The Dr. John Delony Show - My Son Had a Mental Breakdown and I Feel So Helpless

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Today, we hear from a father desperate to help his 21-year-old who suffered a mental breakdown, a woman worried about how her husband’s job is affecting their marriage, and a wife struggling with body image issues after her husband confessed a porn addiction. Lyrics of the Day: "Where the Blacktop Ends" - Keith Urban  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 21-year-old son, about a month ago, suffered a mental breakdown. And if I break my ankle, doctor, I go to the ER and I get it fixed. I get it cast off. If I break something in my brain, no one seems to know how to help you or help my son. Yo, yo, yo, what up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. So glad that you're with us.

Hey, this weekend, I was in, I mean, there's the woods, and then there's backwoods, and then there's the places behind those woods in the middle of the country, is where I'll tell you. And my family and I went there to visit some friends who literally live in a log cabin. We love them. And it's kind of a sanctuary for us. And we were there, and we went to a fireworks show with this community,

a small community. And we're sitting on a blanket. Dude, I've got bug bites in places. I did not know you could get bug bites. And all of you people who are like, I'm just going to get my whatever and my go bags and go to the woods, you'll die from bugs, just so you know. You won't. go bags and go to the woods, you'll die from bugs, just so you know. You won't.

You'll take fewer guns and knives and take more off because the battle will be won with who can take the bug bites. But that's a digression. So I'm sitting on a blanket, and there's a turtle race and a watermelon-eating contest. I mean, exactly how you think it would be and lovely lovely people and somebody so kind i won't say their name here was just started telling me a story about how they've had multiple people pass away in their family this year and how this show has been helpful to a couple of their family members as they're navigating boundaries and i'm not responding to this text thread and I'm staying out of this. And so dude, it just, it, it, it's awesome. And that's because of you all who listen to this show and pass it along to

your friends and then they pass it to their sister or their brother or their cousin when somebody passed away. I just want to say personally, um, way back in the woods where there's lovely, lovely, lovely people. Where we're going, we don't need roads. There is people listening to the show and doing the hard work of loving each other anyway. And making some changes in their personal lives and their marriages and in their homes and in the messiness of life. So thank you so much. Keep passing it along. If you're a review person,

I don't do reviews just as my way of sticking it to the man, which is such a lame way to stick it to the man. But if you're a review person, leave a good review and I'd be really grateful. And if you have a negative review, send it to Kelly's personal cell number and i'll post that on instagram later on today all right let's go straight to uh the phone let's go to eddie in austin texas what's up eddie uh yes hi hi doctor thank you for taking my call of course brother how are you man well

well not well i'm not a man of many words, but right now this is a tough one for me and my wife, my family. My 21-year-old son, about a month ago, suffered a mental breakdown. And so quickly I found out that this mental health system, it's really difficult to navigate to help my son. It's a mess. Hold on a second, Eddie. Number one, I'm going to stop right there. Thank you for calling. This is a hard call to make.

Okay, so the number of dads I've sat with in your exact seat, I can't count them. There's been a lot. And I know it's a hard, hard moment to say it out loud. And I just want to applaud your bravery. Okay? It was hard. Very, very hard.

When you say your son had a mental breakdown, what does that mean? What happened? Well, we found out he had been a... He was on his own. Lived in San Antonio. Okay. He had a steady income job. Became a realtor.

He left that steady income job to go 100% commission. It was hard. He's a young man. He's a hard worker. He has no dad. He invests his money and all of a sudden he, well, he, he, um, he just started, um, having problems with, with his memory and he started getting really paranoid about things.

Yeah. He seemed to lose touch of reality at times. And found out that he had a month, this happened about a month ago, found out that before that, he had quit smoking marijuana. He was a daily user.

And also a CBD user, which I didn't know what that was till now. And so that's what happened. So he can't function. We brought him home with us. And we, you know, if I break my ankle, doctor,

I go to the ER and I get it fixed. I get a cast on. If I break something ankle, doctor, I go to the ER and I get it fixed. I get a cast on. If I break something in my brain, no one seems to know how to help you, how to help my son. I know it's not that easy. It's complicated. It's complicated, but it is that easy and it is that complicated. So it's both and, okay? And the challenge here is to not lean into the despair part, okay?

And at the same time, you got to lean into the grief part. And we'll get to that. But real quick, often, by the way, I have zero, none, I have no issues with CBD. I haven't seen any sort of studies whatsoever that suggests that has any sort of negative effects on somebody, okay? It is a hemp derivative, but that doesn't bother me. I would say my students used to, and friends, kids especially, I would always tell people, don't buy health products at a gas station. That's never the place to get that stuff, right? But that doesn't bother me. My question for you about the hemp, I mean, about CBD, about marijuana, often

when people feel themselves starting to slowly unspool, that helps or that's where they go. They end up there. They might drink. They might, they starting to look for ways to tamp down an increasingly loud, volatile brain. And also I've heard recently in the past few years, people just smoking weed with their buddies and it's got fentanyl in it and they literally cook their brain and so my question for you is is any sort of is doctor any doctor said this is a a chemical induced issue or actually the marijuana was your son trying to self-medicate a a pretty quickly devolving psychological state?

Well, he was smoking marijuana so that he can calm down. He was stressed out. He had a lot of stress, and he said he would use it to go to sleep and to function and to focus. Okay, all right. I did take him recently to a mental clinic that is tied to UT Health Center. And a nurse practitioner under a psychiatrist has diagnosed him with substance-induced psychosis and general anxiety disorder.

