The Dr. John Delony Show - Living With Mental Illness

Episode Date: September 7, 2022

In this episode, we hear from a woman unsure of how to navigate life with multiple mental illnesses, a husband claiming to have zero things in common with his wife, and a woman who’s on a totally different page from her husband about their life and their business. To read John's blog on High Functioning Anxiety click here. Lyrics of the Day: "Taking Care of Business" - B.T.O. 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 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. He told me like six weeks ago, and this isn't the first time that he's leaving from his side, what it feels like is a respect issue. That if I had enough respect, I would just be quiet. So what I would tell you is you are married to a very bold, immature child. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad that you're with us. So glad that you're with us. If you want to be on the show, talk about mental health, parenting, marriage, what's going on in your kids' schools, kind of figure out what in the world do we do next.

Give me a buzz. 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask. This show's about you. It's for you. And it's me just walking alongside folks trying to figure it out. Before we got on the air,

the microphones were turned up really loud and I was loud on top of the microphones being really loud. And I blew out a couple of Kelly's eardrums. She only has two actually. And I told her, there's like this double pain soundproof glass that separates us. She's one of the only people that when she's mad at me,

I can feel it. I can feel it through the glass like a laser. It's my spiritual gift. It kind of is. You're like Firestarter, except in people's hearts. That's awesome.

Let's go to Maven in Tampa. Listen. I can feel it burning right now. I can feel it burning. All right, let's go to Maven in Tampa, Florida Hey Maven what's up? Hello how's it going? Great how are you?

I'm pretty good Excellent what's up? I'm having some Issues In my personal life And I decided to ask for help I am proud of you And thanks for giving me a shot.

What's up? How can I help? So I have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder type 2, ADHD, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder. All by the same psychiatrist? No. So my psychiatrist and my therapist are working as a team to help me out. So it's my team.

Okay. So the team has just given you all four of these diagnostics. Technically, it was a team effort between me and them because I wanted to figure out what I have that's affecting me so I could find coping mechanisms and like ways to implement things in my life so I could do things like a normal person. Okay. I'm smiling because I'm not a normal person and I never, I never want to be one, but I do understand what you're coming from. So take the diagnostics. Let's put them over to the side for a second. What are some things that are going on in your life that you want to change, that you want to be different or that makes you feel unnormal?

I can't work a nine to five. Um, not right now. How come? It's been like two and a half years. And it really hurts my mental health. It makes me suicidal. It makes me feel like depressed. And like, I, I can't do it.

What, what about, so, um, I want to be careful with this. Can we, can we experiment for a second? Is that cool? Yeah, sure. Okay. Um, there are legitimate, I cannot. Okay. Like I cannot, I cannot. And I get that. What I like to do when I'm struggling with a cannot is I like to shift that language to my body is choosing to. And the reason I love that is because can't feels final to me. Like I can't climb up like a wall like Spider-Man. That's a thing, it's a limitation I can't do. And so I always know that when I come up to a wall, I gotta find a way around it or find a door.

But when it comes to I can't work. I always want to shift that to I could Right now my body's choosing Not to Because that allows me to say why is my body making that choice? What is it about not working that is keeping me safe keeping things quiet? What is it that work? Does to my body or being around other people or that pressure? What is it that my body's saying I got to opt out of? You see the difference there?

One of those is really empowering. It's an adventure. Let's go find it. And the other is I'm incapable. I can never. It's just going to hurt like this forever. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

So let's shift the language. And again, this is a pure experiment. I don't know enough about your situation, and I would never be able to know you as well as your psychiatrist and your psychologist do. But I want to shift it to, let's change it to empowering language. So for the last two and a half years, your body's chosen to not work. How come?

What is it about work that makes you suicidal, makes you exhausted, makes you, what is it about, about work? I think it's the rigidity, if that's the right word. The boundary? It's like you have to be in this place for eight. And you are not allowed to leave. You're not allowed to walk out of this premises. And you have to stay here and work and do what we tell you to do for eight hours. So it almost feels like a heavy, one of those anxiety blankets.

It's weighing, it's suffocating. It is very suffocating. Does it work to shift and say, for eight hours, I get to be here and for an exchange for my eight hours of being here and putting candy on the shelves or solving this algorithm on the computer, you give me money?

I think it would work if it was something I liked. I could try to use that mental helper. But it didn't work for a long time. I worked at a Krispy Kreme for a few months ago. That's literally an assembly line, right? It was awful. Yeah. Okay, so let me ask you this.

Who in your life, where, and given your list of diagnostics, it may be multiple places or it may have been very, very severe. Somebody or some group of people

held you underwater. You have been trapped before, whether it's in an abusive relationship or a unsafe place. Like you have been trapped before, whether it's in an abusive relationship or a unsafe place, like you have been in it before. So much so that your body has put a pin in that feeling and anybody anywhere that tries to quote unquote trap me,

even if it's something as benign as, hey, this is the shift for work. We'll set that alarm off so loud that you have to plug both ears and go. Like, you know, I've been in a building where the fire alarm goes off. I got to plug my ears because I can't do it. My brain's going to explode, right? When did that happen to you? I had a really bad experience in the military.

Okay. And it subsequently led to an abusive relationship. So you're a veteran? Yes. Are you a combat veteran? Okay. So you're a veteran? Yes. Are you a combat veteran? No. Okay. What'd you do in the military?

I was a 35 Fox. Okay. So I was an intelligence analyst. Yeah. So you know better than any non-veteran would know about rigidity and rules and boundaries and regulations, right? Yeah. What about before that, before the military? I was normal.

