The Dr. John Delony Show - These Are the Supplements I Take & Why

Episode Date: October 26, 2022

On today’s episode, we hear about: - Which supplements Dr. John Delony is currently taking and why he’s obsessed with them - A man struggling with the decision to surrender his parental rights to his ex - A mother unsure of how much responsibility she should put on her depressed and suicidal teen Lyrics of the Day: Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Thorne Add products to your cart create an account at checkout Receive 25% off ALL orders Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately. Learn more about your ad choices. https://www.megaphone.fm/adchoices Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. My daughter's mother reached out to me and asked if her husband could adopt my daughter, asking if I would be willing to sign over my parental rights and allow him to adopt. What's up? This is the Dr. John Deloney show and I'm John. Man, I'm so glad that you're here. The greatest mental health and relationship and parenting podcast ever recorded right here. I'm glad that you're giving us your most precious resource, which is your time. If you want to be on this show, go to johndeloney.com slash ask and fill out the form. Let us know what's going on in your life and we'll get back in touch with you and we'll have you on the show. Can't wait for it. Okay. So I'm super jazzed today. We're going to talk about something

that's near and dear to my heart. And it's one of the top questions I get asked all the time on the Instagrams, on the Facebooks, on the phone calls, emails, however people can get a hold of me. My friends ask supplements. Supplements, which supplements should I take? Why should I take them? We don't even need to be taking all the questions about supplements. And normally on these types of shows, the conversations get highly, highly technical. So I'm going to leave the technical aspects of all of this to the Andrew Hubermans and the Peter Attias of the world, much smarter guys who are med school professors and medical doctors. I'm going to talk about supplements today in a way that I can understand it and I'm

not the sharpest tool in the shed. And then I'm going to let you know about a new partnership I got that is going to change you and your family. So here's the deal. People take supplements for a million different reasons. Some of them are because of fads, right? Some study on the John Test show will come out or some study on Yahoo News will come out and then everyone will, will be like, Oh, I got to take this. Some of them, uh, some YouTuber is like, bro, you should have some financial stake in his own supplement line. Um, and he wants you to take all these things or your doctor doctor recommends it. And doctors sometimes get a swath panel,

meaning they just say, you know what, you should have some vitamin C and some vitamin D and some zinc. And then people go off to Walgreens or they'll go to Walmart and they'll buy the cheapest thing they can find. Or they'll find the brown bottle that looks like it's like ancient medicine. It's like some kind of potion. And that looks like it's going to be more like, yeah. And they take that stuff. Some people take supplements because there's possibly less nutrients in food now that we're genetically modifying whatever. And you go down that rabbit hole. They have more chronically stressful lifestyles, pollution, all kinds of different reasons. Some people take them for

training advantages or sporting advantages or to help augment neurological function, cognition, smart drugs, they call them nootropics. So here's the thing you need to know about supplements. The industry is the wild, wild west. The number of studies that have come back showing we just like the third-party testing groups will go grab supplements off random grocery store shelves, off local corner store shelves, off Walmart shelves, whatever. And they will test them. And the number of different chemical compounds they find in these things, how it says, you know, it's got a 500,000, you know, milligrams of vitamin D in there, and there's eight milligrams, whatever. It's the Wild West. It's not even like the FDA, which we all know is just knocking out of the park the last few years. It's simply like, make it up as you go. And it is causing people to

take the wrong things. It's causing professional athletes to test positive for things that they didn't intentionally ingest. It's causing people to waste a ton of money. And most supplements, I'm sad to say, are trash, trash, trash. They're no good. Um, years ago, years ago, um, I was introduced to a company called Thorn, T-H-O-R-N-E. And their promise was we are the purest supplements on the planet. And we have multiple third party testers and they, um, have partnerships with the Mayo Clinic with, with companies all over the world saying, we are not just going to put labels on things and have you trust us. We're going to have third-party testers run studies, and they are going to show you that

what we say is true. And then they became the athlete supplement of choice because athletes could take them and trust that what they were taking was actually in the supplement and they weren't going to test positive for some sort of anabolic agent that they weren't allowed to be having. So I started years ago taking Thorne supplements. Here's why I do it. A couple of reasons. One, I've had multiple consults with doctors over the years and i've always worked pretty closely with doctors and i'm into woo stuff and all that but um I run pretty hard and

Y'all have heard me say my wife says man. You're a lot Um, but I put my body through it. Um So when I run stress tests my stress biomarkers are very high. They're not as clean as they should be. Um, this week, um, I wrote this down this week, I'll be in three different States, multiple time zones. Um, last week I spoke to, uh, three, uh, three different speaking of, um, speaking engagements for hundreds of people at one corporate event and then flew to Los Angeles for another event. I've got a writing deadline going. I've got two little kids that I'm running around with. I have a battle of the bands, heavy metal event this weekend. That's going to be in

front of a couple thousand people. Then I get on a plane to go to a funeral in another state. Like I'm all over the place. And so I run hard and that's just, I'm on this end of the spectrum. But before I was doing that, I was just the parent of two little kids trying to get my job done, trying to get my exercise in. And so this has been a pattern my whole life. I run pretty hard. And most of the people I know run pretty hard and I work out every day. I don't always sleep well. I don't always eat well. I don't always eat well. So here's the thing. I take supplements because I've sat down and looked at my blood markers. And I know that when I take, I don't know, I only almost exclusively take Thorne stuff. I can see the difference in my blood markers. I can feel it over time, of course, but I can see the difference. And I am playing a long game when it comes to my health.

