The Dr. John Delony Show - Putting Down Your Bricks & Concerned for Loved Ones' Health

Episode Date: March 8, 2021

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that offers real people a chance to be heard as they struggle with relationship issues and mental health challenges. John will give you practical advice on how to connect with people, how to take the next right step when you feel frozen, and how to cut through the depression and anxiety that can feel so overwhelming. You are not alone in this battle. You are worth being well—and it starts by focusing on what you can control. Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode My son is a freshman in college and has some health issues that have recently come to light. How do I help him navigate these new challenges? My wife and I have a great relationship; our only issues are our sleep schedules. I am an early bird, and she is a night owl. It is causing a lot of problems. Teaching Segment: How to Put Down Your Bricks My husband's lifestyle is starting to affect our family; how can I get him to see this? Lyrics of the Day: "Heartbreak Station" - Cinderella tags: parenting, technology/social media, sickness/illness, fitness/physical health, money, sleep, marriage, substance abuse These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

On today's show, we talk to a mom who wants some tips on how she can support her son who's a freshman in college and living in a residence hall. We talk to a husband whose wife and him have different sleeping schedules and they want to know how they can unite. And we talk to a remarkable mom and wife who has a great husband, but he just doesn't take care of himself and she's scared she's going to lose him. Also, we talk about how to take bricks out of your backpack in a special teaching segment. Stay tuned. Hey, what is up? Good morning. good afternoon, good evening, good night. I don't know where you are. I don't even know what time it is. But I hope you're doing well. I hope things are going well in your life.

Hope people around you are using their head. Hope you're not watching too much news. Because then I know the other things I just said that I hope things are going well would not be going well. This is the Dr. John Deloney Show. We're so glad you're here. I'm glad you're here. On this show, we talk to real people about real things going on in their real lives, right? Not the imaginary internet worlds, not the imaginary news worlds or Netflix worlds, but real things going on in real people's lives, mental health challenges, relationship, all of it, whatever's happening. I love talking to folks, walking alongside people. I like figuring

it out for myself because I'm a dad. I'm a husband too. I'm trying to figure out what to do next as well. So whatever's going on in your life, give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or you can go to johndeloney.com slash show, fill out the form, and it goes into, I don't know, the internets, and it does some loops and some results, and then it goes to our good friend Kelly, and then she makes the decision on whether you get on the show or not. She runs everything. All of the things.

Weather, Kelly. Texas, it was a rough couple of weeks? Kelly. Kelly. How your car's driving this morning? Kelly. I got a flat tire? Kelly. All of it. Everything. And the good things in your life? Man,

my wife is loving me more. Kelly. All of it. It's Kelly. I look really good in these pants today. Kelly. All of it is because of Kelly. Go to johndeloney.com slash show. She will decide all things, including who gets in and on the show. And we're going to get right to the phones today. We've got an action-packed adventure show. We are going to go back to a geek segment here. Not quite a geek segment, but we're going to get some emails that keep coming in, coming in. So we're going to address some of these bigger picture things. But let's first go to Nikki in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Nikki, what's going on? Not much. It's pretty early here. I can't even imagine. You sound like it is 4.30 in the morning, and it might be in Salt Lake City. Almost. No, just kidding. Oh, my goodness. Just getting up and getting ready. Well, thanks for joining us so early on your side of the earth. How's it going?

Thank you. Good. I am a mom of six. My oldest son is a freshman in college this year. All right. Yeah, exciting. Because of some health concerns that he's had and also some dumb decisions that he's made, he's down to his last $100 in the bank. Yeah, and so I know he's going to need help, but I want to know how I can go about helping him in a way that will cause him to be more independent in the future. Gosh, so this is a big shock to parents everywhere that your freshman in college made some potentially dumb decisions. So you're out on an island there by yourself on this one, Nikki, and I'm sorry. So joining the ranks of every parent who's ever lived in the history of Earth, your 18

year old did some dumb things. Talk me through that. What are some of the challenges he's experiencing? Well, his senior year of high school was pretty rough. He was signed up for five AP classes, had a job after school. He knew that he would have to save up for his living expenses and that we would pay tuition. But then he started having seizures. And we went to a million doctors. They ruled out all of the life-threatening, scary things, and they said

they were kind of related to stress. I was going to say, stress-related, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And it's common in people who have been victims of sexual abuse or, you know, war vets to have so much stress that their body reacts that way. Right. A few months later, he was also diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Okay. So he had like the worst senior year ever. And working through the summer was difficult for him. And I think one of the ways he copes is that he plays video games.

Okay. summer was difficult for him. And I think one of the ways he copes is that he plays video games. So, you know, I'll check on his accounts every once in a while and go, oh my gosh, you've got $150. Why did you spend more money on video games? So I don't want to give him a large sum of money because I think he would spend it on video games. And, you know, I have this internal debate, like, oh, it's so hard. They're quarantined at college. They're not in classes talking to people. But on the other hand, you know, I don't want him to waste all of his time online gaming. Sure. You know, instead of actually learning something at school. Yeah.

