The Dr. John Delony Show - Relationship Struggles During the Pandemic & Defining Narcissism

Episode Date: December 2, 2020

The Dr. John Delony Show is a caller-driven show that gives you real talk on life, relationships and mental health challenges. Through humor, grace and grit, John gives you the tools you need to cut through the chaos of anxiety, depression and disconnection. You can own your present and change your future—and it starts now. So send us your questions at johndelony.com/show or leave a voicemail at 844-693-3291. We want to talk to YOU! Show Notes for this Episode 4:41: How do I help my mentally-handicapped brother while I can't visit him due to COVID? 16:35: Teaching Segment: What is a Narcissist? article: Narcissist or A**hole? Know the Difference 23:25: How do I set boundaries with my sister-in-law while we both homeschool together? 32:05: Followup Voicemail from an ER Nurse 43:15: Lyrics of the Day: "When I See You Smile" - Bad English tags: family, sickness/illness, boundaries, culture/current events, first responders, trauma/PTSD, workplace/career 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're going to talk to several people with very unique situations, all trying to make it in the pandemic season. We're going to talk about narcissism, and we're going to hear from a nurse about what folks are really going through inside the hospital system. Stay tuned.

Hey, what up, what up? I am John and this is the Dr. John Deloney Show. A live show about you, for you, and by you. Where we walk with real people going through real challenges and we help them make the next wobbly, crooked step towards a brighter future. In the darkness that is 2020, in the darkness that is the political mess, the rising COVID cases, schools opening and closing and opening and closing, husbands leaving, wives checking out, I'm here to walk with you. We are here to walk with you. And we talk about

everything on this show, all of it, no matter what's going on in your heart, in your mind, in your family. There are millions of other people going through it too. And that's why I'm here. That's why I'm here to let you know that you're not alone, right? And so we're going to talk about love, loss, family issues, special needs brothers and sisters, finding love again. We may talk about two things that you can do right now to change the world. And I was going to say these are things that make me crazy, that make me nuts. But I'm going to flip it around and I'm going to quit whining for a couple of days. That used to be one of my core covenants, right?

Just to stop whining, just accept what is and move on, right? Control what I can control, put the rest down. Whining has never solved anything in the history of the world, ever, right? And so instead of whining, I'm going to flip it around and I'm going to turn these into action statements. These are two things you can do right now to change the world. Number one, put your freaking cart back in the grocery store parking lot. If you're in a Target or a Walmart or a Publix or a Kroger, I don't care where you are. If you're in a hardware store, put the cart back in the little cart

space. And I know it takes an extra 42 steps for you, but it signals to the rest of the world, hey, this is where these things go. And I'm going to be a person who puts things back where they go. And that little act of kindness and collective rule following, it's not even rule following. It's just communal action, right? You're going to minimize door dings. You're going to help other people know where the carts are. Just put your cart back. And then the second thing is this.

Wherever you go, whenever you leave your house, make it a mission to pick up just two pieces of trash. They can be tiny. If you are a go-getter, they can be huge, but usually they're just going to be two little things, like a wrapper and like a gum wrapper and an old box of cigarettes or a lid and a Coke can, whatever. Pick up two pieces of trash. If every person did that, the world would be a little cleaner. We'd see each other picking up trash and we'd know that guy's on my team. She's in my neighborhood. We're all in this together. So put your cart back, pick up a couple of pieces of trash. Those are two ways you can make the world better. And when the world starts getting better, then people's hearts start lifting, people's minds start lifting, and then it gets a little pinhole of light in the dark train wreck that has been 2020, right?

And let's not lie to ourselves. There's major economic consequences. There's COVID still running rampant. In fact, it's escalating all across the country. It's not showing any signs of slowing down. Politics, good God almighty, dude. It's just meth and banjos out there with our politics. It's just a dark time.

