The Dr. John Delony Show - UPDATE: She’s 60 Days Clean and Sober!

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

In this episode, we hear from a previous caller celebrating 60 days sober, a woman who has no idea how to get her needs met in her marriage, and a terrified mother whose daughter has attempted suicide two times in the last month. Dopamine Nation - Dr. Anna Lembke Lyrics of the Day: "Meant to Live" - Switchfoot Let us know what’s going on by leaving a voicemail at 844.693.3291 or visiting johndelony.com/show.  Support Our Sponsors: BetterHelp DreamCloud Churchill Mortgage Resources: Own Your Past, Change Your Future Questions for Humans Conversation Cards Redefining Anxiety Quick Read John’s Free Guided Meditation Listen to all The Ramsey Network podcasts anytime, anywhere in our app. Download at: https://apple.co/3eN8jNq These platforms contain content, including information provided by guests, that is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. The content is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional medical, counseling, therapeutic, financial, legal, or other advice. The Lampo Group, LLC d/b/a Ramsey Solutions as well as its affiliates and subsidiaries (including their respective employees, agents and representatives) make no representations or warranties concerning the content and expressly disclaim any and all liability concerning the content including any treatment or action taken by any person following the information offered or provided within or through this show. If you have specific concerns or a situation in which you require professional advice, you should consult with an appropriately trained and qualified professional expert and specialist. If you are having a health or mental health emergency, please call 9-1-1 immediately.

Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. When you called last time, you've been using a long time, right? Yeah, I had been smoking weed every day for about eight years at that point. Tell me about your adventure you've been on. So I have been sober, completely sober for 62 days today. I'm so excited. I'm so proud of you. What's up? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. Greatest mental health podcast ever. Said by nobody except for us. And by us, there's like a bunch of people back there, maybe like two.

And both of them are on the payroll. So it's just a thing they do because they're loyal. So glad that you're with us. If you want to be on the show, give me a call, 1-844-693-3291. It's 1-844-693-3291. A couple weeks ago, I asked folks, man, reach out if you've got something good that happened, some good news, some things that are going on. And I always am asking people to follow up with me. And this first call, I'm super jazzed, man.

Elizabeth from Roanoke, she was smoking weed for ever and ever and ever. I'm in. And she is calling with a pretty incredible update. Elizabeth, you there? Yeah, I'm here. How we doing? You know, I'm great. Boring and sober now, right?

Boring and sober, but really, really good. So I wanted to give you a call back and tell you how it's going. Okay, number one, I always ask people to call me back, and nobody ever does, so you get the gold star on your forehead today, which is incredible. I don't know if that's where you want to put a gold star. That would be not a great place to number one. I always ask people to call me back and nobody ever does. So you get the gold star on your forehead today, which is incredible. I don't know if that's where you want to put a gold star. That'd be not a great place to put one. Okay. So, A, thanks for calling. B, tell me about your adventure you've been on.

So I have been sober, completely sober for 62 days today. And I've noticed some really incredible changes in a lot of ways that I never even expected. Let's stop right there. And everybody, wherever you are listening to this, and there's lots of you, everybody start cheering. Clap and start cheering wherever you happen to be. Grocery market, mowing your yard in your dad's shoes, your Nike Monarchs and your tall black

socks, just start clapping wherever you happen to be. In your squad car, whatever it is. Super excited for you. Congratulations, Elizabeth. Okay, walk us back. Give us a 30-second rewind. When you called last time, you've been using a long time, right? Yeah, I had been smoking

weed every day for about eight years at that point. And I was on the fence about quitting for about three months by the time we talked, going back and forth, back and forth. And my biggest fear to stop was that I wouldn't be able to tolerate my feelings and I wouldn't know what to do with my time. And that really stopped me for months quitting. And then I'll be honest, after we talked, I didn't quit. It still took me a few days. How soon after we got off the phone did you light up? Like, I don't know if it was immediate, but my feeling was immediate.

I was like, oh, damn, I got to get high. I wanted to get high after talking to you, actually. I'm just kidding. So that's a very common thing. I'm glad you mentioned that. Often people will have this big moment. They'll have this hard conversation, and then they'll go use again. And then they think, well, now it's all over.

And actually, no. Like, okay, you're there, and now let's make the next right step, right? And refresh my memory, refresh all of us listening. Was there a couple of things you were running from? What was the weed helping with? The weed I was really using to self-medicate for depression. It seemed like my emotions, I couldn't handle them before. And I would use weed to escape.

And when you say you couldn't handle them, what does that mean? Like, be specific for it, because there's going to be somebody listening out there being like, I can handle them. I just don't get out of bed for two days, and I eat the whole bottle of ice cream. Whatever, right? So what does that mean, I couldn't handle them. I just don't get out of bed for two days and I eat the whole bottle of ice cream and whatever. Right. So what does that mean? I couldn't handle them. So I think the two biggest things that were so uncomfortable for me were severe depression. So the depression that gave me hopelessness, feeling kind of what's the point, why are we doing anything? Kind of this total empty depression and agitation. Gotcha.

So if I'm feeling angsty or edgy or just uncomfortable, those are the two main reasons I would turn to weed to escape that. And so what was the day you said, I'm done? A few days after that, I just was wheezing again because that was one of the big factors is that my lungs were not healthy. And I just decided I'm going to try. And I actually did start the book you recommended, Dopamine Nation. I was listening to that on audiobook and I was already kind of compelled within the first few pages. It's fascinating, isn't it? Pretty good.

It's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Dr. Lemke, we'll link to it in the show notes. I've recommended it to many other people already. Yeah, I'll link to it in the show notes. It's just one of those books that comes along once every 10 years, and it's just so good, man, so good. Okay, so you listened to that book. You got convicted, and you said enough's enough. What did you do next?

Did you throw everything away? Did you have a bonfire? What did you do? Well, you know, actually, at the time, my husband wasn't ready to quit so everything was still out okay i just made up my mind and that was it i made up my mind so i didn't really mind that he was still using or that it was around it wasn't for me wow kind of put it out of my head like that okay and you can usually white knuckle that for a couple of days couple of weeks what was after that well that was what was what, you know, and I remember

like when I re-listened to my episode that I was on, which you said, I guess really stuck with me. I didn't connect until I re-listened, which was this too shall pass. And that's something my therapist had said too. And I think that's been the most powerful tool for me getting through anything is that the emotion will pass. And so if something was uncomfortable, I just remember it's temporary. This will pass. I'm uncomfortable, but it's not forever. And with this eye on the prize of I really wanted emotional balance, I really, really desperately wanted emotional balance.

