How NOT to Protect Your Kids! Freedomain Call In

Stefan Molyneux

In this conversation, I delve into a caller's tumultuous relationship with her mother, shedding light on emotional abuse, neglect, and her mother's struggles with substance abuse. We discuss the caller's father's passive role and enabling behavior in the family dynamic. Exploring the impact of dysfunctional parenting on mental health, we touch on potential links to conditions like schizophrenia. We navigate the complexities of family interactions, including sibling violence and accountability issues. Emphasizing personal agency in responding to trauma, we discuss the healing process and the enduring effects of childhood experiences on emotional regulation and decision-making. Additionally, we highlight the importance of seeking closure, addressing emotional pain, setting boundaries, and prioritizing mental health in the journey of healing from past trauma.  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!  Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon!  https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

Transcript

00:00:00Alright, so gosh, what's the mood? What is going on with your mother? Oh my gosh. What a what a tale

00:00:08Yes

00:00:10It's it's crazy. She's she's really crazy. It's it's intense

00:00:17So, so yeah, do you want to tell me tell me the tale from the beginning or what works best for you

00:00:23So

00:00:24Everything about this letter you ask people where to start. I was kind of thinking I could start like 10 years ago

00:00:31so in the timeline here because that's when

00:00:36around the time I discovered FDR and

00:00:39Just changed my life so much for the better and like that was just a big turning point

00:00:44And that's also like basically last time I saw her

00:00:48right, so

00:00:51Because what was going on 10 years ago I was

00:00:55miserable

00:00:56I'd actually been in

00:00:59Therapy for years at that point

00:01:02And but it wasn't helping I was in this terrible marriage

00:01:06We were only married for about a year and a half. So it wasn't a long marriage, but it was

00:01:12miserable one while it lasted and

00:01:14Let's

00:01:17See so my father had died just a few years previous and my mother was getting remarried and

00:01:23She wanted me to be a bridesmaid, but she never asked me

00:01:26She just sort of like you're gonna be a bridesmaid and I for some reason this this was the thing

00:01:31That I got really hung up on and I didn't want to do it, right?

00:01:34I was just complaining like literally everybody who would listen to me. I would just complain

00:01:39Oh, I have to do this thing and I don't want to I can't believe she's making me do this and

00:01:44Finally I

00:01:45was talking to a

00:01:47Guy who listened to your show and he was like, well, don't do it

00:01:51Is it my first day? I have a radical thought if you don't want it. Yeah

00:01:56It was it was truly radical for me at the time like a it was a bit my first big

00:02:00Red pill moment right where I was just like wait what I don't have to do this

00:02:06right, right and

00:02:08And I didn't and he sent me a real-time relationships

00:02:11and I read very quickly read through

00:02:14RTR on truth and

00:02:17UPB and then I finished all three of those and I was like wait this guy has all these podcasts do this is great never end

00:02:24Does he ever stop talking and the answer is well, eventually I'll be dead but not before then

00:02:30Well, yes, I I got

00:02:34Really into philosophy and

00:02:36you know

00:02:38When it was sort of like I was embracing personal responsibility

00:02:41It was like, oh I have a choice whether I need to be with this guy. I was married to oh

00:02:47Thank God. No. Thank you. I don't want to be in that relationship anymore. And

00:02:52Yeah, and then I met my new husband on the on the old FDR boards and

00:03:00We've had it really has been an incredible relationship

00:03:04I didn't know like love could be like this and grow and change. It was just beautiful

00:03:09so there are all these really beautiful things in my life, and I have two amazing children and

00:03:14They're really incredible and I'm a stay-at-home mom

00:03:16Like it was just what I've wanted to be my whole life and when I was a kid, I was a teenager

00:03:22And I telling my mom I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom because I saw that having two working parents did not

00:03:28Work very well, and she's well, you can't rely on a man to support you. You know that sort of thing, right?

00:03:34But you can't rely on government. Apparently, that's totally fine

00:03:39So

00:03:41Right, so I made all these beautiful changes and and yet there was still a part of me that still craved this

00:03:49relationship and this like

00:03:51Validation or something from my mom and like after all this time. I

00:03:57Don't know I felt like maybe I changed, you know, because I changed so much

00:04:01Maybe I'd be able to like talk to her. Maybe she would have learned that like

00:04:10You know

00:04:11That I could cut her off and that maybe she would be on like company behavior with me or something

00:04:16She would be on the what behavior?

00:04:18Company behavior. It's a it's a different kind of behavior that you have. Oh

00:04:23When you're with company like when other people company, yeah when other people are over you

00:04:28We were nice to each other got it got it, okay

00:04:33Sorry, I hope I'm making sense. So no, no, it makes sense. I understand. Yeah, so there so that was so it's 10 years ago

00:04:42To now, you know and

00:04:47So like I said in my

00:04:49Letter there was a few other things motivating me. I think

00:04:53What was money of course like my mom is very wealthy and it's kind of like I think there's been some things you said in

00:04:59the past podcasts where you're like if someone gave you a million dollars like

00:05:03Would you do this thing and it's like my parents were kind of offering me that in some ways and it's like well

00:05:11anyway

00:05:19Now do you feel a little little jazzed in the combo here

00:05:22Yeah

00:05:24I totally understand that and you are throwing a lot of giggle balls into this bowling alley. So

00:05:32I get that. I'm a little giddy. No, that's totally fine. I really appreciate that

00:05:36I mean, it's it's it's serious stuff that we're talking about and do you want to talk to me?

00:05:40It's it ten years ago, and I'm glad to get that snapshot. I'm completely thrilled that you met your husband off the FDR boards

00:05:45That's fantastic how to type people into existence

00:05:49but

00:05:51Your childhood, I mean, that's that's got to be a lot going on. I mean the mom sounds like

00:05:56Just wild with regards to selfishness and all of that. So was that pretty evident from the beginning of your life?

00:06:05Yes, so I

00:06:07Had a my ACE score is is a five

00:06:11so that is

00:06:13emotional

00:06:15emotional abuse and emotional neglect for for sure and

00:06:20Also, we had

00:06:22There was also physical neglect, which is really shocking because my parents were very wealthy

00:06:27So it it's weird that there was like often no food in the house

00:06:31and like I didn't have clean clothes and and clothes that fit me properly, you know things like that like it was

00:06:38there was

00:06:40physical neglect like because you know, my parents just sort of expected us I was the second youngest of four and

00:06:47And they just kind of expected me to like know how to do things like when I

00:06:53Was taking my driver's test when I was 16

00:06:55Like no one ever took me driving because I it was sort of a very clear expectation

00:07:00It was never spoken, but it was very clear. You never ask mom anything, right?

00:07:05Like you never ask her to take you take you a ride to a friend's house anything like that

00:07:10So I could never ask her to take me driving because that was just completely not in our family culture

00:07:15But

00:07:18Even asking my dad was hard too because it was it was so stressed him out so much

00:07:23It was such like a burden to him. So

00:07:26So no one ever taught me how to drive

00:07:28so they took me to my dad took me to the driver's test and I failed because I'm like barely been behind the wheel and

00:07:35It was this source of great shame for me at the time that I had failed it

00:07:39But it was no one taught me how to do it

00:07:41So

00:07:43So then there was so there was emotional abuse emotional neglect physical neglect

00:07:47there was also a mental illness in the household and the substance abuse in the household is I'm the only one of

00:07:54My siblings or who would who would say that's true because that my mom is an alcoholic

00:07:59Though I she doesn't think she is and no one else seems to think she is but she definitely gets like blackout drunk and

00:08:06Says the most cruel things

00:08:08You can imagine and then does not claims not to remember any of it, you know

00:08:13so

00:08:15How did they how did they get their money?

00:08:17I'm not just this may be a total prejudice of mine

00:08:20but generally

00:08:21people end up with a lot of money because they have some level of competence somewhere and it's kind of unusual to have that level of

00:08:27Public confident competence and then be that crazy at home. I could could happen

00:08:33But but whether it is it inherited money or is it just like somebody had a magic touch with business or

00:08:39Well, they're both physicians

00:08:41So doctor so my mom my mom's, you know

00:08:44Her story is that she came from a very poor household and you know, it was comparatively poor

00:08:51My dad did come from money. So he has a lot of inherited money

00:08:56or had he's passed away now, but

00:08:58He had inherited money my mom came up from quote, you know nothing

00:09:04In in some ways though. I I do wonder about her story because I think her her dad

00:09:11Her dad was German like first-generation German here in the United States. And I guess he was very

00:09:17miserly with money and I think they had more than he

00:09:22He kept them in

00:09:24You know sort of poverty or something, you know something like that, but anyway, it's I question a lot of the things my mother says

00:09:32but

00:09:33So she didn't she she had to but she came a doc became a doctor at a time when there weren't that many female doctors

00:09:40you know like a strong strong independent woman like when she was

00:09:46Applying to medical schools she it's a one of the

00:09:50Admissions officers there. So well, we only take, you know, two women if we don't find two that are good enough

00:09:55We only found one we won't take any, you know, that sort of thing. So

00:10:00You know, she worked really hard and she you know, that was her

00:10:05Every day when she got home from work because by when I was 10

00:10:09My dad essentially retired and he became like a stay-at-home dad though

00:10:15He would never say that title and he sort of hated that title and would never you should use it

00:10:20But he was and our lives really did become less chaotic when he was home all the time

00:10:26Nable to I'm sorry. How old was he when he retired? Did he retire for age reasons or were there other reasons?

00:10:32Well, we I'm trying to remember how old he was an older dad, you know, he had me when he was 40

00:10:4033 so I was you know, and then he also had a younger child to meet as well. So he was an older dad

00:10:47But then he was only in in his 50s when he retired

00:10:51yes, so it was essentially that my

00:10:54They they both had contracts with hospitals that were expiring like at the same time

00:11:00So mom and so mom kind of was freaking out that they would not both not be employed anymore. So she

00:11:07Went out and found this job where we had to move to get this job as a much higher paying job

00:11:13More stress, of course more hours, you know, she had to be on call. It was a very hot but and it was sort of

00:11:19This story in the family. Oh dad's going to find work eventually, but he never did and he also he had a

00:11:27he had research that he did we didn't get paid for it, but it was sort of a

00:11:31A

00:11:33Passion project of his that he was semi famous for I mean in the medical world not really that famous

00:11:38but right he he thought if he lived he might win the Nobel Prize eventually, but

00:11:44Anyway, so he was kind of doing some work but not being paid for it and he still don't know why he's retired property

00:11:53Well, he had four. Well, we did have four kids. So and my he we had a younger brother who was five

00:11:58This is one of the things that my mom brought up in this conversation we had on the plane

00:12:03when

00:12:05She she was like, well, none of the other kids happen, you know, what about oh, sorry. I'm sorry to say that. Okay

00:12:10I'll remove that. Yeah, no problem

00:12:12Good. So what about your younger brother? He doesn't have any and like

00:12:17You know, it was a red herrings. I wanted to be like, oh, we're not talking about my brother

00:12:21we're talking about me and my experience, but

00:12:24He had a nanny from until he was five years old and she was very

00:12:29Dedicated she loved him and they had a really strong connection, you know, so but anyway

00:12:35Having four kids like he it was so chaotic before dad retired

00:12:41Like I think he saw that

00:12:46You know working with all the kids it was just not it wasn't working, you know

00:12:50It wasn't working, you know

00:12:52But mom refused to see that because she she continued to feel resentment about it about this that he had stopped working

00:12:58Like to this day she feels resentful about it and I actually brought it up when we talked about this

00:13:03It was like mom

00:13:03It was actually really helpful for us as kids

00:13:06That he wasn't working that we could call somebody if we were sick at school, you know

00:13:11um

00:13:12And she I don't think that had ever occurred to her. So I mentioned it on the plane but um thinking about anyone but herself

00:13:19it's

00:13:23And does that does that make sense still doesn't i'm trying to sort of figure out so he

00:13:28Would retire in his mid-50s

00:13:30And of course, i'm sure he became like a sort of functional doctor in his 30s

00:13:34So 20 years did he not like I mean, how did he speak about his work? Did he not like?

00:13:40Being a doctor

00:13:42I don't think he did

00:13:44I don't think he liked it. I don't really think he liked working in general. I I think he

00:13:49preferred

00:13:50to be a man of

00:13:52leisure

00:13:53um, which wasn't good for my

00:13:55Brothers, I don't think seeing a man being so passive in his life. Um

00:14:01Well, hang on so, uh, but he was still working

00:14:06I mean you said he was i'm not trying to catch you out. I just want to make sure I understand

00:14:09So he was still working to some degree, right? I mean he was doing his um, he was writing paper. He was writing papers. Um,

00:14:16And he wasn't really doing any active research so he wasn't you know, like in labs or anything like that, but um

00:14:23he was keeping up with the medical research on his

00:14:26topic that um was his baby, you know, and

00:14:30Was was continuing to write papers. But of course this is like behind closed doors. Like we didn't really see

00:14:36His work. He didn't have to he wasn't getting paid for it. He wasn't getting up in the morning and

00:14:41You don't go out to work. Do you think like that? I understand

00:14:45And and essentially what you said and of course, it's your family

00:14:48I'm not going to disagree with you about your family, but when you said it was not good for my brothers

00:14:54So, you know the argument could be made well he he didn't have to work he didn't like the job so

00:15:00He did stay at home parenting

00:15:02And no and obviously, you know, i'm i'm a stay-at-home dad, right? So so i'm trying to think if he's um

00:15:10If he's not

00:15:12Enjoying his work and he doesn't need to work and he's doing stuff that he enjoys and he's parenting

00:15:20why is that and

00:15:21why is that bad for your

00:15:23your brothers

00:15:27He's a passive and i'd like to know more about that, but I don't see passive coming out of

00:15:33Just the choices he's made so far. It seems kind of active to walk away from something. You don't like and do something more rewarding

00:15:39Hmm, I mean that is a good point. Um

00:15:45Hmm

00:15:46just

00:15:47I mean, so he was definitely passive in other ways in his life. So maybe i'm universalizing that so he

00:15:54Because 90 of the time with my mom because my mom of course is this volatile sort of tyrant of the house, right?

00:16:00like where she

00:16:01She gets her way. She is

00:16:04very easily upset right very

00:16:07Um reactive and dad on the other hand was

00:16:1290 percent of the time 90 percent of the time like he was

00:16:16conflict avoidant so

00:16:18He would do anything

00:16:20In his power and including lying and conspiring with the kids to lie to my mother

00:16:28To keep her from getting upset we can't upset mom, you know

00:16:31Kids be quiet. She just got home from work. She's stressed, you know that sort of thing like very tense

00:16:36and um

00:16:39That was 90 percent of the time, uh the other 10

00:16:42He would

00:16:44He would blow up so he would go for really he wasn't as reactive as mom where it wasn't like a daily thing

00:16:50Where he could just blow up any time it was like

00:16:53over time

00:16:54getting bullied

00:16:56and degraded by mom, you know verbally

00:16:59Uh, she he eventually would just snap and he would have it would be more explosive than mom's tempers where he would like

00:17:06throw things and get

00:17:09um, just physically violent, um, of course that

00:17:13Stopped as when he got older and he had he had strokes and he was very ill at the end of his life

00:17:19So that did not continue into his old age

00:17:24But

00:17:26um, so that was the sort of

00:17:28behavior and passivity that he was acting under where he would just be really

00:17:35I mean, it wasn't again. You're right. It's not passive

00:17:37I don't I keep using that term, but it was an active thing where we would

00:17:41He would lie to mom all the time, you know, and and get me to lie and like not don't don't tell her this

00:17:46you know kind of thing she should know and

00:17:48um

00:17:50Does that make sense?

00:17:52Yeah, that totally makes sense. No because honestly I was just thinking when you said that obviously

00:17:56I don't make it more about me

00:17:57but I was just thinking that gee if I'd had a son and I sort of quit the corporate world and did something I

00:18:02enjoyed more and

00:18:04Although I guess it's not exactly. Uh, it's not passive really being a philosopher. It's quite an active life in it

00:18:10Yeah

00:18:11But no, I was just wondering if I'd had a son rather than a daughter if that would have changed

00:18:14but anyway, I mean it's make it about you so

00:18:16I think

00:18:18That's interesting. So

00:18:21Your mom can't be reasoned with right

00:18:24Right, that's correct. So for your father to

00:18:31For your father to say, you know be be quiet and and don't upset mom that makes sense because she can't be reasoned with right

00:18:38But my question is what was the source?

00:18:41of her power

00:18:44Right. Why did she have so much power?

00:18:49It's a really good question bullies had to have something right

00:18:52And she has it over me like still, you know, like I I went to see her

00:18:58Um, oh, we'll get to that

00:19:00Yeah. Oh, that's on the list. Trust me. Yeah, that is on the list

00:19:04So but why with you let's talk about with your father. So why did he why did she have so much power?

00:19:10So

00:19:13I did a lot of investigation in this after you know, it's after he died so I couldn't really talk to him about it

00:19:18but

00:19:19In terms of his childhood, um, he had a mother

00:19:23who was uh

00:19:24Very volatile. She was in a very serious alcoholic. Um, this is what my father told me about her. He said

00:19:32She was a she was a wonderfully sweet woman

00:19:35She was just such perfectly lovely woman until five o'clock every day when she had her drink and then she turned into this monster

00:19:43And and then was a monster, you know until she woke up the next day again, I think

00:19:48But of course my uncle his brother

00:19:50has a

00:19:51Different story. Oh, I don't live in color a perfectly sweet lovely woman, you know kind of thing. Um,

00:19:58But anyways, my uncle has a different story about that

00:20:01but

00:20:03Dad had this I think he believed that women were just like this that they were crazy, you know, and uh,

00:20:11He

00:20:13He had a first wife that he um

00:20:16Essentially knocked up when he was in college

00:20:18He was 20 at his it is 50th

00:20:20I took him to his 50th high school reunion and they had this little game

00:20:24To see who had the youngest child and who had the oldest child and dad won both

00:20:29He was kind of proud of himself with that one

00:20:31but um

00:20:32She they I think friends the reason that they one of the reasons maybe that they got divorced

00:20:37Was that she was too sane for him? Like it didn't it was boring to him

00:20:44How she wasn't like volatile and stuff

00:20:47and I went through

00:20:49before I

00:20:51Left. So when I married my husband and you know de food essentially, uh

00:20:58Uh, sorry my second husband

00:21:02My philosopher king husband, right

00:21:06Yes, so

00:21:08Before I did that. I before I left

00:21:10Uh that state I went cross-country to get away from my mother. Um

00:21:16I went through dad how dad took a lot of photos and he had lots of archives of like

00:21:20Letters and things and I went I went through all his stuff, you know

00:21:24Without my mother's permission. She was out of town. So I was gonna hat at it and

00:21:28To scan things. Anyway, I found this letter that he wrote to her

00:21:31this summer

00:21:34I think it was it was like three months after they'd been married for three months and he wrote this letter begging her

00:21:39to

00:21:41Be nicer to him basically like that her cruelty

00:21:45And her sometimes even hatred is what he said. Sorry, sometimes it seems you even hate me, you know this hatred that you spew at me

00:21:52I can't stand it and it's going to ruin our relationship

00:21:55That's what he said in this letter that he saved from all for all these years

00:21:59And uh, sorry, when was this in the course of their marriage?

