The Dr. John Delony Show - I Just Left a Toxic Marriage & I'm Overwhelmed

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

Today, we’re talking with an overwhelmed single dad of three who just lost his job, a mom desperate to help her teenage daughter who’s struggling with depression and anxiety, and a young woman understanding her childhood trauma for the very first time. Newly divorced after a toxic marriage & I’m completely overwhelmed How can I help with my teenage daughter’s anxiety & depression? How do I deal with adversity as an adult if I never encountered it as a child? Lyrics of the Day: "Times Like These" - Foo Fighters 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.

On today's show, we talk to a young man who recently became a single father of three young girls. We also talk to a mom who's sending her daughter who has anxiety off to college. And we talk to a woman who wonders, if I never had adversity as a kid, what am I going to do when I face it as an adult? Stay tuned. Yo, yo, what's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. We were shooting the intro again because I screwed it up last time.

But listen, I'm going to talk nicely to myself about it. I'm going to say, hey, James wrote me some notes here on the show intro and I didn't read them, but I'm going to be better about it. I'm going to say, hey, James wrote me some notes here on the show intro and I didn't read them, but I'm going to be better about it next time. And I'm going to be

like a goldfish with their little memories, as they say in whatever Simon Sinek book. I don't know who writes that. Something like that. But I'm so glad you're with us.

Hey, I was just looking at the show data and the numbers continue to just grow and grow and grow. Whether you're watching us on YouTube, whether you are downloading this and just listening to it on podcast, I am so grateful. So grateful that you're in our gang. Pass this along to your friends, your buddies, people that you don't like, whoever you think would benefit from listening to the show. I'm just, it's like, I wish I had the words for it.

It's humbling. It sounds like a trite, silly thing. I'm so grateful that y'all are in our gang and we're always looking for more folks in the gang. So I am truly, truly grateful. Let's go straight to the calls today. Let's go to Samuel in H-Town where I'm from. What's up, Samuel?

I'm doing well. Bless you. I've heard you since your very first show you ever aired. Really? Yeah, and I'm telling you, I don't know if it's because you're from Houston, but you are just, I mean, you're so, something about your manner and the way you speak is so familiar, and it's just a piece of home. It's H-Town, brother. I can't tell you what it does. It's amazing.

I think so. Listen, if you ever thought, I think I might want to go to Houston, but every time I hear Deloney speak, I want to put a screwdriver in my ear. You probably don't want to move to Houston because I'm speaking on behalf of the city. No, man, thank you so much, brother. It's good to talk to you. And what's up, man? How can I help? Well, I'll be 32 this year. This last year, I have found myself to be a single father to my three kids, ages 2, 4, and 6.

I'm the exclusive parent. Their mom hardly ever sees them. And I lost my job two months ago. And so here I am. The life I've built was built around certain realities like a stable family and a certain trajectory. And that really has all come to a screeching halt. I've looked back over the last 10 years to just, if I'm being honest, my last 10 years, I feel like I've been putting out fires, just turn around and find a bigger one. And I'm coming to a point, I'm reaching a point where, um, I mean, I have good days and bad days and today I'm okay, but I feel like I'm always this close, just not, not given a rip.

I don't, I barely even know how anymore. Um, I'm just, I'm losing the impetus to even care. I don't know how to explain it. And I don't know what I'm going to do next. I don't see what my future is supposed to be. Yeah. And I, I, yeah. Man. So just brother to brother, I'm sitting with you and I'm sorry. I got, I got, there's not a, like a cool saying that, you know, you'd cross stitch and put on a bathroom wall or something that's going to make this feel better. And I'm sorry. You know what I mean? Sorry. What happened to your marriage, man? You've been putting out fires for a decade. What happened? Well, I, I mean, we, our relationship was really, really toxic from the very, very beginning. Um, that's not, that's not even remotely an

exaggeration. And, uh, I thought I could save someone. I thought I could, you know, fix somebody and she probably, she probably thought somewhat the same thing. And we were, we were both toxic enough to, you know, continue to spiral. Um, I guess, I same thing and we were both toxic enough to you know continue to spiral I guess we felt we could both handle each other's toxicity because we could both tear each other apart and kiss and make up in the next five seconds and tear each other apart again

and I think that cycle just reached I mean we both made awful decisions throughout that marriage and I think it reached a head for her what does that mean y'all both cheated on each other? Yeah. Okay. Was there addiction involved?

