The Dr. John Delony Show - Surprise Pregnancy, Suicidal Thoughts, & Post-military PTSD

Episode Date: March 29, 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   We just found out my girlfriend is pregnant. We are both 22 years old and were not planning this. We are freaking out. I am not suicidal. But I often have thoughts about it. How can I stop these thoughts? Suicide Prevention Hotline: [phone] BF is a vet and is struggling. He has no real family or friends. No support besides me. How do I help him?   tags: relationships, fear, anxiety, suicide/self-harm, abuse, counseling/therapy, military, trauma/PTSD     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 young man who, surprise, girlfriend is pregnant and he doesn't know what to do next. We also talk with somebody dealing with suicidal thoughts and dealing with their own family trauma and a husband with PTSD. Stay tuned. Hey, what's up? What's up? This is Deloney with the Dr. John Deloney Show,

taking your calls about your life, your relationships. I don't care who you are, I don't care where you're from, I don't care what you're going through. In a world gone mad, we're going to take your calls on mental health, on relationships, on your marriage, on your dating, on kids, all of it. And we're going to walk together to help figure this out. And in the process, I hope to teach you how to reconsider challenges, right? How to reconsider relationships. I hope that we can teach one another how to say,

I'm sorry, how to say, man, I thought I was right on that and I was super wrong. And I'm going to do this one again. I hope we can teach each other humility and teach each other how to do the next right thing. So I'm so glad that you called. It's awesome. If you want to be on the show, if you want to be on the show, give me a shout at 1-844-693-3291.

That's 1-844-693-3291, or go to johndeloney.com slash show. Fill out the form. It goes to Kelly and she creates the shows from there. And so I feel like it's important to start the show with, this is my confession. I just need to be honest and open.

This is it. No usher. This is my confession. This is how today started out. I woke up super early, started my morning routine, went through all my crazy stuff. Went and sat down in my little basement on my little rug and did my gratitude journal, all that stuff. Copied my thoughts for the day. Then I went and worked out. I went for a run. It was like 35 degrees in Nashville this morning. So I went for a run. Then I got done. I didn't even come inside. I went

straight and sat in a cold tub and it was super cold. It was good. Went upstairs, saw the kids, got ready for work. I'm in the middle of an intermittent fast. I wanted to fast through lunch. So I had made some more coffee and then I thought, no, I'm just going to of an intermittent fast. I wanted to fast through lunch. So I had made some more coffee. And then I thought, no, I'm just going to have one of these little, I don't know, packaged keto bars. And then that led to a second packaged keto bar. At which point I was like, well, I'm already into it so i'm gonna dump some really fancy some of dr asks ash josh acts some of his ancient nutrition keto collagen powder whatever shenanigans into my coffee that devolved and then about half hour later I was sitting there working on some work stuff while I just crushed a sleeve of what you call them, Thin Mints.

Dude, I dominated Thin Mints. Then I got up and I went into my bedroom to grab something. And my wife had some of those Samoa stuff, which evidently they make with caramel and crack cocaine. So I had some of those and then I felt bad. So I went back to, dude, today just, it devolved. It started so good. I fell off the wagon. I didn't fall off. I parked the wagon and I got out and I laid underneath it and it ran over me a few times. And so then I had to get back up and I just had to tell everybody the truth on the show. I'm person two and I screwed up today, but I'm just going to get up, shake it off, and

move on. And, hey, here's the thing. That old meditation quote from back in the day, every breath is a chance to start over. I may start over until this evening and then just go ahead and finish today with a bowl of ice cream or something. I don't know. I've got to be better than that. But I already feel like a box of crap on a stick. And so we're going to just power

through today. We're going to get it done. All right, let's go to the phones. Let's go to Patrick in Oklahoma City. What's up, brother Patrick? How are we doing? Hey, Dr. John. Nice talking to you. Can you hear me? Yes, sir. I can. How about you, man? Oh, I'm doing well. Good deal. Hey, hold on. What did you, man? Oh, I'm, you know, doing well. Good deal. Hey, hold on. What did you have for breakfast today? Please tell me Girl Scout cookies.

What is this called? A honey bun. Yeah! Patrick, and you totally redeemed yourself. I don't even know what we're talking about. That's awesome. Good for you, Patrick. You just made my whole day. Listen, we've got to be better than that, right? Yes. Okay, good. Exactly. All right. Tomorrow we're back on the wagon. So what's up, brother? How can I help?

Yeah. So I, let's see, I'm with a girlfriend of almost three years and we just found out that we were pregnant. All right. How old are you, man? Almost 23. Almost 23. Okay, cool. And we're freaking out. You say that so joyfully as though if I don't continue to laugh my way through this, I will spontaneously combust. Is that where you're at? Yeah. Yeah. Man. All right. So is she with you right now? No, she, I'm on my lunch break right now. Okay. All right. So 23, you've been with the same girl for three years and now y'all are having a kid. How far along are you? Just a month or two, really early on. Okay. So you haven't even got past, so you're just at four or five weeks, six, seven weeks. Right. Okay. Very cool. All right. So you're freaking out. What does that

even mean, man? That means something different to everybody. What does freaking out mean? Yeah. So basically whenever we took the test, we just were like in disbelief, like, okay, this is actually happening. And, um, we're kind of just at a kind of loss at what to do next, honestly. We've been doing a lot of talking on like whether we should keep it or not, put up for adoption. We just don't know really where to begin. So we're looking at guidance for that. Gotcha. So three years with the same person.

