The Doctor Is In - March 5, 2026

0:00Hi everybody, this is Dr. Ray. You are listening to a least worst of the doctor is in. We have no best stuff, but this is truly one of our least worst. You want the good news? You want the bad news? I don't like either one of those options. Your words are super wise, man. Is this the doctor, Ray? You know, we're not doing therapy here. But you are psychologists. I'm certainly not going to get myself in trouble by telling you what to do. I gotta say, you're really helping me by taking my call today. I just never thought I would call your show. I first of all, my advice to you is going to be to shut your mouth. I like that. I can do that. That's doable. You're my second favorite Italian person. I hope you're going to agree with me. Well, no, I'm sorry. I just was calling to let you know that you are right. Nevertheless, I digress. Now, from the studios of Living Bread Radio Network in Canton, Ohio, the hometown of Mother Angelica, here's Dr. Ray. I told Andrew, scour, our past calls.

1:02Go back 20 years if you have to. Find out. Find out if we have anybody else saying, I just called to tell you you were right. He said he did. He said he went way back. He went back to almost the inception of the show. And in fact, he said, no, that was the one. That was the one we had. The one you were right. All right. Well, okay. I'll I'll get a couple of my friends to call in and record that. Good to have you here. On the doctor is in. Delighted to be with you. It's called in program. You are the callers. I am the callee. Very simple. You have a number 877-573-7825-877-577-577-577-Equal. Very, very simple. Three-bit piece of memory, 877-577-Equal. If you have a question about circumstance or a person in your life,

2:03maybe from age due to age a hundred and two, we didn't have a hundred-hundred-year-old individual call the program once. Haven't had any two-year-olds. We have heard some in the background. That's a standard there with parents of preschoolers. They can't get on the phone in peace anymore. You know the kids are there. Or if you have a question about the faith as it intersects with psychology or something, you don't understand about the mental health world. Get a lot of cultural questions. How the culture mishapes our souls or how the culture leads us or nudges our kids away from the faith. We have all that kind of stuff. So just something that you say, okay, I know you can't do therapy here, Dr. Ray, but I want to give your thoughts. Get your thoughts on a couple of things about this. Something that maybe we put our heads together and come up with a direction that gets momentum heading in another helpful way. 877-573-7825 is the number to call.

3:09And I would be absolutely delighted to talk with you. You can even call in and say, hi, Dr. Ray. Just wanted to say hello, see how things are gone for you. Where we are here, it's raining. And I got a new mini print. I got a new mini print for the bathroom. You know, kind of like an auditory Facebook. You can say, yeah, I was just, I was just eating a baloney sandwich this morning and and I bit it into the shape of a giraffe. And I just wanted to take a picture of it. But since this is radio, I can't take a picture of it. So I'll describe it for you. You can do that. You can do that. 877-572 In one of my books, I talked about the law of social reciprocity. Now, those are my words. As far as I know, no one else has ever coined that phrase. The law of social reciprocity. Simply stated, it means, I expect you to treat me the way I treat you.

4:12Now, Christians can't operate according to that law. Because the way we are obliged by our Lord to treat others may not at all be the way they are obliged by whatever moral system they follow to treat us. There is a perversion of the golden rule. The golden rule says, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The perversion is this. And I think sometimes it twists us and it frustrates us because we operate according to it. It says, do unto others well and they will treat you well. Huh? That doesn't follow. The law of social reciprocity says, if I'm kind to you, if I don't make snarky remarks about you or your opinions or your beliefs,

5:13if I treat you with respect, if I don't try to manipulate you to my own ends, you will do the same to me. Now, there's a big difference between the hope that that will happen and the expectation that that will happen. If you expect that will happen, I guarantee you, yeah, you're going to get real frustrated. Why? Because people don't act according to your moral value system, especially if you are a serious committed follower of Christ. His guidance, his rules, his obligations, his conditions for treating other people well are pretty high. They're very, very high. You don't return insult for insult. You don't mistreat others because you have a justification to.

