The Dr. John Delony Show - First Responders & Trauma, Online Dating Woes, & Compromise in Marriage

Episode Date: October 28, 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 2:09: How do I build resiliency and better help others as a first responder? Trauma Stewardship: An Everyday Guide to Caring for Self While Caring for Others by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk M.D 20:23: What is the next step for my husband and me? How do we compromise on where we live? 28:29: I met a man online and he lied about his name and marital status 38:56: I'm having trouble getting impulsive behaviors under control 52:27: Lyrics of the day: "Runaway Train" - Soul Asylum   tags: trauma, first responders, counseling, mental health, dealing with stress, Laura van Dernoot Lipsky, marriage, disagreement, compromise, communication, dating, relationships, deception, impulsive behavior, coping   These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Hey, what's up? On today's show, we're going to be talking about trauma and first responders. We're going to be talking about compromising in marriage. We're going to be talking about online dating. We're going to be talking about self-sabotaging impulse behaviors and what we can do about it. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? I'm John, and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show, where we take your calls about your life, about the things going on in your homes, and in your workplace, and in your hearts and minds. Here's what I want to do. I want to help you rethink, re-examine, reconsider your lives,

how you talk to yourself, how you talk to your kids, how you talk to those you love, those you don't like, how you learn to think about the next right thing to do. And we're going to talk about love. We're going to talk about loss. We're going to talk about family issues, heartbreak. We may talk about people who walk into a public restroom and they see a whole wall of empty urinals or empty stalls, except for one, the one you're using. And they decide, I'm not going to go to the other side of the bathroom. I'm going to go right freaking next to you, right next to you, 12 inches away. You could go to the other stall or the other stall or way down to the urinal down there. But nope, no, I want to pee right next to you.

So we may talk about those folks too. You want to change the world? Skip a stall. That's what I want somebody's 2020 presidential slogan to be. Vote me. I encourage everyone to skip a stall. I would vote for that person today, right? I would leave the show and go vote for that person, whatever. Anyway, whatever's going on in your home, in your heart, in your head. For those of you who are wondering, wow, I've never thought about skipping a stall before. I never thought about it peeing in the other urinal. Call me 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or you can email me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. me at askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com. It's askjohn at ramsaysolutions.com.

Let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Brian in Wasilla. Wasilla, did I say that right? That's right, Wasilla, Alaska. This is Ryan. Oh, that's fantastic. Ryan, how are we doing, good man? Good, Dr. John.

How are you doing? I'm doing well, doing well. How is it in Alaska? I'm going to just take a random guess and think cold and pretty dark. Is that right? Yeah, this is a nice time of year. We've still got some leaves on the trees, and it's getting pretty cold, but no snow yet. Very cool, man. I have romanticized Alaska something fierce, and so I'm just going to stay with my fantasy of it, and then we can go from there. So, brother, how can I help you today?

That's pretty awesome. Yeah, it sounds awesome. I have a two-part question. I've been a firefighter for 18 years, and mental health is just not something that we've ever really talked about in my career. And in the past few years, it's become the number one killer of firefighters and paramedics. That's right. And in the past few years, it's become the number one killer of firefighters and paramedics. So my question is, one, how do I personally build resiliency and help my brothers and sister firefighters? And then two is there seems to be a very small number of firefighters that are kind of using this to seek, I don't know if it's like a medical retirement or work comp and trying to get out of the fire service altogether instead of working on the issues.

And that kind of makes it harder for the rest of us to get services and help each other if we burn those bridges with the people, you know, the administrations that are there to help us and want to see us whole. So let's go to the first part of that question. Not speaking for anybody else, but just yourself. Tell me about your mental health journey as a firefighter for almost two decades. Yeah, I guess when I first started, I was pretty just type A personality. And it just goes with the job and all the firefighters that I worked with and learned from had been doing it for a long time. And you just see things and you move on. You do your best, you know, you constantly say, it's not our emergency, we're just going to help. And then now after a longer time of doing it, you realize that there's this cumulative effect. And, you know, I'll find myself after bad calls or whatever, like you'll just hit

these real big lows where, you know, you'll just be going about your day and then I'll just wind up on the floor in my pantry crying, thinking about a call or especially ones that involve kids. You know, I have five kids and, um, so you're trying to balance this, uh, work life balance. And, um, so it's definitely been something that has affected me more, the longer I've done the career and the more that you see. As far as at the beginning of my career, it didn't really seem to bother me much. I didn't really know, you know, one way or the other, I guess. So I want to talk about the big picture and then we can walk back and look at a few ways that you can help, that people around you can help. And then don't let me forget here,

but I do want to talk about the administrative issue here at the very end, folks who are retiring, who are walking away. So I don't know if you know about my journey, but one of the things I did, especially the last few years, was I spent time working after hours in the middle of the night with, sometimes with firefighters, but with police departments, occasionally with SWAT teams, doing crisis response. Not as intense and as repetitive as recurring as your job, but it was showing up to somebody's house in the middle of the night and helping with a death notification or sitting with somebody who just lost somebody or showing up to a car wreck and helping somebody's family get to the hospital where they could, you know, pronounce somebody who'd passed away or, or, or, or, right? And one of the things that I became very interested in was this idea of secondary traumatic stress. And you may have heard that surely after a couple of decades, you've heard that. It helped me redefine what trauma was and what stress was. And for those