00:22:03This was three months after they were married. Good lord

00:22:06So so he knew all about her cruelty from I mean we would assume before marriage but certainly very early right before you guys came along

00:22:13Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think he I think she hid it from him until they were married. I think uh, that's no

00:22:20Sorry, yeah, sorry. I mean sorry that that's that's on the level of your dad. She was perfectly lovely until five o'clock

00:22:27Right. Okay. Yes, you're right

00:22:30So because there would be signs right that there are always signs there are signs in past relationships

00:22:35There are signs in her relationship to her family. There are always disagreements and so on and and somebody who masks disagreements

00:22:43Is manipulative, right? So let's say that she didn't fight with him, but but you can't have normal disagreements with a crazy person either they

00:22:51Are totally subservient like they're either at your feet or at your throat, right? They're either totally subservient or totally dominant. So even if

00:22:59She didn't

00:23:01have any fights with him at all, uh, that would be a sign of dysfunction, but

00:23:06Given that his first wife was as you say too nice to normal too boring

00:23:10Then he must have been drawn to the volatility of your mom

00:23:14Right because he's like, well, she's she's fiery. She's you know, she's she's emphatic

00:23:19She she lives life to the max and and she's not like my other bland, you know, not not insane wife

00:23:25So so for sure he knew all of this stuff, uh before right before getting it, right?

00:23:31Well what happened in their their story of very shortly after that she got pregnant

00:23:38uh after the letter

00:23:40I think so. The timeline is a little confusing. She might have even already been been pregnant. So they had their first

00:23:46child

00:23:48Uh

00:23:50It must it was 80. Sorry. We don't need to we don't need to say the exact date

00:23:54But it was I think it was a year after they um

00:23:58They were married. So it was true

00:24:00Must have been around that time that he wrote that letter that they got pregnant, right?

00:24:04But the baby did not did not live. She went she he had she had a a

00:24:10Genetic issue where he only lived eight days

00:24:14and then mom

00:24:17Uh was very very sad after that dad said that she cried

00:24:22Every day for a year after yeah, that's the baby. That's not true. No, no, that's not true

00:24:31No, no, come on, okay, so so I mean i'm sorry I hate to be annoyingly blunt guy

00:24:36but

00:24:37This is all just manipulative sentimentality because okay

00:24:42So she she oh she was so sad about the baby who died because she cares so much for her children. You see

00:24:49Mm-hmm

00:24:51She's just all about the children and the mothering and the love and it broke her heart and that's why you see

00:24:58After she lost a child she treasured her remaining children so much more

00:25:06Except that's the complete opposite of what happened, right? Yes

00:25:11so

00:25:12she

00:25:13Did not I mean if you don't care about your life children

00:25:16It's pretty hard to argue that you care so much about your dead children

00:25:24Am I wrong, I mean i'm you know, this is a situation but logically to me

00:25:28if someone

00:25:29You know abuses their their their actual children

00:25:32It's hard to say but they were just so heartbroken and it was so terrible and oh so awful

00:25:38Because of the child died, of course the child who dies from terribly terribly terribly sad

00:25:42but

00:25:44That's saying she has the capacity to love and bond and treasure the children who died

00:25:50Unfortunately, not the children who actually lived that she was supposed to parent

00:25:54right

00:25:56Don't believe it for a moment

00:25:57she also just seems to love babies a lot more than she loves like once they actually get to

00:26:04To learn how to talk and you know talk back. Of course she does. I mean all all cruel people

00:26:10Have less problem with babies than they do with adults or children who can talk back because the babies don't challenge them

00:26:17She got all the love for free

00:26:19Well, your babies are just it's a drug right? The the babies will you mean, you know, you're a mother, right?

00:26:24They they bond and attach to you. You don't have to earn it

00:26:28Right, they they you know

00:26:29I mean you treat them decently and they'll light up when you come in the room and and and then you think that that's everything

00:26:35That you deserve and then what happens that that's a setup for turning on the kids when they get older

00:26:41Right, I mean

00:26:43the parents get mad at children

00:26:46Because babies bond with them and give them all this dopamine so they feel like they're loved the parents feel like they're loved

00:26:51And then the the at some point the kids are like there's something wrong with you up there

00:26:56You know something something's not right here and they begin to be skeptical and and and withdraw

00:27:01I mean my daughter is in her mid-teens ready to be 16 this year

00:27:05And she knows like down to the last atomic detail every one of my flaws and foibles

00:27:11Like absolutely she could she could go on for you know, uh a certain amount of time

00:27:16I guess we won't get into exactly how long but let's just say it's not totally totally short

00:27:21But no, she knows all of my foibles and she knows all of my pettiness and all of my wing every single detail every single

00:27:28Detail you can't avoid it particularly if you're a stay-at-home parent because there's nothing to hide

00:27:33No, I mean we love each other and I know her foibles

00:27:35Um, I also know which ones i'm more responsible for and also which ones she's more responsible for

00:27:41but

00:27:42You know knowing absolutely everything about the people in your life is the job of children

00:27:46And so when the kids get a little older they're like, hmm

00:27:50Yeah, something's not quite right about all of this something not is not is not working

00:27:55and then

00:27:57Uh, the the the parents react the mothers often react with this enrage like no

00:28:03No, no, you're supposed to be a love me dopamine delivery mechanism and you're not doing your job

00:28:10It's really quite unpleasant

00:28:13There was a story about me as a baby that I was so attached to mom

00:28:17That when she she tried to go to this workout class once a week and the second she left the house

00:28:22I would start screaming and begging for mom and like I would wait by the back door

00:28:27and uh

00:28:28It went on so much. It just drove dad crazy

00:28:30He like forbid her from going to this workout class again, and she she loved this story. She loved it

00:28:36Wow, you know dad was like, oh it was awful. But mom just she just ate it up. She thought it was

00:28:41The best right now, but you know, that's not healthy

00:28:46Yeah, I mean that's an i'm no expert right? But my understanding is that that's an insecure attachment

00:28:53Um

00:28:54Like you're not trusting she's coming back. You're not trusting that things are gonna work out that that you're just very

00:29:01anxious

00:29:02Mm-hmm

00:29:03so i'm not sure that my i'm not sure that's like she was so attached it's like

00:29:08you know, I mean if you have a husband who like

00:29:11Puts a puts a gps tracker on your car and checks your cell phone and and all of that. That's not love. That's kind of

00:29:18Mm-hmm

00:29:20So i'm laughing because we my husband and I have we have the

00:29:25That on our phones we can stalk each other whenever we want. No, I get that but it's not out of emotional need, right?

00:29:30Yeah, I know. Of course. I was like, I wonder if he's

00:29:33I almost home I can make did get put dinner on the table. Yeah. Yeah, right, right

00:29:40So, yeah, I mean that story is interesting but I do not think that it is uh, it is healthy

00:29:48My first memory when I look back is is of anxiety. Okay. It's that's my very first memory. I'm anxious, you know

00:29:55um

00:29:56Very fearful and you know as a child I was mom always oh you're too sensitive, you know

00:30:01that was the story about me that I was just

00:30:04I was just way too sensitive

00:30:09Go on

00:30:12Um

00:30:14Well

00:30:16Let's see, uh, why would she say that

00:30:19Because oh because she hurt you and you were upset

00:30:22Mm-hmm, or I had I had needs like oh no

00:30:26Needs how selfish can you be?

00:30:28I know like well as I grew up and into my teenage years I tried to be as

00:30:33needless as possible, you know, I didn't even ask to

00:30:35to learn how to drive because I just knew that it would stress them out and

00:30:40Well, it's like well i'll just figure it out I guess when I get there and

00:30:43Lo and behold it didn't work. Yeah, it was that was harder. Yeah to actually practice to learn how to drive. Um, so

00:30:54So what about the the needs thing, um, she would say you are um

00:31:00You are what you are too needy. You are too sensitive. You're too

00:31:04So yeah, so brutal people, right? They harm you right and then when you get upset they say you're oversensitive, right? That's

00:31:11Right

00:31:12Everything everything to do with impossible people is putting you in an impossible situation

00:31:19Right. So if you have needs, uh, that's bad, right, but if you don't need your mother, that's also bad, right?

00:31:27If you don't, you know, if you don't care about her, you don't give her what she wants

00:31:30You don't do the things that are right by her. So to have needs and to not have needs is bad

00:31:36To want things from your mother is bad to complain about not getting them is bad

00:31:41And what what would so what would happen if you just didn't interact with her?

00:31:44Like if you stayed in your room or like you just say, okay, i'm not gonna have any needs

00:31:48Uh, then what what happened then?

00:31:51well, that was

00:31:53Uh, that was essentially the norm. Uh

00:31:56from so from 10 on

00:32:00She when she got home from work, she went straight back to her room

00:32:03From when I was age 10 on that is um

00:32:06She would go straight back to her room after she got home from work sometimes like 17 hour days, you know

00:32:11Like really crazy doctor hours

00:32:14um

00:32:15and dad would like bring her her meals in bed and and

00:32:19Enable that and like I would not see her like hardly ever. Um

00:32:24And I would try to avoid her as much as possible. Um

00:32:28I I did see the only time I ever really saw her and had any positive interaction

00:32:31We would have a family vacation every year for two weeks

00:32:35and usually like a european vacation, you know something very bougie and uh, you know, it was through nice trips and mom was like

00:32:42On the company behavior, right? She was really happy on these trips. Um, that was the other reason I sort of deluded myself into this

00:32:49Taking this trip with her. I thought maybe she would just be really happy on the trip

00:32:53But uh anyway, uh because that's how it was like she was I could actually like

00:32:57sort of talk to her not I mean not really talk to her but

00:33:00now that I think about it, you know, we talked about the things we were seeing and

00:33:04We know we didn't even talk then like it was we just barely talked ever, you know

00:33:09um

00:33:11So I'm my memory from before I was 10

00:33:16And

00:33:17It's really hazy. I mean I when my brother was born. I was five when my younger brother was born

00:33:23So I got to be like the baby. There's lots of benefits to being the baby and in the family

00:33:28so I got all the benefits until I was five and then I think it was actually

00:33:32Sort of beneficial for me to stop getting the baby benefits and you know grow up

00:33:36whereas my younger brother was the baby until he was

00:33:39grown man

00:33:41He's 30 something years old now, but he's yeah

00:33:44I mean, that's a dysfunctional family just doesn't allow people to grow. It doesn't allow roles to change

00:33:49It doesn't allow things to shift around

00:33:52People are just assigned it's like the army right? The army is just one big dysfunctional family

00:33:55So you have your rank although I guess at least with the army you have the chance to improve or the chance to grow

00:34:01but yeah dysfunctional families nobody can change their positions because um

00:34:05There's no living in the moment, right? There's only living in

00:34:08Stereotypes and habits and there's no sort of actual connection or conversations in the moment

00:34:13so it's all not how it is now, but it's all how it evolved and

00:34:18so, okay, so

00:34:20Your uh as far as discipline went

00:34:24How did that go?

00:34:26It was more of a

00:34:28so, okay, so no corporal punishment like we were not dad was very

00:34:32Felt very strongly about that that though. I have even video like I when I went through all my dad's archives. I

00:34:38I

00:34:39Scanned, you know digitized all this all the home movies and there's even video of my mother like trying to spank my younger

00:34:45son or my younger son

00:34:47my younger brother and um

00:34:51There there's like a video of me like talking about spanking and stuff in the so I

00:34:56The story is that we were never

00:34:59We were never spanked. Um

00:35:02But I have

00:35:05It's just a sketchy memory I don't fully believe that you know what I mean?

00:35:08um

00:35:09That we were never spanked, but I don't have like strong memories of it. Um

00:35:14I do so it was mostly like we were just kind of

00:35:17With my sibling I had four siblings, you know, or three siblings and a half sister too, but we didn't grow up with her but

00:35:24It was kind of laissez-faire. Um, you know, there weren't really rules there weren't I mean there were unspoken rules, of course

00:35:32um, but

00:35:33My parents were just very absent

00:35:35You know

00:35:35It was like a lord of the flies with my siblings and like they were

00:35:38My my parents weren't physically abusive my sibling my older siblings were not my younger sibling

00:35:43My two older siblings were physically abusive with me

00:35:47and uh

00:35:49And what do you what's uh, what do you mean by that?

00:35:52Hitting scratching indian burns. Do you know what an indian burn is?

00:35:56I think we used to call them just when you rotate your hand opposite ways. We used to call the chinese burns and uh,

00:36:03Yeah, it really really messes up your skin

00:36:05It's really painful. Yes. It is older brother

00:36:08enjoyed

00:36:10Giving me indian burns. Um

00:36:12and uh

00:36:15Though there was a lot of fights particularly between I was usually in between

00:36:19Stuck in the middle between fights between my older brother and my older sister

00:36:22Like I really idolized them and looked up to them so much. I loved them both

00:36:26You know love and I was attached very attached to both. I won't use the word love but I was extremely attached to both of them

00:36:33And um, but they would get in these huge fights and i'd have to like pick a side, you know

00:36:38and um

00:36:42Uh, yeah, there wasn't really

00:36:45A lot like the only discipline was just being yelled at, you know, it was just yelling and with my parents that is um

00:36:53And just

00:36:55Oh, I don't understand you kids. Oh, you know that kind of

00:37:00Mother and how often would be sibling how often would these sibling conflicts occur?

00:37:05Oh, I daily

00:37:08Oh gosh

00:37:09um

00:37:10It was bad. It was really bad

00:37:12Wow. Now, why why do you think there was so much?

00:37:17Rage and and

00:37:19Violence and so on and I used to think this is more because you know, there's this story in society

00:37:24Well, you know the older sibling just resents the younger sibling because it's taking taking attention away from the parents

00:37:30It's almost like this inevitability that that is talked about with regards to sibling conflicts

00:37:35And uh, it's not true

00:37:37It's absolutely completely and totally false and I can say this with total certainty because I know a lot of families

00:37:43With multiple siblings many siblings, you know a family with three brothers four brothers

00:37:48And they all and they're all peaceful parents and the the siblings get along really really well. They encourage each other

00:37:53They support each other. They're friendly with each other. They would never dream of attacking each other or hitting each other

00:37:58So this you know, the inevitability of sibling conflict turns out. Hey, it's just another piece of propaganda put out by abusive parents

00:38:05Like oh we had to manage you guys your siblings fight, you know, they they fight and and we just tried to do our best

00:38:11To manage it. It's like this, but it's not true

00:38:14it's like the myth of the uh, you know, the contentious relationship and our relationships are working and there's gonna be conflict and you gotta

00:38:21you gotta work it out and you gotta

00:38:23Manage things and if you're not being challenged, you're not growing. It's like no. No I have

00:38:28I have a job. I don't need to

00:38:31I don't want a relationship. That is a part-time career of

00:38:35Anxiety and aggression management like that's no fun. Well, you know this from I guess the two the two marriages, right?

00:38:41I mean, yeah, you're supposed to be a team getting along in life

00:38:44Not not, you know, can you take this punch to the gut?

00:38:47you know the sort of who's afraid of a genuine wolf nonsense, but

00:38:51So why why do you think there was so much aggression?

00:38:55and and violence

00:38:56from your older brothers

00:38:59So older brother and older sister so the brother older siblings, yeah, yeah older siblings so

00:39:08I mean I

00:39:12My my older siblings so at being one of the younger I I actually didn't receive as much

00:39:18Direct abuse as they did like they were more directly, you know verbally abused by both my parents

00:39:24Particularly my mom towards my older sister

00:39:28my dad

00:39:29Towards my older brother. My mom sort of doted on the boys in this like creepy gross way. Um

00:39:36And uh in there, yeah

00:39:39Yeah

00:39:40but she was very hard on my older sister, um in terms of just

00:39:45You know, I was when I was in fourth grade. I had a science fair project. It was a group project

00:39:50So we all took turns going to each other's houses. We only went to my house once

00:39:55because

00:39:56Oh, everybody knows the crazy house in school

00:39:59Everybody knows. Yeah, I think let's do it somewhere else. Yeah. Yeah. Well the one day we did do it mom

00:40:05It's like screaming at my sister to find them like find us like a we needed a pair of scissors

00:40:10and like or something and mom's just like I think she called her like a bitch like in front of

00:40:16My friends, you know, and like weren't you weren't you talking about company mom?

00:40:22Yeah, I know. It's not true

00:40:24Okay, so she wants to make sure that the kids don't stick around, right?

00:40:27So she wants to make sure that the kids don't want to come over. Okay

00:40:32Right so

00:40:35So my older siblings had it and they had more mom so mom did take some time off of her work as a doctor

00:40:43um, my

00:40:44My dad's sister my aunt who I actually am close with to this now

00:40:49I wasn't then but I am now i'm close with she's a stay-at-home mom

00:40:52Also, we have a lot in common and she's she was actually

00:40:54There was things that I didn't like about my aunt growing up because I thought they were like against my mom

00:41:00But i'm realizing now that like she was just on our on our side, you know on the kids side

00:41:04So like she made this comment like oh, well, are you gonna have to go back to work, you know to my mom?