Like I had signs of ADHD, but it was more normal. A lot of my diagnoses come from, we can pinpoint it to things that happened to me in the military. Okay, okay. So what I like to do in these moments, and I know we're not even to your question yet, is the diagnostics are fine. They help name the dragon, right?

Yeah. What I always want to know is, what is my brain trying to protect me from? There's even a famous psychiatrist that went as far to say, disassociated. My brain is imagining other voices. My brain is imagining dragons as a way to keep us safe. It's had to create an alt reality because their current reality is not safe.

It's abusive. It's scary. Whatever the thing may be. Yeah. I always want to know what is happening, like what is my body trying to protect me from?

Because not always, but the body's such a brilliant mechanism by which to take care of us, right? Until it gets off the rails and the things it's doing to take care of us

end up making us sicker or hurting our relationships or whatever. So anyway, thank you for sharing that with me. That's a hard, you've gone through a lot. Yes. And beyond going through a lot, now your body is so highly attuned to other threats that may come that it's assigning threats to things that really aren't threats. And have you reached that level where you are anxious about being anxious?

Yeah. And that's hell on earth, right? That's suffering with no redemptive value, right? Yeah. It's just sitting in a spinning, like you're sitting inside of a top, right? It won't quit. Um, so what is your, like, tell me your, your question question. So, um, one of my favorite things to do is look online for other people who, um, suffer from the same things I do and see like what hacks they have for life or like what things they do to keep them on track to like keep their house clean or work or like, you know, do something throughout the day. And there's not a lot of like help with the combo of bipolar and ADHD. So I'll try something that works for someone with just ADHD and just bipolar. And sometimes it works because sometimes I'm just feeling those symptoms.

But for the days that I'm feeling both symptoms, the things don't work anymore. Describe your BP2 symptoms, the hypomania. Describe that. So when I'm just feeling bipolar i have hypomania for like three days two or three days okay and um i get bouts of energy i'm on top of the world i'm like the greatest and i can do anything and then the depression comes for my depressions last for like two or three weeks. Okay.

When I'm not, like when I'm medicated. Okay. When you are medicated? Yeah. Okay. When I'm unmedicated, it lasted for two years. To pull you down in the abyss. Okay.

All right. And so how does ADHD factor into that? When I feel just ADHD, I have hyperactivity. I speak a lot. I forget my things. I will start doing something, and then it will remind me of something else that I have to be doing. So quit doing that thing, and then move on to another thing, and then move on to another thing. Maven, I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't know anybody like that.

If you listen to the show for more than eight seconds, you realize, oh, that's that guy. Yeah. Okay, I'm going to tell you my initial thoughts here. And I want to couch all of this that don't do anything without talking to your psychiatrist and your psychologist, okay? Let me give you the map forward for some of these things for me, okay? Okay. So bipolar two is highly, highly overdiagnosed as somebody who falls off a cliff when it comes to depression, which is very, very real. It's just that black. It's just like syrup, right?

You're just caught in it. You can't breathe and move. But it also can be very, very real. And so I don't want to be one of those guys that's like throwing a grenade on either side of that conversation. What I tell you is if you truly have bipolar, you got to take your medication, right? So that's square number one, okay? Square number two, when it comes to dealing with the ADHD, when I heard, when you described these things, you describe them as ways that you feel things. And when it comes to borderline, it's this overwhelming, my feelings are so amplified and so powerful, they're a forest fire.

And so when somebody says, when somebody says, hey man, I didn't like this paper, I didn't like this article you wrote, Taloney. Like me, I'll be like, ah, man, I really liked that. I thought I worked hard on it to someone who has true borderline personality disorder. It is a, you know what?

I hated this so much. I wish you weren't even alive. Right? The feelings are so overwhelming. That's what happened. Okay. That's exactly what happened. It's an,

and almost you even know this is a disproportionate response. That person's not trying to be mean, but your body is just, right? It's overwhelming. Yeah. And then you throw the chaos of ADHD on top of that. So here is an important thing that I've done, okay? And what borderline people have to do ultimately is make peace with their feelings and act in non-accordance with their feelings

over a period of time to where their body will recalibrate their feelings. And it's unmooring and it's very hard. Okay? When it comes to ADHD, what I've had to do for myself is stop. I have very segmented times when I sit in feelings. But I cannot allow my feelings to dictate what I'm doing in a given day. Otherwise, I will become like a kite in the wind. And so here's an example. I don't care how I'm feeling. I will exercise every day.

Now, I might feel like today, once in a blue moon, once a month, once every two months, I'm not going to do the crazy hard weight workout because I'm just too sore. I'm just too exhausted. I was up till 2 a.m. and now it's 5 in the morning and it just would be dumb, but I'm going to go for a long walk or I'm going to ride the exercise bike in my garage. So the debate over whether I'm doing something is over. Regardless of how I feel, I'm going to do these things. Regardless of how I feel, I don't want to. It's going to hurt. I'm going to get anxious. I do not care. Those feelings don't get a vote. I will put my clothes out for the next day before I go to bed.

I will brush my teeth and I will take a shower every single day, whether I feel like it or not. See what I'm saying? So I'm going to take a group of core activities that I know help me be well, and I'm going to take feelings out of the equation. I don't feel like going to bed. You will go to bed because if you don't sleep, everything downstream is chaos. I will, and in my case, I will go to bed because if you don't sleep, everything downstream is chaos. I will, and in my case, I will go to work. Even if it's angsty, even if it's heavy, I might go for half a day. I might go for two hours because here's the trap that, especially with depression, here's the trap. The trap is I increasingly want to do less so that the hurt will stop.

