The Dr. John Delony Show - Helping My Family Grieve After a Tragic Accident

Episode Date: July 28, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU!   Show Notes for this Episode   Article: Which media have proven sticky as pandemic has diminished? What advice do you have for two single parents looking to blend their families? My son may be diagnosed with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. How can I help my brother after a terrible car accident? Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief - David Kessler Lyrics of the Day: "Open-ended Life" - The Avett Brothers   As heard on this episode:  BetterHelp Redefining Anxiety John's Free Guided Meditation Ramsey+   tags: parenting, kids, marriage, relationships, boundaries, bipolar disorder, sickness/illness, substance abuse, anger/resentment/bitterness, family, disagreement/conflict, grief   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 talk about moving in together with blended families, we talk about how to love your son when he's struggling with severe mental illness, and we talked to a young man whose brother was just in a severe car wreck and the whole family is trying to figure out what to do next. Stay tuned. Hey, what is up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. We're so glad you're here to show for you, about you, about your mental health, your relationships, whatever's going on in your life. We'd love to have you on the show. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. If you want to talk about what's going on in your life, leave a message. We'll call you back, have you on the show, and I will do the best I can to walk alongside you. And hey, here's the

thing. It's free, right? So what do you got to lose? It's not like you have any investment other than like 15 minutes of your life. I don't know. There's a lot of cool things you can do in 15 minutes that would not warrant a phone call, but hey, why not? Or if you're not the phone call type, go to johndeloney.com slash ask. Love to

have you along for the ride. James is still out, so I'm so excited to have Ben on the internet in there. It's good to see you. Glad to be here. Nikki B running the cameras today. And the always brilliant, kind, and appropriate Kelly running quarterback. I feel like you want something from me.

Disagree. Strongly disagree. Kelly, running quarterback. I feel like you want something from me. Disagree. Strongly disagree. I'd like the show just to go on and finish. So that's what you want from me? That's what I want from you. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So, so glad to have everybody here.

Hey, I often get this question. If I don't watch the news, how do I not live in a hole? Like, where do I get information from? One of the few places that I've come to trust over the past however long is, it's called themarginalrevolution.com. It's two economists, Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok. It's a website, but I turned it, it's like a blog, blog a running blog and I turned it into an app on my phone that's where I get my news from and these guys are brilliant statisticians

and data minded folks and I've watched them over the course of the pandemic the last 18-24 months they have been ahead of 100% of things it's really been impressive actually and they love art and food and all kinds of good stuff, so it's awesome. But I tell you that to tell you, they posted this yesterday. They also post a curated list of interesting articles that come across planet Earth, whether it's about chess or whether it's about nutrition,

whatever it happens to be about. They've got all kinds of fun stuff. But this particular article caught my eye. And so I've got it on my internet phone here, my cell phone. Which media have proven sticky as pandemic has diminished? And so sticky is, you know, just a nerdy scientific term for what behaviors are continuing on after the pandemic has begun to recede. And so by a large margin, video games, more than an hour more video games a day,

get this, a sprawling platform on which people make and share their own basic games reported that in the first quarter of this year, 2021, players spent nearly 10 billion hours on the platform. Nearly twice as much as they spent on that same period in 2020.

Last year, people installed 56.2 billion gaming apps. Good folks. Here's the deal. Oh, whereas all other generations of Americans named television and film as their favorite form of home entertainment, Generation Z ranked them last after video games, music, web browsing, and social media.

So, we are seeing a shift, number one. And I think the shift is actually pretty good, from passive entertainment, just absorbing movies and TV, to participation. But 10 billion hours in the first quarter of video games, just on one platform. Let me just make a suggestion. Go outside!

Go outside and play with friends. Right? Right? There's little kids out in the lobbies. Go play with other people. Dads, play catch with your kids. Kick a soccer ball. Throw water balloons at each other.

Spray each other with a hose. Plant stuff. Walk, run, ride bikes, dig holes, catch things, set things on fire, shave your neighbor's head, re-roof something. I don't, I, whatever you got to lift weights. Here's a crazy thing. Jog. Try that.

