The Dr. John Delony Show - My Sex Drive Is Way Higher Than My Husband’s

Episode Date: June 8, 2022

Today, we hear from a father terrified to put his violent son on medication after his wife’s battle with opioid addiction, a woman facing a crossroads in her marriage as she realizes they’re not on the same page sexually, and a mom worried about her adult daughter with autism. Lyrics of the Day: "I Want To Dance With Somebody" - Whitney Houston 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. My son is starting to become somewhat of an issue from a behavioral standpoint due to his mom essentially no longer playing any sort of active role in his life. Where is mom? Mom is currently in a mental health facility outside of Philadelphia. Yikes, man. Woo! What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you're hanging out with us.

Hope your life's doing well. I was going to say, I hope the gas prices have come down, but they won't have. And so hope we are getting through that together and figuring out bread and diapers and formula. It's just a mess. It's a mess out there. And when things get messy, remember, lean into the messy, lean into the generosity, not I got to get mine. And I know that's so hard to do. So hard to do.

Just practice it. Try it. Practice it and try it. So, hey, we got a packed show today, and I got some heads up on what's coming, and so there's a lot on the show. So I'm going to go straight to the phones and not do a couple of minutes of cringy pre-call talk here. So let's go to Lawrence in Philadelphia. What's up, brother Lawrence? Hey, Doc.

How you doing? I'm good, my man. How are you? Well, I have kind of a rough season going on right now. I appreciate you taking your time to speak with me. Oh, you got it. Anytime. So what's up, my brother? So I'm a single dad, and I've had both kids essentially full-time since October of 2018. My daughter turns nine on Saturday, and my son is 11. My son is starting to become somewhat of an issue from a behavioral standpoint. He's struggling with life right now. He's full of tons of anxiety and frustration due to his mom essentially no longer playing any sort of active role in his life, which I completely understand.

Where is mom? Mom is currently in a mental health facility outside of Philadelphia. Yikes, man. How long was, is it degenerative? How long was that going on? Well, you know, she, she, when I met her, I knew that she was regularly taking opioids because she was in a car accident in college when a tree fell on her car and she suffered from chronic migraines. Back in the early 2000s, what the best neurologists would do is they would just toss a whole bunch of narcotics at you. That's right.

Just to manage the pain. And when the effect of the narcotics took off at that point in time, they would switch the dosage or the brand or whatever case it was. And unfortunately, she became hooked. I don't blame her for that. It's unfortunate. And, you know, I, I was somewhat ignorant to what narcotics could do to someone because back when you and I were growing up, John, they didn't really refer to any type of opioid pandemic. And I just didn't know what the symptoms of addiction were with respect to something that brilliant doctors prescribed and was readily available at pharmacies.

That's right. I'm so sorry. I've seen that up close. That'll take everything. I'm so sorry, man. Yeah, it's unfortunate. It ultimately changed everything in our lives. It tore our family apart. There were certain things that went on

which just forced me to unfortunately file for divorce, which I never saw myself doing, but here we are. Other things started happening, at which point I got my lawyer involved, and we filed for residential custody, and they've been living with me ever since. Since August of 2021, they've seen her in person like an hour and a half. Was she institutionalized when they saw her? No, she wasn't. She wasn't. She was living with their sister's father at the time.

They have a sister that's going to be three. They've seen her maybe a handful of times since she's been born because of issues with her mother. It's really frustrating. It's just really frustrating. It's a lot of things. It's a lot on me, but I'm doing my best just to give the kids as regular of a life as possible under the circumstances. So first thing, do this for me, okay? Take as deep breath as you possibly can and hold it for a second. Hold it.

No, you let it out, cheater. I did. Take it in. Try again. Take it in and hold it. I'm going to restart. You can edit this out. Nope, we're leaving it in.

Hold it. All right, let it out. And then I want you to drop your shoulders down as hard as you can. Pull them down, okay? Sure. I can feel you talking about this and starting to speed up your cadence because this is still really, this is not as though this is a healing wound.

This thing's still bleeding, right? The cut's still happening, right? It's daily. Yeah. All right. Was she taken when she was pregnant? She was. We had her monitored by a different doctor that essentially weaned her down to a smaller dose, but she was still taking during both pregnancies.

Did your kid, either one of your kids or your son especially, was he diagnosed with NOWS, neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome? He wasn't diagnosed with it shortly after he was born. He was put in the NICU just for monitoring. They were worried about that. They didn't do any of that with my daughter. Okay. All right. So your wife wasn't on methadone or any of the other? She was not on methadone, no.

Okay. So they were just cutting her dose. Okay. All right. So I want to be real careful about something, and hopefully this gives you some peace, even though it's going to feel like it's going to make things more chaotic, okay? I want you to do your best you can from this point forward for the rest of your kid's life of not saying because of or due to, okay?

Earlier on when you're talking about your son's anxiety, he's got this anxiety because he can't see mom. He probably has that anxiety for a whole cocktail of reasons. Okay? And whenever we dump, we distill it down to a single problematic data point, we try to solve that data point. And it never makes the whole thing better. And so I want to look at the whole ecosystem that's going on here. Okay. There are a, and you probably know these, but this is just for

the audience as much as it is for you. The longitudinal neurodevelopment literature is all over the place. And so one of the first things I do is I take animal models and I move them out. And when you do that, there's just not a ton of stuff out there. Some of them show opioid use in utero, effects of things like IQ and language development, all that kind of stuff.