I think I've, I mean, you know, I don't like to admit it. I've had a porn addiction for 10 years now. Okay. All right. So why is mom not involved in her kids' lives? Well, she sees them every other weekend and she's very happy with that arrangement. She's never... I've been the one taking care of them even when we were married

for the most part. That's just... It's hard to explain. She's happy to kind of be the holiday mom and take them to the beach and then bring them back. That's not... She doesn't have an interest in anything beyond that. That's a pretty good arrangement, right? For her, yeah, it's great pretty, pretty good arrangement, right? Um, I can't work it for her.

Yeah, it's great. I'm sure. As I'm saying, I can't wrap my head around that arrangement. So what happened at work brother? I was really, really toxic, uh, work environment. I, I, I, I worked for, I've worked for the Catholic church for 10 years. Ah, there you go. And it just, it just got real. I, I, maybe I shouldn't put it that way, but it just, it just got real. I, maybe I shouldn't put it that way, but it just,

it just got really, really awful and toxic. And, uh, uh, you know, things were really, really mismanaged.

It was just awful management. And, and it just got from bad to worse. And eventually I was, I was a church musician. Okay. I've been a church musician for forever. Okay.

Yeah. So how are you, how are you feeding you and the babies right now? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I've took out a personal loan, which I know is not smart. And by next month, that's not going to work. And I live in Friendswood. We're going to have to move to be near my family in spring.

Okay. Which, for those listening, is from you're in very south Houston, and you're going to have to move way North Houston. Yeah. And we're starting from the ground up. Yeah. Yeah. Man.

So a lot of, you mentioned you're a fixer. You like to take care of other people. You've got a history of infidelity. You've got a porn addiction. All of those things point back to a history of someone who doesn't like who they see in the mirror. Where did you learn that? Where did you learn that you suck? I, uh, I, my, my parents, um, fought like cats and dogs growing up. That was just normal.

I mean, you know, three times a week, just absolute hysteria fits. We were part of a very, very rigid, crazy religious cult for 10 years growing up, from about age 10 to 19, where everything about you was just wrong and evil and twisted. And so going into adulthood, I really believed everything about human beings was just messed up and wrong. I never fit in with anything. I couldn't just make normal friends or have normal relationships. I never could get a—I mean, I couldn't even get a girlfriend. It was awful.

It was really bad. And then you finally got one, and you thought, well, you had a model for what marriage looked like, man, right? Yeah. You had a model for what marriage looked like, man Right? Yeah I mean, you had a model for it Which was, let's have these caustic wars And then let's stick it out and figure it out And let's keep making humans while we're having these caustic wars That's the only picture you had Here's what I'm getting at If you and I were just having a drink

Hanging out downtown Houston somewhere off Kirby And we're just hanging out I would look at you and be like Dude, you made made some stupid decisions. And I would smile at you, right? And you have. And your pictures for what life is, is so jacked up. And you have a body, a little kid who is still trying to, still wondering what they're doing to make mom and dad so upset. Still wondering, what is it about me that God hates so much? And that ultimately becomes the root of, I can't be in the same room with my wife. I've got these three little kids that i'm thinking about cashing out on that a cheap um a cheap fake fantasy on my cell phone with you know whatever

all of that points back to man why do my parents hate me like what what about me as a six-year-old right all that you've been carrying that crap around forever and you chase it and you chase it and you chase it. And now you found yourself here, man. It like, man, it caught up with you. And so here we are, right? And so now I'll tell you this. So back in grad school, my professor was one of the most astute assignments I was ever given. I challenge anybody listening to this to do this. Said, I don't want you to write like a mission statement. Because if you're in this doctoral program, you can navigate words well. You can write something pretty and fancy and poetic and whatever.

I want you to draw a picture with like matte pencils and crayons. Draw a picture of your personal mission. And I'd never considered that. And I sat down with like, I got some of my kids stuff out and I drew it. And you know what the picture came like that just came to me as I'm drawing. And again, I'm a terrible artist, like comically. So I look like I've got some major, like cognitive dysfunctions when I try to draw a picture. But the picture ultimately was a big fire, probably a neighborhood or a city or something, and then a curb. And then me sitting on the curb next to somebody, extending a lighter while they've got a cigarette. And so I want you to picture me and you right now.

We're just sitting on a curb, and everything behind you is on fire, and I'm handing you a light, and now we're going to try to figure out what comes next. Is that cool? Yeah. For some reason or another, I'm shaking a lot. Just having, I don't know, just hearing it, but yeah. Okay.