6:13You're not aggressive because they deserve it. In other words, you do not guide your behavior by their behavior. You don't act according to the leeway that they provide you because they do it. You can't do that. But yet in subtle ways, that's a law that we live by. I treat you a certain way. Therefore, you treat me a certain way. Well, that'd be nice. That'd be ideal. May not happen. And if you want to happen, if you expect that to happen, if you demand, it would happen. You're going to be frustrated. You're going to be upset. You're going to be angry.

7:14You may sever the relationship with that other person. If you have a relative that is just tough for you, just flat out difficult to get along with. If you expect them to act according to a certain set of social principles, social guidance, respect, and they don't, every time you're going to get upset, or are you going to recognize they just don't follow the same rules of life that you do. Your rules of life were given by the Savior. Maybe there's weren't. Or maybe they declared that there's weren't. But they don't necessarily live by them when they become inconvenient. The law of social reciprocity is not a law that Christians should operate by.

8:23We are obliged to treat others a certain way, independent of how they treat us. Now one might say, but wait a minute. They could treat us so badly that it's dangerous for us to be around them. It's so severely troublesome to our well-being that we can't be around them. Yeah, there are those cases. But my experience as a psychologist is this. Most people in our close social circle, because those are ones we have to get along with. Are not so bad that we have to sever ourselves from them. They can be all kinds of negative characteristics. We don't like, but that's very different than I've got to get away from them, or I will have a psychotic break. Most of the time, that's not the case.

9:23Most of the time, I don't like what they say. I don't like how they act. I don't like their opinions. Now, this is not to say you have to be close to them. You don't have to say, well, that's okay. I have to be as very close to this one particular relative, as this other relative who understands me and who thinks like I do. And we share so many wonderful moments together. No, you don't have to be equally close. But what you do is if they are in your circle, if they're your father or your mother-in-law or your cousin or your brother or your adult child, it behooves you to stretch yourself, to get along with them. And the law of social reciprocity will stop you from doing that. It's a Dr. Ray. You're listening to the least worst of the doctor is in with Dr. Ray Garendi. So please, no calls at this time.

10:24My wife asked me yesterday, did I like the movie? And I thought, well, chances are if you're crying at the end of it wasn't my favorite. You know, it's a touching movie about orphan puppies who were rescued from a flood. You know, as I was watching Rocky 26, an anonymous caller from Ohio, she's involved in a rather intricate custody battle. Hello, anonymous from Ohio, thanks for the call. Hey, Eric, I don't know. I don't know if anonymous knows she's there or not. Anonymous, are you there or not? Hello? There you go. Where did you go just ignoring me? Sorry, I accidentally muted you. Hey, you didn't. Hey, when women mute me, it's not an accident.

11:28Okay, here we go, Dr. Ray. My son, who lives out of state, got divorced when his children, his two sons were like a couple years old. They have shared custody. And now the youngest one is 13. And my son has always said that his kids come first no matter what. You know, he's not going to, you know, get involved with anybody in a, you know, deep way, as long as he's raising his kids, you know, when they're grown, you know, adults, that's different. Well, apparently, something has changed. And yeah, it's amazing how matters of a heart do that, isn't it? Yeah, but I don't know anything about this woman. I know, well, he doesn't even know. I know I only found out from my grandson. So my grandson is now living with his mother, you know, in the same state.

12:28Maybe I don't even know all far apart. Because your grandson totally with his mother. In other words, dad's given up custody. No, we didn't give it up. He just said, always going through something and, you know, he didn't think it would be six months and he didn't think that it would, it would now be going into the court. So and I do understand when the kid is certain age, it can decide who they want to stay with. But well, I'm not sure about that. I want to correct you on that. That used to be the case, say, for example, here in Ohio. And then they realized that kids aren't exactly the best judge of who the best parent is. And so they, they take it into account. But it is not the deciding factor as I understand it. I think the courts realized that was a mistake. Oh, wow. Well, you know, I'm glad to know that I didn't know that. Well, anyway, the ironic thing is my son also, when he was 15, decided to go live with his father and went to court, you know,