listening, we often think of trauma as an acute thing, right? You were in a car wreck, or sometimes we know that I saw a car wreck, and that hurts to see that. What we often don't think about is trauma can also be withholding something that's positive, right? It can be a neglect of something. And so you have kids whose parents don't talk to them, kids whose parents don't interact with them, don't touch them. That's a trauma too. But that happens over time. And you mentioned it, and I'm so glad to hear you say that, because that's usually a big eye-opener for firefighters, for police officers,

for lawyers, for teachers, for folks who regularly work in the business of other people's pain, is that trauma is cumulative. So here's the analogy I use when I when I'm, when I'm teaching folks and when I'm describing this is that we all have a backpack and we all have our own traumas that can be cinder blocks. If we have childhood abuse or they are regular bricks from poverty, or they are bricks from systemic racism issues or whatever things happen to affect you. And then if you work as a firefighter, what you have decided to do, what you have taken on your heart and mind as a profession is you get in the lives of other people

and you take their bricks from them, right? You go into their worst, darkest moments and you hold their bricks. And if we don't have a plan for how to put those down, it will bury us, right? And so what you're describing is a textbook example of somebody who's been in something for a long time and it has worn you down to the point that you just find yourself sitting in the floor in the dark crying because it's just weighing heavy, heavy, heavy on your soul, right? So in your particular fire department,

what's it like if you were to tell that story? Are you allowed to bring up mental health issues? Is everybody tough guys and tough girls, or is it, is the culture shifting? I think we're right at the beginning of a culture shift. You know, the IFF has created a peer support, which is a 40-hour class, and some of our people have gone through that training, but there's really nothing formal. There's no real process other than, I mean, the classic is, you know, you sit on the tailboard with one of the guys or gals you work with and you just kind of talk through things is more what happens with the people you're close to. Right.

They're like those taster's choice moments, right? Like everybody has a coffee and a cigarette and you hug and say, that sucks. We'll go get them tomorrow, right? And then it's supposed to all be better. Yeah, something like that. Right. So this is a passion project of mine. You didn't even know that you just stumbled into it.

But policemen, physicians, dentists, ministers, counselors, EMS folks, firemen, military, business leaders, teachers, financial planners. This idea of just suck it up, this idea of quit being a baby, that's just the way this job is, you got to deal with it, that is bullcrap. And it's hurting people. And here's where it hurts everybody, is it doesn't just hurt you, my man, Ryan, it doesn't just hurt your family. It hurts the people that receive care from you. It hurts people that receive care from your partners and your fellow firefighters and the EMS folks that show up on scenes and the police officers show up on the scenes. We are living in a world of people walking around with secondary trauma all over the place. And the idea that you're just

going to roll over and get over it is ridiculous. It's just ridiculous. It's stupid and it hurts people, man. So I want to tell you, high five you from, no, I'm going to hug you, dude. I'm going to post COVID hug you from Nashville to Alaska and say, I'm excited. I'm glad that you're thinking about this. So here's a couple of things just to think big. And these are analogies, brother, that just worked for me. Number one is if you work in the messy brokenness of other people's lives, 100% chance, I don't care who you are, you will be affected, period. Some people are affected and they medicate with food, with alcohol, with distance. Some people just try to grind it out. Some people have 17 other jobs that they work on the weekends and

on their days off that they try to chase this stuff down with busyness. Some people rage out. Some people fill in the blank. It will affect you. The way I described it to myself was this. I was a sanitation worker, and every day when I got done working in the city sewers, I had to go hose my boots off. And I had to hose off my clothes before I went into my house. I didn't want to take that stuff inside.

And I didn't want to get my bedroom all messy. I didn't want that stuff to get on my kids and on my wife. But that didn't mean I didn't still need to do the work. Somebody's got to be down there doing sanitation work and it's honorable and it's good. Can I tell you a funny story about my old man? So he was a homicide detective and a SWAT hostage negotiator, like an absolute stud, like a bad dude. And one day during, when I was a kid, I'm just going to say I was 10 or 11. I went to Little League practice in our quaint little

suburb north of Houston. And I left the back door open. When we got home, I left the back door open, just wide open while we were at practice. We were probably gone an hour, hour and a half. We got back and I'll never forget my dad looked at me when we got back and the door was open and he had this look of just washed fear come over him. And he pulled out his gun and went and cleared the house. Room to room in our little suburban house,

making sure it was safe for the family. And I remember thinking as a young kid, whoa, that seems a bit much, right? But here's the thing. A hundred percent of my dad's day was dealing with that very rare moment that it happens to somebody else, right? And so his bell curve had shifted. And so what folks who work in the messy, ugly lives of other prefer them to not be firefighters or police officers or EMS people because y'all don't tell each other the truth, right? You minimize it a little bit or you over sensationalize it a little bit. And having a professional is a really remarkable thing that you can go sit down and talk to. I also know that for certain professions,

it's nerve wracking because people write that stuff down and then people are worried about, there's a record of that somewhere. Is that going to impact something? Am I going to get sued over something? You got to have somebody that you talk to. The second thing is, is you have to be very, very open with your supervisors. And I know that's a whole other can of worms because supervisors like to act like they're tough sometime in bravado. There are some awesome folks throughout the country. I got to work for one in Lubbock. But having some folks that you can talk to. The third thing is really being careful about using your wife or your kids or your family members as trash receptacles, as places where you come dump that stuff, right? Okay. And then the fourth thing is making sure you have an ironclad, never going to move on it self-care plan that you have before you get into some of these things, which means you've got to eat right.