So here's a couple of things that I'm going to tell you to set the context for what comes next. First of all, your body is chemically addicted to stress, to cortisol, adrenaline, and beyond. It has been your entire life. And at some point, those things, those chemicals, think of them like Drano, right? They'll keep cleaning your, you've heard me say this before on the show, they'll clean a hair clog out of your pipes once a year, right? And you can get away with it. If you wake up every day and dump Drano in your pipes, eventually it's going to eat through the pipes, right? And it's going to melt everything. That's where you're at. So number one, you're going to have to make some decisions

to detox from stress from the chemicals that surge through your body my guess is if there's not chaos in your life you will make it just so your body gets its hit is that is that fair am i am i right probably if work is going good you'll come up with some some theological thing or some something that the catholic church did in ire Ireland that you need to have a fight about at work. Is that you? Yeah. Okay. And if something else, if that's not in the cards, then you're pissed off

that they didn't get you the right chords for your guitar. Am I right? Yes. Okay. I don't know how you did that, but yeah. If your marriage is okay, you're going to text that woman back. You know what I mean? Yeah. Things are okay. I'm going to text her back. And it's all cool. It's just cool. And then she's like, can I send a picture. Things are okay. I'm going to text her back. And it's all cool.

It's just cool. And then she's like, can I send a picture? And you're like, and your heart starts beating fast. And for one second, you feel alive. And you say yes.

Yes. Am I right? Yep. Okay. You have to commit for the sake of you and those little girls that I'm going to detox off stress,

which means I'm going to have to learn to live in peace. And you've never had that. This is new. You don't even have a picture of what that looks like. Let me paint it for you. Imagine getting home from a job that you mostly like. Nobody likes everything at work. I live in a cartoon and I don't like everything about my job. You'll get home and you will play with your daughters and you'll get onto one of them about math and you'll tell one of them to pick up her clothes. And one of them's going to have a conversation with you about a period. And you're going to be like, what? You're going to do all that. And then you're going to watch

some dumb show and you're going to read a book. And then you're going to do, you're just going to go the hell to sleep. You're going to go to sleep. Can you even imagine? And then you're going to wake up and you're going to have some crappy garage gym because you can't leave because you've got three kids and you're a single dad and you're going to go work out the next morning, right? And you're going to laugh and you're going to get a babysitter or mom's going to pick up and you're going to go grab a drink with some buddies. I'm painting you a picture of what this can look like. Number two, you're addicted to outbursts, to these loud, demonstrative moments because you keep everything so crashed inside of you. And hear me say this from this point forward, yelling is trauma for a child. Never yell again.

Got it? I don't know how, but I mean, I hear you. Here's how. Never yell again. Okay? You promise? I don't know. Yes, you can. Here's what you do. Today, you're going to take your six-year-old and your four-year-old, and you're going to sit them down, and you're going to say, daddy's going to start talking differently in this house, and I've scared you guys, and I've yelled, and me and your mommy house. And I've scared you guys. And I've yelled. And me and your mommy yelled. And I will never yell again. And now it's game on.

And when you find yourself yelling, you will stop. And you'll say, I'm so sorry. Who taught you to yell? Your mom and dad? Oh, my God, yeah. Okay. All the time. So when I say yelling is trauma trauma you know that to be true

yeah okay so we're never going to yell again number three what have you done to look for a job mostly looked at what i'm what is out there and it's pretty slim slim pickings i mean it's i mean if if you're a 20 year old in college, it's awesome. You know, if you have time to work all day, $15 an hour, but I, I'll have to change. I I've I'm working. It's been a series of steps to realize just what the, what the, what the parameters are and working with that. I'm still kind of, I've got a long-term, some long-term ideas and some short-term realities.

And yeah, it's kind of unclear. All right. All of that stuff you just said is grade A choice downtown Houston BS. Okay. You have to go get a job. You have to get a job. And it's not going to be your forever job. It's going to be something that begins to slowly, and I'm talking micro steps, inch by inch, give you purpose back. And it's not going to be follow your dreams, bro.

None of that crap. It's going to be, I am contributing to my household because I've got three little girls. And I have a thing that I get up and go do every day. Right now, dude, you are caught on a loop of what did I do? What's going to happen? Where's this thing headed? And it's going nowhere. You got to go somewhere. So whether it's Starbucks, I don't care what it is, you got to figure that out, but you got to get a job. Okay. Then in two months, five months, six months, when your smoke clears on this deal, your divorce is finally settled, settled, settled, and you've moved to spring, you've got some sort of rhythm, then you can start saying, okay,

what comes next? And there's a million people who work in ministry that get laid off and go on to take those skills, the ones that you learned about empathy, putting on a performance every week in front of hundreds, if not thousands of people, how to listen, how to love people who are struggling. Dude, companies will pay handsomely for your skillset. You're just going to have to work through that and that will take time. That's not for today though. Today is I got to go get a job. I got to start doing a thing. Okay. And stop stewing in my head about it. Got your word on that. We go get a job. Yeah. Okay. Anything. I don't care what you're making. Anything will be more than what you have

right now. Right. Yeah. Here's the big one. You had a picture when you got married that you were not going to be like mom and dad am I right yeah and there's something catastrophic in our souls when I swear before God and all my friends and family I will not be like you two

and then you look up 10 years later and you're exactly like them if not worse right so here's the word And then you look up 10 years later and you're exactly like them, if not worse. Right? So here's the word. You have to grieve this. You got to sit in it with a journal and write it out. It's going to hurt like hell.