I trust Thorne so much that these are the supplements, the only supplements I give to my kids. And I do it every day. These are supplements I recommend to all my friends. I think half the people in the booth are on Thorne now. It's just when people ask me, this is, I say, this is the best. This is who I use. And I've been spending my own money on Thorne supplements for year after year. My wife says one day when we can't afford our kids to go to college, that maybe Thorne will send them to school because that's how much money I've sent to them over the years. I also like testing stuff on myself, just N equals one. I wonder what happens if I take this for 60 days or something like that. So, um, I take them on a regular basis. I take them. They're important to me. And, um, I also know

there's a lot of garbage out there. So the most common question I get is what do I take? What do I take? What do I take? What do I take? Here are the Thorne products that I take on a daily basis. And I want to say this with one caveat. If you run out and just buy what I'm telling you right now, that's the dumbest thing you could do because you and I have different bodies, clearly, because I was going to say I'm a smoke show, but I'm not. Everyone in the booth is like, no, you're not.

I've got different health priorities. I've got different stressors. I've got different stressors. I've got different life than you do. And I've also got different genetics than you do. I've got different... So don't just run out and copy everything here, which is a common thing I used to do back in the day. But I will tell you a couple of things I think every single grownup should be on. I'll tell you what I give to my kids every day. And then the most important one is the sleep, the things that I've dialed in to help me with day. And then the most important one is the sleep, the things that I've dialed in to help me with sleep. And I'm still messing with it here and there. And then at

the end, I'll let you know of a pretty remarkable thing that we're doing for the John Deloney gang, the people who listen to the show. All right, so here's what I take. Every day of the week, I take creatine, creatine, however you want to say it. I take vitamin D, K2. I take fish oil, take the super EPA, B12, quercetin, CoQ10, and a few others here and there. But the big ones that I think every single person should take, creatine, B12, fish oil. Vitamin D, I think most people should get that from going outside and living an outside-ish lifestyle. If you don't, you should take vitamin D, K2 as well. And K2 just helps with transport, but that's a whole other conversation.

The rest of these, the Q-Certin, the CoQ10 are things I've dialed in with my doctor over time. It just helps with my particular set of genetics. Everybody in the booth takes something different, but everybody also circles back to vitamin D, fish oil, B vitamins. And by the way, I give those to my kids. Every day I give my kids fish oil. I give my kids b12 Um, and I give one of my kids a half dose of creatine in the morning um and at night Um, here's the big one helps me with sleep I credit And we can disagree all day long. Um, credit over time, over about a year of taking

several of these supplements for healing my anxiety, helping me learn to sleep again. And I've tested my sleep with Whoopstrap and things like that. So here's what I take at night. I take full spectrum hemp oil, which has been a game changer for me Um, it does not have any thc in it or anything like that It does have cbd in it a little bit, but it's full spectrum hemp oil and I credit that with a lot Um, it's helped over the years Now I take it once or twice a week, maybe three times on a wild week, but I don't take it every day I did for a long time um, I take gaba 250

um,. I take GABA 250 and I take phosphatidylserine, which isophose, as Thorne does, it's an anti-stress, which is pretty incredible, and magnesium biglycinate. And I take those with some almost every night, if not every night. And I tell you what, my sleep falls off a cliff in a pretty impressive way. They've become an important part of my overall health routine. I've got a special cabinet for all the shenanigans I've got up there. I've started recently messing around with Thorne. They've came out with a powdered greens product, which I like, and I've been taking that. And I take a couple other things here and there just to test and see what it's doing. But over time, here's what I've seen. Increased cognitive functioning, increased energy throughout the day, and increased depth and length of my sleep.

And those three things, being able to think clearly, being able to have some energy throughout the day, and being able to sleep are the three most important factors of my life. And by the way, I'll say this. There is a number of studies that talk about the importance of fish oil and B vitamins when it comes to low-level depression, anxiety, other things. So those are definitely conversations to have with your doctor. So here's the deal that it's been two years in the making. I was, you notice, I don't recommend supplements on the show, which is weird. Everyone's always hawking supplements all over the place. And I've turned down a number of opportunities with different supplement companies because I'm very particular about what I take. And I wanted to make sure if we're going to do anything, it's going to be what I take at my house, what I give to my kids. And that's Thorne.