And then your body learns I can make all the hurt stop by doing nothing, which then makes it hard to breathe. See what I'm saying? And the damning part of it is the only way out of it is through it. That's the only way out. And so instead of saying, hey, work is eight hours of prison and torture and trapment, I'm going to get a job where I work two hours a day. I'm going to baby step my way into it. Even on the days I don't feel like going, I'm going to go. And when I feel like the walls are closing in, I'm going to breathe deeply. And when I feel suicidal, I'm going to call my psychiatrist and say, can you come talk to you? But I'm going to breathe deeply. And when I feel suicidal, I'm going to call my psychiatrist and say, can you come talk to you?

But I'm going to take that, I'm going to take the alternative off the table. Do you see what I'm saying? And what you're going to find is you're really much, much stronger than you thought. Does that make sense? Yeah. Because-

It gives me a little hope. You are, oh, you should have, the core strength that you have underneath those bricks that you're carrying in your backpack, you can squat way more than me. You are so much stronger than I am. So much.

It's a matter of saying, can I turn this strength? Can I stop carrying this stuff around and start applying this strength moving forward instead of just trying to survive? See what I'm saying? Yeah. I have really, really high hopes for you.

I think you can do some pretty amazing things. And because you're one of the few people that has repelled into the depths of hell, your story and your ability to help and serve and love other people will be amplified in a way that most people can't understand. Thanks. Do you believe me? I think so. Okay.

I don't lie on this show. Okay. I even got a ticket this morning on the way to work, and the guy said, did you know you were speeding? And I was like, yep, because I was. Right? I'll tell you the truth. It's been so hard for so long.

I know, I know. And there's a moment where you make peace with the fact that your body loves you so much it's trying to take care of you it's a pretty amazing thing right yeah and then the other side of it is okay the magic question is what am i going to do now one of the my biggest beefs with the the mental health ecosystem as it exists right now, most of my colleagues are complaining about meds or whatever. I don't complain about that stuff. In fact, many times, some of the meds are magic. They're incredible. What I don't like about it is they've told us that mental health is getting the right thoughts in the right order. And then we'll,

if we can just think the right way in the right direction. And then if we can just think the right way in the right direction, then we're going to be okay. And I'm convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that yes, the thinking is really important, but the action and the doing is equal, if not more important. Okay, so I can get my thoughts in the right order all day long.

I don't care how I feel. I'm going to get up and make my wife's coffee. I don't care if I can't get out of bed. I will get up and make the coffee. Then we'll go back to bed. But I'm going to do that one act of service today. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

So what's one or two things that you would commit to just for 30 days? I will do these. I don't care how I feel. I don't care how. I'm going to do these two things. Well, I had a manic episode the other day, and I decided on a morning and night routine. Good for you, yes. Hey, listen, there are few people in the world

who I love hanging out with more than somebody in a manic state. Like, they're the funnest and they're so much and they're hilarious and they're a lot. And man, you can make some plans, right? You make some plans. I rearranged my entire house too. Excellent. So you rearranged the house.

You made a morning routine and a nighttime routine. Did you throw all the food away? Because we're going full keto. We're going to do all the keto. Pretty much. That's so great. I love it.

I love it. I love it. So when you're in a manic state and then you know what's coming on the back end, especially as the manic state starts to lose steam and it gets scary and you want to prop it up and prop it up, how do you prop it up and try to keep going? I actually just let myself feel the crash. Ah, okay.

I know it's coming anyways. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Why do you think you're worth that crash? I don't understand the question. You think you deserve that crash. Like you've thrown your hands up like it's coming, which is what I get. How come? I don't really know I guess I just kind of

expect it now because the manic episodes have been so far and few in between it's like well this is where we were anyway so so here's what I want to leave you with okay

my friend Justin McRoberts wrote a book based around his disdain for the words it is what it is and it's become a common refrain in our culture. This is just the way this is. This is all I'll ever be. I'm always going to be the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I'm always going to be these diagnosis. I'm always going to be this dysfunctional in this relationship, et cetera. It is what it is. And his rebuke to that was, no, it's not. It is what you make it. Right? And it's getting that little glimmer of hope and that little glimmer of, wait a minute, I'm way, I've been rucking here. You remember back in basic, like I've been rucking here with these cinder blocks in this backpack.

I need to get these blocks out of the bag. I'm going to quit carrying them. I'm going to stop. And you're going to realize how far you can walk and how fast you can go. So your homework assignment is this. Number one, continue to meet with your psychiatrist, psychologist, okay? I'm just a dude on a podcast. I'm not going to substitute for your mental health care. But I want you to find two or three things. Manic episode, low episode, ADHD is running and gunning, or you're just exhausted. Your body is ramping itself up and blowing all the gas out, and then it's collapsing. And then it's slowly building the gas back up, and it blows it all out again. When borderline's kicking and you are feeling everything,

I want you to come up with two or three things that you know keep you well, that you know feel good, that you know are right. And I will do these things, these small things every day for 30 days. I will take a five-minute walk. I will write one note a day to somebody and tell them that I love them.

I will call. I'm going to get a job. I'm going to work two hours a day. I'm just going to work the lunch rush, and then I'm going to go home. That's it. I'm going to go home. I'm going to begin practicing this new way for my body so it can learn, hey, we don't have to keep you safe anymore this way. We my body so it can learn, hey, this is the way.

We don't have to keep you safe anymore this way. We did because you were in hell and we're out now. Now we're surrounded by people who love us. We're surrounded by, we got the right meds. We're on the right track. Now we're going to begin practicing a new way. And what you're going to find is you are way, way stronger than you could have ever imagined. And as I end all these calls, Maven, if you're ever considering hurting yourself, you got to make that call. And I trust that since you've said this in the past that you have made that call and I'm proud of you. Every time moving forward, you will make this call. I'm convinced, like I said earlier,

there's light at the end of this tunnel. Pick a couple of things and keep practicing. Keep stepping, keep stepping, keep stepping. Get those bricks out of your backpack. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go to Chris down the road in Memphis, Tennessee. What's up, Chris?