If you pick up a couple pieces of trash, if you put your cart back, if you wave to people at crosswalks, you're just shining a little bitty pinhole of light in the darkness. So whatever's going on in your home, in your heart, in your head, I'm here to stand with you, here to walk with you. Give me a call at 1-844-693-3291. That's 1-844-693-3291. Or you can go to johndeloney.com slash show. That's johndeloney.com slash show and fill out the form and you can just email it to us from the website. All right, let's go straight to the phones. Let's go to Tara in Amarillo, Texas. Amarillo, by morning. Tara, good morning. How are we doing? Good morning. Thank you so much for

taking my call. Thank you for calling. Before we get going, I've got some buddies in Amarillo, and they said the COVID spike has been something fierce the last few weeks. Y'all doing okay? Yeah, we're doing great. Yes, it has been up. That's for sure. Good deal. I'm glad to hear that. So how can I help this morning?

Well, I have a mentally handicapped brother who lives in a small group home. And normally he works in a workshop situation. And so he gets out daily. But during COVID, that's been very few and far between times and right now they are closed again at his home. Currently, he can't have anyone that comes in to visit and he can't go out anywhere to visit. And he's gone from calling me, because I'm 350 miles away, but he's gone from calling me almost daily and talking to never calling unless I initiate it. And when I do call him, he just will absolutely not communicate at all. I just listen to him breathe. He's struggled with depression, you know, but it's

just totally shut him down now. And I just, I don't know what I can do to help him. And that's kind of why I'm calling you, is ideas on what I can do to help him during this time with his situation. Wow. Thank you for your call. Thank you for your trust there. And I appreciate you being somebody who loves their brother. Absolutely. Both because of and in spite of his challenges that he's got. So what's the

nature of his special needs? Well, he's mentally handicapped. I would put him maybe, you know, at third, fourth grade level as far as, you know, his communication skills and that kind of thing. He is physically very good. I mean, over the years, he's 55 now. So over the years he's bowled, he's played tennis, special Olympics. He loves video games. He's very good at them. He's good at card games. Um, you know, horseback riding. He loves that kind of a thing. Um, he's never been a big talker, but you know, he will get on a tangent and talk and chat about, you know, his bowling game and his tennis and things like that. And it's difficult now because he has nothing to talk about.

I can feel his pain there that he has nothing to talk about. Does he have a full grasp of what's going on? Or is he, you know, if he's at a third, fourth, fifth grade level, is he wrestling with this as most third, fourth, and fifth graders are, which is suddenly their world shifted underneath them and they get it intellectually, right? They'll hear that we're not going to be able to go to work today or go to school today, but that's not appeasing their hearts. Is he getting it or is he just struggling? I think he struggles with that. I think he's been told and they try to, you know, make it

with all of them in the house, you know, to try to explain. But if I were guessing, and I don't know this for positive, he feels like he's done something wrong probably, you know? Yep, absolutely. Yeah, I've heard that same conversation across the country that folks with special needs and folks under the age of middle school are internalizing what's happened over the past year as something they've done. If they would have just been a little nicer or kinder or washed their hands, then this wouldn't have all happened. And that's just a whole other devastating psychological consequence of what we've been doing here. So he lives 350 miles away. And have you tried FaceTiming him?

Have you tried any other technological communication other than just the phone call? Right, yeah. We have done FaceTiming, and it was working okay, like maybe April, May-ish, and now he's gotten to where he doesn't want to do that. I'm struggling with getting him to charge his devices because I'll try to call him on his cell phone or on FaceTime and, you know, it's not charged. And, you know, I've been trying to work with the house people on making sure that's done. But I'm struggling with just getting that communication there to him. And the last time we FaceTimed, he just struggled with even lifting the iPad and seeing me and me seeing him.

Have you ever seen him go through a pretty significant depressive episode? Nothing like this. Okay. Are they at the home, are they getting the residents out and taking them for walks, getting them outside? I don't think they're going for walks. They might put them in a van and drive them around. And I've been told that he doesn't want to even do that.

He wants to sleep. Sure. Yeah. So it's been my experience with adults with special needs that as much as the rest of us, but in a very pointed and unique way, the ability to work brings an esteem that can only be achieved through accomplishment and work, right? And being able to go somewhere with purpose and go somewhere and accomplish something is a major driver of self-efficacy. I'm talking like an idiot here.