Thorne, because they're pure, because they spend money on external testing, because they say they are who they say they are. And by the way, in dealing with a company, the people behind the scenes, they're great human beings. They're not scumbag companies. They're not fly-by-nights. They're in this for the long haul. They're expensive. There's no question about it. And so the way supplement companies usually, the way they work on podcasts is it's a rev share split, right? So you buy something with the code DELONI on it and I get a piece of it and they get a piece of it. The cool part is about Thorne is they let me set my discount as high as I want. It just cuts out what I make here. And we all met up as a team and I am much less concerned about making a bunch

of money on this than I am about people in your home, like everyday moms and dads like you, everyday brothers and sisters and sons and daughters like you listening to this show who are either dabbling in supplements for the first time or have been just taking crap for a long time and it's not doing anything for you. I'm interested in helping you change your life in the way that me and my family have been able to do over the years. And I also know that not everybody's blessed financially just have a billion dollars to blow on supplements all the time. So here's what we've set up for you. If you go to thorn.com, T-H-O-R-N-E.com slash U, the letter U, slash Deloney. Thorn.com slash U slash Deloney. If you're watching this on YouTube, it's in the lower third.

And if you're listening to this on podcast, there's a link in the show notes. You're going to set up an account, which is going to take three or four minutes, and then you're going to get 25% off everything. Some people are like, yeah, you get free shipping. Dude, I'm going to give you 25% off because it's less about me making money. I've been blessed. Y'all have been supporting the show, buying books. Y'all have been taking care of us. And so this is really our way of taking care of you guys. 25% off everything in your account that you buy. And it's a good way to get going to help your family get on the supplement train if you're

going to, or to start taking a few supplements that are of great quality. I always recommend that nobody put anything into their bodies without checking with their doctor first. If you have a relationship with your doctor, if you're taking other things, if you're also taking other medicines, please, please don't put medicine, don't put supplements in your body until you meet with your doctor. But this is it. This is the big reveal. This is the conversation about supplements. If you want to go down a rabbit hole again, there's Andrew Huberman, there is Peter Attia, there's some other folks in the space that are great resources. Lane Norton, the Mind Pump guys,

we'll talk about them occasionally. There's lots of discussions out there about why to take, what to take, and what it does to you at the biochemical level. That's not what I'm really interested in right now. I'm really interested in you and your family being as well as you possibly can, having energy, being able to sleep,

and being able to think throughout the day. Go to www.thorn.com slash you slash Deloney for 25% off everything. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. October is the season for wearing costumes. And if you haven't started planning your costume, seriously, get on it. I'm pretty sure I'm going to go as Brad Pitt because we have the same upper body, but whatever. Look, it's costume season. And if we're being honest, a lot of us hide our true selves behind masks and costumes more often than we want to. We do this at work. We do this in social settings. We do this around our own families. We even do this with ourselves. I have been there multiple times in my life and it's the worst.

If you feel like you're stuck hiding your true self behind costumes and masks, I want you to consider talking with a therapist. Therapy is a place where you can learn to accept all the parts of yourself, where you can be honest with yourself and where you can take off the mask and the costumes and learn to live an honest, authentic life. Costumes and masks should be for Halloween parties, not for our emotions and our true selves. If you're considering therapy, I want you to call my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy. You can talk with your therapist anywhere so it's convenient for just about any schedule. You just get online and you fill out a short survey and you'll be matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes

and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Let's go to Gray in Tampa, Florida. What's up, Gray? How's it going, Dr. Don Deloney? I'm John, but good, man. How are you? That's what I meant. Very cool. What's up, dude? How are you? One of the first things I was going to say was you have permission to call me on my cow pies. So you already started with that. We're off to a good start. Excellent.

Hey, real quick. You're there in Florida. Did y'all make out okay? Y'all doing okay? After the hurricane? Yeah, I live about an hour north of Tampa, so we were okay. But with my job, I'm an electrician. I've been down in the thick of it

all week and it's pretty heartbreaking. Yeah. Well, thank you for being one of the linemen out there working. I know you guys are working around the clock to get power restored to that community. So thanks for your service, my brother. Yeah, I'm not a lineman, but I do all the commercial stuff. So as they bring in power, I'm there to help get it going. Awesome. Make sure everybody's safe inside. Well, thank you so much, man. All right.