Hey, what's up? Just rocking on, dude. What are you doing? I am just honing. Good to hear. What's up? So I'm having a problem with communication with my wife and not in the way of being able to express our needs with each other and being able to fulfill them,

but in the way of just having a friendly conversation, be able to hold the conversation and just having something to talk about. Like if I had a friend come into my car and we're driving 30 minutes down the road, like we'll talk all the way until we get to destination B. But I feel like a lot of times with my wife, I don't know if there's just nothing to talk about or I have just so much stuff running through my brain that's work or it's just, it's starting to cause a problem with connection. Why,

why have you put that expectation that you have to talk everywhere you go? No, it's not, I'm not saying that all the time we need to talk, but it has become a problem to where there's just not enough talking. Like we're just sitting too much or I'm not communicating with her enough just being a friend to her.

Why are you choosing that? I don't know. I don't know if it's just my mind is consumed with work or I feel like there's nothing to talk about. I don't know. No, it's not one of those two things because both of those are choices. So I'm not looking for the question beneath that question because everybody I know works really hard. And they could, if they wanted to, let their minds be consumed with work all the time.

And there's a few days out of a month that my brain is super consumed with work. And that's just part of being a human and being alive. But there are days when I can choose. I'm just gonna keep thinking about work, keep thinking about work, or I'm gonna choose to think about and talk about my wife, talk to her about our home,

about our family life and stuff like that. My wife and I, here's what I'm struggling. My wife and I do have, she likes singer songwriters, man. And I do too, but I really like old punk rock. And I like to go to metal shows, and she would prefer to go to a theater. And she writes, like, historical fiction, man. And I can't think of two people who I know who have more different things that they care about and love in the world than me and my wife.

And there's never something, we always have things to talk about. And I'm not afraid of two hours of silence when we're driving on a trip somewhere. That's some great time too, just to sit in my head. So I don't put this weight on the other side of the scale. And that's what I'm getting at is either A, there are things you want to talk about that you're afraid to bring up with her or that you can't bring up with her because it's not safe to, there's something you want to tell her and you don't want to do it. Or B, you're just kind of a jerk and you're just staying in your own head. You're kind of, you're, you're starving your wife of your relationship. Am I missing something? No, I would say, um, a lot of times I might not bring up stuff because if it has to do with work or whatever, we own a couple companies and sometimes I don't want to bring up certain situations with her because she might want to do something a different way. Um, and I, I disagree with it and it's, it's just kind of getting past the argument or, um, sometimes it's just best to not tell her about it. Um,

so let me, let me, let me, let me give you a line. I want you to tattoo this on your heart. Okay. Conflict delayed is conflict amplified 100% of the time. You have now started like lying to your wife by omission because it's just easier. Instead of having the harder conversation, which is should we be in business together? Or is it wise for us to run businesses together and be married? Because it looks like we're on a collision course here. Well, it's not that she runs it with me. It's just, she doesn't run it at all. It's just,

if I were to come and bring a situation to her and I tell her how I handled it, then she would give her input that a lot of times it's not a constructive criticism. It's more of just a criticism. Sure. That's fair. So are you more than work? A lot of times I'm not, but I try to be, I mean, I definitely try to be. Hmm. I mean, I definitely try to be.

So give me like a solid question. Here's what it feels like. It feels like you are, and again, dude, lean in and tell me I'm wrong. Okay, tell me I'm wrong on this. It feels like you are in a pool and the water's like up to your waist and you are just splashing around. And you're like, ah, I can't get out of the water.

It's wet in here. And then we're all sitting on the side, like, well, just get out of the pool. And you're like, ah, I can't. Like, I'll just get out of the pool, man. Like, I can't, I don't know where, I don't know what you're struggling with. There's something beneath this that you're, that you're not telling me. What is

it? I guess I would say, um, what is it? How do I, how do I bring my wife into my work life without, even though it's not her ambition or her wants or her needs to be a part of it really in the way that I want her to be. There it is. There it is right there. Yeah. She doesn't care about your job. She cares about her,

you shouldn't give a crap about your job. She cares about you. She didn't give a crap about your business intricacies and who did what and the plumbing at this facility is busted and I can't believe it and the profits over. She didn't care about any of that. She cares about Chris. Right. And because this means so much to you,

like a favorite band when you were in high school, you've said, here's a rule I made, dude. If you didn't like Seinfeld, I knew we weren't going to be friends. I used to ask that question. Like in the first time I, the first conversation I met people, Hey, do you like Seinfeld? And they'd be like, nah. And I just know we're not gonna be friends. I have one friend in my life who doesn't like Seinfeld to this day. And it's my wife of 20 years, but you've created a world where if you don't like this, then we're probably not going to.

Like, why have you boxed yourself in that way? She didn't care about your job. So what? Like, what do you want? I don't know. I just feel that I wish. I thought going into marriage, I thought we would be able to go forward together and build something together. And even if she's on the sideline of not running it, but at least be like,

I guess more of a cheerleader or more of a, I don't know, I guess have interest. Okay, can I poke at what I think it is? Absolutely. How long have you been married? Coming up on three years. Okay, all right, perfect. So first thing you mentioned is beautiful.

And this is your starting point with your wife. You had a picture of what marriage was going to be. And that was going to be, you were going to be busting it real hard. You were going to be working really hard in business. You're going to do good. And she was going to be super, she's going to be right there by your side, cheering you on. And now you're three years in and you're realizing I'm busting it really hard. And my wife could care less what my job is.

