New Life LIVE

Guest (Male): Welcome to the New Life LIVE podcast. We hope to provide help and hope in your life through God's Word, counselors, and psychologists as we answer questions from listeners who call with the challenges of life. Let's go to today's episode.

Brian Perez: Hey, guys, thanks for joining us today on New Life LIVE. I'm your frequent moderator, Brian Perez. That's what AI called me. Just for kicks, I did an AI search of New Life LIVE, and it said I was the frequent moderator. It was interesting. My name was there.

A little later, I went on it again and it gave me some other title. So, AI can't decide who I am, but that's okay; I don't need AI. I know who we are. I don't dare look that up. I forget what it said about you guys, but some of you weren't even listed. I think you two were, but there were a few names I was like, "Wait a minute, they should be on there."

Yes, exactly. But anyway, I've got clinical psychologist Dr. Jill Hubbard here, as well as licensed marriage and family therapist Chris Williams. Jill, hi, what's on your mind?

Jill Hubbard: Hello, guys. Good to be with you again. I'm thinking about heeding the warning and why we do not often heed warnings. What is it about us? I was reminded about the story of the Titanic. Love the movie, great epic story. But in real life, it was tragic, was so tragic.

I'm sure you're all aware that on the day that the Titanic went down, April 14th, 1912, they received throughout the day six or seven or more warnings from other ships. They received heavy pack ice, large icebergs. Even 40 minutes before the ship went down: stop, turn back, go the other direction. All these warnings were coming in while they were partying and they were having a grand old time.

So, what went wrong? Now, some of the messages did not get to the bridge where the captain was. And why was that? Well, there were other messages from passengers about the parties and the dining and their needs. So, the people fielding the messages were kind of overwhelmed and overloaded and had a hard time discerning the vital important message.

And so, you think about, okay, I think about this in our own lives. When do we not heed warnings that could avoid a huge disaster? There are communication failures, distractions. Sometimes we're overconfident. This ship was not supposed to sink. They were overconfident in their position.

The seriousness sometimes doesn't register. How does it not register for us? Now, the captain did slightly change course, but then I think he went off to bed. How did this not register? Sometimes we're so invested in what we think is the outcome—the glory moment when they come into port—that we miss all of the warning signals.

What about if everyone around us, if everyone close to us, is giving a similar message? Why do we not listen? What is it in our lives? A relationship we know is wrong, but we hang on anyway. A habit we convince ourselves that we can control. A secret we hide thinking if no one knows, it'll be okay. A minor lie that we justify.

I think about how many callers we have that call in and they're frustrated because their family members won't listen to them. But we all need to ask ourselves: what are we not hearing? What are we not listening to? I think about just like the prophets of the Old Testament. Nobody likes the messenger, but sometimes the message is really important. So, we need to stop and listen.

Chris Williams: I just think about all those proverbs that speak to man's folly versus God's wisdom. His ways really are higher than mine. It requires effort and focus, and it requires a muscle that's used over and over to tune into God, to tune into wisdom. Sometimes it is to tune into our own gut that's telling us.

Then we also need courage to sometimes fire our ego because our ego can kill us. The ego took down many lives in one of the biggest tragedies, and it wasn't the first and it's not the last.

Brian Perez: We'll be back on New Life LIVE with Jim, Sally, and Maria.

Guest (Male): To find out more information about New Life or to order any of the resources mentioned on today's program, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE. Now back to New Life LIVE.

Brian Perez: Let's go to Denver, Colorado, and speak with Sally. Welcome to New Life LIVE, Sally.

Sally: Hi, there. My question to you is I have a granddaughter who lives in Massachusetts. She's a real sweetheart, very intelligent, 14. She's good at whatever she does; she's in gymnastics. But here's the problem.

She had to quit gymnastics there for a while, although she's back doing it again now. But she had to quit for a while because she has developed an autoimmune disease. She went to Children's Hospital in Boston and they put her on some medication, which is helping her.

Now, here is leading into my question. Her mother had to, because Children's Hospital dismissed her, move her to another med provider. For some reason, that med provider found out from my granddaughter that she had been contemplating suicide for years.

