Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / When You Can't Admit You're Anxious

Transcript

When You Can't Admit You're Anxious · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:05
  Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Dr. Psych Mom Show.
• 0:08
  Today we're going to talk about when you can't admit you're
• 0:11
  anxious. I had another podcast on when
• 0:13
  you can't admit that you're depressed.
• 0:15
  And what this is really about is people who cannot really
• 0:18
  recognize that they are anxious. And whenever they think that
• 0:23
  they might be, they switch it out in some way in their mind
• 0:26
  that's more palatable to them. Such as I'm very smart, or I
• 0:30
  love to prepare, or I'm very conscientious, or other people
• 0:33
  just, you know, don't know how to prepare in the way that I do
• 0:37
  for school, work, parenting, what have you, you know?
• 0:41
  And so they're behind, you know, and I'm ahead and all sorts of
• 0:44
  things and we will get to that just as soon as you subscribe or
• 0:48
  at least as soon as I tell you to subscribe.
• 0:50
  Most recent subscriber episode was the honeymoon stage and why
• 0:54
  there is no bait and switch. And I recorded that one
• 0:56
  specifically for all the guys that think that there is some
• 0:59
  nefarious intent and their wives having a sex drive and then not
• 1:03
  having a sex drive. And we really get to that in
• 1:05
  depth. It's well worth the 899 even
• 1:08
  less than an Audible book for most people.
• 1:12
  I think there's different levels of Audible books.
• 1:14
  I don't know because I hate listening to things.
• 1:18
  The only time I really used to listen to books on tape is when
• 1:20
  I was driving around South Carolina for my internship.
• 1:24
  But anyway, so for those of you who love podcasts, though, which
• 1:28
  seem to be many of you, there were 132 extra episodes if you
• 1:31
  subscribe. All right, so anxiety is what we
• 1:35
  call an ego sintonic disorder. It makes you feel good.
• 1:39
  You like to be anxious versus depression, which is ego
• 1:42
  dystonic. Nobody likes to be laying around
• 1:44
  on the couch and feel like death, you know?
• 1:47
  But people like to think that they're really conscientious and
• 1:52
  and that they are always on top of stuff and that they're ahead
• 1:56
  of the game. That's the way people who are
• 1:58
  anxious think about it. So anxiety is something that
• 2:01
  people spend not to want to treat because it feels good in
• 2:05
  the moment, like mania. Mania feels good, you know, You
• 2:08
  feel like you're on top of the world, grandiose.
• 2:10
  Everything's great. You're so much better than you
• 2:13
  ever imagined and better than everybody else.
• 2:15
  And maybe you should just, you know, sell your house and move
• 2:18
  to Vegas. You know, like, why not?
• 2:21
  You know, start a career as, like, a showgirl?
• 2:23
  You know, like that's like feels good to be manic, which is why
• 2:26
  people with bipolar often stop taking their meds.
• 2:30
  Of course that's not a good idea.
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  Then you crash. And also when you're manic, you
• 2:33
  make terribly bad decisions that impact other people.
• 2:36
  But there are things that are ego, centonic and distonic, was
• 2:39
  my point. And centonic is, this is
• 2:42
  anxiety, which is what we're talking about today.
• 2:45
  Like, even perfectionistic. That sounds good.
• 2:47
  It's got the word perfect in it, for Christ's sake, right?
• 2:50
  And I mean, like, you know, sounds good.
• 2:51
  I just love to be perfect, you know?
• 2:53
  And people will just really identify.
• 2:56
  Every time I share anything on anxiety, it gets shared on like
• 2:59
  social media, it gets shared like a million times.
• 3:01
  It's like, haha, that's me, I'm anxious.
• 3:04
  But like, you know, nobody's like, haha, that's me, I'm
• 3:06
  depressed. You know, Like, it's just, it
• 3:09
  comes off different. And so, however, anxiety sucks.