And so I was willing to do this experiment for that outcome. Ah, so good. Okay, so in the past, and you've been sober 60 days, 62, the last 60 days in the country, there's been wild really dumb time to get sober, quite honestly. And, and if you were like trying to get off cocaine, this would be a great time, right? But to get off weed, this is a tough time. How have you managed this for 62 days? It is really crazy out there. But I would say just keeping my eye on that prize. Like I wanted emotional balance more than anything. I became sick and tired of being sick and tired. That was my last depressive episode.

And I just didn't want it anymore. So despite everything else, that was kind of the pinnacle. Like the bright light through it all was just I need to see if this is going to be curing my depression. And I will admit, the first two weeks were hell, like you said. I think after the first two days, I had excruciating headaches for about 14 days. Yeah. Like these really intense tension headaches.

I was taking Advil, which I don't ever take. And I took it every day for two weeks. I mean, they were that bad. And then day 14, boom, it was- It's like somebody peels off a cataract, huh? Like you start to see things clearly. Yeah, it's wild. Okay, so often I see folks give up a thing, right? And they've been an addict for a while. And again, we're talking about levels here. Getting off heroin is different than getting off alcohol is different than stopping smoking weed, which is different than stopping pornography and cheating on your wife, whatever. But when

people give up things and say, I'm making a long-term behavior change, I'm playing a long game on this one. And you really tattoo this too shall pass on your soul, right? Often they don't refill that gap with other healthy behaviors and it ends up that vacuum pulls them back. Have you added, have you started doing things like exercise or yoga or drawing? Have you, have you backfilled your life with other things? Are you still hanging in there? Yeah, no, I have. And I knew that that was part of it going in. So I knew that it was going to be part of the plan that even if I didn't feel like it, I had to do something with my time. And shockingly, I haven't had any spare time. I've, I've easily filled it. Um, I have my first garden, my first vegetable garden,

which I've been looking forward to for years. So that takes up a whole lot of time. I did start exercising. I've, I'm exploring the Wim Hof method and cold exposure Don't drive while you do that by the way I remember you saying that You might Wrap your little Prius Around a Cinder block highway divider Just hashtag just saying

That's fantastic man That is actually the Wim Hof breathing I think is a powerful This too shall pass because you begin to take ownership of, you go further upstream than this too shall pass, and you begin to take ownership of the feeling before it even heads down the road. It's pretty remarkable if you go down that rabbit hole for a while. That's awesome. Yeah. All right.

I've had no shortage of things to do. That's for sure. That's so great. You're incredible. Seriously. I'm smiling So great. You're, you're incredible. You're like, seriously, like I'm smiling and I haven't had a great day and I'm smiling. Cause it's just amazing.

Here's the hard question. If I, if I describe it this way, for some reason it makes, not for some reason, it's pretty obvious, but it makes things less difficult. So also I can just do the dishes.

I can just do the chores and I don't have this extra gripe and frustration and, oh, I have to do that again. So when I remove that kind of groan over everything in my life becomes 90 and becomes 120, like the, this will, you'll start, you won't count minutes as much as you'll count days, as much as you'll count weeks, as much as you'll count months, and this will become a part of your life and you'll look back and you've done some pretty extraordinary things because you're moving your body and you're changing your thoughts and you are getting a new connection to yourself i mean you're making all these shifts here's the big one are you ready has your um significant other stopped using? You know what? He has. What? He's now 20 days sober. Dude, peer pressure.

Yeah, I know. Middle school style. No, I mean, he made his decision all on his own. But I think he's constantly saying, you know, I feel so good. Listen, no guy makes their own decision. I'm just kidding. He may have. Good for him.

But there's a 0% chance that's true. And if y'all both need to tell yourself that, that's fantastic. So he watched you just come out of a cocoon, and he said, I want to be beautiful like that too. That's fantastic. Is he through hell yet? Is he on the other side of it? He is, yeah. And it was about two weeks also.

That's pretty miserable. So he's about a week in where he can see and acknowledge color again. Yeah. And both of us, we had some bad news and difficult news yesterday, and we got through it. It's amazing. It's really given us this, both of us, this tolerance for difficult things. And like I said before with the depression, it's like if I was always, like if there's a baseline of depression, I was always kind of skirting and jumping right on that line. But now I'm not even close to that line.

Like I'm nowhere near feeling hopeless. I can't even tap into hopelessness right now. And that used to be kind of just like under the surface all the time. So I feel really liberated from that. That's so incredible. Do you have a game plan for when that siren calls? Do you have a game plan? Yes.

I'm going to remember that it will pass. Awesome. That it will pass and that will be okay. Because I think it's when you are in a depression, you feel like that's your whole world. That's the whole world. That's right. And that becomes even heavier. That's right. But it's not. It will pass depression, you feel like that's your whole world. That's the whole world. That's right. And that becomes even heavier. That's right.

But it's not. It will pass, and it always does pass. Yeah. The lie of depression is, it's always been like this, it always will be, and it was your fault, right?

And one or two of those things may be true, but in totality, they end up dragging you underwater. Here's what I'd recommend. Kind of like we have a fire plan, right? Like in my house, I have a gas line that goes to an open flame and i've got two kids 12 and under like there's a there's a really good chance something catches on fire in my home right um we have a plan just for in case and so i would

think and this would be a fun exercise for you and your counselor to just say let's write it down maybe it's on one piece of paper and we store it somewhere where we know where it is and this would be a fun exercise for you and your counselor, to just say, let's write it down. Maybe it's on one piece of paper, and we store it somewhere where we know where it is. And this is Elizabeth's depression plan. If and when my baseline goes low, or my blood sugar falls off, and I begin to feel like the old days, or fill in the blank, right?

Mom gets sick, whatever the thing is. I've got that map to get out of the house when it's on fire already. I know where it is. And that way I'm not going to listen to my body signals in those moments because I know they don't tell me the truth. I've already got a plan from when I was well, and I'm going to follow that plan. Even though I feel like X and Y, I'm going to follow that plan. I'm going to stay above that baseline. You see what I'm saying? Yeah. That's, you're incredible. Can I ask you one more?

This is a personal question and I can edit it out if you don't want to answer it. Two recovering addicts staring at each other. What's intimacy been like? You can leave this in the show. It's actually been much better. Okay. I think I mentioned to you before, this all was triggered because we wanted to start to try to have children. And that's been a huge change for us. It's like our sex drive has improved. Our intimacy has improved. We actually want a baby even more because, at least for myself, I'll speak for myself, I feel more capable.