What's up? How can I help? Okay. You're going to have to kind of bear with me through this. But first, I'm going to give you permission to speak into my life. Awesome. I have, I have a daughter, um, who's five years old and she lives in Alabama with her mom and stepdad. Okay. Last year, my daughter's mother reached out to me and asked if her husband could adopt my daughter,

having me sign over, asking if I would be willing to sign over my parental rights and allow him to adopt. And it came at a really rough time. Um, like I got that, that text, um, yeah, she sent in a text, but the whole nother story, but, uh, she sent in a text as I was pulling back in the driveway from my little brother's funeral. So I, I didn't have time to cope, couldn't cope with those two things at once. And now it's been some time. And I don't know how to walk forward on this. I have been out of my daughter's life for most of her life after the court and I don't know the proper term here, so forgive me, but after

paternity was established right before my daughter turned two, um, I did have a relationship with my daughter. We would video chat pretty consistently. Um, I would talk to my daughter's mom on the phone probably three or four days a week and video chat with my daughter minimum of two days a week for about a year. And then my daughter's mom thought it would be best for her to only have one dad in her life. And that wasn't me. So she hasn't wanted me a part of my daughter's life for the past two, two years. And, uh, I haven't gone to a court right to, to, to fight and go through the battle of custody. Um, when I've seen how my daughter's mom reacts to her, her son's father, my daughter has an older brother, the same mom, and they dealt with that. And even though the courts did get involved, it still wasn't a good situation for nearly anybody. And I don't know the ramifications of that on a kid.

My parents were divorced and lived in different states for a little while. But I also grew up in the home with my mom and dad until about middle school. So it was a bit of a different situation there. When's the last time you've seen your baby girl? Four years ago. Why?

One is I haven't been in the area and I haven't been. Why? Why? This is a particularly hard call for me because I got a six-year-old little girl And I know that's why I gave you permission to speak about life Because I knew it was going to be hard So yeah, I'm just going to be direct with you I flew my family out to be with me this weekend While I was doing an event in Los Angeles

And they came and we ran around town and it was fun And then they flew out a day early because I had an event to do. I almost woke my daughter up last night when I got home and it was 24 hours. I don't breathe well when she's not around. The idea of going four years intentionally, like, bro, I'd be mowing yards in Alabama, dude. I don't know what, I don't know, I can't wrap my head around it psychologically. So why haven't you seen your daughter in four years? I don't have a good answer for that. Every time I have attempted, it has been shut down with you're not your daughter's dad anymore.

And we don't want her to know about you. Well, she's going to know about you. So that's... I know that's the case, but... But hold on. They are right. You haven't been her dad correct that's fair you fathered this kid but you have not been her dad correct um

going all the way back to the beginning it's elaine that she sent this into a text and you might be the kind of guy that has to get it in a text because she's not safe to call you on the phone or you're gonna act like an idiot or what like who knows man, or she's gonna get mad who knows? um But if that's what you're if that's how she felt safest to contact you that's I mean That's not how I would have done it, but I don't have a relationship with you and I don't know how you are about things um Like i'll be Video chat is not a relationship you are about things.

Like I'll be, video chat is not a relationship. Correct. You basically were a television show for your daughter with an interactive character. A relationship is showing up in physical touch and eyesight and letting her see a part of herself in you because a part of her is in you. That's a relationship. So you chit-chatted on a computer, right? But that's not relationship. I can be, I to be honest with you.

This sounds more about ego than it does about your daughter. This sounds more like you're struggling with the fact that you're going to put a period at the end of a sentence and let another man raise your daughter. And if that's the case, you need to get over yourself and let the man who stepped up to be in her life be fully in her life. And that's what it's about. So I'm married with a son, and we obviously live in Florida. And my wife and I have had a handful of conversations about this. And, um, the, the option is let her, her new husband obviously be her, her dad, or my wife and I go all in, move to Alabama and do whatever we can to, to find a way to be a part of my daughter's life. And I don't know what either one of those look like.

And I'm pretty scared of both options, honestly. Yeah, man, you've backed yourself into quite the corner. Actually, you know what? You haven't. You let your daughter go a long, long time ago. You're trying to reinsert yourself into her life. I can imagine your current wife, does she have a hard time with this? Yes. I can't imagine being married to somebody who would let one of their kids just roll off? Like I would think less of my romantic partner.

Does that make sense? Yeah, a little bit more context. Like I said, when the courts established paternity, that was just before my daughter turned two. What took so long? Why'd you fight her? Well, my daughter's mom and I split up, um, before even the first ultrasound. So we weren't even sure, um,

you know, at the time I, we weren't sure if I was even the father. But why'd you wait two years for a paternity test? Why didn't you get a paternity test the second that baby was born? Because I was terrified, just like I am today. Yeah, dude. You're scared, man. And I get it. But you lost your daughter. I hope the fear was worth it, man, because you lost your daughter. And that's a conversation you'll have to have one day with this little girl who's going to say, daddy, what was so bad about me that you didn't show up? And you're going to have to say, well,

I was really scared. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And I play that scenario out in my head all the time. And, uh, but you've been playing it for six years,

right? Five years. How old is this little girl? Five. Five. And, uh, but you've been playing it for six years, right? Five years. How old is this little girl? Five, five. Jeez, man. Like this is so,

uh, man, I'm not going to keep saying that. I just don't have the psychology for it. Um, I, I don't know what keeps you from knocking off work today and driving to Alabama and saying, hey, I want to have a sit down conversation with the other two grownups in my child's life.