Of course, my daughter immediately took her to the emergency room. They put her into an intervention program, supposedly one of the best in Massachusetts, for two weeks. She has not talked to anyone about why or how she feels. She didn't talk to the people in the intervention program. My daughter has her in counseling now with a different provider, a different therapist. She won't talk. My daughter doesn't have any kind of a follow-up plan.

I used to be really close to her. Of course, I live far away and it's difficult. But I am so frustrated because nothing's happening. Nobody can get her to open up. What do we do? How do we help this child? I don't know that this has actually been taken care of.

Brian Perez: So, she is not seeing a counselor right now, is that correct?

Sally: Yes. No, she is. This counselor can't get anywhere with her, either.

Chris Williams: This is tough. This is really tough. As you start out with autoimmune disease at 14 years old, the immediate response I have—and it's guided by what I do for a living—is so much of the autoimmune conditions I see in people are driven by unresolved stress, trauma, and internalized pain. Obviously, if there's suicidality or self-harm, we look at the same thing: internalized pain.

One of the most difficult and scary things is: what's the pain, especially if a person isn't opening up and talking about it? Here is a truth I know, and this may not be helpful, but I believe that this is a standard to start with. The body is desperate to reveal its truth and it's terrified all the same time. It sounds like your granddaughter, her terror about what the truth is, is outweighing her desire to say what's going on.

What the body needs more than anything else to tell its truth is the safest place on planet earth to be able to do that. And so, I only say that to say I like the course that you guys have been on and I just think that this could take more time. I would say stay the course.

With that said, if there is for some reason why this therapist isn't working, I would say give it a little bit of time, then look to switch therapists. This is not to say anything that the therapist is doing wrong. It's just that a person may be seeing me and I could be doing my best work and it just not work. But then they see Jill and they just feel safer with Jill for whatever reason, and it just opens up. I think that that's what she needs. She needs this really safe place to explore what's going on. At 14, she may not be fully aware or know either.

Jill Hubbard: Right, she may not be ready completely. A lot of times, kids are still in the mode of surviving their childhood. A lot of times things will come out in the early 20s. But because of the suicidality, having her observed and with someone makes a lot of sense.

So, you've got to look at it more long-term. Sally, I know that's really hard because you guys just want her to be okay, so you guys are anxious about this and, "Come on, tell us what it is." But Chris is right; she may not fully know what it is. She may not have full access to how she's really feeling. She just knows she doesn't feel good.

Someone who can be patient and just sit with her where she's at. I have found when I—if you push someone too hard beyond where they're at, you lose them. And so, you really have to sit and sometimes it can seem like this doesn't seem significant enough. But when you work on creating that space where she feels safe and where she feels connected and seen right where she's at, then all of a sudden it does start to come out eventually.

Chris Williams: Jill, how many times in your and my experience are we working with a client, we think we're doing good work, and then six months or nine months into the process they drop the bomb? And we're just like, "Where was this day one? This would have been really helpful day one."

But they just weren't ready at that point. We respect their readiness and as we respect their safety, but staying with it, I think, is really important.

Jill Hubbard: Right. So, having the support systems there for her without pressuring her to tell us what's wrong, I think, is important. Certainly, she's got a lot with the illness and young people have all kinds of things going on. But mostly, they want to be normal. And so, that's sometimes it's a reminder that they're not normal.

Chris Williams: Back behind the scene here, there also seems to be a lot of performance-driven perfectionism. Gymnastics, great student; she's a high achiever. The high achiever, one of the liabilities in many high achievers is they feel like they have to achieve at these unreasonable levels just to be okay. Anything less than that is intolerable. Shame can get in the underbelly of that, meaning that you're not good enough, so anything less than perfection then means something bad about you. That is a torturous way to live life.

Jill Hubbard: So, the therapy and non-pressured therapy and then other supports. Is she involved in youth group? Does she have youth pastors that are supportive, that care about her? Enough people in her world where there's lots of eyes on her without her feeling like she's being watched. Sally, what do you think?

Sally: Well, unfortunately, they were going to a church group, going to church, and it was working at first. The youth pastor is great. But it ended up where the youth just kind of ignored her. She got tired of it. She plays drums, too, and she was playing drums in the church. They let her play drums at the church and she loved that. She's very good at drums, too, by the way. She loved that and my daughter was so excited that she could get her to go. But now she has no interest in that church group at all. Doesn't want to go, fights my daughter tooth and nail. My daughter has just given up. She just won't force her to go.