00:41:10My mom is like well, of course, you know, I I spent

00:41:14all this all these years in medical school residency, like of course, you know, of course i'm gonna work again and um,

00:41:20so my but my older she took some years off when

00:41:24My older siblings were were young like I even I found her i'm such a snoop. I found her journal from

00:41:31The 80s close to when I was born

00:41:35And I read I read it. I still I stole it actually

00:41:38He stole her journal. Um, and I have it and I reference it occasionally. Um, anyway

00:41:44She was debating on even homeschooling

00:41:47My older sister which I was like really shocked by just to read that in her journal that she thought about homeschooling and like she

00:41:54Taught my older sister like how to read from like I guess she was reading at three years old or something

00:41:59Ridiculous and she taught her how to play the piano and she was a very active mom

00:42:04with my older sister

00:42:07Now my older brother

00:42:10The

00:42:11There's been I heard

00:42:13a theory of schizophrenia

00:42:16That it was it was created with refrigerator moms like the kind of moms. Oh, sorry. I thought it meant, uh, sorry

00:42:24did

00:42:25You continue I just misunderstood. I thought there was a theory as to why your brother in particular

00:42:30But yeah, the refrigerator moms. Yeah, i've heard of that. So good

00:42:32well

00:42:33my brother had a lot has has and had a lot of issues and I even

00:42:38Saw a schizophrenia diagnosis for him at one point

00:42:41I don't know

00:42:43So anyway, but I I'd read

00:42:47I'd read. Um

00:42:50That the refrigerator mom's like the mom who sets the kid up in the

00:42:54You know playpen or something and goes and does all of her activities and doesn't interact much with that child

00:43:01It can create schizophrenia and it was like disproven or like people thought supposedly disproven. Oh, there's so much

00:43:07So many battles about this, right? Yeah, like look obviously we wouldn't want to blame mothers for something that was biological

00:43:14Exactly, right? I mean that would just that would be like blaming

00:43:18Moms for like I don't know

00:43:20Epilepsy or or something like that or the people who said that

00:43:24It was stress that caused a stomach ulcerus when it was in fact a bacteria that could be treated with the antibacterials

00:43:30Now maybe stress is related or whatever. But yeah, we don't want to I mean, it's horribly unjust

00:43:35To blame people for that which is biological

00:43:38but on the other hand

00:43:39Refrigerator moms don't want to get blamed if they have something to do with it

00:43:43So, you know in in mental health, this is constant tug

00:43:47Of well, we want to be fair and we certainly don't want to blame moms

00:43:51For something that is genetic and that of course is totally right. Of course, we don't that would be a monstrous, right?

00:43:57but at the same time

00:44:00We have to if we have to understand that

00:44:04Parenting has something to do with mental health

00:44:07It has to you know, isn't maybe I mean made a hundred percent

00:44:10But it has something to do with it and we know that because

00:44:14Dysfunctional parents are always saying that the reason they're dysfunctional was that they had hard childhoods

00:44:20So so the parents the parents can't say well my parenting had nothing to do with it when they so often blame

00:44:27their own

00:44:27bad parenting when they were children as to why they made that I had it hard going up and i'm

00:44:32you know, my my father beat me and so

00:44:34Yeah, I I

00:44:37It's a funny thing is tough. I mean are there is there genetic susceptibility in my view?

00:44:41Yes, of course, and I think there's been some work done on that

00:44:44But a genetics genetics doesn't mean manifestation, right?

00:44:49It's like people have a genetic susceptibility to

00:44:52damage from

00:44:55From cigarettes, right? Because some people, you know smoke and are fine

00:44:58Some people have a gin. I assume it's a genetic susceptibility to damage from from cigarettes

00:45:03From cigarettes and some people don't but that susceptibility to damage isn't activated

00:45:11If you don't smoke and I remember this from the bomb in the brain series that

00:45:15There's some some kids with particular genes for aggression

00:45:18Uh, if they're physically abused like a hundred percent of them become incredibly physically aggressive, but they still have to be physically abused

00:45:25So yeah, I don't know the answer. Of course, it's schizophrenia

00:45:28I do know that there's some I think it's a northern european country

00:45:31Maybe it's denmark or that they have a sort of

00:45:34group and psychotherapy

00:45:37Approach to schizophrenia that they claim has

00:45:40Really good outcomes, but then of course, there's also a lot of scams, right?

00:45:43I mean i'm not saying this place is a scam but just in the world where people are desperate

00:45:46You know like we can cure autism or whatever they say right and and so yeah, it's a very complicated

00:45:52Topic, but it doesn't really have any bearing on peaceful parenting, right? Because you should be a peaceful parent

00:45:59Right, not not just because maybe your kids have a susceptibility to mental illness but because it's immoral to to harm children

00:46:07so

00:46:09Yeah, I I know the refrigerator i've seen the articles back and forth on the refrigerator mom theory

00:46:13And of course again if it's purely

00:46:16If it's purely biological

00:46:19and and genetic

00:46:21Then it would be monstrous to blame the moms

00:46:23on the other hand

00:46:25You can be a crappy mom with an entirely biological

00:46:29Biologically created schizophrenic child, right? I mean your mom. This sounds like a pretty bad mom regardless of the genetics of of

00:46:38Whatever might happen with her kids and mental illness, right?

00:46:42Right, yes

00:46:44Well, and I I don't know

00:46:47I've only heard that the schizophrenia thing once about my brother that that was like a diagnosis that someone put on him at some point

00:46:54Sorry, and you heard about this you didn't read the actual medical report or or

00:46:59the diagnosis

00:47:01I and I i'm even trying to remember what the source was within my memory like how I have this

00:47:06But I mean asking my mom

00:47:09Later, i'm trying to remember exactly when I asked my mom too. She was saying no, it's not schizophrenia

00:47:13Then a few years ago, he was showing this like paranoid behavior and when he went off his meds

00:47:19So the story with my brother they put him on ritalin at a very young age

00:47:25and

00:47:26then

00:47:27when

00:47:29I was probably like eight years old when this is he was actually hospitalized

00:47:33For something called we called this is what I called it, you know

00:47:36We mad attacks is what we would call them

00:47:39which

00:47:41sounds a lot like what my parents had too, but

00:47:44Matt where he would just like have a tantrum and lose control so to speak of his temper

00:47:49Yes, and I think it happened

00:47:52At school or something like that. I don't I don't know, you know, I was so young. I don't know all the circumstances

00:47:57I'm really curious, but you know, I don't I don't know. Why are you um, why are you curious?

00:48:05Well, I

00:48:07I just want to know what happened. Um, well, I know that's just another way of saying curious. Why are you curious?

00:48:13I want to know what happens synonym for curious

00:48:16Why are you so?

00:48:18Are you curious because you're concerned about your own children if there's genetic issues involved?

00:48:23No, that's not it didn't even occur to me. No, no, and i'm i'm perfectly sure that it's not to be just you know

00:48:28I'm i'm, you know for whatever that's worth as as a guy who doesn't have any training or expertise in these areas

00:48:34um, I am not

00:48:36um

00:48:37Uh, I wouldn't I don't want to put a fear in your head. I mean i'm sure your kids are great

00:48:41And of course, you know both my parents mental health issues like you wouldn't believe and and both institutionalized and so on

00:48:49and

00:48:51My my daughter is fantastic and great and you know, so so uh, that is that that to me that's environment, right?

00:49:00I mean, I think my family have high octane brains, which means they go really fast and they crash really spectacularly

00:49:06Mm-hmm

00:49:08Like you're going, you know 180 on the autobahn, you know

00:49:11You get either from a to b really quickly or you're just a flaming smudge in the eye of eternity or something, right?

00:49:18so

00:49:19Uh, so yeah, so why why do you why are you curious? Why do you want to know?

00:49:24Well

00:49:26I think I mentioned in my letter about feeling gaslit. Um, this this was something that

00:49:32I

00:49:34Didn't understand it was so young and it was like not talked about in the family, right?

00:49:39like we it was something we just didn't talk about and um,

00:49:43I wanted to know what happened. I I

00:49:46Wanted the truth. I want it and you know, i'm also uh, i'm also a writer and uh, I i've written some essays about

00:49:54my childhood

00:49:56and

00:49:58When you write creative non-fiction you have to get all the details

00:50:01Correct, you know if you want them to be published and sometimes I I'm sorry

00:50:06How on earth are you going to get the details? Correct?

00:50:11Um

00:50:12I mean going over source material of a liar

00:50:15Yeah, she is and I mean my dad was too he he lied. Yeah. Well, I want to get back to your dad

00:50:20So, uh, i've got a little note here. We'll get back to your dad, but i'm trying to sort of figure out

00:50:27How are you going to get to the truth

00:50:31When

00:50:33everybody

00:50:34Has an incentive to lie a different story

00:50:37Well, and everybody has because you can't get the truth from people with a guilty conscience

00:50:43you just

00:50:44can't

00:50:46Because the reason they have a guilty conscience is because they lie to themselves and others

00:50:51Hmm

00:50:54Right, so I mean my mother blames her violence and her dysfunction on the doctors who injected her with various ailments

00:51:03Now

00:51:05I can't possibly get the truth from her

00:51:09I I mean, I personally believe that the truth would be fatal

00:51:14If you I mean the purpose of a bad conscience is to have you correct course

00:51:19If you haven't corrected course for like 60 years or whatever

00:51:23There's no course correction that's possible and you're just you're in like you're committed

00:51:28You I mean the doubling down is all that's left tripling down quadrupling down and that's what my mother

00:51:33Uh did every time I talked to her about things. She just doubled quadrupled escalate

00:51:38so

00:51:40if and your older siblings

00:51:42Your older brother and sister have they ever?

00:51:46taken ownership

00:51:47And apologized for the violence they visited upon helpless children now they themselves as children in a bad environment

00:51:53I get all of that, but there's still some responsibility

00:51:58Sorry to whom uh, your older brother and sister who were violent towards their younger siblings and modeled that violence with each other, too

00:52:06Hmm, did have they ever apologized for that? You said well taken ownership apologized

00:52:11Made some kind of restitution

00:52:12anything like that, uh

00:52:14My brother. No, he uh

00:52:17He's he's even his memory of it is

00:52:19Very hazy like uh, he he has issues with memory. Um

00:52:25Yeah, no, no, and I mean, well, sorry did he receive some sort of brain injury and a diagnosis of brain problems?

00:52:33No, he's really smart he's he's like, okay, so why on earth would you believe him when he says he can't remember things

00:52:39I

00:52:41Have you never seen someone on a witness stand I don't recall I plead the fifth I don't have any memory of that

00:52:47I don't remember this. I don't remember that. I don't remember the other

00:52:52Hmm

00:52:56When

00:52:59I uh

00:53:01I mean, that's what he says

00:53:03Okay, but why would you believe him?

00:53:06Hmm and i'm not, you know, i'm not saying he's a liar. I don't know the guy

00:53:11but

00:53:12if people have problems with their memories as a whole they tend to be

00:53:16Homeless non-functional in society in care homes

00:53:20I assume none of that applies to him

00:53:23I mean not too far off. I mean, so

00:53:26he he's not he wasn't not never homeless because he's he's

00:53:30He's lived off my parents, you know, he's but he's never had a job

00:53:34He's he's older than me and um, you know pushing

00:53:3840s

00:53:39and uh, he's never had a job

00:53:42I think maybe he had a job for like a week once. No. No, I mean functionally. He's never had a job

00:53:46I'm not i'm not going down to granular levels of

00:53:49Yeah, interesting, okay

00:53:52Is this the one where the schizophrenia thing is is floating around?

00:53:56Yes, so

00:53:58And he he's genius level smart like he they did have I never had my iq tested as a kid

00:54:03But his was and I can't remember what the number was, but it was very high. He was proud of it and um

00:54:09He's studying he's now

00:54:11Not actually in a graduate program. He's taking like classes to get into the graduate program for physics. So he's

00:54:19Um, but there was many years

00:54:22Where you know, he just basically did nothing he just did nothing all day, I mean it means people got to do something

00:54:30I don't know what he's doing. He he had a house my parents bought him a house

00:54:35um, you know with strings, of course that they owned some bed and and um,

00:54:41Anyway, there's strings involved with that. I've owned property with my mom too. It's a whole thing. Um, anyway

00:54:47You still own property with your mom?

00:54:49Well technically I do but last summer she sold the property that I owned the most of

00:54:54there's like some llc's that i'm that i'm like a two percent owner at this point, but

00:54:59The one that I owned like 50 percent of she sold last last year. So

00:55:04Um, and she gave you the money or she gave me half. Okay. Yeah, she gave me she gave me my percentage of ownership

00:55:10Okay, um, sorry, so I understand that I want to make sure I don't get too many threads open here at once. Yeah

00:55:15So, um, let's get back to your brother. So why why did he do nothing throughout his 20s and 30s?

00:55:25Um, I don't know I don't really know what well you do you do I do everybody tries this

00:55:31Because he he could you know, I mean he was being enabled to he so the story with it

00:55:36so he

00:55:37He was institutionalized when he was in grade school essentially for these mad attacks and then

00:55:42When he was in high school, he dropped out of high school. He just stopped going

00:55:46And he wouldn't even leave his room

00:55:48And eventually the school sort of called and was like well

00:55:51He's missed enough days where you know, we're gonna you guys are gonna get in trouble with the law here

00:55:56Unless you do something about it. So

00:55:58They had dad. I mean they didn't have to do this, but this is what they did dad called

00:56:03The police on him basically and the police came took him out of his room and took him to an institution

00:56:09For I don't know exactly how long he was in there. But um

00:56:12Not super long. Um

00:56:15Like a month maybe right

00:56:18And then so he dropped out of high school. He got his ged

00:56:21he uh, they bought him

00:56:23a house and

00:56:26He like semi went to college for and he eventually got he did graduate from college, but it took him a long time

00:56:31But um, and was he I guess was he put on a bunch of psych meds

00:56:36Mm-hmm. He was on those. He was a kid. He's been on ritalin since he was very young

00:56:40So he's been drugged his whole life. Um, right he went he got into like a lot

00:56:45I don't know what kind of drugs he was doing, but I know he did drugs. Um,

00:56:49Oh recreational drugs

00:56:51Mm-hmm. Okay. Well that explains it. Yeah. Yeah. I know he did like, you know, both my brothers are very into weed

00:56:58um

00:57:00I

00:57:02I don't really know this guy. I think there was other drugs too. I just don't know, you know

00:57:06Okay, so his his memory works well enough that he can graduate from university

00:57:10His memory was well enough that he's trying to get into grad school or working towards grad school

00:57:14So his memory works. Well, uh, just you know any wrongs that he did or mysteriously absent

00:57:21Oh, he drinks he drinks. He's an alcoholic too

00:57:24He drinks so much. He was having like

00:57:26After a night of heavy drinking he had like nerve damage in his hand or something and like it's bad. He's a really sad

00:57:33person so um

00:57:35And it's wild to me that that if he's having tantrums or rate you said rage attacks

00:57:41uh, it's it's wild to me and and this is just sort of part of the

00:57:44Sick aspect of the society we live in that people aren't like well, he's got to have learned this rage from somewhere

00:57:50Let's go talk to the parents

00:57:52Let's go talk to the other siblings

00:57:54Let's go find out and then maybe we can get some people some anger management counseling or some family counseling or nope drug him up

00:58:02I know it's it's so horrible

00:58:04And it like they were the one my parents were the ones having the mad attacks on regular basis it like burger basis and

00:58:10They never had were forced to go and I guess when he was in this institution when he was in grade school

00:58:14Like he was beaten by a child there like would beat him every night or something. It was something really horrible and

00:58:21It's it's really sad. And I mean, that's I just part of why I wanted to know more like I just

00:58:28Happen, you know

00:58:31Why do you want to know more?

00:58:33That's worth it back to that question. I'm not i'm not it's not critical like why on earth i'm genuinely

00:58:39curious

00:58:41Why do you want to know more

00:58:43What's the purpose?

00:58:45Want to know how it happened why it happened, you know, why are you with your brother?

00:58:49Yeah

00:58:50um, and like how like

00:58:54What the circumstances were, you know that so you're looking for determinism

00:58:57Determinism

00:59:01No, i'm not a determinist

00:59:03It's a little bit here because you're looking for the environmental factors that caused your brother's behavior

00:59:08And it was my parents. I know it was the parent. No

00:59:11It's not the parents

00:59:14No, no

00:59:16Did you have mad attacks at school

00:59:19No same environment

00:59:23Same chaos same neglect same parents

00:59:28You

00:59:31So if you're going to say I need an environmental answer for my siblings

00:59:35You don't get one

00:59:37Because you were part of that environment

00:59:40Now I know everyone's environment

00:59:43You know, I mean you can look up the studies right and I think that there are cases of extreme neglect and abuse where this changes

00:59:49But environment over the long run

00:59:51Doesn't have as much

00:59:54influence as people think

00:59:57Yeah

00:59:59Now how old was your brother if you remember like when he was getting these rage attacks or or whatever, right?

01:00:07Uh, it had to would have to have been around 10

01:00:09Somewhere around there. So so 10 years old and he's very intelligent, right?

01:00:14Yes, very at the age of 10

01:00:16Is it physically possible?

01:00:18to restrain your temper

01:00:21Like

01:00:22Obviously if you're three months old, you can't stop crying

01:00:26This is not the time for that time to self-control. This is stoicism

01:00:30You don't read from Marcus Aurelius for your baby, right?

01:00:32They physically can't if you have epilepsy then you physically cannot stop the seizure. You can't just will it away, right?

01:00:40So when you're 10 years old, right you and I remember what it's like to be 10

01:00:44When you're 10 years old

01:00:46Is it possible for you to restrain?

01:00:49Your temper

01:00:53Yes

01:00:54Yes, it is

01:00:55Yes, and we know that because if you were to say to your brother

01:00:59I'll give you a giant bag of candy or I'll give you a thousand dollars

01:01:04If you don't have if you don't lose your temper today at school

01:01:08He would be able to achieve that, right?

01:01:10Mm-hmm

01:01:12Right, but his eyes had been physically removed for some reason

01:01:15He wouldn't have he wouldn't have the choice to see but he would have had an incentive

01:01:21He could respond to an incentive with his temper, right

01:01:28I think so. I'm I assume so right? I mean and the way that we would know that is

01:01:36Were there times where he did restrain his temper in other words if he was in a movie or at a party

01:01:42I mean, you know things things things chafed us all the time in life, right?

01:01:47So did he?

01:01:50Have no control over his temper

01:01:56I mean that was kind of the story in the household, but I mean, I don't I guess not

01:02:01Well, I think he has some control if you said he was two, you know, obviously, right?

01:02:06We would give him more of a break

01:02:08but

01:02:09he has the

01:02:10Chance to control his temper

01:02:13I mean there i'm sure you can remember when you were a kid that there were times when you were angry

01:02:19And you were able to restrain your temper

01:02:24Yes

01:02:26Now, of course i'm not blaming him, you know, like he was an adult or something like that so he was in a challenging

01:02:33Environment, but so were you and so was I right?