So how are his grades? He's passing. They're kind of mediocre. Not representative of a guy who was academically successful enough to be in five AP classes just a calendar year ago, right? Yeah. Well, he's studying computer science and animation so art classes and computer science classes he will hyper focus on those he loves those subjects and then it's like oh i may not pass writing i may not pass history so i mean i'm okay with him getting c's in the classes that he doesn't want to and and you you know, when I talk to him, he says, Mom, I can tell I need a better work ethic. I need to do well so I can get into this program that I want to get into.

Does he take advantage of the resources at school, at the university? You mean like the disability resources? Even beyond that, every college on earth has staff that will teach you how to learn new study skills, learn new study strategies. There's a counseling center. There are health clinics. There are, yeah, there is disability support resources. There's all sorts of resources. There's a residence hall director who will, their job is to create community even in this wacky, messy time.

And I've been on the phone with a couple of them this past week even, former colleagues that are just calling me to ask me for professional advice. There's so many resources at the college university level. And what I find often is especially unplugged, disconnected freshman boys, right? Freshman young men will get disconnected. They don't have the tool, the relationship tools. They don't understand how hard relationships can be and that you've got to work at them. And then really video games become alcohol. They become weed.

They become a way to disconnect. They become a way to just numb out, right? It just makes things. I can just kind of tune out, right? It doesn't come with the same social stigma or the same legality issues, but it's the same thing it's just a numbing out i'm just i'm stressed i'm completely by myself here and so i'm unplugging a little bit so does he not take advantage of any of those resources at all so i i do know that they have like um free mental health services for the kids and hey, by the way, you like how we do that?

Colleges, they'll charge you $100,000, and then they'll be like, but we got free counseling, right? So this is just a call to anyone in America. If you want to send me $50,000, I will give you all the free counseling you would like all day long. But, yeah, so they've got counseling services, study skills services, academic support services. Does he take advantage of that stuff?

I encouraged him to get on the list for some mental health counseling. Okay. And there's such a long list because of COVID. Right. They put him on the wait list, and I don't think he's gotten in, and it's middle of second semester. Okay, okay. So that's kind of second semester. So that's kind of a bust. I have encouraged him to go to the disability office and I said, you know, if you

need more time for homework, they could work something out. But here's the thing. It doesn't sound like he needs more time for homework. It sounds like he needs some skills and I'm not going to beat him up because i don't know what his obviously you said he's been through a lot right but he's got to acknowledge the fact that i need some more skills not just say it out loud man i really have a bad work ethic and so i'm gonna go buy another game because i know i i have a deficiency and instead of dealing with that deficiency that challenge i'm going to numb challenge, I'm going to numb out, right? I'm going to check out. So saying I need to do these things and then going to get the help

you need is important. So two things you've told me. One, I would lean heavily on the school, heavily on the school. And I'm telling you that as somebody who over the last 15 years, parents all over the country have leaned heavily on me. I need more counseling resources. We need to do – my kid is paying the same as everybody else. They haven't been able to get into a counselor. At my last university that I worked at with Belmont University, their counseling center did some such extraordinary turn of events. It's such extraordinary shifts and changes in how they

provided care for people. It was revolutionary. And they began to serve a much wider group of students because they had to do things differently and they rose to that challenge. So I tell you as a parent, don't just accept, well, it's been seven months, but they can't get in. I want you to get on the phone there because you're paying that bill. I want your son to get on the phone and say, hey, this isn't good enough that I've just been on a wait list for this long. The second thing is I would not continually fund, I hate to say misbehavior, I would not continue to fund a continued behavior set? So if my son showed me, I'm going to go get the help I need, I'm going to go get these additional skills, then I'll be more likely to support him. But right now he is choosing to not do the things that are going to help him be well

in light of the challenges he's experiencing. Does that make sense? And so I know as mom, the hard part is you know how hard his his health issues have been you know how hard his stress has been so much that his body said hey we're we're we're fritzing out here right the body started shutting down because of the stress and so as a mom you want to not feel like you're adding more stress by giving him some boundaries. What I'll tell you is the thing he needs more than anything else is somebody in his corner and somebody who loves him enough to set boundaries and have expectations, right? He's not

broken. He does have some challenges. He's going to have to learn some new tools for it, but he's not broken. Okay. And so I think it's worth noting, letting him know, hey, we love you. We're going to start holding you to a high standard. You can't buy video games anymore. We're going to cut you off financially. I'm just not going to do that. And you know, we know, we all know locking yourself in your room and just playing video games is not going to help. You've got to get out and learn some new skills.