Okay. Other places, MHMR, they diagnosed him with severe depression. But again, in some places, since he's 21, they don't let the, you know, the parents go in. They don't see the other things that happen. They only hear what he tells them. Sometimes, you know, that's not the full picture. Gotcha. Okay. So do me a favor and take a huge deep breath and hold it.

Okay? As deep as your lungs can hold. And let it out. All it. Okay. As deep as your lungs can hold and let it out. All right. Okay. So if you have, um, substance abuse induced psychosis or extreme anxiety to the point that, um,

your body's rattling, or you have severe depression, I can see a place where these are all on some sort of similar trend line. Let me give you some peace of mind that they didn't both come back and say your son's got something like schizophrenia. Okay? You're talking about two very different paths forward. Okay?

And so, I'm not saying this to belittle my friends and community members who've got family members with schizophrenia. What I'm saying is, if I took my son in, I would much rather a diagnostic out of the gate of he smoked so much weed, he rattled his body up, okay? Or he's so anxious, he took a job and he put himself in a situation where his body said, hey, I'm out.

Or he's been pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing and pushing, and he's got some childhood traumas, et cetera, and he's ended up very, very depressed, I would much rather walk that road with my son than get a diagnosis of schizophrenia, okay? Like a psychiatric illness due to brain lesions or brain functioning. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. So I'm trying to give you a light here, okay? Thank you, yeah. Can I ask you something? You can ask me anything you want to.

You got it. Should I keep, you know, I quickly found out that there's other mental health clinics that I can take him. Cost a lot of money, would cost us a lot of our life savings to take him. Should I go that route to get the right diagnosis to be sure so that I can, you know, move forward with this. I don't know what... Right now, when you went to the UT system and you met with the psychiatrist,

the psychiatric nurse practitioner, did they give you a plan of action moving forward? Or did they just write you a script and send you out the door? They do. They gave him the prescription medicine to take as needed. He does follow up.

He's going to follow up with a therapist. Okay. He is much better than when this crisis event happened to him. He's doing a little bit better. He lives in San Antonio and we have actually a family property know, he's doing a little bit better. He, he wants, he lives in San Antonio and we have actually a family property there and he's been staying there by himself. I don't know if that's healthy for him. Um, you know, he, he's not working. I'm helping him, uh, at, um,

but you know, that's another issue that, you know, that, that we're, my wife and I have been contemplating. Sure. Not knowing how to move forward with it. So let me tell you what I would do in your situation, okay? Number one, what the psychiatrist gave you, the psychiatric MP gave you, is a very standard treatment of care okay okay they gave him some medicine to and the fact that she said as needed would give me another level of relief that sounds like and again i'm not there so i'm speaking off the cuff here okay but it sounds

episodic meaning this is not indicative of if you keep pressing the same way we were pressing, yes, eventually we're going to have some, if we keep driving the car the way we were driving it, eventually this engine is going to stop, right? But what she's saying is, hey, take this gas treatment if you hear knocks and pings, and you got to drive safer. And by the way, we're going to, um, we're going to do some things to help along the way. So that's number one. The next thing would be is you need to get some new

driving lessons. Okay. And the, what the data tells me is research is very clear that therapy plus the medication is the magic there. Okay. And I've got my own opinions on that. They're not important right now. I think getting your son in with a good therapist right now is really, really important. And so if I'm going to spend money somewhere, and again, this is just me talking. If I'm going to spend money in my life somewhere, I'm not going to go chase a third and a fourth and a fifth diagnosis. I'm just not. I'm going to get off of YouTube.

Okay. Right. I'm going to go get with a good counselor. And luckily, you're in an area. You're in that area between Austin and San Antonio. Dude, there's some great practitioners there. Okay. Of all different flavors.

And here's what the scholarship tells us. Doesn't matter the flavor as much as it matters the relationship between the therapist and the client. Okay. Correct. What does that mean? Find a place where your son feels comfortable, where he can go tell the truth. Okay. That's going to be more important than is it an MFT or a psychologist or say the psychiatrist does the medical stuff. I want you to go find, help him find a good counselor. Okay. Now here's really important. If I'm you and he's willing to do the work to get well, I would probably ask my son, I give him the option to come live with me for six months and get things lined back up.

I am a person who believes that loneliness and isolation is one of the chief drivers of anxiety. Okay. And so that idea that I'm on my own, I'm on my own, I'm on my own, our bodies are simply not designed to exist that way. They're just not. And this is thousands of years old. We're just not wired to live that way. And so I would give him the option. And that option would come with some stipulations. You can't miss counseling. We're going to help out X and we're going to help out with Y, but you got to get a job. You got to have some sort of purpose. You got to have some reason for it to get up and go, which is the little wins,

which helps in both depression and it helps in anxiety. Okay. And we're going to have some weekly check-ins, just dad and son going to breakfast, talking about the Astros, right? I mean, we're going to do some, we're going to redo human stuff, not about the diagnosis and how you feel in and give me a one to 10 scale. That's for him and the counselor. We're going to start doing life. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah. Yeah. And so that, I mean, if I'm in your exact situation, that's the path I would take. And he could, he's 21. He could tell me to screw off. He could tell me I'm not coming home. He could tell me to screw off. He could tell me I'm not

coming home. He could tell me, no, I'm going to keep hammering away at this job. I'm going to keep doing it. He's 21. He can do that. The other thing you can do here is also, he doesn't have to do this, but you can ask for a release from a psychiatrist or his counselor. And if you're paying for it, that might be part of it, unless he's not going to go. The other thing is, you can always give information one way to a counselor. And every therapist I know really welcomes that information. Meaning, if he gets a therapist or psychiatrist or something,

you can send them an email of, hey, he was abused as a child. Me and his mom got mom, me and his, his mom gotten fights and ain't like whatever the history you think you need that that therapist needs to know. You're welcome to send that. Sure. Okay.

