My Wife Regrets Becoming a Mom

We got pregnant in the first month. First month? First month. And then we didn't slow down. We had two more back-to-back. She tells me kind of how miserable she is, how much she hates her life, and ultimately how much she regrets being a mom. This with her is a five-alarm fire. 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 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? Hey, John, how are you doing? I'm good, man. What's up? 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? Oh, man, that one's a tough one. Tell me about all of it first, and then we can kind of pull it apart a little bit. All right. Well, we got married right out of college. So she was 23 and I was 22. Okay. How many years ago was that? Six years ago. Okay. And then we got pregnant in the first month. First month? First month. And then- On purpose? Or like whoopsie do? It wasn't on purpose. Okay. But it wasn't not on purpose. Yeah, that's right. Okay. That's right. We wouldn't change it now, but it's certainly hard. You have to say that since you have a kid. We would have never changed anything because we got sweet Billy, but I got you. Okay. All right. So you get married really, really young, and then ta-da, you were rocking on to the break of dawn, and here comes baby pregnancy month one, right? Yep. Yep. Okay. And then we didn't slow down. We had two more back-to-back. You know how this happens, right? we heard that a lot okay all right all right so y'all are just pez dispensering these kids yeah yeah well we've slowed down since then but um at one point uh i was 25 and we had three kids under three oh geez so today we've got a four-year-old a three-year-old and a two-year-old and uh as you can imagine it's pretty chaotic and uh wife's having a hard time absolutely So she stays home with them. Okay. 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. 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. Okay. and so what we did when that all started was how long ago did she start texting you that kind of stuff? about a year and a half, a year ago, right after the third one was born and when you come home and you talk to her, how do those conversations go? not always well so part of the deal is 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. Well, she's beyond grumpy. Yeah. Okay, so just calling her grumpy is a big disservice. And I know what you mean. Like you could walk it into a dark cloud, right? Yeah. And you could have the most engaged, connected, tethered, like surrounded by community well 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. Yeah. 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've got to ride it out, right? And so you have to ask yourself, how do we ride it 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 a long-term thing, or has this really just started compounding on her? It was long-term, but it really got a lot worse. Well, to be expected. But tell me about how she's struggled with it in the past. What has she done to work through some of this stuff or to manage some of this stuff? Tell me about that. Well, I don't think she really managed much of it in the past. She kind of just ignored it. And so she distracts herself a lot with her phone. She's on her phone. Or something we did is we were really intentional about getting her out of the house. I don't think I would ever change that. But what does that mean? just never um 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 well um 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? Yeah. 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? The latter. Okay. Okay. What I would tell you is, um, and what do you do for a living? I'm a CPA. So tax accountant. Okay. So you are, I'm going to generalize you. Tell me if I'm wrong. Um, 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? Yeah. Okay. Those that that approach to solving problems will dump gasoline on this fire. And so you as her husband are going to have to basically be opposite Michael for a season. Okay. and that's going to be very counterintuitive for you. Yeah. It's going to 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? Not remarkably well. No, it hasn't. And in fact, it seems to be escalating. And so there's something humbling about and I would say this is the true mark. The true mark of masculinity is I have reached the end of a tool set. And so I'm going to go get the tools that I need. I'm going to 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 going to tell you is the things you've got to 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. I mean I didn't have this many kids, but I'm still trying the best I can to get new tools on a 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 want to tell you this with her is a five alarm fire. This is a really big deal. And handling it with that level of respect I think is important moving forward. Yeah. 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. Yeah. 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 i'm gonna get some new tools i'm gonna ask you please because i love you it's time for to go see somebody. 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 to's and you should's and you have to's. Because right now, her escaping from her family is just that, it's escape. Yeah. 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? she does but i i think they're fairly surface level okay um it's hard to be vulnerable with people when you're really struggling okay you know well and if she's truly struggling with depression um or even anxiety it does become self-reinforcing right i i can't fully tell people what's going on in my heart and head because they're going to 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? Yeah, yeah. Why is, has she been resistant to going to see somebody in the past? No, so she does go see somebody. Okay. Oh, so she's doing it. Okay, great. 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. No, I got that. I hear you. I hear you. So, when she's seeing somebody, How long has she been seeing somebody? About three or four months. Okay. Maybe six months. 