It's a major driver of self-esteem for adults with special needs. And when that gets taken away, when you take away somebody's purpose, when you take away somebody's well-being, that's just devastating, right? Mike Rowe of the Dirty Jobs fame was here in the Ramsey building a few months ago, and he just offhandedly dropped a line while he was talking, and it has stuck with me. He said, when COVID broke out and we determined there was essential and non-essential workers, you know, we said essential workers were media personalities and nurses and teachers, things like that. He said, inadvertently, we told 300 plus million Americans, you're not essential.

Just go home. We'll mail you a check. And I had never thought of it that way. But we have just told people across the country, nah, we don't need you. Go on home and we'll let you know when you can come out. And it's been devastating. And I just, my empathy for your brothers is heavy on my heart right now. Because for somebody who can't understand and is just being told, stay here, stay here, stay here, him withering underneath himself is to be expected, right? And it's heartbreaking.

So a couple of things you can do. Number one, I would call the home and with all the kindness, yet forcefulness you can muster, I would strongly recommend they get folks out to take walks. And whether that is a, you can give him some sort of exercise program that quote unquote becomes his job, or give him some set of goals that he can accomplish by walking around the neighborhood, whether that's giving him one of those really cheap Fitbits that he can count steps. What we want to do is little wins. We want to do little, tiny, what I would call micro accomplishments, micro goals for him that are going to both get him a sense of purpose but also get him outside and get him sunshine and get him moving around. If he's in Texas there, then the sunshine is going to still be on him

and it will be cool but it won't be freezing. And that would be a gift to him both physiologically, right? The vitamin D and the fresh air and all that. And if he's doing it with the community, that will help too. But it also is going to give him a sense of purpose that has been taken away from him because he can't go to work. Another thought would be, would he be able to play? And golly, man, talk about a twist of fate here. I'm recommending this on my show. Would he be willing to play video games with you?

Yeah, I think he would. If you challenged him and kind of talked it up, like talk some trash, some good brother-sister trash, and just say, hey, I've been thinking and I'm ready to dominate you in some video game that y'all could. Very competitive. So, yeah, that might be a possibility. That you could get one of them. And I'm telling you this, man. I'm always telling people to get off the screens,

but this may be one of those unique moments where getting one of those microphones and you do your best trash-talking sister you can to get him out of his shell and give him something to look forward to. And this would be a moment of accountability for you if you put something on the calendar for him a couple of days a week and said on Tuesdays at six o'clock, prepare for big sis to crush you, right? And get him fired up that way. If he would do that and engage with you there, that would be a unique way that y'all could get connected. And it may be a way that he could get connected with your kids if you've got them, with your spouse, with other people in the family too.

And again, you're giving him a sense of purpose. You're giving him something on the calendar to look forward to. And then I think it's really important for you to recognize this unique moment and that total heartbreaking powerlessness. And you are such a great sister. You're focused on how you can help him. But I also don't want you to miss this moment where you're going to have to look in the mirror

and exhale a little bit and drop your shoulders and realize how limited your personal power is, right? Have you experienced that? Have you gone through your own grief on this deal? Yeah, I think so. I think it's gotten more and more here at, you know, with things going up and them closing again and the hope of them reopening, you know, they're telling us January and I'm like, you know, that's a long haul. That really is. And it's a long dark haul, right? It's, it's, the winter months are not good to be pegged in and locked in. Is there a way he could come visit you or is that a no-no? Yeah, they won't allow it. See, he was going to my parents' house every Wednesday and playing games and eating dinner.

And they have not allowed that since like February. Wow, wow. Yeah, it looks like you're going to have to do the limited things you can to lean in here. And again, I would love some sort of fitness regimen and the best I've been able to read. And I've tried to keep up with the science of what's going on as much as possible. Getting outside and going for walks is not only not going to contribute, but it's going to help folks, particularly the vitamin D side and the good breath side. And number two, yeah, if you can plug in and play some video games there.

But I don't want you to miss the opportunity to get in touch with yourself because this just sucks. And I want you to spend a couple of minutes mourning what you can control and what you can't. I want you to spend a few moments on the regular talking to somebody that you care about and just being able to express, I hate this. I hate this. And this isn't whining. This isn't complaining. This is just acknowledging. So many of us are just running into solving mode, solving mode, and man, we just have to pause for a minute and just own. It's no good, man. I hate this.