He did time to release. Okay, great. Yeah. So I do have that access to that. And what, what about when he, he's,

you know, he is taking medicine as needed and but he does want to take that cbd is that okay or is that that's between him and his doctor quite honestly um i know people that were highly anxious and i can only attribute it to CBD helping reset the anxiety response. There's a whole chemical pathway there. And then I've talked to practitioners who say, dude, we see little to no help. Okay. Did it make it worse, though?

I've not seen that. I've never seen that. Again, that's a question for his... That's the psychosis side of it. I've not seen that. I've never seen that. Again, that's a question for his... Psychosis. Yeah, I've never seen any sort of data or any sort of personal experience or any sort of... If it helps you, I take CBD. I take a clinical grade.

I used to take it quite regularly when I was struggling with anxiety. Now I take it very sparingly. I've never seen any sort of connectivity between CBD and psychosis. Maybe if never seen any sort of connectivity between CBD and psychosis. Maybe if you took a ton of it or something. I also don't smoke.

I'm not going to smoke anything either. By the way, I get it from a highly reputable clinical grade company. I don't get it from a gas station. Okay. Okay. That's just my personal thing. What I would strongly recommend, though, is have that conversation

with the psychiatric MP. And if he or she says no, then absolutely cut it off because everybody's different. And he may need a time to reset himself. Okay. Have some peace there.

Thank you. Is there some things in his history, in his past, that you're worried about? Or is this just a matter of a young kid getting out on the zone and trying to hit the gas too hard and then got to smoking a lot, a lot, a lot, and not sleeping very much and living off Red Bull and Monster Energy drinks and all of a sudden just spun out. I think he had some stressors that came about that contributed to this. Where he used to work,

he was a property manager of a real estate company and he got a call that he had to go to some apartment complex or whatever to ask someone to move their car because they were parked in the right spot. Got a gun pulled on him. Another thing that he found out

was recently his girlfriend had an abortion. He's pro-life. So he's dealing with a lot of trauma trauma yeah the i have asked him what he's like just being on his own was hard for him and he's not one to ask for help i said why why did you ever come to me and ask for help i mean his truck broke down and so i think a lot of things just bottled up. So, hey, let me give you a tool, okay? Yeah. Often when somebody's hurting or when somebody's being abused or any kind of thing like that,

we go to them and our first thought is, dude, why didn't you tell me? I would have stood arm in arm with you. I would have thrown the first punch. Why didn't you tell him to say anything? Here's the response I've seen in my own life and in those I walk with and work with in their life that has become a more effective entry point into that conversation, especially between fathers and sons. Son, I'm sorry that I didn't give you a picture of what asking for help looks like. Either you're a person who asks for help a lot and your son never saw that, or you model those same things and you're a good Texan who just figures it out. And when you don't figure it out, you crack another beer and then you figure it out the next day. Right.

And what I have found is asking somebody, why didn't you simply adds to the list of things that they, it, their body responds as it's a fracture in our relationship, which is going to sound those alarms even louder. The entry point being, dude, I'm so sorry I didn't give you a picture of what this looks like. That's on me. Here's my commitment moving forward. Will you make that commitment with me? That's a much different entry point because that's saying we're going to do this together, not why didn't you screw this up? Or why did you screw this up? And just for the dads listening out there,

the other day I was driving with my son and I was having a relatively hard conversation and the conversation was being had with me with the number one, he's one of the top researchers in the planet in his particular thing. I'm struggling with a, I'm trying to get something worked out with my physiology, with my diet. And it's not working the way I wanted it to work.

And it's frustrating for me. And I was talking to him on the phone and my son was just sitting there. And I thought, you know what? He needs to hear another expert telling his dad that his dad's ways to try to hack the system are not working and he needs to just follow the plan. So I put on speakerphone and this guy's great human being, funny, and also was giving it to me a little, giving me the like, hey, you got to do this, right? But I wanted my son to hear that. And then afterwards I said, hey, I know you know this, but I call people to help with coaching too, because I need to get help too. And he's like,

I know dad, I know. And I said, no, no, no. I need you to hear that I was talking to the number one person in the country on this topic. And I still was acting as though I was smarter than him. And this is him setting me straight as a friend. And so I let him listen to that because I want him to have a picture of what asking for help looks like as he gets older. But I would start that way with my son, Eddie. Okay? Thank you. I would trust that the system that you've mentioned is good.