Is this somebody you're going to spend the rest of your life with? That's a plan, yeah. I mean, you're three years in, bro. You know. Right. I know it. Yeah. Yes?

Yes. Yeah, we're talking about marriage, of course. Okay. So what about having a baby is freaking you out? Simple fact of being a dad and also tell my parents. What do you do for a living, man? I'm a banker at one of the local banks here in Oklahoma. Okay.

So you're a banker. Did you go to college? I am taking local banks here in Oklahoma. Okay. So you're a banker. Did you go to college? I am taking a hiatus right now. Okay. That was awesome. Management's restructuring, man. All right.

So you're taking a hiatus. All you have to say is, no, I'm not going to school. You don't even have to explain it to me, man. I like how you have a built-in fancy, fancy excuse for it. No, I dropped out for right now, but I'll go back at some point, hopefully. All right. So, and what's your wife do, ma'am? Or girlfriend, sorry.

Whatever, girlfriend. Future wife. She's a manager at a clothing store. Manager at a clothing store. Okay. So, when you, number one, take your parents off the thing. You're a 23, dude. You're a banker.

What does that even mean, by the way? Are you a loan officer? Are you a teller? Basically teller type. Do you use big language to make people think you're more than you are? No, not really. Because you said you're a banker and

hiatus. Those are big... Like, you're a pretty good guy, huh? I don't really like to talk about myself, honestly. How come? Why not? That's the main thing. You just called a show with about a million listeners to it. Right, I know.

So why are you self-deprecating? Not in a funny way, but in like the serious way. Why are you undermining yourself? I think that more or less just has to do with, I mean, honestly, I have no clue. Honestly, I was trying to come up with something on the spot, but I'm not sure. Why does a 23-year-old guy with a full-time job care what his mom and dad thinks right now? Are they going to ground you? What are they going to do?

You still live with them? No. No, no. We're living together. living together okay and my girlfriend okay so y'all are been together three years you're playing married on tv and now you have a are pregnant she's pregnant what about this freaks you out other than you see what I'm getting at? Like you've got your, no 23 year old has their life together, but for a vast majority of them, you're on your way, man. You got a job. You are learning a trade in a madhouse of an industry, right? Your wife or your fiance, I keep calling her your wife, your girlfriend is a

manager at a clothing store. Y'all are living together. I mean, get something deeper, man, because you're not selling me on why this isn't, yeah, this is out of order. Yeah, this isn't in our plan. Yeah. Is it going to make for hard conversations with our family? Yeah. But you're not selling

me on why this is worth freaking out other than, yeah, this is different than we thought. And now we're in it. Right? Yeah, I think that's the main thing is just about having those hard conversations and really kind of going from there and like what to do next and everything like that. It's just all of a sudden, just everything sped up like a million miles really quick. Yeah, dude. Okay. Yeah. So I'm going to give you the opposite.

I waited, my wife and I dated for off and on for five years. Then we were married for eight years before we had our son. And I was not ready for it then. I was dramatic and it was like, oh my gosh, what's up? And I had all this drama and all this, I'm not ready. And shut up, dude. And that's me telling myself to shut up, right? So I don't know very many people who are ever, quote unquote, ready.

And if they think they're ready, they're super not. Because you have no idea what's coming, right? Both on the, hey, this is more exhausting than we thought. This is more expensive than we thought. And more importantly, on the other side. In a million years, I would not have waited eight years to have kids had I known what it would do for my capacity to love, to experience love, to experience parts of myself I didn't know existed, to fall deeper in love with the person I'd been with for what, 12,

13 years up to that point? I had no idea. And it was this master idea that was life isn't about your plans. It's about who you are, what you do, and who you choose to be when life happens at you. Right? Right. So you probably had, when were you thinking about getting married? Did y'all like talked about it and you have some dream schedule? Yeah, yeah. um dream schedule yeah yeah we we did a lot of talking um before before this and we're thinking about getting married um about another one or two years out okay um and having

kids three to five years out all right dude you just got half a decade back congratulations right Decade back. Congratulations, right? That's awesome. And so here's the thing. I get the freak out part. I get that. I'm laughing with you, dude. I get that. Everything just got turned upside down. Life got real serious all of a sudden, right? And I'll also tell you, you're 23, and it's time for life to be serious, okay?