Some of them show no development, no difference. Some of them showed difference for up until like four or five months. Some of them show difference in boys and girls. Almost all of them universally um this is with methadone so i think it's with methadone maybe it's the other way um show some sort of increased risk for anxiety for adhd and all that so that's cool to know that um here's where i think a lot of those studies miss and

it's i don't blame the studies because they're just trying to set a baseline biochemically. But your kids have grown up in a world of chaos. Is that right? Unfortunately, yep. Hey, don't do that to yourself, okay? It just is. Okay, let me give you that. It is unfortunate, but I don't want you to take ownership of the misfortune at this point, okay?

They grew up with a mom as an addict. And for a kid, you know this, but that's so dysregulating to see a human in front of you and touch them, but they're not really there. You know what I mean? Luckily, at the time, they were so young that I don't think they realized that. Well, I'm telling you their bodies for sure did 1000% did they absorbed it, the same disconnect you felt relationally

where you could be holding hands with somebody that you knew was not there, you could sleep with somebody, have sex with somebody and they're not there they picked that same thing up and it's exponentially worse because they have neuronal development going on right then. Okay. And so what I am most compelled by is Gabor Mate and others who have

looked at pre-maternal stress, in utero stress in moms creates this downstream of this cocktail that pulses through these kids and they end up with anxiety and all sorts of a cascade of things down the road. Why do I tell you that? The thing that you can control right now is the ecosystem, the peace, right? And that is where I want you to focus your energy on moving forward. So I just gave you a lot of info info and I didn't even let you ask your question. So what is your question question? Um, the behavioral issues are starting to be something beyond my control. Okay. Tell me about them starting to become, you know, just

talking back, hitting kids, biting kids. Like what are we talking about here? He, yeah, I mean, he's, he's been, he's been suspended a time or two due to physical issues. There was a time he started throwing hands at a sitter. I've called the police on him on occasion because I didn't want to hurt him while restraining him, and he was just somewhat out of control. In terms of discipline, I have a hard time not yelling at times just because there seems to be nothing else to do at that time. I haven't written sentences. Sentences was the latest thing that I've been doing in terms of discipline, and he absolutely hates that. But lately, when I say write sentences, he will just say no.

No, I'm not going to do that. And, you know, all this stuff combined, the issues at school. His therapist is saying we want to get him psychoanalyzed. His family crisis counselor at school wants to get him psychoanalyzed. Law enforcement has spoken to him, and they say he definitely needs some type of psychiatric evaluation. I'm just worried. Yeah. He's going to be put on meds.

Yeah. Because I know what he did to his mom. Yeah. Yeah. And your fear is, is, um, valid. Okay. Let me talk, let me talk to you about a couple of, of things until we get to the psychoanalytic part. Okay. Um, or the psychoanalysis, not psychoanalytics. Um, so I want you to start thinking about that body, that little boy's body. How old is he? You said? He's 11. 11. Okay. Fifth grade. Fifth grade. So you have a little boy whose body is being overwhelmed by

the sensations and feelings. And that comes out with behaviors that in adults are criminal acts. And in children, it's simply symptomatic of a body that is, think of a cup underneath a faucet, it's just overflowing, okay? And throwing hands, punching, swinging, yelling, just that caustic screaming is a body that's dysregulated and this is going to sound counterintuitive, but that's a body screaming for connection in a backwards chaotic way. And so it's a body screaming for connection in a backwards, chaotic way. And so it's a body screaming for boundaries in a chaotic way. And yet there's a dysregulation

for when you put boundaries down. Now he's like, no, I'm not doing that. And so I want you to begin to think of punishment, not as a way to force him to do things he doesn't like or are uncomfortable with him. Would you be willing to flip the whole paradigm around for me? I'm willing to try anything, Doc. Okay. I want you just to try this for 30 days, and if it's a bust, write me back, and I promise I'll read the email aloud on the show that I failed you. Okay?

Here's what I want you to do. Let me ask you one more question. Have you ever sat down with him and just talked about mom how heartbreaking it is for everybody yes they are very difficult conversations how do they go

I mean as of late it's trying to understand it's trying to tell him why he can't see mom currently to try to express why mom's mind is sick. You know, every time he sees him

she looks normal and her voice sounds normal. Having a kid comprehend that their brain is sick and making them do things or not do things that they should be doing, that's a very difficult concept.

And the whole thing, there's no way for him even to talk to her. That's a hard thing, you And the whole thing, like, there's no way for him even to talk to her. That's a hard thing, you know. If we've done the thing, you know, it's almost like,

you know, she's dead. It's the same thing. Yes, except she's not, and that's the problem. There's no closure, right?

No, no. It's just, she's not there. And, you know, he has a hard time thinking, you know,

well, daddy, you know, you did this, where are you keeping from mommy? So I have him call my ex's mom. You know, she'll confirm everything. You know, I keep telling him how much I love him.

Yeah. Okay, so I want you to—this is not at this point about data. This is about his body, okay? And so what we're going to do is we're going to address the body here. Here's a couple ways we're going to do that. Number one, we're going to, if you don't already, invite him into this. Don't force him. The whole world's been forced upon him, okay?

So I want you to invite him in to, and again, I got a 12-year-old, and I know this is awkward, okay? And even my son's like, Dad, I'm going to just tell him, this one's for your old man, even though I know it's for him. Is a 20 to 30-second hug a couple of times a day, maybe right before school and after school and say, we're going to do hug time. And he may go, dad, I'm not doing that. See if you can get him to buy into that. Okay. And your daughter too. Cool. The second thing is I want you to find ways, highly intentional ways, not accidental ways to put your hand on his skin, preferably on his face or on the back of his neck, okay? And when you're hugging him,

I want you to put one hand on the back of his neck and hold that area, 20 to 30 seconds, two or three times a day, okay? There's a ton of bioregulatory sensory stuff that happens, skin-to-skin transmission, and it's going to bring his heart rate Okay. There's a ton of bioregulatory sensory stuff that happens, skin to skin transmission, and it's going to bring his heart rate down. It's going to bring his body down. Okay. And all we're trying to do is teach him what it feels like to not be spun up. And we're going to teach him that in the presence of dad and in the presence of relationship is where you find that spinning slowdown. And right now, everything about relationships spins that sucker up.

