Transcription
Foreign Gainesville, Florida. What's up, Chris? Uh, not too much, Dr. John. It's an honor to speak with you. Thank you for taking my call. It's an honor to talk to you, brother. What's up, man? Uh, so I'll, I'll be brief. Uh, give you a little background, and then I guess we can, uh, go over the conversation leads. Uh, but, uh, so over time, uh, my relationship with my mom has degraded to the point that I no longer wish to have a relationship with her.
How old are you? Um, I'm 40. 40, okay. How old is she? Uh, she is 70. Okay, cool. Thanks, man. Uh, so I feel that as the years have gone on that my family and I are, are less and less of a priority. Um, but what stops me is she's still my mom. Um, I, uh, but even when, when we travel to go back home, or even when I see her name come up on a phone call, I instantly gain anxiety. And it's to a point, it's not crippling, but it's to a point to where I, I feel I'm uncomfortable even afterwards, or even leading up to travel. Um, so I've read your book, um, "Own Your Past, Change Your Future," and, um, this brick has been in my backpack for years. Um, but given, given the nature of who it is, I, I need some help learning how to set it down and let it go.
Cool, man. Um, not really, man. I appreciate that call. Uh, you are not alone, my brother, in that one. So thanks for, um, having the courage to reach out. Um, what did your mom do? Uh, so she's not retired. What did she do to you? What does she do to you? Um, so I am, I'm an active duty service member. So unfortunately, my family is an army rat family in tow. Uh, so we've, we've moved all around the country and we still continue to.
But for the longest time, wait a minute, wait a minute. What do you mean, unfortunately? Well, so, uh, it's a, it's a path that I chose, and my family, uh, my family's been along for the ride, and they have been extremely supportive through, through the whole, through the whole ordeal.
Did you tell your wife you were gonna work at Home Depot and then suddenly you came home and you're like, surprise, I enlisted? Uh, so no. A funny story with, uh, with how I met my wife. Uh, not even two months after my deployment to Iraq, and, uh, as she was, she was on board with a soldier from right then and there. So no, it wasn't a surprise. So she chose you too. She did. So she chose this life. She did. And your kids are gonna get to see all parts of the country and the world and meet all kinds of new people, learn from different adults and children their own age. Oh, they are. That's incredible. No more ever seeing, unfortunately. Cool. Yes, sir. Yes. I grew up in the same home, in the same town, on the same street, in the same place, and I had a great childhood. And it's also terrifying for me to be away from my house, right? Which is a, makes it tough to live in a modern world. So I liked being stable. I also wish, man, I'd gotten some opportunities to go out and see some stuff. So it's gonna be 6.5. Another, your kids are lucky to have you. Cool. Yes. Okay. All right, back to it. Sorry for the interruption. Oh, no, no problem at all. Okay, so what, what is, why does your mom make you anxious? What does she do, man?
So it stemmed from, I, I, I would say even, even back when, when I was in college. Uh, so we, uh, so some background on that. So my, um, my mother and father divorced after 40 years, just a few years back. Um, but in reality, even, um, even myself and my siblings, we thought if it was going to happen, it should have happened 20 years ago. Uh, so we were not a close-knit family that drifted apart. I think we've kind of been, uh, we've kind of just had this dynamic for years. Uh, to the extent to where, like, I, I just, I never enjoyed going home. My, my sister graduated from college and she had an apartment, and her relationship went south, and she moved back home at 25 and is still there today.
So what made you uncomfortable when you went back? People whining and complaining about everything? Are they poking at you? Are they saying, man, you're getting fat? Or why you have a beard? Or you never even come around anymore? Oh, goody two-like. What is it? What was it about the things that you showed up up to? So it was always for holidays. But for the longest time, me and my family, we lived 45 minutes away. But my family only made it a priority to come over on holidays. But, uh, I guess it's a social media to me has just been like a, a terrible enabler as well, because on social media, my mom would, would then decide to post stuff that, "Oh, I miss my grandkids. Or I miss my family so much." But she doesn't call for birthdays. Um, she will post on Facebook, or even, even as her own son, I would get a text on my birthday, you know, at 10 PM at night, because I think she may have seen something on social media to remember that, "Oh, it's, it's my son's birthday." Yeah.
So before your parents got divorced, you mentioned about college. Take me back to middle school. What was middle school like in your house? Um, middle school wasn't, uh, it wasn't too bad. Um, around that time, um, my brother was in high school, and I, so with me being in middle school, um, I guess, so there was a significant family event. My, my brother was in a terrible car accident that, uh, that put him in the hospital for quite some time. Uh, so that shifted the family dynamic a little bit. But, um, my, my dad has always kind of been distant. He's an outdoorsy person. My mom wasn't. Um, so like my dad was, he was more of a weekend dad because he would, uh, he would stay, he would probably, he would stay out on the farm in the cabin through the week because that's what he enjoyed to do. But then we, we got together on the weekends.