Right. time to be for life to be serious okay right never ever ever make massive decisions against a hard conversation okay what i mean by that is too many people make themselves clinically insane clinically insane they shorten their lifespan They endure pain and trauma for years. Less than that, they endure less than a great sex life with their partner. They endure less than a good job because they are scared of having a hard conversation. And they just punt and punt and punt and punt and so i want you to flip this around on you this can be not in your plan but one of the most extraordinary things that ever happens to you my brother you're gonna be a dad and there is no greater honor on planet earth than to be a dad none there's no harder thing to do i'm being a husband's pretty hard um but being a dad is the hardest greatest thing you will ever

ever do right it's it is the top of the mountain man it is and you've got a lot to learn and a lot to grow up on i want you to get um this is not a decision that you and, let me back up. When you say you're like, you're putting all these options on the table, like be honest. Are y'all just talking because this is a crazy season? Are you probably going to have this kid? Like, where are you guys? Yeah. That's a great question. Thank you for asking that. We kind of were talking about not having it, mainly due to the timing of it and everything like that. But there's just this like ever aching like echo in the like the back of my head and my heart and everything like that. That's just basically saying, but what if, you know, that what if thing is just like, just driving me insane. Like, what if in the future now we won't be able to have kegs? What if, um, X, Y, Z, it's just been really, really heavy. Where is she? We're on the same page of basically not having it, but I'm just afraid for what the future will hold and what things will happen are possible things,

um, will happen. Like, will it impact our relationship? Will it impact, um, her chances of getting pregnant in the future? You know, all of that stuff.

Whenever we quote unquote are ready to have kids. And I know that if, you know, I say, hey, what if we have the kid completely and, you know, it'll be ours, won't be anyone else's, we won't put up for adoption or anything like that. I know that she'll be like, I know that would say okay i'm okay with that um she's kind of indifferent on what to do and that's just kind of the most nerve-wracking thing about it i have a hard time believing that she's indifferent yeah are you can i ask you? Are you hard to be firm around? No.

I'm one of the most outgoing people that, like I've been told that, is like people can come to me for things that are different or weird or a weird situation. I can kind of help point them in the right direction on, okay, that's what to do next and but i i do that for a living brother and i've got people in my life that do that for me because it's hard to do it with a mirror right right so say that out loud i'm gonna be a dad i'm gonna be a dad what did you feel, man? Besides the existential terror that every new, almost soon-to-be dad is going to feel.

I feel, whenever I say I'm going to be a dad, I don't know, I kind of feel, of course, scared, but more or less just like, okay, we'll kind of figure it out more or less. Awesome. All right. So here's the deal. Everything in your life, when you have this kid, I hear it in you, man. I hear it in you. When you have this kid, everything's going in you, man. I hear it in you. When you have this kid, everything's going to change, and you are going to find yourself walking six inches taller. You're going to find yourself exhausted. You're going to find yourself thinking,

I'm probably going to go back to school, or I'm going to get more hours. All those things are going to change, right? There's a before and after. You are at that point now. I want you, but before I move on, but dude, let me just tell you. Let me tell you, and you're not asking my opinion. I'm just giving it to you. I can't tell you what it's like to hold that kid.

I can't tell you what it's like when that tiny little hand grabs your finger and squeezes so hard that you think your finger's going to come off. I can't tell you what it's like for my friends who've adopted when they bring their kid home for the first time and you sit down in that glow of terror

and joy and love that you didn't know you were capable of and fear. And you look at the person you're married to and you're like, what did we do? And here we are, all of that. Okay. I can also hear it in you. You want to be confident so hard any which way and you're not. And that freaks you out.

You're probably a confident guy who's just taking a hiatus, right? You're a confident guy. And then suddenly this happened. I would be willing to bet my car and it's not nice, right? So you're not going to get a lot out of it if I'm wrong. I would bet that your wife, your girlfriend, God, I keep calling your wife. Sorry, brother. I'm not trying to be subliminal or anything. I'm trying to be tricky. I just keep calling her that. I can't imagine that your girlfriend's indifferent. Yeah. She has to have some feelings and thoughts on this,

that either she is uncomfortable saying that loud to you, or she's afraid of what you're going to say. Or if she is inside of her so thrilled to be like, we're going to have, oh my gosh. But if she's not getting that from you, she's going to soft play it and downplay it and low, low drive it because she's worried. Does that make sense?

Yeah. And so if you can go home tonight and hold both of her hands and look her in the eye and say, I'm going to be a dad. Like we're doing this. Right. And you can make a journey to Nashville from, from Oklahoma. We'll marry you over here like anthony o'neill is an ordained minister of some sort he'll marry you here right we'll do it

for free and you know i'm saying like let's get this done and we're gonna figure this out and then we're gonna have a conversation with our parents and they're gonna be like oh my gosh and they're gonna be that way for about two seconds and then they're gonna realize we're going to be like, oh my gosh, and they're going to be that way for about two seconds and then they're going to realize we're about to be grandparents. And then the game's on, right? And then everybody rallies up. You're going to get more nonsense advice and more like, well, you know your shit, all that stuff. That's just part of the deal.

But before, if that's not in the plan, if you are uncomfortable with that, I want you to, you and her, go talk to a professional therapist tomorrow. Okay? This is red alert for your relationship. This is red alert for your mental health, for her mental health. This is red alert for everybody.

