The Dr. John Delony Show - I Can't Get Over My Parents' Divorce

Episode Date: March 25, 2022

In today’s show, we’re talking with a resident assistant at a loss for how to help a suicidal student, a young man realizing he never grieved his parents’ divorce, and a husband wanting to support his wife who is a survivor of domestic violence.  How do I help students with mental health issues as a resident assistant? I’m struggling with the idea that my parents are never getting back together. My wife is a survivor of domestic violence. How do I help her feel safe? Lyrics of the day: "Falling to Pieces" - Faith No More Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Greensbury Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. If she sees someone that looks like him, it's the same thing. She just kind of goes into this panic. As much as you feel comfortable, tell me about sexual intimacy. Y'all good? Oh, it's fantastic. Sorry. We party, brother.

No, don't apologize. It's awesome. What are you doing? Welcome to the Dr. John Deloney Show. I hope you're having fun. I hope you're cleaning something, running from something. I guess not running from something. Running from bad health towards good health.

I hope you're exercising. I hope you're driving to work. Whatever's going on. Maybe you just put a podcast on to drown out your three little ones screaming their heads off in your house. Whatever you're doing, I'm glad that you're with us. I'm glad that you joined us. Man, we are so grateful that you are here. If you want to be on the show, give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. Let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Grace in St. George, Utah. What's up, Grace? How we doing? I'm good. How are you? I'm having a blast. What's up in your world? So basically I am a resident assistant at my university and I've had a resident lately

who has been having, um, like really severe mental health issues. And, um, my boss has basically just asked me to like keep checking in on her and everything. Um, but our university is super understaffed, umed in the counseling office. I don't really have anywhere to refer her to. And so basically it's been falling on me to like check in on her. But I mean, the first time I checked in on her, I had to call the emergency line because she told me she was having hallucinations and like intrusive thoughts that were suicidal. And basically, I just don't really know how to be a friend to her and also make sure that I'm protecting myself. Yes. Making sure that I'm not getting hurt. You're you are very

wise. How old are you, Grace? I'm 20. Good for you. You are wiser than many, many, many folks twice your age. So good for you. I'm glad that you are in that role. Um, lots of stuff here. Let's try to figure out where to start here. Um, let's start with just the state of the RA position. So I, how'd you find this show? Let me ask you that Well, I guess I listened to Dave Ramsey Okay And I took his classes in high school, so, through the Ramsey show And you thought you would upgrade and elevate, and you found our show here I'm so glad that you're here

So, for those not listening, the resident assistant, the RA position, is the live-in position. So it's usually an undergraduate student, sometimes a graduate student, who lives in the residence hall with college kids. And it can be a fun job, but it is an exhausting, frightening, thankless job. And usually they way underpay you and they give you room and they give you like a free place to live, which is great. It's awesome. But that comes with 24-7, 365, emergency care, mental health care. Often you've probably held students who are vomiting because they drank too much and you're getting barfed on or bleeding, whatever. It comes with so much stuff. And so it's 24-7, 365.

And then situations like this. So, Grace, tell me about the student. When you say having some significant mental health challenges, you mentioned the student is suicidal, saying, like, I'm thinking about hurting myself. They've talked about they're hallucinating. Tell me what else is going on in the life of this student. Yeah. So when she talked to me, she said that she hadn't gotten out of bed for three days.

And she said her thoughts are like, she's like, they're not like my own thoughts. But she's still having them. She'll have thoughts telling her to hurt herself. But she's like, I don't want to do that. And then she's still having them, like she'll have thoughts telling her to hurt herself, but she's like, I don't want to do that. Um, and then she's also having hallucinations. Um, and her parents aren't real supportive. And again, the university doesn't really offer what they say they're going to offer. Um, so, so here's, here's where universities have found themselves. And having been in this exact role, I'll tell you here's the challenges colleges have found themselves. They've really found themselves in a no-win game.

