Hey, on today's show, we're going to talk to the mom of a young toddler with behavior issues, what can she do to help? We're also going to talk to a big sister who loves her. Twenty five year old brother. What can she do to help him get out of his funk? And we're going to talk to a mom of four young kids whose husband treats her depression like a burden. Stay tuned.

Hey, what up? I'm John and this is the Dr. John Delonas show, it's a live show where we walk alongside people just like you who are trying to figure out their life, their marriages, how to be human beings again, how to be pet owners who aren't idiots. We talk about everything on the show, right? Anything. Everything. No matter what's going on in your heart, in your mind or your family, there's so many people all across the world in that booth, especially out there today.

We've got an audience today. We're in this new studio. Everybody is struggling with things and we're all trying to do the best we can to get our relationships back together or workplace back together, our families back together, all of it. So we're here to talk about everything. We might even talk about people who complain at restaurants. Here's the thing. I worked at Burger King for four years, Joe and Linda Turner, two awesome people who hired me back in the day when I was just a kid.

Their son Clay, who was awesome, trained me, taught me people complain at restaurants. There's three kind of people who complain. There's those who complain because they're just idiots. They're trying to get free things. Every group of people has a moron in it. And there's always that person. Right. And then there's people who are actually trying to solve a problem.

They asked for this particular meal. It didn't come out like they wanted it. They're pleasant and they're kind. And they're saying, hey, I asked for this and I thought I was going to do this. And then we get it worked out. And then there are those who just love to complain and they have such little power in their lives. They are so unimpressive to the person they're dating other with that they like to use this moment a poor waitress or I want to talk to the manager.

That famous line that just it just begets control, right? Those people who just want to complain because it makes them feel powerful and they say something like, I don't want anything free or I don't want you to do anything. I just wanted to whine and complain. So if you're somebody who's just trying to fix a situation, good for you, if you're an idiot thief and whatever, if you are somebody who complains for power or complains just because it makes you feel good, do this.

Find people who love you and talk to them because you don't have enough of them in your life or take an online course that you can excel at. Do something that is going to help you get ahead in life other than just whining. So if you've got a problem, if you have a winner in your life, if you've got people who you love and are just trying to solve problems, you know, the next right. Crooked, wobbly thing to do, please give us a call at one eight four four six nine three thirty to ninety one.

That's one eight four four six nine three three two nine one. And as I figure out, this new studio, it's still all shiny and lit up and bright and shiny. It's just shiny everywhere. If you're watching it on YouTube, if you're listen to and your podcast, you have no idea what I'm talking about. Just imagine the shiniest place you've seen and that's it. And these shiny, beautiful people out here. This is so weird, good folks, because I've been doing this in a hole in a studio down below us for months now.

And now just seeing you is super weird, but it's good to see you all beautiful. And even you guys are beautiful as well. All right. So let's go straight to the phones today. Let's go to Christina in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Christina, let's see what's going on. How are we doing, Christina? I'm doing good, I'm so glad to be able to talk to you. I'm so glad that you called. How can I help?

I was wondering, how can I help my aggressive pre-schooler?

Oh, man. So tell me what you mean by aggressive. Well, he often hits or destroys things, mostly hitting other people, and it become more and more of an issue and I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the stress of this year because the is in Iraq for everyone.

So compounded by covid. One of the things I instantly think of when I hear about kids and behavior, especially little kids, but really all kids, is behavior of language behaviors just a signal?

So what is this little kid trying to say in whatever environment they're in?

So walk me back to the beginning of this year for you. What's it been like for you? You say it's been awful and bananas. What does that actually mean? Well, for the last. Well, I was pregnant at the beginning of the year, so that was one thing. So I've had a baby since then. And during the time that the pandemic started, there was a tenant who lived downstairs who was an exchange student, and he wasn't able to go home when he was originally planning to.