Try jogging. Or, um, Nerf guns. Regular guns. Everybody's got those. Whatever it is. 10 billion hours playing a game. You could have gotten a thousand, not a thousand, a million at least, PhDs in 10 billion hours. That's just the first quarter.

The first quarter. You can get any number of online courses for free. Local community college classes for free. Cooking classes, welding classes. Do something besides playing video games. 10 billion hours. Oh, my gosh. Go outside.

And I know it sounds like I'm going through puberty now. My voice is cracking. Stop playing video games. Quit. Quit. That's all. Jeez Louise. Go outside.

Go play. And I know some parts of the country right now, it's like a thousand degrees. I get that. The one way to make it not so a thousand degrees, go outside. I met with a remarkable climate scientist once and she said, one of the key things you can do is go outside and your body will acclimate over time, but it's uncomfortable for a while. Go outside, even when it's hot. Hey, here's a crazy thing. Just serve other people. Go paint stuff. Pick up trash. Mow your neighbor's yard. Whatever it is. Go outside or stay inside. Read books. Read books. And I know that's like, oh my gosh. Read books. Write a story. Write poems.

You know what? Challenge accepted. Challenge laid down. Gauntlet. Consider it laid out. Write a poem and mail it to me in an envelope with a stamp, and I will read your poems online. I mean, on this show, on the internets. Your poem. And that's what I want. I want poems, but they have to be handwritten on paper. Paper is this product that has lines on it most of the time.

It doesn't even have to have lines. I don't care. It could be on the back of a newspaper. But write poems, mail them in an envelope. I will not accept them digitally. And I will read your poems on this show. That's what we're going to do. That just solved it.

10 billion hours. Good grief. All right, let's go to melody in knoxville tennessee melody how are you i'm doing okay excellent how can i help all right so um my boyfriend has asked me to quit my job and move in with him. Between the two of us, we have five children. Okay. And this means I will be taking care of his kids full time. That concerns me because we have very different parenting styles.

And I'm wondering what the best way would be to go about it in such a way that the transition is best for our kids. Oh, man. So first, don't move in. Okay? You are not ready for that. Just listening to your usage of pronouns and listening to his kids, you're not there yet. Okay? And I don't mean this is the end of your relationship. I don't mean that this is, what are we doing? Why are we? It just means right now, you're not there yet. Okay.

Do you agree with that or no? I wouldn't say I agree with that. I've been a stay-at-home mom for quite a while. I'm very comfortable as a stay-at-home mom, and he knows I want to be one again. Okay. So what is your hang-up? I kind of hated my job. Okay, but you've in a good living situation. And this is like very much a lifeline for me. So I'm very happy with that idea.

And I was actually very grateful for the offer. The only thing is when it comes to our relationship, like the only real concern that I have, and I'm an exceedingly pessimistic person, especially when it comes to relationships, just to let you know. Excellent. I look at every dude like, yeah, you have a curveball. What is it? You know? Excellent. You're going to throw something at me.

Hey, real quick, just an aside. Where'd that come from? That mindset? Yeah. I prefer to be safe than sorry. And, well, the fact that I'm a single mom shows that my other relationship didn't work out too well. You've been sorry before. Okay.

All right. So this is a good thing. So what I would tell you is I'm not always right. Uh-huh. But I need you to hear your language back to you, okay? Okay. Somebody you're going to marry isn't quote-unquote helping you out. Somebody you're going to spend the rest of your life with, invest in their kids, co-raise their kids while they co-raise your kids, that's not a help each other.