Chris Williams: To that point, there's something there that's not safe for her. So, she needs to be around safer people.

Brian Perez: Sally, thank you for calling in today to New Life LIVE. Now we're going to go to Ventura, California, and speak with Maria, who listens to us on KKLA. Hi, Maria. Welcome.

Maria: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. I have a granddaughter who is 12 years old right now and she confided in her father, who is my son, that she was sexually molested by her older brother. She is a cutter. She has been cutting her arms since she was nine years old that we noticed. We asked her mother please take her to counseling. The mother didn't take us seriously.

Her father has been lost in the world and recently just came back and is in a rehab program. She has tried to take her life. She was in the hospital for 12 days. She had a major cut; she cut herself with a blade. She was in the hospital for 12 days, 72-hour hold.

She continues to go to counseling once a week. They, her brother and she—my son has another brother who's three years older—he basically takes care of her as well. But they live with their grandfather. The mother did not tell me she was in the hospital.

Jill Hubbard: So, your son and the mother are not married?

Maria: No, they're not. They were together, but she was very destructive. She would destroy everything, so he left. My son told me she had confided in him about the situation with her brother and made him promise not to tell. She has been going to counseling. She was going three times a week. We took her all the time. When I say we, it's my husband and I, her grandfather and I. I help pay for the sessions.

The mother tried to finish the sessions and I spoke to the counselor. I said, "No, please keep her." So, what I want to do, because Victoria has now cut her hair herself, very short. She's now considering herself to be gay. She doesn't want to be called her name. She doesn't want to talk to anyone. She stays in her room all the time. She does not speak to anyone. Her arms are so damaged, her skin, that you can see the cuts up to near her shoulder.

I truly want to speak up and I'm afraid that her grandfather will kick them out of the house. My son will not talk to me and she will not talk to me.

Brian Perez: Maria, let me jump in. Have these incidents been reported? Where's CPS in this?

Maria: Well, she has not told the counselor. When I started to take her to counseling years ago, she must have been 10 or 11.

Brian Perez: Hold on, hold on. This is super important. More important than the backstory. Right now, this is a girl who is in danger for her safety and has been. And the brother is still in the house? Where's the brother right now?

Maria: The brother is still in the house.

Brian Perez: This is what's really important. This has to be reported. There are no two ways about that.

Jill Hubbard: You can report it anonymously, Maria. They don't have to know it came from you.

Maria: Oh, really?

Brian Perez: Yes.

Maria: See, her mother, when I was taking her to counseling when she was younger, her mother told her not to say things that happened at home to her counselor. I told the counselor what my granddaughter had told me. I think it was too much for that counselor, so she transferred her to another better counselor, if you will.

Right now, her grandfather took care of the older brother. The older brother, when he was five years old or six—he asked my granddaughter who was the same age. Now, the other brother is 21. When he assaulted her sexually, he was 16. She was seven years old.

Brian Perez: Maria, what I'm trying to get to is I am sure there are endless stories about how this little girl has been harmed and how she's harming herself as a result of that. Everyone around her is failing her. The therapist failed her. This not being reported and this not getting intervened and her still being in a very dangerous, harmful situation needs to be intervened as soon as humanly possible.

Maria: What if she denies it?

Brian Perez: Then you've done what you can.

Jill Hubbard: But you're getting the paper trail in place. And they know enough; the cutting, all the symptoms she's exhibiting. They will see it. They're trained that way.

The other thing is I wish you could have your granddaughter at your house or just even over for visits. Not to dig in and talk about things, but just to create a safe environment for her. She needs to feel like there are adults that will protect her.

I think so often we start thinking, "Well, what if granddaughter denies everything?" then we do nothing because we're trying to ward off the what-ifs. You have to just do what is right. You probably pick up the urgency in my voice; that's it. This is a life-threatening situation. We do everything we can. There are plenty of things that we can't, but passivity only keeps the lethality going.

Brian Perez: Maria, thank you for calling in today to New Life LIVE. We'll come back and speak with you a little longer. Let's go up to Philadelphia. Here is Honesty. Thanks for calling today.