You see what I'm saying? These are quiet teaching moments that I'm stunned or not in every psychiatric office in the world. I would even go as far to say something as silly as, oh man, some sort of, hey, let me massage your fingers let me like we hold a lot of tension in our hands a lot of tension in our feet um with little children little little kids who have been

abused one of the things that a therapist might do is take lotion and just rub feet because all we're doing is teaching the body how to be touched and how to, okay, so that's number one. Number two, have y'all done any sort of letter writing to mom? No, I tried to get him to write in a journal just to capture his thoughts and he just, he's even hesitant to doing that. Okay, two things to do there. Number one, get a journal that is between you two and tell him, hey, this is two secret guys just for two dudes. And you write to him and leave it on his bed. And all he has to bring it back and put it on your bed. Hopefully it's got one line in it.

In that journal, I want you to do age appropriate stuff, but let him know that you miss mom. Let him know that today was a hard day or today was a good day or today. I actually cried And what we're teaching him is dad's not crazy and he's not crazy And so his feelings start to look like dad's because right now you look like a big strong tough He's got it all together guy and we want to teach him No, here's what's going on in dad's heart and he can read it over and over and over again Okay, and hopefully he begins to share with you. I've heard parents write me back and say, my kid just wrote today was good.

And if they start weeping with, they've never had that level of connection, okay? Another one is write letters to mom and it'd be cool if y'all did this together. And his letters may be short and you can tell him, you can be really angry. You can be really sad. I want you to tell her about what happened today.

But we're going to write these things and we're going to put them in an envelope and you are not going to mail them. Okay. But this is an exercise and you can commit to doing it too. Sure. We're teaching him. Here's where those feelings that are burning holes in us. Here's where they go. Here's a good place to do that is to write it down. Okay. And then here's the last one. And

then we'll get to the medication stuff. The last one is I want you to create with him and your daughter. I know this has been a mess. I know this is all hard. I miss mommy. Y'all miss mommy, but here's the world we're in right now. Mommy's in the hospital and she's not okay right now. And so we need to create some rules for our house. And you've probably heard me talk about this on the show multiple times. It works really well here. And what we're doing is we're going to go to like Michael's, we're going to go to a hardware store and get a big piece of board or whatever. We're going to doll it up and make it nice. And we're going to write the Lawrence, let's say your last name's Smith, the Smith family rules. This is who the Smiths are. And they're less rules, but they're

more values. So let's call it that, the Smith values. And I want your kids, especially your son, but your daughter too, for them to have input on this. Who are we? And I want y'all to make it a fun exercise, get ice cream and whatever their favorite food is. Make it a fun I want y'all to make it a fun exercise get ice cream and whatever their favorite food is Make it a fun thing where y'all are writing things down And then you're going to paint it on this board and you're going to hang it up in the living room Even if it doesn't match Here's where we're getting at When your son hits somebody

You do you are not punishing him He is choosing to go meet with the police. And what we're slowly going to do is teach him that he has a choice in how his day goes. Not that he's going to do something that will cut off relationship. Because right now, he knows he can push you far enough that his punishment is disassociation with dad. That you will use your relationship with him as a weapon. You did this, you have to go out of here. I'm casting you away from me.

And when I want to flip that on its head and I want him to understand that when I do this, I'm choosing to leave dad and I don't like to do that. Because right now he's trying to see how far I can push you before you're gonna go to. How far can I push my teacher before she disappears on me like mom did? And what we wanna do is teach him,

any disappearing is gonna be a choice that you're making. And dude, it breaks, this is how I tell my kids. These are my exact words. It breaks my heart that I'm choosing to have my heart broken right now, that you chose to leave the room for 30 minutes or for an hour or to not go fishing with us. I'm choosing to be sad about that because I only like fishing when you're with me. And you just chose to do X, Y, Z, not study for this test to not whatever.

And you chose to not go. And I can't stand that. Please don't make that choice ever again, because I don't like fishing without you. You see how we're flipped. And now I'm telling you, it's a light switch night and day in my home, okay? Because they feel this strong sense of ownership about it. Now, like all of us, sometimes it's like, yeah, it's worth it.

I'm gonna drive 70 over the speed limit. And if I get caught, I get caught, right? But most of the time I'm watching this thing shift, okay? Now let's get to the meds. I do believe that your kid is in, in line for some sort of psycho eval. Okay. Sure. As a parent, I cannot speak to as a psychiatrist. So I'm just going to tell you, you and I are hanging out on, uh, grabbing a drink and you and I just met and we're just hanging out. Okay. This is what I would tell you about what I would do with my kids. I feel hyper strong about benzodiazepines as a no-no.

Okay. I have it written into my psychiatric power of attorney that if I get institutionalized, they still can't give me those drugs. I'd rather be institutionalized than be on those drugs and out into the world. Okay? So I have a very strong, and that's off of Anna Lemke's work and any number of psychiatrists who are now beginning to write more and more about this ongoing benzo crisis that we got. I will also say that there are some SSRIs that are magic for dealing with anxiety. Do you mind just elaborating what the benzomyoprene and SSRI are? It's a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, right? So there are two different medications that have two different brain chemistry pathways. One basically keeps the, it's just the way that

the synapses, the neurons talk to each other across synapse, and SSRIs are going to be traditional stuff like Prozac, right? And it simply keeps more stuff hanging around. Benzos are the Xanaxes of the world, and it's a rabbit hole, okay? And so I would have no problem if I sat down with somebody and they said, all right, we've done all this stuff. Your son, at this point, he's so dysregulated. His alarm system is so sensitive right now. Like, dude, you've been in a hotel where you're steaming up the shower, you know, and it sets off the fire alarm, the smoke alarm. That's just an attitude.