That's not doing you a solid that's not you helping out him with babysitting and him helping out you getting you out of a job and you got a crummy living situation you are setting yourself up to be um roommates really good roommates that hook each other up hey bro you keep take care of my pets and I'll give you a cut on rent. Sweet. Good deal. That's not saying, hey, we are going to integrate our lives together and we're going to create a new family out of what was previously two families or three families or whatever it was. And there's a whole different ethos of going into this. And so it may be that you're trying to have both where you're trying to be safe and protect yourself and get into this family and take this thing for a spin. Whatever it happens to be, I'm telling you, you're setting yourself up for it not to work because you're not

going all in. You're going as a business arrangement or as a roommate partnership and not as a potential wife, potential combined blended family. Does that make sense? Yeah, and I guess I can see very much how you would see it that way. I think that's probably how I would have saw it if I was me two years ago. Okay. So I understand where you're coming from a hundred percent. Okay. But that is

not how he comes across to me. Um, he's been good to me in ways that my husband of 10 years never, ever was. Okay. And has been going out of his way to make sure that like the road is as paved for me as possible and you know he's been giving me the language that expresses commitment saying you know I'm going to get married I want to have a child with you when we're ready I want to do you know he's not being that boyfriend who kind of keeps you at arm's length, if it says, but you could do stuff for me. Okay. Are you keeping him at arm's length? No, I don't think so.

Okay. Okay. So whenever this show airs, I want you to go back and listen to just your first statement. Okay. But we'll let's, let's move on. So I trust you. You love him.

You're all in on this deal. So how can I help? So my, like I said, only real concern with this is we both have exceedingly different parenting styles. What does that mean? He is the father of only daughters. I'm the mother of only sons. Okay. And I am exceedingly strict. I have my expectations for my boys. My boys know that they have to behave this way.

They have to do these things. Everything that you were describing earlier about going outside, that is me, 100 percent good for you games are for weekend night only okay but his daughters will wake up in the morning grab a soda and sit down and start playing video games and he's totally full of that and also you know he he just i think you know because they have not really had access to their mother and And he feels a lot of guilt for that. He's been like really lavishing on them. He'll buy them things for no apparent reason. He doesn't expect much of them.

Like, you know, my kids are younger than their than his, but they wake up and they know they have a chore list. They know that they have to finish all their food. They know they have to wash their plate. They know that I expect them to read books and, you know, just all this stuff. Whereas his girls, in comparison to my children, are feral, I mean. And so I kind of wonder, okay, well, if I'm going to be with these girls full timetime and with my boys? Am I supposed to try to have them disciplined to the point that my boys are working there?

Or am I supposed to just step back and say, you know, these are his girls, they're going to be raised that way. But if they are raised differently, come to have resentment when they see that these girls are spoiled and have no expectations and they're free to just do whatever they want. And my sons are being told, no, you have to do this. You have to do this. You can't have that. Yes. But, and if I treat these girls differently, even if they see it as positive, like, oh, you know, she doesn't put these expectations on us. Won't that in their mind, make them go, then she doesn't see us as her children.

She doesn't see herself as our mother. Otherwise, she'd be treating us the way she treats her kids. So here's the thing, Melody. I want to transition as well. Yes, please. You're going to do whatever you're going to do. But for the sake of those kids all five of them

don't move in yet okay your relationship is not in a place like again I want you to go back and listen to this the judgment you have over this man that you love and I do believe that you love him but you don't like how he parents

you don't think he does it the right way and you don't think and he parents. You don't think he does it the right way. And you don't think, and he probably thinks you're strict. You don't like the way that he has chosen to deal with the fact that, you know, their mother isn't, there's a lot here. And yes, you have nailed it. Trying to combine these two families without some sort of commitment to we're unifying this family. Because when you're combining blended families, like let's say y'all are both getting married this weekend and you'd called me, we are all in, then yes, what y'all are going to have to do is really be intentional about what kind of parents we're going to be. And that means we're going to have to set some really firm boundaries. And it is going to be World War III because kids are going to bang their head up against those boundaries to see if they hold.

And they, especially kids who have gone through divorce, they've lived in chaotic systems. They've been around heartbroken adults. They've tried to prop them up. They think that to some level this is their fault. And then somebody comes in and says, hey, no more cokes, no more video games. You go outside. Then you would have to have a season of understanding that you're going to be considered the worst person on planet earth. And you're going to have to have your boyfriends, husbands full backing so that when those girls run to their mom or run to their school counselor and they declare war on you because you're

holding them to this standard and their bodies get off of sugar and start sleeping and get off of the bleeps and the screens, it's you're in for a long transition and vice versa. When your boys who've been raised for the last, how long have you been divorced? About a year. Okay. And how long have y'all been separated?