And he thought that my kids were just too loud and inconsiderate and he would pound on the floor. So it's from below and it would scare us. And we had some frightening episodes that eventually led to panic attacks. And we stayed at my parents house for a time until things settle down. So you're you're answering your own question, right?

Partly. But he's also been aggressive even since he was a little baby as a baby, he would even hurt himself where like we had to hold him down. So it went like scratch his face to pull his hair out.

Yeah. And some of that for sometimes. You start trying to look for the cause of a behavior or the reality of a behavior, and you start grabbing data points from all over the place, most of the time a kid who's an infant who scratches himself or pulls a hair is just simply trying to figure out their own body that would be unrelated to aggression or some sort of inborn anger issue. Now, of course, there could be some some psychological issues, but.

What you've just laid out to me is a lot of stresses, this kid's everything, this this young kid knows.

How old is he for three and a half, three and a half, OK.

Everything in this three and a half year old's life has changed. One hundred percent. He had mom's attention. Now he's got to share it. He had a safe house. Now he's got somebody banging on the floors, making it be quiet.

He had a mom who had a life that was somewhat routine. And now you're living at somebody else's house. Everything is dumped over. Where's Dad in this picture. He's been around, he's been working or doing school from home throughout the year.

And what what type of dad is he? So you connected dad a plugged in dad or a everybody shut up. I'm trying to school dad.

What kind of dad is he most of the time? Like, he's really good at spending time with the family when he doesn't have to work on school stuff. I spend like more and more stressful as it has gone on. So, like, he's been a little bit more tense as well.

Right. And so children, especially young children, but almost all kids really, they absorb that tension. And a process it is, though, it's their fault, and then they spend all of their life trying to mitigate it, and for a kid, that tension is a broken relationship with it, with their caregivers, which is you and your husband. A three and a half year old cannot process a new baby, has just moved in. A three and a half year old, cannot process stressed out parents.

A three and a half year old especially can't process. Mom and dad are present there in the house physically, but they are not emotionally or mentally present because they're having to work from home or to school from home.

And so everything in your kid's life has gone up in smoke, if you will.

So here's a couple. So backing out to my original question. What's your kid trying to say? Your kid is trying to tell you that they're not safe, that they are disconnected, that there are no boundaries, things are free flowing, and we're going to live. I don't know who's going to be banging on our floors, et cetera.

So here's here's a couple of things I can give you to help you walk through it. No. One, kids are desperate, desperate for sleep and nutrition. They are desperate for connection and they are desperate for boundaries. OK, so sleeping and nutrition, tired, exhausted over sugared kids, kids with allergies or discomfort from food, they just feel uncomfortable all the time. Kids who just are plugged into electronics all the time.

And so they don't when they are asleep, they're not actually going into their full REM cycle sleep kids who are not running around outside and are locked in to an apartment. And I know that's so hard during a pandemic, depending on what what city you live in and what jurisdiction you live in, because some are just shut down. You can't leave your apartment at all, ever. And that's wreaking havoc on little kids. The second thing is they're desperate for connection.

And when I mean connection, I mean the whole world stops. You get down. And I love what you look kids in the eye. You touch them a lot. And you've probably heard me say that over and over, whether it's touching their their hands or their feet or their face, having a nighttime ritual that includes lots and lots of safe, heavy touch on a on a child, whether that's playing, getting down on their level and playing, laying on your stomach and playing Legos or blocks with the three and a half year old that's reading age appropriate books.

Right. If there's no abuse and there's no hurt, the connection is a great gift. If there is abuse, if there is fear and a kid, then that that connection can be traumatic, too. So that's a whole other situation.

I don't hear that here. And then the next the last thing here is boundaries. If a three and a half year old feels like they are running your house. And what I mean by that is if they can scream and not eat something, if they can kick and scream and you'll just shove a TV in front of them or an iPad in front of them, then they are in essence running the house. And that destroys a kid there aren't designed to carry that sort of weight.

And they are desperate for mom and dad to put up boundaries, put up barriers that they will lean and pressed to make sure they'll hold.