And I guess at this point you're married, so bringing your wife along too. And here's what I can't answer. I can't answer the psychological impact on this little girl Other than to know it's going to be she's going to have it rough either way um I she's going to at some point reach out to you Um Oh, man, i'm just thinking about this in real time, dude. Um, tell me about it.

It wasn't going to be easy for any, anybody on, in, in this situation. Tell me about this stepdad. From the little I know about him, he's a pretty awesome guy. He's involved in their church and has brought my daughter's mom and daughter into a community with faith. And he takes time for the longest time. I work nights, and he works nights also. And it's just really hard on your body. And the first thing he would do when he would get home

is just spend hours playing with our daughter, and I don't have a bad thing to say about him. Is it shaming to you that he's been more present in your daughter's life in that way than you have? 100%. Okay. I'm just going to run through a couple of ideas, man, but I'm telling you right now, I'm recommending things that I would never do. Okay. Is that cool? Okay. I can see a scenario where you drive to Alabama and you meet him for breakfast or lunch somewhere, and you get to know him, and you sign over parental rights to him and ask permission to write letters. The idea that they're going to keep her from knowing about you is false.

That will not happen. She'll figure it out. And if they lie to her, that's no good. But if there's a way that in 15 years or seven years or whenever they have this conversation, she's five, so it should be now, right? That there is a backlog of letters from dad talking about how much he loves you or loves her and how much he supports this man raising his daughter. I could see that being one scenario. I can see another scenario where you...

Oh, man. scenario where you, oh man, yeah, where you pack up everything and go to Alabama, probably what's going to happen is she's going to take you to court and you're going to lose. Maybe not, but that would be my guess. Or you'll get every other weekend and then you're going to be seven months into a new state trying to find work and it's going to be a mess. Yeah. Either, either way, it's a mess. Um, and I, uh, what do you want to do? It depends on what time of day you ask me. What do you want to do? Here's what I'm telling you.

I'm not going to judge you either way right now. I've already, I've, I've, you can hear my voice. I beat you up enough. What do you want to do? I want to sign over my rights and have her new dad.

Um, so when, where I walked away. Okay. Sign over the parental rights then, man. Okay. That's a hard thing to do.

Cause I'll say that out loud to my wife or by myself while I'm driving and then I'll just break down and fall apart and feel like that's the wrong thing. Then get in your car and move your family today, man. Like you're just like you're wasting year after year after year, just driving down the same road, having the same conversation with yourself and having the same reaction. Do something, man. Because that little girl's getting older every day. Have you corrected this with your son? Yes. Yeah. He has a very present dad. I'm not bandit from Bluey, but I'm, I'm not either. I want to be so bad too. That dad's incredible. I tell you what, that's, that's the benchmark that I try to hold myself

to for, uh, my son. It's phenomenal. So, um, yeah, I worked a 31-hour shift yesterday and still came home and spent four hours playing airplane and waka-waka and reading books. Good. And that... So... I don't know, man. Part of... This is the single most conflicted I've ever been on the show. I knew it was going to be tough for you.

I tried to phrase it in a way that you were prepared. No, I appreciate it. Like every ounce of my being says, go rescue that little girl. And every ounce of my being says, you cashed out five years ago, dude. It's time to move on. But I know you can't move on from your daughter. And so I'll say it this way. There is no decision you can make that's not going to cause people hurt. There's no decision you can make that you're going to feel great about when it's over. And there's no decision you can

make that is not going to leave an ache inside your little girl that she's going to have to manage for a long, long, long time. That ship has sailed. So now it's about making the best right decision, even though it's going to be painful and even though it's going to be hard, because it's going to be painful and hard to drive to Alabama and say, I screwed up. This isn't the man I want to be. And I want to be present in my daughter's life. And you, sir, have been an extraordinary man. And I honor you. I can't give my daughter away, but you have my full blessing on being her stepdad here. But I'm going to be living three miles away

and I want to see her every week. Or you drive down there and you meet with the three of them or with the two of them and you'll have a hard conversation and you meet with the three of them uh with or with the two of them and y'all have a hard conversation and you sign over rights but let them know i've got to write letters and you got to read the letters to my daughter because now y'all are all in this playing a long game for her psychological and physiological and spiritual well-being

and that daddy gap is big. The stress that mom was under for the first two or three years of that little girl's life has altered her biochemistry, and it's going to take a long time to heal. So either way, this is hard. And if you son over parental rights, it wouldn't surprise me if your wife would leave you And so moving from florida tampa bay one of the most beautiful places on the planet to alabama I can only imagine how hard that would be for everybody um