I feel like I actually could handle having a kid. Wow. So it's been really great. There's something about sex drive increases, and that's a common thing. People stop smoking weed all the time. There's something else about looking across a room at somebody, unclothed, and saying, do you see me?

And I'm going to allow you to see me. Right? You know what I'm saying? And so for you to say, no, no, no, that's improved. That's such an incredible moment for you and your ex. I'm just, I'll smile all day. I'll smile all day. Well, and I'm really proud of him, too.

So I think that's sexy. You know, like, I really, I admire what he's doing. He's, like, doing a thing. He's the same. Oh, my gosh. And you're going to catch him lifting weights one day. And then, geez, Louise, man. Stay away from y'all's house.

I'm so excited. I'm so proud of you. Like, for real, I'm so proud of you. One last thing. Will you keep this in your back pocket? Yes. I think I'm breaking some sort of rule or something by doing what I'm about to do

and forgive me if I am, okay? Is that cool? Mm-hmm. If one of you slips, one of you uses one day, I want you to be about your new identity, not about this magic number, okay? Okay. I've had people who are recovering from addiction in my life

who I love that their life revolves around this magic number and less about the person who they're becoming. And there's days that, especially in the old days when I was an idiot, I knew a couple of guys were going to ask me, hey, what'd you do for your wife this week? And I would do it the night before I hung out with those dudes. So I'd have something to tell them. And so there was something about practicing, like I'm doing things even when I don't think about it or when I don't feel like doing it. There's moments when that's good. And so there's going to be moments when like, I'm at day 222. I'm not, I'm having a bad day. I'm not going to do this so I can get to day 223. There's something there, but that number will

never be your identity. Okay. You're bigger than that. And you're that new sexy guy you found he's bigger than that and now y'all are on this new trajectory in this new path and as two people who are going to honor and steward their themselves and their marriage dude i'm just like i'll smile all day because of this i'll smell all day well i'm so happy so happy. Well, congratulations. Thank you. And is it all right if I, like, share one last thing if someone's on the fence? You can share anything. Share all of it. Yeah.

I mean, you've told us about your sex life, for God's sake. What else do you want to talk about? I'm married. I'm married. I'm totally kidding. So I really would encourage someone to just try. It's really intimidating, but if they're dealing with mood problems like depression, that this is just a gift you can give yourself to just try it. And the worst case is you get 30 days clean and then you can go back. But I cannot believe how

much it's impacted my mood. And I've struggled with depression for decades. And so if I had known or believed that stopping weed would change and like liberate me from depression as it has, I would have done it decades sooner. So yeah, if anyone's listening, just give it a try. Just try it out. The worst that can happen is you go back after 30 days. The best is that you're free from depression. And let's extrapolate that out. That's more than just weed. That's, um, your pornography addiction. That's working 80 hours a week.

That's people who cannot put their phones down. That's people who are struggling with this sort of eating. Do something for 30 days. Just do something for 30 days. Right. And did you find that number to be pretty magic? That's the number that's just constant in the ethos. Stop doing something for 30 days and then reevaluate.

Right. It was magic. Yeah. I would say after 14, that was a real turning point. constant in the ethos. Stop doing something for 30 days and then re-evaluate. It was magic, yeah. I would say after 14, that was a real turning point, and then after 30 was even more so. Okay, yeah, the two weeks of hell is pretty routine, and then the two weeks of who am I? What is happening?

Then that back two weeks is often when people just don't think about it. They unconsciously grab a Twinkie because it's behavioral. You know, you go to do the dishes and you just go look for the bong. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, no, no, no. So staying conscious in those two weeks as you begin to see color again. I'm just so proud of you.

And thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for calling us back. Will you call me back at day 90 and day 120? Oh, sure. And if you ever have a new day one, will you call me that day too? Sure, I will. I'm so proud of you. And I want you to send us pictures of that new little knuckleheaded baby that comes along and just hashtag just saying, John is an excellent, excellent name. Hey, thank you so much, Elizabeth. We're so proud of you. And thank you for

giving us a light to walk towards, all of us, me included. 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 therapist at any time for no additional cost. Take off the costumes and take off the masks with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P.com slash Deloney. All right, we are back. Okay, last night my wife and I went to see Frank Turner, who's one of my favorites of my favorites of all the favorites. He's like an acoustic punk guy from London and just love him. And man, sharing mosh pitting time at a folk punk show with my wife was so great.

That's cool thing number one. Cool thing number two is we're starting a new show segment that I'm making up right now. It's called I Was Wrong. I Was Wrong. I'm very happy about this new segment. Kelly loves this segment. And so I think it's always fair

when I'm wrong on something. So a few weeks ago, months ago, by the time this thing comes out, a woman called, and I believe she's from Virginia. And she was trying to work through a divorce. And maybe it's North Carolina, something like that. It was something over that way, in the east-ish.

Anyway, I kept saying, leave. Like, go get the divorce. And she's like, well, I think I gotta wait a year or something. And I was like, that's insane. Like, you don't have to live apart for a year. Just go file for your divorce. I think it's 30 days or something. Turns out I was wrong.

I had people write in and say in their particular state, particularly in the Eastern United States, that in some cases for a no-fault divorce, when a couple says, hey, we no longer want to be married for various reasons, they have to live in separate homes and be separated for one calendar year before the divorce goes through. That sounds clinically insane to me. The amount of economic

damage you could do to each other, the amount of personal damage you could do to each other, the amount of isolation and loneliness, like the whole thing. I'm sure somebody will tell me, like, here's the reason why. And maybe it was a legislature that was trying to discourage divorce so much. Usually when you try to do that, the person who suffers is a victim of some sort of abuse or something, right? It's rarely two people that just shake hands and say, you know what, we should just go our separate ways. And we'll be adults for a calendar year. I don't know many married couples who are adults that long without doing something. Anyway, I was wrong.

I was just like, dude, what are you doing? And it turns out I didn't know my marriage law. So there you go. And then a third thing. Here's a third thing. Somebody wrote in and there was a call a few weeks ago where there was a mother who called, and she had adopted a child. And the more they learned about the child, the more they learned they had not received the full story of this child's history. And she had some rage in her, some anger. Her and her husband had some anger about the way

the grandparents had taken care of these little kids before they ultimately adopted them out. And as she described the grandparents, she used words like lazy and unengaged, and here's how they would parent. And so I said, I used the word abuse. And man, I stirred up a hornet's nest. That's not abuse. Abuse is when you're hitting somebody or screaming cuss words in their face. So I looked this up. Here's just like a run-of-the-mill, non-scientific, run-of-the-mill definition of abuse. It's to treat a person or an animal with cruelty or violence, especially regularly or repeatedly. So, you can disagree with me. But I cannot sit here and look at the data of what disengaged children, what their brains look like, what their psychosocial development looks like, what their relationship abilities look like.

