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Transcript 10,961 words · 5 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:05 Speaker 00 We got pregnant in the first month.
0:07 Dr. John Delony? First month?
0:08 Speaker 00 First month, and then we didn't slow down. We had two more back to back. She tells me kinda how miserable she is, how much she hates her life, and ultimately, how much she regrets being a mom.
0:20 Dr. John Delony? This with her is a five alarm fire.
0:30 Dr. John Delony? Yo, what's going on? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show, coming to you from Nashville, Tennessee, talking to real people about real challenges in their life, your mental health, your emotional health, your relationships, whatever you've got going on, I'm here to help. If you want to be on the show, click the link in the show notes, whatever that thing is. We used to have phone numbers, and then we got super sophisticated, went to emails, and now we're just clicking the link in the show notes. Welcome, end of time. All right, let's go to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and talk to Michael. Hey, Michael, what's up, brother?
1:03 Speaker 00 Hey, John, how you doing?
1:04 Dr. John Delony? I'm good, man. What's up?
1:06 Speaker 00 Oh, not much. My question today is, how can I best support my wife as a mom who is struggling with depression and anxiety and not go crazy myself?
1:17 Dr. John Delony? Ooh, man, that was a tough one. Tell me about, um, tell me about all of it first, and then we can kinda pull it apart a little bit.
1:26 Speaker 00 All right. Well, we got married right out of college, so she was 23 and I was 22.
1:32 Dr. John Delony? Okay, how many years ago was that?
1:34 Speaker 00 Six years ago.
1:35 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
1:36 Speaker 00 And then we got pregnant in the first month.
1:39 Dr. John Delony? First month?
1:41 Speaker 00 First month. And then, uh...
1:44 Dr. John Delony? On purpose?
1:45 Speaker 00 We didn't...
1:45 Dr. John Delony? Or like whoopsie do?
1:48 Speaker 00 It wasn't on purpose, but...
1:50 Dr. John Delony? But it wasn't not on purpose?
1:52 Speaker 00 Yeah, that's right.
1:53 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
1:53 Speaker 00 That's right. We wouldn't change it now, but certainly hard.
1:57 Dr. John Delony? You have to say that since you have a kid. We would have never changed anything, because we got, we got sweet Billy, but I got you. Okay, all right. So you get married really, really young, and then ta-da, you, uh, we're rocking on to the break of dawn, and here comes baby, pregnancy month one, right?
2:14 Speaker 00 Yep.
2:15 Dr. John Delony? Yeesh.
2:15 Speaker 00 And then we, and then, and then we didn't slow down. We had two more back to back.
2:20 Dr. John Delony? You know how this happens, right?
2:23 Speaker 00 We heard that a lot.
2:24 Dr. John Delony? Okay, all right. All right. So y'all are just Pez dispensing these kids?
2:28 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah. Well, we've slowed down since then, but at one point, I was 25 and we had three kids under three. So today, we've got a four-year-old, a three-year-old, and a two-year-old. And as you can imagine, it's pretty chaotic and the wife's having a hard time.
2:50 Dr. John Delony? Absolutely.
2:52 Speaker 00 She stays home with them.
2:53 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
2:54 Speaker 00 And I have a good job, so it's not really an option to make a change there. But she stays home with them and it's really hard for her to stay positive. She, I think she feels lonely and disconnected. So she tells me during the day via text, kind of how miserable she is, how much she hates her life, and ultimately, how much she regrets being a mom.
3:20 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
3:22 Speaker 00 And so what we did when that all started was...
3:27 Dr. John Delony? How long ago did she start texting you that kind of stuff?
3:30 Speaker 00 About a year and a half, year ago, right after the third one was born.
3:34 Dr. John Delony? And when you come home and you talk to her, how do those conversations go?
3:40 Speaker 00 Um, not always well. You know, so part of the deal is like, I'm at work all day and I'm trying to focus on clients and I'm getting texts, "Hey, this sucks. This is terrible." So I'm set up to come home to this crappy household where everybody's grumpy and it's not fair to the kids.
4:04 Dr. John Delony? Well, she's beyond grumpy.
4:07 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:08 Dr. John Delony? Okay, so just calling her grumpy is a big disservice. And I know what you're trying, and I know what you mean. Like, you could walk into a dark cloud, right?
4:15 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:16 Dr. John Delony? And you could have the most engaged, connected, tethered, like, surrounded by community, well...
4:24 Dr. John Delony? Family system and walk into a house with a four year old and a three year old and two year old and somebody screaming, right?
4:29 Speaker 00 Yeah.
4:30 Dr. John Delony? So even in the best case scenario, this is just a very chaotic season. Or to put it in a, like a non-parenting way, we just had this wild week of ice storms here in Nashville a few months ago. That's what you're in right now. There's nothing to do. You can't go anywhere. Your power's off. It's just miserable and you gotta, you gotta ride it out, right? And how, and so you have to ask yourself, how do we ride out in the most positive way? Let me back out of here for a second. Was your wife struggling with depression, anxiety when you met her? Is this, is this a long term thing or is this really just started compounding on her?
5:06 Speaker 00 Uh, it was long term, but it really got a lot worse.
5:10 Dr. John Delony? Well, to be expected, but tell me about how she's struggled with it in the past. What has she done to, to work through some of this stuff or to manage some of this stuff? Tell me about that.
5:21 Speaker 00 Uh, well, I don't think she really managed much of it in the past. She kind of just ignored it. Um, and so she distracts herself a lot with her phone. She's on her phone or, uh, something we did is we were really intentional about getting her out of the house. Uh, I don't think I would ever change that, but, um.
5:40 Dr. John Delony? What does that mean?
5:42 Speaker 00 She just never, um, we're, we're really intentional about getting her time away from the kids and out of the house. So in the evenings she'll go to the gym or she'll go hang out with her friends and, um, those are good things, but I don't think she's ever come to grips with, I have to be at home with my kids.
6:01 Dr. John Delony? Well, A, well, let me say this. If those kind of text messages started, um, after your third, like it sounds like when your third was an infant, huh? Does that sound right?
6:17 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:18 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Did she ever get diagnosed with postpartum? Did she ever get diagnosed with any type of depression or anxiety or is she just Googling that and diagnosing herself?
6:27 Speaker 00 The latter.
6:29 Dr. John Delony? Okay, okay. What, what I would tell you is, um, and what, what do you do for a living?
6:34 Speaker 00 Uh, CPA, so tax accountant.
6:37 Dr. John Delony? Okay. So you are, I'm gonna generalize you, tell me if I'm wrong.
6:43 Dr. John Delony? You like systems and you like procedures and you like to know what information goes in what box and you like to see a problem, a complex estate and you like to solve it. Is that fair?
6:55 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:56 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Those, that, that approach to solving problems will dump gasoline on this fire. And so you, as her husband, are gonna have to basically be opposite Michael for a season. Okay? And that's gonna be very counterintuitive for you.
7:15 Speaker 00 Yeah.
7:17 Dr. John Delony? Right, it's gonna be hard. And so, and let me put it another way. Can we say over the last four years with all of the changes you've had and the way you've been about trying to love and support your wife with the tools you have in your toolkit, has that worked?
7:33 Speaker 00 Not remarkably well.