13:31and of course, I lost because he was 15 and he was old enough at that point with the way the law was back then. So I had no control. The judge said he was looking out for his future and blah, blah, blah. So now he's going through it with his own son. But anyway, I've been talking to my grandson and I believe my grandson. You know, he's being honest. You know, the heat feels that this new relationship, this woman has a couple of kids. And she's also renting from my son downstairs in the basement of Ohio. So cut into it, dear. Your grandson says, I really not sure I want to live with dad the 50% of the time because the girlfriends are real problem for me. I don't get along with her and I don't like what she does. Yeah. Okay. And we're not so much of that, but it's also, I don't know. It's also that she has two children and he felt it. Well, whatever the circumstances, whatever the circumstances is, he's saying he doesn't want to live there. Okay. Right. So you're saying your involvement in this is what?

14:31I don't know, as a grandmother and as a mother, do I give my advice? I mean, they're not asking for it, but it breaks my heart that this is all going on. And my son is so close-minded to think that, well, maybe the problem is me. He's blaming it all on the ex-wife's brainwashing their son. And I don't think that's happening. So what you have is an indication that your son doesn't want to hear it. That if you go to your son and you say, you know, your son doesn't want to live with you anymore, which he already probably knows that, mom. He knows that. He doesn't know that I know the reason. Well, if you want to talk to your son, you can ask him, do you know the reason why he doesn't? And if he says, yeah, I know why, because my ex-wife is pollutant his mind. That's the best thing I'm gonna say. And you ask, you tell him this, well, have you asked your son what his reason is? Now, I don't think it's going to make any difference. This is my speculation.

15:32I don't think it matters. I think your son is going to pursue this relationship and hope that his son comes to accept it. But in the meantime, if his son says, I just can't live there. I'm living with mom full time. You really don't have much say in this, grandma. You don't. I would, the only way you might want to delicately approach it is you say to your son, do you know why he doesn't want to live with you? And then when he tells you his reason, if you think, from talking to the son, the boy, that that's not the reason, then you ask your son, have you asked him? Has he, has he been honest with you why it might be? And then if you really want to get risky, you say, well, he's talked to me about it. And I don't know if you want to know, but I can only tell you what he told me. That's the three steps I would take. Got it?

16:34Yes, thank you so much. Yeah, I'll have to be very careful, but I don't want to trade either person's confidence. Well, yeah, if your grandson said, don't say anything, please don't say anything, then you can't do step number three. But you can, but you can't go to the grandson and say, what's stopping you from telling your dad this? Yeah, or I could say, is it okay if I talk to dad about it? There you go. Yeah, sure. Yeah, okay, you're not as dumb as I look. You don't look like my son in person. Well, thank you, sweetheart, for the call, okay? Thank you for all your help, all your help and people. It's just wonderful. Wonderful. We have someone like you to turn to. Hey, pay me. Come on. Hey, pay me. Come on. No, we do it from the heart, too. I could tell. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Bye. Jackie is a young mother of two children after the horrific, horrific Catholic school

17:34shooting in. I believe Minneapolis, it was a lot of folks posting. Prayer doesn't work. Look at this. These kids were praying. And while they were praying, this happened to them. See, just goes to show you. Hi, Jackie. Hi. Well, first of all, they have a very warped idea about prayer. But second of all, my guess would be that the majority of those people who say that you see that, that those terrible things happened while they were praying. What kind of prayer effectiveness is this? Those are people. If you took a poll of those people, they're looking for some excuse not to pay much attention to the faith. Yeah. And I think that's what I'm struggling with. I'm 35 years old and we have two kids. One who survived, like she had a miracle child, wasn't expected to survive.