It's going to be hard. It's going to be painful. And there's a light on the other side of that. If you avoid this, you will pass this on to your three daughters and they'll repeat this thing again. Okay. Here's what it starts with. Dear Sam, I thought things would be different and so far they're not. Period. That's how your journal starts. Here's the things I wanted to look differently. Here's the things that aren't different. And then as you're writing, you're going to start to incorporate, here's what I'm going to do about it. Here's where things are going to be different. And over time, you're going to work with a counselor and you're going to build that and build that and build that. But slowly, you're going to begin to let your brain know Sam's in charge for the first time in my life.

How old are you, brother? 32. 32. I fell apart at 36, 35. No, I was 35, 34, 35. Okay. Stone mad. I took a $70,000 household income pay cut moved to a new city with my wife and young kid to try to figure things out things worked out okay alright do you trust me on that? yeah okay

little, little, little, little, little bitty steps if you lose your job the data tells us that it's as traumatic to your body as the death of a loved one. The trauma, your body is screaming at you. We're not safe. We're not safe. We're not safe. You got to grieve that. Divorce, not safe, not safe, not safe. It's trauma. Your childhood trauma. Your position right now, terrified, trauma. Listen to me very carefully.

You're not leaving those little girls. Are we on the same page there? Yes, of course. Are you going to hurt yourself? No, not intentionally. My fear is that I've never had ideation like that. And about three months ago, that happened for the first time. Yeah. You're tired.

My guess is you don't want to be dead. My guess is you don't want to leave your girls. My guess is you want to stop hurting right now. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Do I have your commitment you're not going to hurt yourself?

Yeah. Yeah. Say, I promise I won't hurt myself, I promise I won't hurt myself. I promise I won't hurt myself. And I'm in it for the long haul. Yeah, I'm in it for the long haul. Okay. I'm going to repeat what I said to you. You're addicted to stress chemicals. That's going to be a long-term play. Okay. You've got to commit to peace and it's going to feel crazy for a while. You're going to have to say things like, nope, when your mind starts spinning things up, when you're about to text your wife back to start a fight,

when you're about to get mad at your parents for whatever it is. You've got to stop, okay? Tell your people in your world that you're doing this and let them call you out. Cool? Okay, okay. And you're going to grieve this thing and grieve this thing. Do you have a counselor you can talk to?

Do you have male buddies in your life you can reach out to? No, I didn't. I've made very little. I've not been good at making male friends. Okay. And I should just say friends. Yeah, that's cool.

And hey, you got to own what happened to you, brother. You got to own it. It happened. And then here's the deal. You've spent your entire life trying to edit old sentences from your childhood, from life, from theologically, all those things. Yeah. Those sentences have a period at the end.

You were abused. You were traumatized. You were told God hates you, if there even is one, right? You were told your parents are, you're told marriage looks like all that stuff. There's a period at the end of those sentences. And there's going to be a gap and that's grief. And that's where the healing starts.

That's after the forest fire, when the soil becomes as fertile as it can possibly be. The smoke clears and the world is rating on you, Sam in Houston, my new best buddy. What are you going to write next? All of this is what do you write next? Okay. So your commitment is you're going to find somebody, whether it's at a local church, whether it's a counselor, you're going to reach out. I've actually, you know what? Hang on the line. I'm going to give you three months to betterhelp.com therapy there. Okay?

I'm going to hook you up with it. And it's digital, so you don't even have to make an appointment or arrangements for your girls. You can tell them to go sit in front of a screen, which I don't ever say that. Go sit in front of a screen. Daddy needs to talk to somebody on the computer. And you can reach out and have somebody walk alongside you

until you get your bearings straight. Okay? Until you can find a permanent therapist up there alongside you until you get your bearings straight, okay? Until you can find a permanent therapist up there in spring where you're moving, okay? And you start with that journal today. Go to Walmart and buy one for nine bucks or five bucks or whatever it is. Buy a spiral notebook for nine cents, I don't care.