I can't look at the ACEs score for these kids. And by the way, remember, trauma is something that you can do to somebody or not do. Things that I should have done for a kid that I didn't do. Like, I don't have to hit a kid. I cannot feed a kid. That's abuse. That's something I didn't do. I don't have to assault a child. I can walk past and ignore that kid. And there's scholarship. There's tons of research that suggests if you don't hold children, if you don't acknowledge children, they die, okay? And so I can't sit here anymore, and not anymore, I never really have. If you repeatedly stick a child in front of a screen for six, seven, eight, four hours a day. And you deprive them of relationship and you deprive them of their most important needs as a young child, besides food and water and sleep, which is

a relationship with a present adult. And we continue to outsource our parenting responsibilities or our grandparenting responsibilities to these digital babysitters. And then I look at the emotional and physical and psychological and relational dysregulation going on in the minds and bodies of these kids. I don't have another word other than to say that's abuse. And if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, crap, I hand my 12-year-old an iPad and they're on it when they wake up and they are on it all day, especially in the summer. And then they get home and I just grab a drink and I throw my feet up because wind down Wednesdays. And then I watch my shows. And yes, I'm talking to you. And this is not going to win me any more Instagram followers and I don't

care. It's time to reconnect with children and to start looking at these deprivation actions, these withholding of relationship from these kids as abuse. Call it what it is. Call it what it is. Treating a person or animal with cruelty. That it what it is, call it what it is, treating a person or animal with cruelty, that's what that is, and so, yes, I probably do use the word abuse or trauma too much to try to expand their definitions, in this case, I'm holding to it, I think I was right, all right, that's it, that's the three things, let's go to Lauren in Angola, what's up, Lauren, how we doing? Pretty good. Thanks for taking my phone call.

Of course, you got it. Thanks for calling. What's up? So, I guess an overview of me. I am a pregnant mom with three children, four and under. Whoa! Can we just stop there? Whoa!

Whoa! What do you do? I'm due the end of September So you'll have four under five Five and under Yep Wow I love it though

I'm in awe of you I'm not making jokes I'm not making fun of I am just absolutely in awe of you Congratulations, fantastic Thank you so much. Wildness. Very cool. Okay. So four under five. Four under five have health issues and my children have some health issues and stuff too. And my husband works all the time and he's almost never home. And so I guess one of my questions is like, how do I navigate knowing like what, what is actual needs and what is okay to say my needs are to my husband when I

know he worked so hard for us, but at the same time, I feel like there's gotta be a balance of rest and quality time mixed in there. And like, I understand like we have a farm and he works construction and some other things, but like, I understand that farm life can be challenging and stuff. And I, we knew what we were getting into where we did this, but at the same time, I feel like I get the leftovers of him. Yeah. Man, there's a lot of places to start here. Why do you think, who told you that your needs have to be filtered through all these different filters that you've put on them. I think a big part of it is I've always been the sick kid that always caused money to cost money and took up way much more time and everyone always had to work harder for me.

So it's a lot of like trying to be as less of a burden as I am. So if nobody's ever told you this before, and I'm the first person to tell you this, I'm sorry. Hopefully other people have told you this. But you're not a burden. And respectfully, I'm going to ask you to never say those words out loud again because they're not true. Yeah, it's a constant struggle in my life. Yeah.

My mom was awesome and my husband. You said what? What health issues have you had? I don't have a label on it because it's really confusing, but it's kind of similar to like celiac and Crohn's. Okay. But it just. Just chronic IBS? Headaches. Okay. like celiac and Crohn's, but it just, just chronic IBS headaches and, um, and like crazy

severe allergies that are like step down from anaphylactic. Okay. So, Hey, I got a great idea. You should move to a farm. Oh, it's, it's honestly a huge help because of all my food allergies. Like we raise grass fed beef, organic-fed chicken, non-GMO pork, and it helps because we don't have to buy any of our meat. Okay. All right. My husband's just not great at balancing life and family and work. Yes. So you and I could go down a rabbit hole together that I think would be a distraction from the casual listener. So I will say this this way, and I feel pretty strongly about it.

Number one, a mother surrounded, a mother who's become a human jungle gym, which is what you are, right, can be dreadfully and sometimes frighteningly alone. Lonely. Okay? Definitely. That's number one. Loneliness. A woman who loves her husband. Your husband's a good guy, right?

Oh, yeah. He's awesome. Pretty amazing. Okay. And he's working his butt off. He's not hiding or running. He's not like sitting up in some... No, he's...

He's working his butt off. Okay. And he's probably trying to give you the life that y'all talked about having together, right? And you're trying to give him the life that y'all talked about having together. Yep. Yeah. And now we're in a dance, right?

You love somebody who's just at the edge of your fingertips that you see just in time for him to fade into a mist of sleep and right when you open your eyes he's getting up to walk out the door and get back at it. Yep.

Loneliness is such a biodysregulator. And it disrupts every part of your physical body. And so what I want to challenge you with is if you are paying as close attention to your diet as you do, and you are trying to create a less inflammatory state inside of you,

the first place I would start is with other people. Not the dream. And I know that's hard to say out loud. So can you explain what you mean by that? Yes. You are cashing in relationally. You've moved out to a farm.

You are missing your other half, literally, for this dream. And what I want to show you is this dream is costing you in your health, in your psychology, in your emotional regulation, and it is causing your body to eat itself from the inside out. Okay? And what's keeping this thing going is your dream.

And my guess is I could sit down with your husband who's in year one or year two or year three of working 20-hour days trying to keep this dream going. Pretty much since he was probably 16. Okay. Working like this. keep this dream going? Pretty much since he was probably 16. Okay. And I have hung out and loved and gone to church with and been friends with farmers who were very, very old and they left it all on the field, literally. Right. And so the question I want y'all to ask is, is your dream worth your health? Is your dream worth your family?

