Refresher: How can TC better adjust to her new life?
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For a clean you can feel good about, all you need is All Free Clear. Time now for a refresher from my Dr. Laura Call of the Day archives. Remember, you can hear my live radio program weekdays, 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Sirius XM Triumph 111. TC, you're called by initials? Yes. Okay, hi TC. What does TC stand for?

It stands for T, Anna. Well, that's so pretty. Why would you not want to hear that beautiful name? Well, because most people have a very difficult time pronouncing it. That's the story of my life. Well, let them eat cake. Just keep repeating it to them until they get it right. Don't give up on a beautiful name. Come on. All right. What can I help you with?

Well, I want to first tell you thank you for your time. And I feel super ridiculous about calling you about my issue because I am the one who normally can think everything through. But I believe that I need reassurance or either you to nag me to get me in check.

I'll do my best. What's up? Okay. Um, I am, um, um, my, I'm a wife. I'm a mother of two. My husband and I, we've been married now for 18 years. My son is 15. My daughter is 13. Um,

or our son and our daughter. And I have, I went straight, straight from the military to corporate America to now after listening to you for about five, between three to five years, my husband and I decided that the best thing to do was for me to quit my job and become a stay at home mom, which is great. However, what I'm now noticing is I am angry all the time. I am angry for being angry all

And you're very hard on yourself because anybody who's been in the military with that kind of discipline and expectation of experience and then corporate with the same sort of thing, not having that around you is crazy making. I mean, you don't have the structure anymore. No wonder you're going nutty.

You know that everybody getting out of the military, almost no matter what they get into, they have a tough transition time because there's a lifestyle in the military that doesn't exist outside of it except maybe in corporate America. So you didn't have the uniform, but you had the same structure. Now you've got no structure. Your expectations on yourself are a little tough, I have a feeling. Come on, cry out loud.

I don't like crying. Oh, stop it. I know it makes your face look like crap. I get that. I caught myself crying one time in the mirror and I thought, geez, I'm never going to cry again. This is what people see if I cry in front of them. This is really, looks like tales from the crypt. I understand it completely. I also understand the structure thing. You want, tell you a micro tiny story.

My dad was a real slave driver when he came to school. Had to be smart, had to get grades. Had to be smart, had to get grades. I mean, he was a maniac about this, okay? So I go to college and I become maniac student. I study all the time. I come home for holidays, I'm studying. I'm studying, I'm studying. I did very well. Dean's list every semester. I'm studying. You know, after the first year, he realized he had overdone it and he bought me a television. My dad bought a television. So I understand something about going from

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And you're very honest. And you know what you needed in your life? You needed this transition so you could learn how to smell flowers. You've done the rest of it very well. But it's a time for a different type of life for you. You have to learn to smell flowers. Yes, you do. And I know you do. And you're just a terrible, horrible person. You're a terrible mother, a terrible wife, terrible person, and a total bitch. Okay? How did you know I felt like that? Yes, I know. I'm just saying what's in your head, right?

Unfortunately, yes. Yeah, but you're wrong. You're just having a tough time adapting. So let's go through it. We got that you're a bitch part. So let's go through this and just take a moment and tell me what you're having the most trouble feeling comfortable with, comfortable in this transition. Tell me that. Tell me that. Um...

One, I feel like I'm weak. No, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. I don't want to know what your opinion of yourself sucks and it's wrong. So I really don't want to hear it. It's just BS and it's wrong. So don't keep laying that. I don't want to know about your feelings, okay? What I want to know is what about this transition is the most uncomfortable? Not getting up for Reveille? What is the most uncomfortable?

Not being able to have a conversation, a motherly conversation with my son on the way to school. Not know what to say to him. Oh, okay. No, stop there. Stop, stop, stop. That's good. Now, instead of getting down on yourself and saying you're just a horrible person, we look at all the parts and we solve them.

That make sense? That's how you do it in the military. That's how you do it in corporate. You look at what the problem is and we solve it. Okay? So how old is your boy? He's 15. 15. Okay. Get on the net and look at some of the 15, you know, the social world, the world of a 15-year-old. I don't even know what it is. I don't even know what it is. But ask him questions. Just go, you know, when I was 15...

This is what we had. We didn't have the Internet, and so we could not connect with all over the... What's it like for you? Ask him questions. He's a font of information. Ask questions. That is a motherly thing to do. My son is 31, and I spend most of my time asking questions.