• 3:13
  It's really bad for your kids, and particularly which is going
• 3:16
  to be a mainstay of of this podcast episode, because most of
• 3:20
  the people I talk to are parents, and your anxiety is
• 3:23
  transmitted to your children. You teach them your way of
• 3:26
  viewing the world and the reality is, is anxiety is is not
• 3:32
  fun. Particularly when you're a child
• 3:34
  or teenager and you're trying to enjoy your life and have
• 3:38
  experiences and think of the world as an interesting and
• 3:42
  adventurous place versus some place that you were taught by
• 3:45
  your parents. Is filled with danger and risk
• 3:48
  and germs, you know, So people who are anxious children have
• 3:53
  stomach aches. They, they don't like to go to
• 3:55
  school. They have unexplained medical
• 3:57
  ailments and nobody can ever, you know, see what's wrong with
• 4:00
  them because there's nothing wrong.
• 4:02
  I mean, of course there's something wrong with them.
• 4:03
  They're anxious, but you know, no blood test will show
• 4:06
  anything. There's not any medical thing
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  going on. There's the mind, body
• 4:09
  connection and they have headaches and stomach aches and,
• 4:12
  you know, they don't want to go to school.
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  School refusal, separation anxiety, you know, social
• 4:18
  anxiety. Just so let me just go through.
• 4:21
  I thought it would be useful because sometimes this is
• 4:24
  transformative to people. I'm going to pull up the
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  criteria, the DSM criteria for generalized anxiety disorder
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  because sometimes that can be transformative.
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  So here you go. These are the criteria.
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  You have excessive anxiety and worry for at least six months.
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  This is for generalized anxiety disorder.
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  Difficulty controlling the worrying and the anxiety results
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  in significant distress or impairs daily functioning.
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  So like, for example, you would have to get up two hours before
• 4:53
  your kids wake up in the morning because like you have to get
• 4:56
  everything exactly right and you, like, never get enough
• 4:58
  sleep. But you can't imagine having a
• 5:00
  different routine, right? And the anxiety isn't due to a
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  physical cause such as substance use, having 17 cups of coffee or
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  something, you know. The anxiety is also associated
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  with three or more of the following symptoms for at least
• 5:13
  six months. Restlessness or feeling on edge.
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  You should be ticking these off on your fingers.
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  Guys being easily fatigued, difficulty concentrating, muscle
• 5:25
  tension, sleep issues, irritability.
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  That's a big one, right? And in terms of those physical
• 5:34
  symptoms, there's also shortness of breath, heart palpitations,
• 5:39
  stomach aches, unexplained pains, headaches, back aches.
• 5:43
  That's all like in the physical realm as well.
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  So, So a lot of people will be like, holy shit, like I actually
• 5:50
  have a lot of those, But like, I'm not an anxious person, I'm
• 5:52
  just somebody who likes to get up two hours before my kids.
• 5:55
  And also like it takes me an hour to wind down at night.
• 5:58
  Also, I do take a Benadryl to sleep every night, or at least I
• 6:00
  have a drink. And also, my husband has said
• 6:03
  that I'm like, super rigid and difficult, but fuck him because
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  he's no Prince himself, you know, So anxiety is more
• 6:09
  prevalent in women, which is why I address this to women mostly.
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  But of course, there's plenty of anxious men.
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  Usually the man is not the one who's making all the parenting
• 6:17
  decisions, though. And so from my perspective, and
• 6:20
  I've disclosed numerous times, including in the Washington
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  Post, that I was raised in a very anxious household.
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  And so that's something that I worked with at first.
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  That was my passion to work with was people who are parents who
• 6:34
  are anxious so that they don't transmit their anxiety to kids.
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  And that's why I had so much on my website about that and like
• 6:39
  how to deal with your partner's child related anxiety.
• 6:42
  What does it feel like to cure your anxiety?
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  I was an anxious kid. Now I'm a let it go mom, like
• 6:47
  all of these different things. And there's a on Doctor Psych
• 6:50
  mom.com, there is a category cloud or whatever and you could
• 6:54
  just click on anxiety if you want to see all that anyway.
• 6:58
  So the the point being that many people who just think that they
• 7:03
  are really, you know, love routines are really suffering
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  from a disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, and they were
• 7:09
  raised that way by their own parents.
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  So it can actually go either way.