Here's why. When someone has a mental health diagnosis, it's an ADA 504 issue. Okay. So you can't treat somebody differently because of their disability. So you can't make a student who is challenged with mobility, who gets around in a wheelchair. You can't say, well, you can't be a biology major because that building doesn't have a elevator. So sorry, you got to pick from our other majors. You can't say, well, you can't be a biology major because that building doesn't have an elevator. So, sorry, you got to pick from our other majors. You can't do that. You can't treat them differently.

You're responsible for providing accessibility to the biology lab, to the classrooms. And so when you get to mental health issues like this, they become really messy really fast because I can't tell a student, you have to leave my college because then I'm treating them differently. I can't tell a student, you can't have access to this part of the campus because I'm violating their disability. At the same time, there's court cases where a student took their life, they died by suicide suicide and the school was held liable. And so now schools have found themselves in this weird, and for a season, there was a few years where they used the disciplinary, the student conduct code as a way to get rid of students, to say, hey, you are no longer safe to this environment, to this community. You have to leave, which then they successfully sued that you're violating my disability rights.

You can't kick me out because I have a mental health issue. And so now schools are like, what do we do? And then you throw in the massive financial issues that many, many, many schools are having across the country. And then you get to where you are, Grace, where you're a 20-year-old undergraduate student who is trying to get your degree. And you're an RA and then somebody unbelievably said, like, I'm visibly, I'm trying to talk a little bit too much right now because I'm angry on your behalf, that anyone would ever tell an undergraduate student, hey, just check on them. And you've got somebody who has said, I've got voices in my head telling me to kill myself.

And your supervisor would say, well, just keep an eye on them, right? Oh, man. So here's a few things that I would do if I'm in your situation. Number one, I need you to know that that's an unethical response, that it's an unethical situation you've been put in the middle of and i hate that for you um it's never the responsibility of a student employee or a paraprofessional employee to deal with somebody who says i'm going to kill myself that's when the adults in the room have to show up okay um so i'm sorry that you've been put in that situation the first thing i would do is you look in the mirror and I need you to hear me say this directly. This is major psychiatric issues that go well beyond

my capabilities. Okay. So if somebody came into my office and told me what that student has told you, which has happened, I can't even count how many times that exact conversation has happened. I, even with all the training and experience I've got, would take that student and make sure they were in contact with on or off campus resources. Okay. So that's not your job right now, but I need you to hear me say, you can't heal. There's not a thing you can say to this student that they're going to go, oh, there's not a, this has exceeded your ability, right? Your capacity. And so I need you to make sure that you are not feeling responsible for this student's

well-being, their mental health issues. We are into psychiatry territory now, okay? That's hard for you because you're somebody who helps. You wouldn't even have this job. Do you feel yourself trying to take this all on? A little bit, yeah. Okay. More so I've just been worried about like not taking it on, like really trying to like not feel responsible. Okay. All right. So the second thing I would do is put in writing

what you've experienced and make sure that your director of residence life, the assistant dean over housing or whatever your thing, that they have that in front of them. And that's going to include your resident hall director. Okay? And there's going to be some sort of, you're getting me in, like, you jumped the line or you should not have sent this to this person.

You should have sent it to me, the resident director and the hall director. And I should have sent it to, this is a point where somebody has told you I'm hearing voices and they're telling me to kill myself. So I'm calling in all the cavalry, calling in everybody. You know what I mean? And if somebody fires you for that, your lawsuit will be incredible. Okay. So I would put in writing, I need everyone to be on the same page with this. This student has said the following, and I feel unequipped to be responsible for the mental

healthcare of the student and let them be take over from there. My guess is you will probably get some sort of heat for sending that email. Okay. And here's what I want. The reason I want you to send emails, I want you to put it in writing that you as a 20 year old have been asked to, well, you just check on them and let us know how things are going and that you feel increasingly ill-equipped and unprepared for dealing with a student who has said, I'm hearing voices and I'm going to kill myself. Okay. And so if heaven forbid, something does happen, you can say, I put everybody on notice that I was not equipped for this and this was not part of my job. Also, the school, many schools have students who exceed their capacity for care.