But we start today. I want you to hang on the line. I'm gonna give you that. And I'm also gonna give you a copy of my new book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future, which is, that title's for you, my brother, right? Now, I'm with you every step of the way here, and I want you to call me back if you ever need something. Do I have your word on that? Yes, thank you. I'll do that. Thank you.

All right. I want you to take a deep, deep breath, as deep as you can, and hold it. Hold it. One, two, three. Now, drop. Breathe it out. Breathe all the way out and drop your shoulders all the way down. Today's the day it starts anew. Okay. Thank you, doctor. You're in? I'm in. Are you in? Yeah, I'm in. Awesome. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. All right, October is the season for wearing costumes and masks. And if you haven't started planning your costume yet, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going as Brad Pitt in Fight Club era because, I mean, we pretty much have the same upper body, but whatever. All right, look, it's costume season.

And let's be honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind costumes and masks more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social setting. We do this around our families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst. If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can learn to be honest with yourself, and you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic, direct life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy, and you can talk with your therapist anywhere so

it's convenient for your schedule. You just fill out a short online survey, and you get matched with a licensed therapist. Plus, you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right. That was good. We're back. Let's go to Kristen in Columbus, Ohio. What's up, Kristen? Hi, John. How are you? I am. I was going to say dancing on the ceiling, but Lionel Richie owns that line, so I'm just hanging out here. What's up? So I'm calling because I have a daughter who will be 18 on Friday.

Congratulations, and may the force be with you. Thanks. Yes. And she suffers from pretty extreme anxiety in all areas. Cool. Cool. Social, test anxiety, all of it. Yeah. So she's getting ready to graduate high school and go off to college in the fall. And she is going away to school, away from home. And I'm looking for some strategies, the best way to help her deal with the anxiety as she transitions into this next life phase.

I love it. Great questions. All right. I'm going to ask you a few quick questions, okay? Sure. Question number one, where did she learn this? Is there somebody in your home that struggles with anxiety? Do you wrestle with it?

Where did she pick that up as a coping strategy? Both her dad and I have struggled with anxiety and depression. Okay. Okay. What does it look like for her? When she's spun out, what does that look like? She will get very angry, very emotional, break out in tears, sometimes emotionally shut down. It's kind of a variety, but it's usually an extreme shutdown, don't want to deal with it, or yell, lash out, get angry, cry, kind of those extremes. How many of those behaviors are from home too? And again, this isn't an indictment. I'm just trying to get a full picture of her. Oh, no, absolutely. I cry pretty easily.

Okay. I do too. I cry at gas station commercials, so I'm with you. And there's been a significant amount of yelling in the home over the years. Okay. All right. Does she know, have you and your husband individually, not together, because that can be overwhelming, have the two of you ever taken her out and just said, hey, here's my story, here's my

journey with anxiety, with depression? Yes. How did that go? She gets pretty defensive. Okay. And reacts more like you don't understand what I'm going through. It's different for me.

She's 17. That's developmentally appropriate response. Hey, I've been there too. I've seen a cute boy too. You don't understand. Okay, alright. So, see your old half-balding dad

with the rim? He used to be really handsome back in the... Anyway, but yeah, that's appropriate. So, has your husband done that? He has. And again, I love him. He's supportive. He's an all-in dad. But we do approach it, I think, very differently.

Okay. dad, but we do approach it, I think very differently. And he is more of a, I'll talk to her. She'll get through it. I don't want to add to the stress by calling out the behavior. So I don't want to say it's an avoidance type of behavior, but his is more of, I'll talk through it with her and give her my advice. And then we'll see if it changes. All right. So, um, you may have, if you listen to the show for any length of time, you may have heard me tell the story, but I was doing a practicum with a child psychologist and I had a young son and I was asking him, Hey, what, what, hey, what are some things I could tell my son? We had just dealt with a really messy issue with the youngster and the young kid said

some really awful things about women. And he was like, the kid was four. So clearly he'd picked this up. And I had a young son too. And so I was using this kid as a proxy for my own kid. And I said, what are you supposed to tell a kid to help him like respect women? And he said that, Dr for my own kid. And I said, what are you supposed to tell a kid to help him respect women? And he said, Dr. Gomez smiled at me and he said, man, you can tell them anything you want.