18:37So we really lean on our faith. And I think one thing that's happened is you know, as you grow up, find some high school, etc. You kind of, you know, you used to all think the same. And then you notice that, you know, different perspectives start to shape, and especially with social media. And so I feel like I've find myself maybe isolated in my own views, because they're very faith-based. And I'm trying to kind of strike a balance between advocating, when even though it could be maybe advocating in a way that I think is honorable and respectful. The one thing I communicated to my friend was, you know, I feel like, you know, saying like how, like this pierces the heart of Jesus to condemn a prayer. You know, I can't, and just kind of challenging. Why can't we have those people change

19:39in prayer? Obviously, these kids are at a school that, like my own daughter goes to, where they go to math. And was your friend even open to anything you said? She was offended because she said that obviously this was just like kind of a flippet thing that she shares that she doesn't personally believe that that we shouldn't pray, but that there shouldn't be no more excuses about that there needs to be more action. Because a lot of the things that have been shared, I feel like especially most people, my age are in, you know, in bigger cities like St. Louis, too, it's just hard to witness that's the pushback on the face or the kind of- Well, she thinks, Jackie. She thinks, Jackie, that you're not only naive, but you're misguided. Here you are in your little holy circle. You just want to pray and trust Jesus

20:40while little kids are getting killed. That's kind of how she views it. It's rather harsh, but that's how she views it. And she's probably a bit intolerant of the way you look at things and the way you explain prayer. There's a couple of overarching themes here. One, our Lord said, people are going to be divided because of him. So when you attempt to explain how you view life and how you view faith, there are those people who are going to say, even those that are, as you thought, in your social religious circle, who are going to say, well, that's just kind of foolish, Jackie, if you want to believe that, you go ahead, but that's offensive to me. Because I care about kids. You don't. You just say, you're a little bedroom and praying. All right, that's absurd. But that's what they think. Second theme is, I would ask her, rather than trying to correct her, I would ask her, well, what are you saying that we shouldn't pray?

21:42Be be fuddled. Look like you're not understanding her. So are you saying we don't pray? No, I'm saying that prayer is not enough. We need to take action. And then I'd say, I agree. We do need to take action. What action are you thinking? Well, we need to have better gun control. Okay, well, that is a political question. But I don't see how it relates at all to my prayer for those children's souls and their families. Do you? Yeah. That's that's the what I would say. I would just kind of say, gee, trying to understand how you think here. I'll ask your questions and you answer them. Because I'm not going to sit here and and and battle you out. God bless you for your faith, Jackie. Stand strong. This is Life News Radio. I'm Jam Anderson, the family of football great coach

22:43Lou Holtz are lamenting his passing Wednesday, March 4th. They say he held an unwavering belief in the potential of others. And that extended to the unborn, their parents and pro-life activists. Liberty Council is challenging abortion industry action in Virginia to constitutionally place abortion beyond the reach of state regulation for safety, parental rights or any other purpose. The legislature failed to post their intentions for public inspection in accord with state constitutional demands. The suit seeks to compel at least a restart of the long two-year process. This is Life News Radio. Imagine you providing one needy family a lifetime of clean water for $99. The global impact of cross-catholic outreach lets miracles like this happen. It's no wonder cross-catholic has the endorsement of so many noted bishops. Discover more and find ways to unlock a bright future for those in need. Visit cross-catholic.org.

23:45Assisted suicide in Switzerland continues growing as if to fulfill predictions of opponents of the practice those dying now include people with various complaints, not just imminent death. And pro-life advocates in Slovenia still consider their nation a miracle for reversing law last November that had allowed for assisted suicide. And pro-life advocates elsewhere are taking note. Political and medical groups got involved. Citizens went out of their way to sign the referendum. But Christians really helped. Media were denied the opportunity to attack Catholic Church positions in such matters. Because all of the churches rose in opposition to legalized assisted suicide. For pro-life headlines delivered to your email address daily, sign up at lifenews.com. This has been Life News Radio.

