're selling these vintage t-shirts to folks who don't even know who these bands are. And I am making false generalizations that usually help me get through my day, right? So here's the thing. If we live in a country where people get carded for cigarettes, they should have to pass an online quiz in order to buy a vintage band t-shirt. They should be able to name a few songs or a favorite lyric or something. I just need to know if I see you in the yard or in the mall or in a neighborhood or whatever,

if you're on my team or not, right? So we're talking about anything and everything, including people who buy vintage band t-shirts of bands they've never even listened to, all of it, right? So whatever's going on in your heart, in your mind, in your universe, I'm here to walk with you. Let's do this. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Don't forget, you can email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. And before we get going, one quick note. CrossFitters, I hear you. I hear you. On the very first show, I got a meme as I was walking in here that was a ridiculous CrossFit meme. Here's the thing. I love you CrossFitters. I love your sense of community.

I love your sense of support for one another. I really love the hard workouts. I'm a huge fan. And I love how you make up terrible workout form in the name of crushing reps, right? And you give up long-term injuries, who cares? Because right now we got another PR, right? So I'm a huge fan of CrossFit. I'm a huge fan of the lunacy of it all and the camaraderie. So here's the deal. I just think memes are ridiculous. Most of them are ridiculous. If you are a CrossFitter and you got your feelings hurt, you probably should go see somebody. You probably should find someone that you can socially distance hug. And you should probably go crush a Murph and know that I fully support CrossFit. I love you guys.

And I want you all to do good. All right. So same team, same team. Let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Brooke in Athens, Georgia. Brooke, good morning. How can I help? Hey, Dr. John.

Thank you so much for taking my call. Thank you so much for calling. What's going on? I would really love some advice about how to love my younger sister well. She struggles with anxiety, and I 100% know that it's real. But sometimes I feel like she uses it as a crutch. Okay, give me an example. Walk me through it. 100% know that it's real, but sometimes I feel like she uses it as a crutch. Okay. Give me an example. Walk me through it.

So just a couple of examples. She's turned down promotions at work because she thinks that the perceived stress will give her too much anxiety. She's never worked full time because she's scared if she works a full load, then her anxiety will take over. Certain conversations are off limits just because it raises her anxiety, things like that. Give me an example of a conversation that's off limits that we're not allowed to have. So most of the time, almost all the time, they're about the future. She really does not like to discuss the future in any way, shape or form like career goals, marriage, like what any kind of future life she might have. It just really seems like all future topics are off limits. And so how does this impact you? So I love my sister so much and I really want to be someone that can be vulnerable with her and that she can come and

be vulnerable with. And I just feel myself really just being frustrated and not being as open with her or not being as receptive as I could be to her issues because I just feel like all of the things that we should be talking about are not allowed to talk about. Gotcha. So this sounds like you're the one with the challenge, not your sister. Because when I hear what you've talked about your sister, it sounds like somebody who's got some anxiety issues who has drawn right, wrong, or indifferent her own boundaries for how she can best navigate a day. And if she's not coming to you for money or not coming to you like, hey, I can only work three hours a week because I've got anxiety and I need you to pay all my bills and let me move in and I need my kids to move in with you, right? Something like that that would be like affirmatively impacting you, proactively coming after you. It sounds like you're just frustrated that you have this picture of this relationship with your sister that you're not able to have because of the boundaries she's drawn. Is that fair?

Yeah, definitely. I definitely think that could be true. And I know that I'm 100% okay with working on myself. Sure. But I just don't know how. Yeah. So I think at some point you've got to grieve the fact that she's living a different picture than the one you want her to be in. I live firmly under the belief that having anxiety, having ADHD,

having depression, all these things are contexts, but they're not excuses. And so what I mean by that is it frames things up, but it doesn't mean I can't go to work. It doesn't mean I can't, I don't need to work really hard so that I can be a functioning contributor to my community, to my relationships, to the people around me. But I don't have to live into somebody else's expectation of me if I choose to only work part time. Or if I choose – the one thing that you told me that I was off the cuff was proud of your sister is she's going to get promoted into a position that she knows that's going to be a lot for me to handle. And I don't think that's a good idea for me to take that position. For somebody who struggles with anxiety, that can be a really wise move. That can be somebody who has made peace with themselves and know, if I've got to take over 10 employees, or if I've