They're not going to listen to you. If you want them to treat your wife right, if you want him to respect women, then treat your wife right. Because kids, here's the magic quote, kids don't listen to you, they watch you. And so y'all can call out your daughter's behaviors all day long. Don't act like that. I can't believe you're throwing this temper tantrum. You don't talk like that to people in this house. You can do that all day long. But if the house is filled with chaos or anxiety or yelling, that speaks, that is the roadmap that your daughter has been given to how to handle stress, how to handle hard things. And so often when people say,

how do I deal with the anxiety? How did my kids got anxiety? What can I do for them? I tell them, fix your marriage. And that's usually where a lot of that stuff starts. Not always, there's medical issues, all kinds of stuff. But your willingness to be honest is really helpful here. So let me fast forward to, I spent 20 years,

17 years, I don't know how, a long time, almost two decades working with college kids in this exact world, right? So tell me about her academic success. She's almost a straight A student. She, I think she's gotten one A minus in her four years of high school. How dare her? What a failure. Did she cry over it? Did she weep? No, but she brings it up every so often of, I don't have a perfect record because of this.

Do you have other kids? And I have a son who's two years older. What is his, how are his grades? He's more of a B plus student. Okay. So, and his was, I'll do the best I can. If it's not an A, I'm okay with it. Okay. He was more accepting.

A lot of kids with anxiety are performers. They have a very attentive radar for other people watching out for what they're doing right and wrong. And either they are trying to control other people's emotions in the house because that's one of the jobs they've been given. For instance, hey, don't say that dad's going to get really mad. Or you know your father doesn't like whatever. Or mom loses her crap when this happens. And so kids feel like it's my job to perform in whatever way so that mom and dad don't have to have their outbursts. And that rattles a kid's body. It makes kids anxious, makes adults anxious, right? When they're responsible for their bosses or for their

spouse's behaviors, right? So often straight A's, and one of the challenges with academics is straight A's looks like my kid's successful, but really they have learned if I can do this, it avoids that, right? And often, this is going to sound bonkers, kids who get into drugs, kids who get into sleeping around a lot, kids who get into straight A's, the behaviors are different, but the intent is the same. I need connection. I need somebody to see me. I need to avoid, right? They're all avoidant. If I get straight A's, mom and dad, leave me alone. So is her, is that her? And again, I'm using part of this to teach to the audience too. Does that, is that her? Is straight A's keep y'all off her back or is that where she finds esteem

or is she just a really smart kid who loves cranking it out? I think she's really smart and I think that's where she finds her self-esteem. Okay, okay. So she's got a picture of success here. Okay.

So- Yes. I'll give you some hard truths and some reality truths. Is that cool? Yes. Give me a picture of her college. Fancy pants, private school, fancy pants, state school.

Is she leaving the state? Where's she going? You don't have to tell me the name of the school. No, it's a four-year private school. It's a Catholic university. And it's as far on the east coast of Ohio, the east end of Ohio, as she can get without getting out of the state. Okay. So she's doing a classic seven-year-old running away, which is, I'm running away all the way to the backyard, right? Okay.

And she, again, did get some pretty significant scholarships for this particular school. Okay. But yeah, that's what it is. It's a Catholic faith-based university. Okay. About two and a half hours from home. Okay. So an anxious and often, not always, but often depressed brain is a, in a child especially, is a disconnected brain.

So if I'm sending my kid two hours away, I'm going to A, and she's got clinically diagnosed anxiety, clinically diagnosed depression, right? This isn't just she stresses out, but she is, this is a challenge. A, for sure, I'm going to check with the student's disabilities office. Make sure she's got the support resources she needs. I'm making sure she's got somebody to call if things get heavy. The second thing is, I am, as a parent, and this can be helicopter, I don't care. I will make sure that she is at least plugged in with the student counseling center. Now, they can't call you. They can't tell you unless she's suicidal, which hopefully she never gets there. They can't tell you she's going to

sessions. They can't do any of that stuff. Okay. But making sure there's a contact. And when I worked in those positions, I would get emails from parents and I would forward them onto the counseling center and the counseling center proactively reaches out to the student. So it is not weird or odd or anything like that for parents to reach out and say, my kids struggled with this forever. I want to put them on your radar on day one. That's actually really helpful for the school. Okay. Even for the residence life program, if you want to have that conversation, I will tell you, picking a kid up from everything they know and setting them in a brand new environment is tough.

Their brain is going to say, hey, whoa, we're super disconnected now. And so really encouraging her, really encouraging her to get plugged in with student activities, whether that's with clubs and organizations or whatever. Encourage, encourage, encourage. Even if it's you've got to get involved in two things here, or I'm not sending any more money for whatever, right? And that's what I would do with my kids. I would make a financial incentive. You have to get plugged in with future Nursing Association of America, or the future medical students, or the future engineers, or whatever she's going to do. You've got to get involved in that group, or my money stops. Because I know the psychology, you've got to get involved in something.