But they're desperate for him because then it makes them feel safe. It's like Swadling. I remember the first time I swaddled my son, I thought I was I was going to kill him like it was a worst nightmare for me that someone would tie my arms and like that until a doctor buddy of mine explained. Now, that's when they feel safe. They don't feel safe with these wild appendages flying around, scratching them and pulling their hair out because I don't know how they work.

They feel safe when they're bound up.

And so when you look back over the course of this year, I want you to be graceful to yourself as a mom, because it's been chaos. I want you to be graceful to yourself as a brand new mom, because you've got a what, like a nine month old in your house and now three and a half year old. But I want you to do some things that are going to draw some boundaries. Here's some boundaries you cannot hit in this home.

You cannot scream in this home, that's not a it's not a tool that works for you. I am going to intentionally put down the little one or give the little one to dad, and I'm going to spend some very direct connect of time with you on a regular basis, at a regular time, if possible. And that way we can build in time boundaries with our kids. We can build in a tension connection boundaries with our kid.

I'm going to make super sure that the moment he wakes up, I'm going to give him skin to skin contact, direct skin to skin contact. I'm going to make sure that before lunch, after nap and right before bed, there is some direct skin to skin contact. And I also I haven't experienced this, but I've just heard over and over for moms, when you are in this season, when you're still nursing, you still got a young one at home.

Your body doesn't feel like yours.

And the last thing you want to do is touch another kid. You want to do is touch your spouse. Just don't touch anybody. But I'll tell you, those investments and touch those investments in eye contact will pay off in a decreased screaming, a decrease biting and kicking and a decreased language of will somebody please freaking look at me, will somebody please acknowledge me?

And that's all your three and a half year old is doing with this little language languages he has. If things like attention, if things like limited screen time, if things like bedtime routines where you're getting a lot of sleep, a lot of sleep for a young kid like that, probably 10 to 12 hours for a young kid like that, a lot of nutrition, no sugar, very limited stuff out of a box. If a kid is healthy food, as you can afford, if those things don't work, then I'm going to recommend you go see a psychologist.

But I want you to spend 30 days double down on the connection, double down on boundaries, time boundaries, double down on space, double down on consistency. And here's the hard thing for moms and dads listening to this. This means that you all are going to have to be highly, highly intentional and you have to be highly intentional about when you wake up and how much sleep you get about meal prep and meal meal prep in meal planning. You've got to be intentional about budgets.

You're going to be intentional about who does the shopping. You have to be intentional. All those things that couples just let roll, especially when you've got a newborn in the house, you can have to be overly intentional about it and then you can have to really communicate with your husband. Sounds like he's an awesome guy. So I think he's a great dude who's plugged in and trying to help the best he can while doing two or three other things.

Huh. Here's the other thing. This is a season and it will pass. This season is hard. This season sucks, is seen as winning season, everybody. And if you're in an apartment with an angry tenant surrounding you, that does not understand the beauty of little kids and who's a jerk, who's banging on the ceiling like an idiot. And if you've got two little babies in that house, it's just hard. It just is. And so try those things with your little and call me back.

If they don't work, call me back. They do work. That would be great to know. And I appreciate your call. All right. Let's go out to Erika in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Erika, what's happening?

How are we doing? Good. How are you today? Thanks for taking my call. Thank you so much for calling. What's going on here?

I'm calling to get some advice on how to interact with my twenty five year old brothers. It's becoming a very angry person in particular in the what do you want to do with his life career wise? He has a degree in business administration and graduated about eighteen months ago. And since then he's had four different jobs. One of them he lost because he was the new kid on the block for covid. So that was kind of, you know, out of his control.

But he comes to me asking for advice and just gets very angry when I either try to give him some advice or guidance or suggestions. Sometimes it's very, very productive. And then other times it's I get hung up on saying, well, you just don't know how it is kind of thing based on what he wants to do. It's difficult because I, I see him starting to turn into an angry person and kind of starting to distance himself from myself and my my parents.