So, Tara, I think for the call, I wish I could give you more concrete, like, hey, just do this and this and this. And I'm guessing here, right? I'm guessing here. My hope is that you can use the love and care you've got for this young man and get him plugged into some video games. I think that would be a lot of fun. And man, whenever I think I can't get weirder, James, here I am on the show recommending people play video games. But Tara, thank you so much for that call. Let's go. I've got a quick little thing I want to talk through here. I get more calls, not more. I get a lot of calls about narcissist, narcissist, narcissist, narcissist.

Everyone's always talking about a narcissist. And so it's one of those terms that's thrown around a lot these days. Everybody's talking about it. They're saying their dad's a narcissist, their brother's a narcissist. So I want to go through a quick deconstruction, reconstruction of what a narcissist actually is, what it's not. And I'm going to point you to what I think is the best reference I've seen so far. And it is not a science journal. It's actually written by an author, a fiction author. But here's a couple of thoughts. So here's what a narcissist is. It's somebody who technically has been diagnosed with narcissistic personality disorder. And it's a personality disorder characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, but most importantly, a total lack of empathy

and a sense of entitlement. For a true narcissist, other people exist for one purpose, and that is for them to be self-fulfilled. They believe that everything around them happens for them, and that people are merely tools. They are merely puzzle pieces for their own use, right? Narcissists rarely seek help, right? They expect everyone around them to meet their needs. They ignore the impact that their negative comments have on other people. They ignore the fact that they hurt other people because they don't care. They don't have that empathetic ability. And this is not a jerk, right? We'll talk about that in a second here. This is somebody who legitimately lacks the ability to be empathetic.

They can be loud and brash, super confident. They can be charming. And the charm seeks to get other people to fulfill their needs. But they can also be shy and hypersensitive, thin skin, very fragile, and they can take control in what Terry Real calls the one down position. They can be underneath you and quiet and make it all about them. The person that just sits in the corner and everyone goes, hey, what's wrong with them? Why are they acting like that? And then when their needs aren't met, they get angry,

they throw temper tantrums, they have attitudes of, I can do all of these things. And when you say, hey, I had a good success, their first response is, oh yeah, well, one time I, right? That's a narcissist, someone who's unable to acknowledge other people. But there's also jerks. And one of the greatest, greatest articles I've read is, it's written back in 2014. It's at lisathompsononlive.com. We'll put a click to, we'll click to it in the show notes. The name of the article is, it's again, it's not a science article. It's not a journal article. It's just called Narcissist or A-Hole? Know the Difference, right? It's written by a fiction author, and I think she does a great job here. She writes, the narcissist is incapable of

intimacy, remorse, or deep feeling. Loving a narcissist is like pouring all of your affection into a funnel and just watching it fall out the bottom, right? They use manipulation and psychological control to get what they want from people. They live in a world of denial. But here's the thing. Jerks are like that too, sort of, right? An a-hole will often be described as rough on the outside, but they're mushy on the inside. They are capable of intimacy, even though they've got a tough exterior, right?

They are capable of caring for another. Not every action is motivated by self-gain. Often people are jerks. Often people lash out. Often people try to get what they want and they're not narcissists. They're just covering up for some deep wounds that they've had for years and years and years. There is some similarities, but at the end of the day, here's a way to know if somebody's a narcissist or not. Here's a way to know if you're a narcissist or not. If you want to change, if you really wish that your family would love you, if your dad yells and screams and wants everything his his way but he also deeply loves you if he doesn't know how to say i love you so he buys you something he doesn't know how to say i love you

and he doesn't have money to buy you something so he tries to fix something if he wants you to get straight a's and he's always pushing you and pushing you well you could have got a 95 but he's doing it because he wants you to have a better life than he has, which is different than he just wants to be able to tell people at work that his son's really smart, that his daughter's really fancy, right? Narcissists can't be different. If you think, man, I'm tired of hurting people,

then you're not a narcissist. If your dad loves you, he's not a narcissist. He may just be a jerk, right? If you think you're in a relationship with a narcissist, if you work for one or have a parent who's one, be watchful, pay attention to how they treat you and others. It's your responsibility to set boundaries. Remember that no is a complete sentence. Focus on what you can control and what you can't control. And then this is the big one. You got to kill the fantasy.