It's a dysfunctional alarm system. Your 11-year-old may be there, and that's okay. What an SSRI is going to do, it's going to help turn that alarm down a little bit. It will not solve the problem, but what it will allow him to do is to then go sit with a counselor, to then begin to regulate some of these behaviors that you and I were just

talking about a minute ago. And be very open with the doctors about mom's opioid addiction, about the prenatal use of opioids, and your concerns about addictive behaviors. And any good psychiatrist will walk alongside you in that journey. Tell them that you want to try any and all behavioral interventions before you get medication, okay? But I do think a psycho eval is important right now, okay?

That doesn't mean they're going to take your kid from you and dope them up for eternity. You're still the parent, okay? Now- That's my concern. If you sit with a doctor and they say,

look, you talked to some nut job on a podcast who said stay away from benzos we think this is the best thing for you right now you can say great i'm gonna go get a second opinion and go get a second opinion and tell that psychiatrist exactly what happened i went in saying i if we have to do meds let's do ssris they forced benzos do you agree with that? And dude, they're the doctors and I'm not. And so at some point you have to decide, I'm going to go off into the woods

and treat this on my own or I'm going to listen to the doctors. And I also know that you've got a, you got burned bad by them in the past. You lost the love of your life. And all she did was whatever the doctors told her, right? That's right. That's right.

And so this is a scary season right now. So all I'm telling you is how I would approach this if these were my kids. I cannot give you medical advice and I can't give you even therapeutic advice because I don't have that sort of relationship with you or your kid. But I'm just telling you what I would do

if it was my kid. Ultimately, I think your kid needs some professional intervention and I also absolutely understand your discomfort with that. It's well-earned. I'm just also worried that my daughter might ultimately hit down the same path. I think there's every reason to believe that. Here's the deal. Some kids respond by punching kids. Other kids respond with straight A's. Often young girls will exhibit ADHD and anxiety by getting really quiet and following all the rules. And so we don't know what's going on

inside of them because we're just looking for the demonstrative behaviors that are going to either violate, to violate whatever rules we have, or they're going to cause further chaos. And so yes, I would expect growing up in the home of an addict with a mother who used while she was in utero and all of the relational chaos and the divorce, I would expect there to be challenges with your daughter as well. That's why getting upstream with dad connection, with skin to skin contact with, hey, I'm teaching you what choice looks like. I'm teaching you what the gap between stimulus and response looks like. All of those things are gonna create a new household. And so going all the way back

to the very first thing I told you, we're not looking for, well, it's because mom left because here's the natural tendency is that I'm gonna find somebody to replace mom. And that's not how that works. What we need to do is we need to change the entire air in that home. And let me tell you one last thing.

You, my friend, have got to do some healing work on your own. Is that fair? Yes. Yeah. Your son, and I don't say this in a shaming way, I say this in an empowering way, is absorbing your tension and chaos too. Okay? And so one of the greatest gifts you could give him is for you to go see somebody

and begin getting well yourself. Is that fair? That is fair. Okay. You will also set, give him a picture of what a grown man who's going to get help looks like.

And that would be one of the greatest gifts you can give him long-term. Okay? Yes. So, please go see a psychiatrist or go see a professional. Okay? It's expensive to get an eval.

Very, very expensive. And if you get a good one, it can be worth its weight in gold. And it will give a roadmap to you. And do not hesitate to speak up and also um don't hesitate to get a second opinion if you're uncomfortable okay okay is that fair something's got to change there you go i'm just you know i don't i don't want to lose my kids that's right they're great little people um In the same, if you will introduce the choice language that I was talking about in your home, instead of yelling.

And by the way, from this call on, we're not yelling anymore. Cool? I've been working on that. I know, I know. But let's don't work on it anymore. Let's just say no more. And here's what we're going to do. You're going to introduce choice to your kids very, very soon.

Like this weekend weekend probably. And when you are about to blow, I want you to look at your son or your daughter and say, I'm choosing to step away for a minute so that I can be in control of my body. And then I want you to step away for a minute and go walk around the house. And then you come back and you're teaching your son, you're giving him a picture of what regulating your body looks like, regulating your emotions looks like. Then when that hurt and fire come up,

how to release it. Because those punches he's throwing, that's just his version of you yelling. It's that overrun of emotion, right? And so I want you to lead the charge in your home on showing what this looks like. And that also means you got to get some counseling ASAP, brother. Will you do that? Yes.

I did a little bit, but I clearly have work to do. I want you to go into a counselor and say, I want to heal and be well. I don't just want to talk endlessly for the next nine months. I want to learn to heal and be well. Okay. And let's start there. Okay. There's gonna be a lot of action. There's gonna be some talking for sure. It's gonna be a lot of action, a lot of changing your behaviors. Okay. I want you to stay on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of my new book, Own Your Past, Change Your Future. Here's the deal. At some point, you're going to sit down and you're going to own what happened. Your whole world blew up. Your wife got sick and your whole world blew up.

And then you have to be about what are we going to do next? Okay. So hang on the line here. We're going to send it to you. Do you commit to going to see somebody yourself and taking your kid to see somebody? I want to hear you say it. I'm going to heal myself to make my kids better. Nope.