So where does this where does your brother get this sort of life from the modeling that?

Uh, yeah, unfortunately, I do start to see some transfer over. My dad has kind of been in and out of work for the last five years. Yeah. And it's I don't tend to hear what the reason why he is no longer employed there, but it's always there's other other people cause the termination of his employment kind of thing. And so that's kind of put a strain on my mom to handle all the finances on her own, and especially with all the things that are going on and whatnot.

My dad just doesn't really seem to have much interest outside of YouTube and and whatnot.

So that's where all the good conspiracy theories are, Erica. Yeah, well, that and, you know, and this thing and that thing.

And yeah, if you quit working a regular job and paying attention your regular family, you could see all the things on YouTube, including this mildly entertaining show, right?

Well, yes. You know, of the thirty three people that do watch it, I think those three get some good advice that. That's right.

So so does your brother have friends? Does he have people in his life that are. Well, just tell him he's been an idiot or no.

Yes, I would say so. He switched colleges midway through and so he has more friends at the first college that he started out with. And he tries to seems to gravitate more towards them, but they kind of live in a different area. And where he lives, he is actually moving out of my parent's house in January, finally kind of thing, more so it was he was trying to save money because it was expensive. And then being out of a job, living at home was just a little bit easier.

But it's it's one of those I'm trying not to be a second mom to him because. Seven years apart and kind of always been the joke that he has two moms kind of thing, but, you know, my dad and his brother don't have a good relationship with each other, but I would like to keep that with my brother. But I also don't want to get hung up on poor people. I just don't know what I'm talking about kind of thing.

Whereas, you know, if you're at a job for four months and you want to leave within two weeks of starting because you didn't get adequate training, and then the suggestion is we'll speak up. Well, no, I can't do that. And X, Y or Z reason kind of thing.

So here's I'll give you some good news and then some bad news. And I'll go with start with the bad news. The bad news is you can do nothing.

Yep. There's nothing you can do here to help your brother. Do anything differently? Yeah, especially if he's not coming to you humbly and saying, I need help with the plan. Yeah, dude, I'm the worst. There's been seasons of my life and I've been the worst brother. I've got an older sister, a younger brother, where I have called them unsolicited, just giving them all kinds of shenanigans, like, well, you know, you should be doing.

And it's insulting and it's demeaning. And here's the thing. I think I was right. I probably still think I was right, but it wasn't helpful. Right. And so.

Talk backing out and talking about your brother, is that your brother is you? Twenty five he said yes. Your brother's terrified. Yes. And he's terrified of two different two different tracks. Number one, those feelings he has that people at work don't like him, that everyone around him is out to get him. Those feelings aren't truthful. They're not right, but they feel real. And that's scary.

And depending on how your dad and your mom raised him. Guys have very limited skills in responding to fear.

And usually it's to puff your chest out and just start swinging or it's to numb it out. And you can come out with alcohol, with YouTube, with more work or with another job at another job or another girlfriend, another girlfriend, another drink. But you're just going to spend your life numbing and running, right? Yeah.

The second thing definitely been he's definitely been the person his whole life. That school was hard for him. Teachers were out to get him. Right. And when I throw my hands up any time that it gets difficult and have somebody else figure it out, there you go. OK, Mom and dad.

And that leads me to number two, which is he is terrified of becoming his dad and it's happening before his is very eyes. It's like watching somebody whose dad is bald. And it's that first time you swipe your comb through and you just see all that hair come out, you're like, oh, no. Right. It just it happens in slow motion to your life. And oh, so here's the thing. You have a scared to death. Twenty five year old little brother that you can't help.

Yeah. All you can do for him is to love him and to say you can call me any time.

Here's my recommendation to you and it's going to be trite and not super helpful.

It will be when he calls you to ask your opinion on things.

I would stop him before he gets rolling, which I'm guaranteeing he's a roller. He'll talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk. And you'll start to try to get in. He'll just take a breath and keep going.