24:45I will get to your calls and I thank you for your patience. I'm reading a book right now by a psychiatrist. He's been involved in consulting to various priests, exorcists, regarding possession, oppression, infestation, infestation. He is a very balanced individual. He initially was a high skeptic of any kind of demonic involvement. He is presently well sought after. He's written articles and I'm reading his book is called Demonic Fos. He is talked about in some respects that he doesn't touch it heavily because he's dealing mostly

25:46with the cases that he's experienced where he can without breaking confidentiality. Experience of the approach that our culture is becoming very transparent over it, dealing with demonic subjects, dealing with demons and not even dealing with them out of appropriate fear, but dealing with them as something to be admired, embraced, made fun of, just taking them not seriously enough for the tremendous damage they can do. So Jerry from Clinton has a question about this. Hi, Jerry. It's really just, and I see the trend a couple different types of work, kids of the 80s and 90s and grew up in. My question is, how to combat when we have people that are for lack of a better term,

26:47crazy, the crazy Christian side of it, to where they're like, no, no, no, it's this that, you know, I mean, and no matter if we sit, we're pretty involved parents where we sit down and watch the content with our children. We don't watch to let them watch it in an appropriate age. Things with them, like PBS is always a good option, but there's certainly new ones like cartoons and stuff that we're like, okay, that seems to be okay, and it has a good message then it gives you kind of a window to explain, hey, even though they're fighting demons with swords and stuff like that, it's really not how you fight demons, right? Like that they're real out there, you go church, you know, be a good Christian kid and all that stuff like that. So my question is for the far end of the extremist to where they just don't listen, and more likely, they don't even watch the content where they're like, hey, we're pretty involved parents, so you could sit down and watch it before you tell your grandkids they can't watch it in your house. So that would be my question is just to how to other than be like, hey, you know who we are as parents? Are you saying, are you

27:50saying, Jerry, that you're running across a lot of parents and grandparents are at the very least oblivious to the messages and the themes that the kids are watching or saying it's no big deal, it's standard culture, the kids have to navigate it, they'll realize that this isn't something they should get involved in. Is that what you're saying? That you're out of sync with a lot of these parents? And we teach our daughter to like, he tells you put on the arm of God and go, fight those demons every day, right? We tell her, know the difference between right wrong, pretend what's good for you and your heart and what's not, right? Like there's stuff on Disney Plus that is absolutely, we're like, nope, you can't watch it, I don't care if it's on Disney or not. So that's kind of where we're talking, but that doesn't, that message doesn't correlate to grandparents. So we're like, no, they're back in the 90s where Harry Potter and all this stuff. Like, nope, I don't care about it. It has a demonet magic. We're not watching it. So

28:51are you saying your grandparents don't understand that? That your grandparents or that their grandparents are more willing to let them watch this stuff? No, no, no, they don't, they don't let them watch anything whatsoever. If it has anything that even if it is approved by parents, again, we watch our children, watch your content, they're just like, no, I don't want them to watch it and but they don't even educate themselves on that side of it to sit down with them and be like, hey, let me see what you're watching and your parents said it's okay. Let me teach me about it. So I can understand from that folk pop culture mentality of, hey, maybe I should look more into stuff instead of trying to, you know, just, I think that scares kids off when they're just like, no, it gods the way and he is, right? But you have to, they need more of the why behind things anymore. So I wanted to reach out to you as a professional that kind of deal with that stuff plus as a, you know, man of cloth to where we can maybe help bridge that gap a little bit because

29:53our words just are connecting at all. What you're saying, if I'm hearing you correctly, is that your parents are not, they're willing to follow what you expect regarding what your kids see, but they're not really talking about it. They're not using it to educate the kids and you'd like them to. Right. And I think that would help bridge that gap between grandparents and grandchildren to where like, oh, they're just not, they're, they're old. They're, I think it turns them off a little bit, especially kids that are newer in faith to where they're, it doesn't have to be that heavy of a conversation where you want them to have conversations, but you want them to walk into that willingly and say, hey, yes, I, Christian, I don't watch that stuff because of faith, right? But we want our kids to make good choices. You know why your, you know why their grandparents don't talk about this stuff? Probably because they didn't get talked to about it as their kids. They wouldn't know how to handle it. Yeah. But it's just very dismissive and our