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? I think there's a lot of vomiting. Okay. Then it's time for her to go see a different therapist. Because I'm sick and tired of – 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 therapists and all they do is vomit and vomit and vomit and vomit. They just and they let's talk about your problems. Let's talk about your problems. Talk about your problems without a directive action plan because 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. A get off your phone for 30 days. I'm going to walk with you through this. Sure. 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 going to say to me. I'll practice as your therapist. I'll practice with you on being vulnerable, being open. And you're going to find that most of the mothers in that room go, oh, thank God. I thought I was the only one to. 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? Yeah, it does. When you ask her, how can I love you? What does she say? Yeah. Well, I think she says I do that already. I give her lots of space to go out. I do nice things for her. I get her things. I make her feel loved. I think she's just having a really hard time. We're a team. I don't have any questions or doubts that we have a really strong marriage. Oh, I don't doubt that at all either. I'm hearing from you, and tell me if I'm wrong. like you're doing all the right stuff it's a it's incredible yeah you're doing everything you know to do which is great and there's a powerless feeling because my wife is still drowning yes right 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 um at the end of march So I know you're in the don't even know what day it is season. Right. Yeah. So give yourself a few more weeks. And then I want you to go see somebody. Okay. Because you're out of a box. Well, you're starting to carry a lot of shame. I should be able to and I need to be able to. And that comes out in little bits of frustration, little bits of what you need to and why didn't you. And it comes out in problem solving mode instead of deeper connection. right? And so the greatest gift you can give her right now is not a, I'm doing all these things on this checklist, but I'm fully whole and present here. So asking the question, what do you want our house to feel like when you walk in the door? How do we get there? What must be true? 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 going to happen. I need to be able to jump higher. I got the jumps I got. So given this context, what can we do to create peace and space? And not even peace and space. I said that wrong. Connection with real people where 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 going to begin. She can first practice that space with a good therapist, a good psychologist, a good counselor. 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 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 when I being a small group it might be at another church at another place at another building people that you work with or whatever But it going to start with y 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 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 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? 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. I can't wait. 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 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 going to 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 going to be outside, check out Shady Rays and their entire collection. Head to ShadyRays.com and use code DELAWNEY for 40% off two or more polarized sunglasses. That's right. ShadyRays.com. Use code DELAWNEY. 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. And the ultralight has that same great fit with an even lighter feel. That's why they call it the ultralight. 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 and check out all of their styles. Get $10 off your first purchase. Just sign up with your email. That's ponchooutdoors.com slash Deloney. All right, let's go to San Diego, California and talk to Elizabeth. Hey, Elizabeth, what's up? Hi, how are you, Dr. John? I'm doing so good. How are you? Oh, I'm okay. A little nervous. Well, I'm glad you're here. What's up? 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. Yeah. No, that's nonsense. The quote unquote, you'll just you'll just know that is a Hollywood tale as old as time. And it's a 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 going to marry that guy. I was walking down the aisle thinking, what have I done? What am I doing? Okay. 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? Okay? And so give me a couple of examples of what you're scared of, what you're anxious about. I think right now I don't feel consistently excited or certain. I think I, my anxiety increases when I think about the future. Okay. I feel like. Hold on. Let's stop there. Let's pull these apart, okay? Because what happens with anxiety is it's just a pile on itself, right? What about this? And then this. And then this could happen. And then this. And I don't know about this. And the words you used just out of the gate, I feel, I feel, I don't feel, I don't feel, okay? Feelings are important. But I'm going to throw some things out there. And you tell me if I'm close or if I'm off, okay? Okay. Are you anxious about the future because you grew up in a house where 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 script before. We're not doing this again. or are you anxious because your spouse really honestly you don't trust him he's cheated on you before he turns his cell phone 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. Yeah, 40. Okay. Okay. So I've been in control of everything and getting married to somebody is me saying, I am not going to be in control of my life. We are going to 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 going to be about serving somebody till the end of time. And they are going to 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 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 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 going to do things different than what I saw. Yeah. So those things I just all threw on the table. Talk back to me. How do they hit? Is any of that true? Not true. Tell me what you're feeling. 