And here's the last one. No matter what, don't let her live by herself in a private room, especially the first year. Especially. She's got to have a roommate. Here's why. If you have a private room, the only reason to leave your room is to leave the building. And there's not what I call accidental community. You have to run into people who are using the bathroom, who are coming and

going. You have to learn to manage that. And that person, even if they're annoying and they drive you crazy, that person becomes an anchor for you, or at least gives you something to talk about to somebody else. But that person becomes a checkpoint. Hey, where were you last night? And that kind of accountability, that kind of, hey, what's up? Hey, how's it going? What's up? And I was a loud mouth, brash, long haired idiot who was into punk rock and metal from Houston. And my roommate was a short, kind theater major from rural Kansas. You could not have picked two more crazy random people. And ultimately, he was in my wedding and I was in his.

And he is the guy who takes care of my investments now out in Colorado Springs. So, and him and I, he came and stayed with me last year. So, all I have to say is, there's a lot of decisions to be made as you move into these relationships. But under no circumstances would I send a kid who I know has clinical anxiety and depression and say, you should live by yourself in a box two and a half hours away and deal with the academic stress and rigor alone. That's a recipe for disaster. And she's self-aware enough that she even said that. She said, I'd love to have a private room

But I know I need to have a roommate Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful That's awesome Alright, so here's the last thing I want to recommend I want you To not talk about her anxiety Or depression I want you to talk about

Man I want you to take her out and just have mom's breakfast, mom's lunch, mom's dinner. And until she leaves, I want you to make once a week thing. I've recommended this to parents for years. Once a week, you got to come out for me for a meal. I'll take you to school or whatever. You'll go to school on your own. I don't know. Whatever it is, Saturday mornings, whatever, our time. And I'm going to tell you some things I wish I had done differently. And we're going to talk about you, mom. You know what? I wish I hadn't yelled so much in the house. I avoided my anxiety for a long, long time. I wish I hadn't done that. I'm sorry. Mike, I'm really working on my yelling

and I'm actually starting to see a counselor now. I don't know if I told you that, but I'm starting to do that now. I want you to spend some time talking about you, telling stories about when you were in college, when you were young, when you had kids, when you were scared and all those things. Here's what it's going to do. It's going to humanize your journey. We call it social norming. She's going to realize she's not crazy, that her experiences, other people have had them. And she's going to build a connection with you and a relationship with you that hopefully will translate into a once a week you'll write her a letter when she's in college.

You will connect with her in college, et cetera. You'll keep this line open, not an everyday texting mom about everything line, but a communication line. So she's going to be way out there, but she's going to have an anchor point at home. And it's not an anchor point on, you better get your crap.

It's an anchor point on, I love you and I've been there too. Very few things heal an anxious point on, I love you and I've been there too. Very few things heal an anxious heart like, I love you, I'm with you, and I've been there too. Thank you so much for the call. We'll be right back. It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel. Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change, and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest purchases you'll ever make.

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of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate for 90 days. Then you'll get a $5,000 seller guarantee to help your offer stand out. So go ahead, take a deep breath because Churchill has your back. Check them out at churchillemortgage.com slash D'Loni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, let's take Unamas.

Let's go out to New Hampshire. Talk to Caroline. What's up, Caroline? Oh, not much. How are you, Dr. John? We are just rocking onto the break of dawn. How can I help? So my question for you is how do I deal with adversity as an adult if I didn't deal with it as a child or as a young adult. Are you comparing your adversity? Probably. Where did you learn that? I think it was self-taught.

Oh, what a great joke. You should have gone to, you should have taken lessons. So are you facing adversity now? Are you just worried about it's going to come and you think you're not going to be prepared for it? I'm worried it's going to come. Yeah. Like kind of waiting for like a shoe to drop kind of thing, maybe. Where'd you learn that?

Um, I don't know. I'm kind of a perfectionist people pleaser. Maybe that, it comes from that. Where'd you learn that? Um, probably my childhood. What, what, um, who did you need to keep happy in your childhood?

My father. Why? He's like very type A. Very, maybe a little angry sometimes. Very demanding. Kind of walked on eggshells a little bit. Ah. And as a young girl, you learned a very important lesson, which was,

it's your job as a seven-year-old to make sure dad doesn't get angry. Yep. And you have that power as a seven-year-old to decide whether or not a grown man loses his crap or not. Mm-hmm. There's a word for that, and it's called trauma. Okay. So you have experienced adversity, I guarantee it. Okay.

A lot. I just feel like I probably just compare it to other people. You do. I feel like it's little T into the big T. And so let me, have you heard my analogy about the bricks in the backpack? Yes. Okay. So let's say your dad had been a dad who just close fist hit you as a kid.