7:36 Dr. John Delony? No, it hasn't. And in fact, it seems to be escalating. And so there's something humbling about, and, and I would say this is the true mark, the true mark of masculinity, is I have reached the end of a toolset and so I'm gonna go get the tools that I need, I'm gonna go do different things that are situationally specific. Some things I need to use my muscles and some things I need to use my brain and some things I need to use the most tenderest, kindest, empathetic parts of me. Right? And so what I'm gonna tell you is the things you gotta do ahead, you don't have in your toolkit right now, and that's all good. None of us did when we were 26 years old with, I mean, I didn't have this many kids,
8:20 Dr. John Delony? but I'm still trying the best I can to get new tools on a daily, daily, weekly basis. Okay? So it's not an indictment of you, but it's you just saying, okay, cool. The things I've been trying to do to solve this problem aren't working. But I wanna tell you, this with her is a five alarm fire. Okay? This is a really big deal. And handling it with that level of respect, I think, is important moving forward. Okay?
8:51 Speaker 00 Yeah.
8:52 Dr. John Delony? And she's not on the phone, so I'm just taking what you said, and I'm sure she's got a story here too. But she has to go sit with a professional ASAP.
9:06 Speaker 00 Yeah.
9:07 Dr. John Delony? Okay. And this is not you coming home and saying, or getting off this call and texting her back saying, "I talked to Dr. Deloney on the phone. He said you have to go see somebody." That's not it. It's you coming home tonight and possibly you taking dinner, you taking bedtimes or whatever, and you telling her, "I want to have a very serious, direct conversation, a hard conversation with you, because I love you." And you saying, "I haven't shown up for you in the ways that you need, and I feel powerless, so I'm gonna go get some new tools. I'm gonna ask you, please, because I love you. It's time for you to go see somebody."
9:52 Dr. John Delony? And she might reject you, she might say, "No way," or whatever, but at least what you're trying to do here is use all I-words and give her an invitation, not a bunch of "you need tos" and "you shoulds" and "you have tos." Because right now, her escaping from her family is just that, it's escape.
10:08 Speaker 00 Yeah.
10:09 Dr. John Delony? It's not healing from the inside out. What does her community look like? Does she have a gang of young moms that she connects with?
10:17 Speaker 00 She does, but I think they're fairly surface level.
10:21 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
10:21 Speaker 00 Um, it's hard to be vulnerable with people when you're really struggling.
10:27 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
10:27 Speaker 00 You know?
10:28 Dr. John Delony? Well, and if she's truly struggling with depression, um, or even anxiety, it does become self-reinforcing, right? I can't fully tell people, "What's going on in my heart and head? Because they're gonna look bad at me, think I'm a bad mom, they're gonna try to take away my kids." And then you get more silent, which then dumps more gasoline on that fire, right? And you become less known by the people closest to you, right?
10:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, yeah.
10:52 Dr. John Delony? Uh, why is, why, has she been resistant to going to see somebody in the past?
10:56 Speaker 00 No, so she does go see somebody.
10:58 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Oh, so she's doing it, okay, great.
11:00 Speaker 00 Yeah, and I do a lot of the things at home already, so it's not like I'm saying, "This is your problem, go fix it."
11:09 Dr. John Delony? No, I got that, I hear you, I hear you. So, when she's seeing somebody, how long has she been seeing somebody?
11:16 Speaker 00 Um, about three, four months.
11:18 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
11:19 Speaker 00 Well, maybe six months.
11:21 Dr. John Delony? And has there been any change at all? Or is she just going there and vomiting up how bad everything is and then coming home?
11:27 Speaker 00 I think there's a lot of vomiting.
11:28 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Then it's time for her to go see a different therapist.
11:34 Dr. John Delony? Because I'm sick and tired of I my life has been changed from the inside out. My nervous system has been changed from sitting with a great therapist. And I'm sick of people going to see therapist and all they do is vomit and vomit and vomit and vomit. They just and they let's talk about your problems, talk about your problems, talk about your problems without a directive action plan because your actions you take outside of that counseling office are what matters. The vulnerability matters, the connecting with a therapist matters, of course it does. But a therapist needs to give you an action plan.
12:18 Dr. John Delony? A get off your phone for 30 days, I'm gonna walk with you through this.
12:22 Speaker 00 Sure.
12:24 Dr. John Delony? A I want to see three you have three friends that you invite over to your messy house and commit to these three things, let's practice what you're gonna say to me, I'll practice as your therapist, I'll practice with you on being vulnerable, being open, and you're gonna find that the most of the mothers in that room go, oh, thank God, I thought I was the only one too. Right? That it's practicing those interactions and then going out into the world and doing them, not just sitting there ruminating over misery. Does that make sense?
12:55 Speaker 00 Yeah, it does.
12:58 Dr. John Delony? Um, when you ask her, how can I love you? What does she say?
13:01 Speaker 00 Well, I think she says I do I do that already, you know? I give her lots of space to go out, um, I I do nice things for her, I get her things, I make her feel loved. Um, I think she's just having a really hard time. I we're a team, we're not I'm I don't I don't have any questions or doubts that we're have we have a really strong marriage.
13:27 Dr. John Delony? Oh, I don't I don't doubt that at all either. I I'm I'm hearing from you and tell me if I'm wrong, like, you're doing all the right stuff. It's it's incredible.
13:36 Speaker 00 Yeah.
13:37 Dr. John Delony? You're doing everything you know to do, which is great, and
13:42 Dr. John Delony? There's a powerless feeling because my wife is still drowning.
13:46 Speaker 00 Yes.
13:47 Dr. John Delony? Right?
13:49 Dr. John Delony? And so here's the next step, and this is gonna sound nutty, and you're gonna tell me you don't have time, and you're an accountant, and we're taking this call at the end of March, and so I know you're in the don't even know what day it is season, right?
14:03 Speaker 00 Yeah.
14:03 Dr. John Delony? So give yourself a few more weeks, and then I want you to go see somebody.
14:10 Speaker 00 Okay.
14:11 Dr. John Delony? Because you're-
14:12 Speaker 00 That's a round of a box.
14:13 Dr. John Delony? Well, you're starting to carry a lot of shame. I should be able tos, and I need to be able tos, and that comes out in little bits of frustration, little bits of, well, you need to, and why didn't you? And it comes out in problem solving mode instead of deeper connection.
14:30 Dr. John Delony? Right? And so the greatest gift you can give her right now is not a, I've doing all these things on this checklist, but I'm fully whole and present here.
14:39 Dr. John Delony? So asking the question, what do you want our house to feel like when you walk in the door? How do we get there?
14:46 Dr. John Delony? What must be true?
14:48 Dr. John Delony? And besides not having three kids, four, three, and two, right? That's, that is an is, right? It's like, how do I become a better basketball player? Well, I need to grow a foot. Well, that's not gonna happen. I need to be able to jump higher. I got the jumps I got.
15:02 Dr. John Delony? So given this context, what can we do to create peace and space? And by, and not even peace and space, I said that wrong. Connection with real people, well, we are not performing anymore. And for her, I almost, like, based on what you've told me, and just my conversations with jillions of people, I think that that space is gonna begin, she can first practice that space with a good therapist, a good psychologist, a good counselor.