got to deal with massive budgets, I'm not going to sleep. That's not going to be good for me. So I know that this is where I'm going to cap out unless I want to do some really hard work and start the healing process. And if she doesn't want to, she doesn't want to. What you need to do is have a hard conversation with yourself about what you're missing from your sister, what you wish that relationship was like. Maybe sit down and have that conversation with her. But at the end of the day, she's drawing boundaries and you've got to respect those. Gotcha. When you hear that, tell me what goes through your heart and mind. Well, I'm definitely willing to do that because I feel like I definitely feel like I tend to be more of a bossy older sister role.

That's not who I want to be. There you go. Definitely. And that's what I'm struggling with is because, of course, I want to be someone who's there for her and not judge her. And I need to make some moves within myself to to help with that but it's just sad to see like so much potential so much that she can accomplish so many things that you know I know that's within her and her just put so many stops and hard stops in her life where she won't move move past where do you think her anxiety alarms come from where do they from? Where do they originate from? Do they originate from your home life? Did she have some trauma or tragedy or is she just a wimpy person

in your eyes? Where do you think they come from? There's not any trauma. We lived super happy childhoods. She still lives at home. So does my other sibling. And one of my siblings is in college, but she's graduated. And so I feel sometimes like my parents have created that hammock atmosphere instead of a safety net atmosphere. And so I think some of my struggles come from that, just watching their dynamic and seeing that some of her choices are perceived by me to be more crutches. So is she a younger sister? She is.

Is she the youngest? No, sir. She's the middle. Middle. Okay. And how old is she? She's 25. 25.

Still lives at home? Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah. She's 25. 25, still lives at home? Yes, sir. Okay. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, right, wrong, or indifferent, wasting time on resentment or judging her motives, that's only weighing you down. Yeah. And I know that's hard when people that we love and that we care about aren't becoming their full selves or our picture of what their full self is.

It's frustrating when our parents let 25-year-old kids live at home and don't force them out of the nest. All those things are frustrating. It's really frustrating when you have a sister that you want to disclose things to, talk about sad things or good things or future things with, and they won't have that conversation with you. And that is for sure, for sure, for sure, Brooke, it's for sure worth grieving. You need to be sad about that. That sucks. Like that's what sisters are for, is to share in the future and to commiserate the past and to plan together and grieve together. That stinks. You know what I mean? And I don't think it's out of bounds. In fact, I think it would be wise for you to have a good, hard conversation with your sister

about the things that you're sad that y'all are missing together and that you hope that one day she will consider doing the hard work to get behind those alarms that are going off and figure out why she's anxious, why she's unable to work fully, why she's unable to be out on her own, but more importantly, why she's unable to fully plug in and be the sister that you would love her to be. And at the end of the day, that's the best you can do with that conversation. And you need to find a friend or two or a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or whoever you need to get together with and sit down and just grieve this. Just be sad.

And then make a plan for moving forward because you still need people to talk about the future with. You still need people to love on, and you still need people to grieve with on normal everyday life things. But at the end of the day, your sister's living her life and she seems to create some boundaries for herself, whether they're good ones or not good ones. That's not for me to say. That's not probably for you to say even. I just hit send. We just hit send here on a quick read on anxiety. It's called Redefining Anxiety. It's a book I wrote that's very short, but it is a reframing of what anxiety is, what it's not, and some key ways that if you actually are in the business of wanting to get healed, if you want to change the way your body responds to certain things, that you can get this book and start a healing process. And it's designed to be quick.

It's designed to not be overdramatic and not overly scientific or nerdy. But it's going to be coming out in the next month or two. And so I'd recommend grabbing a copy of that, giving it to your sister. Tell her you're both going to read it together when it's available. And that may be a good place to start. But thanks so much for the call. I'm heartbroken for you because I know what a blessing it is for me to have a sister I can talk to and a brother I can talk to. But I also know there's been seasons when we didn't talk well to one another, and that's frustrating and heartbreaking too.