Okay? Yeah. And they will give you some tools on how to move forward, how to have these conversations with people that you're scared to have these conversations with, how to wrap your head around, hey, dude, we're going to have a conversations with people that you're scared to have these conversations with, how to wrap your head around, hey, dude, we're going to have a child, right? We're in this now. But I want you to hear me say,

you're not crazy for thinking everything went sideways. It is. It did. I don't want you to think you're crazy because you guys had a plan and suddenly your plans just went up in smoke and now you've got some major things one of which is we're created a human right i also want you to realize you're 23 you're gonna have to have start having hard conversations that's a part of your life

from this point forward this is going to be the hard conversation to have, right? I also want you to not minimize this one awesome thing, brother. You're about to be a dad. You're about to be a dad. Your girlfriend's about to be a mom. And this is big, big stuff, right? Thank you for calling. You're right to freak out. Now, go make the right decisions on getting the tools you need to go be a great mom, to go be a great dad, to go be a great husband, go get connected here. Thank you for the call. Let me know how it goes whenever you have your conversations. I want to hear how that goes and what the next steps are going to be. Thanks for your call, Patrick. All right, let's go to Victoria in Nashville, Tennessee. Victoria, what's going on?

I'm going well. How about you, John? I am going well. As well as you could go, right? With a breakfast of Girl Scout cookies. So how can I help? Hey, what did you have for breakfast? I can't remember. That's what I'm...

I know what you... I have a baby. I can't remember what I ate an hour ago. Well played. Well played. Well played. Well played. All right, so what's up? So I should preface this call by saying I'm not suicidal. However.

I'm not laughing. I don't know who I'm laughing at. I'm laughing with you. No, it's funny. No, it's not funny. The number of times I've had that, a conversation prefaced with that in my career has been a lot. And it always, the follow-up is, here we go. All right, so I got my, I got my, I don't know, my hard conversation helmet on.

Let's do this. All right, so you're not suicidal, but. But I have a lot of suicidal thoughts while I'm doing just super mundane things. And they come just super random. Like I'll be driving and I'm thinking, I just so badly want to just swerve my car and crash. Oh, and I need to pick up peanut butter. Yeah. Okay. So give me another example.

Yeah. Okay. So give me another example. Yeah. So sometimes when I'm doing dishes, I'll be putting them away and I'll pick up a knife. And I just think like, okay, what if I just stabbed myself with this right now? Like everything would be over and done with and I'd be okay with that. And then I put it away and like feed my baby. It's just super random. And yeah, what can I do to control that? Or like, would that classify me as suicidal?

Like what? I'm just, I need help. Number one, thank you for trusting me with this. This one, like beyond, like I hear you're somebody that approaches hard conversations with laughter right i i'm i'm a similar way are there moments when this has scared you absolutely yes okay all right so uh transitioning from me laughing and carrying on and understanding like these are this is a scary thing so um one i want to tell you i'm grateful for you it's brave for you to call most people in your situation that i've worked with over the years, man, they start to think they're crazy, right? They think they're nuts and they think there's something wrong with them.

And that if they will just speak this out loud, someone's going to take away their baby, someone's going to institutionalize them or whatever's next, right? So, it's brave that you called and I appreciate that. When you, I'm going to walk you through something. I'm going to start this whole thing off with the idea that you have these intrusive thoughts is the way the nerds say them, right? So these are lightning bolts that just shoot into your mind. They just pop in there and you will go, whoa, right? That's not nuts. Happens to everybody. Intrusive thoughts about self-harm, particularly in moments

where you could actually do it. It's not like you're just walking around the thing at Target and you're like, man, if I had a knife, I could just stab myself. It's when you're holding it, right? I'm going to tell you, those aren't abnormal,

but they're not great, right? They're not healthy. And so I want to get some more information from you. So where, if you had to just mine your life, right? Mine the life that's Victoria, where are they from? How long have they happened? Where do you think these have shown up? That's a great question.

So I was actually thinking about this the other day. And they've been going on for as long as I can remember. The first time that I can actually remember, I was probably like nine or ten. Like the thought just popped in my head, but I kept it to myself because I'm like, oh, everybody must have these thoughts. It wasn't until recently that they started getting worse and I actually started like formulating, oh, what if I did exactly this? Like that I started thinking, maybe I should talk to somebody. Yeah, yeah. So how old's your baby?

She is one. One, okay. Did you have any postpartum with this baby? Probably. I just was never treated. Okay, okay. So tell me about growing up. Did you experience trauma as a kid?

Yes. My mom is an alcoholic. Okay. Some verbal and sexual abuse as well. Okay. Just a lot of things that no kid should go through, I went through. You're exactly right, yeah. Has, when you were pregnant, when you found out you were pregnant and over the arc of your pregnancy,

did that stuff circle up more than it normally has? No. Just same old, same old. Were you excited to be pregnant? Yeah. Yes, my husband and I, she was planned. So we were very happy when we found out that we were pregnant. Very cool.

All right, so in your, I'm just going to pick one up. Do you work? Yes. Okay, so you're at work. How do you handle a stressful customer or if your boss has to have a hard conversation with you and have to talk to you? Like, how do you handle that?