You've got to have a group of people. You've got to exercise. You've got to meditate and have a spiritual sense about you. You've got to have a relationship with God. You've got a relationship with something bigger than you. And you've got to have practices that give you resilience, that build in health so that when these things happen, you've got the fortitude and the resilience built in. And then the final thing is this. I think I just said final thing.

There's one more final thing. Okay. You've got to be really, really graceful with my new friend, Ryan. So like you, I found myself crying some nights. I committed the unforgivable sin. I walked into a situation. I used to just have a phone and I'd get a police code. It would say 10-8-7, which was a police code for somebody had passed away, and it'd have an address. And we'd show up and it would often wouldn't know what we were walking into, similar to you guys. And I walked in and it was a young child and I had just had a small daughter. My daughter was a little bitty and I saw the child and I looked at my partner and I committed the

unforgivable sin and crisis world. I looked at my partner and I told her it's, she's the most wonderful partner ever. Janice Smallwood. I hope she's listening. She's a saint. She's extraordinary woman. But I looked at her and said, I got to go. I'm out. And I left her. And she said, I got you because when you have a good partner, that's the way that works. But I left her because I couldn't do it. I couldn't see a young kid in the situation that this young kid was in. And so you've got to know yourself and you've got to know your own limits. And I know that's hard as a firefighter, but you've got to know your limits. And I had to go grieve it. I went and talked to somebody about it. I had a small, this is going to sound ridiculous. I had a small funeral for that kid in my head. And then I was able to put

a period at the end of that sentence. That was my hose and my boots off. And then I was able to go back in, but I had a process on the back end for how to deal with the stuff I had just seen. I couldn't just let it go, let it go, let it go. Right. What is your, when you get home from a hard situation, you get home from a messy, messy situation. You've seen somebody pass away. You guys are trying to help somebody have a car wreck and they don't make it. You guys go into a home and somebody doesn't make it. Or you just see the family huddled in the front yard and watching their house burn down. What is your process when you get home? I usually, I just, I go to the gym.

I just work out until I can't see straight. And just really, you know, just take myself to the physical limit. And then usually that kind of helps me hit that reset. But usually there's a real big low that follows any of those highs, you know, where you're making decisions and you're engaged and you're active. And then the next day or two, or sometimes a week, you know, I'll just feel this real valley that I'm in. Um, and just kind of working through that. But the, the physical side of it is definitely what I go to where I find, um, that it just makes me feel better. So I'm super glad that that's a default setting for you.

I want you to be careful about that becoming your numbing addiction, right? Yeah. It's healthier than going to the bar and drinking it away, right, until you can reset that way. But it can also be an addiction. Here's what I want you to practice, and then I want you to promise that you're going to email me back, okay? Okay. It is mid-October.

I want you to – or it's even late October now. I want you for the next month, the next 30 days, I want you to go to like Walgreens or whatever little stores there in Alaska, and I want you to buy a spiral notebook. It'll cost $0.99 or $2. And I want you to, every night that you get home, before you check out and you leave the station, I want you to write down what you experienced. And I want you to write down a two or three sentence little prayer for the family, for the person, and tell them, thank you for your life. Thank you for honoring me and letting me be with you in this hard, hard moment. And I'm going to pray for your recovery.

I'm going to pray for your family who's still alive. And I'm going to ask for your blessings as I continue this hard, hard work. And that's going to serve as a miniature funeral for you. If you have a couple of people at your station that would do that with you, I think that would be an awesome healing moment for you guys. But I want you to practice offloading your bricks. And then go to the gym or just have a good cry and go for a walk.

But I want you to have a practice. I want you to email me back after 30 days and let me know if that helped or not. That was a massive thing for me. It was a gift and it was a way that I could take those bricks out, set them down, acknowledge them, honor them, and then go about the hard work of putting my waders back on and going back out there in the sewer. And I want to honor you as a fireman, honor all the first responders, all the folks who show up in the messy, gritty ugliness of other people's lives. But I also want us to also remember that those folks

got to take care of themselves. They've got to take care of themselves. Supervisors, stop with the bravado and the nonsense. If you are a physician supervisor, if you are a police supervisor, if you are a principal of an elementary school, if you are a business leader, enough. Look around us. Look around us. We live in a culture where we have everything. We have abundance never before known in the history of time. And we are overweight and exhausted and anxious and frustrated and depressed because we have just been told to keep grinding, keep grinding, keep grinding, do more, do more, do more. And guys, we are bursting at the seams.