01:02:36Mm-hmm, and there is a choice right? So do you know I guess you did you ever see any of these rage?

01:02:43Attacks. Yes. Yes. And so what would happen?

01:02:47Well, he I guess he would break his pencil a lot like that was so he'd like to break things, you know, and uh,

01:02:55um

01:02:57That's just you know, sorry side note, I don't know if I mentioned this yet

01:03:00But my dad also when he got really angry, he would throw things, you know, he mentioned that glassware

01:03:05Yes, so, you know not unlike dad

01:03:07so he would break, you know his pencil or something and there's one time I had I found this pencil at the

01:03:12Like school store or something which was like rubbery like you you could

01:03:16Bend it in half and it didn't actually break and I was like look I got this for you

01:03:19This it can help you stay off the names. Yeah, just oh, i'm sorry. No, that's fine. Oh, i'm sorry

01:03:24I was like here you take this it'll help you

01:03:28And he went into one of these mad attacks

01:03:32And he just he started his face got really red he started hyperventilating and

01:03:40um

01:03:41I was so I was so young. It's it's hard to and I

01:03:47He but you were trying to find right and I was trying to help yeah, I'm, you know

01:03:52It's like this is a pencil that doesn't break. You know, you keep breaking these pencils. This will help. I you know, I don't

01:03:57I don't

01:03:58um, and he got he went to the mad attack where he he would just he

01:04:02basically had like a tantrum, you know, and we're like, uh

01:04:06He looked very much out of control, right? Okay

01:04:11And how much older is he?

01:04:13Than you

01:04:15Two and a half years, right? Okay

01:04:17And now i'm sure as a child, uh, you know, I mean we can say it's a boy girl thing

01:04:22But you know, this is pre-puberty right? So it's not like he's bathing in a sea of testosterone, right?

01:04:27but

01:04:28I'm sure there were times when you got angry and frustrated as a child

01:04:33And you were able to manage it to some degree or in some way, right

01:04:39Yeah, um, yes there was

01:04:42One time I was I would have fainting fainting spells sometimes as a child. Um, like there was one time I got

01:04:48So distraught and that was out of my control. Um,

01:04:51One time my older siblings played this trick on me

01:04:56And uh, I when I discovered the betrayal I was so distraught I

01:05:02Like I remember the whole world kind of blurring and I blacked out from just the betrayal, you know, right?

01:05:10and um

01:05:11That was out of my control. I think I mean

01:05:15But maybe not I was five at the time when that happened. No at five. I mean at five

01:05:19I think that's uh, that's pretty hard, right?

01:05:22So I again i'm no expert this is just my gut instinct

01:05:26But I I think it's tough to say my brother got institutionalized because he broke pencils

01:05:32I know then that sounds crazy, right? That's part of the reason why i'm like what was happening

01:05:37That he was well

01:05:39Right. I know but I don't I don't know you see that's that's part of it. I just don't know

01:05:44Well, and and you you won't right?

01:05:46Right, I mean the records are long gone the teachers are probably long dead and the principals and

01:05:51And and so and your mother won't tell the truth, right?

01:05:53So and they're probably my dad's dead and your dad's dead and you know, you probably don't find paperwork

01:05:58But I think that children get institutionalized because they pose an imminent danger to themselves or others

01:06:06Not not pencils

01:06:08Right, right

01:06:10So that must mean that your brother if that's the case, right then he either attacked himself

01:06:16in a physically dangerous manner or attacked someone else in a physically

01:06:21Significantly dangerous manner

01:06:23Which that checks I I know he

01:06:26Was having fights like so they're getting beaten up. Like I don't you know, he might have been

01:06:33I saw him actually somewhat recently for the first time in a long time. Um, and

01:06:38He was talking about

01:06:39Getting into a fight in like middle school or something and like going after a bully and being like i'm gonna see you after

01:06:45school, you know at

01:06:46Yeah, I mean if it was a bully what we do know is that he was

01:06:50Violent towards his younger siblings, right?

01:06:53Yes

01:06:54so

01:06:55You know the idea that it's just some external bully and like they always will paint themselves, right?

01:07:00So and paint themselves as as the victims and and I was just protecting myself from a bully and so on, right?

01:07:06But you know for me, it's kind of hard to see someone who's uh as a victim when they're victimizing

01:07:13Their little brothers and sisters or or whatever, right?

01:07:17That's a little tough to to to follow right

01:07:25So he might have been a bully he might have been violent

01:07:28Yes, I thought checks actually

01:07:31Now you mention it, right?

01:07:33That's so in which case, um, then he did some significant wrong and harm

01:07:39Now, of course we can say

01:07:43But he had it rough at home and he did

01:07:46He absolutely did

01:07:49But

01:07:51What I try to figure out and this is absent, you know, you can read

01:07:55Robert Whitaker's mad in america book. I don't know if you've read that but probably is quite important because

01:08:00You know people who are on these psych meds for a long time. There seem to be some challenges to put it mildly but

01:08:07the question is

01:08:09if he

01:08:12Did not have guilt

01:08:14He would be more successful. I'm not saying that's the only factor

01:08:17But if he was genuinely a victim

01:08:20And was defending himself against the bully and was doing the right thing his conscience wouldn't plague him

01:08:28We have to listen to our conscience especially when we disagree with it because that's the most dangerous part, right

01:08:35Mm-hmm

01:08:37That's the most dangerous time when our conscience is making us feel bad for something that we've done

01:08:44Then we have to listen to it and we might not like what the conscience has to say it doesn't really matter

01:08:51We we have to obey

01:08:54the conscience

01:08:55or suffer the price now, of course, i'm not saying that it's only because of the conscience or whatever, but

01:09:02When people say I was just a victim

01:09:06I believe them if they're living that way

01:09:12Now if your brother is not succeeding

01:09:17And has wasted his life and is self-medicating through recreational drugs

01:09:25Then he clearly does not just feel like a victim

01:09:29Because when you feel if you are genuinely a victim

01:09:33Then your conscience is clear

01:09:36But when you victimize others and you have the choice not to that's when you start to get into some serious serious trouble

01:09:44Um

01:09:53I mean you were a victim as a child and you're happily married and raising children according to peaceful parenting. So

01:10:00you chose

01:10:03well

01:10:05And your brother chose to deal with

01:10:08his emotional problems

01:10:10by assaulting and injuring

01:10:13His little siblings, right? Mm-hmm. Do you and now do you not think that there's a price to be paid for that?

01:10:23Yeah, yes, he's

01:10:26And how is he going to control his temper at school when he has indulged his temper at home

01:10:35Yeah

01:10:37and when you say indulge to like that was just

01:10:39part of the family culture dick he was

01:10:42he just got his way like with lots of things like there was certain movies that

01:10:48I we saw like a lot because they were his favorite movies, you know, so we just and it worked

01:10:53Yeah, and we would buy you know

01:10:55Dad would buy him things and take him on special. It was a sort of special treatment for him because he was troubled he was

01:11:01You know

01:11:03And again, I guess dad, you know, is that appeasement guy, you know do everything. No, it's not appeasement

01:11:10No, no, it's not appeasement

01:11:12Tell me is that your father

01:11:16Didn't want to find the source of your brother's upset, uh, of course because that leads directly to the mirror it's not appeasement. It's a cover

01:11:25Right, you know if if i'm part of a criminal gang right and and someone says i'm going to the cops unless you give me

01:11:32A thousand dollars and I give him a thousand dollars. I'm not appeasing. I'm just covering up

01:11:37Mm-hmm

01:11:42So

01:11:45Your brother used his anger to get

01:11:49What he wanted right and and when he got what he wanted, I assume he calmed down, right?

01:11:54Yes, right

01:11:57Right

01:12:02And so, uh, so he could easily control his temper

01:12:07And it was not it's not an attack, right?

01:12:12It's not an attack if

01:12:15It can be altered quickly

01:12:17In other words, he's like I want to watch my movie

01:12:19I want to jump up and down hold his breath scream throw things and then he gets to watch his movie and he calms

01:12:23Right down. That's not an attack. That's just a manipulation. It's not real not a genuine emotion

01:12:31Okay

01:12:35Sorry, this is fascinating and i'm

01:12:37seeing some behaviors of my own children that

01:12:41Maybe want to rethink here. No all children all children because some children are helpless. So what what could they do?

01:12:48They can ask threaten lie bully manipulate

01:12:54You know when my daughter would want something she would say I really really want that I mean

01:12:59We would direct right and I would work to facilitate it as best I could and and if not

01:13:03we'd sort of talk about why and and and so on and

01:13:06And so, you know, I mean, you know what it's like to be a kid you desperately want stuff

01:13:11I mean, I remember when I was in boarding school. We went to a county fair and I was desperate

01:13:16To try and and throw a ball knock over some cans and get a coconut now actually in hindsight

01:13:22I think those cans were welded to the ground to the base because you know, it's a fair which means that the toothless wanderers are

01:13:28They're ripping off kids and I I didn't have any money now

01:13:31I knew that there was a certain amount of money that was given for spending money or pocket money or emergency money

01:13:35To the school and I sort of begged and wheedled and I really really wanted to throw the coconut

01:13:40And throw the the ball knock over the cans and get the coconut and I couldn't I couldn't achieve it

01:13:45which is one of the reasons why I

01:13:47started working at the age of 10 because like

01:13:50Now I have I don't have to beg. I don't have to beg. I'm gonna rely on the goodwill of of others now

01:13:55I did actually uh, finally get I think it was uh,

01:13:58I don't know

01:13:59Three pennies or something like that and I threw the ball and I didn't get the coconut but hey at least it got my way

01:14:06Right now so your brother

01:14:11Made the choice and it is a choice

01:14:16It is not inevitable it is not genetics it is not determinism

01:14:21We

01:14:22Have no choice but to react to trauma, but we have a choice in how we react to trauma

01:14:29So your brother could have looked at your parents and said well that's terrible

01:14:35Boy what they're doing is just awful. I won't do that. I mean my

01:14:43When I was a kid my mother was mystical and

01:14:46and

01:14:47Subjectivist and and so on a relativist

01:14:50As were other family members and I was like, well, that's terrible

01:14:53So, you know, I've gotten my hands on philosophy and I was introduced to philosophy and just sort of pursued that right?

01:15:00It's sort of like, you know the old cliche of the guy the two twins, right?

01:15:05One's a drunk the other's not and you say to the drunk kid. Why do you drink?

01:15:09Well, my father was a drunk and you say to the sober kid. Why don't you drink?

01:15:13And he says well, my father was a drunk. I saw how terrible it was

01:15:17That's the dr phil thing his father I think was pretty hard into the source and he doesn't touch alcohol. Yeah good for him

01:15:25So your brother

01:15:29Made a choice and i've talked to uh people who

01:15:34Were mean as kids

01:15:36I mean i've had lots of these conversations now. This isn't science. I understand that these are people who are calling in

01:15:42But every single time every single time

01:15:46I've talked to people about this

01:15:50Do you know what they say

01:15:54That it was my environment no, I knew it was oh, what do they say?

01:15:59Oh

01:16:01I knew it was wrong. I knew I shouldn't I felt terrible afterwards. I did it again

01:16:07Well, and that was my sister too my older sister she

01:16:11Well, I don't have a younger son my sister

01:16:13she she was such a bully she was more of a bully even than my older brother like

01:16:19um

01:16:21We had to sort of

01:16:22We didn't she's actually share a room

01:16:23But she had to walk through my room to get to her bedroom

01:16:25And so every I would be sleeping anytime she walked by my bed if I was dozing

01:16:30She'd knock it with her knees, you know, yeah. Yeah. No, and that's actually a form of torture, right?

01:16:34I mean, yeah, it was it was torture. Yeah. No, no literally

01:16:38Sleep deprivation is a form of torture

01:16:41Yeah, I cry I'd beg her to stop doing it. She just laughed. She thought it was funny

01:16:45But a lot of times when she did make me cry because she was so cruel

01:16:49She would she would feel bad and then she'd make me laugh. She's pretty funny, too

01:16:54um, but she

01:16:57Uh, she did right so after

01:17:01After I read rtr and started making big changes in my relationship she did actually

01:17:07After I cut her out. She wrote me this letter that was like apologizing and um

01:17:12It was you know a little bit of a b-nap

01:17:14but she also did she was in she was saying she was in therapy and she felt really bad, but

01:17:19I wasn't ready to talk to her at that point. Um

01:17:24So we haven't really well, hang on hang on so so

01:17:29She wrote a letter

01:17:32Saying she was sorry and then I assume made some environmental excuses and did she offer to make any restitution?

01:17:39No

01:17:39Okay, so

01:17:41I you know words of words, right?

01:17:43Yeah

01:17:44And and until words are matched by actions

01:17:48You know, I mean if you're a nutritionist and somebody's 350 pounds and they say but I keep reading these diet books

01:17:54Where is this word? Sorry?

01:17:56To change behavior

01:17:58yeah, I wasn't I haven't been

01:18:01Interested in

01:18:02I this year this year. I've been I have I did see her though for the first time. It was the same thing like

01:18:07Not the same thing the similar thing where I I had dinner with her. Um

01:18:13And uh met her husband now and our two kids and you know, we didn't actually talk about anything real but um

01:18:21Uh, okay, so hang on how long how long between her writing the letter and you meeting her for dinner

01:18:28It was

01:18:30like nine years

01:18:32and

01:18:33The other thing too if somebody were to write me a letter

01:18:37I'd be very skeptical

01:18:38Mm-hmm. Yeah, I was

01:18:40Right. And and so how does somebody overcome that that skepticism? Like how what would just what could your sister have done?

01:18:47To overcome your skepticism and and for you to believe that she truly

01:18:51Was starting to empathize and truly interested in your sort of thoughts and feelings

01:18:59You know, I don't I don't know because she

01:19:02what was happening around the time when I

01:19:05Stopped talking to her

01:19:07Like it seemed like every time I would I would call like she would call me it was she'd be crying, you know

01:19:11it was just very very emotional very um

01:19:16Extreme in her emotions, you know, and

01:19:20I know being emotional is not bad, but it was just it was just so intense all the time with her and then

01:19:25We had this sort of

01:19:27What was she crying about?

01:19:31It was like we have different things like one time she

01:19:34One of the times it was it was a health issue. She was having and um, she was like pre-diabetic

01:19:39She's she's been overweight her whole life

01:19:41Um, she was

01:19:43pre-diabetic and she called me crying over the diagnosis and um

01:19:47I was suggesting that like maybe she should start walking because that's I had actually lost when I

01:19:52found philosophy I started walking a lot like listening to podcasts and

01:19:56I lost like a ton of weight without even really trying. Um, and I wasn't super overweight, but you know, just

01:20:02Yeah, anyway, um, I lost a ton of weight and so I just lost weight and I was trying to tell her

01:20:07well, let's go walking together like let um

01:20:10Let's do something here we can this is not like a death sentence here

01:20:13like let's be more proactive and um, if you lose the weight like maybe

01:20:17You know, you can uh get that your blood work will be clean again kind of thing and she just was like well

01:20:22No, I can't, you know, i'm not gonna do that or

01:20:25Oh, you're you're such a nice young lady

01:20:27You are so nice

01:20:29Well, it's true that you did kick my bed and abuse me

01:20:32It would mean to be cruel to me throughout my childhood, but i'm gonna let's walk together for your health

01:20:37You're so nice i'm not sure it's entirely warranted

01:20:43Because that that would have been my response but you know, that doesn't mean i'm right and you're wrong

01:20:46It's your your family and all of that my response would be like what you can't why are you crying?

01:20:52Yeah

01:20:53Like why are you crying?

01:20:54It's so ridiculous. I mean

01:20:57I know you eat like a pig and now you're pre-diabetic. I don't know why you're crying

01:21:02You mean you enjoyed all the food I assume

01:21:04And and you don't like to walk around you don't you know, the only weight you lift is a fork

01:21:11Yeah, so I like sorry i'm a little i'm a little confused

01:21:15She I mean you've known about the risks for years. Everyone's told you about the health risks. I know

01:21:20Why are you crying? I don't understand you chose that. Yeah

01:21:23Yeah, so it was a little it was pretty annoying

01:21:26For her to cry over that to me and well and also, you know, you're crying over bad behavior

01:21:31You're crying over bad behavior

01:21:34Sorry, you you're crying over a health risk from bad behavior

01:21:37You utterly chose and you've never shed one tear for how you treated me as a kid

01:21:41This self-pity is is you know, i'm i'm gonna throw up for you

01:21:47Right

01:21:48No, it's self-pity, right? It's just oh, I mean me I and and and i'm so sad and and help me help me help me

01:21:55I gotta I gotta tell you this other thing around that time that

01:21:58We were having this group text between it was all my siblings and my mom

01:22:02And I was you know, I know we shouldn't rtr ing over text is really bad and I I was guilty

01:22:07It's good. It's fine. I think it's fine if other people are sort of trained versed and experienced in it

01:22:13But I was a newbie. I wasn't no no

01:22:15No, but if if your siblings don't know what you're doing, then you might as well just type to them in japanese

01:22:19But anyway, sorry, go on right? Well, I was trying to suggest to mom that

01:22:24Let's see, I can't remember exactly how we said it it was just something to get effective, you know

01:22:28I had criticisms about her behavior, you know when I was like mom, you know, like you read so many books

01:22:33Have you ever picked up a parenting book?

01:22:35thing, you know

01:22:36channeling my inner stuff

01:22:39She you know was facing my mom. I'll just cry. Oh, you're attacking me and that and my sister

01:22:47Uh, sorry my sister

01:22:49I'm sorry, uh, she she sent me I think it was a private message. She's like

01:22:53You can can oh darn it. I said the name again. It's fine. It's fine

01:22:57You just you give me some exciting labor down the road, but don't worry about it. I'm so sorry

01:23:01I told myself I was like i'm gonna be so good. I'm okay. Just keep going. Just keep going

01:23:06So she was like you can't talk to people about their parenting. I'm a teacher. I know

01:23:12um

01:23:13She she took some classes. She was a substitute teacher at the time. She wasn't an actual teacher. She

01:23:19She and she had a degree in teaching but she never actually was a full-time teacher

01:23:22anyway, I was like I was like, uh, hello, I

01:23:26This is my own parent. I I you can't say it as a teacher to another parent

01:23:30Maybe you know legally or something, but i'm talking to my own parent

01:23:33I can't talk about my own experience and she just starts crying, you know that sort of thing. Was she a mother at this point?