Is this life you're building worth where you're headed? And so to answer your original question is, your needs are always valid. And your needs are going to get in the way, if you will. And I hate to use that language, but they're going to be different than this cool picture that y'all have together. Like me and my wife, I'm making this up, but if we have some beautiful dream house that we want to build in the mountains and then I break my leg and my leg has to be amputated and I don't have wheelchair access, then the dream is going to have to be different. See what I'm saying?

Yeah. And it's not because I'm a burden. It's because life happened. It just is. And now we do something different. Yeah. Right? And so your needs count always.

I would say, in fact, I'm working on a new book right now. And the working chapter, so usually what happens is I write like a nerd, and then I let people read it, and they're like, we don't know what you're talking about. So the working title of this chapter is The Biology of Secrets. Ultimately, if you've got needs that you're not communicating, you're keeping secrets. And ultimately, secrets from the person you love

ends up being a really fancy way of saying you're being dishonest. Fair? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So I think it's really, really important that you sit down and say, here's what I need. I need you. And I would rather have you than this thing that we're trying to do.

I don't know. That's kind of my fear. I hate being the reason to mess things up. You're not. I love our dreams. And I feel like... Okay, can I be super mean? Can I be super mean?

You can say whatever you want. Being direct? You can mess up your health. You can mess up your interpersonal relationship with your children. You can mess up your marriage and keep this farm. Or you can choose to be whole. You can reimagine what your marriage is going to look like. You can be a solid piece for four under five.

And then y'all can figure out what's after that. You see what I'm saying? Like you're, you're putting the wrong, you're putting the U-Haul before the truck. Yeah. And you're trying to push it on the road. A lot of it is,

it's like hard for me to think about changing it. Cause it's my whole husband's life. And yeah, I, I, I reject because it's my whole husband's life. Yeah, I reject that. You are your husband's life. Yeah. And those kids are your husband's life. He's doing this stuff in service of y'all. Yeah.

So here's something that happened in my life. You've probably, I don't know if you read the book, my book, or you've listened to the show at all. You've probably heard of when I was working at a university, it was time for me to go. I was an anxious mess, I spun out. We ultimately took a $70,000 household income pay cut to leave that city and to go somewhere else. We didn't make that much money. It was devastating financially for us. It's not like we were making 300 grand and we had to suffer through making 230. It was tough. And the part of that story I don't tell is that in that gap when we were leaving,

there was a very real opportunity to become a vice president. And I was all in. And my wife sat me down for one of the first times in our marriage. And this was the beginning of us learning to re-communicate, to communicate in a way. And she said, please don't. I need you. And it was enough that she felt like if I go do this new job, it might be it, and so it was that moment, and I'm going to be honest with you, I was pretty upset. I was mad.

It's all I ever wanted was to be a vice president in this job at this particular place, but that's all I wanted. I've been working for that for a long time, and I got pissed off, and I kind of was like, I'm through a hissy fit because I was acting like a child, like an immature brat.

And now that I look back, I cannot tell you how grateful I am that she spoke her needs out loud. I feel like that's kind of like what happened to us just last week. I'm not good at speaking my needs, and my husband is not used to me speaking my needs or just assumed I did. And I finally said I couldn't do something that he really wanted to do and kind of shocked him because he wanted to go on this big trip over the weekend. And I'm like, okay, like I trust you as my husband, but if we go on this trip, you realize like I have to do all these things and I'm probably going to be emotional

wreck afterwards because I'm going to be worn out, which lowers my immune system and the kids, I'm going to have to catch them the entire time. Cause it's not a safe atmosphere and but he he wanted to do that but then i got sick so and that was probably i'm speaking out of turn here because i'm not a medical doctor but that was probably your body saying if you're not going to stop this madness i will yeah i feel like it was god trying to give them a hint it might have, but it could have just been your body being exhausted and worn out. Here's a cool thing. I say cool because it's going to involve tears

and it's going to involve frustration and it's going to involve practicing and trying new things that y'all have never done before. You are going to have to create space for your husband to think for a season that you have not been telling him the truth. And it hurts. Even though you haven't been telling him how you actually feel or what

you're experiencing to the fullest extent because you're trying to protect him, he has been working to the fullest extent to try to honor you. And there's going to come a collision there. Okay? Expect it. It's going to happen. Okay? Yeah. What needs to happen is he still has, I've worked really, really, really, really, really hard

and now we have a four-day weekend or a three-day weekend. Let's drive eight hours for seven hours of fun and drive eight hours back. This is super common when people have young kids. One person generally

is like, well, these kids have to eat and I'm the chief fuel source for two of them and one of them just rocket diarrhea is everywhere. You know what I mean? Somebody thinks through it and the other one just has like, let's go to the lake, dude. And so here's what we

have to do. We have to completely reimagine life. The life y'all had before does not exist anymore. It's over. Yep. The crazy farm life where he'd come work and he'd come home smelling a little bit, but it's kind of hot and kind of sexy. And you're like, ooh, there's my farmer.

That world is over. Right? Now, we got three kids, another one on the way. I still think he's sexy, but you should probably shower because I need you to help put the kids to bed. It just looks different now. And we have to reimagine what this looks like. We have to build a new world because if you keep trying to drag the past with you into the present, it causes resentment. And then people start doing stupid stuff when they resent each other.

Yeah. And you're going to resent him continuing to ask and he doesn't really know the full extent because you're not telling him the truth and he's going to resent you because he thinks you're just, like you become a burden and you're not a burden. But that's the way you're acting and that's the way it projects out into the world. I think that's the main reason

why I know I'm bad about thinking things aren't necessarily needs because I'm always trying to not be a problem. I think, I don't know, he just actually introduced me to your show two weeks ago.

Well, here we are. The most problematic thing you can do is not tell the truth. It's not been intentional. It's just realizing that I'm not. The most problematic thing you can do is not tell the truth. Yeah. It's not been intentional. I know. I know.

And I'm saying it mean and direct like that on purpose. Okay. I know you haven't been lying to him, but you haven't been telling him the full extent. And by hedging, like, I don't want him to fully understand how tough things are, or I can't do it like I used to, or I don't want to do it like I used to want him to fully understand how tough things are or I can't do it like I used to or I don't want to do it like I used to want to do it or we talked for 10 years about our farm, what it was going to look like

and we were going to have all this healthy foods and we've watched all the YouTube clips and now I kind of just want to move into a five bedroom house in a suburb and have neighbors and people I can go get eggs and sugar from without having to go to the chicken coop with two kids strapped to my back. Life changes.

The only thing you're doing right now is he feels that gap of, of you're not being transparent with him. You're not speaking your needs. He feels that gap and he thinks that gap is his fault. And so he's going to do the only thing he knows how to do, which is work harder and longer. Yeah. Am I right?