Those are bricks. Those are cinder blocks, right? You go to school and you're hiding bruises. Did that ever happen to you? No. Okay. Never. Or you come home every day and your dad says, stand up.

And you stand up and he says, that skirt is too short. I told you to go change your clothes now. Not high. How are you, baby? How was your day? Then he says, bring me your homework folder now. And you bring it to him and he says, 98? What happened?

Why? Well, I missed two. We went over this when you and he says, 98, what happened? Why? Well, I missed two. We went over this when you and I studied, right? What that is, is little t. That's a pebble that in your backpack over and over and over. And by the time you're 25, the weight of that backpack is the same. Okay. Okay. okay okay so the key to coming overcoming adversity is being able to stand firm on two feet that my space counts my voice counts the way i feel about this counts and i'm not right about

everything also both and do you feel that most with ragey, angry fathers are always waiting for the next shoe to drop because I can have my feet propped up and got all my stuff done for the day. It's a good day. But at any moment, that car is going to drive up. Is that, is that ring a bell? Um, yeah, not so like, not so much the skirt is too short in like 11th year grades. I think it was like, like he wasn't happy with meals or something. Like, yeah, I mean, those are all plug and play. I'm just making those things up. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You insert your own childhood into that. Right. Um, and I, and I'm just painting a caricature here, But yes, at the end of the day, most of us who have angry dads will go around the rest of our life looking over our shoulders waiting for the next thing to happen. Right? Or what's the thing I'm going to do for other people? And what I want you to know is other people are responsible for their responses.

You are not. You are responsible for Caroline. That's your job. Right? You are not. You are responsible for Caroline. That's your job, right? And so I think when it comes to adversity, if you are now, you said you're standing on two feet. How'd you learn that? Time, I think. Just going through, like, just having to build my career. And I just bought a house, got married.

So I've been definitely growing up, I guess. Did you marry your dad? Or is your husband a nice guy? He's opposite. Yeah. Good for you. Good for you. So let me tell you, never, ever, ever, ever compare your adversity.

Never compare your trauma. Never compare your trauma. Never compare your grief. Those are yours. And if you sat with a counselor for a while, they'd probably unpack some stuff that you don't even want to talk about anymore. And probably you could have some conversations with me off air about some things in your childhood that you've not told a lot of people. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah. I have been being a counselor.

Good for you. Look at you. Caroline. Come what may, dude. Caroline's going to... Man, you're strong. You're strong, right? Yeah, my counselor last week actually gave it to me straight and was like, when's it going to be enough? When you have heart was like, so when's it going to be enough?

Like when you have heart disease or like die, like when is it going to be enough? I was like, Oh, okay. Hey, right on. Nailed it.

Nailed it. Nailed it. Nailed it. Okay. You are strong. You're strong. And what I want to tell you is you got to let your body off the hook because it's working really hard to defend yourself from punches that aren't coming

And the ones that do come you'll never see them And you will get them they'll come they'll come out of nowhere. You'll get fired. Somebody will pass away Somebody will whatever that's life. All of us have that Two key things number one stand strong, You know that. Continue growth. Continue counseling. Continue really doubling down on making sure your marriage is strong. And the second thing is have friends in your life. Other people are your emergency fund for life. Right? And we get obsessed with this adversity, this resilience. I can do it all on my own. You can't. You've got to have other people in addition to your husband. He can't be everything. You got to have people that you call at 3 a.m. when you're scared. You got to have people that say, hey, I'm waiting for this shoe to drop. Am I right? And they'll go, no, ding dong. Let's go out. You got to have those people in your life. So do the hard work to make sure you're surrounded by people who love you. And that could be weird or awkward or all those things. Make sure it happens because Caroline, my sister and new best buddy, you're worth it.

We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the 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, as we wrap up today's show, Ben just told me that I used the phrase best buddies twice today in the show. So it sounds like we have a death match that needs to happen between the original call and Caroline. I'll let them set that up on the Internet. Pay-per-view, 595. Go to kellydaniel.com, and she'll have it for you. All right, today's song is Times Like These by the one and only Foo Fighters, Dave Grohl and the gang.

And it goes like this. I am a one-way motorway. I'm the one that drives away, follows you back home. I'm a streetlight shining. I'm a white light, blinding bright, burning off and on. It's times like these you learn to live again. It's times like these you give and give again. It's times like these you learn to love again.

It's times like these time and time again. I'll see you give and give again. It's times like these, you learn to love again. It's times like these, time and time again. I'll see you soon. Take care.