If this isn't the season for him to be in college, that's okay. That is super okay. One of the challenges I always worked with students, especially high achieving students like he sounds like he was, is they have a track and if they get off that track, everything in their life spins out. If I don't go to school this semester and the next semester, next semester, it feels like they're going to be 21 and then they're not going to be able to fill in the blank. Man, that semester means nothing in the long term. Nobody knows or cares when you're 25, right? And so it may be if he's not being successful.

If he's in five AP classes, he could do somersaults through his freshman and sophomore year of college. He should be able to make straight A's, maybe a B or two here without trying at all. That tells me if he's getting C's, that means he's not turning work in. That means he's not even opening a book in some of those other classes. He's not even writing a paper. I mean, he's doing below the bare minimum

for somebody who has that sort of intellectual firepower. Right? When you hear, I hear in your voice when you hear me telling you hey you're going to have to put the boundaries back on and ratchet it back up on him

how does that make you feel? it sounds like you don't like that sound of that I try and analyze every situation well what are the pros of helping what are the cons of helping so

like I can I can see the pain. I can see the, I don't know, like this horrible situation that these college kids were in, you know. Oh, it's a nightmare. Live with three strangers. Don't go outside. Don't interact with anybody.

Don't date. No social life. And so that's hard for me to say, you know, here's this really crappy hand and I'm out. Yeah. Well, no, it's not I'm out. In fact, it's I'm more in. I am more in, but I'm more in with these particular boundaries, right? Or you're exactly right. Is there any sense in having your kid go live in a 14 by 14 box with three other people? Hey, let's just call it. We're going to do a community college for a year. You're going to live at the house, at least in our house, you can run around and see

other people. They're your brothers and sisters, but you can see other people. And then once this thing opens back up, then we'll all roll back into school. But you're right. These kids are in a nightmare right now. It's ridiculous. So don't hear me say roll out or just let him off the hook, let him go. I'm saying the opposite. I want you to get more plugged in with him with boundaries. If he's going to these resource, if he's checking in with the student support services, if he's learning new skills, if he is limiting video game play to 30 minutes a day, and the other ones he's going to read, do homework, study, reach out and learn some new skills,

then that's great. These kids are so bored, so stressed, so unplugged, so disconnected. I don't blame them for playing video game. What else can they do? They can't go to the gym. They can't go outside and play Frisbee. They can't go play baseball. They can't know intramurals. They can do nothing, right? And so, man, I'm asking the whole big question, why are they even in school right now if that's their life? Some schools have figured it out and are doing some pretty remarkable things, some are not. But at the end of the day, what you don't want is him to go to school on top of all the stress he had last year, on top of his health issues. An important part of type 1 glycemic response is sleep, going to bed, getting good sleep every single night of the week. Video games in a room doesn't help with that.

They stay up all night and do that. I know that. And so how can he get plugged back in, take care of himself from the bottom up? And that may be coming home. That may be you saying, I'm not going to give you any more money to buy any more video games. You can't keep funding that is what I'm saying. But it may also mean you're going to have to have a hard conversation. Tell him, I love you. I love you. I love you. This isn't working because I don't want you to get into the year, have straight C's one or two two As, and then he feel like he failed.

So that's a different kind of stress. On top of the stress, he's already got partridge in a pear tree, right? On and on and on. So these kids are in a hard situation. That doesn't mean that they don't have boundaries. They're in a completely disconnected, lonely. That doesn't mean they don't have to do the things

that keep them well. And moms and dads, that doesn't mean you just keep putting money in the account so they can keep doing things. Whether it's video games, whether it's alcohol, whether it's buying weed, whether it's whatever it is. They don't just get a free pass because things are hard right now. They need to do other things, right? Not just keep plugging along, plugging along, plugging along.

I love the fact, Nikki, that you love your son. That makes my heart feel good. And I've just worked with, I can't even tell you how many kids just like him who've got so many struggles out of their senior year. It's a hard thing. But once you recognize it, then you got to go make other decisions. It's not going to look like you and I

when we went to college our freshman year. We got to own that and then move on. So thank you so much. I want you to have that hard conversation or have him, how about this? Have him call me. I'd love to have him on the show and talk through what the last year has been, Nikki. I'd love to talk through some strategies for him because I've talked to students like him for

the last 15, 16, 17 years. And then maybe I can give him some tools. Maybe I can say things to him in a way that he can't hear from his mom or from his dad or from his residence hall director. That's going to help him make some broader, heavier life decision changes. So thank you so much for that call, Nicky. Let's go to Kevin in Provo, Utah, right down the street. Kevin, what's going on, man? Hey, how much, John? How you doing? Good, man. Good, good, good. How's Provo? Oh, it's great. You know, weather's good.