30:56daughter is very, uh, in tune on stuff like that. We always try to explain the why behind things. It's not always a no, for no reason. It's, hey, this is what right. Don't use this as any issue to have any kind of ill will toward your parents. No, no, no, it's, it's not that I would just, I always try to, because we're a big Irish family. So we always have good conversations. And it's not anything like my kids can't come over or they're going to watch what they want to want. Nothing like that. We just tell Emma, hey, right now, just don't watch your grandparents house. That, that's just you can, you know, I mean, but then how old is, how old is Emma? How old is Emma? 10, 10. That's plenty, that's plenty enough to explain it to her. Just to say, you know, there's stuff that at your age is not good to watch because you don't understand it. Yeah. And it will scare you and hurt you. And as your parents, I'm not gonna let you watch it. I mean, that's, that's right. But that's plenty enough reason. Right. But after, hey, the stuff that we allow her to watch, she's not being allowed to watch that when she goes to her grandma's house. Okay. Grandma, grandpa don't want you to watch that stuff. Yeah. Okay.

31:58I mean, we could still keep going now. I'm just wondering if there was a better way to kind of bridge that conversation of, hey, well, I appreciate it. I would suspect that you've talked to him, Jerry, about it. And if you've seen your movement, then you quit, you quit badgering the subject. See, we do that in relationship. I've spoken to you. I've spoken to you. I've spoken to you. And you're not changing. Well, I'm gonna keep smoking to you so you get mad. Well, yeah. I mean, I don't want to probably be anybody over because it's, it's, she doesn't go over a whole lot, but even when she's usually like the younger grandkids, they're like, grandma came to us, just doesn't understand. I'm like, well, I understand that and I kind of explain them back way back when you know, kids weren't allowed to watch Halloween town or Harry Potter. And you just have to understand that's just kind of some time. They're looking out for your best interest, really are. Yeah. But pretty much you're, you're just some people you're just not gonna read. You bring up so many issues that I would love to deal with here. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna save you for a look back call. But one of them that strikes me is this whole idea that we have made this whole demonic

33:02obsession, if you will, become every day in our culture. And this is messin' with stuff that you just should not mess with. And you, you try to, you try to demon fight with a sword and you're gonna lose. This is Dr. Ray. Hi everybody, this is Dr. Ray. You are listening to a least worst of the doctor is in. We have no best stuff. But this is truly one of our least worst. Those are fast hands. Whoever that guy is.

34:04This is Dr. Ray. Thank you for joining me. This is the doctor is in before I go to your calls because I know you're up there and I want to talk to you. Very quickly, there are still a few seats left as we head to Ann Arbor. God willing. Next week, October 20th. Oh, Andrew, there's no seats left. They're sold out. Oh, yikes. Well, I am wrong. Go to Ave Maria Radio. See we can take 70 people. See what the numbers are. You can get on a waiting list because people do cancel sometimes. Oh, I didn't know that. I was, see, I was just being humble. Humble, not assuming that my television show audience would be sold out. It's a very humble thing of me, I think. Don't you think so, Andrew? I think so. Okay, well, you can still check it out anyway. But and then after that, I'm gonna make an announcement if I get a chance on November 11th to 12th will be in DC. So we're gonna shoot there too. Uh, anonymous mom from New York has not seen her parents in forever.

35:09Now they're going to meet her child. Oh, but but then this is an interesting question and now she's going to put some details to this. How to prepare for the inevitable. Well, that's interesting. That's an interesting word. Inevitable. It's going to happen. Hostility from them. Hi, mom. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? Well, a couple of things. Why haven't you seen them in a long time? So we invited them to our wedding. Actually called you last year. They go for a while. I think that they will be at that in December. And then in short, we in post and we get convinced that we're not going to contact you. My dear, can you, are you on speakerphone or something? You're breaking up. You're breaking up.

36:12I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. Can you get to another room? Go outside. Hello. There you are. Okay. Now that I had asked you, you hadn't seen her for a long time and you're beginning to describe kind of a friction filled circumstance. Yeah. So they weren't at the wedding. Long story short despite being invited. Wow. So we were going to have them come to see we live across the state. We don't live on the same side of the state. So they were going to come to a hotel, which is that was the plan all along. But we had originally voiced that we were uncomfortable with them coming to our house for the first visit being that we hadn't seen them in over a year. And they weren't at our wedding. We then why were you uncomfortable with them coming to your house?