We're falling apart from the inside out. And that starts with leadership. You want to model for this? Dr. Andrew Young in Lubbock, Texas, in the Lubbock Police Department, a group of people who have taken it upon themselves to set up structures for those folks to be well, who have set up structures for those folks to get the help they need and also do the right thing, who've set up structures for training and for teaching. But guys, we cannot keep grinding our helpers down to a nub. Teachers are exhausted.

Administrators are... Enough. Enough. I also want to recommend the book Trauma Stewardship by Laura Vandernute Lipsky. Trauma Stewardship by Laura Vandernute Lipsky, L-I-P-S-K-Y. It's a very hard book to read if you're a first responder. It's a difficult – it's not hard to read because it's a hard science book. It's a hard book to read because it cut me right in half. It will get in your soul, but it will also give you some tips on how to continue to keep yourself well, how to create communities of people who keep themselves well, and how to take care of the people around you as well. So, Brother Ryan, I wanted to thank you so much again for your call. Thanks for letting me rant on this a little bit.

This is obviously a big deal to me. Be wary of your bell curve. Make sure you are doing the things that you need to do to be well. Leaders, make sure the people that report to you are well. Man, I'm just going to be quiet here. I am. I'm going to be quiet about it. Let's move on. Man, I just get fired up about this. All right, let's go to Kelly in Portland, Maryland. Kelly, how in the world are you? I'm doing good. How are you, John?

Good. Portland, Maine. Sorry about that. And, by the way, Kelly, you caught me end of a rant, and so I want you to know I just exhaled, and now it's gone. It's off. Woo! Let's do it, Kelly. What's up? Great. Well, I'm calling to see if I can get some advice. My husband and I are possibly thinking about selling our place, our home now, and moving back closer to my in-laws. Okay. Talk to me about it. Okay. So we've been married for eight years. We have a two-year-old little girl. For the first two years that we were married, we lived next door to my in-laws.

They have a small family farm that my husband grew up on and has always worked there. It's always been his dream to just be there and work at the farm. After two years, my dad passed passed away and we decided to move closer to my family cause it was very sudden and unexpected and we were just struggling. And so we decided to move closer to my family and my husband, he was mostly on board, but not a hundred percent, I would say. Um, And it's just always been his dream to move back and be closer to his family. And so we're kind of just struggling on coming up with a compromise of where we land. So you're using the right pronoun, which is we.

And that is to be high-fived and commended. And you are doing the Lord's work, talking about how your husband's heart and mind feels about things. But I also just get this cascading shadow over your words that are, you don't want to move. The last thing you wanted to do is be a farmer's wife. And this whole thing kind of sucks. Am I right? Not a hundred percent, but yeah. Yeah. So what's the, what's the dilemma? Are y'all not talking about it or are you, have y'all reached an impasse? Is one of you just going to have to cave and it's just going to be what it is? I think, yeah, we've talked about it a lot.

Um, and I guess my biggest thing is when we were there before, I always felt like I was second and I'm just really nervous that that's going to happen again. Have you told him that? Yeah. I could probably reiterate it, but yes, I have in the past. Oh man, you're the best. Okay. So when I say, have you told him that, when y'all are talking about what it would look like, and he is putting on the sales pitch for you, and he is telling you, but remember this, and this is going to be this way. We can get some land right now. Interest rates are low.

He's giving you the spiel, right? And you looked at him and said, the last time we lived there, I saw you happy, and I felt like I was number two in your life. I felt like I wasn't happy and I felt like I was number two in your life. I felt like I wasn't valued and it wasn't important. Did you say it like that? Or did you say, I just always, you know, how did you say it? I'm trying to think back here. Probably, you know, I think I kind of said, you know, the farm is first and then I'm number two. And what did he say to that? You know, he agreed that that is kind of what happened.

But not this time. Not this time. Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. And I mean, we we've talked about, you know, like he would only work so many days a week or whatever. But I guess I'm I'm just nervous about it and that it won't be that way because, you know, I get farm life. It depends on weather and there's animals and there's customers and,

you know, things are always an emergency. Um, but it just being on the other end of it kind of sucks to be honest. Oh, totally. So what is a, what's a picture, paint me a picture of what not being number two looks like. What does being number one married to a farmer look like? I don't really know. And so I think that's where the hard work you've got to do is. Is that a sentence I just said? Sounded like I said some words out of order. That's the work that you've got to do is you have to come up for him and for you. What does it look like for me to be number one, me to be your wife, me to be your one and only first, and the cows and sheep second? And you've got to have a firm, like concrete picture of what that looks like

and be able to communicate to that, to him. Because my guess is you felt like number two, but that was a secondary feeling to you. You just didn't like farming. You didn't like being away from your family. You didn't like that, whatever that life is. You didn't like that. And then it ended up feeling uncomfortable. And that became a way you could see yourself as second, right?

So it's coming up with some very concrete pictures of what that looks like and giving him an opportunity to live into that or not live into that. And then the second thing is, yeah, it's a risk. You're right. And your heart and mind is telling you, hey, we've already done this. It wasn't good. To use your fancy words, it sucked. And I don't want to be second to a bunch of goats again. I don't want to be second to a tractor again.

And so that reality, that fear, that risk, that's true. That's right. There's no question about that. That's not going to go away, I guess. I don't know if that's a comfort to you. There's nothing I can tell you to make that go away. If you're going to move across the country back to being a farmer's wife, that's going to be a risk. No question about that.