They've got a great reputation. I would trust that the nurse practitioner, I would trust the nurse practitioner. I would trust the path she gave you forward or he gave you forward. I would get a counselor or a psychologist in your area. And I would ask, give my son permission to come home for six months, come home for nine months. And here's the thing, it's helpful for everybody to put a time limit on that. You don't have to stick to the time limit. But if you ask a 21-year-old, why don't you come on home? You can look up and it's three years and y'all don't like each other anymore and there's a whole mess. Or it could feel like, dude, I'm going to fail you. No, no, no. We're just coming on for six months. Come on for six months and let's

see if we can get this thing dialed in. I'll start having breakfast with my son. And I need to have some healing too. And so let's start doing this together. And then we'll reevaluate in five and a half months and we'll see what comes next. It might be another six months after that. Maybe that's it, right? Enough to get his feet underneath him. And he's got to deal with the trauma, the loss.

He's gonna have to deal with the fear of getting a gun pulled on. He's got to deal with all that stuff. And that's what a counselor's gonna help him walk through. And based on the limit of stuff you told me, it sounds like his body had enough. There was no margin because of the way he was living. There was no margin here, no margin there,

no margin, no margin, no margin. And then somebody pulled a gun on him. And then his girlfriend violated a core value of his, right? And really hurt him deeply. And we could go on and on and on. All I have to say is, your son's not broken. He's not dysfunctional. and he's not lost.

This is a great time to hit control, I'll delete on your relationship with your son, your wife's relationship with her son, and to say, hey, let's lean into connectivity and to relationship. Let's follow what the doctors say. Let's be about healing. And as someone who has struggled mightily with anxiety,

I want you to know on the other side of it, there's light and there's a lot of laughter and there's a lot of joy and there's good stuff. It's worth the effort. Thank you so much for your bravery and for being vulnerable, Eddie. I'm grateful for you. We'll be right back. All right, we're back. Let's go to Brianna in Columbus. What's up, Brianna? Hello. How we doing? I'm doing pretty good. How are you? We are just figuring it out every day, right? So what's up? Absolutely. Okay. So my question is, how much should you talk to your spouse about work? Oh, never.

How much should you share? Nothing. Never. Are you crazy? Tell me some more about what you're asking. Okay, so about three years ago, we moved 12 hours away from everything we knew for his job. Okay, can we stop right here?

You're going to have to let that resentment go. I don't know what comes after this, but you'll have no peace in your home or in your marriage. And if you've got kids in your parenting, unless you let that piece go or y'all move back, is that cool? Absolutely. You're definitely right about that. We are moving back in a few months. That's really why I'm calling.

You are moving back. All right. So we're moving back. Can I ask you, why are you moving back? It was only supposed to be a temporary thing. They opened a new location, needed someone who knew the company to come and manage it for a little bit.

So they kind of got up and going. Okay. And it turned into a couple of years? Yeah, it was originally going to be two to three years. So we're out a little longer than three years. Okay. Have you hated it the whole time? 80% of the time.

Why did you hate it? I was very, I have a very close family and I, um, really struggled figuring out how to make connection with other people that I didn't already know at least a little bit or that didn't know me. Gotcha. So yeah, that was a, that was definitely a struggle for a long time. Um, and I went to work at the same place that he worked, um, because I needed a job and didn't know where to get a job at. And we live on the property. Oh, geez. So most of my life is revolved around one thing, and that is the place that he works now. I don't work there at the moment.

I work somewhere else and have been able to find friends there and connection there. But sometimes it feels like my entire life is consumed by the place that he works. Why is it consumed? I worked there for a long time. I started my day there. I ended my day there. I ended my day there. And even though, you know, we come home and it's not, you know, we're not clocked in, I'm not at work. I struggle a lot to turn that off in my mind. And I still have a hard time with that, even though I

don't work there anymore. Like I have a saying when I get off of work that I have to tell myself so that my brain will transition and I can just go home and be who I am there. And I'm not, you know, clocked in anymore. I'm not working. I'm not thinking about the things that happened. What's the things that you're, you're plugged into? Is it like, is it the gossip and like who, you know, someone slept with Dan again? I mean, is it that, or is it, are you dialed into the, like the business function and,

and how we're like, we're making money. Like what, what are you missing? Um, for him or for the place where he works, I think that it's more so that I just want to make sure that everything's still okay. Why? No one thinks he's horrible. Why? That seems like an incredible burden to carry, especially when you can do nothing about it. I would agree with that.

Let me back out a little bit because I think this is all connected. So follow me on a train of thought here, okay? Absolutely. So you left your close-knit family and there was an awkward period where you weren't there anymore and you weren't in the know and you weren't in the figuring it all out, right? Yeah. And you found yourself on an island

somewhere 12 hours away, or as you say it, 12 hours away, right? So really far away, or a half of a day away. It's only a day. Annie, no, I won't do that. That's 24 hours. That's not 12. So you find yourself 12 hours away and then there's this decision point. There's this moment. I don't know anybody here and I'm completely disconnected here. I have one of two choices. I can just go be weird and I can go be awkward and I can go find people and try to be awkward with them and be like, hey, I'm new to town and this is weird and y'all wanna go get sandwiches or y'all wanna go get coffee or I'm having a barbecue,

y'all are coming to my house and you bring the weird desserts because this is what y'all do 12 hours away from everything I know. And in that process, you don't know the skills. You don't know any of the lingo. You don't know the culture, but you're figuring it out along the way. And the key is you're stumbling and tripping and falling forward with other people. The other decision is I'm just going to sit here and watch Netflix

and be pissed off for three years. And I'm going to get a job and get really embedded into my little world. And if I pull that same thread over here, you went to work with your husband in the same exact place, which, hey, put food on the table and gave you something to do. Probably wasn't the best thing globally, but it is what it is. It happened. And then you left for whatever reason, probably best for your marriage and other things.