37:13Because we just we knew that it was going to be like an uncomfortable situation. And we wanted to just see how it went in public first. And then if it went well, we would have wanted to see them another time at our house. And we made that clear to them. But that that didn't go over well. Oh, that would insult them. That that would definitely insult them. Yeah. Okay. So just I'm trying to I'm trying to flesh this out. I want to make sure I got this somewhat right for your parents not to go to your wedding. Obviously, there was something about the guy, something about you, something about the past that they said, we were just not going. That's it. Not happening. All right. Now in the meantime, it's been a year. And I'm going to assume you've had no contact with them zero, nothing text, nothing. Do we lose a connection here? Oh shoot. Okay. Well, I think our caller's still there because it sounds like our caller's still there.

38:17I take a break to see if you can make sure we get these connections set up there. Eric, this is Dr. Ray, 87757 equal. Hey, you'll listen to the least worst of the doctors in with Dr. Ray Granny. Okay, let's try this again. Our caller online three who had to go because of the phones that you can hear me. You call back at your convenience. We will definitely talk about your situation with your parents. Onto our anonymous caller from New England who is on a time crunch because her husband doesn't really want her calling. Hi, anonymous. How are you? Hi, Dr. Ray. Here's where I understand. You got two elderly neighbors one at their siblings and one is the more competent of the siblings.

39:23The brother is more incapacitated. Is that it? Well, he can stand up. We thought he was on his deathbed. She comes right over and we were going to go in vacation for a few days and she and we immediately said we have to go and we thought he was dying and then she can she waits till my husband comes home from church or whatever. Sunday she did that and I confronted her. I said, listen, our son's in the hospital with autism with major developmental delays, behavioral issues and he got other issues fractures and you know she goes, oh, you're a good cook and she left finally, you know, but she's they're both never been married and they have plenty of siblings but they move. She wants her your husband to go over and just keep company with her brother. Yeah, yeah, how often? How often? I hate it and she didn't say, but my husband, you know, he agrees that she shouldn't have confronted with a son especially, you know, many months in the hospital.

40:26He agrees upon that but he will go over and you know encourage him to walk but he doesn't want to walk, you know, whatever. He wants to because he felt that he thought he died already and didn't because. Did you ask your husband how often he's willing to go sit and for how long? No, no, because he doesn't know because we're seeing the visiting our son who's been many months in the hospital. Six months. Well, is he the one that's going to handle this lady's requests or are you? Him. Okay. She wants him. She only talks to him. Well, no, I'm saying, you know, is he the one that's going to put limits on her? Or are you? I can't, you know, I can't tell him what to do. That's the way my marriage is. Does he see it as a problem? But does your husband see this as a problem? Yeah, yeah, but he's still willing to help. You know, he's Christian and says, well, you know, you feel bad if he ever died, you know, and didn't go over. Well, he's going to have to feel bad

41:30because if the man is elderly and frail, who knows when that will be? Yeah. Have you said to your husband, how much time do you want to give them? No, I haven't because my husband doesn't like to ask questions. He's a dry drunk. That's one of the traits. Oh boy. Now you just keep complicating the whole thing here, my dear. Yeah. And my son's been six months in the hospital and he fractured legs and everything in 10 operations. And, you know, we told her that. And, you know, she has many brothers and sisters. They all some died and moved away, you know. I would say that person to talk to is your husband, not your neighbor. Right. And to establish with him. How much time do you want to give them? How often do you want to go and stay and how long? And if it comes down to visiting our son being with our son in the hospital as opposed to the neighbor, you're going to tell her you're going to say I'm going to see. He agrees. Our son is more