About a year. I mean, it's kind of been, well, it's complicated. My husband decided that he didn't want to be with me, but didn't want to divorce me, so he moved out, but he would come back whenever he wanted. And he... Please, please, please, please, please. He was paying for...

He was like paying all my utilities and stuff. And I was kind of putting up with it. And when he started saying he can see other women too, that's when I said, you know what? I'm done. I don't want to do this. I've been doing this for years. I'm done.

Listen, your boys have got to get some stability. And they've got to get some sort of adult stability in their life. And taking those boys from that chaotic situation, chaos. Dad's just gone. Dad just plops back in. Dad's deciding, hey, I'm going to have girlfriends too. That relational chaos between you and him that manifested itself into the air of that home, which is, I get it, man. It's not to beat you up over that. Of course, there's going to be relational chaos in that home. If that's the kind of house your husband was trying to hold together

or that you were trying to hold together on behalf of that of your husband acting like a child and then to take those boys put them into a house with girls who were being raised completely different with a guy you're not all in on you've been with less than a year man you're i'm just telling you you that it's it's chaos find a new place to live. Continue having conversations with your current boyfriend about, hey, what would this look like down the road? Not, hey, saying all the right things. I don't care about what people say. I care about people, how they are, right?

You all start having conversations about, hey, this is how I feel strongly about not giving kids cokes at nine in the morning. I feel strongly about kids being outside and playing together and using their imaginations and not being on screens. And he may say, I feel really strongly about letting kids just do whatever they want in the mornings. I feel really strongly about letting kids play video games. They're growing up in a digital world and they're going to have to know how to do this. Whatever the thing is, y'all are just really far apart. And I get that it would probably be better financially. As you said, in a bad housing situation, whatever that means.

I get that it would be easier. Telling you, the casualty here will be those kids. All five of them. Y'all aren't ready for it, man. You're not ready for that. If y'all were 19 and 20 and y'all were just going to move in together, I would tell you don't, but the stakes would be lower. It would just be y'all were 19 and 20 and y'all were just gonna move in together i would tell you don't but it the stakes would be lower it would just be y'all but you got little kids man they got to heal from this you take that whatever you will you're probably gonna do it anyway and you're

grown up you can do whatever you want to i'm just gonna tell you to hold off man to hold off melody and get some healing under your belt get get some healing in the house, give those boys some stability. All right? All right, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back on Dr. John Deloney's show. All right, we are back. Let's go to John in Las Cruces, New Mexico. What's up, man? Hi, John. How are you?

Outstanding. How are you? I'm good, thanks. The reason I'm calling is, long story short, I'm pretty sure my son is bipolar and schizophrenic. He's an adult. I can't do anything for him. I can't ground him. I can't force him to go to counseling or anything like that. But I sure wish I knew what to do, you know. Tell me, how'd you come to this realization? Well, he's been, he's been quite the consumer of cannabis for over a decade now. And then past weekend or about this past weekend before last, he was at his mom's. He lives with his mom. He's 26, was in the backyard,

basically attacking a shrub with a pair of loppers and preparing the backyard for an in-ground pool and a basketball hoop. And his stepdad went out to try and get the loppers. Things got physical. My son got arrested and put in jail, went before the judge, and the judge could see he was struggling. And he's been in a psychiatric ward hospital for a week now. And then based on a conversation my mom, who has a master's degree in art therapy, had with his mom, she said, you know, this is just her opinion. She made it very clear. She's not the expert, but she thinks that's what's going on. her husband were sharpening their teeth with forks at the dinner table. So there's, it's some pretty out of control stuff is I guess the most polite way to put it. Sure. First and foremost, man, when you love somebody and they're struggling with mental illness, when they're institutionalized, I know that blows up your whole world.

And I hate that for you, man. I've sat with too many parents in psych wards, and it's one of the more heartbreaking moments I've spent in my career. So I hate that for you guys. I know it's been a tough, tough couple of weeks. When you and him are just hanging out, is he lucid with you? Can y'all go fishing? Can y'all go work on a farm out there? I mean, can y'all go do stuff together?