That's normal. It's the school's job, and I've had to have all kinds of conversations throughout my career to get off-campus resources lined up for their students if they're telling their parents that we're taking care of your kids. And so it should be, if the counseling center doesn't have care great it should be that there's partnerships with local hospitals local mental health resources local psychiatric units and things that we can send this kid to sounds like your college does not have that is that right they do sort of um but it's like the on-campus one is supposed to be free and so then when they refer people off campus and they have to like make sure they get it covered and and insurance and things, and I just don't know how supportive her parents are and all of that. So what I would tell you is this, unfortunately, some people, and you've dealt with this, I know you have, have crummy parents. They have parents who don't show up,

or they have extraordinary parents who simply don't have the financial means. They don't know what to do next. And it's really hard when you love somebody and you care about them to be frustrated about their parents, but that's not something that you can handle. That's not on you, okay? Hopefully, hopefully, you have a dean of students or a vice president for student affairs who's reaching out to the parents saying, we have a major, major situation here. Your child is not okay. They are threatening to hurt themselves in our residence hall. They're hearing voices and we have to get them the care they need. And I can't tell you how many times I've made that phone call in my career.

So it's normal. It's part of the job. It should happen. And there does come a moment when the student's care needs do exceed the capacity of the institution to help out. And that's when the 504, the Disability Services Office and the Dean of Students, that's what everybody partners together for what we do next. And their job is to partner with the parents, not yours. Okay. And it is okay to care. And the best way you can care for this student, this young woman is to make sure everybody knows how serious this is. Um, is every, are you confident that everybody knows the status of this deal?

I, I would think so. Um, when I call the emergency line, then they bring in some sort of assessment team, and they assess her for risk. And every time, they've just been like, well, she's clear. Okay. So here's the thing. This is going to be hard for you. Just trust the team because that's their professional job. And you might think, oh, no, oh, no. The student may be telling you one thing and them another.

That's why writing down, having it in writing is important. But if a team comes in, trust the team. As hard as that is, trust the team. One other thing you might do is contact somebody in the counseling office that you have a relationship with, whether it's one of the staff therapists or the director of the counseling center, and write them an email too and say, this student has continued to tell me that they're suicidal, that they're this, that they're this, that they're that. Can you please give me a few tips on what I should do when they say this? And again, you're letting another professional in your world understand exactly what's going on here. And final thing, keep calling. If you call 911 and they show up and they clear somebody and they leave and it happens an hour later, call 911 again and then call 911 again. Because that's the only tool

they've given you is this number, right? To call this assessment team. I will also tell you this, and this is hard to hear. I have worked with, I came to hundreds of RAs in my career. And sometimes RAs, because they live with the students, because they really care deeply, they feel like they've got more insight than anybody else. They feel like they actually are the ones who know more. And so I would trust the professionals in the world around you. That's hard because you're going to feel like, oh, y'all aren't doing anything.

They may not be doing anything for a reason. So send the emails, make sure the adults in the room know exactly what's being said, exactly what's going on. Keep caring and care by passing this information along and then trust the professionals in your world. That's such a hard job, Bidinari.

Thank you for being brave and courageous and for leaning into people's lives. And for everybody listening, make the call. Make the call. Most of us are not equipped to deal with this kind of stuff. Make the call. We'll be right back. It seems like everybody's talking about

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and get the home buyer edge today. All right. I guess I should have said all right, all right, all right. But the mascot of Texas already has that line. He stole it. He didn't steal it. He made it. He made it up.

Literally made it up. Let's go to Nolan in the opposite of Texas, Alberta, Canada. What's up, Nolan? How we doing? Hello? What's up, Nolan? How we doing? Hello? What's up, Nolan? Hey, thanks for taking my call. Of course, brother. Thanks for calling. What's up? So my mom is getting remarried this May. Okay. And I'm not sure how I should be handling this because I want to be happy for her.