42:34important until he's in a numb gets rehab waiting for that. Who knows when? Because, you know, the severity of the fractures and mobility. He finally can stand on his feet, but my son has to be transferred. Well, you've already, you've already explained this. Explain to her. Yeah. To her. And it sounds like big deal. She sounds like she's like, no, I still want him to come over. You're just in the way. Yeah. Yeah. And when I, and when I come that we all have our crosses some crosses the heavier than others, he ignored me. He didn't say a word. Not one word. You say he meaning your husband? No, him, her brother. Her brother. Okay. So he's aware. He is. Okay. He's cognizant. Yeah. I really have to make it. I don't know if someone's trying to call me, but that's okay. It could be my son. You know, he needs attention and we didn't visit him because, you know, sit down with your husband and get some specifics. Sit down with your husband and get some specifics on what maybe he could set up a time. Yeah. I'll go there on

43:37Tuesday afternoon from four to five and Saturday mornings from 10 to 11. I'll set up a schedule. I'll follow it and that'll be it. See if he's willing to do that. Well, my husband's willing, once our son gets rehab and close to a location, he's willing to help. Okay. But you're going to, you're going to have, you're going to have to set some limits on it because I think from what you're saying, this lady is going to just keep asking and asking and asking. And if she's looking out the window like Gladys Kravitz from the old bewitched, if she's doing that, waiting for him to come home because then she knows she can come over and ask him, it's a pretty good sign that she's not going to take limits unless he sets them my dear. God bless you. Thank you for the call. All right. Take care. Boy, I got some real confusing. Wow. Leslie, that's pretty heavy. That really is. But I got to get to Alyssa because it's kind of a kind of sort of an urgent situation. Although yours is too Leslie, and if I don't get to you, please, please call back. You'll be first

44:41up. Alyssa has a five year old son with autism, very sound sensitive, going mass is tough, very stressful for him. Hi, Alyssa, I would imagine you probably have sound deadening earmuffs for him, don't you? Yes, we do. And how much do they block out? But he can still hear, but it just sort of muffles it. We have the specialism, but it's still not enough for him a lot of times. How does the distress show itself? He yells and waves his arms. Is he verbal at all? Oh, yeah, he's very verbal. He's very smart. Okay. This runs in my family and all my adult family members with autism. He wouldn't be able to tell, but it's just these early years when they don't know how to prop, you know, it's tough. Well, I would imagine you almost got to get the stuff that can pretty much, if you say it, block out 90% of the sound, not 50, 90. I don't know where to get that.

45:48Well, ear plugs, ear plugs for one, and then perhaps the foam ear pads for another. So between the two of them, and then you go maybe to the cry room, where it isn't quite so loud, that you can do that. And if it comes so bad, if he becomes disruptive, obviously you leave, and you go out into the vestibule, or maybe sit in the car, and then as he comes down, you come back in and say, we'll go try again. We're going to try again, because I'm going to tell you, we're not going to leave because you scream and yell. Yeah. I don't know how much, you know, say in a situation like this, I don't know, and it's really hard to separate out. And I know there are those parents with children with autism, who would say, oh my gosh, doctor, you're way off, but just you can't always know the level of distress as measured by physiologically, I can't take

46:51this, and I don't want to take this. Yeah. It's hard to tell. Yes. In his mind, even the slightest discomfort of a sound may, he may be convinced I can't tolerate. That's just just just way too much for me. It overwhelms my system. So, only as a mom, you know that, and you know, you know what kind of chaos and stimulation he can take in other environments. If this is particularly targeted to being in mass, it may be something about the crowd, it may be something about feeling closed in, I don't know. But is there something about, go ahead, please? I think it's the crowd, because he is very sensitive. I don't think he's making it up, just make it up. But I think it's, he has handled mild situations before and less crowded. Okay. That could be the indication, if you can, if you can go to, maybe go to a mass that's less crowded or go to the cry room,

47:51or even sit in the vestibule, if they stream on camera, the mass, as our, as our parish does, out in the mass bill, the mass is there, you're out by yourself, you're alone, it's kind of quiet. Call back, those of you waiting. This is Dr. Ray. Walk with God. That's how you'd be a saint. For information on Dr. Ray's presentations, books and CDs, visit dra.com and follow him on Facebook and Instagram. The doctor is in is a co-production of Bobby Maria Radio and EWTN Radio and carried across the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network. The end.