If someone is a true narcissist, and let me be clear, they're rare. They're very rare people who can't feel empathy. Very rare, right? There are way more jerks. There are way more idiots than there are narcissists. You got to kill the fantasy. They're going to continue to drain you and use you like you are a screwdriver or a hammer for their own good. You've got to kill the fantasy, set up boundaries, and you've got to move along.

If somebody, though, is tough on the outside, they're a complete jerk, they're a complete idiot, but they do have empathy. They do love you. Then that's where your boundaries and a carefully guided, direct, but loving conversation about, hey, this hurts. Hey, I want to connect with you, but when you talk to me like this, when you treat me like this, it hurts. That's where those kinds of conversations can be really helpful. So check out lisathompsononlive.com. Again, we'll link to it in the show notes. It's a great, great, quick, easy read. Narcissist or a-hole, know the difference. It's really good. If you have more questions about narcissists, give me a shout, give me a holler. Or if you think someone that you love is a narcissist, let me know and we can talk through it. All right, let's go to Lisa in Orlando, Florida. Lisa, good morning. How are we doing? Good morning, Dr. John. Thank you for taking my call. Thank you so much for

calling. How can I help this morning? So my family and my in-laws have been homeschooling with each other. We've partnered up since March now, so since this pandemic started. And I just want to know how we can create healthy boundaries, because recently the relationship has changed a bit, and we're coming up into some challenges that might change the arrangement we have. Okay. Talk to me through those. Talk to me about those. So, um, this is my sister-in-law. Um, so my husband's sister, uh, we've been in a close relationship. We've been close for a while. Um, she's married and recently they, um, had one of

their episodes, um, uh, fights, uh, that caused us to kind of lose that trust in sending our kids over there for school. Did they have the fight when your kids were there? No, no, no. We heard about, they told us, they told us what happened and the details and everything. And we're just not comfortable with everybody being at home, working from home and whatnot, to send our kids over there for her to teach them there. So what happened in that fight that made you lose trust in someone that you love and care for? They've had similar fights in the past, and this was kind of the last Um, there was, you know, a door slamming, a glass breaking. It, it caught, I felt like it kind of got violent to the point where I just, I, I don't,

I've heard too many of those stories coming from them. Okay. Um, yeah. So now you feel like your kids aren't safe there? Correct. Okay. And so how can I help? What are you thinking about doing?

Well, we recently, we changed up the arrangement to where, you know, we expressed our concerns and said, let's just have school here four days a week now rather than sending them over there two days out of the week. So you are now taking all the teaching on? No, my sister-in-law comes over to teach on the days that she was supposed to teach at her house, but she's expressing that it's hard to face us because we're disappointed and we don't trust them anymore. And that's what the emotions that she's having to face being in a home along with people who no longer trust her. Well, yeah. So it feels, so let me see if I can get this right. Cause I'm almost in a, in a, in a rare turn of events. Golly, man, on this show, I have recommended someone to play video games and now I'm siding with the person you're calling about. So she had a fight with her husband

and they were throwing glasses at each other and yelling at each other and acting like five-year-olds, right? To the point that you said, I don't want my kids over there anymore. I don't trust her. I don't trust her husband. I don't trust that environment. And so, but you want to do still have her teaching your kids. And so her quote unquote punishment was she's got to come teach your kids at your house now. Right. And, and we also recently hired someone to come teach on her days so that she doesn't have to teach at our house anymore. And she's not happy about that. Okay. So she said, I don't like being, because the way you drew that up is very much like you're her mom and now she's grounded to your line of sight. Right. And she's an adult. She's allowed to yell and be an idiot with her husband all she wants. And you're an adult and you're good for you. You said, I don't want my kids in that crap,

right? I don't want my kids around that environment. So that's awesome. But then you punished her. Then she decides she didn't like the punishment. So she's back to being a grownup. So she's off and you hired a tutor essentially to teach your kids in your home. Is that right? Right. Okay. And so she doesn't like that? Does she want things to go back to the way they were? Yeah, she does. She wants us to send our kids over to at her house and, you know, for consistency and normalcy again.