15:32 Dr. John Delony? And from there, she'll take those skills and be rooted and to use my word grounded, so that she can tell a couple of women at her house, here's what I'm really feeling and thinking. And if they don't want to be there, they get to leave. But that's not going to change my reality right now. My reality is chaotic. Or they might say, yeah, we've been there. Here's a couple of ideas we have, or let us reach out and do this. And it becomes amazing. There's a woman right now who drops her baby off at our house, um, once a week, or maybe twice a week. And it's, my wife just loves holding babies for an hour or two. She loves it. I do too, but I'm at work. And this other mom gets to go do some stuff. There is going to be people all around you guys, once the vulnerability starts, but it might not be in your church, especially it might not be in your small group.
16:17 Dr. John Delony? It might be at another church, at another place, at another building, people that you work with, or whatever. But it's going to start with y'all sitting down and saying, hey, let's clear the deck of all the things we think we have to do, other than feed and water our children. Where do we have peace? And where can we create peace here? And what does that look like for you? And I'm going to go see somebody to get some new skills about emotions and about communication, about being present. And I would like you to do the same, to find a new person that can give us some action steps so we can move forward. You're a, you're a great man. A great man, Michael. And it's an honor to talk to great men like you. The next phase is saying, okay, what I've been doing isn't working. I'm going to go get some new skills.
17:02 Dr. John Delony? And getting new skills is always humbling, and it's always scary. And it's almost always life giving on the back end. And, um, to any mom who's at home with really young kids and just feels like it's all coming down on you, I'm just telling you, connection, connection, connection, finding places where you can say the things that are on your heart, in your spirit, in your mind. And getting some real help with real tangible things throughout your day, throughout your week, not just escaping on a phone, escaping once a week with friends. But how do I be present and rooted here? And get the help I need.
17:46 Dr. John Delony? Thanks for the call, brother. When we come back, a woman asks if she should just quote unquote, know if getting engaged is right or not. Ah, I can't wait.
17:57 Dr. John Delony? Summer's here and some of my favorite days are being out on the water with my wife, my daughter, my son, and getting our fishing on. And if you fish, or if you spend time out on the water, or if you're just driving in the bright sun, you know that glare can be brutal on your eyes. And when you're fishing and you're trying to see where the fish are, by the end of the day, your eyes are cooked. That's why my whole family loves Shady Rays, especially their fishing sunglasses. They're polarized, which means they cut the glare and actually let you see into the water, not just on the surface, but into the water. And it makes a huge difference. They protect your eyes, they're durable, and they're built
18:39 Dr. John Delony? for everyday real life. And let me just say this, I've lost or broken more sunglasses than I can even possibly remember. Shady Rays has lost and broken protection, so if something happens, they're gonna replace them. That means I'm not stressed about wearing them in the middle of the lake, or when I'm doing yard work, or I'm just trying to look cool for my wife. So if you fish, get sunglasses made for fishing. Or if you're just gonna be outside, check out Shady Rays and their entire collection. Head to shady rays.com and use code DELONY for 40% off two or more polarized sunglasses. That's right, shady rays.com, use code DELONY.
19:23 Dr. John Delony? Winter is finally over, and now I can go outside. I can go outside and not freeze to death. And this also means it's time for me to rotate my closet. My Poncho flannels and denims that I wear almost every day of my life, they're going to the back of the closet. And the Poncho originals and ultralights are moving center stage. That's right, no matter what time of the year, I'm almost always wearing Poncho. I've been wearing Poncho shirts for years because they're the best. The original is that go anywhere performance shirt, lightweight, breathable, quick drying, built for being out on the lake, being out at the beach, going to dinner. It's amazing. It can cover all parts of your life.
20:06 Dr. John Delony? And the ultralight has that same great fit with an even lighter feel. That's why they call it the ultralight, duh. But listen, when it gets hot like it does in Tennessee, the ultralight shirt rules. Poncho shirts have stretch, they move with you, and even though they're light and soft, they are super tough. And like I said, you can wear them anywhere. Working in the yard, out doing adventures in the wilderness, or to dinner. And they're comfortable enough to wear all day. If warmer weather has you ready to reshuffle your closet, I want you to go to ponchooutdoors.com/deloney and check out all of their styles. Get 10 bucks off your first purchase, just sign up with your email. That's ponchooutdoors.com/deloney.
20:49 Dr. John Delony? Alright, let's go to San Diego, California and talk to Elizabeth. Hey Elizabeth, what's up?
20:55 Speaker 02 Hi, how are you, Dr. John?
20:57 Dr. John Delony? I'm doing so good, how are you?
21:00 Speaker 02 Oh, I'm okay, a little nervous.
21:02 Dr. John Delony? Well, I'm glad you're here. What's up?
21:04 Speaker 02 Thank you. I have a question. So, I recently got engaged and I'm wondering if I made the right decision. Is it true that you're just supposed to know if it's right? My fiance is so incredibly confident while I have a ton of anxiety and fear, which just makes me question everything, but I'm also scared of losing a good thing.
21:25 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, um, no, that's nonsense. The quote-unquote "you'll just know." That is a Hollywood tale, as old as time, and it's a fantasy, it's not real. Some people absolutely knew. If you ask my wife, she saw me playing guitar on a stage, a thing when she was a freshman in college, and she said, "I'm gonna marry that guy."
21:50 Dr. John Delony? I was walking down the aisle thinking, "What have I done? What am I doing?" Okay?
21:58 Dr. John Delony? So the question you have to ask yourself is, Les, how do I feel about this thing? Feelings are really important data, really important information. So if you're scared and anxious, it's really important that you write down what you're actually scared about, what you're actually anxious about, and ask yourself, "Are these true or not?"
22:15 Speaker 02 Hmm.
22:15 Dr. John Delony? Okay? And so give me a couple of examples of what you're scared of, what you're anxious about.
22:24 Speaker 02 I think, right now, I don't feel consistently excited or certain. I think I, um, my anxiety increases when I think about the future.
22:38 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
22:39 Speaker 02 I feel like-
22:40 Dr. John Delony? Hold on, let's stop, let's stop there. Let's pull these apart, okay? Because what happens with anxiety is it starts to pile on itself.
22:46 Dr. John Delony? Right? What about this? And then this, and then this could happen, and then this, and I don't know about this, and I don't- And the words you used just out of the gate, "I feel, I feel, I don't feel, I don't feel." Okay?
22:54 Speaker 02 Hmm.
22:55 Dr. John Delony? Feelings are important, but I'm gonna throw some things out there, and you tell me if I'm close or if I'm off, okay?
23:02 Speaker 02 Okay.
23:04 Dr. John Delony? Are you anxious about the future because you grew up in a house where you're- you saw firsthand a bad marriage? Or you saw somebody trapped? Or you have experienced jobs? You've experienced other romantic relationships where you were captured, essentially? And your body is saying, "Hey, we've seen this grip before. We're not doing this again." Or are you anxious because your spouse really, honestly, you don't trust him?
23:35 Speaker 02 Hmm.
23:36 Dr. John Delony? He's cheated on you before. He turns his cellphone over every time you walk in. You don't know how much money he makes. You don't, he doesn't want to share a checking account with you. Um, you want three kids, and he's like, "I don't want kids." Is it that? Or is it, "I'm anxious because for my whole life, I've had no control over anything." And I'm guessing you're an older married person? Are you getting older? How old are you? Let me ask it that way.
24:04 Speaker 02 Yeah, 40.