And after your brother's accident, did Mom dial up the anxiety in the house? Um, a little bit, and it took a while to, to figure that out. Um, so, uh, we, uh, my brother passed away back in 2009 from an accidental overdose. And, uh, my mom couldn't handle it. We all struggled pretty hard. Uh, but it was only then when we learned, um, because, uh, my mom almost died of a prescription pill overdose that she had battled with, uh, with prescription meds ever since my brother was in an accident in the '90s.
So just, just for the sake of brevity, you've probably heard this, but if you haven't, um, I'll say it anyway. Trauma can be affirmative. It could be a thing that somebody does to you. It can also be a thing that somebody kept from you that they should have given you. And connection with an adult is oxygen for a child. And so nobody put their hands around your throat, but you were suffocated as a kid. And living with an addict is like trying to hug a ghost. You see them, and every time you try to hold on tight, your hands go right through them, right? They're present with you, but they're not there. And for a kid, especially with pills, especially with pills, kids go crazy because they see that person in front of them that they're supposed to love, and that person doesn't respond in a way that makes sense to a little kid's body. And I say a little kid, I'm talking about through high school. And so it doesn't surprise me the least bit. And you and I could probably sit down, dude, and grab a drink and just talk all the way through it. But man, it doesn't surprise me for a little bit that that family system set your body's alarms off that we're not safe here. This isn't a smart place for us to be. Right, right.
And I want you to hold that tension with this thing I'm about to tell you, okay? It could be that you got a mom with a lot of guilt and a lot of shame who looks at the world this way. My little boy left me. He had to get out of here, and I understand it. And so he went to the military to get away from me. And then he married somebody who was all in on the military. Now they move around every year, and I don't want to bother them. So I'm just gonna, I'll miss some, like, bloody hell, and I love them, but I'm just gonna post about it. I'm not even gonna reach out. I don't want to bother them. I've done enough damage for one lifetime. I'm giving her a ton of grace when I do that. Okay? Here's why I'm telling you that. It doesn't matter. What matters is this: you don't like who you become in the presence of certain people. You don't like how your body responds. You don't like the way that it makes you short around your family. You don't like the way that your kids get dragged through your attention as you're packing up to go to a place you don't even want to be taking them, right? All that works together. So I want you to relax and drop your shoulders and trust, Chris. I believe deeply that we need to respect our parents, even when they haven't been good to us. But that doesn't mean that means I'm going to treat you with dignity and kindness. Sometimes the most dignified thing I can do if you're an abusive parent is not talk to you. Okay?
You're holding on to a fantasy that you either need to get right smack in the middle of, or you need to let go. Is that fair? You're holding on to a fantasy that your mom is suddenly gonna loop back around and become this incredible grandmother, and it's gonna become a party again. Maybe even your parents will get back together, like, you know what I mean? That whole line. And there's something heartbreaking, like, dude, what is it about my kids? You ain't calling their birthday, like, what did they do, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. So either you get in a car and go drive to her house and say, "I miss my mom, and we had a terrible childhood, and I want to rebuild this relationship starting today, and I'm going first. I moved all over the world, and I miss you, and I hope you didn't take that personal, that it was something against you, something I wanted to do, and I'm a service-oriented guy. You raised me that way. I want to recreate this thing, but here's the, my boundaries for it." You can do that. And if you do it, golly, Chris, it's a risk, man, because she could say no. She could blame you for everything, whatever. Or she might weep and say, "I'm so glad my boy came home." That could happen. The other one could be, man, give yourself some grace and some peace and set it down. Say, "Man, it would have been awesome to have a grandma like this that was all in on her kids, that would come, that drive that 45-minute drive so much that we had to tell her, quit coming over because you're here all the time." And that's not the grandma my kids got. And this is the reality that I find myself in. Which one of those sounds like a better option? The second one. I feel like you need to let it go. I do. Um, yeah. So, and that's the, that's the background. So like, me and my wife are like the perfect dynamic. Um, that we're opposites. And I've, I've battled with it for a while. Um, and, and my wife's family are super close-knit. Like they, uh, like her and her sister talk every single day, multiple times a day. Like she talks to her mom all the time. And, and I realize that. So I, I did come to reality that I realized that, um, I'm not, I'm not asking for my mom to be her mom. I know. But wait, hold on. That's where I struggle. But it'd be awesome if she was, right? It would. Okay. It would. When you acknowledge that, you immediately will hit a water slide down into [Music] and you've been there before as a serviceman in that black hole of grief. Like, damn it, my mom should show up and see her grandkids and want to be proud of me, and she won't say those words. That's grief. I wanted this to be this way, and here's what it actually is. And if you'll sit there for a minute and probably go one step further and write that 11 or 12-year-old Chris a letter, letting him know, "I'm sorry this, you shouldn't have been dragged through this. Sorry, brother got hurt. I'm sorry, my dad, he actually divorced Mom 30 years ago. They started fighting 20 years ago, and then they finalized it 10 years ago. Sorry that Mom was an addict and wasn't there for you. Deserve better than that." You gotta, you gotta connect with that kid. Let him know, um, it's time for him to go run and play because he's 11. He doesn't need to be holding a household together at that age because you're still trying to hold it all together now, dude. Is that fair? It is. It is. It's very clear. I'm sorry, man. Jeez.