I actually just started my job yesterday, so I haven't had to deal with that. What are ways you cope with challenges? It really just depends on what the challenge is. I try to remain calm, but sometimes I get so angry, and I just have to walk away. I'm just not able to hide how upset I am that they're upset with me. Have you ever tried to hurt yourself before? Yes. Okay. Have you ever made a suicide attempt before? Kind of. Okay. What's that mean? Um, one time I did actually crash my car. Okay. Intentionally?

Yes and no. I was going 55. I saw gravel and I just slammed on my brakes on gravel and twisted my wheel. Intentionally, like swerving it. Like, I don't know if I had the intention of like doing any harm, but I would consider that. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever, have you ever, um, have you ever struggled with, um, disordered eating or self-hate cutting yourself? No. No? Okay. Have you ever been diagnosed with any mental health issues? So I've been to a couple of counselors through the years, and I've never liked any of them.

One said that I was bipolar. Another said that I was depressed. Another said that I just needed to Another said that I was depressed. Another said that I just needed to practice gratitude. And so I just, just, just light a candle and take a warm bath. That'll fix it. Right. God almighty. Just all over the place. So I just, I don't, I didn't trust any of those. Cause there would be one session and they're like, oh, you're, you're obviously bipolar. And I'm like, but am I though? Yeah, yeah. So tell me about your friends, your community that you hang out with, people that you go to when things get bananas.

So we actually just moved to Nashville not too long ago. And with COVID, we really haven't been able to hang out with a whole lot of people, but we are in a church. Back up before Nashville, did you have a gang where you came from? Yeah, yeah, I had a couple of close friends from work. When you say close friends from work, there are people that you went and had drinks with, there are people that you have talked about your childhood trauma with? No, I never really talked to anybody about my childhood. Okay. And so that would be my differentiation of friend versus buddies at work.

Friend is somebody that I can be, I can tell the good things to. A friend is someone I can tell the bad things, like when I violate my values, right? And a friend is someone I can tell who's hurt me in my past. And do you not have those folks? I have my husband. Right. You've got your husband. Beyond him? Yeah, actually, I do have a really close friend that I do talk with on a regular basis. Is it a she?

Yes. Would she know about these things, these thoughts that you have? Yeah, I actually just opened up to her about it not too long ago. Gotcha. Gotcha. So here's my, this is not for what it's worth, okay? Having intrusive thoughts is, it happens to everybody, okay? Especially, I'll walk through several things here. Folks with sexual abuse, physical abuse,

emotional abuse from childhood. Folks with no friends or with a small community and a perceived burdensomeness. And this means I bring a room down when I hang out with folks, or I'm not going to tell them. It's just going to ruin their day. And people begin to feel like they are a burden to other folks. And you'll see this with kids. You'll see this with adults. My kids would be better off without me. My husband would just be better off if, or I'm so exhausted and worn out, and it would be better if fill in the blank, right? Then there becomes this escalating thoughts, right? So my favorite, Dr. Joyner, who's my favorite suicide researcher, talks about practice. And it can be risky behaviors. It can be cutting. It can be speeding a car and peeling out just before something bad happens. And it can also

be an escalation of practicing thoughts, right? So it goes from, man, if I was just not here, to I'm holding this knife, I could just, right. Which turns into, I'm just going to cut myself a little bit, which turns into, oh man, that relieved some pain. I'm going to cut myself again, which is an escalation, right? So all those things that would tell me is this, you've got a little girl, you have a little, you said that right? Little girl. Yeah.

Okay. You would be somebody that I would say, if you were my friend hanging out at my house, and we're just sitting on the front porch having barbecue, and your husband's over, my wife's over, and we're cooking, hanging out, and you told me what you just told me, I would tell you, you need to go see somebody. You need to go talk to a counselor who you're going to be plugged in with for the long haul, and they're going to really frustrate you. They're going to annoy you. They're going to drive you bananas, but they're also going to teach you some new tools on how to handle these thoughts if and when they begin to increase.

Because my guess is these thoughts are one of several hard coping strategies. What's something else that you, how you process things, how you interact with the world that you don't tell other people i know they're there i just i shut people out like sometimes i'll intentionally get angry with my husband over silly things to avoid talking about other things that are bothering me why do you do that because i i, I just don't want to talk about some things. And I feel like you just wouldn't understand because we come from very different backgrounds. Give me an example of something that he wants to talk about that you just, you bail out on. I don't want to talk about. Well, sometimes when I, when I am having like some of those, those suicidal thoughts and he asks, he's like, hey, what's wrong? And I'm like, nothing. I just don't want him to worry. I don't want him to go to work and then thinking that he's going to come home to a dead wife.

Right. I just don't want him to worry about that, because they're not his problems. And so when he looked you in the eye and said, I do, they became his problems. And he will go to work and he will worry about you and he will develop scenarios. And then he'll try to solve those scenarios that may or may not be accurate. And over time, his attempts to re-bridge that gap, that connection, that disconnection that he feels from you is going to get harder and wider. Does that make sense? Yeah.