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  Most anxious people were raised that way by their own parents,
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  but some people were neglected. So they, like their parents,
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  were really kind of out of it, whether it was drugs or, you
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  know, alcohol or depression or whatever.
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  Their parents just were not watching them.
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  So they had to take care of themselves and they had to come
• 7:32
  up with all these little routines and stuff because they
• 7:34
  had to make their own lunches from like, when they were like 6
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  years old or something. Not like, you know, like the
• 7:38
  cute way where like, your kid helps you make a lunch, but
• 7:41
  you're really the one remembering it.
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  Like they had to remember it because otherwise they didn't
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  eat, etcetera. So those people get anxious too,
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  and they want to make sure that their child never has the same
• 7:51
  level of suffering that they did and always knows that somebody's
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  watching out for them. And then that can metastasize
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  into this extremely anxious constricted worldview where they
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  over parent their child and don't allow the child to engage
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  in developmentally appropriate and dependent activities.
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  Because you know they don't want the child to ever feel like they
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  are burdened by by having to do the level of stuff that the
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  parent themselves had to do as a child but then they go too far.
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  So that's some people not will resonate with some of you but
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  and that I have a post about that is your are your early life
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  experiences stopping you from teaching your child frustration
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  tolerance. So that one will resonate on all
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  my stuff on over parenting and stopped letting your kids treat
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  you like garbage and all of that.
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  But most people that are anxious were just raised in anxious
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  houses. So, like, if you grew up
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  hearing, like you always had to have an extra of everything,
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  then you have an extra of everything, not even thinking,
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  like, why the hell do I need an extra shampoo?
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  What's the worst that could happen?
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  You know, it's not just one extra shampoo.
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  It's like turns into like 5 extra shampoos.
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  You know? Why do I need 5 extra shampoos?
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  So that I don't have 4. Why do I only have four?
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  Well, if you have 4:00, then that's not enough.
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  Why is it not enough? Well, I guess because my crazy
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  family taught me it wasn't enough, you know, or whatever it
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  is because, you know, you may not know.
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  OCD is an anxiety disorder, too. Hoarding is an anxiety disorder.
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  Generalized anxiety, obviously anxiety disorder, panic
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  disorder, with or without agoraphobia is an anxiety
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  disorder. There are a lot of anxiety
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  disorders. They're all funk.
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  They're all have in common that there's a rigidity around seeing
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  the world and like fear, it's very, very fear based with
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  hoarding for example. It's fear of getting rid of
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  stuff that you'll need it in the future.
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  OCD. It's fear that you're going to
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  feel a terrible way if you don't have, if you don't engage in
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  your compulsion or your obsession is inter.
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  It's it's interjecting itself in in this way that makes you feel
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  very, very scared. You know like a common obsession
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  of young mothers is about the kids getting sick, right.
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  So it's very fear based right. Compulsion.
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  Compulsive behaviors are supposed to alleviate fear, but
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  they don't end up doing it, they just end up self perpetuating.
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  Now for all of these anxiety disorders, the treatment is
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  exposure therapy, exposure therapy, and I have a a post
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  entitled Exposure therapy. Sitting with your anxiety, you
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  see your anxiety peak and decrease and you're not allowed
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  to engage in your regular behavior or your compulsion.
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  So, for example, a hoarder would have to throw something out and
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  sit there without taking it back out of the trash or buying
• 10:30
  another one, right? And then you learn that your
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  anxiety can peak and decrease and it will pass and you won't
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  die where you won't be so upset that you can't function, which
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  is very common fear of it's a fear of negative emotion, a fear
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  of being upset, right. So that's very classic in in
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  anxious homes, a lot of stuff is done so that nobody is upset.
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  So the idea, my example, of the parent who has to get up two
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  hours before their child, that is so that the parent does not
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  feel stressed. So the parent is actually
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  stopping themselves from sleeping, which is very
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  important for mental health. Stopping themselves from
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  engaging in intimacy with their partner, which is also important
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  for a happy marriage. Stopping themselves from even,
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  you know, having like, you know, a fucking relaxing morning.