I'm, sorry. I don't have a clean answer for you, dude My gut tells me you you you cashed out a while ago Um, you cashed out five years ago and the guilt and the shame Of standing in the shadow of this other guy who stepped in to help. Um is what's keeping you up at night Not your little girl But your ego and if that's the case let it go let her go live whatever Positive life she can

under the loving arms of this guy. If you're ready to change your life, control alt delete and fix, just heal everything. And you're willing to pack up and move across the country and say, I'm not living another day without my daughter in my life. Before you jump up and move across the country and say, I'm not living another day without my daughter in my life. Um, before you jump up and do that, you need to go have conversations with the two of them because they may be ready to sue you and take you to court and they will probably win. Um, but I'd have that conversation. All of this is done in person on your dime, on your travel, all this is done in person.

And stop having the same conversation in your head over and over and over and over, trying to find a loophole out. There is no way out. There's only through. And at the end of the day, this whole conversation is about the little girl. It's about the little girl. We'll be right back It seems like everybody's talking about how crazy the housing market is right now and how powerless homebuyers feel Mix that with the stress of moving and life change and job change and you've got a tornado of anxiety fueling one of the biggest

Purchases you'll ever make This is not a good idea. So if you're a new home buyer right now, my advice to you is to focus on what you can control, like the people you choose to help you in the home buying process. You need folks like my friends at Churchill Mortgage. Churchill is a Ramsey trusted provider

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out at churchillemortgage.com slash Deloney and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we're back. Let's go to Stephanie in Rockford, Illinois. What's up, Stephanie? Hey, how are you, John? I'm good. How about you? Good. Thanks for taking my call. You got it. What's up? All right. So I have a teenage daughter. She is 15. And about a year ago, she was diagnosed with anxiety and depression. So the reason I'm calling is because I'm struggling parenting with that.

Okay. You know, how do you know, like, consequences and stuff like that? Because obviously her health is more important than dishes being done. But I still don't want to raise, you know, I still want to raise a good human. Right. Tell me the origin of the depression anxiety. Where's that come from? Um, her dad, a year and a half ago, my husband, um, died by suicide. Oh boy. I'm so sorry. Yeah. So, so it's all very new to both of us. So was she a happy-go-lucky kid and this was just a left turn?

Yeah. Completely. Completely. So I'm going to say- You got the teenager, you got depression, you you got grief you got it all it's not that it's it's um it's not my place to comment on diagnostics because i'm not in your sessions and i'm not in her sessions with whatever provider she's getting diagnosed from but Grief is hard and complex grief is hard And I just don't believe this is personal. I just don't believe in

Diagnostics on the back end of such an explosion in the middle of a home There is any behavior she has whether she's running low or she's anxious is absolutely normal. You know what I mean? Yeah. Um, I don't know that the diagnostic helps any. Um, so let me ask this. How have you been? Hmm. Um, I think in survival mode for a year and a half. Yeah. Tell me about that.

You know, she was hospitalized in January and... Was she suicidal as well? Yeah. Okay. No attempt, but still suicidal. and was she suicidal as well? yeah no attempt but still suicidal so was she suicidal

I guess she wasn't not acutely but I guess if she was hospitalized that means she was pretty far down the road right? yeah okay

does she want to be dead or does she want to stop hurting? she wants to stop hurting? She wants to stop hurting. Okay. And do you get the difference there? Yes.

It's taken a while. Yeah, of course, of course. Can I ask you a very hard question that I don't mean in a shaming way at all? This is just me collecting data, okay? Has she felt over the last year that she's got to prop you up to? Um, I don't, I don't know.

I don't, I would like to say no, but I'm sure that there's been times. Um, for the most part though, I would say no. Okay. Did your husband, was this a surprise or had he been struggling for a long time?

Uh, no, it was a surprise. Oh boy. I'm so sorry, Stephanie. Yeah. So coming out of the, uh, out of the fog i'm gonna i'm gonna just pretend here that 18 months

and there's that gnawing reality that this is real and there's that low level just weight that sits on you. Is that still there? Yeah. It just kind of is. Have you had moments where you laughed and you felt guilty for laughing? Yeah. Have you had moments where you, like somebody makes your heart beat a little faster and you feel guilty about it? No.

Okay. Have you been profoundly lonely? I was. Okay. Working on that part. Good, good. Have you felt guilty? Like you should have known something or said something or done something? Absolutely, yeah.

Okay. So here's what we do coming out of survival. Absolutely. Okay. There's some ways to manage it. And there's some things you can do over time so that when that fog begins to lift that you can breathe. Okay. But the quicker you guys, you and her, do you have any other kids? No, just her. Okay. no just her okay the quicker you two recognize that there's not ever going to be a going back to normal

that we have to change everything that everything is new now that's a horrifying feeling it's just a period at the end of a long messy weep like weepy sentence. But it's also when the light starts to come on. Because now you get to build what comes next.