How old are your kids? Uh, so one is 13, and the other one turned seven in two months. They're awesome. They're amazing. They are the, I, I couldn't have asked for better kids. And it makes no sense that somebody wouldn't want to hang out with them, does it? None whatsoever. Okay. They're not hanging out with y'all because they're working through things. It's not because there's a problem with you. Okay. Okay. I hate that. I hate that I'm at some point they come back around. That's my guess. But that day is not today. Um, we're coming up on a couple of months out from the holiday season. This may be a great year to practice and proactively let everybody know, "Hey, this particular holiday season, we're going to be traveling somewhere else, or we're going to be staying at home this year." And so, um, we're going to send Grandma a card. Kids, we're going to write this and send it, and then I'm going to put that to rest.
Well, I could, if I could interject, then another question. So I think where the guilt comes from is so obviously, um, so they're back in the Midwest, um, with, where I met my wife. That's where the guilt comes in about visiting. Is that her in, like, so my in-laws, my wife's parents live six miles from my mom. Okay? And so when we go home, that's normally where I feel I get guilted into going, because that I feel that like her family will travel to come see their grandkids, but it seems like we only become a priority, and we're expected to visit only when we make that effort to go all the way home.
So you got two choices, man. You cannot go and say, "Sorry, guys, might not be able to make it this year." Or you can go. And I guess you got three choices. You can do that to say, "Sorry, we're not able to make it this year." And by the way, dude, they have cashed out their vote. They have chosen to not participate in the functioning of his family. It's like people who don't vote and they yell about the president. You don't get to do that if you don't play, right? And so, right, they don't get a vote. They can yell real loud. It's annoying and it hurts, but they don't get a vote. That's one. Number two, you can go just try to make the fantasy come true and meet all of their needs, which, you know, is a moving, it's a moving finish line. You can never get to the end of that line because it always moves. Because as soon as you've been there six hours, you actually had a good visit. Someone's gonna say, "How come you're never coming around anymore? You too good for us?" And then, oh gosh, we're right back to where we started, right? The third thing is you can go visit her family and have a wonderful holiday, and tell your family, "I will be available for lunch on this day if y'all would like to have lunch. I would love to be there, and we'll be there from 12 to 3." And those are, that's just called boundaries. And if they say, "Well, we can't make it because Timmy's got a fishing tournament and Billy's going to be a..." That's great. What they are doing is they're choosing not to be with you. And that hurts, especially they're going to blame you for it, right? Right. But that's one of three options. And here's the deal: make peace with the choice, man. Just because it hurts doesn't mean it's wrong. But I do know this: I trust you to do what's right for your family. So do what's right for them. Do what's right for you, and be at peace, man. You're not gonna be, let me say it this way, you're not gonna be able to think yourself into the right action. You're gonna have to do something. And at the end of this holiday season, if you choose to not go, you choose to go all the way to the Midwest, hang out with her family, and not go see your family, you'll know if that was right. You'll know. And then next year, you have some more data and you can make a different choice. Or you go, you do know this, you know that traveling down there and doing it makes you feel like a prostitute, right? Yes. Yeah. So you got that piece of data. Try something else. Is that fair? It's fair. Yes. Yeah. Cool. Tada. I should have led with that. Uh, try something else, man. Um, let me say it this way. You and your family are worth having a good holiday season. And you can love your mom and respect her and not let her participate in bringing your holiday season down. That doesn't mean you love her less. That doesn't mean you're disrespecting her. That doesn't mean whatever. Just respect doesn't mean you have to do whatever somebody else says, even to your family's detriment. It doesn't. And you have to grieve the fact that you wish your mother was something that she has chosen to not be. And that hurts. And I'm sorry. And same with your dad, and same with your brothers. I will say this, I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for the sacrifice. Your family and I trust you, so you should trust you.