Honesty: Hello. Please tell me, I don't know how to deal with a teenager who is still in high school but is 18. I guess he's an adult. I don't want to be ungrateful in a sense that he's doing well at school and he's well-behaved outside. The problem is with me here at home: the talking back, doesn't recognize what I do. The struggle about the detachment. He's in his room all the time. He will only talk to me when he needs something. Other than that, I don't exist. I'm not important. It's a total detachment. Even sitting in the living room with me, he just needs to be far away. Things that he says sometimes is like, as a single mom, I struggled to raise him by myself. Listening to some of those things sometimes I'm like, "What is this? What did I do wrong? Where did I fail?" For someone who just detaches and rejects everything that I can tell him, constantly just reject, reject, reject. It's just the struggle. I'm really struggling.

Jill Hubbard: Honesty, let me just first say he's still in high school, so therefore he's really not an adult yet, even though he's 18. You're a single mom. Is his dad involved with him at all?

Honesty: Not at all, nothing.

Jill Hubbard: How long have you been a single mom?

Honesty: 17 years.

Jill Hubbard: Okay. Well, with no father involvement, your son is getting to the age where all of the good that you have done for him, he has taken in. And so, he's at the age where—I'm sad his father isn't involved because he does need male people to look to and to emulate. The problem with us moms—and I was a single mom for years—is that we make our kids feel young. He's trying to feel like a man and to figure that out. It's not okay that the way he talks to you or any disrespect, but at the same time, he's pushing against those younger feelings and trying to stand on his own a bit more.

Brian Perez: Honesty, thanks for holding through the break. What else did you guys want to say?

Chris Williams: I think, Honesty, there's probably a lot more underneath this, but part of my response, which may not be very helpful, is: welcome to 18. I know, deep breath, deep breath.

Jill Hubbard: At least he's doing well in school.

Honesty: He is doing well in school, he's performing, but for me, I don't exist. He stays away from me. Am I that bad? It's so hurtful.

Chris Williams: But notice what's just happening inside of you. His behavior is determining your well-being. Now, don't get me wrong. As parents, especially as moms with boys, they will affect you. But he's not affecting you; he's determining you. This is an indication which is very natural. Don't hear that you've done anything wrong. Hear that there is something new to do. What's happened is that he has sort of become your life and your well-being. He knows that; he's trying to split away from that and become his own person.

The best thing that you can do, there are two things. The first thing is this: he's going to be fine and you're going to be fine. Your relationship will come back and it will repair. You've got to play the long game, not the short game here. The other thing that I want you to do is I want you to build more relationship in your life outside of him.

I talk about this with my own mom and my own stepdad as well. One of the best things that they have done for us—and this is going to sound condescending, it's not meant to be, there's a truth here—the best thing they have done is build their own life. Their well-being is not dependent upon my failure, success, or sometimes my relational behavior that can be—I look back in my younger years and I'm like, "I was a total punk at times," and I regret some of the ways that I treated my mom or my parents.

But the key factor is, if I felt like how I treated them was going to determine their well-being, then that's just too much pressure.

Jill Hubbard: That's too overwhelming. They will push back even stronger. There's a balance to be achieved here, and that is: hey, I don't like the way my son is treating me. I want to let him know. And I can't expect him treating me better for me to be okayness.

It's really hard as a single mom, I know, because you don't have a relationship that you're investing in, so you totally invest in your kids. And so, then if that's not going well, it feels really bad. Like the whole world's falling apart.

So, I think too, and then the tendency is we want something from them, and so we try to get it in different kinds of ways. We women, we tend to nag and pick to try to point out the things that are wrong, hoping that the person will then fix them and we'll all feel better. So, you have to see that that's really for you and you're looking perhaps to your son to make you feel okay. That's what you've got to get from other people. As you become less naggy and needy, and your son sees you doing things for yourself, it gives him more room to breathe in this relationship.

It is true: as they get older, as their brain comes online—I was just telling Chris, my son's brain, I can just see it's starting to come online. They start to recognize that maybe they really didn't know it all back then. But your son is still in that stage where he's trying to puff himself up and he feels perhaps burdened by your needs. I hate to say that to you, Honesty, but I think it's important that you hear it.