Well, it's been a long time since we've hung out. How come? Well, I'm in the transportation business. I drive cross-country. And he's up in a different city with his mom. And there have been times when I've gone through his town and I'm like, hey, I'm coming through. And, you know, for a while, over a year now, he hasn't had a car because it got hit by lightning and COVID and all that stuff. And then there were times where he would just kind of blow me off or couldn't make it happen.

So we haven't had a quality connect time for a while now. And let me back up. About five years ago, he was smoking spice. And I threw a red flag at that. Right away, I got hit with, oh, no, no, I've done my research. You know, I'm driving. I'm on the fly. I said, okay. You know, I mean, like I said a minute ago, what am I going to do, ground him, you know, and about a week or two, whatever, later, he wound up in a psych ward, because he

cooked his brain. They held him there for three days, they let him go. As I understand it, he was supposed to go to counseling, he didn't, or he went once and then blew it off. Okay. So, you know. Are you still in contact with his mom? Yes, sir. Well, she only calls me if there's an emergency. Okay. So this is an emergency. So here's a couple of things.

First, I don't, anytime somebody says they got diagnosed bipolar and schizophrenic my my i don't think so goes up my my flag goes up there um i don't put a lot of stock into that dual diagnosis and so um usually it's somehow how you just mentioned it, it's some sort of armchair, somebody that has Googled it or has enough, something like this, or a small town. I just don't hear a lot of people in the literature, I don't hear a lot of full-time professional diagnosticians giving that comorbid diagnosis, that dual diagnosis. So what I would do is wait until – if I'm you, I'd get in the car

and go meet with the doctors myself. And I would call my ex-wife or his mom or whatever relationship you have to her, and y'all got to come up with some sort of plan um you're right i smoking weed it usually is a um did y'all have a pretty tumultuous childhood there i don't think that he did i mean you know his mom and i split when he was four or five okay so yes he did have a tumultuous childhood. He did. You may not feel that he did, but he did.

Okay. So whatever it looks like as he ages out and gets older, smoking weed doesn't make me lose my hair. I will throw every red flag I've got on smoking spice for that very reason. I've seen students lose everything over that deal. They just like perfect words. It cooks their brain. Right. And so I've been there. I've seen that. I would have a circle the wagons game plan. And ultimately, what you're going to need to do is get true diagnosis from a true psychiatrist and sit down with somebody and say, what are we dealing with here? And then come up with some sort of plan between you and his mom and him, and then you're

right. He doesn't get to, I mean, he can choose not to participate. He's 26 years old. And what he's going to end up is either on the street or he's going to end up in some sort of group home on government assistance or if it's schizophrenia he can take medication and have and do counseling and he can have a productive great life right but it's finding that right group who's going to connect with him or that right professional who's going to dial in the meds and get some, the care that he needs. Usually that takes everybody in his circle talking the same language. And that means you and his stepdad and, and her getting on the same page.

Right. Right. And the problem I'm running into and his mom is, well, he signed paperwork that they can get they hit her limited information just generalizations about what's going on right um you know what the doctors are seeing that whole thing right um fill in denial about what happened and why he's there sure you know like oh you called me the other day and apologized for his silly mistake, i.e. that he grabbed ahold of the ex of the stepdad, you know?

And so that's, I'm not, I don't know how much information I'm going to get, let alone his mom, who lives in a different city, like I said, with him, you know? Right. That's where your partnership with a doctor, or often there is a social worker that helps run, helps communicate between patients like this and parents and families and community support groups. I, if I'm you, I'm on the phone with every single person I can. I would take off of work if at all possible or try to route myself through this community. The way forward is everybody being on the same page and everybody being connected. And sometimes having divorced parents in a room with somebody who's struggling is a, what's going on here? And a doctor telling everybody the same thing. And again, he's 26

and it may be a heartbreaking, just can hardly breathe through my own tears situation where he's just going to not let anybody have access to anything at any time. I've just seen persistence and continued care and, and in-person contact do worlds of wonder. And I've also sat with parents outside of psychiatric wards or in my office and had to explain to them, I know you're paying for college. I know the psych visit is on your insurance, but your kid is signed away where they will not talk to you. They think you are part of the problem.