And so be honest with her, and then, man, you've got to take care of you at the end of the day. Let's go to the next call. Let's go to Rachel in Blackfoot, Idaho. Rachel, good morning. How are we doing? Good morning. I'm all right. How are you?

Outstanding. Outstanding. How can we doing? Good morning. I'm all right. How are you? Outstanding. Outstanding. How can I help this morning? I just have a friendship I want to move on from, but I'm worried about her mental health, and I don't know how to do that. Oh, that's a good one, man. I get this question all over the country. So walk me through your relationship.

Well, we actually met because her husband was cheating on her and I found out and let her know, like, that's how we became friends. Oh, wow. Welcome to it, right? I mean, that kind of write-off gave us like a deeper connection just because I knew something about her that people didn't know. And so she started coming to me with other stuff. She's divorced since then and is now dating. But I've just noticed a lot of behaviors that like I can't support. And she doesn't like if I tell her or call her out on it, she either ignores it or like once she threatened suicide when I called her out on something. And I just feel like it's not a relationship that I want to continue because it's bringing me down and not

making me feel good. Like I just have a really hard time helping someone who doesn't want help. And I feel like she's, I don't know, in all her relationships, she uses and uses and uses and doesn't give anything back. And then I don't know, it's just a hard relationship. So what, what, what joy do you get out of this relationship? Well, I care about her since I know her, and that's about all of it. I don't know if there's really any joy. I just feel almost obligated because I care about her and I worry about her, and I know she doesn't really have anyone else to confide in.

And so I don't know. I feel guilty leaving it, but I don't feel like there's any joy there. Is there a part of you that likes being the hero or liked it until it got to be a lot? That's kind of what I do in general. Yeah. With all my relationships, I like helping people and I have a hard time walking away when it's not serving me. I just keep helping and helping until it breaks me. Gotcha. So, number one, I would strongly consider you find somebody in your life that you can be honest with and vulnerable about that tendency. My guess is you're somebody who knows things or has some past experiences that you can share, that makes you a safe place. But it also makes you a magnet. And another way of thinking about it, it makes you a target for folks who are soul suckers, right?

Yeah. They just live to absorb other people, almost like a dementor. But at the same time, there's a benefit to you, especially at the beginning, right? It feels good. It feels good to be wanted and be the smart guy or smart gal and be the one who knows things other people don't know. That feels awesome. And man, you're going to end up in the same situation where your friends become your albatross and you're always treading water and it's exhausting, right? Yeah. So here's my rule of thumb for folks like this.

Number one, if anybody in my sphere ever, whether it's my longest, oldest friends in the world, and I still am in close contact with the guys that we all grew up on the same street, like when we were zero together. If anybody in my sphere threatened suicide, I call in the Calvary. I don't screw around with that. I don't mess around with that. And I also am real clear about with my friends and community, after that happens once or twice, then I'm not your go-to person for that. 911 is your go-to person with that. Do not call me with that again. Does that make sense? Because they are choosing, I've got to set my boundaries, and somebody else is continuing to jump my boundary with something on fire and throw it at me. And I have said, I don't want that in my world.

And you have permission to do that. The second one is if somebody weaponizes suicide, um, that can drain everybody around you. And so again, that's for professionals to deal with, not for you. Right. And so pass that along. I also think it's fair to sit down and have a hard conversation about your boundaries. And for somebody who does like it, when people reach out to them, they do like being the

go-to person. That's going to be a hard conversation for you to have. But the boundaries of I love you, if you are struggling with X, Y, and Z, I can't provide you support and assistance for that. So I want you to call a professional. I won't be a good resource for you there because I don't know what to do. And that's weighing me down. That's bringing a lot on me and I'm unequipped to handle it. If you said words like that and really draw firm boundaries and then you followed it up with, but I do like hanging out with you. If you're fun and you're exciting and, or you're just regular sad, right? Awesome. But

if you just want to use me as a trash bin, I'm not going to be a good person for you. And so how, how would, how would you go about having a hard conversation like that? My guess is you've never done that before. I've done similar stuff before. Oh, yeah? Good for you. Yeah. Tell me about one. So, like, I try to do that.