01:23:39No

01:23:40No, she became a mom. Yeah, so she's just your mom's meat puppet, right? I mean don't talk to mom. You're upsetting mom

01:23:47Okay, the lessons of your dad. Okay. Can we get back to your dad for a sec?

01:23:52Yes, right

01:23:54So you did say that your dad would blow up ten percent of the time and sort of reactive and so on and be worse

01:23:58Than your mom and that seems sort of reactive and with your mom now with your brother

01:24:02You mentioned that your dad was verbally abusive towards him

01:24:07Because there's a little bit of your dad is like low up reactive. Mr. Magoo distracted academic einstein type

01:24:14You know messy office innocent heart, you know, but but I was really struck when you were talking about him

01:24:20Your father verbally abusing your brother. What do you mean by that?

01:24:26So an example that comes to my mind

01:24:32My brother right i'll remove that too go ahead my brother was

01:24:42We had this sort of beach house that had three stories on the top we the kids were up on the top floor

01:24:50In his room, there was a balcony. He my father found him

01:24:54found walking along

01:24:56the the railing

01:24:58Balancing just walking along there

01:25:01Dad, how high was he off the ground?

01:25:04Three stories up. Okay, kind of a death wish. Yeah

01:25:07Yeah

01:25:08Yeah, it was scary. And how old was your brother at this point?

01:25:14Eight nine, okay

01:25:17uh

01:25:19Maybe even a little young maybe in seven. I i'm not

01:25:23totally sure so

01:25:25we

01:25:26between between seven and nine anyway, uh

01:25:29dad yanks him in and uh, just

01:25:33screams at him

01:25:35and um

01:25:37I don't really know all that happened. But after room afterwards the room was like the lamp was knocked over

01:25:42it looked like you know, there had been a

01:25:45Like in those crime scene

01:25:47Movies, you know some brawl between two wrestlers or whatever, right?

01:25:50yes, so I don't know all the scope of what happened and I mean he was

01:25:54It was over safety issues. Dad would get

01:25:57very explosive once when I

01:25:59was

01:26:00maybe six seven

01:26:03I was playing with my younger brother who was you know toddler the time and

01:26:08We were right by the door and I noticed

01:26:11I actually noticed it that his his fingers could get caught in the door with the doors for opening and closing

01:26:16So I decided to close the door so it wouldn't be

01:26:19While I was aware of my younger brother's

01:26:23sip my his phalanges, you know his fingers, you know making sure he was safe and I closed the door to just remove

01:26:28That as a risk, right? Yeah

01:26:31dad saw this and he completely blew up like he

01:26:35I remember him grabbing me by the hair

01:26:37Down on the I had me like against

01:26:40The floor screaming in my face about how dangerous it was and he grabbed this like little so dangerous what was

01:26:47that

01:26:48My longer brother's fingers could have gotten hurt in the door. Oh, but you were closing it to prevent that

01:26:55I was and he did not he didn't understand. He thought I was closing it without protecting him or you know

01:27:00I wasn't saying that's what I was doing, but he couldn't read my mind

01:27:03But he assumed that I was putting him the younger brother in in at risk

01:27:08Sorry, my apologies if just back up for a sec, where were your phalange tracking?

01:27:12Where was your younger brother's fingers when you were closing the door?

01:27:16They were well away. Yeah, they weren't in the door, right? I mean

01:27:20I was making sure they were away while I was closing it because and I knew that dad would be worried about

01:27:25The fingers because he always talked about fingers getting hurt indoors a lot. Well, I mean, um doctor, right?

01:27:31So you got to keep your fingers, right? So okay, so

01:27:35You were closing a door

01:27:36And your father freaked out

01:27:39He even even though you were doing it to protect your brother because he thought that somehow your brother could what?

01:27:44Like rubber man stick his fingers in the door from across the room or or what?

01:27:49Well, he was nearby, you know, but I was just making sure he wasn't

01:27:54His fingers weren't there while I was closing it

01:27:55but then dad took this like little plastic like soap holder thing and he

01:28:00he's like this is what can happen and he

01:28:03Puts it in the door and he slams the door as hard as he could and shatters and goes everywhere and god

01:28:08It was really terrifying. Um

01:28:11That's pretty psycho. I'm, so sorry. Yeah, that that's the level of explosiveness, which was so different and I told my

01:28:18My aunt this this is his younger sister

01:28:21She she almost she almost didn't believe me like didn't believe me

01:28:24She was like your father did that because he was so mild most of the time. Sorry. Why why would you believe her?

01:28:33Why would you believe her have you never watched doctor house everybody like so why would you believe her?

01:28:41Um

01:28:43Are you saying that your she grew up with your father, right?

01:28:47well, there was a big age gap huge age gap like like nine year age gap, so

01:28:52she

01:28:53I would mean she would have babysat him too, right?

01:28:56It was 12 years. Actually. It was 12 years age gap between that. It was yeah

01:29:01Uh, the other brother was nine, okay, so hang on so

01:29:04Your aunt grew up in the same household as your father, right?

01:29:09Where his mother was this raging drunk who got possessed by the demons of alcohol from 5 p.m. Till the next morning, right?

01:29:17Yeah

01:29:18So your aunt grew up and I assumed there was this explosive rage

01:29:23and all of this dysfunction and mess and chaos and aggression and maybe violence probably violence and

01:29:29Verbal abuse and so on right so she would have grown up in that household, right?

01:29:34She did okay

01:29:37She just had a different experience than the brothers because being the baby girl

01:29:42She didn't get a lot of the direct

01:29:45Abuse, you know boys. Sorry, did she not know her mother was an alcoholic or had her mother cured her alcoholism by this point?

01:29:52No, she was she was still an alcoholic

01:29:55Okay, she the aunt would like lived with her grandparents for some time or she was removed from its sight more so than my

01:30:02Than her brothers

01:30:04Okay, so i'm trying to figure out how she's surprised that a house that was so dangerous

01:30:11Aggressive and violent that she had to be removed

01:30:15That this might have an effect on your father

01:30:20Yeah, I don't

01:30:21It doesn't make sense now you mention it, but that's why i'm so so why would she say I had absolutely no idea

01:30:31Again she has a conscience

01:30:37She knew that your father had been raised

01:30:41In a chaotic violent neglectful and abusive and addiction-laced household, right?

01:30:48So if you know that

01:30:51What should you do?

01:30:54When your brother

01:30:56Wants to get married and have a family

01:31:04Oh, i'm, sorry. Hi. Oh, sorry. What should you do? What should I do? No, no

01:31:10Oh, oh right

01:31:11kicks in

01:31:12So what should your aunt do knowing that your father was raised in a abusive neglectful and chaotic and violent manner?

01:31:18And he says i'm gonna get married and have kids and all of that. What should you do?

01:31:24That the that the

01:31:26fiancee

01:31:27well

01:31:28Maybe but you certainly should say to your brother

01:31:32Listen, you got to deal with some stuff because the household was so bad. I got pulled out of it

01:31:36God knows what happened when I wasn't there, but I assume it was pretty terrible

01:31:41So listen before you become a dad. I mean you you got to deal with some stuff

01:31:45And

01:31:48If he doesn't listen then you check in with his kids and you say kids how how is you know

01:31:52How are things going right? Because I mean dad went through some serious chaos

01:31:57And aggression and and neglect as a kid, right?

01:32:00So she would check in with you and she would you know, make sure because she was around the family, right?

01:32:07She had a she had a guilty conscience because she she also saw

01:32:11my mom's treatment and she was

01:32:13She actually tried to say thanks something a few times that's why mom hated her so much

01:32:19um

01:32:21okay, so when somebody who's had

01:32:23Decades of exposure to the chaos that defined your father to some degree because he let it happen right let him let it define

01:32:30so if she

01:32:33Doesn't talk to him doesn't try and deal with anything because she was the one who got it easiest in the family

01:32:38So it would be easiest for her

01:32:40To deal with the family issues, right?

01:32:43So she was in a privileged position

01:32:46Of having received the least harm which means that she had some responsibility in dealing with the family trauma, right?

01:32:54And so

01:32:55It really i'm telling you it bothers me at a foundational level, which doesn't mean that i'm right

01:32:59I'm, just being honest about my sort of emotional experience

01:33:02when these little pollyannas

01:33:04Who've neglected to protect their nieces and nephews?

01:33:08And neglected to take a stand for the protection of the children in the environment

01:33:12And then when one of those children as an adult comes and says dad had a vicious temper

01:33:16Oh, no, I never saw such a thing. I had no I oh my come on

01:33:22Give me a break

01:33:24Like just she has a

01:33:26She has a heart. She doesn't even she does

01:33:28She has this thing where she doesn't want to say anything negative about anyone, you know, and she doesn't use the word

01:33:34I get that but then say

01:33:36Say I don't know it

01:33:38Say I don't like the word, you know, man. I I knew your kids were

01:33:42You know, I saw your mom and and I knew your kids. I knew your kids were getting abused

01:33:47And neglected the code word

01:33:49Uh, I don't uh, you know, okay. Sorry. Yeah, I didn't uh, I didn't uh, I didn't do anything

01:33:53I didn't lift a finger because i'm a nervous nally and and so on. Uh, so yeah, sorry about that man. I I uh,

01:33:59I failed you guys

01:34:01But instead she's like I never saw it's like just oh my gosh. Just uh, it's just a lie

01:34:06It's just a lie

01:34:08And it's it's sorry to say from the outside I get from the inside right but from the outside

01:34:13It's just an embarrassingly obvious lie

01:34:15right

01:34:16Great. I mean she saw your father getting ripped on by your mom

01:34:22And she didn't think that might have any kind of effect on his parenting well I I can't imagine your father so meek

01:34:29It's like oh, come on

01:34:31Now you just you're literally gaslighting the children you failed to protect that's scummy beyond words, right?

01:34:40Like i'm sorry and and I I just think it's terrible don't gaslight children you failed to protect now you're just continuing the abuse

01:34:49Right, right

01:34:51Because then she's also saying well your father you see had perfect control over his temper because I never

01:34:58once in 40 years

01:35:01Ever saw any temper. It's like oh, come on. Oh, come on

01:35:07He was particularly bad i've heard some crazy stories from when he was in his 20s because his

01:35:12that was when I say, you know, that's when aggression and man is right at that peak or right and it was it was

01:35:18Right. So so she knew she knew she knew she knew she knew she knew now

01:35:23Maybe she doesn't want to say I was a gutless coward who abandoned the children

01:35:27I was supposed to protect and I feel a real urge to lie to you about it now

01:35:29But I don't want to do any further harm to you by gaslighting you after I let you get abused by your dad

01:35:36Then she can just shut up. Oh, tell me more. Just be sympathetic. Okay, but at least don't gaslight

01:35:42If you don't tell the truth at least don't gaslight the children who are begging for the truth

01:35:47right

01:35:49Yeah, that's what i've been doing begging people to tell me like what happened right? So my question is

01:35:55And we're back to that, right?

01:35:58Why

01:36:00What are you aiming to gain

01:36:02And and i'm not saying there's nothing to gain and this is not me being skeptical like why on earth would you go crazy?

01:36:07You're going to the desert for water. I'm not i'm not asking that i'm genuinely curious

01:36:12Because maybe there's things that that are important and and things that you can achieve and so on

01:36:16But what are you trying to gain?

01:36:21From your family of origin because all of this comes at the expense of who

01:36:28My children that's right

01:36:31So why are you doing that line from the great gatsby, you know?

01:36:36Born back against the current born ceaselessly into the past

01:36:41Why are you mucking about

01:36:43the gravestones of your childhood

01:36:46rather than

01:36:47Further nurturing the flowering life of your future

01:36:55Well

01:36:58I mean first thing that comes to my mind is like I want

01:37:02I want proof that

01:37:04what they did was wrong, you know, and that

01:37:08I have all these

01:37:11Anxieties and the mental health issues that i've been through in my life like

01:37:17Their fault, you know, they did this to me

01:37:21And um want proof of that and I want

01:37:26Them to be held accountable or um

01:37:33And as a mom like

01:37:37It's really hard not having

01:37:40Family to help, you know

01:37:42Both my husband and I are not close with our families, you know

01:37:46we're far away from them and

01:37:49And uh, you know, I wouldn't obviously I wouldn't want my mother around my children ever. No, but you're not a mother who would be helpful

01:37:56I know like I

01:37:57I long for that. I feel so jealous of

01:38:01these people like

01:38:02my aunt, you know, but my dad's sister who I I

01:38:07Talk to very regularly

01:38:09She I have cousins who are close to my age and they have kids. Well, one of them has kids and

01:38:15my aunt is so

01:38:17so helpful, um, it's possible that that's also

01:38:20Maybe too much, you know, but she

01:38:23It's like almost every day that they could get free babysitting, you know, and

01:38:27This is the aunt who?

01:38:29Said she didn't know about your

01:38:31father's temper

01:38:33Yeah, she's she's very dedicated mom and grandma, you know, she's a stay-at-home grandma now, you know, and like

01:38:41I and like I feel so envious like these people who can just go on like romantic

01:38:45weekends

01:38:47with their spouse, you know, like um

01:38:49Because I could just send the kids to grandma's or grandpa's for a week or something, you know

01:38:54and like so envious and also the people who get like get divorced and then they

01:38:59They go on they have their only part-time parents now

01:39:01so then they can go off with their new lover or whatever and have like a romantic weekend and like

01:39:07I want a romantic weekend with my husband, you know, like

01:39:10Um, but we can't we can't do that. Like we can't spend a night away from because we don't have anyone to watch our kids

01:39:17you know even

01:39:18and like hiring a babysitter is like so expensive, but I just feel like

01:39:22I'm pissed off stuff. I'm really angry and like

01:39:27frustrated and

01:39:29I just um

01:39:32Anyway

01:39:34Is that no, I appreciate I appreciate that. I appreciate that. I appreciate that now would you raised christian?

01:39:42No, uh, have you

01:39:45Made any moves towards christianity as an adult

01:39:50No, I did go to church like the bible study group like the mom's groups just to you know connect with the moms. Yeah

01:39:57Pre-pandemic, so you're not uh, you're not a believer, right?

01:40:01No, okay. Can I give you a mental exercise here?

01:40:05Yeah, right

01:40:07Now if you were a believer

01:40:10What happens

01:40:12In general generic christianity what happens to child abusers after they die

01:40:19They go to hell they do. Oh, yeah

01:40:23now you can leave it up to god to

01:40:25Just give it up to god, right? That's the the phrase well

01:40:31The punishment is handled for you

01:40:37Your parents did you great wrong and i'm really sorry

01:40:40It's

01:40:42Terrifying and your siblings did you great wrong?

01:40:45I hold your parents primarily accountable

01:40:47But your siblings are also to some obviously smaller degree accountable or at least that's what their conscience is telling them

01:40:55So

01:40:59If your

01:41:01father

01:41:02Was being punished now if it's an eternity in hell, or maybe it's just limbo or you know

01:41:07It's just some punishment after death if you genuinely believed

01:41:12That those who did evil

01:41:16Were punished

01:41:19How would you feel about your family of origin

01:41:24And your involvement with them if the punishment was out of your hands

01:41:31I'm not i'm not sure

01:41:34Okay, just try it try it on for something i'm obviously not trying to convert you to christianity

01:41:37I'm, just try it on for size as a mental exercise. You don't have to lift a finger

01:41:44It's up to the priest their conscience and god himself

01:41:50You can pray for them you can suggest that they

01:41:53Pray and talk to a priest but it's out of your hands

01:41:58There's relief there for sure right so tell me about the relief

01:42:04Um

01:42:11That it's it's not my responsibility to um

01:42:17Hold them accountable that they um

01:42:22I'm fogging up a little bit right now, but

01:42:26um

01:42:29You

01:42:32It would be relief, yeah

01:42:37They would get what's coming to them

01:42:39And what?

01:42:40They would get what's coming to them. I know it's not very christian. No. No, hang on. Hang on. That is very christian

01:42:46Oh, yeah. No that is so one of the reasons that christians can be all about forgiveness

01:42:51Is god's gonna get them. Hey, I forgive you

01:42:56But god's gonna get you

01:42:59Right, right

01:43:02You know how like in all these mafia movies there's always this soft-spoken charismatic mafia guy

01:43:08and

01:43:09You know like the don corleone and and so on right the guy, uh, but it was in true romance, uh, the christian walking guy

01:43:17Walking guy, so so there's always this soft-spoken, but but the reason it's so intense is he's got these three thugs with guns behind him

01:43:24Right

01:43:26Right, so he could say well i'll forgive you and you know and so on and then his thugs will blow you away, right?

01:43:32Right. So if my hands are clean, you know

01:43:36yeah, yeah, and and I can be soft-spoken and I can be nice and funny even because right

01:43:43Because the thugs will the thugs are right so so christians can be

01:43:48forgiving

01:43:49Right. I forgive you

01:43:51To let go and move on

01:43:53But the forgiveness of the christian does not generate forgiveness from god

01:43:59Right so if

01:44:04Your father

01:44:07Was punished

01:44:09I suspect though. Of course. I don't want to tell you what you feel

01:44:12If your father was punished and let's say it wasn't in eternity in a lake of boiling fire or whatever it is, right?

01:44:17But if your father hurt him too bad, i'm, sorry

01:44:20I don't want him to hurt him too bad. Right, right, but but some appropriate level of punishment, right? Right, right

01:44:28Without punishment

01:44:30There is no closure

01:44:34Like how many times have you I don't know if are you a true crime person do you ever watch or listen or

01:44:39I did when I was younger. Okay, I can't I can't I can't take it anymore

01:44:42What's that old meme? It's like I don't know why I have so so much anxiety said the woman who just had three

01:44:47Espressos and two murder crime podcasts or whatever, right? Yeah, I can't do it anymore. But when I was younger, yeah, so in

01:44:56In so many murder true murder two crime stories, there's a criminal

01:45:02Who kills or rapes or whatever right and the family pursues justice, right?

01:45:07They can even hire private investigators if they feel the police aren't doing their job the family pursues justice

01:45:13And then the family gets the killer

01:45:16Off their kid or their mother

01:45:19Locked up

01:45:22For the rest of his life and they say now that's closure

01:45:27I got him

01:45:30Right, there was a story I once read about this woman who was this

01:45:33uh, she was a um

01:45:35A landlady and she turns out to have been convicted of killing and getting the social security checks of some people

01:45:41Uh, and and years before there was a suspicion that she had poisoned this guy's mother and there was no proof

01:45:49All the records were gone and and so on he felt and he was like, there's no closure

01:45:53Hmm, right. So even though she's in prison for murder, she's not in prison for my mother's murder

01:46:00And

01:46:00You know how I I've never quite understood this but people I mean

01:46:05Believe it that you know, well if I can't find the body, you know, I can't there's no closure

01:46:09I can't have a funeral. I can't you know without a body

01:46:11It's very hard to get a conviction for murder and right so the closure is the punishment

01:46:21So

01:46:22I think and listen, I could be completely wrong about any and all of this, right?