Honesty: I think everything you said I definitely need to definitely develop friendship outside of him. But I find him kind of cold or mean because sometimes I cry and he is not emotional at all. I see other kids: they can hug, they can hug their mom after a sport. He won't hug me. Hell, no. Other kids, why are they able to hug their mom outside and this one won't?

Jill Hubbard: That's hard. I agree, he's not allowed to treat you meanly. That's where you have to have those stronger boundaries with him. And to tell him. I flat out tell my son when he's mean. "That was really mean, but I also own I realize I wanted something from you that you didn't have to give me. I'm sorry." So, I will own my part and also say, "But it's not okay for you to talk to me that way." It's our responsibility, Honesty. We're training them to be men to then relate to hopefully a wife someday. So, we have to have honest conversations with them, but non-emotional. Your son doesn't do emotion well, so then don't get all teary and weepy with him and try to appeal to him that way. Have a more level, steady, adult-to-adult talk. Is he your only child?

Honesty: He's the only child. In the past I could take things away, take a toy away. But now what do I do to get someone's attention?

Jill Hubbard: Well, you don't wait on them, for one thing.

Chris Williams: I would also just really encourage you to start exploring boundaries. Get online, get the book *Boundaries*. I believe there's *Boundaries with Teens*. That will help be a guide for you to take these action steps to have those honest conversations. "I love you and you can't speak to me that way. And if you do, here's what I'll do." So, we're establishing new ground rules of respect.

Jill Hubbard: Right. So, if you're totally doting on him all the time, doing his laundry, feeding him, doing everything for him and he's treating you disrespectfully, well, then you need to pull back. Because at a certain age, once he's out of high school, it's a privilege to live at home.

Brian Perez: Honesty, thanks for your phone call today. The book we recommend is *Boundaries with Teens*. Let me talk to the ladies for a minute about Restore. That's our weekend workshop for women who have been wounded by sexual betrayal. Women who have a desperate desire to move forward but don't know how. Now, who should attend? Well, you should if you're drowning in shame that isn't even yours to carry. Tired of feeling crazy, insecure, or not good enough. Questioning everything you thought you knew about yourself and your relationship. Struggling with triggers that make normal life feel impossible. Without intervention, betrayal trauma erodes relationships, your ability to trust yourself and your faith that God has a good plan for your life. And we can help you. Ladies, if betrayal is part of your story, find out more about Restore at newlife.com. And if finances are an issue, call 1-800-NEW-LIFE to find out about our need-based scholarships.

Let's talk to Jim, who is listening to us on WBYN in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Hey, Jim. Welcome to New Life LIVE.

Jim: Hi. Thank you all for paying some attention to me. I had an experience the night that the last of the snow and the ice rain and everything went away. I had been intensely preparing for this storm for better part of a week because I had a lot of things I had to do to prepare. Then I intensely was dealing with the storm. I even drove that day that hardly anybody was on the road because I got my car in condition to where I could do that.

But here's the thing. I went to bed probably within about a half an hour after I went inside my hotel room. It was about 11:00 I went to sleep. So, I got like seven and a half hours, something like that, and I woke up at 6:30. Now, I was really intensely tired, but I did get a good sleep.

6:30 in the morning I'm looking at the ceiling. Just nothing unordinary of just a ceiling, just plain white thin paint and it's in a hotel room. So, I'm looking up there and in clear cursive—and appears to be my cursive when I'm very extremely careful and want to make my writing very clear—it's very tiny, but it's very distinct. It looked like maybe one or two inches on the ceiling, and I could clearly see each word in that beautiful penmanship. And it said, "I Love You."

I'm thinking at that time, "I know what that is. Somebody wrote that up there for somebody when they rented the room and some kind of special relationship." But so I either closed my eyes or looked away and then I look back at the ceiling and it's no longer up there. So, now I'm wrong. My hypothesis is wrong. Okay, so now that's me and somebody else, it seemed like. Now, could that be God? The Holy Spirit communicating with me somehow through my writing? He's familiar with my writing or whatever and he's saying, "I love you." Or is that me saying that to God?

Chris Williams: Jim, why a hotel room during the storm? What's your living situation?

Jim: I needed the hotel room because I don't have sufficient heat in my apartment. I have these space heaters and it's just getting too cold.