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 want to 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. 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. Yeah. So I want to suggest you stop fighting yourself. And I want you to consider what if your body's right? 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 and children and finances everywhere. 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 going to feel really big things, and that doesn't make them true. Because that happened in their marriage, And you and I get to choose every day what our marriage is going to look like. And so my question for you is, what does peace look like and feel like when you're with him? 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 because you've been trying to achieve peace through war yeah and your war has been in your chest and you're blaming him for it 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 i think so meaning the closer you get to seal in 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 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 bernie brown says what you go looking for in the world, you 100% will find it, right? Yeah. So how do I quiet that side of it? Because it just, I think that scares me that that's just going to follow me right into the next stage and that I'm going to be wrestling with that long term and just wanting to be able to settle because that really scares me. Well, and so I'm going to paint you the negative picture and then I'll paint you the positive one. OK, so you're going to go through with this marriage. And you're going to be super anxious. Your body's going to be looking for all the ways it's about to fall apart. And you're going to see it in every little hair he leaves in the sink. And the way he didn't fold the towels just right. And the way he did this versus that. and it's going to be self-reinforcing. It's going to prove to you this wasn't ever going to work in the first place. And then you're going to go all the way back to when you started dating and you're going to backfill stories. Oh, I saw this and I saw this and I should have 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 going to feel that distance. And what is he going to do? He's going to naturally lean just an inch or two away. 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. Or you're never going to 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. but you're going to keep yourself in your own boat 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 right and so you never fully get on the same boat together and then your marriage eventually runs aground you'll end up in different harbors you'll drift it 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 and only if this is true do you love him you didn't sound very convincing 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 well let's pull let's find out right let's find out right now is he trustworthy yeah is he safe yeah um does he do what he can to just be all about service to you oh yeah he loves me so well and deeply and consistently intentionally and is wants to support me through like a struggle with anxiety depression like he knows that, you know, this is really hard for me. Yeah. Okay. So out of the gate, no relationship can be built if there's not safety and trust. You got that. 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 He sounds like that guy So my two big questions for you are number one what is it about you that doesn feel like you worthy of this love and this service Because if he's trustworthy and he says, I see you and you're beautiful and I love you and I'll spend the rest of my life with you, some part of you is saying, ah, he's not telling the full truth. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 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? Especially growing up. If you were trained that the best thing you could do is not be seen. Yeah, it's true. 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 or to do and I wish I had a cooler tool, but you're going to have to do some writing this stuff down. Asking yourself, what is it about me that I feel so unlovable that this guy's commitment to me and service to me and love for me isn't ringing true? the second big thing is are you willing to give up anxiety and fear as an identity because you walk around your life telling people telling your loved ones telling yourself i am anxious right yeah yeah that's it's that's false or I have anxiety as though it descended upon me. Anxiety is just an alarm system that says that your body has. It says I've identified something in my environment that may or may not be safe. I'm going to 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 going to 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. Do you get what I'm saying? Yeah. I think so. I want that. I mean, that's the goal. That's the, you know, would be something that I would love to just shed and not. You can't just shed it. 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. I literally threw my hands up and walked into a therapist office and said, I'm tired of going through my life like this. And she said, are you sure? Because it's going to suck walking through this. And I'm telling you, Elizabeth, on the other side of it. Imagine this with me. Just tonight, when you put your head on your pillow, you just go to sleep. when you wake up in the morning you're still kind of groggy because you slept so deeply and then you get up and you tell yourself dude today I'm going to dominate this day and you smile you're able to look at your partner and say here's not what I need from you today I need I need I need here's what I want from you today and he sounds like a guy that's like oh hell yeah i'm in right and that's going to 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 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 and I want to be all in but my body's not feeling it yet. Yeah, I want that. I feel like I'm not being fair to him because... No, that's... I'm going to tell you, that's anxiety talking. I almost left my marriage because I thought the greatest gift I could give my wife was to not be around me. And that was a lie. The greatest gift I could give my wife was a regulated partner. And she could not do that work for me. I had to go do it. Yeah. Are you in? I want to be so bad. Okay. I'm going to send you a copy of my book is number one bestselling book. Okay. Building a non-anxious life. And I just told you it's number one. Cause 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. I'm going to 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. And that means you're not going to go out to eat this month because that's because they're expensive or whatever. Great. Awesome. and I want you to head directly towards. I want you to tell the counselor, I've been anxious for a long time. 