But the situation's kind of bothering me. Tell me about it. So my parents separated almost 11 years ago. Okay. And I was 12 at the time. And I'm 23 now. And my mom has been with this guy for three years. And,

uh, prior to that, she was single for seven years. And, um, now she's going to be marrying this guy and he's a really nice guy, but I've come to realize that this is kind of the peak of my parents never getting back together. So that's a common, common story that kids tell themselves is it may work out again.

Especially as there's a little bit of space between the divorce, the actual pain of the divorce, not the pain, the pain goes forever, the proceedings of the divorce, the actual pain of the divorce, not the pain, the pain goes forever, the proceedings of the divorce, and then parents start being more civil and they even become friends again. And there's always this running narrative that maybe they're going to get back together. Oh man, that's hard. So sounds like your mom was single,

stayed single long enough for her to be able to dote on you until you left the house. Is that about right? Yeah, that is correct. Wow. What a noble woman. Loneliness is brutal. It is brutal.

Tell me about your relationship with your dad. My relationship with my dad is, we're kind of close in some areas, but we don't have deep conversations together. Okay. How come? Um, uh, well, we've never been able to kind of form that, that bond after the separation. Why'd they get separated? Why'd they get divorced? So my dad, he had an affair with somebody that I knew. And your mom said, I'm out? Well, my dad, it was my dad's choice to leave because he had his eyes on this other woman instead of my mom. Are they still together? No, my dad is not together with that woman,

but he has somebody else now, and they are engaged. Okay. Oh, man. I don't know if anyone's ever told you this. They probably have, and I don't know if you believed them. That divorce wasn't your fault, Nolan. You'd believe me when I say that?

Yeah. Many people have told me that, and I want to believe it, but sometimes it's hard. I know. And there's a 12-year-old in there that's still trying to figure out what in the world you did to split them up. And I hate that for you. Yeah. Because it wasn't on you.

And there's part of you wondering with everybody you date and everybody you go out with, when's it going to come? When are they going to leave you? And every time you get close to somebody who's a male role model, you keep wondering when they're going to leave,

whether it's a boss or a supervisor or a coach or something like that. And it's hard to trust your parents, even though you love them. And so you've just kind of been untethered. And the story has been the thing that's held you together. And now the story is for sure having a period at the end of it, right? And this whole thing's hard. Brother, it was not your fault. And I hate this for you. I hate this, hate this, hate this. And divorce is so common that we forget how devastating it is. Man, I hate this for you, brother.

So the real challenge here is how to own the past, right? How do you own what happened? How do you make sense of what happened? And then how do you get on to what comes next? And so the question I'll ask you is while you're healing and while you're starting to write something new, what do you want tomorrow to look like, man? Because this has haunted you for half your life. Yeah, I just want to make the most of my life

and not repeat the cycle. Okay, so that's real, like, highfalutin language. I want to make the most of it. What does that actually mean? Um, I think I just want to honor my parents and,

and, you know, love them and not, not judge them for, for their past things and all that. And I want to have a good relationship with my family. Okay. And I just want to be successful in whatever I do in my life. Okay. Here's what's so hard about divorce is you plugged into that relationship and that relationship unplugged from you.

And if one of your goals is to have great relationships with your family, that's noble and the idea is great, but it takes two to have a relationship. And you can spend tons of energy and passion and excitement and all that stuff, trying to make relationships work with people who are not interested in having relationships with you. This is going to be hard for me to tell you, and I don't mean to bag on your old man, but it's his job to connect with you.

He's your dad, and he chose not to. And that sucks. The reason you don't have deep conversations with your dad is that he's never had them with you. You're his kid. It's his job to set up an environment where you feel safe enough to talk to him, where you feel safe enough to challenge him, to ask him hard questions, to push him on things, him to push you on things, him to ask you hard questions, him to call you and say, what are you doing? Why are you wearing that? Those are only true and noble and accountable conversations

if there's a relational context. And most kids go their whole life asking themselves, what did I do to my dad that was so bad that he couldn't give me that? And that's why it's so important from you to hear me say, that wasn't on you, man. And you've got to make peace with the fact that that relationship may never happen because of him, because he chose for it not to be. You still respect him. You still honor him. You don't talk crap about him, you move on with your life. But at some point, you have to stop beating yourself up over a relationship that wasn't yours to hold on to.