But, yeah, I don't know how I would do that with her because I feel like it would just turn into her sobbing and telling me how much she needs me and how much I've meant to her and that she can't believe that I'm doing this to her. And I just feel like it'd be used against me. And it might be. And so the way I would ask you to reframe it is not something you're doing to somebody, but something you're doing for yourself. Okay. And if she is truly mentally ill, if she is truly struggling with self-harm, with suicidal ideation, if she is truly struggling with some of these heavier things, you're not equipped to handle it. And by dragging it out, you put yourself in a position to actually hurt somebody by continuing to accept and continuing to accept. And so often one of the greatest things we can do for people who don't know how to have relationships, they don't know how to lean up against boundaries appropriately, they don't know how to be socially aware, is to teach them what a true boundary looks like and what true love with boundaries looks like. And then they're adults and they can choose to accept those boundaries or not accept those boundaries.

That's their decision, not yours. But at the end of the day, making sure that people are safe is priority number one. If you've got a friend who says they're going to hurt themselves, call somebody, call somebody. Call 911 if you don't have a hotline number handy. We'll put a hotline number down in this show's show notes. We've done a couple of shows where we put hotline numbers in there. Make sure you have a number where you can call if you got people like that in your life, but also draw firm boundaries. I remember a few years ago, I was speaking to a parent at one of the universities that I worked at, and I let them know, you can tell your kid, you cannot talk to me like that. You can tell your child, your adult

child, you can tell your adult friends, do not call me at 2 a.m when you're intoxicated and dump the following on me we will have those conversations in person we'll have those conversations around coffee or you will have those conversations with a professional i'm not that person i'm not equipped for it um it would be the same as me inviting friends over to do like crazy workout programs, and I'm not in shape or they're not in shape. That's not being a good friend. That's just me trying to show off or dump stuff on them or make them feel less than or whatever. But people aren't there to be used. They're not tools. People are relationships, right? They're

people to be with. And so anyway, I could be labor on this all day. I get this question all the time. The key is to look in the mirror and draw your boundaries and establish them. And like I first started talking with Rachel here, most people who find themselves in this situation actually liked it at the beginning. They liked being the go-to. They liked being the connected person, the, oh yeah, learning hard things. And then they realized very quickly carrying that weight around is exhausting. And people like that tend to absorb you. They look for that energy and they just, just again, dementia is the only thing I can think of. But, and here's the thing, we are heading into a season where this is going to happen more and more. It's going to happen more and more.

So I want to back out 30,000 feet here and remind everybody, before COVID hit, we were all totally fried, stressed, burned out. We were already out of gas. And we were able to compress our sadness. We were able to hide our frustration and exhaustion through busy and busy and busy and buying things and running and scrolling through things. We were able to just kind of shove it aside. We were able to wallpaper over the cracks in our marriages and in our friendships with busyness and kids' soccer games and another dance recital, another thing, another thing. And then COVID hit and we all had to go home and we all had to stare at each other and stare at each other. And then some of us

across the country are still having to just stare at each other. But before COVID, we were seeing a massive increase across the country in what researchers are calling diseases of despair. And diseases of despair are suicide, organ disease failures like liver disease, heart disease. Those are diet related. Those are often depression related and an increase in addiction. And so the average lifespan in the US had actually gone down the last few years before COVID hit. And these were all diseases of compression, diseases of despair. To nerd out a little bit, if you take a normal bell curve, some have even taken to calling this long tail suicide, which means people aren't acutely killing themselves.