Yeah. I mean, I feel like, I don't know, maybe it's just a guy thing, but if he can't fix my problem, then it's just, yeah,

it frustrates him and he just works harder. That's right. and you're what what ultimately will happen is he will recognize in short order he's better at the farming stuff than he is at the husbanding stuff he's better at the farming stuff than he is at the kids stuff and he'll spend even more time there because that's where he feels efficacious that's where he feels like he knows what he's doing. And that happens with attorneys. It happens with people who run fast food restaurants. I'm just better at work. It happens here. I'm not very good at this show, but you should see me try to husband. I'm not good at that either. And so there's some days

I'm better at just reading articles and thinking up ways to talk about anxiety than I am sitting at the kitchen table, listening to my daughter tell me about dragon turtles that, you know, that eat. I don't know. I still don't know what we're talking about. I don't know how to do that. And so it's just like, I'm going to go get my computer out and read another article because I know how to do that. And I've got to learn to lean into the discomfort. And I can only do that when I'm tethered into my wife and we are connected, connected. So it's time for a truth telling time. And the way I would pitch this, you're new to the show. You and your husband need to get somebody to watch those kids,

all 17 of them. And you all need to have a half day retreat or a full day retreat and walk away and make three columns. What we dreamed about, let's be honest about what we wanted. We wanted a big, huge farm with a big, huge farmhouse. We wanted kids running around everywhere. We wanted these things. And then the middle column is, here's reality.

My body's falling apart. We wanted seven kids. I'm pregnant with number four and I'm starting to get sick a lot. And I'm having to feed two of these kids. And the third one is still, like, here's of these kids. And the third one is still like, here's where life is. And that third column is going to be, we got to reimagine what was, and we've got to have a new vision moving forward. It might be that you stay at the farm,

but you're gonna have to hire some help. And it might be that you stay at the farm, but he commits to coming home at five o'clock every day and not going back out to run hay in the dark. It might be fill in the blank, any number of those things that you need help four days a week with bedtime, with bath time, with breakfast time, with those things, you need those first and then we're gonna backfill work on the back end or you're gonna have to hire a housekeeper,

whatever it looks like. Here's what this looks like moving forward for us. And my promise to you is he's going to exhale too. Just like I did. Your needs always count. His do too. And the magic of being married is y'all figure out how can I do whatever it takes to meet your needs

while you're doing everything you can do to meet my needs. And that often means doing different things than either one of us would have cooked up. And that, my friend, is the beauty of it all. 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 homebuyer 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 that's been helping people with their home mortgages for decades. And their home buyer edge program will help you skip a bunch of the stress. Here's how it works. Apply to become a Churchill certified home buyer and cap your interest rate We'll be right back. Check them out at churchillemortgage.com slash deloney and get the home buyer edge today. All right, we're back. Let's take Unimas. Let's go to Jen back out in Roanoke. What's up, Jen? Hi, how are you?

I'm partying. How about you? Not so much partying. I'm not either. I just lied to you. I'm not partying. I'm like sitting at work, like the furthest thing from partying. I've got water in my cup.

Okay. So what's up? I have a 21-year-old daughter who has recently attempted suicide twice. Man, I'm so sorry. Yeah, it's been rough. Is she at home? Where's she at? She is

actually in North Carolina right now working at a summer camp because she didn't want to be home all summer. Okay. Um, she's all grown up, you know, she doesn't,

she doesn't need her mom. How old is she? 21. Okay. Is there any history of this at all? Um, she had a history of cutting when she was younger and we did counseling and medication and things like that and watched her very carefully and thought that it was under control. Apparently, when she went away to school, she was about a six-hour drive away from us at college, and apparently she started cutting again when she got there, and we didn't know.

She was very good at hiding what she was going through, apparently. Okay. What was the, did you ever get a diagnostic underneath the cutting? Because cutting's a relatively benign behavior unless it's attached to, like when somebody says, hey, my kid's cutting, my heart rate doesn't get up. I usually want to know more, but this sounds like it was enough of a disruption that you all sought professional help. Was she ever diagnosed with anything? Not that I was told from the counselor or anything like that.

It was just a depressive anxiety disorder. Well, that's a diagnostic. Well, that's a diagnostic. She's got an anxiety disorder or a major depressive disorder. That's a big deal. Yeah, sorry. So what has led to

like what would she say if she was to articulate it to you when you've talked to her, what would she say led to her attempting to die by suicide twice? The first time she did not get into the law school she wanted to get into. Okay. And she was having a struggle with her roommates.

One of them had been her best friend and she got a boyfriend and didn't have time for my daughter anymore and that whole story. She just was feeling very lonely and isolated and unhappy. Of course, when I talked to her, everything's great,

but it wasn't. That time, she cut herself right down the forearm with a razor blade. Yeah. I didn't know it was a suicide attempt at the time. I was told that she felt like she wanted to hurt herself and went to the hospital. So I didn't know until she came home that she had even done that. Who classified that as a suicide attempt?

The counselor that saw her after the second one. Okay. I never had any contact with the doctors or counselors from the first one. Okay. I didn't know anything. When she's 21 with HIPAA, it's hard to get any information. Yeah, you can't get any unless she signs it. She wouldn't sign over?

No. That's tough. Yeah. That's tough. Tough, tough, tough, tough. So ask me your direct question. I don't want to start answering questions that you're not asking

I'd like to know what we can do as a family around her to prevent this from happening again nothing I honestly was afraid I mean she's taking you out of her life

you can can I ask you a really hard hard question? when you look back she's 21 and you look back in the rear view mirror this is a really hard question I got two kids okay so understand my heart behind while I'm asking

this question has there been environments in the home that have contributed to her feeling untethered? Her father and I divorced when she was eight. Okay. Because of his alcoholism. Okay.

And he wasn't very connected to the kids. Okay. And she told me she did open up one day a little bit and said that she and her brother felt like they were alone during that time. Yep. And I tried to explain to her, you know, that we were all going through that. And I really was trying the best that I could. Yeah. But.

Most of the time. When was that she talked to you about that? Just a few weeks ago before she left to go to North Carolina. Okay. I'm going to tell you something crazy. That's actually a beautiful moment that you have. Okay. So I'm going to walk back what I just said a minute ago about nothing. Okay. Okay. Here's what she desperately needs to hear. And I'm not saying this is curative. This isn't preventative. Let's take those things off the table.