And, man, there are a few more awkward conversations, i've had those they're hard right that could happen to you what i want there to be is a record of me going to the ends of the earth to try to get the right information get everybody on the same page okay um that may be you reaching out to her and here's what i say i would tell you. I would tell you, if your son is diagnosed bipolar, if your son is diagnosed schizophrenic, there's readings you can do. There are groups you can join. There are Facebook groups with parents, with kids, and there's all kinds of resources you can join. But you don't even know what this is yet. Or it might be just a bad trip with some bad hallucinogens or some bad spice or some bad K2, whatever it happens to be. And man, it may just need to heal his brain for a little while, and then he's going to be back to normal.

And then we've got to do the hard work of why is he a drug addict, right? Right. So that's, again, I think your best friend right now is information, and your best friend is partnership, even if it's with somebody that you've struggled being in partnership with before. And here's the third and final thing. You're going to have to deal with the grief of the last five years. You're going to have to deal with the grief of the last seven years. You're going to have to deal with the grief of my son's in a psych ward and I'm however many miles away. And that means you're going to have to find somebody who will hold you accountable to your diet choices, to

sleeping choices, to not trying to work your way out of your feelings, to go sit with somebody and just say, hey, I'm heartbroken, whether that's a local pastor or a local counselor there in town, whatever that looks like for you. But you're going to have to be well and whole through this deal. Otherwise, you're going to bring your own chaos and your own spin to this situation. And it doesn't need any more chaos. It doesn't need any more spin to this deal. So in order real quick, you need real information from real professionals who know what they're talking about. Whether that's going to be the psychiatrist, the doctors, whomever, you got to get real information, not a friend of a friend, not an art therapist who knows somebody who knows somebody else. You need to get real information,

okay? Real data. Number two, you and your son's mom have got to agree and stepdad, however awkward it is for y'all, we're going to come together in partnership over this deal. We're going to discuss things. We're going to learn from each other. We're going to sit in the same room and be grownups for the benefit of our son. We're going to figure this thing out. Okay. And then you're going to do the best you can to connect with that hospital, with your son, with the social worker, with whoever that is that can get you back into relationship with this young man. Because through relationship, he can be, I don't want to say convinced, but through relationship, he might decide, okay, I'll start taking some medication. Through relationship, he might think, okay, I don't trust them, but I

trust you. I don't trust you, but I kind of trust her. Through relationship, that's your only shot at him getting some sort of shot at him getting some sort of healing, him getting some sort of wellness plan that he can follow and continue on the rest of his days. Okay? And then, man, just dad to dad, you got to be present, man. You got to call him. Even if he won't talk to you, you got to write him letters.

Even if he doesn't write you back, Every time you can, route through that town. And if he says, yeah, I'll meet you, and he doesn't show up, that's on him, not you. And it will be heartbreaking. It will be hard. Man, John, that's your son. Keep showing up and keep showing up and keep showing up. Okay? I know it's hard.

I know it's hard. I know it's heartbreaking every time. Keep showing up. Man, thanks for that call. All right, let's take one more. Let's go to Adam in Phoenix. Hey, Adam, what's up, brother? Hey, Dr. Dolaney, how are you?

I'm good, brother. What's going on, man? So the reason I'm calling today is my 30-year-old brother was recently in a car accident. And due to the car accident, he is now paralyzed from the waist down. Ugh, man. Ugh, man. Sorry, man. I'm so sorry. So, so, so sorry.

It's heartbreaking, man. Yeah, yeah. So the first four weeks after the accident, you know, he was in the hospital having surgeries and therapies and, you know, learning how to live with what's now his new life. Is this a permanent paralysis? The doctors think yes, but there's always hope or miracles or whatever the case might be. Sure. But the prognosis is this is not temporary. This is a new permanent way of being.