They're not using a gun or pills or something like that, jumping off a bridge, but they are coming home from work. They are overweight. They are grabbing poison out of their pantry or poison out of their fridge, or they're driving through and grabbing some poison. They are sitting on the couch and drinking and numbing and eating and lonelying themselves to death. It's a cultural countrywide crisis. And it's not even our country. It is turning into a global thing. We are just so spun out and so exhausted. And good folks, this was before COVID, right? And so I was checking out the data recently on COVID-related mental health issues, and there is just expert after expert after expert predicting

what they're calling a far worse mental health pandemic that's going to last for years and years beyond COVID. Major increases in hotline calls, major increases in telehealth referrals and calls during COVID. Some of that is great. I'm glad people are using these resources, but it's, it's again, anxiety alarms. They let us know when we're disconnected, when we are in situations where we don't have control or lack of predictability or when we are scared, when we are fearful. And that's what COVID has done to us, man. So here's what I want people to be weary of. I want them to get on their guard a little bit.

I want them to exhale, start making plans again because here we're coming into winter. And we have had outside adventures. We could just go for walks. We've had sunshine. We've had outside adventures. We could just go for walks. We've had sunshine. We've had outside events. We've started figuring out ways to do outside kid things, right? We were able to walk our dogs and all that.

We're getting into winter when it is cold and it is dark. And our tendency naturally is just to stay inside. And we are going to have to be so intentional, so intentional about living lives that don't compound this already growing anxiety, this already growing depression, this already growing inner dysthymia. Oh, and by the way, we have an election coming. Luckily, it's not a contentious election and everyone's on the same page. So that's cool. Good grief. So I want to read you a couple of things. A CDC report revealed that as of late June, about 25% of adults in the US had reported symptoms of an anxiety disorder. That is triple

the rate of 2019. And my guess is that many people are experiencing this beyond that. They just don't have the words for it. They don't have time because they're too busy working that third job, trying to make ends meet. One in four young adults age 18 to 24 has seriously considered suicide in the past month. That absolutely breaks my heart. I've been to too many funerals. I've been to too many ugly situations and dark homes, and I've hugged too many moms and dads. One of the unspoken burdens is on unpaid caregivers and workers who are taking care of adult kids with special needs, who are taking care of aging parents, who are taking care of aging spouses, who are taking care of little kids, folks who aren't getting paid for this. This is just there every single day. And six months, seven months of this with no end in sight, it just begins to take a toll on your

soul, right? And so here's the thing. We're going to have to be highly intentional. Here's five things. Five's a lot, but five things that you can do. Start right now as we are heading into October, as we are in early October. Start now getting routines, getting plans together, getting people together in your life so you can get on top of this before it just wipes us out come February. So number one, no matter what, get outside. Make it a regular practice to get outside. If it's cold, bundle up. If you are freezing, figure out a way to do it.

Buy warm clothes. Get yourself a toboggan. Get used to the cold. Your body will adjust. Find places to hike. By the way, hiking is just fitness nerd speak for going for a walk. Hike, walk, play. Go outside during your workday. People have been going outside to smoke for years. Just go outside and take a 15-minute lap around your building. It's healthier for you than smoking. But make sure you get outside, outside. Number two, however you can, wherever you can, be with people in person. Buy a heater. Better yet, buy some blankets. They aren't for decoration

on your couch anymore. They're actually for keeping you warm. If you have to be outside with people, be outside, get underneath them and figure out how you can be in community with other people. I don't care if you don't like them. I don't care if you think they're weird. Spending time with other people is critical over the next five to six months. If you are isolated or alone and you can't get outside, you can't get other people, FaceTime regularly, make it a point to call somebody every single day. In March of last year, when this kicked off, I was real good about it and I've actually fallen off. And so it's become one of my regular practices to get on the phone and call people every single day. I've even taken

the leaving hilarious messages on their phone. I just call them and act like an idiot on the phone. It's important. Number three, do online counseling if you need to. If you need a professional, everyone's throwing their practice up online. Go find somebody. Number four, get an eating plan and an exercise plan, even if it's in your living room. My wife and I moved our gym into our living room for a season before we moved to our new place that's got a garage because no one was coming over. And we both know the connections between mental health and physical health. So we just moved our furniture out of the way and we put our weights and stuff in the living room. And it worked out great for us.