The ramifications here are so big that it can be paralyzing. Yeah. And the guilt that you feel that you should have fill in the blank is overwhelming, right? Oh, yeah. Okay. So you have to, what do you do for a living? I'm a psych nurse. No, you're not. I am. And I volunteer as an EMT. Um, so you know what, you know, like before you called me. Okay, so. But I was hoping that you had some new insight.

I do, I do, I do, I do, I do. My promise to you is I do. Your guilt is going to be X-fold the normal person on the street. Yeah. Because you not only think I should have done some things differently, but you think I should have been the one to stop this. I should have known. That's right. I should have done some things differently, but you think I should have been the one to stop this. I should have known. That's right. I should have seen it. So here's what you got to do. You got to own

that. You have to acknowledge it and you got to set that crap down, sister, because that's going to prevent you from reconnecting moving forward. The path forward is reconnection. Okay? So the only thing I'm going to get on to you about and I'm going to do it like you and I are sitting on the same side of the booth eating nachos, okay? So, it's not me getting on to you like, you dummy.

It's not like that. I know. It's me. You gave me a picture that I want to push on, okay? Okay. When your daughter comes to you in a relatively fragile state and says, we grew up in a wild house. Yeah. And growing up in the home of an alcoholic. I mean, you know that.

You know the data on that. It's madness, right? The way that ping pongs through a child's body. And then you add the divorce on top of that. And then you add that existential question. What is so bad about me that dad chose that over the bottle over me? Yeah. That he chose those other women over me. Is this going to happen to me like it happened to mom? And then let's be honest, there was seasons when you were just trying to survive. And then a nine-year-old or a 14-year-old, they want to know, where's mom? Yeah.

Or why is mom's door shut again? Why is she crying? Oh, crap. That must be me. We must have been too loud. I must have not got the right grade, right? That's not a fault thing. That's the way kids are wired.

Okay? Yeah. So when your 21-year-old daughter comes to you and is vulnerable for the first time, say the words, I'm sorry. Not, no, I was there too.

Okay. Okay. Here's what we're going for. Connection, not being right. The facts do not matter. Right. She is trying with all she has to plug in to something that will hold because nothing in her life has ever held.

Okay. So here, if I'm you, this is not, I'm not giving you some kind of deep medical advice. You know that more than I do. You're a psych nurse for crying out loud. You know way more about that than me. I'm going to tell you, talking to you just parent to parent, okay? And working with countless college students in this exact situation. If I'm you, I would drive down to North Carolina. I would make a trip and I would say, hey, can I have an hour for coffee? And I would start that conversation with, I was wrong the other day when you called and I'm sorry.

I want nothing more in my life than to meet and know and love my daughter. And I spent a lot of years trying to survive and now I'm gonna spend the rest of my life reconnecting with the most important two people on the planet to me and let's start there and what we're doing is we're not looking for

clinical things and you should be feeling this we're looking for hi how are you today I miss you. I've been driving her crazy with text messages. I know you have. I know you have. I know you have.

Here's what I don't like about her trajectory is cutting's not a big deal until it is. And there is Dr. Joyner's is, cutting's not a big deal until it is, right? Right. And there is, Dr. Joyner's got some exquisite work on cutting. Dying by suicide is such a violation of a body, of a person's body,

that there has to be some sort of ramp up to it. And so cutting, for lack of better terms, can be practicing. I'm practicing hurting, and I'm going to push that line. I'm going to push that line. I'm going to push that line. And either my dad, who was a SWAT hostage negotiator, so when someone's going to take their life, they call my dad in. He would often say someone would climb up on a ledge of a hotel and be about to jump, and he said, I knew within a minute they didn't want to jump. I was

worried they were going to fall off. And that's what we're worried about here. I don't think your daughter wants to die. God, I hope not. Nothing you've told me suggests that. I think she wants to feel something that is real. Yeah. She told me when she talked to her dad before she went to North Carolina that he hugged her and that it was the first time in her life she felt like he meant it.

And that new set of emotions is unmooring. Like it's overwhelming for a body and I just need that to stop for a minute. I can't control that. That's new feelings for me. And cutting reestablishes control. Yes. I didn't realize she'd been doing it until she had the second attempt.

She overdosed, and when I went to the hospital, I found places on her legs where she'd been doing it again and again and again. Yeah. So your daughter is not a problem to fix at this point. Right. She is somebody to be with.

And as a psych nurse, you're going to have to turn that down a little bit. And she doesn't need another nurse. She needs her mom. Yeah. And that's going to be used doing things probably different than you've ever done.

No defense, no coming out swinging. And by the way, you've been married to an alcoholic. Yeah. Who left your family. Like you've been through trauma too. Oh yeah.

Yeah. There's a huge other hole for me. We could go down. That's right. But listen. That, yeah. There's a huge other hole for me. We could go down there. That's right. But listen, very, very common. My guess is if your boss calls out a performance issue, you are nuclear. And if your

neighbors call out something like, your lawn is nuclear. Nuclear. Sounds like George W. Bush. And my guess is when your daughter called something out in the home, here's the way I feel. Your body

responded before your head did. I tend to lead with angry. There you go. And it's an honest place to come from, and I get that. What would be a great gift is to tell your daughter, I usually lead with anger

and I'm sorry. You need your mama and I'm here. And I know from past counseling that that's because I have a hard time being vulnerable and anger is easier. Yep.

Well, I don't know if it's easier. It just points you in a direction of something you care about but being vulnerable is hard. Being vulnerable gets you I don't know if it's easier. It just points you in a direction of something you care about, but being vulnerable is hard. Being vulnerable gets you killed. Yeah. You did that once. You fell in love with a guy,

and he left, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, and not to mention, you do trauma for a living, so you sit in other people's, literally,

in their blood for a living. Oh, yeah. You're in it 24-7, man. Your poor brain is just, it's like a, like that game pong back in the day, right? It's like a ping pong. It's like a tennis match going on up there. And so you've got a lot going on in your body. Is your daughter under psychiatric care right now? Yes. Okay. I would ask again,

and she might say no, and tell her, you don't have to do this. Say, for your mom's sake, I'd love to walk alongside this with you. And if you don't want me involved in the medical part and all that kind of stuff, I understand.

But my promise to you is I'm not going to be angry anymore. I'm going to love my baby girl. It would probably help if you wrote this down and read it. And maybe even practice it in front of a mirror, in front of a friend. But we are doing a control alt delete on you and your daughter's relationship moving forward. Okay? Okay.