Correct. Okay. Okay. Yeah yeah so who's he staying with now so he's actually living with my parents now because uh he has a girlfriend but you know he's not married or anything so my parents thought it'd be best that he moves back in with them okay sorry man i'm so sorry so how can i help I help, brother? What can I do for you? So since he's come back, I've flown out there shortly after he moved back with my parents just to visit, see how he's doing, try to normalize things a little bit or help my parents in any way I could. But since I've left and come back home, since I actually live in Arizona, you know, just talking with my parents and kind of talking with him, there's been, you know, anger and fights between them

and, you know, wishes he would have just died in a car accident, stuff like that. So I guess my question is, how can I help from so far away? When I'm hearing this from them, you know, I try to talk to my brother, text him, call him. You know, sometimes he does respond, sometimes he doesn't. And I think it's kind of like some days are better than others, essentially. Yeah. Phew, man.

So not my brother, but my oldest friend on planet Earth was in a similar situation the weekend after he graduated college. One of his friends ran a stop sign and he's been wheelchair bound ever since and some traumatic brain injury and so um i remember the arc of this i think i think he was 19 or 20 he's probably 21 um yeah it changed everything changed everything right a couple of things that i learned from that situation just personally is, man, really what you're talking about. what day it was, didn't know what time it was, yet I took every glance, every dismissal, every angry statement that he would mumble out. I took all that stuff personally, man. And I didn't realize the extent of the trauma inside his body, right? Um, I did not understand the extent of grief his mom and dad were going through

um his little brother is still one of my best friends in the world i didn't understand the grief his brother was going through right i don't understand the grief i was going through so the first thing i would tell you is be real gracious with everybody there is not a right way to go through with this. Feeling suicidal after you lost what feels like everything is not out of bounds. I don't say it's normal, but it's not crazy. Okay. Not knowing what to do, not wanting to talk to people, being embarrassed, being ashamed. Is he able to go to the bathroom on his own? Does someone have to help him with that? He is able to go to the bathroom on his own, but my parents help clean up after the fact.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of that is a level of discomfort and embarrassment and shame, all that stuff. And then your parents, they had a life, right? And I know the cool thing is to say like, oh, do anything. Man, I had a life and I got a 30-year-old living with me. 30-year-old who takes a lot of work and then they're going to get cast into who's going to take care of them after we're gone. And do we have enough money and we have to remodel the house? There's all these practical things that, yeah, just come out as anger. Anger is a normal part of the grieving process.

It's wired into us. It's okay. So the best thing you can do for them is, and for everybody, is one, be really graceful, right? Be really gracious. Number two, keep reaching out, man. Keep reaching out. Write letters. Send funny things. Keep reaching out. Write letters. Send funny things.

Keep reaching out. If they call you and they're angry and frustrated, if you can, in any shape, form, or fashion, put them on FaceTime so you can see them. They can talk to you. And just let them talk, man. Just let them talk. It's part of the grieving process. They are heartbroken. Their whole world's been turned upside down.

All y'alls have, right? Man, and here's where you will get eventually, if not sooner rather than later. I'll never forget sitting in an IHOP. It's me, my best friends Chris and Caleb, who was Ryan's little brother, and we had a talk. Like, are we going to – like, we made fun of each other a lot. Uncomfortably so. People would ask, like, are y'all friends? That's just how we talk to each other. We've known each other since we were zero, right?

We talked and we had, like, man, we're not going to treat him any different, right? If I have to go, you know, help him in the bathroom, it's going to be uncomfortable for both of us. And so we're going to laugh our way through this. And, or if I'm going to, you know, we're going to have to get the chair out when we're going to eat, get a wheelchair out, and we're going to eat or going to concerts. But man, we're going to do some fun. We're going to make some fun of each other a lot. And he does it back really uncomfortable for me, man. And he makes me embarrassed and I don't get embarrassed. So all I have to say is this, at some point, you're going to have to reintroduce humor, brotherly love, poking at each other, bring that back in due time, and that will help norm the psychological and spiritual connections that

y'all have, right? He's obviously going to have a different life because of mobility challenges. One of the hardest things about mobility challenges is everybody treats you differently, like you're somehow gentle and broken, and there's something just compassionate about saying, nice face, nice shirt. That's how you haircut. That's what you're going to do, right? And you suddenly realize, oh, you're just one of the guys. Does that make sense?