Is damn right am I right on that? Oh yeah. OK, so. I would start him, stop him before he gets going and ask him, do you want my advice or do you just need somebody to listen to? Because I'd love to listen to you and let him choose, because then if you start to pipe up with here's what I think you need to do, you can always fall back on, hey, you asked me for this.

Otherwise, just be a safe, quiet place for him to talk and vent and talk and vent. And then you need to live your life above reproach. And what I mean by that is you will be a shining light. You'll be the example for him that he doesn't have.

Right. And you may reach out to him with with good things that are happening in your life. You may reach out with him just to check on him. You may write him letters that tell him that he's loved and he's a good guy and that when he when he does something good, we do that with kids. Right. Catch them being good. But write them a actual physical letter that he can hold in his hands that's tactile, that he can see it and he's a millennial.

He won't even know what's happening. He'll be like, what's this male thing you speak of? Right. But send him a letter. He can open it and see it and touch it and feel it and. He's going to have to learn a really hard and uncomfortable lesson, and that is work sucks and the real world hard and nobody gives you anything and you've got to fill in, fill in the blank, all those things.

Sure. And that does lead me to this.

It's almost I don't want to be all ranty today here in this new studio. It's all shiny and I want to get spittle everywhere, but.

There's a whole generation of young person who's been told this one like fascinating line, which is follow your passions almost like it's easy to say a breathy follow your passions.

Right. Like the deeper like a like a megachurch preacher who are just talking and regular voices. And then they're like, so one day I was walking along the road and then I met God. They have to only say it in a breathy Rithy way. Right? It's the same way.

Follow your passions. And for most kids, there's no backup to that, there's no information that goes along with that. And so what passion becomes is a marker for feelings. Follow your feelings, do the thing that feels most comfortable to you. And if there's any sort of resistance, if things are hard, I want to be an author. We'll just write a book.

And then the first person reads like, hey, this book kind of sucks. It's not good. Or You've got to pay attention to English class so you can learn how an actual sentence functions, write or fill in the blank. I want to be a poet. I want to be a runner. I want to be a whatever. Follow your passions. That means follow your feelings. And then when things get hard, then I feel sad and I want to feel sad.

So I just abandon it and quit. I go somewhere else. And that's just absolutely wreaked havoc on a whole generation of human being, and it really it starts with my generation, they were telling us, follow your dreams, follow your passions, you can be anything.

Here's the thing about follow your passions.

You become passionate about the things you're good at. And you become good at the things that you practice, the things that you do over and over and over and over again. And if you're like ninety nine point nine percent of the world, there's always that one kid that just sits in front of YouTube learns how to play the guitar. And he comes up nine months later and he's just savant. Every generation has that kid. Good for you.

I'm not talking about them. Most of you are not Steve Jobs, right, or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast, the rest of us practice the things that we were made to do. My parents made me be really good at mowing the yard, my dad was really hard on me about mowing the yard because he said it communicated a couple of things that communicated how I cared about a customer.

It communicated a sense of excellence that was inborn regardless how much I was making. It was a sense of pride for the homeowner. All these things came through, right. Joe and Linda there at Burger King. Treat the customer that comes in here with respect. You don't know where they're coming from.

We happen to be on a route to a hospital and people would stop there to get food to go visit their loved ones at a hospital, just laughing and bringing joy into that day.

Brighten people up. Right. But we were made to do it. If you treated a customer with disrespect, they called you in the back and they said, you're not going to work here if you're like that. Right.

And so you're passionate about things you're good at. You're good at things you practice your practice, the things you're made to do. And when you're made to do things, it's hard and you don't like it and it's not fun.

And there's some times that you are practicing things and you have good days of practice and bad days of practice. Right?

There are sometimes you are things doing things that you're really good at and then you don't do them good that day. You don't do them good that month. You have a low season. You work really hard on your next big book. And it tanks. Right? Steven Spielberg has some movies that didn't do well. That's part of it.