And so I know you are trying to take care of the people around you. That's what I would mean by perceived burdensomeness. These aren't his problems. These are mine. I'm just going to sit on them and be quiet. And you got a guy that told the universe i'm going to be with you forever and you don't want to put stuff in his backpack that he's got to carry to work with him right that's the perceived burdensomeness that's when i would tell you yes you are walking down a like a path in the woods and i don't like the direction that

you're heading does that make sense and you are too smart and you are too lovely of a mom and a wife to not value yourself in the way that that little girl does the way your husband does and the way other people would if you would let them in. Who hurt you as a kid? I was a grandfather. Okay. Did mom and dad know? Did they go to war on your behalf? Did they cover it up?

How were they involved? They covered it up. Okay. So here's what you got in your heart. And more specifically in the tiny little part of your brain that's now spidered across your entire neurology, is the most important thing to you as a child is the safety that comes from your parents' relationship extended to your grandparents. And that relationship was severed at a young, young age. It's a fireplace, right? And what your brain knows is if you get too close to somebody else,

they're going to hurt you too. And it would rather make sure you avoid that close connection that you should have got from them, it wants you to avoid it because, man, we're not going through that again. That hurt, and we will never do that again. And so you end up with a, man, you love your husband, don't you? Yeah. He's a safe guy to you? Absolutely. Yeah.

He is not fully in, though, is he? No. he is not fully in though is he no what about that baby girl what about her you love her too right oh yes of course does it freak you out or make you hold it how much he loves you

or how much she needs you? Kind of freaks me out. No, because like you were saying, I often think that she would be better off if she had another mom. Okay, so Victoria, she wouldn't be. She's best off with you. And as I'm saying that, if your first impulse, your first thought is, yeah, you don't know me or whatever. If that's your first thought, I want you to hear me say, you need to go talk to somebody. Will you promise me that you will?

I was afraid you were going to say that. Yes, I promise. Here's who deserves it in this order. Number one, you. You've been carrying too much crap in your backpack in your heart for way too long and I want you to sit with somebody who over a period of time and hey you got a lot of junk back there it's going to take a season

okay and over time you will walk taller and you will walk um stronger than you even knew you were capable of. You've heard me use that analogy, bricks in your backpack. What you don't realize is when they start taking those bricks out,

when you start processing those and feeling those and then taking them out and setting them down, you don't realize how strong you've become carrying them around. And suddenly when those things aren't in your backpack anymore, you realize I am a force to be reckoned with in this world. And you find a strength that you didn't know you had because somebody else had dropped cinder blocks in your back. Listen to me.

Your granddad shouldn't have done that. And your mom and dad shouldn't have let that crap happen. And you deserved somebody to go to war on your behalf, and they didn't, and I'm so sorry. And now you've got a husband who loves you. He didn't even know how because he's trying. You've got a baby girl that's dependent on you. And you're an extraordinary woman here in my hometown who's worth being well. And the beautiful thing that I can tell you about Nashville is there's some world-class all-star folks that can walk alongside this with you, if you'll let them.

And so I'll ask you again, you promise you'll go see somebody? Yes. Okay. I promise. Will you bring your husband into this? Let him listen to this episode. And in fact, there's usually a delay here. We'll see if we can get you an earlier cut, okay, as soon as we can.

And this will give you an entry point to talk with him. Okay? Okay. And I want you to know that your bravery today, there are going to be thousands, if not tens of thousands of people listening to this. Who have those intrusive thoughts. They just hush them away. They don't want to burden their wife with them. They don't want to burden their best friend with them.

So they just sit on them and sit on them. And they escalate and they get tougher and they get tougher and the voices get louder and louder and as your daughter gets closer and closer to the age you were when the crap happened to you as a kid starts those voices will get louder and louder and so by you taking the first step today i making the call, I'm so proud of you. The next step that I want you to do today is to reach out to somebody. And I want you to not just go once and be like, oh, they sucked it. Go again. And then I want you to go again. And then I want you to go again. And I want you to start that conversation with, I'm having suicidal thoughts.

I'm not going to hurt myself. I don't have a plan. I have no imminent danger. I'm a childhood abuse survivor. My parents didn't step up when they should have. I've got a one-year-old daughter. I've got a husband who loves me. I need to learn how to let this stuff, I need to be able to set it down. I need to heal and I need to learn some new tools. And if they say, well, you know, you need to have a warm bath, walk out, smile, say, bye, Felicia, I'm out. And then walk out and then go to the next.

And I promise you there's some great folks here in this city. I've met with them myself, right? Thank you so much for that call. Anybody out there, anybody out there, if you are thinking about hurting yourself, if you're thinking my husband, my wife, my kids, my work would be better off with me not here. Even if it's not an immediate emergency, I want you to call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255. Or you can text the crisis line. You can text HOME to 741-741.

That's not a Ramsey-affiliated group. It doesn't have anything to do with us. This is a national hotline for folks who are thinking, I'm going to hurt myself today. I'm going to take my life today. I'm going to attempt to step out today. Text HOME to 741-741. 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Please, and if somebody in your world says, man, I'm thinking about hurting myself, get them the help that they need. Call in the Calvary if you got to. We are all in this one together. All of us are in this together, and we're going to heal together too, as couples, as friends, as communities, as a country.