And I try to bring her in and then it ends up, she gives me some bad advice. Like, why don't you just fire him? It's like, I can't just fire. And now we're in a thing, right?

Yeah. It took me 16 years, 15 years. I'm just trying to think when our last big mess was me and my wife. Let me say 15 years, trying to think when our last big mess was, me and my wife. Let me say 15 years for me to tell my wife, I've been working for 15 years for you to say three or four magic words.

I'm proud of you. And as a Texas male, it was really hard for me to say those words out loud. I felt ashamed. I felt small. I felt embarrassed. I just wanted my wife to say, dude, I'm really proud of you.

I see how hard you're working for the family. I see how hard you're working the lives of other people, et cetera, et cetera. And until I said those words out loud, she didn't get it because she thought our fights were when I was coaching, like I would just tell her all the track times. She's like, I don't care. And when I was working in higher ed, I was telling her about all the budget numbers and the suicides. And she's like, I just don't, I mean, I don't care about that.

I don't like it. I don't, I mean, it's not a thing. If I wanted to do, if I was interested in that, I would have done those jobs too. And I don't, I don't care about them. And I took that to mean she didn't care about me. And what I came to find out is she loved me deeply. I just wanted her to be proud of me. And when I said that she broke down, I broke down and she said, man, I sure would have, she would have told me that 15 years ago, because I'm so proud of you. I can't breathe. Right? So it was giving her language that I needed. It was me doing the brave, courageous, probably the most manly thing I could do, which is say, here's what I need.

That make sense? Right. And I don't know that you need somebody that is walking alongside you, just patting you on the back and saying, telling you how great and smart and beautiful you are and how care about your business as much as you want her to acknowledge

how hard you're working and the contribution you're making to your home. Is that fair? Fair. So I'd start there with a conversation. And the pictures you had coming into marriage, everyone, it throws everyone off. So you're not in a bad spot. I just had to quit talking to my wife about track times. I had to quit talking about higher ed issues and talk to her about other things, a way to develop other things to talk about. We had to create shared experiences so we would have things to talk about. And sometimes she would just like take one for the

team and listen to me talk about work and vice versa. I didn't really understand what we're talking about with K-12 education or whatever, but I listened. I got there. See what I'm saying? It's both ends. It's a give and take. Is there a deeper tension here? I would say that it's hard to, if she doesn't want to be involved and she doesn't, you know, like you said, that she didn't care about the business, she cares about me.

It's hard to want to grow or I want to grow and continue working and to continue building. But if she doesn't want me to, it's hard on me to like give up my dreams or wants if it's not ours. And it's almost as if I'm trying to force it to be ours. Yeah. And I think that's like devastating to me because it's all I've really ever wanted in my entire life. Was what? I just building a business and growing a business.

So she told you, I don't want you growing a business? Growing it more than what we have. Normally that conversation is, I miss my husband. Yeah, right. That's exactly what it is. And I think I've told this on the podcast, if I haven't, shame on me. It was this year that my wife held my face and said, John, we have enough. Stop. I need you. And I'm thinking, yeah, but I need more

of this. I need to write another book and I got to get this thing out. I got to get, I'm going on a tour. I've got to go hit the road. And she said, we have enough. And I had to drop my shoulders and ask myself, am I chasing ambition? Am I chasing ego? Or am I trying to give my family a better shot? And that was me looking in the mirror. It had nothing to do with my wife. In fact, she was the one that just called it out and said, from this point forward, any more hours you work,

any more money you make isn't for us. It's to feed your own, whatever you're trying to solve. And that was a hard thing for me to hear, but she was right. And by the way, it's not mutually exclusive. What I've done now is I haven't really throttled back that much,

but I have had to speak my needs and be more firm at work and set up boundaries at work. And I've been much more clear at home. Little things like putting my phone down, leaving my social media phone here at work, doing some things that just create some space at home so that when I'm there, I'm fully there and I'm not thinking about the business all day. As a young business owner, building a business can take your life over and it can take your soul over. And I've done the research and sat with folks who have done that for 50 years and they're 60 and they think, oh, I gave up everything. I have no memories.

I've got no kids or I've got two kids that don't like me. I've got a big bank account and I've got nothing. And so the work is not giving up one or the other. Don't back yourself into a corner that way. But it's saying, what does growing the business look like? And what does really swan diving into the relationship with my wife look like? Those aren't mutually exclusive. They're going to be a teeter-totter.

It's going to be a balance. And she's dealing with that picture from the other side too, right? She had a picture of a marriage where at 5 o'clock every day, Chris would come home and we would talk and laugh. And her picture is going to be different too. That's where you start is you all go on a retreat together. You've heard me say this a million times. Go on a retreat together and say, hey, we're three years in.

We have different pictures. Let's create a unified single picture and let's work towards it together. And that's going to be you giving up some stuff and her giving up some stuff and both of you getting some great things together. And then we're off to the races. You see what a different view that is? Yeah. Do you think you can do that? or do you think your wife is saying, I want you to quit this business and go do something else?

No, she doesn't want me to quit or anything, but it's just she wants the growth to stop. What is the growth costing her? It costs her the, I guess, mental stress on me when i come home okay um you hear what that means you are not telling you're not hearing her words correctly her words are not telling you to stop working on the business even though that's what she said her words words are, I'm watching the man I love die in front of me and call it his dream. I'm watching the man I love, the man I stood before our friends and family

and said, I'm all in forever. I'm watching him slowly drown in front of me and say, look how happy I am. That's what she's saying, Chris. So how do I get past my, That's what she's saying, Chris. So how do I get past my desires, my... It's not both and. Grow the business and decide that next year you're gonna make $30,000 fewer dollars

and you're gonna hire an assistant that's gonna take care of X and Y and Z. Decide next year you're going to make $65,000 less and hire a senior manager that's going to run the ship for you. Put on an on-call staff so that at five o'clock, only three people call you, and that's if something is on fire or somebody's dead.