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  Because remember, for the two hours, it's not like they're
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  just, you know, are engaging in their hobbies.
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  They're like planning shit out. They're on their phone, they're
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  scheduling, they're getting the lunch, they're doing this,
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  they're doing that. They're taking a shower that has
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  to last exactly a certain amount of time, you know?
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  So what they're trying to do is they're trying to get out ahead
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  of any potential feeling of being overwhelmed, you know?
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  And sometimes two hours turns into three hours, turns into
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  four hours. There's a certain point where it
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  obviously seems crazy, but most people stop themselves before
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  that point so that they could say that they're just, you know,
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  like to get a jump on the day. And this is just one example,
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  right? Another example would be all the
• 11:58
  parents. And I have my podcast on picky
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  eating, a controversial approach.
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  So these parents that want to make the kid never have a bad
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  emotion because they're terrified of how bad they will
• 12:10
  feel when their kid is upset and they don't think about it like
• 12:13
  that. But they're very anxious about
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  how they will feel if their child is distressed.
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  So then they never give their child something that their child
• 12:21
  wouldn't like. Or if they do, that can never be
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  one of the only offers. There has to be the chicken
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  fingers. That's the only thing that the
• 12:29
  kid eats. And then maybe a little bit,
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  they'll offer something else and they'll take it away they pretty
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  quick if the kid doesn't want it, because they don't want the
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  kid to get upset, this terror of the child being upset.
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  The same thing with like over like, over like warning the
• 12:47
  child about, like, every upcoming thing that's happening,
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  which of course makes a child more anxious.
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  But this whole, like, well, in two weeks, buddy, we're going to
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  go to the pediatrician. Now here's 15 books on
• 13:00
  pediatricians, and some kids get very scared of the pediatrician,
• 13:05
  but I know that I'll be right there to protect you.
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  I mean, holy shit, I'm developing and developing an
• 13:12
  anxiety disorder. Just thinking about the way that
• 13:15
  a lot of people talk, of course kids going to be fucking scared.
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  You told him to be scared. He's a smart kid.
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  You're literally telling him to be scared.
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  But when you can't admit that you're anxious, then you tell
• 13:27
  yourself that this is just you being a good parent, getting a
• 13:30
  jump on things, making sure that nothing happens, nothing was
• 13:34
  going to happen. You know, like going to the
• 13:37
  doctors, like pretty normal thing.
• 13:39
  People do it. But if you make a whole thing
• 13:42
  out of it without knowing that you're anxious, now what?
• 13:44
  What's the point of this podcast is?
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  If you recognize that you're anxious, then you could be like,
• 13:48
  hmm, maybe that thing where I get all those, you know, books
• 13:51
  and over preparation and warnings and all this shit about
• 13:55
  stuff that's coming up, Maybe that's an anxiety thing.
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  If it was an anxiety thing, then it's actually making the kid
• 14:01
  anxious. So maybe that's not a being a
• 14:03
  good mom thing, even though of course I did have good
• 14:05
  intentions, but it's an anxious thing.
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  Maybe I should go investigate with a therapist which of my
• 14:09
  other beliefs and behaviors are anxious.
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  Maybe my kid has stomach aches because I'm so anxious all the
• 14:15
  time. Maybe my husband may be a total
• 14:18
  asshole, but maybe even an asshole, even a stopped asshole
• 14:21
  is right twice a day or clock. But you know, and maybe I've
• 14:27
  never seen a situation where a guy said his wife was anxious
• 14:29
  and he didn't have a point. I mean really, just like I never
• 14:33
  seen a situation where the guy woman says her husband is an
• 14:36
  asshole and she doesn't have a point.
• 14:37
  You know, people pick up on things pretty good in their
• 14:40
  marriage. And, you know, I'm sure he had a
• 14:42
  lot of things he could complain about.
• 14:44
  But if he picked anxious and rigid, I mean, it's got to be
• 14:48
  something in reality, you know, life is not filled with, you
• 14:51
  know, Lifetime movies where people are trying to gaslight
• 14:54
  each other. We're not in the Hitchcock film.
• 14:56
  If he said that he thinks you're anxious, maybe he has a point.