And what I would suggest is the path out for your daughter is feeling like she is participating in going towards something, not trying to survive something. Okay? Like she is participating in going towards something, not trying to survive something. Okay. And what that means is you've heard me say this a lot and have some sort of ceremony where you put to bed what was, this was our life. And now this is our life and we get to construct it however we want. And here's the question we're going to answer. Who are we going to be? And we're going to talk in that, who are we going to be? And we're going to talk in that, who are we going to be? We're going to be people who take care of our bodies.

So we're going to go for walks every day together. And we're not going to eat pizza every night. Like we're going to take care of ourselves. That's who we're going to be. We're going to be people of service. We're going to be people who think about other people before we think of ourselves. We're going to be people who get stuff done. So I'll do the dishes, you do this. Does that make

sense? And out of that, we're going to give ourselves jobs and we're going to commit to holding each other accountable. The goal here is little wins. And the temptation is to say, hey hey you got to do the dishes she doesn't do them you get mad and that drives her further into a hole which is just a normal pattern that parents and teens have this is just an accelerated or actually it's a dampened um a dance that's the same dance right um this is going to be a little bit different. This is who we are. This is how we do life together now. And so she is going to participate in the life of the household.

She's not just going to do crap to keep mom off her back. You see the difference? Yeah. And that starts with you saying, I'm going to commit to getting well during the season of grief. Your teenage daughter is going to watch her mom for how she's supposed to act. And I know that's a lot of responsibility on you. Yeah.

I tried to, you know, Just get up and do things but No not like that Having that conversation is much different Has she seen you be sad? Yeah Okay that's a good thing by the way Giving her permission to feel sad is okay Letting her see her mom

Be sad is okay In fact that's a gift to her. Now it's about finding purpose in that home with this new life y'all are creating together. In this conversation y'all have, it would be, where do you want to go to college? Let's start having that conversation. What do you think you might want to be? How could we make meaning of dad's passing away? Maybe she wants to go be a psychologist. Maybe she wants to go to med school. Maybe she wants to be an architect. I don't know. Who knows what she wants to do, but let's start looking at what is tomorrow going to look like and what are the things we need to do right now? Have you sat down and had a conversation similar to that? No. I mean, no, not that. That one sounds very much harder than the conversation.

It's here's, here's why it's hard. Because when your husband died by suicide, life as you knew it was over. And we focus a lot in our grief on the person and we forget or we don't even know that everything is different. A lot of times people run out and get remarried within three months or six months because they're trying to get back to normal The body's job is to get back to homeostasis. It tries it tries it tries And there is no homeostasis here. Everything's in ash everything In this conversation, do we sell the house? Do you want to move to a new town?

Do I need to get a new job like right we're having those conversations And she's going to play a part in it. She doesn't get the final say. And I would let her know I'm the mom. So I'm going to make the final call, but I want to hear where your heart is. She doesn't get everything she wants, but Hey, how do we, what are some things you want to be? Who are we going to be? We're going to to go to concerts we are going to do things intentionally to bring joy into our lives however hard it will be and we're going to buy tickets to concerts and we may listen to two songs we're just going to leave because one of us starts crying that's okay right yeah how are you financially? Okay. I mean, obviously, inflation is not the greatest, but yeah, we're okay. Have you sold the house?

No, we're still in the house. Okay. Have you considered selling the house? I'm to that point that I think I would be able to. Okay. And to that point that I think I would be able to, where he died was by a tree and that tree just fell on a random weekend. And I felt like I could leave then. It took that, like before I felt like I couldn't. I just couldn't. There's something profound about environment when it comes to grief.

I'm not saying that everybody who has somebody pass away has to sell their house, has to leave the state, but there is something freeing about changing the environment, changing, quite honestly, everything. Some people stay in the same city and move houses. Some people just control alt delete and say, I'm gonna go. I've realized how precious and short life is. I always wanted to be a teacher. I'm going back to school to get my teaching certificate

or I wanted to be a nurse. I'm going to get my nursing degree. Like whatever happens, these are the moments that y'all sit down and you have these conversations together. And here's why the conversation with her is so important. Instead of you going off and doing this by yourself and making an announcement Because you get to model for her what the process of thinking and feeling and weeping and putting your foot down looks like You get to say i've always wanted to do this and I never did it

And I think i'm going to go back to school and do it. And it's going to be hard and it's going to be scary and it's going to be whatever. But I get to be in control of what comes next, however hard that is. And she gets to get a picture of what that looks like because she doesn't have a picture of what to do when dad dies by suicide. She doesn't have a picture of how do you replant after the forest burns down. And that's what you're going to offer her. And by the way, you may not have that picture either.