It was his. Do you believe me when I say that? Yeah, yeah, I do believe that. And it's hard. I know it's hard. So let me paint you a picture of what the other side of this can look like. Your father dishonored your mom. And then instead of healing that dishonor, he bolted.

He left. He took off on her. Left her high and dry. Alone. And he left you. You got brothers and sisters? Yeah, I have two younger brothers. Yeah, he bailed on his three boys.

And mom duct taped that thing together. Your mom's pretty awesome? Yeah, she's great. Yeah. She's probably not perfect. That's hard. The amount of loss and trauma and then raising three knucklehead boys is hard, right? You can only imagine that.

And then here she is. And so if you can wrap your head around this hard concept, your parents' marriage is not a reflection of you. Them not getting back together is not the signal that ultimately you failed because you had nothing to do with their relationship. You can be devastated. You can be heartbroken. You can be pissed off off all those things are good All things are right. All those things are noble

It's how you act on the back end of those things and so what your mom looks like is she took a long route and she Doubled down on you guys and she finally said i'm not going to be lonely anymore and she found as you put him A great guy a good guy, which is incredible. I would begin honoring that. And hear me say this, the discomfort you have in honoring that

doesn't mean it's wrong. Doesn't mean that it's, that you're somehow, you're gonna feel like you're betraying your dad. I want you to put that nonsense down. You're not betraying your dad, you're loving your mom. And this guy who's gonna take care of your mom, he's a good man, he sounds like he's a good guy. He is going to give your mom peace

and he's gonna give your mom connection and he better not cheat on your mom, right? He's gonna be the guy that stepped in that gap that your father left. And here's what I would recommend you do. And if you've listened to this show, I've said a thousand times, I would write your dad a letter

that you're never gonna send him and tell him everything. How heartbroken you are, how hard you tried. Ask him why he never connected with you. Ask him what was so bad about his son that he left him, what was so bad about those little brothers that he just took off on them. And then I want you to write your 12-year-old self a letter and say, dear 12-year-old me, remember the house you grew up in, remember that house, remember the school you were at,

talk about some of those details to help to bring that memory back. And then I want you to let that kid off the hook and say, hey, you've been fighting for me for 12 years now. It's time for you to go play. It's time for you to go have fun because you got dragged into an adult fist fight and you were not prepared for that fight. So when I say those things, Nolan, like, how's that? Does that ring true to you? Or does that sound like hogwash? No, that rings true for sure. Okay. Write those two letters. And then here's your third letter. Okay. Here's your third homework assignment. That letter to your dad, maybe three paragraphs. It may be 25 pages. Okay. A letter to yourself, maybe five

paragraphs. It may be 25 pages. Let that stuff go. And you may want to talk to that little boy a couple of times because he's been fighting for you for a long time. Then the last letter I want you to write that you're going to actually send is to your mom. And I want you to tell her how brave you think she is, how strong you think she is, that this new marriage is going to be hard, but that you are in her corner and you love her and you're going to try to love this new guy and you're going to respect him and that you're going to ask for her to be graceful with you because the whole thing is kind of weird, but you are fully in. You're in mama's corner just like she's been in yours.

I want you to wrap your head around that, write that letter, and then actually send that one. But a big chunk of that is to thank your mom. Thank her for sticking around when dad bailed. Thanks for raising you three little crazy kids,

for making sure y'all had food and clothes, and for never walking out on you. Because mom took the hard path. Does that sound good? Yeah, sounds good. All right, Brother Nolan, we'll be thinking about you, man. Hey, in that letter with this,

make sure your mom saves a dance for you at her wedding. That way you don't have to say anything. You're all just going to dance. You're going to hug. You're going to put your big old 23-year-old head on her little bitty shoulder. And y'all are going to dance like you haven't danced in about 10 or 15 years. You're worth that dance. She's worth that dance.