Thank you for being brave, Victoria. I appreciate it. Let us know how that first session goes, and we'll check in with you. All right? So let's go. Let's take one more call. Let's go to Lily in Dallas, Texas. Lily, what's going on?

Hey, Dr. John. So I have been with my boyfriend for two years, about two years now, and we have a one-year-old and he is a military vet. Um, and I feel like I'm putting too much pressure on him. Um, he is struggling with PTSD and he had a breakdown around the Texas ice storm. Uh, we had a very rough few days where we didn't know if we were going to make it out, if he was going to be okay. And I feel like I'm the one that's been putting, you know, that extra pressure that's maybe taking him to that tipping point. And I just don't know. I want him to know he is loved by not only myself, but my son and that he has a reason to keep going.

Yeah. Well, man, thank you for loving your husband. When you say that you're putting extra pressure on him and that you're the cause of his breaking point, what do you mean? So I'm a first time mom. So this is my first go around. So I feel like, you know, I want the best for my son. So I want, you know, us to focus on getting our first home. I want us to, you know, be stable financially. I know for some time it was the vehicle. So I, my vehicle, I gave to him and I wanted a bigger vehicle for my son. So I put that extra pressure on him. So it's just, it's been a lot. Like, I feel like, you know, he works a lot. He works very hard, but I'm, you know, I'm with my son 24 seven. I also work from home, so I feel like sometimes I want that extra help.

Yeah, for sure. Where does your picture of this perfect setup for your one-year-old son come from? I guess it could be. I'll tell you. I'm asking the question from this. My wife drives a 2010 Prius that we shoved two kids into. They can't even fit because my son's humongous.

I drive an 06 truck with 150,000 miles on it, and they just had to be in the shop. And we've got an old house, and we've had to rent a few houses here and there. My kids are resilient, and they love life life and they are up for wild adventures. And my son asked the other day, hey, daddy, no matter what, please don't ever move me again. I just want to be wherever we're at. Right here, right? So I ask you that to tell you, my son has moved more since he's 10 than I did, I think, until I was like 30 or something. Where are you getting this picture that we have to have this car, this house, this set of furniture, this environment,

or there's something that's going to happen to our kid? Where is that narrative coming from? The instability I had growing up. Ah, okay. Look at you, wise Lily. We both come from broken homes. Yep. We both come from broken homes. We both come from instability. As you grow, you realize how unstable things are, and you start seeing it from a bigger picture.

But when you're young, you don't know. You only see what you hear or what's happening at that moment. And so a lot of it comes from that instability that I had. So I went to multiple schools. There was never consistency. It was a lot of turmoil within our household. So it was a lot. And I guess that now that I'm a mom, it's like you want everything, not so much as better, right? You just want that stability for your child. And so can I tell you a significant temptation is to take that sort of instability and to find it in stuff. And when you try to find stability in stuff, you inherently start that cycle all over again. Does that make sense what I'm saying? Yes.

So you moved around a lot. Did your parents get divorced or was there abuse fighting in the home growing up? So there was abuse. There was fighting. There was divorce. And as soon as I could leave, I left. There you go. Okay, so you know what growing up, you got PTSD too, by the way, okay?

You're both trauma survivors. And yours is more long-term and acute, and his may be, I mean, yours is more long-term and cumulative, his is acute. Yours is probably acute too. You probably saw some stuff that no little kid should see. Is that fair? Yes. Yeah. And so some people escape that with addiction.

Some people escape that with relationships. Some people escape that with, I'll be damned, this is going to look like this. I've got a picture of something in my head head and I will make sure everything's in order, in place, because this is what stability looks like. Does that sound right? Yes. Okay. Anything less than that feels like a slippery slope towards what you had. And unfortunately, the way we have to get to those pictures is by complaining, poking, prodding, continuing to fight, because those are the only tools we have. That's the only

tools you learned. And so you're trying to build a new home with the same tools. Does that make sense? Yes. And what's going to happen is you're going to end up building the same house over again. And what happens with veterans especially is they learn a whole new set of tools. They get rebuilt with a new set of tools, right? And they have to learn how to not apply those sets of tools everywhere, especially in their civilian life, especially in their marriages, especially in their their parenting and now you and your husband have a dance and as you've seen this dance doesn't end well right no it doesn't so before we get to him here's what i want to challenge you to do

i'd love for you is he a good dad oh yes is he a good dad? Oh yes Is he a good husband? Besides the fact that he's a veteran with PTSD And he does military e-things Does he love you like crazy? Does he wear his combat boots? Does he wear his combat boots to mow the yard in? Shorts, combat boots? Yes

Come on guys, come on I'm staring at a veteran right now Short shorts, combat boots out in the lobby he's smiling he's like yep guilty he does doesn't he yes and tell me this i'm you know tell me this that man would set the world on fire for you too wouldn't he yes he would somebody i i woe the day somebody would mouth off to you in a public place with him there, right? Yes, I feel like it would be both of us He would smile on the way to jail Hey, here's the thing

Here's what's beautiful You're both coming from a place where y'all are tethered into one another It's not about, hey, I don't love her It's not about, I don't love him This is about, we love each other so fierce and we keep opening our tool bags and all we have is like a screwdriver and a hammer.