01:46:26So i'm not ever going to try and tell you your experience

01:46:30And this is why I sort of made a joke about how you're a very nice young lady and you are and it's a very great

01:46:34pleasure to chat with you

01:46:37But I think you may be

01:46:40Misinterpreting your motives that you just want the truth. I don't think that's true

01:46:46I think you want them

01:46:49to hurt

01:46:51for what they did to you

01:46:53And if you get them to admit and you hold their faces to the wrongs

01:46:57They did that they will suffer and then some of that suffering will transmit from you to them

01:47:04You carry this burden i'm sick of it

01:47:11We haven't even gotten to the conversation I had with my mom on the trip. Oh, I know we've got some time

01:47:18But no because we're looking as to the reasons why right why do you want that conversation

01:47:27Someone is going to suffer for your childhood

01:47:30Because where there is wrongdoing there also is their suffering that's how we know to some degree that it's wrongdoing

01:47:39So there is suffering there is a demon that is created through abuse

01:47:45And that demon sits where generally it sits in the hearts of the children because they have to take responsibility to imagine they have some

01:47:52control

01:47:54and then

01:47:56When they get older

01:47:58Some madcap philosopher in canada says

01:48:01The demon belongs to your parents and then what we do is we say i'm gonna sit down with my parents

01:48:07I'm gonna give them this demon because it's their fucking demon

01:48:14And we call that I just want the truth

01:48:19But it's not I want them to suffer for what they did because the alternative is me continuing to suffer

01:48:28And if someone's going to suffer shouldn't it be the evildoers

01:48:36Not the innocent

01:48:41And I think you feel that if you have the truth

01:48:47Then you can dislodge the demon and give it back to its rightful owner

01:48:53Your mother maybe a little bit of your elder siblings

01:48:56But this thing's got to go somewhere you can't will it out of existence because you can't will the suffering out of existence

01:49:05Where does the demon go and I think you're around your family so you can give that thing back

01:49:14And get it off your chest and off your neck and off your shoulders and off weighing you down

01:49:26You

01:49:32That's been a

01:49:34I've had

01:49:36chronic pain issues and that was some uh

01:49:39There was a forgiveness section like about forgiving

01:49:42Really hard time this part of the sorry. I did there's this app that I

01:49:46I did that was all you know trying to work through. Sorry. Did you say app or yeah?

01:49:50It's an app. I'm sorry. I'm like, sorry

01:49:52My daughter's very big on the term yapping these days. It's too painful for me to go into the context in which she uses it

01:49:58But she's very keen on the phrase yapping. I just yapping and so I wasn't sure if you said this is yap or app

01:50:04No, it's an app like about help. It's called curable for anyone out there who has chronic pain. It's very

01:50:10Good app, but um, it's to help

01:50:12process and release, you know, sort of trauma and pain from your body like

01:50:18that's

01:50:19Anyway, there was a section on forgiveness and I had a really hard time with it stuff. Of course and

01:50:25Yeah, because forgiveness if no one is suffering

01:50:30Forgiveness stays with the victim. Sorry. I miss miss miss miss misspoke. Let me fix that

01:50:41If there is forgiveness without suffering the demon stays with the victim

01:50:47Mm-hmm because the demon is suffering and if your parents aren't suffering

01:50:54And the people who harmed you aren't suffering the suffering stays with you

01:50:59So I think you want them to confess their sins

01:51:02So you can vomit up the demon and put it back on them and they can wrestle with that son of a bitch

01:51:11There was something really

01:51:14Partly satisfying about seeing having that conversation with my mother

01:51:19Where I felt like

01:51:21For a lot of the conversation I felt like in this power position

01:51:25sure, because like because she

01:51:27you know, all the things she said were just

01:51:29such bullshit and like

01:51:32just so easy to

01:51:33untangle her manipulative and

01:51:36bullshit irrational things she was saying

01:51:39and it made me feel

01:51:41powerful, you know to

01:51:43to be in that position and just um

01:51:45But you're still powerless

01:51:47I think because which is why it's unsatisfying in the long run because you're still relying upon her

01:51:53To feel bad and she can wave it all away

01:51:55And even if you make her feel bad in the moment, she'll rationalize it later and the pain will go away

01:52:00That's what she kept saying. You're attacking me

01:52:03You're attacking bashing me and attacking me and you're so mean. Yeah. Yeah, I get all of that. Yeah, of course, of course

01:52:10And I asked her I said

01:52:11Oh really mom, do you think this is you know, i'm talking in a completely

01:52:15Level voice i'm not yelling. I'm not cursing. Do you think this is?

01:52:18Uh more scary for you being attacked this way or for me as a child when as you were screaming at me

01:52:24um

01:52:25In the face, you know and cursing it

01:52:29Well, what did you do to make me scream at you right right and then you can say well clearly you did something to make

01:52:35Me be upset with you

01:52:39So sit back and take it the way I was supposed to

01:52:43When I was able to bring up that at that the one the incident I was thinking of was when I was sick

01:52:48And it was really inconvenient for her that I was sick, you know

01:52:51and

01:52:52So I she was screaming at me and I actually fainted. I think I told you I had fainting spells a lot as a kid

01:52:57I fainted during while during a screaming session and when I came to

01:53:01From blacking out nose hurting from falling on my face. She was still screaming stuff

01:53:07Like it was ridiculous like she didn't cease

01:53:10When I was unconscious, that's wonderful in a way and obviously terrible that happened

01:53:14But the wonderful thing is it doesn't even matter if you're conscious doesn't matter if you're there has nothing to do with you

01:53:20you're just a piece of flesh in the room for her to

01:53:23scratch at

01:53:25Or claw

01:53:26Okay, so

01:53:33We get frustrated so

01:53:36I don't know if you've ever had a relationship like this

01:53:39But Seinfeld the the tv show from I guess decades ago now

01:53:43Uh, you know this woman would be like I think I think we should break up and he's like, okay

01:53:49Right, right and she's like well you're not upset. No, it's even steven another girl will come along

01:53:54Right. So if there's a breakup and one person is indifferent and not upset

01:54:00They're perceived to be in a power position

01:54:02And the other person who is upset is shocked and appalled that the person is not upset right so the typical thing is

01:54:11Uh, you know, let's say the woman says she's going to break up with the guy and the guy is like, yeah, you know

01:54:15Oh, yeah, probably right. That's fine

01:54:17And he's you know, maybe they've been together for a year or two or whatever and he's just you know

01:54:20He's completely blasé about it. Yeah, I can send you your stuff back. It's fine

01:54:24And she's like crying and retching and you know, like upset and so on and she's enraged, right?

01:54:30Mm-hmm. She's incredibly frustrated because he's not suffering

01:54:34Mm-hmm. And sometimes this is why women want to make men suffer because they want to feel that they meant something

01:54:45So I think

01:54:48Your perception is my mother will not admit fault

01:54:54She does not experience the pain of what she did

01:54:57and therefore

01:54:59She has escaped suffering

01:55:05And therefore I have to hold the demon

01:55:12This is not true, but it's easily mistaken for being true

01:55:19Now I want you to picture something

01:55:22Your pain stops completely tomorrow

01:55:26Emotional

01:55:28Physical psychological whatever

01:55:32And you feel nothing no happiness no sadness no pain no pleasure right you don't food sex nothing

01:55:42And you go to the doctor and the doctor says oh, yeah, you've lost the ability to feel pain

01:55:51Now this would be an indication of a severe problem with your body wouldn't it

01:55:56Mm-hmm. Yeah, that'd be bad news, you know, like

01:56:00There's this old video game where you know, people are shooting each other with rockets and occasionally some guy screams. I can't feel my legs

01:56:07Right. I can't feel my legs pain is a is a symbol of is a symptom of health

01:56:13Numbness is a symptom of extraordinary

01:56:18Bad things with the body

01:56:21With the body

01:56:23Right, you know that you're in some bad car crash and the doctor tickles your feet and says can you feel this and if you say?

01:56:27Nope, that's not good

01:56:30Yeah

01:56:32So

01:56:35If you don't feel pain you're in for a very difficult life

01:56:43Because you don't know

01:56:45Right. Did you scratch yourself? Did you bruise yourself? Did you cut yourself?

01:56:49You can't feel if you uh have eaten too much you can't tell if you're thirsty like it's just really complicated and unpleasant

01:56:56Mm-hmm

01:56:57You have no motivation. You have no way to guide your day what you want to do what you don't want to do

01:57:02You're a machine

01:57:04An npc right

01:57:09Now

01:57:13The people who do wrong

01:57:16And don't feel bad

01:57:19and I think that's the case with your mother and sounds like it was the case with your father that

01:57:24The only tears they would ever cry was of self-pity not of empathy

01:57:29I can't believe how badly I treated you. It haunts me. I can't sleep. They're fine

01:57:37They're fine

01:57:40Now

01:57:43What I want to tell you

01:57:45Is you think you need to put them in hell? Oh, no, my friend

01:57:50They're already there

01:57:52I'm going to speak to your father as if he's still alive. I'm aware he's not

01:57:56They're already there. My mother never admitted fault for the wrongs. She did neither of other family members

01:58:04And not one of them has a life that I wouldn't pay just about everything to not live

01:58:13You

01:58:16Your mother is already punished more than you can imagine

01:58:23Because without

01:58:25A conscience that you're aware of without feeling without empathy

01:58:28There's no bond. There's no love. There's no connection. There's no honesty. There's no intimacy. There's no trust. There's nothing

01:58:38other than this stupid staccato dance

01:58:41Of desperate manipulation and superiority in the moment

01:58:46All that you find that makes life worthwhile

01:58:51Self-respect love connection virtue pride courage. None of these things exist

01:59:01In your parents

01:59:05If you were to live

01:59:07One minute in their mind you would claw to escape it

01:59:13And you would give up almost everything

01:59:16If somebody put me in my mother's mind and said you can live here for the next 20 years

01:59:21Or you can come back to your life, but you can't use your legs

01:59:24I would choose to come back to my life and not use my legs

01:59:33How much you have to give up

01:59:36When you lose the fight

01:59:39To retain your conscience when your conscience turns against you

01:59:43And your conscience blocks off all human intimacy and love affection spontaneity

01:59:50laughter fun joy, all of it is gone

01:59:55And you think you need to make people suffer

01:59:59But their lack of suffering is their punishment

02:00:05Because you become a better person because you suffer and you think well if I make them suffer a i'll feel some relief

02:00:11And b maybe they have a chance to be better people

02:00:13But that's like torturing someone

02:00:19Who's paralyzed and numb

02:00:23Right, can you can like they got like no feeling below their waist

02:00:27And and someone's down there with a little knife or something cutting up and they don't feel it

02:00:32Mm-hmm punching the stomach and he just

02:00:35Nothing. Yeah, I mean if they if they feel nothing from the neck down

02:00:39Right then torturing them. It's like no not

02:00:43So you are guided by positive and negative emotions

02:00:49They are not guided by any of that

02:00:53Your desire to punish them is because you think they're like you

02:00:57You

02:00:59But they are punished by being nothing like you

02:01:05Everything that you take for granted in your life that gives it happiness and meaning your love for your children and your husband

02:01:11your pleasure and surrender

02:01:13sexual intimacy emotional intimacy

02:01:16Trust and all the difficulties that come along with that

02:01:18And and I understand that and i'm not trying to say oh, it's all just a a ride of bliss and joy

02:01:24Right, but everything that makes life worthwhile does not exist in the mind of unrepentant child abusers

02:01:35If you could live for 30 seconds in their skull you'd come back and you'd say I don't learn to lift a finger it's

02:01:42hell in there

02:01:46In the same way that even with our bodies aches and pains

02:01:49If we had to live 30 seconds in the mind of someone completely numb from the neck down we'd say oh my god, that's horrifying

02:01:57I'll come back to my aches and pains. Thank you very much

02:02:03Great if they will suffer

02:02:08Then I am relieved but you can't make them suffer any more than you can

02:02:16hurt someone

02:02:18Who's paralyzed and numb from the neck down?

02:02:20I mean, I guess you could flick their ear or something, but you know, you can't hurt their body and that's that's the hell

02:02:26Look, they're immune from torture. They're immune from everything

02:02:32And so and you're a young certainly younger than me considerably

02:02:37And i'm telling you from the vantage point of the last third of my life

02:02:42I've not seen one person get away with anything

02:02:48Hmm

02:02:50The people who mocked and scorned me for my focus on philosophy and self-knowledge and this that and the other

02:02:56They all had terrible relationships

02:03:00They all had unsatisfying careers. They all ended up distant from their children

02:03:06Many of them are divorced many of them never got married

02:03:10No one got away

02:03:14No one escaped

02:03:17Punishment and the worst punishment of all was numbness

02:03:26And i'm trying to give you that relief of sister you do not need to lift a finger

02:03:35For them to suffer it is their lack of suffering that is the worst punishment of all

02:03:40Just as it's the worst sign for your spinal cord if you can't feel anything below your neck

02:03:47And part of the torture that you have

02:03:50Is you want them to suffer?

02:03:52Because of their coldness and their callousness and their lack of compassion and empathy and their lack of suffering you think well

02:03:58I must make them suffer

02:04:01To gain relief and that's perfectly understandable

02:04:06But the mistake is that

02:04:09Because they don't appear to suffer you think they got away

02:04:12And part of the search for truth is to hold them up to the horror show of their lives and have them

02:04:20Suffer and change it is partly an act of love

02:04:24It is partly an act of love

02:04:28Tell me more about that

02:04:30If they suffer they can change

02:04:33Uh, right. All right. Okay. I want my mother to get better

02:04:37I want my mother to be back in my life and the only way that I can get my mother to be better

02:04:41Have compassion have empathy is to get her to feel to get her to confront her conscience to get her admit

02:04:46She did bad things and that way she can change she can go to therapy, right?

02:04:57Which is why it's sort of tied into other people have their grandparents and they can have their romantic weekends away

02:05:02With their husbands and so on, right?

02:05:04So part of it is an act of love and part of it is an act of vengeance

02:05:09Mm-hmm, and i'm just here to tell you

02:05:13The people who don't have empathy

02:05:19Seem to be doing really well

02:05:23Like the people who take drugs they seem quite happy for a short amount of time, right, right

02:05:29but

02:05:31Nobody's getting away with anything out here

02:05:33Yeah

02:05:37Because my mom has all these markers of achievement, right

02:05:42yeah, she's like presented awards and gets standing ovations for her performances and

02:05:47like

02:05:48She's brilliant and talented woman. I have no doubt

02:05:52Right

02:05:54Right

02:05:57And that that's like the only thing

02:05:59She has you know, like that. That's it

02:06:02Well, does she I mean doesn't she still have to some degree uh contact with your siblings and

02:06:07So on. Oh, yeah

02:06:09So she's got family except for you

02:06:11Mm-hmm. I'm

02:06:13As mom said

02:06:14No, the other children

02:06:17Have these complaints, right? Are you like this? Right, right

02:06:21right

02:06:23Now, of course you're a mother i'm a father and if we did something inadvertently to hurt her children we'd be wretched, right?

02:06:32Mm-hmm

02:06:33Apologize, I apologize, you know, of course you do the repair work, of course

02:06:38Of course you do. Absolutely

02:06:41Yeah, absolutely

02:06:43And

02:06:45People who don't have a conscience and who don't have empathy and when I say don't have a conscience

02:06:49I mean they have no functional access to their conscience

02:06:52Their conscience will still punish them

02:06:55because

02:06:57The problem with not having access to your conscience is that the effect is bottomless hypocrisy

02:07:04Right, how dare you upset me says your mother who screamed at you throughout your childhood

02:07:11Right, that's that's so bottomlessly hypocritical it's hard to imagine

02:07:16Like my mother's shock at me using any of my physical strength to protect me from her after she'd beaten me black and blue for

02:07:23You know 13 years, I mean she was just appalled at the use of force like I mean it's so unbelievably hypocritical

02:07:30And you require integrity in order to be loved. That's the

02:07:35Integrity is tough, right?

02:07:37It's hard a lot of punishment social punishment for integrity

02:07:39The reward is someone can actually love you because integrity means that you have consistent behavior and therefore can be trusted and therefore someone

02:07:44Can give you their heart?

02:07:46And you won't just throw it in a blender whenever you feel like it

02:07:49Mm-hmm

02:07:50So the problem with not having any access to your conscience is you just make up bullshit in the moment to win in the moment

02:07:56Which means you can't ever be trusted and you can't ever be loved

02:08:01And the sad thing is they don't know what they're missing

02:08:06And so we want them oh you got to know what you're missing but they never will and that's the punishment

02:08:12And

02:08:16Yes, the world will absolutely give people prizes and awards and and all of that, right

02:08:22Mm-hmm

02:08:23apparently brad pitt was such a bad father that his

02:08:26His son has stopped using his name and has written public letters about how terrible the person he was

02:08:32He'll still get paid 10 million dollars a movie

02:08:35Mm-hmm people don't care, right?

02:08:38And your mother will still get standing ovations and awards

02:08:42And that's what people get

02:08:47And my mother who was slender and attractive for most of her life got lots of male attention

02:08:53And never was loved once

02:08:56And now has spent 20 years alone

02:09:03And it's hell

02:09:08There's nothing you need to do

02:09:13The conscience has taken care of all the punishment

02:09:18That you could inflict

02:09:21And done it for you

02:09:27Because people who do evil particularly to children have to lie to themselves perpetually and lie to others and make things up

02:09:35And will continue to do it. So your mother

02:09:38Playing the victim and accusing you of being a bad person is continuing to abuse you

02:09:45Now why you would want to go back and put yourself in a situation of being abused again

02:09:52It's because you want her to take the demon but she can't take the demon because she is the demon

02:10:03The demon is

02:10:08You not giving full responsibility to your mother

02:10:11which means

02:10:13She can't change. She won't change. She doesn't have any capacity to change

02:10:19Because she's numb from the neck down

02:10:24You don't say to a paralyzed person dance better that's kind of cruel, right

02:10:32She's done decades of wrong

02:10:35Many decades of wrong to your father

02:10:39And to her children and she continues to gaslight and lie, right?