We'll be right back. All right. We'll take one more call. Let's go to Jake in Sacramento, California. What's up, brother Jake? Hey. All right, we'll take one more call. Let's go to Jake in Sacramento, California. What's up, brother Jake? Hey, thank you for taking my call, Dr. John. How are you?

I'm good, man. How about you? Doing all right, doing all right. Well, I have an issue. So my wife is a survivor of domestic violence from a prior relationship, of course. And she has a lot of things that cause like triggering events for her. So I just wanted to know how I can best be an advocate for her during that time. I mean, what I can do, you know, try to help her get past that. I know it's going to take a lot of time for her to heal and she may always

have that kind of issue, but what can I do to help her? Man, she's lucky to have you. It's awesome to take a lot of time for her to heal, and she may always have that kind of issue. But what can I do to help her? Man, she's lucky to have you. It's awesome. Thank you. How long have you been married? Oh, boy. Going on five years. Okay.

So tell me about triggers and episodes and what happens. Yeah. So, um, if we go to like a certain part of town where some of these, um, things took place, she'll kind of like panic and get real quiet. And if she sees someone that looks like him, it's the same thing. Uh, she just kind of goes into this panic and kind of closes into herself. If that makes sense. Won't say anything, just kind of freezes. If she feels like she's stuck, like let's say we're in the bathroom getting ready together in the morning. I noticed this when we first got married, she would kind of do the same thing. So now I intentionally get ready on the side where I'm kind of stuck in the room and she has the right next to the door, you know? Sure.

So just kind of those things. What about, we can't go to certain restaurants? Yeah, certain restaurants. We can't go to like the ski park up in north of us and you know, just stuff like that. Man, okay. Tell me about, as much as you feel comfortable, tell me about sexual intimacy. Y'all good? Oh, it's fantastic.

Sorry. We party, brother. No, don't apologize. We waited until we were married, and now it's been amazing. Cool. Okay. All right. So I'm going to say some things that are going to, people are going to have comments on, and that's fine. But I've just, man, this one's close to home for me, and so I'm going to be pretty direct, okay? Okay. Number one, your wife's lucky to have you. Most partners can be, not most, many partners can be insensitive to this.

Um, they don't care or get over it or deal with it, whatever. And it sounds like you are interested in your wife feeling safe and your wife being well. When I think that she is lucky to have you. Good for you. I'm glad that that's your impulse and that's your heart. That's so good. Thank you. Um, so here, the basics of trauma is this,

is her body remembers these stories, remembers the location of these stories, remembers the guy who hurt her in the past, where she was hurt, what was happening when she was hurt, the environment. And her body is now, like, if you think about, like, Terminator 2, one of those scanning things with, like, the red, you know, night goggle vision, right? Those red lights. She's just scanning the environment 24-7, 365 for the next time she's going to get hurt. And her body's identified locations, people, you know, meals, like, whatever. Like, all this environmental stuff, all the ecosystem stuff. And when she finds herself in these places and she can't run, she can't fight it, she's learned. You just go numb, right? We're going to freeze. We're going to shut this sucker down.

And here's the hard truth. You can, like you were doing, be really careful about environmental triggers. You know this part of town is no bueno? I'm not going to this part of town. These restaurants aren't good. We're not going to the hockey game? Cool, we're not going to the hockey game. You need to stand on this side of the bathroom?

Cool, I'll stand on that side of the bathroom. Those kind of things you've been really accommodating for, those are avoidant. Those aren't healing. Right. Okay? those are avoidant those aren't healing right okay ultimately your wife is going to have to decide that she is not going to live under an identity of x survivor that she is going to say i survived x i lived through it now i'm going to be about the healing journey that comes next. And lucky for her, there are some incredible trauma treatments, right? And I do think, given what you just

explained to me, I do think she needs to get with a trauma counselor. And some of these things might take years. Some of these things, given her partnership with you, given that she's got a safe home, man, some of these things may be 12 or 14 sessions and that's it. And here's what trauma counseling does. It teaches you ways to begin to take control back of your own body. I'm going to control my breathing. I'm going to do these two or three things