I think your model for moving forward is how ironclad is it? Like how ironclad is that picture? How firm on the wall is it? And making sure that you are so clear with him, so clear. I want us to spend breakfast like this. I understand that in this season, this has to happen. I want lunch to look like this when we can. I want our marriage to look like this. We will have this many dates a week. Our kids will look like this, but it's being super, super clear and giving him an opportunity to speak into that. And it's good to do that before you move, obviously. And if you just don't want to go, be real clear, I'm not going to go. Because going along partway and then being bitter about it, Terry Real calls it power from the one down position.

It leaves you in a position that all you can do is be frustrated. All you can do is complain and end up pulling the boat down from underneath it. And if he makes a power move and says, we're going, I'm the man of this house and we're going forward, then that's a power from the one-up position. But often folks can just go, all right, fine. And then they're not grateful about it.

They choose misery then. They choose like, well, I'm just this, whatever. And they end up dragging the ship down slowly from underneath it. And so if you're going to go, make the absolute best of it. Go with full intention. Go with full plan. Make sure you're fully heard. Your voice is fully heard. Your concerns are fully heard. Ways you can hold him accountable to the shared vision you guys have. Make sure that's in place. Go feeling empowered. Also know going, it's going to feel like a risk. You're going to feel weird

because you've been down this road before and it sucked last time and it might suck again. And then the third, if you're not going to go, if you're just like, I cannot do this, be real, real clear with him because he's not going to lose you. He loves you. He's not going to lose you. But don't go halfway and just drag the whole machine down.

Don't go and be like, yeah, okay, it's going to be great. And he's going to be excited. And all of a sudden it's just the relationship is slowly going to drown. So I mean, I think you do the hard work of visioning what this could look like, making sure it doesn't look like last time. I think that could be a really extraordinary moment for you guys. I'd love you to call me back after you move and you can be like, you idiot. I told you I'm second to the goats. That'd be super fun, Kelly. But I don't think it's going to happen. I don't think so.

All right, let's go to Leah in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Leah, what's up? Hi, John. How are you? So good. How about you? I'm doing well, thank you. Excellent. So here's my question. So I've gone on about eight or nine dates with this man that I met online, and it's been great, good connection. We enjoy each other's company, all that stuff. Fast forward a few weeks, I find out that the first and last name he told me is actually not his name at all, and he's actually still legally married and has a child.

Uh-oh. Yeah. So at this point, I'm not really sure where to go from here or what type of conversation or questions I need to even be asking him because I feel like I'm kind of caught in a dilemma of we bond really well, we have good connection, but he's married. This may be my favorite call ever. It sounds like you super totally know what to do, but you don't want to.

How come? I'm just very confused. Because I did confront him. Hold on. There's super no confusion. Some guy pretended to be somebody he wasn't so he could cheat on his wife. And did he say the magic words? Did he say we're getting separated? Yes, he did.

So awesome. So, yeah, he's not somebody to be trusted. He is somebody who is scamming one or both of the women in his life right now, if y'all happen to be the only two. And then he lied about it. How'd you find out? So when he told me his first and last name, I did some investigating, trying to see if he was on any social media or whatever. And let's be honest, all good relationships start with an investigation.

So go ahead, continue. Right. So I did that. Couldn't find anything. Thought that's really weird how he's not showing up on anything. Did it again. Found his real first and last name on his employment site. I thought, oh, wow, that's weird. And it had his picture right next to it. So I knew it was him. This is weird. This is lying and deception. You're like, wow, my house is on fire. It smells smoky.

Yes, it's burning to the ground. That's awesome. Okay, so continue. So you investigate slash stalked him, and then you found out where he worked, what his face looked like. He had different names. And then what happened? So I screenshot it, and I sent it to him, and I asked him to explain. Did you do that via text?

Yes, I did. Oh, geez. Okay. So you have a guy that you're kind of falling for eight or nine and you text him busted. Then what did he do? And then that's when he gave me the whole spiel of, well, he's legally married, but he's going through a separation. He admitted he does have a daughter. And I asked him why, like, why not just be honest? And he said, well, I thought you'd never give me a chance. Is that true? I mean, if he's married, then no, I wouldn't give him a chance. I don't want to be dating a married man. Okay, but you are, and you feel conflicted about it. So why are you conflicted about it?

I guess I, I'm not really sure what to even tell the guy because at this point we have seen each other since, but he didn't bring it up again. And so I don't know if I need to be bringing it up again. I can't imagine this as something he wants to just talk about all the time. Here's a cool thing you can do. Repeat after me. Bye, Felicia. Go ahead. Bye, Felicia. Booyah. See, that's it. I don't do a lot of good on this podcast. I just did just then. It's over. The guy is not a trustworthy person. How about this? Have his wife call you and let you know that, yes, we are indeed.

We've been getting separated for a long time. The divorce is just taking some while because the lawyers are slowed down because of the COVIDs and it's going to be a minute. But yes, we are fully separated. I hope he finds happiness and joy somewhere else. Have her call you and then you can feel free to just date around the building. But there's no way that's going to happen, right? Right.