24:04 Dr. John Delony? Okay, okay. So I've been in control of everything? And getting married to somebody is me saying, "I am not gonna be in control of my life. We are gonna be in control of our lives." Right? And so one of those is awesome. That's a good fear. Like, I'm scared to let go of, I'm in control of what I do every minute of every day, and now I'm gonna be about serving somebody till the end of time, and they are gonna be about serving me until the end of time. You should be nervous about that, right? And some people are excited about that. Some people are like, oh, gosh, that's awesome. If this person that you're considering getting married to, if you're really honest, is not safe, isn't trustworthy, then your alarms
24:49 Dr. John Delony? are ringing exactly right. There's a fire here. And if your body is saying, hey, you've been married before and it went bad, or you grew up in a house of divorce, or you grew up in a house where marriage was oppressive and not good and abusive, or whatever, your body's alarms are right, and then you get to choose what happens next in your marriage. We're gonna do things different than what I saw.
25:14 Speaker 02 Yeah.
25:15 Dr. John Delony? So those things I just all threw on the table, talk back to me. How do they hit? Or is any of that true, not true? Tell me what you're feeling.
25:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, I did grow up in a divorced household, and I've never really felt that I was scared of commitment, and have always desired to, you know, build that with someone. And yet, it seems like when I look back on past relationships, just I have this pattern of, you know, it's almost like I wanna move forward, but then something in me is stopping it. Like, I, you know, there's this good guy in front of me with all these good qualities, and then suddenly, in my mind, I become very critical, and all I can see is the negative.
26:07 Speaker 02 And I can't even see or feel the good, and I almost feel like I'm self sabotaging. And then that makes me, you know, like, I try so hard to fight against that, and it just, I don't, you know, I don't know what to do with that, because it just becomes this loop, almost.
26:27 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, so I wanna suggest you stop fighting yourself.
26:33 Dr. John Delony? And I want you to consider, what if your body's right?
26:39 Dr. John Delony? What if it is trying to protect you from what it knows deep in your nervous system, which is when two people get married, it blows up and there's casualties everywhere, in kids, in children, in finances, everywhere.
26:53 Dr. John Delony? And that's not a reason to not get married at all. But it's a different kind of honesty with your soon to be spouse, which is, I'm gonna feel really big things and that doesn't make them true.
27:13 Dr. John Delony? Because that happened in their marriage and you and I get to choose every day what our marriage is gonna look like.
27:22 Dr. John Delony? And so my question for you is, what does peace look like and feel like when you're with him?
27:39 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's, I think, I think I've been striving for that peace and I, I think the fear and anxiety has just hijacked it and so...
27:50 Dr. John Delony? Because you've been trying to achieve peace through war.
27:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
27:54 Dr. John Delony? And your war's been in your chest and you're blaming him for it.
28:02 Dr. John Delony? You're, you're trying to create a narrative, a reality in the world that supports the experience you're having inside your own skin. You get what I'm saying?
28:14 Speaker 02 I think so.
28:16 Dr. John Delony? Meaning, the closer you get to sealing this deal, the louder your body is sounding the alarms. We've run, we've seen this before. What are you doing, Elizabeth? We've already seen this. We lived this.
28:30 Dr. John Delony? And your body, in an effort to protect you, will throw all kinds of tactics your way. What ifs? What about this is? Like you said, you'll stop looking for all the great in your life and you'll just focus on the negative stuff in your life. As Brene Brown says, what you go looking for in the world, you 100% will find it, right?
28:55 Speaker 02 Yeah.
28:58 Speaker 02 So how do I quiet that side of it? Because it just, I think that scares me that that's just gonna follow me right into the next stage and that I'm gonna be wrestling with that long-term and just wanting to be able to settle.
29:18 Dr. John Delony? If you-
29:19 Speaker 02 That really scares me.
29:21 Dr. John Delony? Well, and so I'm gonna paint you the negative picture and then I'll paint you the positive one, okay?
29:25 Speaker 02 Hmm.
29:26 Dr. John Delony? So you're gonna go through with this marriage and you're gonna be super anxious. And your body's gonna be looking for all the ways it's about to fall apart.
29:37 Dr. John Delony? And you're gonna see it in every little hair he leaves in the sink, in the way he didn't fold the towels just right, in the way he did this versus that. And it's gonna be self-reinforcing. It's gonna prove to you this wasn't ever gonna work in the first place. And then you're gonna go all the way back to when you started dating and you're gonna backfill stories, "Oh, I saw this and I saw this and I should've seen this and he did that one time." And that will be the common narrative. And when he plops down on the couch next to you in the evening, he's gonna feel that distance.
30:14 Speaker 02 Hmm.
30:15 Dr. John Delony? And what is he gonna do? He's gonna naturally lean just an inch or two away.
30:22 Dr. John Delony? And as the old saying goes, "All you have to do is turn your wheel one degree and eventually your car will go 180 degrees the other direction."
30:32 Dr. John Delony? Or you're never gonna fully get in one rowboat together, rowing the same direction. And sometimes one of you is rowing, sometimes the other one's rowing, and sometimes you're both just cooking and rowing together.
30:46 Dr. John Delony? But you're gonna keep yourself in your own boat.
30:49 Dr. John Delony? I'm gonna go ahead and keep my own checking account. I'm gonna go ahead and have a secret credit card over here on the side, just in case.
30:57 Dr. John Delony? Right? And so you never fully get on the same boat together. And then your marriage eventually runs aground, y'all end up in different harbors, y'all drifted apart, and then you go, "See, I told you so." That's the negative picture. The positive picture is, you sit down with him tonight and say, "Only if this is true, do you love him?"
31:19 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
31:20 Dr. John Delony? You didn't sound very convincing.
31:24 Speaker 02 I do. I think, I think I just, you know, I don't know if this anxiety is just my pattern or a signal that, that something isn't right.
31:33 Dr. John Delony? Well, let's, let's find out, right? Let's find out right now. Is he trustworthy?
31:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:40 Dr. John Delony? Is he safe?
31:42 Speaker 02 Yeah.
31:45 Dr. John Delony? Does he do what he can
31:50 Dr. John Delony? to just be all about service to you?
31:54 Speaker 02 Oh, yeah. He loves me so well, and deeply and consistently, intentionally, and is, wants to support me through, like, if I've struggled with anxiety, depression, like, he knows that, you know, this is really hard for me.
32:09 Dr. John Delony? Yeah. Okay. So, out of the gate, no relationship can be built if there's not safety and trust. You got that.
32:19 Dr. John Delony? No relationship can be built, long-term, healthy, I would say, lots of different kinds of relationships. There can be very oppressive relationships, but ones that work well are folks who are actively celebrating the success of their spouse, of their other person. And he sounds like that guy.
32:39 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
32:40 Dr. John Delony? So my two big questions for you are, number one, what is it about you that doesn't feel like you're worthy of this love and this service?
32:57 Dr. John Delony? Because if he's trustworthy, and he says, "I see you, and you're beautiful, and I love you, and I want to spend the rest of my life with you," some part of you is saying, "Ah, he's not telling the full truth."
33:07 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
33:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
33:20 Dr. John Delony? I'm always telling folks in marriage relationships and in dating relationships, you have to fully see and know and celebrate each other. But that also requires allowing yourself to be seen and known, and allowing yourself to be celebrated. And sometimes the bright light of somebody truly seeing you and knowing you and loving you anyway, it burns, right?