02:10:47Her punishment is herself

02:10:50There's nothing you need to inflict

02:10:54At all

02:11:00This is why the Christians have it, right

02:11:04Right. No the Christians have it, right

02:11:06That you do not need to inflict vengeance now if it's direct criminality and so on and of course in a free society

02:11:12What your parents did is to you guys as children would be direct criminality

02:11:17If it was direct criminality, I have no problem with people

02:11:20You know putting murderers in jail because otherwise they go out and kill other people

02:11:25right

02:11:29Now your siblings if they have kids and they're

02:11:32Letting your mom around the kids that's a problem, but it's not your problem

02:11:37Right, right. My mother's life is not my problem

02:11:41I tried to help she rejected help

02:11:44It's not your problem. This is why I was sort of struck when you said your sister's pre-diabetic and you're like

02:11:49I'll make this my problem

02:11:52Right

02:11:54Right and it didn't work

02:11:56No

02:11:57And you've tried to make your mother's conscience your problem. I'm going to tell you the truth

02:12:01Maybe you just don't remember maybe you just don't don't get it. I'll just explain it again

02:12:08I will become real

02:12:11To somebody who's that selfish

02:12:14Is like saying i'll tickle someone who's numb from the neck down

02:12:19You

02:12:24And especially when they've been paralyzed and numb for decades trying to give the massages to restore

02:12:33Their feeling is not healthy right that would be crazy

02:12:41So I know we've talked for a long time

02:12:43But if you want to tell me more about your conversation with your mother or what led you to

02:12:47Because it's been nine years, right

02:12:50Yeah, it's been nine years

02:12:52um

02:12:56Well last summer, you know, like I think I mentioned she'd sold that property and uh

02:13:03It was I actually did talk on talk to her on the phone for the first time in eight years

02:13:08And she was horrible like she

02:13:10Cursed me out. He screamed at me. Um, I was crying. Did you talk to her for the money?

02:13:17Yeah, so she was like did you get the transfer basically, you know, and uh

02:13:23Oh, so you'd already gotten the money

02:13:25yeah, I'd already gotten the money and she was like calling and texting and like trying to like

02:13:29See if I'd gotten it, you know making sure they went through and no, but she can get confirmation

02:13:34She can get confirmation of that from her bank, right?

02:13:37Yeah, I know. I finally like she had called several times and I just sorry

02:13:40Why didn't you block her number? I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't have i'm just curious why?

02:13:43Well, um with being like business partners on the property and stuff it was uh

02:13:53I don't know. I don't know why I didn't block it. What did your husband say?

02:13:58Um

02:14:01He he didn't want me talking to her, um, right so why didn't you yeah whenever I got him

02:14:07Why didn't you defer to your husband?

02:14:09Defer to your husband

02:14:12Is he more objective

02:14:15He is he's he's so wise stuff I should have listened he's not that wise though you'd have listened to him I know

02:14:22So, okay. So this thing was happening with me

02:14:24where

02:14:25I defood I'd gotten these people out of my life

02:14:29But I was feeling almost

02:14:33Trapped like this was the perception and I know it's not true

02:14:36It was all my own choices

02:14:37but I was getting into this like trapped feeling where like

02:14:40I wasn't

02:14:42Like allowed quote-unquote like to talk to them and like I would send my mom

02:14:45I really delve into like family. I'm really interested in family history

02:14:50and like i've sent her texts where she'll

02:14:52Answer family history questions and um about sorry, so you were in contact with her

02:14:59Uh via text and it was yeah, hang on hang on hang on young lady

02:15:05Yeah, hold the phone hold the phone

02:15:08Hold on

02:15:09So you said you weren't in touch with them for nine years?

02:15:13But you were via text

02:15:16Yes, it's a little weasley. Yeah, sorry about that. Um, yes I was in contact

02:15:25Yeah, I guess it wasn't a yeah it wasn't a full defoo it was

02:15:30She also

02:15:32She would send money sometimes to I know it's really i'm shamed of the

02:15:37This but sorry, why are you shamed of it? And and

02:15:41well, it's like I I i'm

02:15:44mad at my siblings for continuing to

02:15:47Live live off of her and I don't live off of her

02:15:51Anymore, but occasionally getting like a check from her like

02:15:56Okay, so it's a relief I mean, okay, sorry, but why

02:16:00Why does let's say you cashed the check? Why does that mean you have to be in touch with her?

02:16:06Well, she would send it, um through

02:16:08like a

02:16:10Phone like the like the machine my number to like send it and I would get

02:16:14Like a text anyway, okay

02:16:17and then

02:16:18Yeah, that doesn't answer my question though

02:16:20uh

02:16:23So what was the question i'm sorry so

02:16:25So she sends you money it comes into your bank account. Why why would you need to be in touch with her?

02:16:30um

02:16:32I don't know

02:16:33Well, unless she's like did you get the money?

02:16:34I need to know if you got in which case you send you the money to pay you to text her

02:16:39Right, okay, right. Well, and again, was it a lot of money? Please tell me you sold for a lot of money

02:16:47Yeah, you don't have to tell me the amount but was it a lot of money

02:16:51it was enough to pay for our

02:16:53Getting our house painted which we needed desperately like our house was really needed

02:16:57Uh be painted and we our ac broke had just broken

02:17:01Like it was such a relief to get that money from that house your stay-at-home mother, right?

02:17:06Yes

02:17:07Why are you emasculating your husband?

02:17:13It's not good for your marriage i'll be frank with you as a man

02:17:19Because as a man if it's like well the woman who brutalized my wife is sending us money we'll take it

02:17:28Did your husband want the money

02:17:33Well

02:17:35Did your husband want the money

02:17:38Yes, and no, can that be an answer?

02:17:40Well, it's I mean it's all with yes and no, but if you take it that's a yes

02:17:44Yeah, he took he accepted we accepted it. We didn't like send it back or anything. Okay. So why did your husband want the money from?

02:17:51The woman who was an unapologetic child abuser of the love of his life

02:17:57Um

02:18:05It paid

02:18:06It paid for

02:18:07We needed we needed things like we you know, we had this a few years of like some financial

02:18:13just there was like a lot of

02:18:15You know emergency kind of things that came up where like we okay

02:18:19So what we weren't what should we hang on of course, there are always emergencies that come up and the pandemic tough economically

02:18:25I mean, I got deplatformed. I understand that the income can can go down considerably. Okay

02:18:30Yeah, so by taking the money what is being prevented?

02:18:37Because you then have an answer well we need money, okay, we'll take money from the child abuser

02:18:43We're not what is being prevented

02:18:45Making more money on making more money cutting your expenses doing whatever you need to do to make the ends meet, right?

02:18:52Right, right

02:18:54But with

02:18:56two small children, you know

02:18:58We've made a conscious choice to that. He we don't want him working

02:19:02Like I don't know. Okay, so I get it. So the argument is that well, we have to do what's best for our children, right?

02:19:10Yeah

02:19:11Yeah, where am I going? You know where i'm going

02:19:15That being in contact with this abusive woman is not best for our children, right?

02:19:19So don't you can't sell me on the it's oh my kids I I have to take money from a child abuser

02:19:26Because children don't don't use kids as a shield. Like don't do that. It's not their fault. It's not the that's your choice

02:19:34Right, and it's it's at their expense, right?

02:19:37Because you're distracted you're stressed. You're upset. You're worried. You're you're waiting for the phone to ping your district like you're dissociated, right?

02:19:45Yes

02:19:46so, please don't

02:19:48It's for the best of my children that I trauma re-traumatized myself for a couple of grand

02:19:54Right

02:19:56So it's not for the children. So what's it for?

02:20:01That's for my own anxiety like I well no helping your anxiety is it

02:20:06I know. I don't know. I feel crippled with in terms of money because how

02:20:11I I

02:20:14You've you've talked about you know

02:20:15I think in a show before about how it would feel to have like an a bottomless bank account like I kind of had

02:20:20that in my

02:20:2220s. Yeah

02:20:24I get it. Okay. So what?

02:20:27Kids are money. Yeah, I get it

02:20:28I didn't have to work for it because my my dad would just just I not only got in a line like they didn't want me

02:20:34to work, you know, like so you

02:20:37You were hanging off daddy's wallet

02:20:41I was and

02:20:43my parents like didn't want me working while I was in school and so then

02:20:48I had like who paid I did. I was the

02:20:51My parents. Yeah, um, wait, wait, did they pay for private school that they pay for everything?

02:20:57Like I mean, sorry, you mean university, right?

02:21:00University. Yeah, they pay like living expenses books

02:21:03dental medical like

02:21:05Tuition did they pay for everything?

02:21:08Absolutely everything and did they give you extra spending money?

02:21:12Yes, okay and after school what happened

02:21:16They continued to support me like why financially and I don't know why like they well they oh

02:21:21They wanted me to go to grad school. I didn't want to go to grad school. I didn't there was nothing I wanted to

02:21:26study I did I you know, I floundered around with the applications for a while and

02:21:32I was like, you know, like I mentioned my brother not doing anything for a few years

02:21:35That was me. I traveled with the money they gave me

02:21:38Uh

02:21:40for a few years like I was

02:21:42I was a mess and

02:21:43it didn't make sense for me to even get a job because like

02:21:47I got I made more money

02:21:49with my allowance and

02:21:52At what age on when did this allowance start? When did this allowance end?

02:21:57When my dad died basically, um, which is how many years ago? No, how long no, no, it was uh,

02:22:0310, uh, so he died in 2013. So, um, okay, you don't have to tell me your exact age, of course

02:22:10But was this in your 20s or I mean mid 20s? Yeah mid late mid 20s. Yeah mid 20s

02:22:15And then the money just cut off

02:22:18Uh kinda yeah, I don't know what that means so

02:22:23yeah driving so I had

02:22:25I had a uh gas card up until then like where it was paid. All my gas was paid anything

02:22:32Gas was all paid for and on the drive back from his funeral. It was at a state that his funeral was

02:22:38The gas card stopped working

02:22:41Um, wait, you had to actually pay for your own gas and you're mid to late. No, can you can you believe it? No

02:22:47Yeah, I was I was offered some money from my father's estate

02:22:51I understand the temptation

02:22:53Yeah, and

02:22:55I said no, of course, but anyway, go on

02:22:57right

02:22:58she

02:22:59my mother continued

02:23:01We were maybe my siblings we were on

02:23:06Just down these l lcs for like distributions and stuff and yeah, we don't have to get into the technical legalities of it

02:23:12But sorry, so I would still get money from so you were still getting money from your mother

02:23:17yeah, until my like

02:23:19Well into my late, you know 20s and then I'm just now I still am like even though I I cut her off

02:23:24Like every once in a while, but you also

02:23:27How did you end up with half ownership of this property?

02:23:29Did you well, I guess you didn't put your own money into it, right?

02:23:33No, okay. So she's just giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars and and money's

02:23:38Flowing and and so you haven't learned the value of money. You haven't learned budgeting. You haven't learned

02:23:43yeah income expenses you haven't I mean you just

02:23:46We've been living in this like surreal sea of free money

02:23:50Yes, and I I don't I feel so anxious about the money too. Like I don't know

02:23:55Like it's hard. What do you mean anxious about the money? That's a very very open statement. What do you mean?

02:24:00so

02:24:01I don't

02:24:02have a concept of

02:24:04What a good emergency fund looks like what no, that's not true. No, you're you're look you're a very very intelligent woman

02:24:12You know exactly. I mean, come on. You just look that up, right?

02:24:16Right, right. You say how what six months to a year, right?

02:24:19Everybody said six months income to a year income right depending on

02:24:22Reliability of income, right?

02:24:24So the idea that you know, I was considering grad school, but I can't look up how much money I might need in the bank

02:24:30That's not even remotely believable. Sorry

02:24:32Okay

02:24:34And does your husband come from money

02:24:37No, no, he made does he know he was marrying into fantasy fiat money princess planet

02:24:45Um, uh, yes, yeah we talked about okay, so

02:24:51You chose to be a stay-at-home

02:24:53Mother right?

02:24:55Yes

02:24:56which means that

02:24:58Your husband is responsible

02:25:00for making

02:25:02Many core financial decisions, right?

02:25:06Yeah

02:25:06So your your husband's ambition has been blunted by the free money

02:25:11Everyone thinks well if i'm getting five thousand or ten thousand dollars a year

02:25:15If I don't get that money boy, i'll just be down money and it's like no you won't

02:25:20You'll be up ambition

02:25:23You'll be up hard work. You'll be up concentration. You'll be up creativity

02:25:31You know if my donations go down I don't sit there and say oh well I guess donations are down

02:25:35I have to adjust everything i'll be like no I gotta figure out how to make some more money

02:25:42And and that

02:25:44I mean, you know, you know that right?

02:25:46I mean your husband should know it because he didn't grow up with money, right?

02:25:50At least he's the kind of money

02:25:51Self-made man. He okay done so good. So

02:25:56He knows as a self-made man that if income goes down creativity goes up

02:26:04He has on his wedding ring it says

02:26:07Creativity and commitment, right? So why are you taking the money from the child abuser?

02:26:14You

02:26:19Now obviously because it's easier but you know, it's not right you've been listening to this show, you know

02:26:23There's a price for everything right? You've been listening to this show for a decade. So why are you taking the money?

02:26:30So usually in a couple right

02:26:33one person wants something more and it's up to the other person to either

02:26:37Concede or to argue or or get them to to not take it, right?

02:26:45You

02:26:50So so who wants the money more

02:26:55Me okay

02:26:57So, why do you want the money now again as often it pays bills blah blah blah

02:27:02But I mean, you know the price right that this is not a shock that you're anxious and stomach issues and pain issues

02:27:08And I don't know if it's all related right, but it could be right. It's certainly a risk, right?

02:27:12I mean, this is the most traumatizing human being who's ever lived on your planet and you're financially enmeshed with her

02:27:18Tell me that's not going to have an effect on you, right?

02:27:22So, why do you want the money

02:27:29Owed me stuff it's owed me like I put up with all her abuse for so many years, right like and

02:27:38Like when she died, no, no, but that but you're continuing it

02:27:41Right, right. So did she?

02:27:44I'm owed more abuse because of the prior abuse

02:27:47Right, right. I think that's not the answer because it's just not logical

02:27:52Right in order because I was the my my my reward for being traumatized is more trauma. It's not that doesn't make sense, right?

02:27:59So why do you want the money?

02:28:03I've I have had his like i'm i've been approaching this and trying to

02:28:07To deal with it like my status like things around status that seduce me, you know, um

02:28:14But you know how hollow status is because you saw it from the inside, right?

02:28:17Absolutely. Yeah, and I noticed when i'm doing it and I tried it not it's not that what is it?

02:28:23Do you know why stuff? I don't I know why

02:28:26You know, can you tell me sure?

02:28:28Okay. Okay. So let's play this out

02:28:30so, um

02:28:32You block your mother. You don't take any money

02:28:34You block her on every conceivable thing you change your phone number, whatever

02:28:38Let's say I don't know you move like not that you would right but let's just say your mother can't contact you

02:28:43Okay, what happens?

02:28:48Uh, she can't she can't

02:28:53Oh, at least it's hard for her to contact you I mean she can find you probably right right but so what happens right

02:28:59um

02:29:04What happens when your mother doesn't get her way in her will what happens when her mother

02:29:08Doesn't write you what happens when your mother can't send you money. What happens when she feels rejected?

02:29:13She freaks out. She she escalates. She escalates. Yeah, right and then you're in an unknown situation

02:29:21Yes, cars pass the driveway people at work at the playground. Like you you you're scared, right?

02:29:28Yes, you take the money

02:29:30to prevent escalation

02:29:33right

02:29:36Which is fine, but just be honest about it

02:29:40That's why when you said I feel so ashamed it's so terrible it's like I don't know that

02:29:45Maybe this is a minimization strategy. I'm not going to argue with you about it. You know your mother infinitely better than I do

02:29:52But you take the money

02:29:55So that you keep her in view and she's not escalating

02:30:02Right

02:30:05Now again i'm you know, maybe that's a strategy you can talk about with your husband and say look I mean

02:30:10I'll you know, we'll take some money, you know, hell we'll give it to charity. It doesn't like but

02:30:15But but if we take the money we have to know why we're doing it

02:30:20Now

02:30:21the reason I said it's emasculating for your husband is that if

02:30:25Your husband who's supposed to protect your family

02:30:28Is having significant bills paid by his wife's child abuser who's unrepentant

02:30:34Then you are crippling his ability to protect the family

02:30:38now

02:30:38wife on the other hand you say well i'm taking this money because if I don't it's going to really

02:30:42Escalate and it is protecting the family to take this money. That's a different matter, right?

02:30:46right

02:30:55And maybe it reduces the stress

02:30:58And and it's more clear if you say yeah, i'm gonna take the money. All right. Yeah, i'll take the money, right?

02:31:03and that's kind of this

02:31:04You know if you have some sorry if you have some shady, you know

02:31:09soprano

02:31:11Mafia uncle who insists that you take some money

02:31:15You take the money

02:31:17Right, you don't want to offend the guy and have his goons, you know set fire to your house or something, right?

02:31:22Right. So it's like, okay

02:31:25Um

02:31:27So there was the money aspect why I went that was definitely

02:31:33Something was there with that

02:31:35that um

02:31:36with appeasement and but

02:31:42I I felt a sort of trapped feeling too around

02:31:48um

02:31:52Like that I felt that I was being

02:31:54like

02:31:55philosophically inconsistent, I mean

02:31:59That I wasn't allowed to talk

02:32:01To them to like my sister and my mom like I felt there was like a feeling I wasn't allowed to do that or something

02:32:08so

02:32:09and

02:32:10it has come up over the years of my marriage, especially when I was like pregnant and like emotional like I would

02:32:16kind of like

02:32:18Want my mommy sort of thing?

02:32:22But I

02:32:23You know my husband and I always talked about it i'm like no no, no, that's not right

02:32:26you know, no, you don't want to do that right now, you know, it's

02:32:30um, she's terrible, you know, but this time it was sort of a

02:32:37Almost like a rebelling against my own

02:32:40You know pseudo defu I know it wasn't a full defuse since I still was in contact with her

02:32:46Um

02:32:49I don't know if this makes any sense at all. I just

02:32:52I felt like I wanted to push back against that own sort of

02:32:57It felt like I was in a cage or something like I wasn't allowed to

02:33:01And I forgot I was like forgetting how

02:33:04Terrible she was and then like the gaslighting thing was happened. Like I wrote this essay all about her

02:33:10Her abuse and I shared it with my half-sister and my half-sister

02:33:14No, this is true. I appreciate the speech, but

02:33:18This is this is easy to solve

02:33:20This one's not complicated, okay

02:33:23Good

02:33:25But it's you know, not gonna be fun. All right, so

02:33:29You have two kids, right?