Everything else can work till tomorrow. This is about a young business owner running a new business, trying to grow it, and having no boundaries. And what you're going to find is two important cool things. Number one, this thing will keep going without you hovering and breathing over it every second. And number two, when you have time to think and time to have great wild evenings with your wife and y'all go do fun stuff and like each other and have fun and you develop that relationship, you're going to be a thousand times better back on the ball field. And I know that it sounds like, yeah, okay, dude, whatever. I live it, dude.

I'm doing it right now. I promise you. I think it starts with this. I think it starts with you taking your wife out and saying, over the last three years, I have been cheating on you with my business. And I have told you you're my priority, but my behavior is a language.

And what I've demonstrated to you is the most important thing in my life is building this business. And I've got my priorities backwards. My most important priority in my life is my wife. It's our family. It's what we're doing together. And I am really passionate about

this business. And I will give it all up if that's what it takes, but I don't think that's what it takes. Can you see some things in me that you've seen shift and change over the last few years that I can work to manage around as this business grows. Things like time, things like a personal assistant, things like somebody checking email, things like a commitment to it. Six o'clock when you get home, the phones are all off and I'm going to outsource that. Whatever those things are on the weekends, I do not take work calls unless there is somebody dead or dying. Right? I'm going to create some really strong boundaries. Your wife's telling you

that she loves you and she misses you and she doesn't want to watch you die right in front of her. She's not telling you to quit your business. She's just watching the business kill you. And please, my brother, don't see this as the end of times. It's not your business or your wife.

You can absolutely do both together. It's going to be coming up with boundaries and working together. Holler at me and let me know how that dinner goes. I'd love to hear about it. 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. This is not a good idea. So if you're a new homebuyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process.

You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey trusted provider that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their home buyer edge program will help you skip a bunch 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 churchillmortgage.com slash D'Loney and get the home buyer edge today. All right, let's take one more. Let's go to St. Louis, Missouri and talk to Christy. Hey, Christy, what's up? Hey, how are you, Dr. John? Thank you for taking my call. I'm doing great. Thanks for calling. What's up? I was calling because I'll start with the question that I have. How do you know in your marriage when someone else has checked out and you are holding it together, but they're gone? And so I'll give you the backstory now. I, my husband and I have been married 20 years and, um, we had a great dating relationship.

Um, just like doing fun stuff, like totally active, like hiking and caving and catching lightning bugs and, uh, just, just all kinds of fun stuff. Shortly into our marriage, um, we had what I didn't realize was a communication problem. And so I'm extroverted. I talk a lot. And he's introverted. And I think he really likes the social outlet in that he can go places with me and I take the social pressure off and he can engage with people and not have all that pressure. And so we've had a lot of outside problems with our marriage just as far as we've had deployments, started a business, we've had court battles, we've had a sick child who was in the hospital for, it could have been terminal and it lasted for years, his condition, which is now better. And so we have been through a lot together. We started a business eight years ago where he did, it was his baby.

And I'm all in, like, I like to do the people side of things and, um, I'm good at integrating. So I've been helping with the business and, um, just over the last, well, to add a little more drama to our life, that business is going so well. So why not expand and start another? So, um, we have another one in a different part of the country. And so, um, I would say this communication problem has just grown and grown and he doesn't really, um, want to hear me talk. So, um, he's, he's okay by himself. He's really smart. He's well-read. He sits back and analyzes people and situations. He's very discerning. If he misses the mark on discernment, the verdict is already sealed. But just, I mean, he is my best friend. So just over the last,

I don't know, maybe 10 years, it's just gotten worse and worse. We have five boys and, um, they work in our business. Our family works in our business, our friends. And so he told me like six weeks ago, and this isn't the first time that he's leaving. And I feel like I could talk him into counseling because he's agreed to that and maybe somehow kind of guilt him into staying, but I can tell he's checked out. Yeah.

I'm sorry. Thanks. I hate that. Saying that out loud's hard, huh? Yeah. When he told you he's leaving, what was the context there? It's really funny. It sounds hilarious, Christy. So it was over a knife chest, but I know that it's not over a knife chest. For him, I can tell you from his side what it feels like is a respect issue.

If I had enough respect, I would just be quiet. So what I would tell you is you are married to a very bold, immature child. And that's probably the last thing you think. And if he was sitting here, I would tell him the same thing, that I love him.

But the way he's chosen to handle the world is to take his ball and go home. And if anybody doesn't wanna play with the rules that he's set up for the game, then I'm just gonna cut them out of my life. Which you're free to do, but it's what children do. Yeah. Adults, especially adults in committed relationships,

sit down and say, hey, I made a judgment about a thing and I may be wrong, or my judgment may be right, but my response to that judgment is killing me and it's killing the people that I love. So I'm going to do some different things. I want to do some different things together. And my guess is whether he saw stuff overseas or people deal with drama differently, people deal with heartache and heartbreak and stress and trauma differently. There's a little nine-year-old kid inside or a little 14-year-old boy inside that's been at war for a long, long time

who's exhausted. Yeah. And it feels like he's been pulling a plow for a long, long time. I'm just going to quit pulling the plow. So to answer your original question, how do you know when somebody's checked out you know when somebody's checked out all right that's not really the question sounds like your question is what am

i supposed to do now right and my guess is you have been you've heard me say this before you've been sharing a bed with a guy where you've been two inches apart from him, but y'all have been 5,000 miles away from each other for a long, long time. Yeah. And the question is, do y'all want to put on your Explorer hats and your snow boots

and go on a great adventure to reconnect over a long bridge that y'all got to build on the way or y'all got to go your separate ways. Right. And the unfortunate part is you can claw and climb and walk halfway through Siberia, but the other person's got to make that journey on their side.