33:42 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
33:43 Dr. John Delony? Especially growing up, if you were trained that the best thing you could do is not be seen.
33:51 Speaker 02 Yeah, that's true.
33:56 Dr. John Delony? And so, there might be a million other things here, but what you're telling me in this short period of time is your feelings are big and they are real, but they might not be telling you the truth. And feelings' job is not to tell us the truth, it's to keep us safe. And it will keep us safe alone for a long, long time. And that ultimately will kill us, right? And so, here's the next big thing. So, the first thing I want you to discuss, and I wish I had a cooler tool, but you're gonna have to do some writing this stuff down. Asking yourself, "What is it about me that I feel so unlovable
34:36 Dr. John Delony? that this guy's commitment to me and service to me and love for me isn't ringing true?"
34:45 Speaker 02 Hmm.
34:46 Dr. John Delony? The second big thing is, are you willing to give up anxiety and fear as an identity?
34:55 Speaker 02 Hmm.
34:56 Dr. John Delony? Because you walk around your life telling people, telling your loved ones, telling yourself, "I am anxious," right?
35:04 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:04 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, that's false.
35:11 Dr. John Delony? Or I have anxiety, as though it descended upon me.
35:16 Dr. John Delony? Anxiety is just an alarm system. It says, that your body has, it says, "I've identified something in my environment that may or may not be safe. I'm gonna sound the alarms." And so you have to be willing to let go what you feel like is your shield and your sword for getting through the world, which is anxious, anxious, anxious, anxious, anxious. And that means you have to take risk, and that means you have to be vulnerable, and that means you're gonna have to be able to stand up on your own two feet and put things out in the world that may be rejected, and still know, "I'm worthy of being loved, I'm a whole person, I can move forward, I'm strong, I got strength, I got grit."
35:56 Dr. John Delony? You get what I'm saying?
35:58 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:00 Speaker 02 I think so. I, I want that. I mean, that, that's, that's the goal, that's the,
36:08 Speaker 02 you know? Would be something that I would love to just shed and not
36:14 Dr. John Delony? You can't just shed it.
36:14 Speaker 02 Feel under die.
36:15 Dr. John Delony? You have to go right through the middle of it. And I'm telling you as a man who almost shipwrecked his marriage multiple times, because I would not deal with my anxiety.
36:27 Dr. John Delony? I literally threw my hands up and walked into a therapist's office and said, "I'm tired of going through my life like this."
36:37 Dr. John Delony? And she said, "Are you sure? Because it's gonna suck walking through this." And I'm telling you, Elizabeth, on the other side of it,
36:45 Dr. John Delony? imagine this with me. Just tonight, when you put your head on your pillow, you just go to sleep.
36:53 Dr. John Delony? When you wake up in the morning, you're still kinda groggy because you slept so deeply, and then you get up and you tell yourself, "Dude, today, I'm gonna dominate this day," and you smile.
37:09 Dr. John Delony? You're able to look at your partner and say, "Here's not what I need from you today. Here's I need, I need, I need. Here's what I want from you today."
37:20 Dr. John Delony? And he sounds like a guy that's like, "Oh, hell yeah, I'm in."
37:24 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
37:24 Dr. John Delony? Right?
37:27 Dr. John Delony? And that's gonna take you walking into a counselor's office and saying, "I've been journaling for the last two weeks, three weeks. I have really negative self-talk. I come from a broken home.
37:38 Dr. John Delony? And I also found an amazing guy that I want to spend the rest of my life with. And so I need some new skills." Because he's all in.
37:48 Dr. John Delony? And I want to be all in, but my body's not feeling it yet.
37:52 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
37:55 Speaker 02 Yeah, I want that. I feel like I'm not being fair to him because...
38:00 Dr. John Delony? No, that's, that's, I'm gonna tell you, that's anxiety talking.
38:06 Dr. John Delony? I almost left my marriage because I thought the greatest gift I could give my wife was to not be around me.
38:13 Dr. John Delony? And that was a lie. The greatest gift I could give my wife was a regulated partner.
38:24 Dr. John Delony? And she could not do that work for me. I had to go do it.
38:27 Speaker 02 Yeah.
38:33 Dr. John Delony? Are you in?
38:37 Speaker 02 I want to be so bad.
38:39 Dr. John Delony? Okay, I'm gonna send you a copy of my book. It's number one bestselling book, okay? Building a Non-Anxious Life. And I just told you it's number one because it's like a lot of people read it and got a lot of benefit from it, okay? It's called Building a Non-Anxious Life.
38:54 Dr. John Delony? I'm gonna send it to you for free, okay? So hang on the line here and we'll get it shipped out to you. Before the day's over, I want you to call a local counselor in your area.
39:04 Dr. John Delony? And that means you're not gonna go out to eat this month because that's because they're expensive or whatever. Great. Awesome.
39:11 Dr. John Delony? And I want you to head directly towards, I want you to tell the counselor, "I've been anxious for a long time.
39:19 Dr. John Delony? I'm considering getting married. Somebody asked me if I would marry them and I said yes, and now I'm terrified of it. But they're amazing and safe and I want to walk right through the middle of this anxiety. And I want some practical tools."
39:35 Dr. John Delony? And some connectivity to get on the other side of this. And anxiety is one of the scariest things to have in the middle of your chest. And clinically, it's one of the most straightforward things you can do to heal from. But you can't go around it. You can't shed it. You can go right through the middle of it. What are you scared of and why? And where does that story come from? And what are we gonna do next? That's the path. It's exposure. I have to go through it. And a good therapist will walk right with you, hand in hand, through the thing. Or through the things, period. But spend some time writing down, what am I really scared of? What am I truly anxious of?
40:17 Dr. John Delony? And I know it's nervous to say it on the air with all these people listening. But that's where I want you to spend some time. But hang on the line here. We'll get you sent out that book. It sounds like this guy is awesome and worthy of being married. And I know for sure you're awesome and worthy of being married. The question is, will you do the work to change your identity from, I'm anxious? I have this thing, this like it's descended upon me like a, like a death eater or something? Or, oh, man, my body may be working perfectly. Maybe working great. Or as Wendy Suzuki, the professor at NYU says, anxiety can be a friend, a really annoying friend. But it's a friend. It's trying to let you know, hey, I see something that's scary out in the world.
41:02 Dr. John Delony? And I'm gonna go do the work to see, is that fear real? Is there something really scary out there? Or, no, it's not scary. I'm gonna walk right through it. There's no ghosts in this room. I'm gonna go flip the lights on. Thanks for the call, sister. Hang on the line here. We'll get you hooked up. We come back, a woman asks how to build new routines as a stay at home mom, recently diagnosed with severe ADHD.
41:27 Dr. John Delony? This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Financial stress does not just destroy your bank account. It also destroys your mental and emotional health. It can also put a great strain on your relationships. Money worries cause anxiety and they're one of the leading sources of conflict for couples. I know this personally. My wife and I struggled for years to communicate centrally over money issues. And look, therapy isn't about financial advice, right? But it can help you build healthier ways of coping and give you strategies to communicate about what's going on in your side, your chest, about your money, your fears about money, and what to do next. I want you to reach out to my friends at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is an online therapy platform that matches you with a licensed therapist.