But instead of now making a new place, you put an anchor into that place. And you're trying to control things that backwards again. And instead of living in the place that you are, you're trying to control places that you've been. See what I'm saying? Yeah. And so my challenge to you is like, so to answer your question,

how do you stop? Then you just stop. I know it sounds so ridiculous. Here's what it looks like in real life, in real, real life. I'm just going to give you a personal example because I did this yesterday. There's a, I work with university officials behind closed doors and kind of walk, they, you know, we talk and help each other through problems and things and challenges. One, I gave a clear, do not do this thing. And that person went and did that thing. And I'm beginning to hear about it across the country.

And I was with a group of people yesterday, and I was like I'm telling you, I said, don't do this thing. And then while I'm saying this out loud, number one, I'm gossiping about somebody, which is completely stupid. That's just to lift me up, which is so lame. And B, like, I stopped myself. It's like, why do you care? You don't go to that school. Your kids don't go to that school. You have no vested interest.

Like, what are you doing? And I literally stopped mid-sentence and just trailed off the conversation in an awkward way. And luckily, I'm so awkward most of the time. Nobody thought twice about it. Here's what it looks like in real time for you. The moment you're like, well, hey, it's so... Nope. Not going to do that. And saying to yourself, I literally don't care. And I want you to practice that. And then more importantly, I want you to practice having something else to talk about, something else of interest to you, something else that you're working on or pretending to get involved in or practice. You see what I'm saying?

Yeah, absolutely. Tell me if that's hard. I know it is, and I know I'm making it sound so easy, but tell me, because it is super hard, but it's also really simple. Yeah. I don't know that I know the answer to that question. Um, besides that, this, I feel like that I was drowning in the ocean and this little big tiny boat came and grabbed me and now this boat sinking, but because it saved my life the first time I'm still holding onto it instead of getting on a different boat.

Gotcha. If that makes sense. Yes. Unpack drowning for me. What does that actually mean? Was it that you were lost at sea because you left everything you knew and came to a new city and a new state in a new part of the country? You always say you go with you. And that is true for me. When we moved here, I had to face the things that I needed to take care of and that I needed to do differently.

And that has been a long, scary process for me that I have never seen modeled for me. Awesome. Did you do it? So I did. I'm still doing it and I'm never going to stop me. Awesome. Did you do it? So I did. I'm still doing it and I'm never going to stop doing it. It's been incredible. So a lot of the time it felt like I was just going to go all the way under.

I was never going to climb back out. But you did. Yeah. But I did. Did you do it with other people? Yes. And those times you thought you were going under, you realized that other people were holding you up,

which is why I'm always so adamant about people getting with other people. You just described in very clear terms bravery. That's courage. Sorry. I'm really, really proud of you. Thank you. So understand this. So you go with you.

That's like a little saying I throw around all the time. I'm going to try to make a saying out of what I'm about to say here. I'm not going to try to make, I was trying to make a cool little saying that I could put on the internets, but I don't know. I'm not good at that. What's the right way to say this? Just because it hurts doesn't mean it's wrong.

And my guess is you're going to look back on these three years where you had to figure out who you were and what you were made of and the skills you were missing. You've known it for a long time, but you got to stay in a regular rhythm and routine. And when you're with family a lot, they keep you in your place. You know what I mean? Yeah. My sister's four years older than me and my brother's five years younger than me. And we all get together and we go right back to being older sister, middle, middle kid, younger brother.

Right. Right? Yep. And when you untether all that, 12 hours away. And you do that, then suddenly you've known for a long time. And here you are dealing with it. And here's the thing. When you go home, people are going to recognize you. Yeah. And it's going to be real easy to go back to old Brianna. Yeah.

And that's a fear I've been working through. Yeah. So let me tell you something. And one of the things I think that the modern mental health community, of which I'm a part of, I'm at fault here too. We haven't done a good job

of, let me say this. We have communicated to people that mental health and wellness is just getting the right thoughts in the right order. And if you can just think the right things in the right order, everything is quote unquote gonna be okay.

And so there is an important part to think about this coming as you're heading home and the work you've done and the new skills you've picked up and then Brianna that now stands six inches taller than the one who went 12 hours away right but I want to add something to it that the modern mental health community has left out is you're gonna have to do different things you're gonna have to hang out with different people and maybe even live in a different part of the town. And you're going to have to say no to things. And you're not just

going to go right back to the same Thursday night dinners at Ma's house or whatever, because that's the night that you and your husband have, right? Whatever y'all going to do. But you're going to have to create a new world and live into it. And that's going to be really insulting to the people who expect you to come back and be the Brianna that they have created in their own mind. Yeah. Right. I, I absolutely agree with that.