And being told to do things that are hard, being made to do things that are hard is not mean to your children. It's not mean to your students. It's not mean to teenagers.

It gives them a sense of fortitude and grit that comes from the inside out. The fancy word for that is resilience. Not feelings, feelings are true. You got to sit down. I mean, not true feelings are real. You get to sit down, acknowledge them, but they lie to you. And this sounds like a young man that has been told his entire life. Yeah, you know what, I know you feel that that teacher is being mean to you.

You're right. Let's go get her. I know you feel like that job's hard. You should quit. They should treat you better. And you feel you feel your feel your way through a hundred different jobs.

Through frustration, through broken relationships, no, no work to stand upon, and we don't have any work to stand upon, we do have relationships to stand upon, you are nothing. We are made as relationships and we are made to work, period, just the way that is. And so for everybody out there who is doubling down on what's my passion? What's my passion? Go back to the things you were made to do, go back to the things that you're going to practice over and over and over and over, these poor James and Kelly, Zack, these poor folks, you should see the hours of tape that we have on they call it radio school.

These guys back, it was a beating. It still is a beating for them. I'm still learning how to do this right. But we had to practice and practice and then James would say, we're going to be here at this time. We've got to be here at this time. And it would be uncomfortable. Not good. They made me do it. And you get better and better. And now I'm starting to love it. Now I'm sort of like it.

It's going to be fun.

It's going to be, quote unquote, passionate about it. Right. So, Erica, to answer your original question, there's nothing you could do, man, you can love your brother, be connected to your brother, I'd stop on the advice unless he explicitly asks. And you could feel free to tell him this. If I tell you this, I'm going to hold you accountable to it, OK? And he may not want to do that. He may say, oh, well, whatever.

Twenty five year olds with five jobs and four months say, but man just gets me frustrated. All right. I'm going to talk about it. Let's go to Katie in Waco, Texas. Katie, what is up in Texas? Oh, call for Texas. It's cold. Wow, I just talked to someone from Canada and they didn't even start the call that way. All right. So how are we doing? What can I do to help?

All doom and gloom and doom and gloom. All right, we've been having issues of iwi and marriage with my husband of late is treated, you know, depression issues that I have occasionally as an issue of frustration seems to be quite a burden on him. And I don't really know how to handle it and go about it when that's kind of just feeds into the depression.

I'm sorry. Are you depressed already here? I hear you, sir. I have issues and this is not something brand new to me or even in our relationship. It comes and goes. And sometimes we have harder times, sometimes are better done, you know?

How long have you been married? We have been officially married for just over a year. Okay. We lived together for almost three years. I'm twenty seven. He is thirty. Okay.

So I want to talk just about you for a little bit, ok. How long have you struggled. How long have you been depressing. How long have you been struggling with depression. I mean it off often on throughout pretty much my life, two seasons or issues or, OK, kind of whatever's going on. I mean, you want to go way, way back. I was in sixth grade complaining of stomach ache so frequently my mom took me to the doctor and the doctor told her to take me to therapy.

So for for most people, most of the time. Depression, anxiety, that's your body's way of trying to protect it. And it doesn't always feel like it's helpful, but your body is doing the best it can to protect you. So. What what is your body still trying to protect you from? What in your past does it not want to deal with what relationships are broken? It sounds like from when you were a kid.

Well, you know, I grew up in one of those homes. No, you know, my parents divorced when I was young. My dad was an alcoholic, my mom rarely would have touched a drink.

OK, so but you grew up in a disconnected house with disconnected folks and doesn't mean they didn't love you. That didn't mean they didn't try, but. You were launched out, right, and your body's been doing the best it can to protect you for a long, long time. Right. Yes, and a lot of that protection, I'm just going to guess here, has something to do with some sort of withdrawing, whether it's somatic pains, which is nerd speak for your stomach, hurts, your foot hurts, your head hurts, your back hurts what or whether that is.