Very cool. Well, brother, what's going on? How can I help? Hey, so my wife and I are having a communication issue and uh we've been pretty good at hard conversations in the past but uh we're stuck on one and i think this will turn into kind of a broader conversation about um you know having hard conversations and stuff so but the example that we've been dealing with and struggling with lately is um kind of a nighttime routine. We're both really, really busy through the day. I'm a supervisor at work, and I've got a lot on my plate. And she's got three little kids to deal with. Our kids are amazing. She's a full-time mom with them. And our nighttime routine is a little rocky. Like, I'm an early bird. I need to get up early. So I would like to get to bed early.

But she is a night owl and she craves a lot of connection once, you know, all the kids are in bed. And I crave that connection too. Like I need to, we need to connect with each other. And 2020 was, it was a hard year for a lot of people. But for us, we were able to connect with each other more. Yeah. And it was one of the best years of my life actually because we finally got on the same page with a lot of things. Very cool.

And so talking at night and we have some great alone time together we'll watch a tv show and then we'll just you know talk and have conversations put down the distractions we and we have good conversations but then um the time creeps by and it gets to be you know 11 11 30 midnight and i'm looking at the clock, and I'm like, I've got to get up early. And I, you know, have stepped on a lot of landmines in the past couple weeks where I will say, all right, well, you know, thanks for talking. I love you, and, you know, I've got to get to bed. And it just really hurts her feelings because she craves kind of that quantity of time. She wants a lot of time to talk. So anyway, how do you, what do you recommend?

How do you, what advice do you have for couples who just, I crave that connection that really, really helps me. It's helped a lot over the last year, but like when the physical needs. You got to go to bed, right? Exactly. Yeah. So my house is exactly different. Me and my wife's schedules are exactly different,

and I'll tell you how we worked through it. First was my wife needs nine or ten hours of sleep, and I used to think that was ridiculous and silly and that she was being dramatic. Dude, I have a different human living in my house when she gets seven hours of sleep versus nine. It's a different human, right? And I would get home from work. We had the exact opposite. When the kids were in bed, she wanted to crawl into bed and be in bed by 8.30. There's no reason on earth to be awake after nine 30. What in the world is happening after nine 30? And I'm the opposite.

I was working, you know, I work, I have hard conversations with people all day. My head's spinning all day. I get home and I just want to veg out. I want to kind of almost take a little rest time between six and eight, six and nine. And then we can get up and like, then the rest of the evening's ours. Right. And evening being nine to about midnight right and um so ultimately i had to realize two things number one nobody in our house is healthy or whole if they're not getting the sleep they need

so that became priority number one okay so what that what? That mean I had to adjust me. She also could adjust up another 30 minutes or another hour. We've settled-ish on 9.30 or 10. What I learned with me is that what I thought I needed was craving with connection time

and just hangout time. I needed to be asleep, man. I was exhausted. I was chronically exhausted all the time, I needed to be asleep, man. I was exhausted. I was chronically exhausted all the time. And I moved from one thing to another thing to another thing, trying to just prop myself up to stay awake, stay awake, stay awake. Because then I was like, I finally get this time. Man, that ended up being a disaster. So I've learned over the last five to seven years, man, if I'm up past 930 or 10 now, I hate everything.

I hate everything, right? I love going to bed now. And so it took me changing my thoughts. It took me, how about this? Here's a way to practice it. When you get home and you help with bedtime, do you help with the bedtime routine? Yeah, I do. Good deal.

I do a lot. That's awesome, man. So you help with the bedtime routine. Structure that after bedtime. Structure that time. Sometimes it feels like this amorphous just quote-unquote time together. Sit down and structure, hey, what are you looking for in this time, right? What do you need from me

and what i finally got to where my wife i just want to talk to another grown-up adult human being that i can be open with and vulnerable with i need physical touch i want to just watch a show and laugh right and so yeah it kept this amorphous time my wife would ask me what do you need man and then finally realized i need to go to bed I need to go to bed. I need to go to bed. So structure that time together. Give each other 30 to 60 days. Ask your wife, hey, can we go to bed

at 10.30, right? We're going to have the kids. Oh, by the way, here's another quick question. When do your kids go to bed? When do they go to sleep? So we've gotten a lot better. Before it was like just whenever, but now we literally start bedtime at seven and try to have them in bed by eight. And it's, that's been so much better, but now we have, we literally, we have so much time after eight that we're just

continuously, you know, having conversations. And, and, um, one thing I will say it is, uh, like I said, it's been helpful because I, I had a really bad habit and talking to her and talking things through with her really helped me kick that habit. And so like talking with her really, really has been so helpful. And so it's like, it's hard for me to imagine like not having that conversation, but then it always hits that late hour. and it's like, dang, I'm exhausted. Like, I have an hour-long commute. I've, you know, and I'm, like, worried I'm going to fall asleep on the road, so I'm drinking lots of soda that I don't really want to be drinking.

Yeah, don't do that. So don't apologize for the sleep you need, okay? Yeah. And everyone does that differently. I have to have eight hours of sleep or I'm useless. My wife has to have ten. That means we're going to have eight hours of sleep or I'm useless. My wife has to have 10. That means we're going to have a gap there, okay?