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 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 going to do next? That's the path. It's exposure. I have to go through it. 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? 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 to send 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 uh like a death eater or something or oh man my body may be working perfectly maybe working great or as uh uh wendy suzuki the professor at nyu says anxiety can be a friend 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. And I'm going to go do the work to see, is that fear real? Is this something really scary out there? Or, no, it's not scary. I'm going to walk right through it. There's no ghosts in this room. I'm going to 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. 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. 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 slash Deloney to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Deloney. All right, let's go out to Louisville, Kentucky, not Louisville, the way it's spelled, but Kentucky and talk to Rebecca. Hey, Rebecca, what's up? Hey, good morning. Thank you so much for taking my call today. And I think we call it Louisville. Just I just say I'm going to Kentucky now. It's easier. Hey, you can call whatever you want. I thought that until I called it Louisville 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? All right. So I'm 50 years old. I'm 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. Yes. Let's back all the way out. What did your physician say was the difference between ADD and ADHD? They didn't. Okay. I went to a psychologist on recommendation of my therapist, and they diagnosed me with both. Okay. Essentially, one has a behavioral component to it, right, that plays out in your life, the hyperactivity. Right. Most, most, most folks I see don't even distinct. It is what it is, what it is. And, but good for your psychologist for splitting them up there. That's a, did you have to do a battery of tests and things like that? And interview. Yes. Okay. All right. Yeah. So, and then tell me about the word severe. That's just what they said. Severe. Okay. I do struggle a lot with overscheduling. I'm not even worried about the word severe. I'm just trying to see some basic changes that I can make day-to-day with this diagnosis that I can show up. Yeah, I got you. 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, 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 and you probably need med management for this one, then that's important for me to know, too. Yes, that is what they said. And I have talked with my psychiatrist about and like within the next month about medication. But I wanted to change my behaviors first. OK, I feel like that would help the medication to work better. OK, so this is going to shock you. OK, but I, too. I'm pretty far on the ADHD spectrum, OK? Okay. And I spent my life trying to come up with management strategies. And what that did was turn my life into a failure factory. Okay. And so where I want you to start is 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 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, et cetera, 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. Okay. 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 imagine it. There's cars coming left, cars coming right, multiple lanes going up and down and left and right. What I would call a neurotypical brain has a crossing guard directing traffic. 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 and all the cars are trying to get through that intersection with no direction and they're all coming at the same time. Yes. Because here's what's awesome. Give me something that you, when you dial in and you're focused, you can laser beam it. Like costumes. I sell costumes for a 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. 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 when it's something you're really interested in, when it's something that gets that traffic cop up and excited. Right. 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 got a lot going on. Right. the question is what can we do in our life to give that guy an opportunity the traffic cop an ability to stand up okay and so medication gets that guy right up it just does and a lot of folks see a ton of relief from that OK and so if you and your psychiatrist if y if that the path y end up taking it not a bad path especially as a 50 year old I have high concerns about not every kid. There are some kids that 100 percent I've met them. I know them. I know their families. Medication is a great route. But for most, it is not – I just – in my own house, I don't recommend it for developing brains. You're 50, right? You're good. 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. having moments i've had to really really limit screen time i've had to really limit what i would call distraction or numbing behaviors yes i've had to really be methodical about exercise 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. Right. Yeah. And so for 10 years, 15 years, she's taken the helping the kids get out the door, breakfast, whatever, because dad's exercising. That's an important thing for all of us. Right. Yeah. 