Disconnecting from relationships, from pulling back, right, from withdrawing. Am I on the right track here? Yeah, yeah. So.

A little context here, we do have. There are four little boys in our house, so our new one. As for almost four months old, I've got a four, five and seven. Four, five and seven and four months. Yes. How many of those are biologically yours? They're all mine, the new one is biologically his, the other three are not his.

No, so graciously. I mean, he is a good man. Yes, he is a very good man. I am not going to say he is like I'm terribly horrible person by any means.

So I'm going to reframe your husband for you for a minute, OK? And I may be way off and people accuse me of being too optimistic sometimes. But that guy. Loves you, do you agree with that? Yeah, does he love you a lot? Thanks. Thanks. Oh, no, don't don't do that, does he love you a lot? Yeah, OK, I think he does.

He took on three of your kids. He is dated you for several years. He married you. He loves you. And there is nothing more painful. In the world than watching somebody you love hurt.

And when you have a depressive episode, when your body for whatever it's coming on in your environment, whether it's you've got a four month old, for God's sakes, or for age seven and age under in the middle of a pandemic, in the middle of a wacky city that's growing but not growing and kind of growing there in Waco in the middle of a state that doesn't know what what what day it is sometimes. Right. All of those things happening at the same time.

And then some and some write and historical trauma that your body is still wrestling with and your husband looks at the woman he loves more than anybody else in the world and sees her hurting. And it's hard to watch. And some guys and by some I mean almost all of us, myself included, don't always have the right tools to know what to do when I can't run out and just strangle it or I can't run out and write a mean letter to it to solve it.

Right. I can't go out and have a stern conversation with or whatever we were trained to do. And so sometimes that frustration that feels like a burden is simply a powerlessness that your husband has over the pain the woman he loves is feeling. Right. And so I'm going to put him to the side, I'm going to assume he's a good guy trying to figure out what he can do, how he can help. And yeah, he's frustrated. And yeah, he's got X, Y, Z, and he's not going to say the right things, all those things.

Right.

Of course, the question I want to ask you is, do you want to be done with depression? Well, yeah, who doesn't? Well, but it comes with a cost. And that's why I'm asking and it may not be a conversation that you can complete on this call, because it's going to be a more long term thing. But if you want to be done. At some point, you have to go back to that six year old little girl.

Whose dad didn't show up because he was drunk again. Whose mom wouldn't touch a drink? She did all the right things, but was trying to protect you and if you have any siblings from an alcoholic dad. A six year old who's still trying to figure out what she did to make her parents split up, and you're going to have to let that little girl go play. You're going to have to let her off the hook because she's still trying to protect you now and as you have four kids.

Three by somebody else or more than one other person. You are starting to the cycle is starting to repeat itself and then insteps this guy that loves you. And that's when I ask you this, that's the stage I'm setting to ask you this question, do you want to be done with them? Because if you want to be done with it. It's going to take some hard work on your part. And it means you're going to have to connect with people in a way that you probably don't have the skills to connect.

And you're going to have to say the same as you like I had I want to learn Spanish, I want to learn how to knit. I'm going to learn how to connect with other people because I did not get that skill growing up and I'm not going to do that to my four kids. I know better. No, no, no, no, they don't need better, they need you. They need their mama because I know you love those kids, too, don't you?

Yes, sir, a lot. Very much. All right, so here I want you to paint me a picture. Real quick, what is a life free of depression? What does that look like for you? The question is totally what does it I mean, what does it look like? Peace. Yeah, there you go, I guess. Yeah. I'll paint you some pictures, OK?

I'll put some things out there that you got for knucklehead, a little boys, and your body feels good enough that you can roll around on the floor of them, have a big dogpile wrestling match every afternoon, and you cannot react loudly.