I'm super interested in you, though, because you sound like you've got these strong convictions. You sound like you feel totally ripped off, but you have this – I wish you were having this conversation in person because I want to watch you having these thoughts go through your mind and body. You seem conflicted. I don't understand the conflict here. I think the conflict comes into place because he seemed at the beginning like a very genuine person. He has his life together. So I guess I never would have thought that someone like him would do something like this. Ah, there you go. So here's an ugly, crappy part of somebody lying to you like this or getting cheated on.

It's not only is there a hurt that someone deceived you, but you stop trusting you. Right? You've got to grieve the fact that you missed it or that he seemed like dot, dot, dot, or she felt like dot, dot, dot. If you go back and, well, that's not a, I was going to compare him to Jeffrey Dahmer, and that's probably a little bit not fair. But if you go back and read some of those things, the guy was a lovely, wonderful guy. Everyone liked being around him. He was fun. And everyone said, I couldn't believe that, dot, dot, dot. Now, of course, this dude isn't a mass murderer and all that.

So that wasn't fair. But yes, people all the time think, I can't believe that they fill in the blank. And the disorienting part about that is that you have to look in the mirror and say, how did I miss that? What is it about me that missed that? I thought I was smart.

I thought I could read people. I thought that was my thing. And that sucks. Have you spent some time just realizing this sucks? This isn't fun? Yeah. How'd that go? I was pretty bummed out because in the last relationship I was in, it was the same type of scenario where he lied about having his kid.

And then the baby mama contacted me and told me. So it's just weird that the same things keep happening where it's the dishonesty. Yeah. What apps are you using? Don't tell me, but maybe that's a good place to start with whatever apps you're finding folks on. Right. Um, why did you see him again? After you busted him and he told you this stuff and then you got back together, y'all met up and then it didn't really come up and you probably had some imaginary conversations in your head about what you were going to say to him when you finally saw him and you were just going to wait till he told you and he didn't say anything and then y'all just went on with your date and then he just dropped you off and you went home

and then you were just kind of like how'd you feel going through that time that space it was very awkward yeah why didn't you bring something up How did you feel going through that time, that space? It was very awkward. Yeah. Why didn't you bring something up? Because I didn't really even know how to bring it up. Okay. Ready?

I'm going to teach you. And it's not even going to be by Felicia. This is another one. Let's see how we can do this directly. Yes, I got it. Why did you lie to me ta-da and then he'll be like no no no why did you lie to me we went out eight or nine times and i was honest with you and i told you some things about me i was vulnerable with you and i said i liked you and you didn't mention anything about having a kid you didn't mention anything about being currently married like why'd you lie to me i liked you that's how you do that

okay and if in your gut you know he's not telling you the truth don't leah you're like you're worth not being lied to and you're worth not being cheated on you're worth somebody telling you the truth yeah that's true you are and i don't even care what happened when you were 10 years ago and eight years ago and you're just worth not being lied to here's the other thing maybe his story is is true. It might totally be true. And he needs an opportunity to turn around and come super clean and to say, I freaked out. I thought you would never talk to me. This whole thing's been a mess.

I lied to you and that sucks. And I screwed up and I'm sorry. I just think very few people are not redeemable. But it starts with people looking somebody that they love in the eye, somebody they like in the eye and say, I screwed up real bad. I'm sorry.

But if you're just going to go see him tomorrow, then you've got to make peace with, you know what? I used to say I wasn't going to date a married man. I'm cool with it. I'm cool with it.

I thought I wouldn't be the kind of person that dated a married man, but it's all good. And that may be where part of your conflict is coming from. I wouldn't recommend that, but hey, if that's what some of your struggles are coming from, that's where some of your struggles are coming from. I don't think so. I think you're tired of people lying to you. And they're not little lying to you. Like, I love your cooking and it's not that great. That not that's not those kind of lies it's oh yeah i'm still married oh yeah i've got kids oh yeah fill in the blank those are big and you're slowly giving your heart away trying to be vulnerable trying to fall in love with somebody and they're not being honest and that hurts and

that sucks so i'm sorry but i also want you trust you. I want you to stand firm in your values and stand firm in the things that you think are right. And if somebody pulls a big one on you like that, have the courage to look at them and say, why did you lie to me? Answer that question. We're not going to go out anymore. I'm not going to hold your hand anymore. We're not going to kiss anymore. Why did you lie to me? And if they give you an answer that's shenanigans and it's just a box of doo-doo bombs,

then just walk away, and you're going to be lonely. It's going to hurt, and it's going to suck, but walk away. Tell the truth. Even when you do something that's not smart, not right, tell the truth, folks. Good grief. Leah, thank you so much for that call. Let me know how the final, the bye Felicia goes. I'm interested to know how that final conversation goes, and somebody create an app for that call. Let me know how the final, the bye Felicia goes. I'm interested to know how that final conversation goes and somebody create an app for great people. I'm sure that

exists somewhere. I don't have any apps. Create an app for people to meet each other, especially now on the COVID. All right, let's take one more call. Let's go to Nathaniel in Columbia, South Carolina. What's up, Nathaniel? Hey, how's the next big talk show personality doing? Right? I keep telling everybody that. We only have like 42 people who listen to this podcast, but we're going to get there, brother. We're going to get there. Ah, you're starting to making. How are you, man? Oh, I can't complain. A lot going on, but I think that describes most of us, so I'm not going to complain.