You're going to heal yourself because you're worth being loved, my man. Okay. Hey, you didn't fail your wife, dude. Stop carrying that around. You did not fail her. I hear you. The medical system did. She struggled a whole, and she probably has a whole lineage. You got to set that down, man. This isn't on you. You didn't fail. Did you drop pills in her drinks clearly not okay well

some of the calls I get on the show aren't so clear you didn't fail so you're not gonna get well for your kids you're gonna get well for you

cause you deserve to be well and by doing that they're gonna have a chance to be well too they're lucky to have a chance to be well too. They're lucky to have you, my man. And starting today, everything is different. Everything's different. Hang on the line here. We're going to get you the stuff. And if you would like, we can clip this call for you raw and send it to you so that you don't have to wait a month

before this thing launches and have some of that info. So we'll see if we can get that to you in the next couple of days. Hang on the line here and everybody else, we'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own 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 behind costumes and masks, 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 be honest with yourself, and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic 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. You can talk with your therapist anywhere

so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapist 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.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Let's go to Lacey

in Iowa. What's up, Lacey? Hey, how's it going? We're partying. How about you? I'm trying to do the same, a little bit at a time. Very cool. What's up? So in the great words of Whitney Houston, I want to feel the heat with somebody in particular that somebody my husband hey listen this is amazing but uh i went to this incredible uh uh heavy metal concert thing like this this hardcore show and that was the intro song like all the lights go down and that's the song they played and i smiled from ear to ear and thought this show is going to be incredible. And the fact that you just brought that up is just perfect. So good for you. All right, let's get back into it. Okay. So you want to party. Husband's not so down. Tell me more. I would say my husband wants to try to be down to the party, but, um, we've

been together for about nine, 10 years, five of those married. And we have tried every avenue imaginable to not only like increase the romance dating life, but also the intimacy realm. And I have particular preferences that are probably not safe to say on a public podcast, but they are very particular. Hold on. Remember back in middle school when somebody would be like, hey, Lacey, I know someone who likes you and I'm never going to tell you. And they just leave. You can't do that. You can't call and be like, I've got this crazy thing. And then listen, number one, nobody's listening to this show. We all know that. Right. And number two, you can't just drop that. So what, what is your thing? Oh, my sexual, um, tendencies are more risque into the, uh, abbreviations of BDSM. And I, I have always had that interest and I learned

to dial back to meet my husband's needs because he has never had any other sexual partners aside from me. And he only had one other long-term relationship before me. And that was just in high school. So, um, he has spent the last, you know, nine, 10 years learning with me how to do the things that I need and would like. And in turn, you know, I do the things that he enjoys and likes. However, in very plain terms, I mean, he's always vanilla. He likes his same old, same old, and he's just a sappy heartfelt guy. That's he's just a big cuddler. And I'm, I'm really the opposite of that. I'm like every touch of the skin could, you know, it just sets my soul on fire and I'm like, what's coming next. I'm just alive and

ready for more. And with him, it doesn't really go any more than that. So I guess we're just rolling around in like the same routines. And we have been for a long time and it got pretty bad about a year and a half ago. We had, you know, just kind of came to the conclusion that be on therapy and medications and all kinds of session treatments that we just weren't compatible in that realm. And it really hurt my heart because I love the daylights out of this guy and he loves me endlessly. And we didn't want to call it quits just because, you know, we weren't romantically connected in the same ways. And we just felt like we were living like, like roommates almost, you know, like come home, do the chores, do your day-to-day job and, you know, chat about your day. And that was it. So we're just trying to find a new way to make us compatible in that way. And I don't know

if that sounds weird to say out loud, but I'm just, I'm stuck. I don't, I don't know what else to do that would get him to want to participate in the ways that I need both in the dating world and in the intimacy realm. So I'm not living that same old regurgitated vanilla lifestyle that I'm just not so in love with. You're so descriptive and it's beautiful. The regurgitated vanilla. That's the kind of sex that everybody likes is regurgitated vanilla. God almighty, Lacey. Okay, so, man, there's so much here. You and I could talk for a couple hours and you're a joy to talk to.

So, number one, being into what you're into with your husband, I really don't want you to – you're coming at this with a specter of shame or a specter of weird, and maybe it's just you're just trying to be respectful of the show and stuff like that. So there's nothing that I say that every time I say nothing, I'm always surprised. Very few things surprise me when a couple gets together and like, hey, we've been married for five years or nine years and this is kind of what does it for me. Everybody's different. The challenge, like you mentioned, is how do I say this out loud? How do I let my needs be spoken into being? And how do I

let somebody hear them? And then how do we figure out what comes next, right? That's the hard part. And so I like to think of intimacy as just about closing the gap, reaching across whatever, you know, gap of discomfort there is and saying, this is me, this is all of me. Are you still in, right? Right. What I hear you conflating is romance, intimacy, and sexual preference. And I think when you conflate the three of those three things like that, they all are linked. But when you conflate all three of them, you find yourself in a position where you can never be happy. You see what I'm saying? Yeah.

Every single thing is sexually charged with you. Is that right? You said every time, like, he can walk by you in the kitchen and just put his hand on your hip as he's trying to get around you. And you're like, it's on now. Is that right? Yes. Okay. And he can also not do that And you begin to wonder what's wrong Is that fair or no? Yes Okay Where does that stem from?

I have a medical condition Called polycystic ovarian syndrome And part of that comes from In A bad balance of hormones. I shouldn't say bad, but it's just very abnormal. Um, and so I have the testosterone of two men. Yeah. Don't ever, ever, ever say they're bad. Never say they're bad. Is that cool? Right. This is just your, this is just how you roll.