when my heart rate takes off on me. I'm going to learn these body safety things. And then with the help of a therapist, after three, four, five, six sessions, we're then going to go back through the trauma narrative. And here's why I'm going to do that. I'm going to take these new tools I have about how to let my body know that we're safe now. We weren't, but we are now. And we're going to stop our bodies from telling this old story in the present through diarrhea, through vomiting, through shutting down, through getting silent, through getting scared, through clenching, all those things that trauma survivors experience. And we're going to go back through the trauma narrative. We're going to tell that story until it's exposure, right? Until

my body stops taking off on me. Or when it does, I know how to take care of it. We're going to things like exposure therapy. We're going to go to the other part of town and we're going to have these new tools and we're going to breathe through. When we were in this part of town 10 years ago, eight years ago, we weren't safe. Now we're safe. Now we're okay. And this is a process, but it starts with her deciding, I want my body to heal. And here's where that's really hard. Number one, we live in a culture that gives identity to the worst thing that ever happened to you. That becomes a who we are, that we live out of.

And the second thing that makes this really hard is that type of thinking in our minds and in our bodies keeps us safe. It kept us alive. And what we have to know is the things that work to keep us alive then are slowly killing us now. And that's a hard shift. It will feel for a season like she's losing control,

like she is intentionally putting herself in harm's way. And that's where those new things we learn about how to breathe through things, how to roll with things, how to, instead of clamming up to reach over and grab your hand, how to lean into that discomfort when we're surrounded by people that are keeping us safe or that or that are, have our safety in mind. And then slowly the body goes, Oh yeah, we're good. We're good now.

And then two years, three years down the road, you'll be in another part of town and she'll have forgotten about it. And she'll be like, Oh, Oh, look at this. We're in this part,

right? That's going to take some work, but she's gonna have to decide that. Here's where this is hard. Here's go ahead. Oh, sorry. She has gone to several counselors.

A lot of them say that they can't do anything. A lot of them have broken down crying in the middle of their sessions, which is interesting. Hey, that sort of empathy I'm okay with, but you can't talk your way out of something that somebody beat into you. Right.

There's no amount of, oh, okay, this is something that you have to practice. And whether it's TFCBT or whether it's EMDR, whether it's some of these things, TFCBT is usually with kids, but there's some great, great counselors who can help. So I would specifically ask for somebody who is skilled in seeking safety, skilled in trauma counseling. What's frustrating for me is when you get with a good trauma counselor, the healing can be, not always, can be relatively fast, a couple of months, six or seven months, three or four months, maybe a year. And so if there's systemic abuse that went over years and years and years from your parents and sexual abuse, some of that stuff will

last for years and years. Some stuff can be healed quicker if the therapist knows what they're doing. And if you have a client who's willing to jump in with both feet, but just traditional, let's just sit down and talk about this, man, that's this. Man, there's some literature that suggests that's re-traumatizing because your body's re-experiencing this, but you haven't given your body any new tools on how to deal with it. That's why I'm such an advocate of writing stuff down. That's why I'm such an advocate of breath work. That's why I'm such an advocate of moving your body,

letting these stress chemicals, when they set off, letting them have a place to cycle through and not just get stuck in your body and loop and loop and loop and loop. I'm a huge fan of EMDR. I'm a huge fan of body movement therapy, right? There's a lot of modalities if you get a trained person in your corner. And I hate, hate, hate that you guys got somebody that didn't know what they were doing. Or they didn't stop and say, hey, I need to pass you on. I've got a reference of three people that can help specifically with this sort of physical abuse trauma. I hate that for y'all. Please don't give up on therapy just because y'all got a couple of bad apples, okay?

Yeah, no, no, no. Cool. She's been actively looking. Cool. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to send you a copy of my new book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. Okay, so I want you to hang on the line. I'm going to send it to you for free. It's my gift. And y'all read that together.