Does your husband, is he in support of you? A million times over. Does he love Brianna 2.0? Yeah, absolutely. over. Does he love Brianna 2.0? Yeah. Absolutely. Is he scared about you going back to being you when you get home? I would think that would be a little bit of a

fear for him. Have you asked him? I don't think I've asked him that way. Ask him that way. Okay. Because my guess is it's not just, it's just a little fear. I bet it's a big one and it would be really fun exercise for y'all

to create a world to like engineer a new environment moving forward and say here's the magic question who are we gonna be the day we land back at home who are we gonna be and when we say who we're going to be, we're going to be fun. We're going to be spontaneous. We're going to be laughing. We're

going to keep our weekly movie nights. We're going to keep our random Thanksgiving full of misfits. We're going to keep these parts of ourselves and that's going to inform the things that you're not going to do. The phone is still getting put away at eight o'clock at night. So I'm not responding to every family member emergency text because they're not all emergencies and I don't want to, right? I'm going to begin to create this world

and then I'm going to live into it. That's going to be fantastic. So hear me say, I'm so proud of you. Recreate this world together that you're going home to. To answer your original, original question about how much should we talk about work? Every couple's different.

I've learned that the less, the better. And in my house, we set some pretty strong boundaries. And so I will say things like, can I talk about a thing that happened at work today? And my wife will say, do you want a solution? Or do you want me just to listen? And I will say, I just need you to listen. And she'll say, great, go for it. By setting up the conversation, it keeps her from just becoming my trash bin and me coming home and just dumping crap on her all day long, every day. So I structure the conversations. Like, I want to tell you something about work. Normally I say, I'm struggling with

feeling like I'm not doing anything worth a crap or I'm struggling with a hard conversation I have to have at work. That's less about work and that's about me. And she wants to hear about that. She does not want to hear about the gossip and I don't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to hear about, what's the, you know the gossip and I don't want to talk about it. She doesn't want to hear about,

what's the, you know, the, I don't know, the profit report. She don't hear about that. She wants to know if her paycheck's going to change, right? But I think going home and using work as a living soap opera to prop up two people having a conversation with one another is a terrible, terrible way to live.

Create your own life with your own joys and your own hard stuff and talk about those things. And if you leave a job, leave it all the way. Leave it all the way. Thank you so much for your bravery, Brian. I'm proud of you. I'm really proud of you. I can't wait to see what happens next. 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 therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, we're back. Let's take Unamas. Let's go back to Tejas and talk to Samantha. What's up, Samantha? Hello. Hello. How are we doing? How's it going? Excellent. I'm good.

And you? Yes, I'm good. Very cool. What's up? Okay. So my original question has changed a little bit. Okay. I sent that question on a really rough day and I've since then had a really great conversation with my husband. Walk me through your original question. Okay, so it was basically asking for practical tips on how to trust my husband after a pornography addiction. Okay, all right. And that problem solved? Sort of.

I mean, it's not like solved. Excellent. All right. So on to the next question. What's the next question? Okay. So basically I still, okay, so it's been about a year and a half since he's been clean from looking at anything. Okay.

And so, but I still struggle with my body image. And so I'm kind of looking for like tips or suggestions on how to deal with that or increase positivity with that. Um, and then I also, um, just wanted to mention that I feel like since all of that happened, I've kind of lost, um, it's been more than a year and a half since it came out. And there was also some like from when we dated. And so it's been like years, um, of kind of struggling with this off and on. Um, so I, I feel like somewhere along the way I lost like the fun part of me and I feel like it probably has to do with that. Um, and I don't really know how to get that back. So I know that's a lot, but whatever we get to is fine.

It'll all be beneficial. No, that's good. Let me see here. So this is a hard conversation to have, and here's why. The only part of the conversation I can have is with you, conversation to have and here's why the only part of the conversation I can have is with you because he's not here

and what makes this a challenge is I can tell you some hard truths but I want you to acknowledge that I'm telling you this stuff because I love you and not because and I care about you

and your marriage not because I'm just piling on it's going to feel like a pile on when you're listening because I only have if he was here too I'd be piling on him right

does that make sense so it's not like I'm picking one over the other so I only got one here right so that frames this walk me through your history so I want to take him

and put him in a box in a a drawer, and close the drawer. Okay? Box closed. When did your body, when did you not like what you saw in a mirror begin? Probably around, I don't know. I feel like, I don't know, sophomore year of college. I didn't get the freshman 15. I got the sophomore 15.

Okay. So kind of around that time. This is before that. I'd be willing to bet, my truck's not very nice, but I'd be willing to bet my car this is not about 15 pounds gained your sophomore year of college when you were 19 and 20 years old. That's correct. When did the story that you didn't look right begin i mean i guess who told you i don't i don't know that anybody told me that i am currently reading your newest book. Um, and so I know there's like questions in there about, um, like, was your family like always on a diet and always talking about weight

and stuff like that. And that is true for me, but it wasn't directed at me. It was mostly like my dad. So listen, that was always, I said that mean, like, so listen, I didn't mean to say it like that. Children absorb their environment in a mainline fashion. Yeah. Okay. So I am working with a guy. I'm losing weight, but not because I'd quote unquote need to lose weight. I'm trying to accomplish a particular thing. And so I'm working with one of the top guys in the country on this.

And I'm also trying to dial in my nutrition. So I'm partnering with Dr. Norton's helping, right? So I'm talking to, I have zero issues with my aesthetic. Okay. My son who's 12. I saw him grabbing parts of his belly the other day. And he's a cross country stud. He's very thin. And he started asking questions and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. We're cutting this off right now.

Okay. Because he picks up what's in the air and mainlines it as though this is him okay so whether somebody and this is important i whether somebody said you don't look pretty or you're overweight which is common right that people are kids are told that all the time or you are conscious all constantly around people who are always looking in the mirror saying, I don't look good enough. I need to do this. We can't go out here.