Yeah. Yes. It's different. It's different than most women i know so they're like geez this is you want what yeah well and i'm thinking it's a thing all the the of the spectrum of people listening you know i can imagine there's a cluster of men going what what this exists right so i get that and right but there's also reality to it too, right? Yes. Which is hard. Okay, so. My husband and I have had very cordial conversations about it and very like deep conversations. So much so that I explain, I've showed pictures and videos. We've, you know, we've gone through the whole gamut of, you know,

different means of therapy and talking things out. So I'm not ashamed to talk about it. I'm not embarrassed or anything like that, even to friends and family who are honest and really want to know. So, I mean, he knows exactly, exactly what I'm looking for, but it's just hard for him to have that desire to do those things. Cause it's just not in his nature. He's just hard for him to have that desire to do those things because it's just not in his nature. He's just a lover. He's not like a hard and heavy person like I'm looking for. Hard and heavy people don't always like being hit. Or the one that I've heard over time is they don't feel comfortable hitting somebody out.

You know what I mean? So it's both in and out, right? Yes. So here's the hard question. How old are you? I'm going to be 30 in a year, less than a year. Here's the hard, hard question. Are you going to leave him?

I don't want to at all.. No, not because I know the last couple of years you've had this thought you wouldn't be calling me. Are you going to leave him? No. Okay. Here's why that answer, the answer to that is very, very important because then it reframes how much work we're going to do, how we're going to re-imagine this conversation. Because right now, this is about a particular sex act that you want that he won't do. Or let's be honest, like with, if you're fully down the BDSM rabbit hole, it's a context and it's an environment that you like, right? And it is a particular power hierarchy, right? Whether it's a sub or a don't, there's a whole lineage here, right? And it's a sub or a dot, there's a whole lineage here, right? Right. And it's a whole context. And so if you are all in on this person and together,

y'all do not create this context, what you have to be willing to do is to say, okay, how do I get a super charged libido? How do I get my, I'll crave contact and I crave, um, uh, what I would call an increased heart rate. Is that fair? Yep. Like I, if it's not in, by the way, you know, the, how this thing rolls, right? It just increases. Cause I got to keep pushing that boundary. Right? So how do I create an environment where we do that on terms that don't also isolate my husband? And so we're not trying to figure out ways that he can dress up and things that make him feel uncomfortable. We're not trying to figure out ways that he can hit me or be hit in ways that make him freak out.

That's not what we're trying to do. Sure. We're not trying to accomplish this particular set. What we're trying to do is find new environments. The masterpiece is the book Come As You Are by Emily Nagatsuki. Have you read that book? No, but I've heard you mention it many times. So I'm eager to read it.

Here's why that book is so important. I think both of you all need eager to read it. Here's why that book is so important. I think both of y'all need to read it together. Here's why that book is important. You think of this in terms of sex drive and that you have a high one, he has a low one. Is that fair? Yes. What she did for me was reframe the entire thing

and sex isn't about drive at all. It's environmental. It's ecological in a way. It is how do I create a world where there's as few offs as possible and a few ons as possible? And what that does with somebody with a particular sexual fetish is it begins to let them stop focusing on that object or that thing or this one singular environment and begin to look at a bigger picture. Okay. I'm trying to think of, this is somebody who gets amped up in the

only way they just in high school, um, they were a weightlifter on the football team. And so they're 48 now and all they can do is lift weights. And all of a sudden both shoulders blow out and they go to rehab and stuff, but they can't lift heavy like they used to. And that, that their body still needs that release. And so they learn how to get that release cycling or wrestling or rowing or any number of other things. That's what we're doing here. Not because inherently the thing's wrong, but inherently that particular environment makes your husband feel less than or, um, uh, scared or frightened or whatever.

And you love him too much to do that. Is that fair? scared or frightened or whatever, and you love him too much to do that. Is that fair? So are you willing to consider alternative environments? Yes. That still include... I have asked for those as well. And I think that definitely makes him uncomfortable because in his vanilla nature,

where he's comfortable is exactly where he's comfortable. Not that loose performance function outside of that area. But, you know, it takes a lot longer to build up the energy and the rush to get going in a place outside of norm. Yes. And so he's going to have to also reimagine this thing too and be willing to lean in and say, okay,

this particular actions in this particular environment, I can't get there. I've tried. I can't get there. Can we figure out other ways that at this moment are like, what?

Can we just cuddle, have boring married person sex? Can we just do that? It may be that there is some sort of, we're going to create a deck of cards and we're going to put a particular act on it and we're just going to draw out of a deck. And my heart rate will get up hoping that it's this one and his heart rate will get up hoping that we're just going to lay here and a deck and my heart rate will get up hoping that it's this one and his heart rate will get up hoping

that we're just going to lay here and watch The Office, whatever the thing is. But we're going to do these things together that are going to create a context that our heart rates are going to get up and that you are going to get the skin to skin and the, I'm trying to say words that instantly roll into like, sound like sex acts words,

but that's not what I mean. But I mean the visceral response, right? That your body craves, okay? Right. This is less about, hey, we need to go find some new videos. And this is more about, I want you guys to reimagine the whole spectrum here. So do me this favor.

Number one, know that you're not broken and he isn't either. Number two, this isn't about trying to dial up his sex drive or dial yours back. Number three, BDSM is a proxy for an environment that gets you skin to skin contact that makes you able to put your head in a different psychological place that gets a, um, that is rough and that gets your body moving in a different way. Right. So where can we create, can we set that proxy aside for a second and begin to create a new environment where we still get those things, but everybody's okay. And I know you're thinking, dude, I've had this conversation with him a million times.