Chris Williams: Do you live alone?

Jim: Yes. I have a fiancee who's in a nursing home that I'm madly in love with and she's madly in love with me. I'm 74 years old and I've never experienced anything quite like this before.

Chris Williams: First off by saying I don't know. That's my first answer. My second answer is that's just consistent with God's message to us. When we look at like a prayer that Paul has in Ephesians Chapter 3, "that we may know how wide and long and high and vast is the love of God and to be filled with the fullness of that love."

There are so many things in life that are going to strip us of our confidence or our security or our assuredness. There are so many things that can disrupt us. Obviously, we experience that here on the radio show. I go into an office every day where I'm hearing about the things that diminish us as human beings, and especially other human beings that diminish us along the way. I do believe audaciously and wholeheartedly that God is continually and unendingly contending for our love. And not just for His own sake, but for our sake that we may be filled to the fullness of God, that we may receive that message and it be a truth that is our organizing principle and that guides our life. So, in things like this, let's just go with the obvious: God loves you.

Jill Hubbard: God nudges our hearts; He speaks to us in our minds. So, even if it's through your mind's eye, Jim, maybe it's what you needed to hear. And it doesn't contradict Scripture; it goes right along with it.

Jim: You all don't know me that much, so you're not going to be inclined to say that it's me saying, "I love God," but maybe it was both.

Jill Hubbard: Maybe it's a mutual exchange. That's kind of how love works.

Brian Perez: Jim, besides your fiancee, who else do you have in your life? Do you have close relationships with people?

Jim: I have a lot of people. I'm a lay evangelist. John Paul II was calling for lay Catholics to get involved because we've lost a lot of people in America. So, he opened up an opportunity to do lay evangelist work. I've been working pretty much full-time during COVID and all that went on because I couldn't see my fiancee because they locked down the nursing home. So, I did it full-time. I said, "I'm ready to go spread the Gospel." But do I have close relationships with people? I have some, yes. I have a man named Paul; he's a brother in Christ. I talk to him; we don't think the same way politically. We're direct opposites. But he tolerates me and I tolerate him. We communicate a lot. I have other people, too, that I probably can't think of right now because my mind, at 74 years old, I can't come up with names and stuff. My recognition memory is a lot better than my functional memory.

Brian Perez: No, that's fine. The only reason I was asking was because some of the things that you said like you've got this fiancee who's in a nursing home and the first words that you said to us when we picked up the line was something like, "Thank you for paying attention to me." So, we were just wondering if there were people in your life that you have relationships with. At every stage, we need the people that we can love and feel loved by.

Chris Williams: Jim, I just find you, you said we don't know you that well, but from what I do know of you in our time together is that you are an incredibly likeable guy. I hope that you allow other people the permission to like you and to enjoy life with them.

I think one of the things that we got to be careful with in ministry—and maybe this is probably not for you, Jim, maybe this is for the rest of us—and that is working for God and being loved by God are two different experiences. So many times we fall in the trap, that subtle trap, of earning God's love through our goodness, our good works, or our good deeds. I know I can get trapped in that. I think it's so important that we look at the motives of the heart. We ask God to examine us and we ask God's love to guide us in that our goodness is the byproduct. Don't grow weary in doing good as it says in Galatians. Not growing weary in doing good is that we are receiving goodness from God all the time and goodness from others.

Jill Hubbard: I love that experience that you had. Hold on to that; it's a good thing.

Brian Perez: Jim, thanks for calling in today to New Life LIVE. When you give to New Life, your generosity helps people like Jim, Sally, Maria, Honesty, Holly, Charity, Marilyn, Patty, Felice, David—these are just some of the people that we help this week so far here on New Life LIVE. We'll be here again tomorrow. God bless you guys; thanks so much for watching and for listening. Don't forget to follow us on social media. Our website is newlife.com.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much for listening. We hope something you heard will help you live in freedom today. If this content was helpful for you, we would love it if you would take a minute, leave a review, post about it, and rate it. Remember that we have resources and workshops online for you as you continue your journey. Go to newlife.com to find out more information. And thank you for being part of the New Life community. We know that God desires all of us to live a life of wholeness and healing, and we're so glad that you're here.