You cannot react or yelling or screaming or withdrawing when one of them acts like a five year old or a seven year old or a four year old. And that you and your husband can have a budget meeting together, you can have a. Hey, we're not having enough sex conversation together, and you can have it in a way that's not a fight, but just more of a hey, I need you to lean in on this area more than I need to lean on that area more or hey, you've been working a lot of hours and love just to have some time with you.

I'm sleepy and I'm just going to go to sleep with no meds. I'm going to take time to read a book. I'm going to do something that's not a Netflix special. I'm going to go for a walk out there by the river there in Waco. That's what I'm talking about. Not that you're not going to have sad days and frustrated and angry days, but the word you gave me is peace.

And here's the thing.

If you learn how to not be depressed, which you can do. You're not going to be healed, you're going to be empty, you're going to have to learn some new skills and if you go into this that way. If you lean into learning new skills, giving yourself permission to fall down and be graceful, let your husband know. Tell him to give me a call to OK. But I want you to hear me say this, Katie. Those four little boys deserve this.

That knuckleheaded husband of yours deserves this, and more than anybody, you deserve to let that little girl go play and you deserve. Thank you. Do you believe me? Yes. OK, so here's the deal, I'm holding you accountable to this in 30 days, I'm going to email you back. I'm going to email you back and I'm going to find out if you've gone to see a counselor there in Waco. I'm going to find out if you and your husband have sat down and had a conversation about what does it look, what does healing look like?

What are some things he can do not to give you advice, not to get frustrated, but to start helping in the house, helping around the house? What are some little winds? What are some things you can start doing? I'm going to commit to taking a walk. Every day I'm going to take my kids out for a walk, we're going to go walk around the neighborhood, I'm going to commit because I'm going to be a steward of my body and be a steward of my mind.

I'm going to be a steward of fill in the blank.

I'm going to go back and watch all these videos on YouTube of the show. I'm going to really go down the rabbit hole. I'm going to read or get audio books. I'm going to do the things. I'm going to begin to learn some of this stuff and then the hearts of them to start practicing it. So I'm going to and I put a note on my calendar, Kitty, I'm going to email you in a month. I'm check in on you, see how you're doing, and I want you be honest with me, but I believe in you and I believe that this is the season that this cycle is going to get broken because you're going to choose.

I don't wanna be depressed anymore. I don't want to live in that life. Want to be? I want to be somebody of peace. Oh, I'm so glad that you call Kerry and. Tell that husband, look at your husband in the eye and say, hey, I know you're frustrated, but I talked to a guy on the radio.

He told me that just because you love me and I'm hurting and you don't know what to do. And so then give him a big hug and ask him a big smooch. Just tell him I love you. That's not going to help a lot, but that'll be fun for me. All right. As we wrap up the show here.

Oh, man. This actually is I went to this show, I went to watch these guys open up for John Mayer and. I love John Mayer, I think he's extraordinarily great songwriter. He's hilarious. He's the best guitarist of my generation.

But this band came out and they made art on a stage in a way that I don't think I've ever seen anybody do. It was extraordinary. But this song kind of went quiet on their hit record, their 1993 record, and it's one of my favorite songs ever, and they came out and opened the show to this and that stuck in my head. One of those live performances. It stays with you forever. So after nineteen ninety three August and everything after record, the Counting Crows.

Wrote Reinking and Adam sings, When I think of heaven, deliver me in a blacked winged bird, I think of flying down on your sea of pins and feathers and all the instruments of faith and sex and God in the belly of a black winged bird.

Don't try to feed me because I've been here before and I deserve a little more. And I belong in the service of the Queen and I belong anywhere but in between. And she's been crying and I've been thinking and I'm the rain king.

I said, Mama, Mama, Mama, why am I so alone? Because I can't go outside. I'm scared. I might not make it home. Well, I'm alive. I'm alive, but I'm sinking in. And if there's anyone at home at your place, darlin, won't you invite me? Don't try to feed me because I've been here before and I deserve a little more. And I belong in the service of the Queen and I am the reign king.

Oh, this has been the doctor, John Deluzio.