I want you all to read this book together and begin to say, okay, maybe it's, we go once a month, we go get a hotel room somewhere and it looks like this. Or maybe, like I said, we have five things in an envelope and we draw one out once a week and no matter what's going on, we do that thing. Or maybe it's different parts of the house or in the car, in the garage, like any number of places and things you can do, or you can go, let's begin thinking outside the box. And what you're going to do is not close your box. You're going to begin to look at other options and he's going to begin to expand his. And y'all are going to look at this as a series of brakes and gas pedals. How can I turn more of the ons on and more of the offs off? A couple of exercises that Dr. Nagoski has in the book is let's get beneath the fetish and say, what are the things here that are turning

you on? Let's do a step. Let's be real clear. Let's write them down. What are the things he gets by cuddling and closeness? And as you say, regurgitated vanilla, how do y'all get to those places? Write those things down and let's start to look for overlap here and say, okay, oh, we both meet in the middle here, meet in the middle here. What if we tried this? And what if we tried this? And then we're going to have post-mortem, which is not super fun, but we're learning new things. And here's the big word. We're practicing new ways of being intimate with one another. And remember, intimacy is not about how we have sex. Intimacy is I'm bridging the gap of discomfort. I'm willing to bridge that gap. Do you see me? And do you still love what you see?

And that's hard. And we often, I find in my own relationship, all relationships, that's a recurring question, a recurring thing. Do you see me and do you still love me? Lacey, you're awesome. I've got the highest hopes for your marriage. Please let me know. I want you to read through this book.

Let me know how the homework assignments go on the back end. Reach back out to me. And if you want to call back on the show and we can keep this conversation going, I would love that. We'll talk to you soon and everybody will be right back.

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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 churchillemortgage.com slash Diloni and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we are back. Let's go to Terry in Fort Worth. Hey, Terry, what's up? Hi, Dr. John. How are you? How are you? I'm good. I'm good.

How are you? I'm okay. I'm okay. Got some stuff going on? Lots of stuff going on. I'm so sorry. Okay, let's do it. What's up? Okay, I'm calling about my 20-year-old daughter. She's on the autism

spectrum. Diagnosed shortly before her sixth birthday. Had lots of therapy in her early childhood, and everything went great. I mean, to the point where her primary and secondary education, she was able to get through without any type of medication. But the last three years, I've seen a decline, significant decline. And the insurance at my job, it's almost $300 a pay period just for health insurance. And then she doesn't, she's not eligible for any type of CHIP or Medicaid because I'm slightly over that bracket as well. And I'm just at, I'm lost because I'm not sure how to help her. There's also, she dealt with bullying in school to an extreme extent. And there was also some abuse

in younger childhood. Sexual abuse, physical abuse? Yes. Yes, sexual. And it's just a lot. I'm trying to help her come to grass with tritherapy once in 2019, once in 2020. And the issues were never brought to light to discuss. And so I'm at a loss. I'm at a loss on how to help my daughter. So the first thing, just as a fellow parent, I'm sorry. This hurts. And you're watching your daughter, somebody that you love and you've invested your whole life into really struggling. And that hurts for everybody. Just as a fellow parent, I'm sitting here with you.

And I'm sorry. That hurts, man. So let me ask a couple of just detailed questions and then we can kind of get right into it. What kind of accommodations did she receive in middle school and high school especially? She had what was called, oh gosh, what was the term? Gosh, it seemed like so long ago, where there was assistance if she needed it. It wasn't like someone, you know, following her throughout the day.

But if she needed assistance. She could get like note-taking assistance or? Oh, yes, Okay. If she needed extra time on a test or something? Yes, exactly. And that was needed in elementary, not so much in middle school and high school, but in elementary, yes, she had those resources. Is she going to college now? She actually just completed her first year of college. Very cool. And so was that a struggle?

Oh, yes. Okay. All right. Oh, yes. The first semester was virtual, which was last year. I mean, last semester, this semester that she just finished, she was on campus. She would share a ride. This semester that she just finished, she was on campus. She would share a ride.

Share a ride would pick her up, bring her to the campus. Is she still living at home with you? She is. Okay. She is. And she wants to have some more independence. And I know that's needed at a certain point. I just know I need to give her those resources to help her to navigate everything that she is experiencing and has experienced. So here's a couple of things here.

There is some, let me put it this way. I've seen students go to college. Um, I'm assuming she's relatively high functioning, right? Yes. Um, yes.

That term, but yes, I know. I hate that term too. Um, I despise that term because there are seasons when I'm low functioning and high functioning. And I think it's a complete, uh,

it's a, it's a nonsensical phrasing, but it's just what we got right now. So I've seen students go to college and absolutely blossom in tremendous ways. Even students who would be generally classified as like median functioning, like really have a lot of challenges. And so the first thing I would do is look at my university system that my child's a part of and sit down with the ADA 504 coordinator, the disability services, and sit down with the counseling center. And to say, here are all of the resources available to me. And I've been, I can't even tell you how many of those meetings I've been in. They're generally extraordinary.

And often the other thing happens. And so I painted you a rosy picture. Often kids will go to school who've had all kinds of accommodations and they are on the spectrum. They want to just go finally jump in and be quote unquote normal like everybody else. And I always tell students, always, always, always do not stop doing your things your first year. Continue with the accommodations. If you're taking meds, you just, I just want to stop doing it. Continue doing that because the transition is so significant.

The pace is so much faster. There's so many more inputs coming. And for a kid, an autistic child, all of that sensory inputs is just can be overwhelming. And everybody, everywhere, all the time, it's just a lot, right? So I would really lean

into those institutional resources. And by the way, you're already paying for all of them. You're paying for all of them. And so you may have to pay for an ABA diagnostic, right? That will, that if you don't already have one of those, you probably already have one of those. Here's the bigger picture that I'm hearing. And this may or may not, I mean, you

and I have just met each other like a second ago on the phone. At some point, your daughter's going to have to deal with the sexual abuse and the bullying. And I would plug her into a therapist on campus with this level of detail. I was sexually abused as a kid I was autistic and so I was mercilessly bullied as a child and into middle school and high school And I need help healing So take that type of direct language What is not helpful for any of us much less somebody on the spectrum is just going to a therapist and talking Mindlessly about feelings for day on day on day on day on day Right, it's not helpful. I need some new actions to help my body X, Y, and Z. Okay?