And me and my husband are just not comfortable with that. Yeah, she didn't get a vote. I mean, if she set up an environment where you don't feel your kids are safe, then tough luck. You know what I mean? And I know that's hard, and I'm proud of you for drawing a boundary.

Boundaries often come with challenging derivatives, right? Your relationship's never going to be the same. But I think the fracture in the relationship started when she had yet another temper tantrum with her husband, right? Right. So when you tell her, hey, I hired a teacher. We don't need you anymore. You take care of your kids.

I'll take care of mine. How'd that conversation go? Well, it's more so, you know, we still want the kids to be together, but instead of her teaching, it's on those two days that she's responsible for, it's the tutor that teaches too. You know, we wanted her to kind of focus on herself and maybe that's overstepping boundaries, but it's, um, you know, she did express that, you know, it's, it's hard for her to come here having to deal with that. And it's overwhelming. And, you know, we wanted to give her some space and some time to process all of it. So the tutor is essentially to take over her, um, be flexible enough to where if she

needs it, she could, uh, take those two days off. And then, you know, if my husband needs it, he can take those two days off because he's also teaching the kids as well. Oh, well now I'm back to your side. Then you guys are being overly generous here. So five minutes ago when I said I wasn't on your side, I'm an idiot. I'm super on your side. It sounds like what y'all have done. Sorry. No, it sounds like you guys are being overly generous by saying, hey, we're going to teach your kids too. We're going to pay for a tutor. You take the time that you need. And it sounds like she's having a pity party and she's embarrassed that she set up a home environment that you don't want your kids there anymore.

So the grown-up thing for her to do is to come say, I'm sorry, I'm going to work on myself, and I'm going to work on getting better. That's not going to happen, right? And the childish thing, if she continues the childish behavior, is she's going to make you feel uncomfortable for drawing boundaries in your own home. And I'm just going to, I want to empower you. Don't, right? If you've got the money and the ability to pay for a tutor, then that's going to be better for everybody. Her kids are welcome. That's super generous of you. And that even gives your husband a break when he needs it. Good for you guys. Yeah. Honestly, I wouldn't lose sleep over it. If she wants to come back and circle up and connect the friendship. Great. And you don't have to rubber nose in.

It doesn't sound like you are right. If y'all still be friends when y'all can get together for dinner, so be it. But if she suddenly feels uncomfortable, I get her feeling uncomfortable, but it's her own choosing. If she doesn't just, I don't feel comfortable.

I feel sad. Well, that's her deal, right? And I, I think you're right. You can't make her go work on herself I would even suggest offering quote-unquote space for her to go work on herself is a little bit presumptuous right she's going to be who she's going to be but I do think it's noble that you have set up a scenario where A, you drew boundaries. B, you're going to continue the agreement you guys had. And so you're helping educate her kids and you're giving her some time off for herself.

That's noble. Good for you. Hopefully she will circle back. Hopefully she will come and say, hey, I'm really sorry. I screwed up here and me and my husband are going to work on this. I don't think that's going to happen, unfortunately, but it'd be cool if it did. And until then, just love her. Just take the responsibilities and continue to draw your boundaries for you and your family. High five to you. That's awesome. And good for you guys for being in a financial position where you could even do that.

All right. good for you guys for being in a financial position where you could even do that. All right. So I want to, instead of taking a third call today, I want to circle back to a call I received as a follow-up to a trauma conversation. So a few weeks ago, maybe a month or two ago, I took a call from an ER doctor, and he was asking me the best way for him to circle up after him and his team in the hospital had experienced trauma. And one of the main suggestions I gave him was to make sure he separated people by role, by power hierarchy, right? Get the janitors together, get the doctors together, get the nurses together, get the admin staff together. And the main reason I recommend this is because it just takes one person in a one-up position. It just takes the doctor walking in and going, hey, everybody, last night was a hard deal. That's what we signed up for here. That's how the hospital runs. If you need something, go talk to somebody and let's get back to it.