Very cool. So what's up, brother? How can I help? Well, I noticed that there's a lot of, I would call impulsive behaviors, not major things, but, um, that I, um, have a habit of doing and it's affecting my life in small ways. And I just want to know, get some advice on how to control them better. Very cool. So talk to me about the impulsive behaviors. Well, I can think of a few things in particular. One, a little bit of overeating. I wouldn't consider myself like an overweight person. So it's a little bit hard to talk with people about it. But, uh, for instance, if I'm at my, my work, I'll visit the snack machine. Uh, I love snack machines three times. Hello.

Yeah. I love snack machines, man. I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, on bad days where I'm stress eating, it's five ish, which is not six. I don't know. Uh, so that's one thing and then now that i'm

working from home a little bit more you know oh look 10 30 i guess it's time for lunch number three already that's right that's right oh that's one thing and another area i notice is uh internet is internet time, especially during work. So a lot of my work right now is on my laptop, and I get distracted really easy watching YouTube. It's kind of frustrating, and so, yeah. So besides eating and some internet distractions, what else? Something else is behind you. Something's worrying you.

What is it? I mean, one of the things is I think it's more omissions. Like, okay, I should be exercising, but let's watch one more episode of the John Galoni show before I go. And then five hours later. That's always okay. Always okay. Sacrifice your physical health. I'm not what I'm trying to say. No, I'm kidding.

Or just stuff like, oh, I guess it's time to, you know, clean that, you know, Jenga tower of dirty dishes in my sink right now. But I'll get to it. It's just irritating stuff like that. And I guess what's compounding it a little bit is one in about three weeks i'm getting married oh okay i i i don't know what my family say about this is that like i think i'm a little disappointed in myself that i imagined i would be a different person by this point or like, you know, I've been, I've been trying to change the behaviors, like, okay,

make a schedule, start putting ad block or not ad block or site blockers on your computer, uh, stop carrying money to work. So you can't, you know, actually buy anything, uh, you know, and that works for a week or so. And then a distraction or stress happens. I resort to those as control mechanisms back to square one. Gotcha. Okay. So what would you say, brother, is that the root of your, you call them impulsive behaviors. They're really numbing behaviors. They are ways to unplug real quick or for a long time.

And usually those behaviors are rooted in some sort of underlying stress, underlying feelings of, what's underlying for you, man? One thing I guess that comes to mind a lot is uh my research i'm a i'm a grad student get my phd good for you man and i mean i tell people to this quite frankly uh i think my research is a burning dumpster fire within a train wreck within a media crater yes um what are you studying like i mean i'm i'm studying organic chemistry oh that sounds exciting okay you actually could literally be studying inside of a dumpster fire though which is pretty cool for okim um why do you say your research is no good uh well i feel like well just talking to my advisor, my last three projects, I worked on it really hard.

And essentially, my advisor said, scrap this project, go somewhere else. And that's been the case for the last few years. I mean, I'm still in the program, so hooray. And I'm more than halfway, past the halfway point, thankfully. But a lot of times I don't know if my advisor is just being a perfectionist or if I'm actually, and he's just, I'm actually doing okay and he's just trying to push me harder or it's you should be really worried right now and you need to you know shift gears and i guess also

with the whole um the big news that's happening around the world, coronavirus, I got placed back on TA duty. It's a whole lot more work online. Everything is slower, and I just spend most of my time grading papers as opposed to actual research. Yep. So that doesn't help the situation. How old are you, man? That's 25. Okay.

Okay. Can you... Let's get in a – let's just back up for a second. Okay? Can you go global with me for a second? Okay. You're getting married in a few weeks. The world is literally and figuratively on fire. We're in the middle of a pretty remarkable pandemic, an absolute economic

implosion. You are in the middle of one of the most difficult PhD programs on the planet. Real hard. A lot of people do a lot of gymnastics academically to get out of OCHEM and you're getting a PhD in it. It's hard what you're doing. Most people who aren't in the PhD process don't know how many times you feel real good about something and your advisor says, that's not good enough. Do that again. That happened to me a bunch. Or rewrite this.

Or where did you even get this information from? You need to redo that again. And my advisors, both of them, were really wonderful people. And I still had to redo some stuff. You are in the middle of three of the most stressful things I can imagine. Were you going to school to be a professor too? Uh, yes. Okay. So you're also in the middle of a, you're working towards a career that is evolving and changing underneath us all as we speak here, right? So you are living literally in a true dumpster fire. Everything around you is on fire.

And one of the things our brains do is they love us and try to take care of us. And so what you've got is a series of behaviors, whether we can call them little ticks, you can call them little whatevers, which are little mini checkout moments. I'm just going to click off. I can't read one more stupid O'Kim paper. I'm just going to spend the next four hours here. I'm going to procrastinate on this. I'm going to just have one more meal because I need one more dopamine hit that's going to make that stress a little bit less. It's going to cover up my amygdala a little bit more, right? It's going to unhook it a little bit more. And I want you to, number one, first and foremost, give yourself some grace, okay?