It wasn't pretty. It wasn't nice. It made the house smell a little bit. I don't care. It was important. Eating plan, eating plan. Eat real food as much as possible. If you're interested on how I eat and what my thoughts are on nutrition and mental health, I can do a whole segment on this stuff.

I've been researching this stuff for years. If you're on your own, get it, but take care of your eating plan. And then number five is start creating. Start creating. There's something about the creative process that is therapeutic and heals us from the inside out. That can be writing, building, gardening,

go hunting and fishing, dig a hole, move rocks. One of the things we've done for our young son, who's got a lot of energy in a small house, is we give him one hard job a day. He gets one hard job a day. It could be weeds. It could be moving rocks around. It could be mowing. It could be whatever the thing is. It could be moving books around the living room, but I've seen his shoulders stand up a little bit taller. He's finding some esteem that he may have been missing. He is solving problems and it is helping all of us around the house. So find ways that you can create, find ways that you can move. So again, I'm very concerned about this oncoming winter shutdown, which is just a natural depressing of everybody's mood that happens every winter. It's just part of the season. It's going to be

especially hard this year. So let's start planning now. Let's start planning now to get ahead of this. All right, let's go to Christopher in Dallas. Christopher in Dallas, brother, what is up? How can I help you this morning? Good morning, Mr. Delaney. Essentially, what I'm calling for is to find out if there's any hope for my marriage or if I just need to cut it off and go the way of the great D, unfortunately. My wife's got bipolar. Okay. And she didn't really have any issues before we got together, but for the past three years, she's had manic episodes, which results in one, accusations against me for domestic abuse, sexual abuse, or something along those lines. Two, the kids getting placed with CPS and are moved from the

home. And then her hospitalization anywhere from two to three weeks to three to four months depending on how bad her episode is and really i've tried everything that i can think of we've gone to counseling six different times um and got her set up with a fitness trainer you know done everything i can think of my family's you know you need a divorce or now my church is you must never divorce under any circumstances and really i, I don't know what to do. Man, can I just sit with you for a second and tell you that sucks and I'm sorry that's happening to you? Yeah. I hate that for you, man. Bipolar is one of the most over-diagnosed mental health diagnostics in the country. But when it is real, it can be devastating

for entire family systems, man, and I'm sorry. You said you got little kids. Tell me about them. Gavin is three. Wonderful. We call him Helper. And so, of course, he loves to help everybody and everything. He does things around the house. He loves picking up and playing with helping his sister. And then our daughter, her name is Lila Rose. We call her Keeper. Running joke there is, you know, we saw her. We wanted to keep her. She's about nine months old.

And in the past three years, they've lived with us for a couple of, for about a year. They've lived with both sets of grandparents and even the great grandparents, culminating for about half of Gavin's life, who's three. Why were they taken out of the home? Well, because every time there's accusations for domestic abuse or sexual abuse or anything like that, CPS has to err on the side of caution and remove the children from what could potentially be a dangerous environment to figure out what's going on. The first couple of times, it took longer for me to get them back

because they had to really, really do an investigation. But it seems to be taking less and less time as this becomes more and more frequent. Sure. And there was no validity to the accusations or anything like that? They were just baseless? What set her off? seems to be the important part. So the first one was giving birth to her son, Gavin. The second one was us moving from Utah to Texas. The third one was her niece was born, lived for a couple of weeks and died. The fourth one was COVID. And then the fifth one was our son got moved from public or from private school to public school because he just wasn't ready. And that was the last one that set her off

last Friday. And so when you say set her off, paint me and the listeners a picture of what a set-off mother looks like who's struggling with bipolar. Well, so it starts, for her, it's very specific. For her, it starts with the anxiety from the event, whatever that event is. Then it goes to lack of sleep. Either she's going out and trying to cool off and having a couple of drinks. So she comes home 2 a.m., gets up at 5 a.m., just doesn't sleep. And that right there starts the pattern to where she won't sleep for about a week. And then sometimes she'll make it to two weeks with no sleep.