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 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. Okay. Did you grow up in a chaotic home? Not my home, but I personally was chaotic. I thought everybody had 100 channels playing at full volume in their heads all the time. Right, right, right, right. All that to say is, I want you to begin to look at what is happening in my life. Not that I can stop the external stuff. Kids, excitement, meals, husband. and yada yada all that 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 a great great path for you 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. Um, does medication help balance that out? Because 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. So I don't know how to regulate that. The truth about medication is it's different for everybody. And so it's going to be a season of trial and error. Okay. 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. So you'll feel that. 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 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 OK. And the escalation part of it. Yeah, I've got I would have all kind of concerns about that. The real question I have for you is what is it going what is happening beneath all of that? When you're in the middle of a task. 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 That I had a conversation with myself And said, okay, we are choosing to be late today We're making this choice right now to be late And And I went ahead and did it anyway. But that to me is well. Right? Yeah. Where it's not just happening and I'm not thinking about it. I get to choose am I going to do the next right thing or not. And it actually got there on time. I ended up making it. But all I'd say is that as well is 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? 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 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 okay 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. I'm like, oh, you go pay this real quick. 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. 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. Yeah. So 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. Yes. When I'm really focused, I'm very creative and great at problem solving. I find a way to get things done. Yes. And that's why people who try to cash out the ADHD brain, I'm of the opinion they're good for the world. They're very creative. They are problem centric. They are very good at identifying hurting people. Yes, absolutely. I've noticed that. You feel big, right? Yes, yes. And there's things we can do to be responsible and with the things that we got to do just to be a functioning citizen, right? Yes. Cool. You're awesome, Rebecca. Thank you. I'm going to send you a copy of Building a Non-Anxious Life, too. Okay. So hang on the line. I'm going to send it to you. Please, please read that book cover to cover. Okay. 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 physical copies. But I do want you to take an inventory of screen time, of numbing – what I call numbing behaviors. 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. Yeah. And so what does it look like to go for a walk? What does it look like to go into the garage and lift weights for 15 minutes? What does it look like to wrestle one of my kids? What does it look like to do things that are going to help that traffic cop stand back up? You know what I'm saying? Yes. Awesome. I can do this. Hey, let's change it. Not to I can do this. I get to. Yes, absolutely. I get to live a life of peace. And it's going to 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. 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 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 joindeliteme.com for 20% off an annual plan. That's joindeliteme.com slash Deloney. All right, we're back. What's up, Kelly? 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 – Oh, ADHD and ADD? Yeah. Okay. Because we've all heard both terms used various – 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? Yeah, and that's why I was – that's a great question. That's what 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 look at my nerd notes. But historically, they tried to split the difference between ADD. It was an inability or someone 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 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 lay person just a regular person going out through their life there's it's ad just say adhd it's fine or say add and everyone knows what you're talking about um and i'll just leave it at that is that helpful you feel smarter definitely you don't look it is the thing oh you look as smart as you could possibly be uh-huh and i'll just let the shovel down 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. You ever been diagnosed? No. Just Googled it, right? And so I just struggle with a lot of the diagnostic terminology that's thrown around because it has 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 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 ChatGBT, do I have this? And so 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. I remember asking one of my mentors I had him on the show Dr. Young I remember asking him like 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 jumbo sonic drink and an iPad and they're throwing a temper tantrum like oh my kids got odd and so my judgmental bias was like no you don't you don't your kidneys discipline your kidneys 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 he said this and he goes and you've never seen it so what do you We have 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 that the problem is everyone's got all the 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 major depressive disorder you go oh this is very real and very scary or with certain eating disorders the most um i was gonna say morbid like the they the most dangerous of mental health challenges right is eating disorders um 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 the stuff there's a big behavioral component to a lot of the stuff a big environmental component to all this stuff and these things are very very real too and so it's just gotten so complex out in the world. I like to... It's a good context for me. So, back to your original question. I don't hear... I can't remember the last time I heard somebody diagnosed with ADD. 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. Yeah, that did. And you, Kelly, stop using drugs. Love you guys. Bye. We'll see you next time.