It just does. It just means we're going to have a gap, or she's got to have nine. And I've got to be okay with that. She's got to be okay with that. We've both got to act like adults. And that also means that we've got to have the time that we do have has to be focused. I can't be talking to her and just nodding while I'm scrolling, right? And if we're going to watch a show, we have show night on Wednesday. I shoot my shows on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday generally.

And so I'm tired. I'm super tired of Wednesday nights. That's when we all laugh and we put on a silly show and watch some silly show, right? I would recommend putting in – this is going to sound so ridiculous like you're 10 again. I would recommend putting in a bedtime. At to sound so ridiculous, like you're 10 again. I would recommend putting in a bedtime. At 10 o'clock, the lights go out. And I'm going to ask you, wife, that we turn the lights off and that you will stay in bed, that you will turn the lights off too at 10. Or if you need to read for another 15, 20 minutes, let's do that for 30 days.

Can we just commit to that together? And then those two hours that are just y'alls are just lasered in on each other. Whatever that means, whatever that looks like for y'all, if that's intimate time, if that's just chit-chatting time, if that is doing budget time together, checking on calendars, those two hours are just rich gold between the two of you. But then at 10, the lights are going to go out. And letting her know, hey, not in this uncertain,

like I've got a lot of things on my plate. When you approach it that way, her immediate response is, well, I got a lot of crap on my plate too, dude. So don't approach it with here's how hard this burden is. Approach it the other way, which is I need this much sleep. And I need this much connection time with you so here's how we can do both of them the kids are in bed by eight o'clock then we got two solid hours of just one another and then at 10 o'clock i gotta turn the lights out and just try it my guess is you

will modulate up half an hour or down half an hour but if she's anything like me i just wanted the night to keep going and keep going and keep going. And dude, now I am 930 nerd deluxe. I had just never done it before, right? So practice that time with intentionality. Let her know not how busy you are. Let her know, I've got to have this much sleep. I've just got to, and I want to be fully present when I'm here. I want to do my best job at work, but I really want to help with the kids. I really want to love these children well. And I really want to love you well. As you said, as we've done this year, that's so awesome that 2020 has been a good connection year for you.

I'm hearing that all over the country, couples who just decided to reimagine what their world was going to be like. But, hey, for 30 days, this idiot on the radio said, let's try turning the lights off at 10 o'clock. Let's just try it. And don't get out of bed because I used to just jump up. She'd turn the lights off at 9, 30, 10. Then I'd go hang out and watch TV till midnight. And then I just turned into this drippy, exhausted, sloppy, just mess. Just bleh.

And then I'd get up and be late to work. Just don't do that. Say for 30 days, stay in bed until 10. Let's try it. Let's just try it. You can even hold hands as y'all go to sleep. Look how romantic that was. Friday morning romance here on the John Delaney show. Let me know how that goes. Call me back in 30 days or have her call me. Y'all both call me back and I want to see how the romance is deepening in Kevin's house because we're all going to bed at the same time.

All right. So I get this email with a lot of regularity. And so I wanted to, it took a minute to write some notes out on this. Here's an example of an email. Here's one from Tracy. It says, you regularly tell listeners to put down their cinder blocks that they're carrying around in their backpack. My question on behalf of all listeners, thank you, Tracy, for acting on behalf of everyone, is how practically do we do that? What tips do you have for letting go? I know that my cinder blocks are, but I'm struggling to put them down and not carry them around. As a result, they continue to intrude in my mental

health. I'll tell you this. They intrude on more things in your mental health. They intrude on your relationships. They intrude on your physical health. They intrude on your spiritual health. They intrude on everything, your financial health, on everything, right? So here's a couple of things, tips. I wrote down four or five things here. And you can get out some notes and write these down. The first thing when you're thinking about putting down your bricks, and when I talk about bricks, I'm talking about what are these things that you carry around with you all of the time since you were a kid.

Some of them come over time, right? Some of them are recent, right? But these bricks are childhood traumas, the stories you're born into, right? Your family stories, this is just the way we are. Systemic issues, right? Racism, poverty, those kind of stories that you were just born into because of whatever culture you're in. Somebody hurt you, right? The voices that you allow in your head or the way you talk to yourself, these are bricks that we carry around us all day, right? This idea that I cheated once, then I put that in my backpack because I'm a cheater, right?