• 15:00
  Maybe you should get evaluated. Maybe if you did, then he will
• 15:03
  go to a therapist and work on being an asshole.
• 15:04
  Which I'm sure you have a point about.
• 15:07
  Another reason by the way, in the marital realm that some
• 15:10
  women don't think that they're anxious is because they're
• 15:12
  married to somebody with a DHD and or who's like a classic
• 15:15
  underfunctioner. But this is a codependency
• 15:17
  thing. You came in from the beginning,
• 15:19
  from when you were dating. You came in and you dealt with
• 15:22
  all his shit and you made him doctor's appointments and you
• 15:24
  made him food and he never had to buy clothes anymore.
• 15:27
  And you, you know, you found your reason, you know, to the
• 15:31
  for, for living in, organizing all of this shit because you're
• 15:35
  an anxious person and that's so easy for you to do all all that
• 15:37
  stuff. But you know, that got him into
• 15:40
  being extremely dependent, like feeding the birds and the bird
• 15:43
  feeder and then stopping feeding them.
• 15:44
  They're going to die, right? So the point is that then this
• 15:48
  codependent model goes on for years and years and then you
• 15:52
  say, well, of course I have to be anxious because my husband
• 15:54
  doesn't do anything. Well, you know, like, why does
• 15:57
  he do any doing anything? Possibly because you're anxious.
• 16:01
  It's very, very rare. I mean, beyond rare for like, a
• 16:05
  guy to divorce his wife and the same guy who couldn't do
• 16:08
  anything somehow has a home. You know, they eat when they
• 16:11
  have the kids there. The kids eat.
• 16:12
  Everybody's alive, you know? Does it look as nice as the
• 16:15
  woman's house? Is it as neat and clean?
• 16:17
  Probably not. But is everybody okay?
• 16:20
  Yes. You know, so there's a
• 16:22
  codependent thing where an anxious woman partners with a
• 16:25
  guy with a DHD or who's just trained to be an
• 16:28
  underfunctioner. Like his mom did everything and
• 16:30
  then he went to you and now you do everything.
• 16:32
  And so we never learned to do anything.
• 16:34
  So, you know, that model can make a woman think that she,
• 16:37
  quote, has to be anxious. Nobody has to be anxious,
• 16:41
  though. And frequently when these women
• 16:43
  realize that their anxiety is hurting their kids and then they
• 16:45
  get treated for it, then the man does step up and do more stuff
• 16:48
  and or the marriage ends, you know which it should have been
• 16:50
  before because there was a fuckload of conflict and
• 16:54
  fighting and all sorts of crazy shit about the fact that this
• 16:56
  they were over functioning, slash under functioning.
• 17:00
  So, you know, when you're thinking about whether you're
• 17:02
  anxious, think about whether you've ever gotten feedback that
• 17:05
  you're anxious. And if maybe you know that's
• 17:09
  correct. People become superstitious,
• 17:12
  really, about their anxiety. Like they don't remember the bad
• 17:16
  things that come with the anxiety.
• 17:17
  They only remember the good ones.
• 17:18
  So if the mother wakes up every day, two hours ahead of the kid,
• 17:21
  right? And one day when she jolts
• 17:24
  awake, you know she remembers that there's a form due.
• 17:29
  So she goes through the backpack and ha, she found it.
• 17:32
  It's crumpled up at the bottom of the backpack.
• 17:34
  And then she filled it out and then she got it and it was even
• 17:36
  due that day, right. So that type of shit she's gonna
• 17:39
  remember as like, Oh yeah, my anxiety, it's good for me.
• 17:42
  It makes me a better mother, but in reality, who gives a shit?
• 17:46
  They would have eventually contacted you about the form.
• 17:48
  So many people didn't have the form.
• 17:50
  Also, what about all those hours of your life where you are
• 17:53
  awake, doing nothing? You know, like just rearranging
• 17:56
  your calendar and shit. You know, because you're anxious
• 17:59
  so you don't remember those times.