I've got to eat this because I can't do this. I've got to do that because I can't do this. That's just what's modeled for you as you better be careful about what you look like because that has a direct correlation to how much and how well and how deep you're loved. Okay. And so if you, you may not have got there, but in the book we talk about, there's stories that you were told, but there's also stories you were born into. And that 15 pounds may have, and again, I don't want to harp on that

because I think that may be too simplistic, but it may set off a cascade of stress response chemicals in your body that start sounding alarms saying you're not enough. Whoa, look out, look out, look out, look out. And then your body begins scanning the environment for places where you're not beautiful, places where you're not seen, places where you're not loved. You see what I'm saying?

Mm-hmm. And then Knucklehead sets off those alarms. He sets off a wildfire with gasoline, right? Yeah. How did you stumble into his pornography addiction? Which time? Yep. So, I mean, there's like three different times okay um so twice when we were dating and then a third time after we were married um so the first time was a conversation we were

having we were driving and he kind of like was testing the waters and seeing like what my reaction would be. And so he asked like, so I've known that he like struggled with it in the past. And so he kind of like tested the waters by asking like, what would you do? Or what would you say if blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's the most 19 year old way to introduce like, so let's pretend. Well, yeah, we were in high school. You walked in and so anyway, yeah, yeah. Okay, so let's pretend you walked in. So anyway, yeah, yeah.

Okay, so here's the thing. So you stumbled, y'all had conversations about it, which led to another conversation. And so, and then here it is, right? So let's, again, let's put him back in the box and back in the drawer. Okay. When it comes to, quote unquote, body positivity,

at the end of the day, I wish it was different than what I'm about to say. But you're going to have to make a choice to look in the mirror and decide I have value before and beyond aesthetics,

before external beauty. I am lovable. I am worth being loved. And from the inside out, the words that I say have value and meaning. The things that I think are funny are actually funny. The people I like being with are actually people worth being with. And from that inside out, you then take on a stewardship.

I'm a person who stewards their body. I'm a person who takes care of myself because I'm a person of value. It has to work that direction. You can never lose enough weight to make the inside of yourself feel okay. Yeah. Right. It's like you can't ever earn enough money to make yourself feel valuable. You can buy a lot of solutions to problems, but you can't solve that inner gnawing. Right. And so when you start, and again, you and I could sit down for a couple hours and probably peel back a ton of layers on this onion.

You have to decide and choose, I am worth these things. And then you've got to look at your environment. And it may be that your husband cuts you off every time you have an idea. Or he rolls his eyes and goes, we're not going that way. Or I don't like that. Maybe not. Maybe he's wonderful. But often body positivity I've found is linked

directly to the strength and power of my voice in relationship. Am I hitting a home run at all or no? Yeah, somewhat. Yeah. I mean, definitely making a choice to decide

that I have value before and beyond what I look like. Okay. And I also, and this is, I don't want to be controversial, but there's a balance, right? There's also, I have to look in the mirror when I got up to 217 pounds, I wasn't healthy. Yeah. Right? And so I knew, not that I'm not lovable and not that I'm wholly unattractive, but I knew that I wasn't, I wasn't doing the best for my body. And if I don't do the best for my body,

I get grumpy and I get achy and I just want to watch TV instead of go play with my kids. And I get self-conscious and let's don't go to the pool. Let's don't go to the lake and let's, let's to the lake, and let's just sit at home, right? So it has this down, it has this ripple effect all through everything, right? Yeah. And so, again, that's inside out. And then the stewardship part is, well, then cool,

I'm just going to start taking care of my diet. I'm going to start taking care of moving my body, and then my body responds in time. But again, that's all secondary and third and fourth to the inner stuff, which is I'm worth getting up and exercising. I'm worth taking care of myself. And the body positivity comes from the inside out. The second part of this is, I don't think you've gone all in with this guy. Can I ask why? Yes. Or like how? You're either waiting for another shoe to drop or you are still lining yourself up

in this imaginary line of imaginary women and putting yourself number 76. Yeah. And so, go ahead. Well, I just want to speak to the first thing. So yeah, in about a year and a few months, I've had just recently, like we just had this conversation like a couple of days after I sent that email, like end of June. And like that was the first time since all of this that I've like been able to fully trust him for more than a day. Okay. And so.

Is it because he's, if you take the pornography off the table, three different times you've said, this is an important value to me. And he has said I don't care and so do you see how this is more about trust than it is pornography yes pornography is the value

I want to be your only one but the part that is rattling your body is, I've told you what's important to me and you've blown me off. You've said your needs are more important than mine. And when that's the case in a marriage, the boat sinks, right? And so if you are at a place where you say, I'm going to trust him. And by the way, trust is something you practice.

I'm going all in. Trust is a practice. And there's going to be mornings you wake up and suddenly you have a pang of this or a feeling of that or a thought of this. And you're going to have to choose. I'm going to trust him. Until otherwise noted. So, I mean, so the thing on that is, like, I, like, this is the most I've trusted him in a really long time,

but I'm scared to, like, tell him that I trust him because I'm scared to fully commit to that. If you don't, you will suffocate yourself and you will drown him. This is a marriage where you've got one foot in and one foot out. You're playing married and the problem is pornography, alcohol

working 98 hours a week I'm convinced those are connection issues and you start trying to heal that gap or duct tape over it or band-aid over that gap of disconnection that you both feel by the way because he's married to a woman that has never trusted him and whether he acknowledges this inside or he acknowledges it very concretely, there's something he thinks is wrong with him because she won't trust me.