Right. And guilt will get somebody so far, but it doesn't get them over there. Yeah. I don't think it's a communication problem. I think there's probably communication problems. But, Christy, you haven't liked him for a long time either you haven't i tried to i know i know but you haven't and both of you innately feel that the other person doesn't like them so you create

these worlds that y'all can both inhabit and still share a bed together and that sows that's the that's the first seed in the soil for we're gonna do something we're worlds that y'all can both inhabit and still share a bed together. And that's the first seed in the soil for we're going to do something else with other people because this isn't going to work. Yeah. And you don't like him because of fill in the blank and he doesn't like not being liked. So he ends up doing more of fill in the blank. And now we're off into a dance that you wake up 10 years later.

And you're like, I know who you are. Yeah. Or I wanted you to grieve our kid in the hospital like this. And you just went off and did this. And I didn't think you really cared. Well, I didn't, somebody had to. And now all of a sudden we've started another dance. So you started the whole call.

So here's the only path forward, okay? And I don't say this dramatically. This is your single shot, okay? Okay. I will tell you this. I have high, high hopes for your marriage. High hopes. I had a similar situation, different but similar, five years ago, four years ago, where my wife and I sat down and said, we've got to make a hard choice right now.

And if we're going to stick in it, this is what it's going to take. And both of us doubled down. And it's, I will tell you now, on the other side of that, it's like, I'm pretty arrogant. I don't know a lot of people who are in the situation I'm in in my marriage.

It's pretty good. Okay? That's great. It's pretty good. Congratulations. Yeah, exactly. Thanks, idiot. What an exactly. Thanks, idiot. What an ass.

Thanks, Taloni. Right? That's great. I'm just trying to give you a light at the end of the tunnel here. Okay, I love it. When you started this call, you started this call by telling me how much fun y'all used to have. Yes.

That season is over. And the more you try to make in the present what used to be, the more you hold up an impossible mirror to you and your husband. We don't look like that anymore. We don't look like, it's like the 40-year-old woman who doesn't look like she's 18 anymore. Of course not. Because she's 40.

It's different now. And by not looking at the 40 year old in the mirror and seeing how beautiful and stunning and wild and courageous and full of scars and adventure she is it's just all well you're not 18 anymore that's not 18 you see what i'm saying that's what you're doing with your marriage and so the only path forward is both of you sitting down and saying, okay, and you've heard me say this a thousand times, I'll say it a million times more. The Twin Towers got knocked down and we can never sweep up all that glass and steel and dust and rebuild the towers with those same ingredients. It's over. It's gone. We have to excavate everything and decide today we're gonna build something completely new.

What is that gonna look like? And in my house, it was, I need this from you. I need this, I need this, I need this. And then my wife was like, I need this and this and this. And I said, I will go all in on those things. And I will trust that you will go all in on the other. But you got to build something looking to the future, not trying to reclaim something from the past

because the past doesn't exist anymore. It's a different time and a different place and a different planet. Sure. You know what I mean? And my question to you is, do you like this guy enough to do that? Yes.

Will you? Yeah, definitely. If he sat down with you and said, all right, here's what I need. We're 42 years old. I want crazy rambunctious sex. And I want us to once a month go on a trip together. And I want you to stop talking about work. And also, can we just

watch romantic comedies? Because I know he's super into those. And can we not, right? Whatever the thing is. And you vice versa saying, what I really need is when you get home, you're off the phone and you're just going to talk to me. You know what my wife, one of the things my wife needed, we call it chit chat. I don't even know what that is really Except when she's in the kitchen I sit up at the bar And we just talk about stuff And there's sometimes I think I don't know what we're doing right now

She's just chopping vegetables Doing some stuff, looking at stuff But we're just talking about things And that makes her soul quiet It gives her peace I don't understand it But but I'm all in. And now I've grown to love chit-chat time. I don't even know what we're doing, right?

That's great. You see what I'm saying? Yes. It doesn't have to overcomplicate it. It's just, here's what I need right now. And then here's the cool part and the annoying part. In three years, your needs will be all different again. And this will become a part of the rhythm of your life is what do you need in this season?

What do you need in this season? And the adventure is not, I got to get all my needs met. The adventure is, dude, I'm going to go over the top to meet your needs because you're going over the top to meet mine. I'm going to meet all of your needs so that you can meet mine. I'm going to do, I'm going to meet all of your needs so that you can meet mine. It sounds transactional, but it's not. It's deepening this thing. But it starts with sitting it down saying,

okay, the towers fell over. Are you in this to rebuild something new with me? And here's where that's a scary, vulnerable conversation, Christy. He may say no. Okay.

He may say no. But he might say no. Okay. He may say no, but he might say yes. Is that fair? Yeah. Yeah, it really is. And then a part of the path going forward is like New York City didn't just rebuild it. They had to go get experts, right? So you may need a marriage counselor to teach y'all how to, I say this, my need out loud, I automatically feel angry and I don't wanna feel angry. And when I feel angry, then you feel mad that I'm angry

and they'll help you with some of the dances, right? It's just a therapist is a dance coach. I'm gonna teach y'all how to interact with each other and move throughout your day a little bit differently. But I got real high hopes if we sit down and have that conversation. Okay. And he's going to have to agree. I'm going to act like an adult moving forward.