42:11 Dr. John Delony? BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and they are fully licensed in the United States. You can message your therapist and schedule sessions right in the platform. And if the first therapist isn't a good fit, you can switch at any time for no additional cost. When life feels overwhelming, therapy can help. Visit betterhelp.com/deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H E L P, dot com slash deloney.
42:38 Dr. John Delony? All right, let's go out to Louisville, Kentucky. Not Lewisville, the way it's spelled, but Louisville, Kentucky, and talk to Rebecca. Hey Rebecca, what's up?
42:49 Speaker 03 Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for taking my call today. And I think we call it Louisville.
42:55 Dr. John Delony? Just, I just say I'm going to Kentucky now. It's easier.
42:58 Speaker 03 Hey, you can call whatever you want.
43:00 Dr. John Delony? I thought that until I called it Lewisville on accident once because that's how y'all wrote it. And the Louisville people were not super happy with me. All right, so what's up?
43:10 Speaker 03 All right, so I'm 50 years old, married, and I'm a stay-at-home mom to four teenagers. And last month I was diagnosed with severe ADD and ADHD. And this really explains a lot of the patterns and behaviors that I've struggled with my whole life. Some of the main ones are time management, decision-making, organization, unfinished projects. It's like my whole life, I've been trying to nail together two pieces of wood and I'm pounding away with all my might on the end of that nail with the screwdriver. And I really want to learn some new skills and I'd love if you could help show me what that looks like.
43:46 Dr. John Delony? Yes.
43:50 Dr. John Delony? Let's back all the way out. What did your physician say was the difference between ADD and ADHD?
43:56 Speaker 03 They didn't.
43:58 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
43:58 Speaker 03 Um, I went to a psych- a psychologist on recommendation, my therapist, and they diagnosed me with both.
44:05 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Um.
44:08 Dr. John Delony? Essentially, one has a behavioral component to it, right? That plays out in your life, the hyperactivity. Right? Most, most.
44:15 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:16 Dr. John Delony? Most folks I see don't even distinct, like, they, it is what it is, what it is, and, but, good for your psychologist for splitting them up there. Um, that's a, did you have to do a battery of tests and things like that?
44:29 Speaker 03 And interview, yes.
44:30 Dr. John Delony? Okay, alright.
44:31 Speaker 03 Yeah.
44:32 Dr. John Delony? So, um. And then, tell me about the word severe.
44:38 Speaker 03 That's just what they said, severe.
44:40 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
44:41 Speaker 03 I, I do, um, I do struggle a lot with, like, over scheduling. I mean, I'm not even worried about the word severe. I'm just trying to see, like, some basic changes that I can make day to day with, with this diagnosis that, um,
44:55 Dr. John Delony? Oh, I got you.
44:56 Speaker 03 Show up.
44:57 Dr. John Delony? Oh, yeah. I got you. I, here's why I'm asking about the word severe, is if that's a label you gave to yourself, or if the psychologist who showed you your, your, you know, your test results, if you will, um, was like making, was laughing and like eyes wide open, and you took that to mean, oh, I have a severe case of this? If you gave yourself that word, I want to challenge that. If your psychologist said, this is a severe case,
45:24 Speaker 03 Yeah.
45:25 Dr. John Delony? Um, and you probably need med management for this one, then that's important for me to know, too.
45:30 Speaker 03 Yes, that is what, um, they said, and I have talked with my psychiatrist.
45:34 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
45:34 Speaker 03 About, and like, within the next month about medication, but I wanted to change my behaviors first.
45:39 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
45:39 Speaker 03 I feel like that would help the medication to work better.
45:42 Dr. John Delony? Okay. So, this is gonna shock you.
45:45 Speaker 03 Okay.
45:45 Dr. John Delony? But I too am pretty far on the ADHD spectrum, okay?
45:51 Speaker 03 Okay.
45:53 Dr. John Delony? And I spent my life trying to come up with management strategies.
46:01 Dr. John Delony? And what that did was turn my life into a failure factory. Okay, and so where I want you to start is the best, the best picture of this, and I can't remember where I heard it from off the top of my head. The best picture I've ever received, I was asking somebody like a psychiatrist or it was, it was a medical researcher. To explain to me why if I'm spun up and chaotic and stuff going on all the time in my mind and in my speech and in my actions. Why in the world would taking speed, Adderall, Ritalin, etc. Why would that give me more clarity and focus? And here was the description they gave me and it changed everything for me. Okay, so I'm going to give this to you.
46:44 Speaker 03 Okay.
46:45 Dr. John Delony? Consider your life is a, not a four way, but an eight way stop. Cars coming and going, there's no such thing as an eight way stop, by the way, but, but imagine it. There's cars coming left, cars coming right, multiple lanes going up and down and left and right.
47:04 Dr. John Delony? But what I would call a neurotypical brain has a crossing guard directing traffic.
47:14 Dr. John Delony? If you have ADHD, severe ADHD, like you were diagnosed with, your crossing guard. And I always thought I'm trying to solve for the traffic. For the thoughts, the ideas, the things I sign up for, the, all that kind of stuff. We're not, what we're solving for is our traffic cop is cashed out asleep.
47:38 Dr. John Delony? And all the cars are trying to get through that intersection with no direction and they're all coming at the same time.
47:43 Speaker 03 Yes.
47:44 Dr. John Delony? Because here's what's awesome, give me something that you, when you dial in and you're focused, you can laser beam it.
47:52 Speaker 03 Um, like costumes, I do, I sell costumes for our local theater. And if I get locked into that, I can just sew and know exactly what each person needs to make them look good.
48:02 Dr. John Delony? Awesome. Okay, so that's the other side. That's how I know there's something bigger going on than you just have attention deficit. You can't pay attention to stuff because one of the universal signs of ADHD is also deep, deep, powerful attention to a thing.
48:21 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
48:22 Dr. John Delony? When it's something you're really interested in, when it's something that gets that traffic cop up and excited.
48:28 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
48:29 Dr. John Delony? Right?
48:30 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
48:30 Dr. John Delony? So the question we have to ask is not, how do we slow down all the traffic? Because that's life. You have four kids, you're married, you're helping out local theater. You've got a lot going on, right?
48:40 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
48:41 Dr. John Delony? The question is, what can we do in our life to give that guy an opportunity, the traffic cop, an ability to stand up?
48:50 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
48:50 Dr. John Delony? Okay? And so medication gets that guy right up.
48:56 Dr. John Delony? It just does.
48:59 Dr. John Delony? And a lot of folks see a ton of relief from that. Okay? And so if you and your psychiatrist, if y'all, if that's the path y'all end up taking, it's not a bad path, especially as a 50-year-old. I have high concerns about, not every kid. There are some kids that 100%, I've, I've met them, I know them, I know their families. Medication's a great route, but for most, it is not, I, I, I just, in my own house, I don't recommend it for developing brains. You're 50, right?
49:29 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
49:30 Dr. John Delony? You're, you're, you're, you're good. Um, but I can tell you, the N equals one that is my life, the most powerful things are things that we don't talk about very often.
49:44 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
49:46 Dr. John Delony? Having moments, I've had to really, really limit screen time.
49:50 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
49:52 Dr. John Delony? I've had to really limit what I would call distraction or numbing behaviors.
49:57 Speaker 03 Yes.