• 18:02
  You remember the victories because they go in with how you
• 18:04
  like to think about the world. It's confirmation bias thing,
• 18:07
  which is natural human thing. If something confirms the way
• 18:11
  you view the world and you remember it more readily,
• 18:13
  obviously you know and it in. In fact, there's even just very
• 18:19
  briefly, there's like a special category of anxious parents.
• 18:22
  And those are the ones whose kids have something wrong, like
• 18:25
  a medical issue or special needs of source in some way, mental,
• 18:30
  emotional, medical, whatever. And so these parents, frequently
• 18:34
  they caught something, right? Like they caught an issue.
• 18:37
  So like, the kid was dyslexic and nobody caught it until they
• 18:40
  sat down to read with the kid, which they wouldn't have done in
• 18:43
  their mind if they were. And so anxious, which they're
• 18:47
  saying is like a cute thing, like like naming a puppy anxious
• 18:50
  here it can be you're anxious, you're so cute, you know, But
• 18:52
  anxious isn't really that cute when anxious turns into a big
• 18:55
  fucking dog. Right.
• 18:56
  And anxious, like eating through your whole house.
• 18:58
  Which I'll just stop with the metaphor, but you get my point.
• 19:01
  So anyway, they want to think that the anxiety is protective
• 19:07
  and helps the child and and that it's like this good kind of
• 19:11
  anxiety that's adaptive evolutionarily and all of this
• 19:14
  stuff. But yeah, they caught the
• 19:16
  dyslexia 2 weeks later. Somebody else might have called
• 19:19
  the dyslexia. The kid might have also said,
• 19:21
  hey, I can't read, you know, like anything could have
• 19:24
  happened there and what? And also, you can be a
• 19:29
  responsive, attentive parent and to be present with your child
• 19:33
  without being, without being anxious.
• 19:35
  And the irony that is a real mindfuck for a lot of people who
• 19:39
  discuss this anxiety with me in session is frequently everybody
• 19:44
  will say this. I mean, because people really do
• 19:46
  want to change and grow, you know, even if it's difficult,
• 19:48
  even if it's not flattering. Eventually, when presented with
• 19:51
  enough evidence that the way that they're viewing things may
• 19:54
  be hurting the kids and particularly a lot of parents,
• 19:57
  you know well that that's a thing like people in general, to
• 20:01
  sabotage them. Themselves.
• 20:02
  All right, fine. But if you're hurting your kids,
• 20:04
  then you know that's worse. Much worse.
• 20:07
  So eventually we talk about how the anxiety stuffs them from
• 20:11
  being present with their kids, the actual thing that they think
• 20:14
  is the redeeming feature of the anxiety, such that it makes you
• 20:17
  be even more present and more attentive.
• 20:20
  In fact, how many times are you cleaning and sterilizing shit
• 20:24
  and not listening really to your kids day?
• 20:26
  How much are you actually not there when your kid is talking
• 20:30
  mentally because you're thinking about all the shit that you have
• 20:33
  to do and getting so stressed out about it?
• 20:35
  How much are you snapping or yelling at your kid because your
• 20:39
  anxiety makes you wound so tight?
• 20:41
  You know, so in fact, maybe who knows what you're not catching?
• 20:46
  Maybe if you weren't anxious, you'd be catching even more
• 20:49
  stuff that's wrong with the kid. Who the fuck knows?
• 20:52
  But what anxiety does not do is it doesn't make you more
• 20:55
  present, makes you less present because you're overwhelmed,
• 20:58
  you're in your head, you're also exhausted, and you also don't
• 21:02
  feel good. Not to mention, of course, as
• 21:06
  but we will, that it erodes the closeness in your marriage.
• 21:10
  So then. And it limits your child's
• 21:11
  ability to have a successful romantic relationship as a
• 21:15
  template for their own life. Because the one thing that is
• 21:19
  the worst to deal with for men besides not having sex, and
• 21:23
  believe me, there's a big overlap between anxiety and not
• 21:25
  having sex is anxiety. As I discussed in Why Men
• 21:30
  Initiate Divorce, It's much less than women do.