02:33:31Yes. Okay. How old is your oldest?

02:33:34Six, okay, so let's say that

02:33:42You get a babysitter

02:33:44For your children and obviously someone you've added and so on right seems to be reliable and and you go away

02:33:49For your romantic weekend with your husband, right?

02:33:53And

02:33:55You have security cameras on your house, right as most people do and you see

02:34:02Your babysitter doing to your children what your mother did to you

02:34:08Screaming at them shaking them threatening them

02:34:14Your children

02:34:19Would you have any ambivalence

02:34:23About your future relationship with that babysitter. Would you be like well

02:34:28You know, she is cheaper than the others

02:34:32No to be out of here and she I mean she's never admitted fault

02:34:35In fact when I criticized her for screaming at and shaking my children and terrifying my children

02:34:42In fact, she screamed at my daughter so much. My daughter fainted and she continued to scream at her

02:34:49And she doesn't admit fault she says it was my children's fault

02:34:53It's my children's fault. They pushed me to my limit. It's their fault

02:34:59Would you hire that babysitter again

02:35:01No way. No. Nope. Never

02:35:04So why are your children worthy of protection for something that happens once or twice?

02:35:09And you're not worthy of protection for something that happens hundreds of times

02:35:13You were your children. You understand that right? You really get that deep down

02:35:18You were the same size and same vulnerability and same helplessness and same defensiveness as your children

02:35:27And your parents abused and neglected you

02:35:33What if you came home and the babysitter just hadn't fed your children

02:35:38And they just kind of foraged and

02:35:41Eating stuff they found in the fridge and tried to do their best, but she'd never bothered to make them any food

02:35:48Yeah, that would be horrible

02:35:51So why are your children special and precious and you're not?

02:35:59Why would you never allow an unrepentant child abuser around your children, but you will around you

02:36:09See that's what I can't understand especially now that you're a mother

02:36:14You

02:36:15Were your children I was your children and younger and more helpless

02:36:25You were them

02:36:29And you'd never allow an abuser around your children would you

02:36:34If they kept abusing your children

02:36:37And they would beg and plead and say please mommy, please don't have her come babysitter. She's terrifying. You're like shut up kids

02:36:45Daddy and I are horny. Oh

02:36:49You wouldn't do it in a million years, would you

02:36:52No

02:36:53Now what if the babysitter said hey, man, I miss your kids. I'll give you 500 bucks

02:36:59You don't even have to pay me. I miss screaming at them. I miss shaking them. I miss frightening them

02:37:04It's great fun for me. Here's 500 bucks

02:37:07Sell me your children

02:37:10Yeah, no, no way but it's 500 bucks, okay 5 000 bucks

02:37:1650 000 bucks. What is the price to let people abuse your children?

02:37:25You know, there's no there's no price there's no price I wouldn't let that so what's the price for you being abused

02:37:33And this is your husband's conversation, there's no price

02:37:40Oh

02:37:43Air conditioning. Well, guess what our ancestors lived for hundreds of thousands of years with no air conditioning at all

02:37:50I'm not gonna take air conditioning at the expense of your mental health

02:37:57Right, I mean if you had

02:38:00The babysitter let's really

02:38:02Extend this analogy right your babysitter becomes an expert at repairing air conditioning and she says hey, man

02:38:07I'll come repair air conditioning, but you gotta let me scream at your children and shake them

02:38:12Mm-hmm. Would you say? Yeah, that's him. Yeah, okay

02:38:16Yeah, i'm hot man. I got i'm sweating. Yeah, you come abuse my kids, but just fix my air conditioning

02:38:22Would you make that deal

02:38:24No

02:38:25And your kids traumatized frightened shaking crying passing out

02:38:30I say mommy, why did you do that? You say it was hot

02:38:34Kids you have to suffer because I was you know, I was sweating

02:38:42Would they say oh, yeah mommy that makes sense. Yeah. Okay. We'll do it again if you need to

02:38:49Your children

02:38:55I okay so here

02:38:57I'm stronger that like i'm an adult i've been i've

02:39:00I'm stronger that like i'm an adult i've been i'm going to therapy i've been learning, you know

02:39:06so many strategies for

02:39:08assert assertiveness and

02:39:11I felt like I would be able to handle

02:39:15I know so handling abuse is not

02:39:17I thought I could handle it like I thought I would I was so different now

02:39:22that

02:39:23I could

02:39:24Handle talking to her

02:39:26Talking about these things. Okay

02:39:31But what signs did you have

02:39:36That the conversation would work

02:39:40I mean if I run off a cliff and say I saw a flintstones cartoon as pretty as her I could fly

02:39:44People would say we have no evidence for that

02:39:47So what evidence did you have that you were not going to be retraumatizing yourself

02:39:53By trying to get your mother to see

02:39:56the truth

02:39:58When she would just lie to you and gaslight you

02:40:01Yeah, so what evidence did you have?

02:40:04Right. We don't just act blindly, right?

02:40:07Right. We don't say, you know

02:40:09i'll try

02:40:11Driving with my eyes closed and see what happens

02:40:15I'll try putting my hand in the blender right we we think ahead of time, right?

02:40:20So what evidence did you have that your mother had changed?

02:40:24Well, she

02:40:28She wasn't a grandparent when

02:40:32When I last saw her and she's expressed over the years, you know

02:40:37Wanting to

02:40:39See the kids wanting to

02:40:41Have a relationship with them. Um, okay, that's you know, it's not evidence of any change. What evidence have you had?

02:40:47that she

02:40:49Owned the wrongs that she did and wishes to make amends

02:40:52I had no evidence. No evidence. Okay, I had no evidence. You had no evidence now

02:40:57Do you know what the most traumatic thing that you did was it was not?

02:41:02Being yelled at by your mother or being gaslit by your mother

02:41:07The most traumatic thing you did was making it your fault and your responsibility to fix this relationship

02:41:14That's what your mother managed to do you understand she's putting the demon back on you

02:41:18You understand she's putting the demon back on you

02:41:20Because you said i'm going to go and have a successful relationship with my mother or a successful conversation with my mother

02:41:27And that means that you believe it's possible. Now if something is possible

02:41:31And you fail at it that's on you, right?

02:41:36So by seeing your mother

02:41:38You are saying

02:41:40I am now taking on the responsibility

02:41:43To have a good relationship with my mother

02:41:46Hmm it's my responsibility. It's my fault. It's my doing

02:41:51It's on me

02:41:52And what that means is

02:41:54You are now

02:41:55Setting yourself up for total failure

02:41:59Yeah

02:42:00That's not the first time

02:42:02Because your mother wants you your mother wants you to do that and she's very clear about that

02:42:07If there's bad things in the relationship, honey, it's your fault

02:42:10If I screamed at you and yelled at you and hit you it's you did something. It's your fault

02:42:15Right, so you are replaying that it's your fault. Your mother is a

02:42:20Violent and abusive and neglectful mother you're saying it's my fault

02:42:24If I approach the conversation this way or that way or I do this or you know

02:42:27I've got i've got 500 keys. One of them's going to open this lock. I'm going to sit here until they do

02:42:32Oh, shoot. I've gone through all five. I must have missed one. I'll start again

02:42:36Yeah

02:42:39Before I read our real-time relationships, I'd actually had tried to have a

02:42:44I used non-violent communication in vc. I tried that method with her. Yeah that failed too

02:42:51That was awful. You don't there's there's no there's no lock. There's no key. You're you're just you're grinding

02:42:58imagination into a brick wall

02:43:00Thinking you can make a door

02:43:05Now

02:43:09The reason why i'm bringing all of this up and bringing your children into it

02:43:13Is because I think my friend that you have the belief

02:43:18That you know when I said if there's a babysitter who's cruel to your children

02:43:24You'd say

02:43:26Well, no, I wouldn't have anyone harm my children now

02:43:29You understand

02:43:31That your mother is getting to your children through you and you're letting it happen. In fact, you're making it happen

02:43:40Because your parenting

02:43:42is less

02:43:44When you're screwed up about your mom

02:43:46You're less emotionally available. You're less relaxed. You're less spontaneous. You're less fun. You're less engaged. You're less playful

02:43:55So your mother

02:43:57Is causing your children to suffer

02:43:59But you're choosing that

02:44:02This is self-indulgent bullshit, my friend. You cannot do it because it comes at the expense of your children

02:44:09You cannot indulge your fantasy of fixing your mother because it harms your children

02:44:17You are you are still inviting the babysitter into your house over and over and over again

02:44:25And you have to stop

02:44:30It's not your fault

02:44:32Your mother

02:44:33Is not your fault. Your mother was broken beyond repair by choice and circumstance

02:44:39Long before you ever showed up

02:44:43You're like a surgeon trying to resuscitate a corpse that is roman

02:44:52It is a fantasy that is your mother's fantasy not yours and this possession is because of a lack of boundaries

02:45:01The sign that your mother

02:45:05Might be worth talking to

02:45:08Is she

02:45:09initiates the healing process

02:45:12Talks to a therapist tries to figure things out goes through this makes it about you tells me

02:45:17Tells you to tell her more about what happened and is open to you and empathetic to you

02:45:21And wants to know about your experience and your thoughts

02:45:26And that is never going to happen

02:45:29Yeah, never it's like expecting somebody to hit their head and wake up speaking japanese who's never been exposed to japanese

02:45:36It's not going to happen

02:45:40And you are still indulging

02:45:43the fantasy

02:45:44That you're responsible

02:45:47For this and you can fix it

02:45:49You're not and you can't

02:45:55You're trying to talk your mother into regrowing her arms and like if she had no arms, right

02:46:02Right

02:46:04She cannot recognize your separate existence

02:46:08Because if she could she wouldn't have abused you right you recognize your children's separate existence, right?

02:46:13Yes, do you abuse them?

02:46:16No, of course not because you love them

02:46:19Yes

02:46:20Now I know it's hard to imagine

02:46:23But if you screamed at and shook and terrified and hit your children

02:46:28For 20 years

02:46:31Do you think you could just flip and care for them?

02:46:39No idea you'd be hollowed out there'd be nothing left inside like it would be absolutely impossible

02:46:45Yeah

02:46:47Asking your mother to grow a conscience is like asking her to be five again

02:46:53Well, if I just talk to her about how great being five is she can be five again

02:46:59Time goes one way and evil doing

02:47:04Scours the personality and destroys any vestigial capacity for empathy

02:47:13Your mother would probably rather die than admit fault

02:47:18And she went she has no observing ego anyway, because otherwise she would have at some point said holy crap

02:47:23I'm, really not doing right by these kids, but she never has right

02:47:27She's no observing ego no conscience that's functional

02:47:32She will never see you she will never change

02:47:37And you're still taking this ownership

02:47:39And you're still taking this responsibility and you're still saying I can fix this like, you know, there's this joke on the internet, right?

02:47:48That some woman is arrested for all these terrible things, but she's pretty

02:47:54And what are the guys joke about

02:47:57That she it's the way with it. She's no. Oh, sorry. They say I

02:48:03Could fix her. Oh

02:48:06Hello, right. I

02:48:08Mean, it's true. She did beat three puppies to death

02:48:12But she's pretty I can fix her

02:48:16Right, and of course you've heard all of these

02:48:19you've heard enough call-in shows right and all these stories of the men who

02:48:24Try to fix their wives their girlfriends, sir, right never happens never works

02:48:30right

02:48:33And those are chosen relationships your mother is not a chosen relationship you never chose to have her in your life

02:48:42Now your husband is probably a very nice man as well, right he is okay niceness is lovely

02:48:53It really is I like it's nice to be nice to the nice

02:48:58My mantra it's nice to be nice to the nice

02:49:00Yeah, the people who aren't nice

02:49:03Get zero protection from me and zero consideration

02:49:09Like you gotta earn this stuff, right? Mm-hmm

02:49:14I'm in a monogamous relationship with virtuous people. I

02:49:19Don't cheat on them by being nice to corrupt people

02:49:21Yeah

02:49:25So you all right, okay, tell me how how Frank do you want me to be here at the end?

02:49:33Play it on me stuff. All right, take it you my friend inherited the bad habit of playing on your husband's sympathy by being sad

02:49:43Yeah, I want to be in touch with my mother it makes me sad I need my mother

02:49:46Oh, and by the way, maybe we can go and have romantic relationships away. I'll appeal to your testicles

02:49:52Maybe we can have more sex. Oh and but I'm really sad again. Oh, come on

02:49:58Yeah, come on. Tell me that's not happening

02:50:05Yeah, yeah and he's a nice guy right so he wants you to not be sad and he also might want a romantic weekend away

02:50:12Or whatever, right? Yeah, we definitely want

02:50:15That I get that so you play him

02:50:20To get what she wants, yeah

02:50:25Now he should be of course, hey, I'm sorry that you said but the answer is not

02:50:34To hang with your wife and try to fix your mom

02:50:38Yeah, right. So so you're relying on his niceness and his consideration for your feelings to get what you want

02:50:43I'm not saying a hundred percent. But this I think there's that in him

02:50:46Yeah. Oh, yeah, there is

02:50:48So yeah, I mean listen, this is not this is not for you that your husband can listen to this, right?

02:50:53Yeah, don't do that

02:50:55Don't be played

02:50:57Because here's the thing

02:50:58Her father was played, right? And so you don't want to be in the category of the woman's father

02:51:05Right in general, right?

02:51:07but in particular if the father was weak and

02:51:11You've viewed your father as weak right because he was like to explode in rage after suppressing and conforming that neither of those is strong, right?

02:51:18Yes. Yeah, so don't don't be anywhere near the category of her father now her mother

02:51:25Uses emotions and fake tears and crying and this and that the other and I'm not putting you

02:51:29I'm not saying you're the same as your mother like I understand that right? Mm-hmm. Yeah, but

02:51:35This is how how do women get what they want sometimes? Well

02:51:39They're upset knowing full well that the men who love them

02:51:45Will do almost anything to stop them from being upset, right?

02:51:49Yeah

02:51:51And

02:51:53Don't use that

02:51:56Yes, sir, don't use that

02:51:59That's a great way to have that consideration dry up. And if the man ever feels like wait a minute I

02:52:05Just got played based upon my care for this woman's unhappiness and sadness. Oh

02:52:12My like there's this moment of existential horror where it's like, oh my god. I got played based upon my caring

02:52:23Because it's not helping you. Mm-hmm. You are stressed you are distracted you are

02:52:32Less emotionally available

02:52:34Yeah, you are sad. It's not helping. Mm-hmm and

02:52:39Because your husband is a very nice guy, which again I appreciate and you know, that's that's the strength but can be a weakness

02:52:46He'd be like, hey, you know what? We tried it and it's not working

02:52:51But I but I'm sad it's like yeah, well and yeah, okay, so

02:52:57You

02:53:02So be sad, hmm, yeah feel the emotions

02:53:07Yeah, but we don't wallpaper over your sadness by having you be in touch with

02:53:13You know this this woman who makes our family's life worse. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm, right? It's not best for your kids

02:53:21You

02:53:23Right, yes, and that's that's all you need to know

02:53:28Thank you so much staff for this this was a really helpful call

02:53:31Thank you so much. And you know, I've used your a you're welcome and be you know

02:53:36I'm I'm I'm saying this in jest because I obviously don't you're not in the same category as your mother by a million miles

02:53:43But we all have some of these bad habits

02:53:45Yeah, I definitely have

02:53:48I do too. I do too

02:53:50I can be a little grumpy at times and and all because I know people are very sensitive to that and I just have

02:53:54To watch myself. I mean so just you know, I'm not obviously

02:53:57Oh my god. He's just like he says it's just like my mom. No, I mean, it's not a million million miles of difference, but

02:54:04Because I was trying to figure out like why would your husband not just say well, this was all a bad idea

02:54:08So let's stop that right and it's like because I'm sad. It's like so yeah, don't yeah. Yeah, don't do that

02:54:14Okay, is that a

02:54:17Good place. I think we should probably stop right along long. Yeah. Thank you so much for the call stuff

02:54:22It was it was very helpful. You are very welcome. Listen, lots of big hugs and love to you and your family

02:54:28Congratulations a millionfold. I do love hearing it when the show is produced families and

02:54:34Please please please keep me posted about how it's going. All right, I will thank you. There's anything I can do again

02:54:39Just let me know. All right

02:54:40Sounds good. Thank you

02:54:44All right, I just wanted to say something here at the end before I forget so this lovely and fine young lady

02:54:51She was saying well, I've gone through therapy and and therefore I should be able to be around my mother, right?

02:54:56That's not the purpose of I'd want to say therapy like therapy therapy, but like healing the purpose of healing is

02:55:03To deal with the trauma

02:55:06Not to put you back into it

02:55:09Right, so if some guy's been at war for years right and and and blood death guts murdered

02:55:16horror sleeplessness

02:55:18Right. The purpose of dealing with his PTSD is not so then he can go back to war but so that he can live in

02:55:25peace

02:55:26the purpose of

02:55:28healing is

02:55:30So that you can live with the damage not that you put yourself back into damaging situations

02:55:35If you break your arm the purpose of getting your arm healed is so your harm is your arm is is fixed and whole

02:55:42It's not so you can go back and rebreak your arm

02:55:46Right, like I remember many years ago

02:55:49When I cracked my forearm falling off a bike, I went to the doctors and I'm a pretty good patient, right?

02:55:55He said do this do that do the other and I did all of it and I healed pretty quick

02:55:58But when I was there

02:55:59He was talking to some other patient and this guy was like my arm keeps hurting and it's like well

02:56:03What happened while I went skydiving and the doctor was his yelling at him like don't come to me to fix your arm and then go

02:56:08skydiving

02:56:10right, so

02:56:11the purpose of

02:56:13Healing is to make you whole

02:56:16Not to put you back into a state of retrauma

02:56:19So I'm so I'm so bulletproof now. I can go get shot again

02:56:25It's like no you got shot and you heal it but not so you can go get shot again, right?

02:56:29That's not the purpose. I just want to mention that and again really appreciate this

02:56:33Ladies conversation. It was great

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