And then suddenly you've got an entire team of people from the custodial staff to the charge nurses, to the anesthesiologist who are dying inside, but they suddenly don't have permission to talk. They suddenly have to be silent and sit on their trauma. And that stuff's cumulative and it weighs and it weighs and it weighs on you. And I got a great call from someone who circled back and said, hey, that hasn't been my experience. And so I want you to listen to the call. I was just listening to your podcast on my way to work this morning where you're talking to an ER physician about debriefing and you suggested

breaking up into groups, nurses with nurses, doctors with doctors, custodians with custodians. And I just want to say as a 10-year ER nurse, I have to say the best debriefs have been when the whole team, everyone that has been even a small part of a story where a child is killed or something like that, when we're all together and going through that, the death of a child is a great equalizer. We're all human in those moments, and sometimes it's helpful to hear what the doctor saw in that moment and how maybe there was no chance that this baby was going to make it from his perspective.

I don't know. I don't think about work performance reviews when I'm in those moments, and I just wanted to share my two cents on that because that has been one of the most healing parts of working in a job where it's almost impossible to be there sometimes. I, number one, love the fact that she called in to give me her heart and her two cents. I welcome everybody. If you hear something that you just love on this show, please call me, let me know. If you hear something on this show that you disagree with and you think, that hadn't been my experience, please call and let me know. I'm learning too.

So I want to 1000% affirm what she said. She said she loves her ER situation because she's got doctors who will debrief with her whole team, who have set up an environment where she doesn't think about performance review. She doesn't think about looking weak, where she's got head ER doctors who will come in and say, I understand that everybody's hurting here. Last night, we lost a child. That child had this challenge and this challenge and this physical trauma, and everybody did the best they could. That kind of leadership is a gift. And if you're a leader out there, if you have people who work for you, if you have hearts and minds and souls that you are responsible for, and I don't care what level, if you're a head phone screener and you've got 30 phone screeners below you,

or if you're an ER doctor and you've got hundreds of people on the floor that look up to you as the head honcho, remember that by including people, letting people have their own feelings, letting people hurt out loud, that's such a gift. You're preserving hearts. You're preserving marriages. You're preserving marriages. You're preserving parents. You're preserving years of trauma. And if you as the leader are struggling with feeling hurt, if you as the leader in an ER situation can't acknowledge,

we lost a kid last night and that sucks. If you can't do that, you need to go see somebody. You need to go talk to somebody. If you're a fireman and you cannot, you're a fire chief and you can't rally up your firemen and you can't rally up the people who support you guys and the EMS staff and say, hey, what we just saw was hard. It was really tough and it's going to hurt everybody in different ways. Please come see me if you need something. Please go see the aftercare if you need somebody. Be that kind of leader. So I want to a thousand percent affirm this situation. The most ideal thing we can do is everybody get in a room. I loved what she said. We're all human. And the loss of a child is a great equalizer. The loss of a loved one is a

great equalizer. Nobody escapes that kind of pain. I hope you're that kind of leader, but unfortunately most aren't. Most folks in hierarchical organizations, which is all of us, we have to temper our feelings. We have to temper our trauma. We have to temper our concerns and hurts by what our boss thinks. And if our boss says, just move on, get over it, then unfortunately we all got to move on and get over it. And so bosses out there, this is your time to shine. We're in the holiday season after an ugly 2020 with no sign of it letting up into 2021. It's your time to sit down with your team and say, I'm here for you guys and this sucks.

How are you feeling? How are you doing? Are you taking care of yourself? I want you to get out of here on Fridays for the next few weeks. I want you to start coming in at 10 o'clock in the morning so you can be with your kids in the morning before they go to school. Or I want you to come in at 10 o'clock so you can have an hour to run around the front yard before your kids start Zoom school, whatever it is. Be a boss who understands that people work for him with wives and husbands and dreams and hurts and debt and challenges and fears.

Be that kind of leader. Be the kind of leader that she'll call in and say, no, no, no. I never even thought of hierarchy when we were hurting. What a great shout out to your bosses. Thank you so much for that call. And one more thing before I go, I want to read an email that I just got from Tyler. It's a little bit long, but I want you to stay with me on this. It's from Tyler in Durham, North Carolina.