It becomes my identity, right? So the number one thing when you're thinking about how do I walk through life lighter, right? How do I put these bricks down is decide you don't want to carry them anymore. And that sounds ridiculous. Of course, I don't want to be an abuse victim survivor anymore. Of course, I don't want my parents to have talked about me the way they did when I was a kid. Of course, of course, fill in the blank. But here's the thing, when you carry stuff around for so long, it becomes part of you, right? If you've ever been on a boat all day and you get off the boat

and the ground still feels wobbly, that's how it feels when you put stuff down. Our bodies crave that equilibrium. And in fact, not only our bodies, the people around us. If you see folks who lose a lot of weight, it often really affects their relationships because people in their world are used to helping them out, always listening to them, their self-defeatist talk or just that feeling of frustration. People lose a lot of weight. They start exercising. They start eating right.

Their self-confidence rises, right? They start walking a little bit taller. They start speaking with a little more self-assurance. The people around them want to put that back where it goes, right? You want to put that back where it goes, right? You see yo-yo dieters. You see folks who go in and out of counseling over 5, 10, 15, 20 years. So you've got to decide, I want to put these bricks down, right? I was hurt as a kid and I'm going to heal and move on, right? Yes, my mom said stupid things. Yes, there are massive systemic injustices. Yes, somebody died and they were not supposed to.

They were supposed to be with me until the end, right? Or I've learned addictive behaviors that help protect me from pain or from disconnection or from messed up relationships. But these addictions now have side effects that are causing me new traumas, which are causing me to have to withdraw more over and over and over. Or I no longer want my identity to be from the worst things that ever happened to me. I don't want my identity to be the worst thing I ever did.

I stepped out on my husband, so I'm a cheater forever. I want to put that brick down. How do I heal and move on from that? Okay, so number two, you got to name them and you got to be specific and honest, right? Often trauma, these things swirl around in this giant soup in our head, right? And we say things like, I hate myself. I hate church. I hate my family or I hate fill in the blank.

These type of blanket statements are a waste of your breath because they're just reductive. They don't help anything, right? You have to be specific and be honest. What about your parents or family or old boyfriend or whatever it is, what about it do you hate? What about them hurt you, right? Here's church. I hear this a lot. I hate church because of the trauma I experienced as a kid. Cool. Lots of churches have hurt lots and lots and lots and lots of people, right? But if you just walk through life saying, I hate church, then it may cause your alarms to go off when you're around big groups, when you're around communities, when you're around a collective group of people who all have a singular mission to help

other people, right? And those three things aren't necessarily bad. But if you're walking through life like, I just hate church, then you're going to start watching. Your alarm systems are going to go off for various things that look like church. So you've got to parse it out and say, it could be, I didn't hate church. I hated that guy that hurt me, right? Or there are a couple of really outspoken, mean, idiotic families at the church I went to. Or there was a particular minister that was not a good human being, right? What is it? Be specific. Just because your dad, oh, and here's, be specific and be honest, right? So here's where the honesty comes in. Just because your dad yelled at you or your mom told you things that are still lodged in your brain doesn't necessarily mean

they were evil. They might've been, but it could have been that they just didn't have the right tools in their toolkit. So part of being honest is being able to slowly unwind that. I have some bricks in my backpack that are from things kids told me or young people did to me when I was a young person, right? Old girlfriends, guys I ran around with, guys I lived with, right? Things they did, things they said that hurt me, that altered the way I live my life or saw myself or still see myself, right? But here's the thing. They were kids. They were 20, right? I don't hold it against them. Why would I waste my adult energy hating children, right? But I do have to process the hurt. I still do have to process the pain. I have to process those voices, right? So

I've got to be honest on both sides of this thing, right? And some of this, some of these bricks will be from adults you trusted and loved that should have known better. It's never okay to abuse a kid. It's never okay to abuse a spouse. Some of you, as you're going through the bricks in your backpack, as you're being specific and honest about them, have to look at the person you're with right now and realize this is sick and ill and dangerous and I got to get out. Some of you will look at the bricks in your backpack and say, my mom still talks to me that way and now she's talking to her grandkids, my children that way. Enough. Going through these things, these bricks in your backpack, being specific and honest is hard. Okay, so number

three, once you've written them down, you've got to get other people in your life to look at them with you. That's why I'm always telling folks, you cannot be a whole person without relationships, period. So if you've got one or two people that you trust in your life, sitting down with them one day and just saying, hey, I need to go through some of this stuff with you. I need to tell you guys some stuff that happened to me as a kid. Am I crazy? Am I feeling and processing this in a healthy way? And they may say, dude, that's not, you may feel that way. I wouldn't wrap my head as that as trauma, or they more than likely look at you and say, dude, that's a really big deal. And you're minimizing this is a huge thing. Some of you don't have, many of us don't have people like that in

your life. So you got to go see a professional. You got to go see a professional to help you look at those bricks. Sometimes they'll hold them for you and hold them up and let you see them. And then you put them back down, right? But you got to get with other people. And then here's the magic. You got to set them down. What does this look like? It looks like you've got to practice controlling your thoughts, those intrusive thoughts that come in. You got to notice how your body feels. Whenever you think of that thing that happened to you when you were a kid, does your heart start racing? Do you immediately reach for a cigarette? Do you immediately reach for a drink? Do you immediately want to get up and go grab something to eat? Do you immediately want to go work out? What is the thing, right? You got to