49:58 Dr. John Delony? I've had to really be methodical about exercise.
50:05 Dr. John Delony? And to where like the whole house has to revolve around dad's exercise because that's a non-negotiable with my wife because she knows I get a way better, not better, but I get a way more stable husband.
50:16 Speaker 03 Mm-hmm.
50:17 Dr. John Delony? Right?
50:18 Speaker 03 Yeah.
50:19 Dr. John Delony? And so for 10 years, 15 years, she's taken the, helping the kids get out the door, breakfast, whatever, because dad's exercising. And that's an important thing for all of us. Right?
50:28 Speaker 03 Yeah.
50:29 Dr. John Delony? Um, some people see a lot of relief with diet, dietary changes. Some people see a lot of relief from, um, sometimes that guy lays down from shame, from unrealized trauma or undiscussed, undealt with trauma, not unrealized.
50:52 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
50:53 Dr. John Delony? He's out. It's amazing to me after spending time with a trauma therapist, how much more focused and still I was able to be in my regular day.
51:03 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
51:04 Dr. John Delony? Okay. Did you grow up in a chaotic home?
51:07 Speaker 03 Not my home, but I personally was chaotic.
51:11 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
51:12 Speaker 03 Um, I thought everybody had 100 channels playing at full volume in their heads all the time.
51:17 Dr. John Delony? Right, right, right, right. All that to say is, I want you to begin to look at how, what is happening in my life? Not that I can stop the external stuff, kids, excitement, meals, husband, yada, yada, all that.
51:32 Speaker 03 Uh-huh.
51:33 Dr. John Delony? What can I, what can I control about giving that little traffic cop? Energy, space to get up. And it might be, if this has been a lifelong war, man, medication may be the great, great path for you.
51:50 Speaker 03 Okay. And I would, I would like, that what I'm wondering, will medication help? Because I have like two distinct, like sometimes, um, I'll be like real, like daydreaming and just often one of those, you know, boxes that I've opened in my mind. And other times I'm like full throttle, fixated on something hyperactive, almost like over focused, like a flame that burns very bright, but it burns very short.
52:15 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
52:16 Speaker 03 Um, does medication help balance that out? Because I, I know it's frustrating for people in my life because they never know which version of me is going to show up and I don't know.
52:22 Dr. John Delony? Yeah.
52:23 Speaker 03 So I don't know how to regulate that.
52:27 Dr. John Delony? The truth about medication is it's different for everybody. And so it's going to be a season of trial and error. And you'll hear your psychiatrist say, we'll start you at this dose, we'll try you out here, and we'll move it up or down, or like, so you'll feel that.
52:47 Dr. John Delony? What I hear universally, and I've never taken it intentionally so, and it's cost me some, but I've done it on purpose. I have not, I know they exist, I haven't personally met folks that Adderall isn't a magic thing.
53:04 Dr. John Delony? And I don't, I have no insight, so I'm way out over my skis on this. I don't know what it does. I know for developing brains, you have to take more and more and more over time. I don't know if that's the same for a 50-year-old's neurochemistry. You'd have to ask your psychiatrist for that, about that.
53:24 Speaker 03 Okay.
53:26 Dr. John Delony? And the escalation part of it, yeah, I've got, I would have all kinds of concerns about that. The real question I have for you is, what is it going, what is happening beneath all of that?
53:38 Dr. John Delony? When you're in the middle of a task,
53:43 Dr. John Delony? what is it that, are you bored? Are you frustrated? Or do you literally just find yourself over here doing something? Here's a good example. I was late to work this morning. And I plopped down to put my shoes on, and I saw out of the corner of my eye on my nightstand, I got some new shoes the other day, and it came with two sets of laces, and one of them was a different color. And I was like, oh, I need to change my laces right now. And so I got my shoes, I took them off, and I started changing the laces. And I'm well enough now, but I had a conversation with myself and said, okay, we are choosing to be late today.
54:18 Dr. John Delony? We're making this choice right now to be late.
54:22 Dr. John Delony? And I went ahead and did it anyway, right? But it's that that to me is well.
54:29 Dr. John Delony? Right?
54:29 Speaker 03 Yeah.
54:30 Dr. John Delony? Where it's not just happening and I'm not thinking about it. I get to choose, am I gonna do the next right thing or not? And actually got there on time, I ended up making it, but. But all it says like. I that as well as catching myself in between. So my question for you is, what is it about these other things? That you feel like quote unquote out of control?
54:51 Speaker 03 I think it's just like how you described, like we'll be getting ready to go somewhere and I'll say, okay, well, and then I can't find my keys and then well, I need to put the dog up and then I'll look at this piece of mail, maybe I should do this, maybe I need to make a phone call and I just get easily distracted by other things.
55:07 Dr. John Delony? Okay, so for me, again, I'm making this all about me, this calls about you. I carry a note card in my back pocket. And if I feel a distracted thing coming on, oh, I need to go. I'm walking out the door, my kid's late to his violin. Lesson and I'm like, oh, there's a bill, let me check and see what the bill is. And then I open it up like, oh, I need to go pay this real quick.
55:29 Dr. John Delony? Right? And then I'll run upstairs and then I'll open up my computer and there'll be an email from my boss and I'll start responding to it and poof, we're off.
55:37 Dr. John Delony? And I've proven to myself and you probably too. We're not trustworthy with remembering that bill is still there when we walk back in the door.
55:44 Speaker 03 Yeah.
55:46 Dr. John Delony? So you're you are awesome, you're in good company. And I don't think you're broken, I don't think you're malfunctioning, I think you have a pretty special brain, which by the way, allows you to get a lot of stuff done.
55:57 Speaker 03 Yes, when I'm really focused and I'm very creative and I'm great at problem solving. Well, and I find a way to get things done.
56:04 Dr. John Delony? Yes, and that's why people who try to cash out the ADHD brain.
56:10 Dr. John Delony? I'm of the opinion they're good for. The world. They're very creative, they're are problem centric, they are very good at identifying hurting people.
56:19 Speaker 03 Yes, absolutely, I've noticed that.
56:22 Dr. John Delony? You feel big, right?
56:23 Speaker 03 Yes, yes.
56:25 Dr. John Delony? And. There's things we can do to be responsible. And with the things that we gotta do just to be a functioning citizen, right?
56:34 Speaker 03 Yes.
56:35 Dr. John Delony? Cool. You're awesome Rebecca.
56:38 Speaker 03 Thank you.
56:38 Dr. John Delony? I'm gonna send you a copy of Building An Anxious Life 2, okay? So hang on the line, I'm gonna send it to you. Please, please read that book, cover to cover.
56:46 Speaker 03 Okay.
56:46 Dr. John Delony? All right. And if you... Also, we'll send you a link to the audiobook, because I know for some of my ADHD listeners, audiobooks are better than, uh... than, uh, physical copies.
56:59 Dr. John Delony? But I do want you to take an inventory of screen time, of numbing, what I call numbing behaviors. When you... I just need to turn my brain off, and so I scroll. Those are not benign behaviors. It actually adds more gas to the fire.
57:11 Speaker 03 Yeah.
57:12 Dr. John Delony? And so what does it look like to go for a walk? What does it look like to go into the garage and wait for 15 minutes? What does it look like to wrestle one of my kids? Uh, what does it look like to do things that are gonna help that cross, that, that, that, you know, traffic cop, stand back cop? You get what I'm saying?