And so what happens is she just starts, her anxiety starts building up and building up and building up because I'm sure, you know, as you know, you know, sleep kind of resets the mind and calms everything down. So with her anxiety going through the roof, the way that it was explained to me is that when she doesn't sleep for that long a period of time. All the events that have ever happened in her life are happening at once. And so she can't tell the difference between what happened 10 years ago and what's happening today because she's gone so long without sleep. They're all happening to her at the same time. And so she ends up calling the police, telling them that she was attacked or that something like that happened. And usually this is, usually every time it's at this event, at this stage,

I'm usually at home. She's gone out somewhere. So during this entire process, she's home maybe for 10 hours. And it's hard to get her to stay home because she doesn't want to sit still because her anxiety is just up, up, up, up, up, and she can't get it down. Does she use drugs too? No, she doesn't use drugs. She says she smoked pot like once when she was like 17, but no, she doesn't do any sort of drugs or anything like that.

So does she not take her meds? Will she not take her any medications? So a couple of times, well, the first time when they were telling me what was going on and I was kind of getting filled in on it, they told me it was postpartum depression. So I didn't worry about her taking meds. The second time she was kind of taking meds for a little bit and using them more as a stop gap. Same thing with the third time. The fourth time, she realized that things were going on. She got back on track rather quickly. And then this last time, she's been getting shots every month, so she doesn't have to take meds every day. Okay. And she still fell off the wagon. here. Okay. Number one, I can hear in your voice, a frustrated, exhausted, don't know what to do

husband and dad. Okay. But I can also hear in your voice where this has turned from frustration to now this is a lady who's ruining your life. And I want you to find a couple of folks in your life that will hold you accountable to always keeping compassion in the front and center of your mind and heart. Okay? Okay. It is true bipolar. If that's really what this is, it's just devastating, but it can start to feel like someone's attacking you. And nobody who is truly struggling from this wants to be there. Okay.

And the more you can keep yourself from attacking back, the better. Now, I'm going to walk you through the next thing. Step two here is you have a personal, ethical, moral, spiritual, any other descriptive word you want to say, you've got an obligation to take care of your children and make sure they're safe. And it doesn't sound like they're in a safe situation right now. With the sporadicness, mom disappearing for days on end, weeks on end, suddenly their kids are getting ripped out of their home to go somewhere else while dad's being investigated for totally baseless claims. That's going to wreak havoc on their ability to connect. It's going to wreak havoc on their stability.

And it's going to put you in a defensive posture. Mom's totally absent. I'm just telling you right now, your kids are going to start a lifetime of searching for connection in all sorts of different ways. Okay? So I want you to consciously start thinking about how I can protect my kids. The third thing is this. I do believe that if this is relatively new, if you've known – and I relatively knew by a couple of years. If when y'all were dating, there were no signs of bipolar.

If when y'all were – y'all have been together for a long time, there's no signs of years. If when y'all are dating, there were no signs of bipolar. If when y'all were, y'all been together for a long time, there's no signs of bipolar, you know, y'all been together for a while. And then she has a challenging first birth of your son. And then this comes out afterwards. I don't know for sure if that's what this is, is what I'm telling you. I think it is wise if she will, and she might not, that you spend the money, you spend the time and the investment to go meet with a psychiatrist who knows what they're doing, who will spend not 30 minutes with y'all, but who will spend an extended amount of time with you guys to walk through the history of this thing and will give you and your family a plan for moving forward. That's probably going to involve a social worker who works directly with this psychiatrist. And I've seen this work out in a good tandem there, but it's going to be a team effort moving forward. And then she's going to have to commit to staying

on the plan. And if she doesn't, she's just going to wreak havoc in the life of those kids. And it's, as you know, it's very hard to stay tethered and married to this sporadicness. I also get your till death do us part. Till death do us part for sickness and in health, for richer and for poor. And I get that too. And so one thing you will never hear from me ever, ever, ever. You will never hear from me recommending divorce, telling someone you got to get out of here unless it's a very specific specific sort of abuse situation so i'm not going to make that call for you brother i'm going to tell you gotta gotta take care of those kids put them number one

and keep them safe number two if y'all haven't sat down and fully got a plan if these shots she's taken are just from another pcp that you went in and met with, so be it. If she's doing extended hospitalizations, my guess is she's got a social worker and a psychiatrist that she works with her. But y'all need to go in together and make a forever plan that she's going to stay on. If it's truly bipolar, one of the biggest challenges with bipolar is medication can work wonders. And then people feel really good and they quit taking their medication. And so I would challenge you all to get on a plan and then have her commit to staying on it. And then you all begin to work on behaviors down the road. But that's way down the road for you guys.