notice how these things feel in your body. When old demons come calling, you got our old memories, you got to literally say out loud no no right so I still have in my head some terrible things I said to people when I was in middle school I was a jerk man and some things I said yeah especially in middle school and for some I didn't recognize this till years ago till a few years ago I'm in my 30s, and I think, oh, I'm still carrying around that I'm a bad guy. I'm a bad human being. Not that I was an idiot of a 13-year-old, but I'm a bad human, right? And so when those memories pop in my head, sometimes I'll be getting ready for a big talk on stage, and that voice will go, who are you, man? Remember? And I'll say, nope, nope, not going to do it. I'm not going to give an audience to that voice because that's just old John trying to come in and self-sabotage

what we're doing here, man. I may need to go for a walk in AA, right? You may need to call your sponsor. You may need to call your friends, et cetera. You got to practice not reacting, right? And this is the last thing. You got to develop a new identity. Who are you going to be now? Who are you going to be now? How are you going to navigate the world, not as a jerk or an idiot or a cheater or an abuse survivor or as someone who did something, who cheated on their spouse, but who are you going to be now, right? I think it was Carl Jung or Adler. One of them said, I always thought if I could remove depression and anxiety from my client, they would be well, but they weren't. They were hollow because anxiety and depression played a role.

I have to give them new skills. I've got to teach them who they're going to be now. So you've got to get with folks in your life, whether that's a counselor or friends, family, community, that's going to help you develop your new identities moving forward. Not after the best, I mean, not after the worst things that happened to you, the worst things you did, but who am I going to become now? So those are my five tips on how to, I hate five tip things. These are the three tips on how, well, I just did it. There you go. How to put your bricks down. If anyone has any more questions about that, call me with some specific examples of what's going on in your life. We'll get there. All right, let's go to Rachel in Manchester, New Hampshire. Rachel, what's going on? How can we help? Hi, thank you so much for taking my call today. For sure. Thank you for calling. So what's

going on? Yeah. So my husband and I have been married for three years. We have two little kids and he has some really bad habits, for lack of a better word, that he has always had since he was probably a teenager and things like that, that weren't really a problem when we were dating, things like that. But now they're really starting to affect his health and our family. And it's been bringing me a lot of anxiety about what our future is going to look like if they continue. So what's going on?

What are they? So I guess the main one is he has really severe asthma, and he also smokes a lot, like a pack a day kind of, sometimes less, but around that. And it's actually he's been admitted to the hospital twice in the last year for breathing-related issues. Yikes. For like three-plus days each time and things like that. It just seems to be getting worse instead of better.

Other things related to that, too. But it just makes me worried. You know, with two little kids, he's only 32 and I'm 25. And I just feel like these are things you shouldn't be dealing with for a long time. Sure. These kinds of health issues. So if I drill down here, is it there's something more than smoking? I mean, it's all kinds of just unhealthy, not taking care of himself really well,

unhealthy eating, unhealthy, lots of drinking, not like in a dangerous way or anything, but just a lot of those types of habits. Okay. So when, this is the powerlessness part of being married to somebody who doesn't take care of their body right um you know that you can't make him eat well you know that you can't make him quit smoking or stop drinking or stop you know i don't know what i'm playing video games till 2 a.m whatever you can only deal with you so when you see these behaviors what has your strategy been over the last year over the last two? How do you approach him with your concerns? I've probably tried everything, including the things that don't help at all, like expressing to him how concerned it makes me and how I don't like our kids learning from those behaviors and watching him do these things and a lot of probably

guilt, which I'm sure is not the right approach, but. It's hard though, right? I mean, I'm not here to, I'm not going to beat you up. Of course, man, that those things are hard and it's important for him to know how you feel on it. When you sit him down and say, Hey, listen, I love you. And at this current trajectory, you're not going to be with us very long. And the time you are going to have with us is going to be less than because you don't feel good. You don't, um, you don't feel healthy or whole. And when you don't feel healthy or whole, you're short with us. You snap at us. You end up in the hospital, fill in the blank here. What's his response to you? How does he, how does he, how does he respond? Um, he always makes me feel really heard and then nothing changes.

Okay. Um, he says, I understand. I can see why you feel that way, you know, kind of all those things, but, but nothing, or I know, I know I need to do something different, but it doesn't, it doesn't change. Have you told him that, that you're scared? Yes. That you're scared you're going to end up a single mom? Yes. That you're scared you're going to end up a single mom? Yes.

I think he has a lot of things from before I knew him, like a lot of childhood things that I think he probably doesn't really want to deal with, but I'm sure contribute to some of these choices. Of course they do. So here's the part you're going to have to wrestle with. You're probably already there. I'll just ask you, has it gotten to a point where you believe he's choosing these behaviors that you know are going to kill him, that he's choosing this over you and over your kids? I don't know if I want to say that he does it intentionally.