Absolutely. So be that bold. And really, she needs to be that bold because she's 20. And that leads me to my last thing here. Mama, at some point, you're going to have to let this little girl go. Okay. And that's super hard. And I don't mean go and stop being, um, you know,

not, uh, not being attuned to her life, not making sure she's going to her appointments, asking about meds, not that stuff. But in your mind, she's still that elementary school or middle school girl that you're trying to

take care of because you love her and you know, she's different and you know, people have been mean to her and hurt her and you'll be damned if it's going to happen again on your watch. Is that right? Yeah. Yeah. impulse is what's going to keep her from going to this next level, which is navigating a messy, ugly, hard world with neurological differences, not being neurotypical, right? Okay. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong. Is that true?

No, you're right. You're right. Okay. Absolutely. So if she was on the phone with me now, how would she describe you? Um, loving, uh, protective. You said it perfectly. I'm actually working from home. A beautiful, stunning. That was awesome. Um, so she would, she would label you as protective both in the best and the worst of ways, right? Yes, yes. How would she prefer to get to school?

Can she drive? No, no, she should ride. But can she drive? No, she cannot. Could she drive? Could she learn to? I guess I'm not the one to teach her because I shouldn't teach anyone how to drive, but she should. Terry, you're skirting my question because you're brilliant. We said this summer she would

learn. We did say this summer we would try some driving lessons, driving courses. So it's time to let this young woman grow up. Does she do well academically? Yes. Besides the struggles this last semester, one A, a B, and two Cs. Okay. For a given to what she's going through both environmentally and neurologically. And if she went through that whole semester without any accommodations after receiving them, then she did a great job, right? Yeah, it's good to have. That's super impressive. You wait till she gets the help that she needs, and she's going to shoot through the roof like on a rocket ship, okay? And so here's all of this is coming down to this, is a intentional graduated plan

to begin to teach her the adult skills. And this is sooner rather than later. Teach her the adult skills she needs to go be successful. And you know what a big part of this is going to be? You, Terry, are carrying around the guilt of a sexual abuse. And you, Terry, are carrying around the guilt of the sexual abuse and you Terry are carrying around the guilt of the bullying and you're carrying around the guilt of her

having autism and I need you to forgive yourself to set those bricks down and I want you to go talk to somebody about how to let this little girl go will you do that? because you deserve that, Terry.

Is that fair? Yes. Okay. That shame is holding you down and keeping you from breathing all these years later. You got to set that stuff down. Will you do that? Absolutely.

Okay. You hang on the line too. I'm going to send you a copy of the new book also on your past change of future and i want you to read through that book and all that whole book is about setting bricks down okay thank you so much and i want you to call a counselor and man if i'm you today i'm getting on the phone with the ADA office. Actually, I'm going to sit with my daughter because she is 20. We're going to talk to her about what we're doing. It's not great for any college kid just to show up and find out parents have been calling unless they're worried about some significant psychiatric issues. Hey, we're going to call the ADA office and we're going to call the disabilities office and we're going to call the counseling services. And we're going to take advantage of all these services that we're paying for at this university. And we're going to lean heavily into a behavior plan and we're going to make a list. Ask that baby girl of yours,

who's now 20, ask her, okay, I've been on you for a long time. What are some things you'd like to be doing on your own? Like driving, like maybe getting her own apartment someday, like some of these other things. And let's come up with a plan to get there. And then after all that's done, your heart's going to be beating. You may even get teared up. I want you to exhale. And then I want you to get online.

And I want you to call a counselor and say, it's time for me to start getting well too. You, my sister, deserve that. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out

or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com.

All right, what a show. That was a long one and that was a heavy one. And man, that was, took me back to grad school on a few of those. And a lot of people struggling, a lot of people hurting and a lot of people just trying to love better. And that's such a good reminder for all of us.

Don't stop trying to love better. Don't stop trying to heal. Don't stop trying to love the people around you, whether it's your kids, whether it's your partner. So grateful, so, so grateful. As you wrap up today's show, of course you knew we were gonna do it. It's the classic, Whitney Houston I want to dance with somebody. And it goes like this.

Clock strikes upon the hour and the sun begins to fade. Still enough time to figure out how to chase my blues away. I've done all right up till now. It's the light of day that shows me how. And when the night falls, loneliness calls. We've all been there. So I want to dance with somebody. I want to feel the heat with somebody. Yeah, I want to dance with somebody, somebody who loves me. I've been in love and lost my senses spinning through the town. Sooner or later, the fever never ends, and I wind up feeling down. I want to dance with somebody.

Don't we all? And that's what this show is about, dancing with each other we'll see you soon coming up on the next episode summer's coming up and I've been thinking a lot about the fact that we've always been a little sloppy and letting them sleep in really late

one of them would till noon if we let her lay around and watch TV and I'm just kind of, I'm wanting to balance I love the idea of, I'm wanting to balance. I love the idea of getting kids up at 6 and 7 and getting their butts out to work, especially in the summer. To all you people out there like, well, kids just got to suck it up and get out. You're right. I know. I wish that was the case.

But look around. Our teenagers are literally falling apart underneath this. How do we honor our 13-year-old daughter's wishes to not take action against her molester and also do what we feel is right? I'm going to give it to you straight as an arrow, okay? Over 200 times someone molests a child before they're finally caught. Your 13-year-old does not get to drive this. You have to report it. Full stop.