Right now we're talking about stabilization. I want you to go get a second opinion from a different doctor, from a different psychiatrist who will work directly with you guys and your family. And again, I want to go back to the first thing I told you, man, this sucks. I wish there was an easy fix on this one. I wish there was a, oh yeah, just do this and this, and this is all going to, that's not how bipolar works. That's not how devastating mental illness works. That's not how being a parent with someone that you love who suddenly changed and now your kids are not safe. Now you're not safe. That's not how this works. And so, Christopher, there's not an easy fix on this one, but it's going to be a day-by-day process. Start with the doctor, start with taking care of your kids. One more thing I'm going to put

out there, and I'm thinking through this as I'm talking, is I want you to sit down with your parents. If her parents are in the picture, sit down with her parents. And I want you all to come up with a game plan together. If she has a couple of friends in her life that are stable, whether that's some church friends, whether that is a sister or a cousin that she trusts, it may be a moment for an intervention where everybody sits down and says, hey, we all have agreed that this is going to be the plan here. One, to take care of these children. Two, to take care of your safety. And three, to do what we can to preserve this marriage. And getting as many people who love her and respect her and want to see her

be successful and that she trusts in some little sliver to speak into her heart and mind, that'll help a lot. That'll really help a lot. But at the end of the day, you can only control you and you can only control your thoughts and your actions. So default to compassion as hard as that is, brother. I know that's hard when somebody calls the cops on you and somebody out of their own delusion, somebody out of their own sickness gets your kids taken away for a few days. I get the rage part of that. I get the attack part of that. And you're going to have to do some hard spiritual searching to not default to that because that's just going to poison your house.

And at the end of the day, it's going to poison your kids, man. Do the best you can to default to compassion. Get somebody in your life you can be vulnerable with. And then two, you got to protect your kids, man. Do the best you can to default to compassion. Get somebody in your life you can be vulnerable with. And then two, you got to protect those kids. You got to protect those kids and you got to have those hard, get well conversations with your wife. We'll be thinking about you. Hey man, after you have this conversation with her, after you get together with a doctor and a social worker team, y'all can kind of come up with a plan. After you do an intervention with your family, I want you to call me back, Christopher. I want to hear how this goes and hear if she gets on the road to healing or not, or have her call me, man. I'd love to talk to her

directly. I'd love to talk to her directly, but thank you so much for the call. I want to thank everybody for calling in today. Again, make a plan. February's not going to surprise anybody. January's not going to surprise anybody. January is not going to surprise anybody. It's going to be cold. It's going to be dreary. It's going to be dark. And we're going to feel more lonely. We're going to feel more isolated.

We're going to feel more uneasy. And if you're like me, I'm not expecting the election to just be a smooth walk in the park either. So start now coming up with plans and ideas for being safe. Check the show notes again for the five things I've listed. And let's end today as we end all shows. I've been thinking about the greatest song of all time, and I stumbled into it. I thought I had it in the previous 15, 20 shows.

I was wrong. I was wrong. The greatest song ever written was written in 1967. It was released on his classic Axis Bold as Love record. The godfather of the guitar, Jimi Hendrix, known for his wheedly-deedly-deedly-dees, but here he's known for his words. As he writes in his classic Little Wing,

Well, she's walking through the clouds with a circus mind that's running around, butterflies and zebras and moonbeams and fairy tales. That's all she ever thinks about, riding with the wind. And when I'm sad, she comes to me with a thousand smiles she gives to me free. It's all right, she said. It's all right. Take anything you want from me.

Anything. Anything. Fly on, little wing. Woo-hoo, Jimmy. Fly on, little wing. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. you