And we're trying to saw wood with a hammer and we're trying to roof the house with a screwdriver. And all that means is y'all just got to double down on getting some new tools. And that's going to start with both of you recognizing that you come from a really traumatic childhood that that little girl, that little Lily has got to heal from because she's going to keep standing watch to make sure nobody gets to Lily's heart.

Nobody. Because we know what happens when someone gets in your heart, they can hurt you. And he has seen stuff that people are not supposed to see and he's going to make sure that will not get to my wife that will not get to my baby and he'll see it everywhere and then all of a sudden a state's electric grid goes out right and then it becomes real right and then you saw what happens when it becomes real was Was that scary for the whole house? Oh, yes. Yeah.

It's one of those where you don't want to expose your child to see, even as young as a year old. Yeah. But, you know, life kind of happens and you can't, there's no way to filter that. That's right. So I want to tell you, in a used Honda Civic, your baby's going to be great. In a old 97 Camry with 300,000 miles that gets you where you need to go for a couple of years while you all pay off your debts and while you get on your feet financially, your baby's going to be fine. You're going to be embarrassed, but you're not dating anymore anyway. You got the guy, right?

What do you care? Right. And you're going to be great mom, and your baby's going to have a great life in a used bassinet and with towels from Walmart. And your husband's going to need to go through a season of getting well, and that's hard. And that starts with you looking him in the eye and say, I love you, baby. And I've put a lot of pressure on us to accumulate stuff because I had this perfect vision picture in my head of what life had to be. And I realized, man, I was trying to squeeze all of the joy and love and excitement and adventure out of this family in pursuit of something. Stuff.

And I want you to tell them that you, Lily, are going to do the hard work of going to meet with somebody, talk about your childhood, and that you are going to be the power. You made brave step, powerful step number one when you got out of that house. Powerful brave step number two is you are going to face, turn and face that generational trauma. You're going to stare that forest fire in the face and say, not my family. Not my baby, not my husband. And this one though, you can't fight with fists and you can't fight it with guns. You got to fight it with vulnerability, humility, tears, learning new skills. And for him, he showed you he's struggling.

Your husband is, he's not, he's not doing great. Is he still in or has he gotten out? So he's out. Do you still, y'all still have TRICARE access? I'm sorry? Do y'all still have access to TRICARE? No. No? Okay.

No. I want... Go ahead. I'm sorry. I think the struggle that he's facing is, you know, you're right, the military restructures its soldiers, right? You become a soldier. Yeah. And then whenever you were deployed

you know you go on your missions you you know you do everything that you're told to do you're told what to do in the morning you're told what to do in the evening and you have all of your days planned out and you have some form of you you create a family within your barracks you know you have to that's right and then once everything's done you're thanked and you're thrown back into civilian life and you don't know. You know, it's like you're taught to make a bomb, but you can't put that down on your resume. Right, right. So it's like that's that transition. So I feel like it went from I'm a soldier, I'm back to being a civilian.

I have a partner now in life and now I'm a dad. And'm back to being a civilian. I have a partner now in life, and now I'm a dad. And here's what's beautiful about that. It doesn't sound beautiful, but it is. Here's why. He learned how to do those things. And that means he can learn. He can learn how to experience home life. And it's a process, and it's something you go through.

And there's a number of veterans resource services there in Texas. There's a number of national veterans resource services all over the country. There are groups that meet in the evenings. There are groups that meet in the mornings. He learned how to go be a soldier. And he learned how to create family inside of barracks overseas and he learned that when he came home he's got to do things differently and he can learn to love you guys the way he wants to and the way y'all deserve the same way as you can learn

how to love too. So I want you both to commit to getting the help that you need, either together, by yourself. At some point, you're all going to do this together because you're going to learn new skills together. You're both coming from trauma and you're both going to heal from trauma and you're both going to create

a new family legacy together. And it starts with your bravery and vulnerability for your call, Lily. Thank you so much. To your husband, if he's listening to this, I want to thank you for your service. I want to thank you for what you put your heart and mind through. And I want you to know that this entire community is around you, even when it feels like we're not.

And there is healing and learning on the other side of this. Lily's going to walk with you, brother, and you're going to walk with him. Thank you so much. All right, let's wrap up today's show. Let's do... You know what? Let's don't do any lyrics today. I'm going to end it with this.

I'm looking here at the camera, and if you're just listening to this, listen to me close. Every single one of these callers today has been faced with something that they didn't ask for, they didn't sign up for, or maybe they did a little bit, it just came to them, right? Don't be alone. Don't live your life by yourself. Reach out to other people. Don't be, don't ever look in the mirror and think you're not worth being loved. You are. You are worth getting well.

You're worth being loved. You are. You are worth getting well. You're worth being loved. And if you've got people in your sphere, if you're listening to this and this isn't you and you know people are hurting, I want you to reach out to them today. Let them know you're loved and I got your six. This has been the Dr. John Deloney Show. you