57:29 Speaker 03 Yes.
57:29 Dr. John Delony? Awesome.
57:30 Speaker 03 I can do this.
57:31 Dr. John Delony? Hey! Let's change it. Not to, "I can do this." "I get to."
57:37 Speaker 03 I... Yes.
57:39 Dr. John Delony? I get to... I get to live a life of peace. And it's gonna be different peace than everyone else around us, but we get to live this life of peace. You're awesome. We'll be right back.
57:49 Dr. John Delony? Every day on my show, I'm talking about boundaries. And boundaries are not about cutting people out of your life. Boundaries aren't about being mean. They're about keeping you and those you love, safe. And most of us don't have any sort of boundaries when it comes to sharing our data online. In fact, most of us don't even know we're sharing it. It's taken from us, right? That's why I use and recommend Delete Me. If someone can get online and find your home address, your phone number, pictures of your relatives, where your kids go to school, that should not just be a part of modern life. That's your private life, sitting out in public. Somebody stole your personal information, and now they're selling it to strangers. You would never let strangers walk through your house
58:33 Dr. John Delony? and start flipping through your photo albums, go through your wallet, and check out all your bills and personal things. You wouldn't do that. But that's what's happening online. Data brokers buy and sell your personal information to people you don't want having it. That's their whole business model. Delete Me goes to those sites, removes your information, and they keep checking month after month to make sure it's gone. They handle all of it, saving you a ton of time and a ton of hassles. Protect your digital boundaries. Go to joindelete.me/deloney for 20% off an annual plan. That's joindelete.me/deloney.
59:12 Dr. John Delony? All right, we're back. What's up, Kelly?
59:14 Speaker 04 All right, so when we were taking that last call, all of us in here had the question, what is the difference between ADHD? Is there a difference? I think that-
59:23 Dr. John Delony? Oh, ADHD and ADD?
59:25 Speaker 04 Yeah.
59:26 Dr. John Delony? Okay.
59:27 Speaker 04 Because we've all heard both terms used various, you know, over the past 20 years or so, kind of interchangeably, or somebody will be diagnosed with both of them or just one. What does that mean?
59:38 Dr. John Delony? Yeah, and that's, that's why I was, that's a great question. That's why I was asking her. I haven't heard somebody diagnose somebody with ADD in ages. I think historically, I'd have to go back and, and look at my nerd notes, but historically, they tried to split the difference between ADD, it was an inability or somebody who struggles to pay attention, but they aren't fidgeting and moving around all the time. They don't have nervous kid syndrome or whatever. And then ADHD, think of the little boy who's bouncing all over their classroom, right? But it's largely just been, it's ADHD. And so I haven't heard of somebody splitting those up like that in ages. That's why I was digging in with
1:00:22 Dr. John Delony? that last caller. Like, you got this and this? That's just a, and you got tested? Like, they gave you a battery of tests for that? Because that's just a rare thing these days. So for the layperson, just a regular person going out through their life, there's, it's ADHD. Just say ADHD, it's fine. Or say ADD, and everyone knows what you're talking about.
1:00:43 Dr. John Delony? And I'll just leave it at that.
1:00:46 Dr. John Delony? Is that helpful? You feel smarter?
1:00:48 Speaker 04 Definitely.
1:00:49 Dr. John Delony? You don't look it is the thing.
1:00:51 Speaker 04 Wow.
1:00:52 Dr. John Delony? You look as smart as you could possibly be.
1:00:54 Speaker 04 Uh huh.
1:00:54 Dr. John Delony? And I'll just let it.
1:00:55 Speaker 04 Put the shovel down.
1:00:57 Dr. John Delony? I'll just let everybody, uh, yeah, I, I, I just, I mean, I'll tell you, I struggle with a lot of the diagnostic terms, particularly how they are used. Uh, we had a caller, one of the first callers in the show said, my wife is struggling with depression, anxiety. Are being diagnosed? No. Just Googled it. Right? And so I just struggle with, um, a lot of the diagnostic terminology that's thrown around because it is just almost become meaningless. The DSM was never designed to be released to the wild via the internet. It was designed to help researchers, talk to researchers. So if you're studying depression in Rhode Island
1:01:38 Dr. John Delony? and I'm studying depression in Washington, we're both studying the same set of things. And it's used for insurance companies so they can bill mental health professionals. And it was never supposed to be an identity or a labeling system for humans or whatever it's turned into, especially with the, I can just ask chat GPT, do I have this? And, um, so it's, I don't spend a lot of time in that world just because it's not super instructive for me anymore. Here's a great example. We can end on this. Um, I remember asking one of my, um, uh, mentors, I had him on the show, Dr. Young. I remember asking him like,
1:02:17 Dr. John Delony? hey, ODD is not real, is it? Oppositional defiant disorder, right? And I kept hearing over and over, my kids got ODD, my kids got ODD. And I would see their kid. And I was like, no, they don't. Like they have parents who aren't paying attention or they've got, like, I see a kid with like a, a jumbo sonic drink and an iPad and they're throwing a temper tantrum like, oh, my kid's got ODD. And so my judgmental bias was like, no, you don't, you don't. Your kid needs discipline, your kid needs like, right? So I was kind of trying to bro out with Dr. Young and I was like, there's no such thing as ODD is there. And he goes, for sure there is. And I looked at him and then he said this and
1:03:00 Dr. John Delony? he goes, and you've never seen it? So what do you mean I've never seen it? And he said, Until you've been in a psychiatric facility with four grown men holding down a six-year-old, you've not seen it. And going through and spending time with most clinical rotations, you have to go spend time in community clinics. You have to go spend time in a psychiatric facility. You're like, "Oh, that's major depression." Right? Versus... And so, the problem is, everyone's got all this stuff in the internet, and everyone's experiences through their own eyes, and it's relative. And so, when you go to a clinic, or you go to a psych ward, and you see somebody with major depressive disorder,
1:03:43 Dr. John Delony? you go, "Oh, this is very real and very scary." Or with certain eating disorders. The most... I was gonna say morbid. Like, the most dangerous of mental health challenges, right, is eating disorders.
1:04:00 Dr. John Delony? You go, "Oh, I see it." But that same criteria is used for somebody. "Have you had spinning thoughts for six months?" "Yeah, I think so." Have you had... And they just... So, anyway, I just don't spend a lot of time in the diagnostic criteria. I mostly want to spend time with people. Like, "What can you do to change your life right now?" And often, the body is working exactly as it's supposed to. And so, what in your environment? What in your past? What in the stories you're telling yourself? What in the potential future you see for yourself? What is causing your body to sound these different alarms? And there's a big genetic component to a lot of this stuff. There's a big behavioral component to a lot of this stuff. A big environmental component to all this stuff. And these things are very, very real, too.
1:04:44 Dr. John Delony? And so, it's just gotten so complex out in the world. I like to... It's a good context for me, but... So, back to your original question. I don't hear... I can't remember the last time I heard somebody diagnosed with ADD. And it sounds like an older, kind of outdated way of diagnosing somebody. But I'm not in that psychologist. I'm not in that world, so there you go. Hopefully, that helps.
1:05:09 Speaker 04 Yeah, that did.
1:05:11 Dr. John Delony? And you, Kelly. Stop using drugs. Love you guys. Bye.
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