Yeah, because I mean, we really didn't make any changes. We just continued on without him here. Yeah. And even if y'all end up in a very similar situation, doing these very similar things and she's going to the same school and all that stuff, the exercise in and of itself is valuable. And I want you to also hear the big picture. I have not focused on her anxiety and depression.

Those are particular snapshots of a particular season of her life right now. If she's suicidal, she's got to go back to the hospital. If you find out she's going to take her own life, you got to call 911 and do the whole thing over again. Okay. And there may be more of that as a 15-year-old tries to wrestle with the overwhelming sense of dread and doom and hurt that she's going through right now. And there may be something to letting her know or guarantee that she's asking herself, what was so bad about me that dad felt he had to go?

And I guarantee you've asked yourself that question too yep it would really be helpful to her to let her know that you're asking that question as well okay it would also be really helpful for her to know that dad wasn't well dad was sick had nothing to do with y'all. I mean, I've tried to say that. I know. I know. But let her know that you're having the same concerns inside yourself too. I don't think I've done that.

Yeah. I'm just heartbroken for you. I'm sorry. I'm just heartbroken for you. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, I appreciate hearing though that, you know, her anxiety and depression may, you know, it may be a season. It may not be.

I don't think your daughter's broken. I don't think she's malfunctioning. I think her body's doing exactly what a 15-year-old body should be doing right now when dad dies by suicide, which is every alarm it's got is going off to the point that the body gets exhausted, and then it runs really low, turns everything off. I think depression and anxiety are on the same trend line. They work together. And so it's a body that tells me it's a body trying to figure out where it is in space. Not to mention the hormones and the growing and all the other things that come along,

just general crap of being 15, right? Right. general crap of being 15 right right um you put that on top of i'm completely untethered from everything and um yeah you got a kid that just wants to stop everything i just want i just want to stop and so let's begin to have a conversation of what does it look like to rebuild a life worth living in the shadow of what we've experienced and that shadow is going to be as long as it's going to be the shadow is not going to go away but what you're going to find over time is that y'all are going to grow beyond the shadow shadow will always be there but you're going to find that you grow way beyond that shadow it's just hard to see it right now because everything's dark.

This may be a conversation that you have with a counselor. I think, quite honestly, I think you've been thoughtful enough. You've got people in your life. I think you can write this stuff down and you can take her out for a girl's weekend and give yourself a moment to point back to in times.

This is when we went out. This is when we created this new family values. This is when we decided what our last name is gonna be. This is when we decided where we're gonna live for the next year. And then we're gonna figure it out after that. This is when we decided whether you're going to college or I'm gonna keep working here.

This is where we made some decisions. And we held those decisions really loosely because plans change and grief is a terrible master. But this is when we started looking for the light again. And this is when that little girl feels less crazy because mom opens up and says, hey, I'm going through that too. And dad wasn't okay. And it wasn't because he didn't love you. Dad loved you so much. and so, for some reason, he thought you would be better off with him not here. God, we know he's wrong on this side of that choice, but

we get to work together to create what happens next. I'm so, so sorry. We'll be right back. Hey, what's up? Deloney here. Listen, you and me and everybody else on the planet has felt anxious or burned out or chronically stressed at some point. In my new book, Building a Non-Anxious Life, you'll learn the six daily choices that you can make to get rid of your anxious feelings and be able to better respond to whatever life throws at you so you can build a more peaceful, non-anxious life. Get your copy today at johndeloney.com. All right, we're back. Hey, I just want to be open.

I didn't have the greatest answers for today's show. With the young man who hasn't been a part of his daughter's life for five years, there's not a lot of good choices to make. There's just the next choice. A 15-year-old wrestling with anxiety and depression after her dad died by suicide and her mom is struggling. Moving forward is just going to be hard. I love shows when I can just snap my fingers and say, you got to do this or this. And this isn't one of those shows.

In both of these situations, it's going to be a long, long slog creating a new life. And I always want us to roll back, whether it's a hard weekend you have or a hard couple of years you have or you lose somebody who's important to you or you lose your job or you look up and you haven't seen your daughter in five years or you look up and your husband's passed away and you're afraid you're going to lose your daughter too you can't do this by yourself. You got to have other people around you. And at the end of the day,

all of us, all of us can be about building a life worth living. Building a new life worth living. It's tough. Thank you for being with us. Don't forget, go to thorn.com slash you slash deloney to pick up supplements and um I'm, just just know this i'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for you The song of the day is from the great rod stewart song's called missing you and it goes like this

Every time I think of you I always catch my breath and I'm still standing here and you're miles away and I'm wondering why you left. There's a storm that's raging through my frozen heart tonight and I hear your name in certain circles and it always makes me smile. I spend my time thinking about you and it almost driving me wild. And there's a heart that's breaking down

this long distance line tonight. I ain't missing you at all since you've been gone away. I ain't missing you no matter what I might say. But he is missing. I'll see you soon.