He writes, my name is Tyler Weber and I'm an ICU nurse from Durham, North Carolina. And I'm doing this as a shout out, by the way, guys, I'm doing this as a shout out to the nurses who are continuing to go in day after day after day after day with the COVID situation, with all the other health issues that are going on. So here's what Tyler writes. I just discovered your podcast and the first one I listened to after scrolling through the titles was First Responders in Trauma, Online Dating Woes, and Compromise in Marriage. The firefighter you spoke with in that podcast might as well have spoke for us nurses as well. In five years, I've probably seen close to a hundred people die, if not more.

I'd say a quarter of those deaths have been in the last six months due to COVID. Some of these deaths are easier to deal with as a nurse than others. Some are downright horrific. What a lot of people don't realize or think about is where do they take those burn victims or multiple vehicle accident victims? They bring them to us where many of them live or die based on what we do with our minds and our hands. We get to know them. And if we're not careful, we form relationships with their families for days, weeks, or months after what brought them in. It's heavy and it only gets heavier as time rolls on, whether you acknowledge it or not.

As nurses, it's our eyes and hands and minds and voice that care for you. We assess, treat, communicate, and make recommendations to the physicians. We bathe you. We suction your airway. We intervene immediately in critical moments. We are your advocate. We do for you and your body what your body and you can no longer do for yourself. We bear the greatest brunt of your awful situation

outside of you and your family. And in the COVID ICUs, we can't even allow family to come. We are the only human interaction you have, and we might be the last. That's heavy. Every time. When the end is near, nurses hold your hand and stay with you so you don't die alone. When the end is near, we pull the breathing tube. We cut the life support medications off and start the comfort medications. When it's been decided in collaboration with doctors and families and nurses that your time has come despite our greatest efforts. It's our eyes, our ears, and our voice that are there for you as you ease your way from this wrecked body to glory. The doctors come after we call them to pronounce time of death. Our hands are the last hands you

hold while you're clinging to life. Our words are the last words you hear, and the last words are typically spoken to us. We are at your bedside around the clock. And not only that, my dad has brain cancer. My wife and I brought our first baby into the world in March, and I was recently accepted to nurse anesthesia school after a grueling application process. It's been a year even without COVID. And this is, we all have different stresses like that in our lives. And then nurses, we go to work and we go to work and we go to work and then we do it again and we do it again. Tyler, I want to tell you, we love you.

I'm grateful for you and the service of every single nurse across the country. The nurses who are in it every day, and then they come home and they're dealing with the regular nonsense of life outside. If you know a nurse, if you're listening to this and you've got nurses in your family, you've got nurses in your neighborhood, it's time for us to circle back and say thank you and not say thank you by ordering a pizza or sending flowers. It's time to say thank you by calling somebody on the phone and saying, you've had nine months of absolute hell. How can we help? You have been in it and in it and in it. What can I do for you? And it's time we get out our mowers and start mowing lawns and get out our rakes

and start raking. It's time that we do the best we can and take kids for walks get them out of the house. We can try to lift folks' arms up in the desert. We can try to

let nurses know that we love them. To every single person out there continuing to go to war every day in these makeshift tents and these makeshift you know mobile morgues nurses thank you thank you for loving us more than you love yourselves so as a wrap up the show i want to circle back to a song i've loved since middle school and if she's out there, she knows why.

It's from a self-titled album of one of the worst band names ever, Bad English. In 1989, they came up with this. It's one of the greatest songs ever written. It's called When I See You Smile. And here's what they say. Sometimes I wonder how I'd ever make it through, through this world without having you. I just wouldn't have a clue because sometimes it seems like this world's closing in on me and there's no way of breaking free. And then I see you reach for me. And sometimes I want to give up. I want to give in. I want to quit the

fight. And then I see you and everything's all right. When I see you smile, I can face the world. Oh, you know, I can do anything. When I see you smile, I see a ray of light. I see it shining right through the rain. When I see you smile, everybody, this has been the Dr. John Deloney Show.