You are in the middle of it. It's a lot going on. I also want you to really, – like I'm not big on shoulds and have tos. I think some shoulds, and I wish I had – those can weigh people down. But you've got to stop talking to Nathan so badly, okay? You are beating up Nathan. You are talking to yourself in a way that you would never let somebody talk to your fiancé, right? Right. Is that fair? I think that's fair. Okay. So distraction behaviors are, they're, they're just a bomb. They're like chapstick. They're a lie. Okay. Think of them like a lie. The key here, if you want to change a behavior, number one is

awareness. When you're about to eat something, when you're about to go to the snack machine, as you start to roll your chair back, because it happens automatically, right? I want you to – or at your house, when you decide, oh, man, it's time for seventh lunch. I want you to pause and say, what am I trying to protect myself from? And just let it sit there for a second. As you're about to eat another sleeve of cookies, I want you to think, huh, why am I still eating this? What is my brain trying to protect me from? And it's probably from one more assignment,

one more place where you're going to not feel enough, one more step towards a job that you don't even know if it's going to be there, one more step towards a forever decision, which is getting married, right? It's doing its job. It's trying to protect you. And what you have to do is fill your resiliency bucket, if you will, with positive behaviors instead of default settings. And so just getting rid of impulsive behaviors, just stopping eating,

or just saying, I want to be super good looking for my wedding. I want to be super good for my professor. Those are always going to be trying to fill an internal hole with external plugs. You're going to be doing something for somebody else, for somebody else, for somebody else. And I want you to begin talking to Nathan in a positive way. She began to say, I'm going to eat well because I'm going to feel better. My research is going to be better. I'm going to be able to be a better husband for my wife. My head's going to be better.

Not just so I'm not fat. You know what I mean? Going towards something instead of away from something is totally different. And just recognizing your impulses are liars. And I'm going to give you a sentence that changed my life. Okay. I struggle with impulse behaviors a lot. I've got a lot of tics. I've struggled with ADHD my whole life and with anxiety my whole life. And I read a sentence that was from an ADHD scholar that was really extraordinary for me. And here was the sentence, don't forget to remember.

And I know that sounds out of order in a wacky sentence. Don't forget to remember. Here's what that sentence means. It means when I pull up to my house, I, for some reason, I can't see, I still have CDs in my car. I can't see the CDs that are scattered all over my car. I can't see the water bottles and the LaCroix cans in the car. I just don't see it. But I remember what it feels like getting into a really messy truck. I remember what it feels like to get into a really clean truck. I forget I'll walk through the house and I will just leave crap everywhere. I will wake up and think, I don't want to go work out downstairs. And then I will make sure I don't forget to

remember how good it feels after I've worked out. How good it feels to actually put stuff away where it goes. And what it does is it takes me to the other end, not on the front end, because people who struggle with impulse behavior, who struggle with numbing behaviors, who struggle with addiction, who struggle with ADHD on the front end, they struggle with that front end impulse. What we can control is the back end. What we can control is where we're headed. I don't want to pick that stuff up now, but I don't want to forget to remember how good it feels when the house is clean. How good it feels when my wife can just relax and smile because she's worked her butt off with our kids all day. And so don't forget to remember is a sentence that

changed my life. I hope it will change yours. I want to tell you, man, you are in the middle of it. This storm will pass. Winter will pass and spring will come. Your wedding's going to be awesome. She said she loved you before you started working out. So she still loves you. I don't want you to work out for her. I want you to work out for you. I don't want you to try to get the next right PhD program for your professor to try to prove that you belong. You do.

You got in the program. I want you to work really hard on your research because we need some great O'Kim people out there. We got a lot of problems that O'Kim folks can help us solve. I want you to do it because you can do it. I want you to not spend time on the internet, brother, because I want you to get your grading done so you can go outside and go for a walk. So you can go outside and call your fiance and you can go talk about what's going to happen four or five years from now because you're worth it, brother Nathaniel. Thank you so much for the call. That's the show today. As we leave, man, sometimes we talk about the greatest song of all time.

Sometimes we talk about the greatest song by the greatest singer of all time. I'm going to be honest with you. That's not today. Today, we're going to talk about a pretty good singer from a pretty good record. Sometimes a singer's not that great and the song's not that great, but it just sticks in your soul and it won't freaking leave. So here I am this many years later about to read the song that came out 1990 off the record Soul Provider by the one and only King Mullet himself, Michael Bolton. The song is, How Am I Supposed to Live Without You? I don't know, Michael. I don't know. But I'm still singing that song this many years later. It goes like this. I could hardly believe it when I heard the news today. I had to come and get it straight from you.

They said you were leaving. Someone swept your heart away from the look upon your face. I see it's true. So tell me about it. Tell me about the plans you're making. Tell me one more thing before I go. Tell me how am I supposed to live without you now that I've been loving you so long? How am I supposed to live without you? How am I supposed to carry on when all that I've been loving you so long? How am I supposed to live without you?

How am I supposed to carry on when all that I've been living for is gone? I don't know, Michael. I don't know how we're supposed to carry on. There's only so much we can do here on the Dr. John Deloney Show. you