And he might be untrustworthy. Just with the pornography discussion, you've shown me he's proven himself to be untrustworthy because he violated your values. See what I'm saying? Yeah. And so the conversation that needs to happen with your marriage is, are you in or are you out?

And right now y'all are scuba diving and you just have part of the, of the snorkel in. Yeah. Because you're afraid there's like poison in the tank. And so what you're going to do is you're going to guarantee that you suffocate underwater. I mean, you drown by not wanting to breathe in the gas. And so what I would tell you is either come to the surface or trust that there's oxygen in the tank and breathe it.

Yeah. Is that fair? Yeah, yeah. What's the, do you trust you um i mean i i do more than i have in the past but i um yes i think i think so maybe not completely i just don't want to look like an idiot if it happens again even though I know it has nothing to do with me

the only way forward is vulnerability and vulnerable is animals rolling over and showing their bellies and saying you could kill me I'm asking you not to yeah and I wish that wasn't the case that's the only way relationships work I'm asking you not to. Yeah. And I wish that wasn't the case.

That's the only way relationships work. Yeah. And I'd like to think that we were that way, but I mean, I guess not. Well, if it makes you feel any better, I've had several times in my 20-year marriage where I've had to do that. I've had to check and I've realized, oh my gosh, I'm not all in anymore. I'm partially in. I'm playing a role. And then my wife feels it and then she has to create a universe where she can exist in it because I have all the oxygen and I'm letting most of it go underwater.

See what I'm saying? And so the course of marriage is over and over again, every couple of years, every few weeks, every decade, checking yourself and saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not all in anymore. I've made work my all in. I've made protecting my dignity my all in. I have made not wanting to get burned my all in. Whatever the thing is, I've made, my all in. I have made not wanting to get burned my all in. Whatever the thing is, I've made that my all in. But when I got married to you, I committed to us being all in. And so I'm coming back and saying, I'm sorry, and I'm going all in. And by the way, Samantha, you're well within your rights to say, I'm going all in.

And if you violate my trust again, I'm going to go all out. See what I'm saying? Yeah. It's the middle ground that 95% of couples accept as normal. And you look around our culture of lonely, divorced, broken up, pornography addicted, alcohol addicted, Netflix addicted people who are just numbing their way through a crappy, miserable life. Yeah. It's a whole bunch of people scared to go all in.

And there's people who went all in and got absolutely torched. What I'll tell you, that's the only way forward. Okay. And I know that's scary yeah but I feel more ready than I ever have

good so here's what that looks like this is less about what I want and more about what I need. Okay. I would love for you to spend some time with just Samantha, just by herself, writing down, here's what I need in this marriage.

I need somebody I trust. I need somebody that when I lay down a value, that they're with me on that. That we are wired together on values. And by the way, when it comes to something like pornography, expect your husband to screw up. He may screw up. And that doesn't mean all is lost.

That doesn't mean that's the end of everything. If he comes to you and says, hey, I screwed up, that's him making a right. If you check his search history a year from now, and all of a sudden you look at this back, then now we got a problem, because it's about the deception and the lying, right?

And it's the same if he says, hey, I have a value that my wife is all in. And fill in the blank here. This is about y'all creating a life together. One that we can say we're all in on. And that means letting go of this false security that you have that I'm going to keep one toe out. I'm going to keep myself chained to this thing. And then I'm going to jump off the edge.

You can't do it. You got to just jump. And that's the beauty of relationships. You do it together. And the scary part is you can get hurt. Let me put it this way. You're going to get hurt. But man, when y'all both go in together, the beauty on this side of that thing is something, the alchemy of y'all two working together, it can be something so much greater than you could have ever, ever imagined. And for what it's worth, you're worth that. You're worth 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, as we wrap up today's show, most of y'all don't know this, but down her arm, Kelly has her favorite country artist tattooed. And it's in old English. And it's actually on the back of her arm.

And it's Keith Urban, who would have thought an Australian cowboy living in Nashville would make Kelly's heart beat as fast as Keith's does. But it's true and it's real. And in honor of where we did 4th of July this week, this is Kelly's third favorite song of all time. It's called Where the Blacktop Ends.

And it goes like this. Gonna kick off my shoes and run in bare feet and get bug bites all over the place. Where the grass and the dirt and it goes like this. Gonna kick off my shoes and run in bare feet and get bug bites all over the place. Where the grass and the dirt and the gravel all meet. Gonna go on back to the well, gonna visit old friends and feed my soul where the blacktop ends. I like that. It's a good song.

I'm looking down the barrel of a Friday night, riding on a river of freeway lights. Goodbye, city. I'm country bound till Monday rolls around. That's literally how I live my life. Way to go, Kelly. Hey, everybody, we'll see you soon. Coming up on the next episode,

this is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, greatest mental health podcast ever, said by nobody. When you called last time, you've been using a long time, right? Yeah, I had been smoking weed every day for about eight years. Tell me about your adventure you've been on. So I have been sober, completely sober for 62 days today.

I'm so excited. I'm so proud of you. I have a 21-year-old daughter who has recently attempted suicide twice. I'd like to know what we can do as a family around her to prevent this from happening again.