And so it's not handling him with kid gloves. That may not be the season right now, a few weeks out, right? There's still a lot of healing going on. But over time, you want to be the brother you were beforehand, right? The one that loves him and that pokes at him and that clowns him about Christmas and all those fun things that brothers do and those mean things brothers do. That's going to be a key part of him, his healing and his growth. Does that make sense? Yep. Yeah, definitely.

And then here's a big one, man. And I did not do this for years. I didn't even know to do it. But you're going to be grieving from this too. Suddenly, things got really mortal. Right? How old are you? 32.

32. Are you married, kids, anything? Yep. Married one daughter. Okay. Everything in your psychology just changed. The, yeah, it could always be worse. You know, that kind of nonsense, the trivial stuff that moms, you know, sew onto pillows.

That's real in your world now. You know what that looks like. And it will come out in how you parent. It will come out in how you, when your wife is 15 minutes late calling you, you'll immediately go to those, the worst case scenarios. You'll, it'll change the way you drive. It'll change the way you interact with people. It will change you. And so I want to make sure you take care of your grief. Make sure you're a whole man. And if that means go to see somebody, go see somebody. If that means you got to get with a local group in your hometown, get with a local group in your hometown. If that means being honest and

letting your wife know, hey, I'm still struggling with this big time, let her grieve because she's going to be grieving too. Your wife, your daughter, and her uncle, right? Everybody's going to be grieving on this thing. If you skip the grief part and try to start solving things, man, you're just going to shove it down. And I'm telling you, I did that. And I didn't deal with it for years. And I didn't deal with it for years. And I didn't know where all of my angst and drama and relational issues were coming from. And a lot of it stemmed back to, oh my gosh, man, my oldest friend in the world, somebody I loved dearly, just like a brother. One weird turn and it all changed, right?

So don't dishonor yourself. Make sure you're taking care of yourself too. Thank you so, so much for that call, man. Thank you so, so much for that call. If you're in a season where you can sit down and read, again, I've recommended this book a million times, Finding Meaning by David Kessler. It's about grief.

It's often about death, but this is grief is grief is grief, man. There's no, you can't compare it. It's a great book to sit down and read when your parents are ready to start reading. It's a great book to read as a family. Y'all can talk about it. You can think about it, but it'll give you some practical tools. But more importantly, it will let you know you're not crazy. There is no right way to grieve. There is some wrong ways, but there's no right way to do it. Continue to show up ways, but there's no right way to do it. Continue to show up there for your family, man. Let them be angry. Let them be frustrated.

Let them be heartbroken. If your brother says, hey, I'm going to kill myself today, obviously call 911, right? But him waking up frustrated and just beat down by this is normal, man. And you too. All right. Thanks so much for that call, Adam.

It sucks, man. Sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks. Brings back a lot of... Man. All right, so as we wrap up today's show, again, I was listening to this on the way to work today, man. Greatest songs ever written. And I think these guys are the most common,

the band I refer to the most on this show, man. Chorus off the Magpie and the Dandelion record. It's the Avett Brothers with the really extraordinary song Open and Dead Life, and it goes like this. Pack a change of clothes and a pillow for the road for when we drift off to sleep and put the sketches and the notes in a box labeled burn with furniture.

We will watch the fire burn and the whole entire house will burn down to ashes. From the mirror, we'll admire how the flame quickly retires. We won't waste no long goodbyes on the smoke or foolish lies that finally passed us. Let's find something new to talk about because I'm tired of talking about myself. I spent my whole life talking to convince everyone that I was something else. And the part that kind of hurts is I think it finally worked. And now I'm leaving and I get the feeling things have changed. But the mystery to me is where and

when along the way did anyone decide that they believed me? I was taught to keep an open-ended life. How those guys can write. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show.