No, not intentionally. He's really good. Yeah, not intentionally, but at the end of the day, there's one road to being with you guys for a long time, and then there's one road to a much shorter, less healthier life. Then, yes. I mean, I think he knows. I don't know if he really applies it to his life. Like, yes, this is going to shorten my life and everything. But I'm sure he's heard that from his doctors and from me, and he knows that. And they just don't change. And I know I can't change him. I know that's whatever good counselor will say. Can I tell you, Rachel, that's heartbreaking for me and I'm sorry. I wish there was a

like, oh, you just need to and you can't. At the end of the day, if you've sat down and looked in the eye and said, I'm scared to death that I'm going to lose you and I'm scared to death that our little babies are going to be without you and I'm asking you on

behalf of us and on behalf of yourself, somebody who I love, I want you to love yourself as much as I love you. And he says, man, I hear you, baby. And then he goes outside and smokes, goes outside and has a few more drinks. I want you to know, I get that's heartbreaking. I hate that for you. I hate that for every spouse, every partner in the country whose husband or wife, girlfriend or boyfriend don't love them as much as they do, right? They don't love themselves as much as their partner does. I hate that for you. The best you can do in this situation is number one, go see somebody yourself on how to process this because it doesn't get better. It gets harder. Okay.

There is some hope that he begins to see you taking care of yourself. And it's not an immediate turnaround, but it becomes a long, slow turn, right? You start walking taller. You start doing the things that you can do, which are very limited to take care of you and your kids. The second thing is you can make some declarations in your home. You're not going to be drunk in this house. You're not going to smoke inside this house and subject the kids to this stuff. I'm assuming that he's otherwise a great human being and he's a good dad and a good husband. Is that fair? Yeah, and he respects any of the boundaries we've set up. I don't want the kids to see him smoking. And he always,

you know, goes outside and around the corner and away from them and stuff like that. So he tries to respect those things. So he's, man. So can I tell you, I've got an especially big heart for folks with big hearts who are trapped. You know what I mean? Who are just trapped. I would love for you to tell him to give me a shout. I'd love to talk to them. Not in a mean or ugly way, but just to say, man, I get it and I know. And there's healing if you want to make some major changes in your life. Until then, you're going to have to decide what your breaking point is, what your if-them point is. And I'll tell you that you know this, but I'll just repeat it. Blaming, criticizing, complaining, those things never solve connection level issues. And we're in the middle of what I would call, they call them diseases of despair.

Have you heard that term? Yeah. Like, we're experiencing that at unfathomable levels, particularly in men who are just – they're calling it long-tail suicide, right? They are just intentionally not taking care of themselves over a long period of time. They know what they're doing is slowly, slowly taking them out of the ballgame, And they're just not making changes because it's hard. It is hard. And I'm asking every guy, if that's you listening to this, go get the help and care that you need. I want you to hear Rachel's voice.

I want you to hear a mom who loves her babies. I want you to hear a wife who loves her husband. And the husband's a good guy. He just can't get over this idea that the guy he sees in the mirror is worth sleeping all night. It's worth being able to run around and play with his kids without having to bend over

and catch his breath. It's worth being healthy and living a long, long healthy life. Rachel, I don't have a magic thing for you other than you got to take care of yourself and you got to make sure you and your kids are safe. Taking care of yourself might be, how long do I keep loving this guy because I'm going to get pulled underwater too. I hope you'll stay connected to him and come to the realization that he has value.

It may be, man, maybe invite him to couples counseling. Maybe a third neutral party will help. Have him call my show. But this one doesn't always have a happy ending. It just doesn't, and I hate that for you. Oh, man. Sorry about that. As we wrap up the show,

man, this is a... What an astute song here, man. It's a song that came out when I was a kid. And I think it meant more about breakups, but I think it applies here. It's from one of my favorite 80s, 90s hair metal bands. And the song's called Heartbreak Station. And the song goes like this.

Waiting at the station, tears filling up my eyes. Sometimes the pain you hide burns like a fired side. And you look out my window and sometimes it's hard to see that the things you want in life come and go so easily. She took the last train out of my heart. She took the last train and now I think I'll make a brand new start. She took the last train out of my heart. And you're watching the days go by, thinking about the plans we made and the days turn into years. It's funny how they fade away. Sometimes I think of those days.

Sometimes I just hide away waiting on that 920 train, waiting on a memory. She took the last train out of my heart. Men, if you're listening to this, I know this was about some girl somewhere in some 80s love song. But guys, don't leave the person you love sitting at a train station watching you go because you didn't take care of yourself. You didn't look in the mirror and think you had value.

You do. Find somebody. Start making some changes today. This is The Dr. John Deloney Show. Bye.