• 21:32
  But the reasons I see them do initiate divorce are anxiety and
• 21:37
  sexlessness, right? And those two have a huge
• 21:39
  overlap. Because remember, I just read to
• 21:41
  you the generalized anxiety disorder symptoms.
• 21:43
  Well, if you feel like shit all the time and you're in fight or
• 21:46
  flight, guess what? It's not fight, flight or fuck,
• 21:48
  you know, like you can't because you're so, so stressed out.
• 21:52
  If you feel like a Tiger's going to attack you because you
• 21:54
  didn't, like, clean out your kids lunch bag, good enough and
• 21:57
  you know they're going to get germs from something.
• 21:59
  And then what about the fact that their friend got mad at
• 22:02
  them and you have to figure out how to, like, help them and
• 22:04
  you're looking on Amazon for books to coach them through?
• 22:07
  They're like completely developmentally normal friend
• 22:10
  drama. How are you going to be having
• 22:13
  sex? How are you even going to be
• 22:14
  having a date night? How are you even going to be
• 22:15
  having a conversation with your husband that isn't about this
• 22:19
  topic? You know, this obsessional
• 22:22
  topic. So so yeah, so it limits the
• 22:25
  ability to connect. And most men don't even divorce
• 22:28
  the wife who's anxious for that reason.
• 22:30
  They do it because they don't want their child's life to be so
• 22:33
  constricted. And they perceive that if they
• 22:35
  were in a separate household, at least some of the time, the
• 22:38
  child would be exposed to a more relaxed and spontaneous way of
• 22:41
  living. And that's always very
• 22:43
  important, more important to men who are less anxious generally,
• 22:46
  than to women to to see the world as as a place that's
• 22:49
  exciting, filled with adventure and not always like danger,
• 22:52
  germs, bad people, etcetera. Anyway, I hope that this podcast
• 22:57
  resonated with some of you. I hope at least one person
• 22:59
  realizes that they're anxious. Now, if you're listening and you
• 23:02
  realize that your wife is anxious, is this a good one to
• 23:04
  give to her? I mean, it's not the worst one
• 23:07
  to give to her. As I told you already, though,
• 23:09
  people don't like to get my podcast, don't do it.
• 23:12
  You know, Like, don't bombard people with with a podcast.
• 23:16
  Like, literally just come and say I was listening to this
• 23:18
  podcast or I was reading. And you know what made me think
• 23:22
  that, like a lot of the stuff that's going on in our house
• 23:24
  that's so stressful, I think that it could be related to your
• 23:27
  anxiety and then come in with something you do wrong.
• 23:29
  I also do not engage with the kids maybe as much as I should.
• 23:33
  As you've pointed out before, I can be on my phone a lot, you
• 23:36
  know, And I really think I'm kind of, you know, difficult to
• 23:39
  talk to. You're really good at
• 23:41
  empathizing with the kids. The thing is, though, is I'm
• 23:44
  starting to think that maybe there's more going on.
• 23:46
  There's like actual anxiety. You know, You don't feel well a
• 23:49
  lot. You're exhausted a lot.
• 23:51
  You're up so much, like early and in the middle of the night
• 23:54
  and, you know, you're a great mom.
• 23:56
  But I really do think there's some anxiety here.
• 23:58
  You know, I think that we should maybe go to couples counseling
• 24:01
  because that would help me better learn how to be empathic
• 24:05
  to you and to the kids. Maybe we could work on some
• 24:07
  parenting stuff or something. And also, we can mention this
• 24:11
  thing about you being anxious. You know, and the the couple's
• 24:14
  counseling is always what you should leave with if your
• 24:16
  partner will not go to regular counseling for an individual.
• 24:19
  As I pointed out in multiple podcasts on how to get your
• 24:21
  partner to go to couples counseling.
• 24:24
  And I have posts on how to get your partner to go to therapy
• 24:27
  and I say couples counseling because then you're saying that
• 24:31
  you're part of the problem too. You know what?
• 24:33
  You're always part of the problem, too.
• 24:34
  Like, nobody's perfect at all. All right, well, I hope you guys
• 24:38
  enjoyed this and do subscribe and I'll talk to Y'all soon.
• 24:40
  Have a great day.