Are you in? I'm in. Okay? Okay. Are you in? I'm in. Okay. College students have a very, college students, that age group has a very distorted perception of time as though if you take a semester off, everything is over.

Right? I can't even count the number of semesters off I took. I said, convincing students and their parents, just take a semester off, go get a job, go see a counselor, get your meds leveled out and then come back to school. It's like super fine. When you're 25, you won't even know this happened.

I worked with law students really close. It was end of time. I didn't get into law school X and Y and then they ended up at law school Z and things are great. Their whole life is different, right? But right now in that moment, it feels super real, and data and info

don't help. What helps is, I'm so, so sorry. And she only applied to one law school, the one at the college that she's at. She graduated with her bachelor's a year early. She took on so much in three years she graduated with her bachelor's a year early. She took on so much in three years that she got her bachelor's a year early.

A very common response to the child of an alcoholic is looking in the mirror and saying, he chose this over me. I'll give him something to choose me about. Oh, that's so sad. It is, it's heartbreaking. I will be so perfect. I will make such straight a's and the crappy part is if a kid chooses drugs we've got systems for that if a kid chooses straight a's as a defense mechanism they get praised we we just reinforce it over and over

and then they run up against failure which which Steve Jobs got fired, right? Everybody fails. But when failure, when that achievement is the cheap proxy for love for my dad and I don't reach, it's devastating.

Yeah. See what I'm saying? This wasn't just not getting into law school this is dad not loving me all over again and she mentioned she has a younger half-sister who's eight and she she mentioned that during the same conversation that she feels like he treats her differently than than she was treated at that age and say say you're right. I'm so sorry. 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 yeah and make sure she knows his alcoholism was a pro it was his issue not yours

and my goodness he missed out on a wonderful, extraordinary woman. Oh, he did. Yeah. But that was his problem, not hers. Yeah. And thank God we're not there yet. I've talked to women who get divorced from men who are idiots and they go on, the men go on to grow up and get a job and get stable and they marry somebody else. And there's that rage and anger.

And then it eventually turns to, thank God somebody's getting to experience the part of that guy that I loved with a guy that will actually bathe and go to work. There will come a moment when your daughter will look at her stepsister and say, she's getting full dad, which is awesome. I'm glad she's not getting what I got.

And she's not gonna be there for a awesome. I'm glad she's not getting what I got. And she's not going to be there for a while. Right? That's okay. That's going to be a long time. He gave her the same nickname. He always called my daughter a little bit and he's been calling the younger sister a little bit instead of my daughter and it's like she's replaced her.

Yeah. And your husband's probably trying to breathe and he is trying, he has a hole the size of your daughter in his heart that he will never be able to fill up.

Good. Nope. No. No. Not helpful. I know, I know, I know. I know. I'm trying to get along

with him so that we can. Let me tell you this. Yeah, do this. Here's what I want you to do. I'm going to give you an exercise, okay? Okay. And maybe do it with your Here's what I want you to do. I'm going to give you an exercise, okay? Okay. And maybe do it with your daughter,

but I want you to do it at home first. I want you to get four or five things that you're super pissed off about, that you get really angry about when you think about them. Okay? You probably have a list of 20. I want you to just get four or five

of the best ones. And I want you to get a piece of masking tape or duct tape. And I want you to tape them to actual cinder blocks. I want you to go to Home Depot or Lowe's or something and get some cinder blocks. And tape them to them. And then I want you to carry that around for a while, one at a time. Just carry it on.

Set a timer for 10 minutes. And then when the timer goes off, set it down. And don't pick it back up. And when you set it down, your back's going to actually ache. And your arms will burn. And so that pain of

that you think that anger's protecting you, it's not. It's keeping you from taking a full breath. I know. Set it down. And when the burning stops, you will feel light and you'll feel good. Right? Yeah.

Practice this. Being less angry is a skill that you learn. It's not a moral issue. Just stop. Practice it. Okay? I want you to lean into this. So hear me say about your daughter. She has to be under care of a psychiatric professional. I do not like the trajectory

she's on. I think she's in a dangerous trajectory. I don't like it. She's putting puzzle pieces together about dad and about this new little girl and she's going from cutting to cutting where it's a borderline attempt to then I'm taking pills. That is a bad trajectory. And when we're looking at suicidality, we're looking at trajectory.

Our behavior's escalating and hers are. I don't like the way she's isolating herself. But she did reach out. She did reach out. She doesn't need a bunch of math facts from her mom. She just needs to know she's not crazy. She needs to know that she's loved and she needs to know that she's anchored into somebody who's working towards reaching back out. Okay. She also probably needs medication. She also needs to be

surrounded by professional care. If she goes back to school somewhere, she needs to be plugged in with all of the school resources, if at all possible. And at some point, hopefully she signs a release and allows you into those conversations. Not for you to go solve it

and to direct traffic for her. She's a grown woman. Not for you to go solve it and to direct traffic for her. She's a grown woman. But for you to sit with her and hold her hand and say, hey, I think they need to get, there's this resource available for you. Or I'll walk alongside you because this one's going to be hard. And there's going to be some trauma healing. There's going to be a path to walk here. But she needs her mom.

Okay? So let's set down this crap, set it down. Let's be about reconnecting. She's lucky to have you own what was, and then be about what comes next. Stay on the line. I'm going to send you a copy of my latest book and I want you to read it and maybe even pass it along to her. If you find some value in it. Okay. Hang on the line and Jenna, we'll get you hooked up. We'll be right back. We are back.

Hey, thank you so much for hanging out with us today on the show. As we wrap up today's show, man, that's a great band. Switchfoot, fantastic band. It's another phenomenal song here. The song's called Meant to Live, and it goes like this. Fumbling his confidence and wondering why the world has passed him by, hoping that he's bent for more than arguments and failed attempts to fly. We were meant to live for so much more.

Have we lost ourselves? Somewhere we live inside and we were meant to live for so much more. Somewhere we live inside. We want more than this world's got to offer. And everything inside screams for second life. That's what we're doing here, kids. Thank you for being with us. We'll see you soon.

Coming up on the next episode, and we are celebrating today, episode 300. Is that right? Can you believe it, Kelly? No, I can't believe we've been allowed to stay on air this long. It's unbelievable. You haven't gotten us canceled yet.

I have not gotten... What do the kids call them? The AMAs. AMAs. The Ask Me Anythings. Question number one. Worst band ever? Smashing Pumpkins.

That's not even a question. I just asked myself anything, and that was the answer I gave.