Okay. And there are sections in the book on trauma. The whole book is about empowering people to say, you know what, I am worth what comes next. And while we do walk through it, it's not a substitute for trauma therapy, but I do believe it will really, really help somebody in their journey as they're walking out of something like this. Okay. And also it'll help you because I know this is hard for you. And people don't talk to those, people don't talk enough about loved ones who love people who have experienced trauma. And some of this rubs off on you. And some of this, you begin to look in the mirror and be like, am I just worthless? What about me? And then you feel bad for thinking, what about me? Am I right? Yeah. Yeah. Spot on.

Okay. So I want you to read this book too, because y'all read it together. And what would be really cool if y'all read this together and you read a chapter, she read a chapter, and then y'all had some time to talk about it. Or you had a journal that you kept between the two of you and you wrote about what you thought in chapter one and then handed it to her. And y'all go back and forth and y'all keep a dialogue going. And for someone who's experienced trauma, the act of saying it out loud can be brutal. So having a place to write it down might be a great thing for you two to do together And then my goal is if i've done my job at the end of this book you're both On the same team ready to take on the world and when you get there man healing becomes a way of life

It's not this big scary Um overwhelming thing, okay Okay, so hear me say this. There's a bright light at the end of the tunnel. And for your wife, that light is a, it's the size of a ballpoint pen. And hold her hand through this. And I think y'all are going to be in,

heading in a good direction. Therapists listening to the show, if somebody comes into your office, do not ask, do not ask for the trauma story in the first session or the second or the third or the fourth until you've equipped them with some skills, some things they can practice. Because when they start down that road and their body takes off on them, it's traumatizing to just sit in your office and have a discussion about what happened to you in the past without giving them any tools. It's unethical.

Don't do that. It hurts people. And I also know, because I've been there, a client walks in and says, hey, you're not going to believe what happened. And you literally want to know. I'm curious. Stop them and say, there will be time in this session

to hear about the assault, the rape, the time that somebody beat you within an inch of your life, someone that you loved. There will be time to tell that story. That's not today. We're gonna do some work so that when we go down that road,

when we're ready for that, when you're ready for that, when you're ready for that, then we'll be able to go through that story together. And I'll be right here with you. And you'll have some tools on how to deal with it. Please be a therapist of integrity. And if you're not equipped to deal with trauma, you better get equipped quick because that's the 22nd century, the 21st century, and all the people coming over from the 20th century, that's our job now. Get equipped, get equipped.

Take every CEU you can, read every book you can, get all the trainings you can, learn how to be a trauma-informed therapist. Start today. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet

has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we are back as we wrap up today's show. Don't forget to go check out my new book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. Go to johndeloney.com. Please pass this podcast on to somebody you care about, or if you don't like it, send it to somebody you're not friends with. That'd be hilarious. But please leave reviews, do all the stuff to help us out. Man, the show is just continuing

to blow up, and I'm so grateful for you. Today's song of the day comes off a record that I loved when I was a kid, and I just saw it came out in 1989, which means I'm a thousand years old. The song is off the Real Thing record by Faith No More, a band that I loved as a kid, man. These guys jammed. Song's called Falling to Pieces, and it goes like this. Back and forth, I sway with the wind. Resolution slips away again. Right through my fingers, back into my heart where it's out of reach and it's in the dark. And sometimes I think I'm blind or I might just be paralyzed

because the plot thickens every day and the pieces of my puzzle keep crumbling away, but I know there's a picture beneath. An indecision clouds my vision, but no one listens. Because I'm somewhere in between my love and my agony. I'm somewhere in between my life has fallen to pieces. Somebody put me together. That's what this show is all about, keeping us together. We'll see you soon.

Coming up on the next episode. He told me in a nutshell that I'm super argumentative. And it even went as far as to say it's like I'm emotionally abusive toward my wife. I've been looking into a fertility option and potentially considering a sperm donor. We haven't been intimate in probably five or six years. Why for five years have you never brought up to your wife? Hey, we haven't had sex

in 1,500 days. Good gosh. This is a lot.