I think my issue is asking him open-ended questions because he's very stoic. He's a male. He's a male. He's no different from your husband. They both look, they both glaze over if you want to have a girl conversation. So you just say, what's it like? I remember one of the first times I, it's my first memory. Derek was in kindergarten and I said, when two girls get mad at each other, what happens? And he goes, oh,

They get other girls to be mad. Okay. Well, when two boys get mad, what happens? He says, they push each other, they punch each other, they shove each other, and then they go out and play ball. That was a mother-son conversation. Ask questions. What's it like at 15? The girls look pretty hot. They didn't look so hot. I didn't dress like that. Anything. Anything. And laugh. Anything. Anything.

Now, he's not going to give you a lot because he's a 15-year-old male, but it'll get more and more and more comfortable as you show a sense of humor and just ask questions, but not open-ended ones, small little ones. Do people talk about politics at school? What's going on with that? Is anybody being mean to anybody else because of what side they're on? This is what he's living right now. He's living in an era of severely mean and threatening.

I think it's a scary time to be in school because schools are now very blatant about hurting conservative or religious kids. So have you seen anybody get hurt? Have you wondered what to do? So you're not giving him a lecture. You're asking him what's going on and how he's dealing with it. Just things. Just things. Just life. What's it like to have a mother who used to be in the military, now she's on your butt all the time? What's that like?

I could probably answer that for you. Well, but you don't. You let him answer it. And you say, am I a bit much? What do you think? I ratchet it back a little. That's a mother-son conversation. It isn't giving lectures. Okay. We did that one. You want to give me another one? Give me another circumscribed thing you're uncomfortable with. Come on. You did real good. Let's do another one. Napping at my husband.

I'm trying to give you an example. Yesterday, I said I was, I don't know, something is stupid, like I'm cramping, I'm not feeling well. And I felt that he minimized that completely. Because when guys break a leg, they go, it's nothing. And you've been a military woman. He's used to you being a different kind of woman.

I know, but I want... So, okay, I'm going to tell you how to fix this. Hey, I'm the fixer here. Okay? That's what you called me for. You know I can fix things, right? Yes, ma'am. The next time something... Don't ma'am me. Don't you ma'am me. Okay, here's what you do. The next time you feel like crap, emotionally or your uterus, it doesn't matter to me, or both.

You go up to him, your big, strong man, and say, oh, I need a hug. I feel like crap. Hug me. That'll make me feel better. Let's snuggle. Can you snuggle with me a few minutes? Ask. Ask. A-S-K. Ask. Your man will do anything you ask him to do and you know it. But you're not used to asking. You don't go up to, I don't know, a colonel and go, I'm having a bad day. Can you hug me? Absolutely not. No.

That ain't happening. Yeah, you'd be arrested. So you'd be court-martialed right then and there. Right, I'd be laughed at. Yeah, your bun would be out. That would be it. So, but as a civilian woman, you know what this is all about? This is all about you getting in touch with your womanly side. I bet if we went through 10 more things,

I want to be a mother, you said. I want to have mother talks. My husband, I want him to take care of me like I'm a delicate flower. You don't know how to let go and be a woman. That's the core issue here. I just realized it. You know, to this day, no matter where I am, if I walk up to a building from the inside or the outside and there's a door, I stand there. It's men's work. I'm very old school. And I am not a weak woman, not physically, not psychologically. I'm very strong.

But I'd like to be treated like a delicate flower. Let your husband treat you like a delicate flower, but you're going to have to give him instructions because he's used to you saluting. Can you say to him, I need a hug? Can you say to him, I need a snuggle? Absolutely. Well, that's so now we covered your husband and your kid. It's all we're going to do for right now. You feel, feel. Now we're going to go back to your feelings. You feel a little bit more squared away.

Yes, I do. Thank you. I was not expecting to cry, but thank you. Well, yes, that's part of being a woman and it's part of being human. I have a tattoo on my left shoulder. It's a really nice skull with a rose in its teeth. And I'm often asked, what the hell is that? Because people don't expect me to have a tattoo, especially of a skull with a freaking rose in its mouth.

And my explanation is I am one badass girly girl. And you have been a badass. Now you've got to get in touch with the girly girl. That's your only problem. Everything else is just coming from that. I can't cry. I can't show weakness. I can't. Sweetie, you can do it all. But it's going to be a transition.

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