I'm not going to take my ball and just go home every time. Yeah. What if the answer is vague? I mean, do I read into it or do I just take it as a no? What is the, say what more time? What if the answer is vague? I mean, do I read into it or do I just take it as a no? What is the, say what more time? What if the answer is vague? Do I just read into it? No, no, no, no, no. You're that's the communication issue. Both of you are getting into each other's heads. Fundamental attributionary, they call it in the nerd world. I'm going to get into your head and think why you just did what you just did. And I'm going to judge you based on what I just, why I think you did what you just did.

Okay. Get out of each other's heads. What if the answer is vague? We don't do vague anymore. Your relationship doesn't have time for vague. Right. Right. Vague is a screen in front of your oxygen mask. I don't got time for that.

I need oxygen now. Yeah. The question is, will you build something new with me because if you're in it starts tomorrow at 5am okay we're going to go for a walk

and maybe you do the hard work and say up front here's three things I need okay and here's three things I'm willing to do and by the way Christy as someone who talks a lot, I'm a lot. You know what I mean?

So when my wife needs quiet time, I understand it because I'm a lot. I don't feel like I am, but everyone's look on their face around me assures me that I am. Okay? Yes. So some of that, I have to go deal with my own counseling. I got to figure out my own stuff because I bring a lot of my stuff. And you're going to have to go deal with my own counseling I gotta figure out my own stuff because I bring a lot

of my stuff and you're gonna have to do that too okay okay but the whole thing the whole enterprise

here is a risk I think you're worth the risk I think he's worth the risk I think 20 years and your five boys are worth the risk

I think all of it is worth the risk and the beauty on the other side of this thing can be something unimaginable. Yes, I believe that. Okay.

There can't be any more hedging from this point forward. Okay? Okay. You can't go halfway. You can't have sort of a talk. You can't have a vague talk. You got to go all in.

Okay. Is that cool? Yes. You let me know how that goes? I sure will. Thank you. Cool. Oh, by the way, I called him a child. You're kind of one too, right? Is that fair? Probably. 100%.

So we'll have a grown up conversation. Hey, will you let me know how the conversation goes? Absolutely. I'll be thinking about you guys, man. I want the best for y'all. We'll have a grown-up conversation. Hey, will you let me know how the conversation goes? Absolutely. Okay. I'll be thinking about you guys, man. I want the best for y'all. And to everybody who's in a relationship who's struggling right now,

who's wondering, that next... Have it. Conflict delayed is conflict amplified. It'll just get more... Have it. Sit down and say, I miss you. I want to build something new. We'll be right more, have it. Sit down and say, I miss you. I want to build something new.

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. Hey, we're back. That was a fun show so far. Hey, real quick before we roll. I want to, y'all know that I can't stand people who invent diagnostics and then label each other with them. I call it the Google diagnostics. I got sent this by someone on the team. So I want to talk about this pop psychology term I keep hearing on social media coming up.

And from our team. It's called high-functioning anxiety. Oh my gosh. What people mean when they say high-functioning anxiety is that they are super anxious on the inside and their life is working really good on the outside. Okay? You know this person. You might even be this person. I was this person for a long time. It's the guy that keeps getting promoted at work, but has panic attacks during the day. It's the mom who's on time for every practice, but is constantly on edge because the schedule ruins it. It's anxiety that's easy to hide, ignore, or diminish life because life isn't off the rails, right? It's like, no, we're going great. We're going great. We're going great. Because the car's not in the gutter, that does not mean you're driving safely or doing anything that's going to have any long-term viability.

Here's the annoying part. There's no such thing as high-functioning anxiety. There is no diagnosis. It's this obsession with branching everything off and giving everything a protected label. Stop. Stop. Our cultures turned anxiety into something it's not and made it sound crazy with these big, scary labels. Anxiety is crippling. I've had it. It will collapse you and it will make life hard. I've had it. Been there. Still got it, okay? But I've got management strategies now. I want you to think of anxiety as simply your brain trying to keep you safe. So if you have something that you've Googled and determined you've got high functioning anxiety,

what that means is the life you are leading is killing you. It's your body trying to get your attention that, yes, we are making lots of money and getting promoted and all the moms think we're the best and we're going to die. Your body will eventually shut you down, right? Or maybe you're in loads of debt and like, look how nice my house is. Look how nice my car is. Look how nice my degree on my wall is. And your body's like, we're not safe. We're not safe. We're not safe because we owe other people money. And they get to decide what we do today, not us.

So whatever it is, anxiety is the smoke alarm. It's the message that your body's trying to give you to let you know that you're not safe. If it sounds like you, and again, it sounds like me. If it sounds like you, number one, stop creating diagnosis for yourself. And to the mental health practitioners here, creating additional diagnostics,

creating additional labels that are like adjunctive to existing, that's not helping. People who are hurting need to be grounded in reality. Here is reality. And creating another label on top is not helping. Okay? There's a ton more I can say about it here.

I actually wrote a blog about it, wrote an article about it. Go to ramsaysolutions.com or go to johndeloney.com and you can check out the article on high-functioning anxiety and how it is a real thing, but it's actually not even a real thing.

All right, so let's wrap up today's show. Kelly's second favorite band ever, Bachman Turner Overdrive. We talked to a couple of business owners today dealing with relationships. Talking about taking care of business and it goes like this. You get up every morning from your alarm clocks,

warning, not your alarm clock, just from your alarm clocks, warning. Take the 815 to the city. There's a whistle up above. People pushing, people shoving, and the girls who try to look pretty. And if your train's on time, then you can get to work by nine

and start your slaving job to get your pay. If you ever get annoyed, look at me. I'm self-employed. I love to work at nothing all day. And I'll be taking care of business. Every day, take care of business every day. Take care of business and working overtime. Work out. I don't know about that one, Kelly.

Taking care of business every day. That's what we do on this show. See you later.