"Hey Stefan I have been married to my wife for over a year and half and we have a 9 Month old child together. My primary issue is near constant fantasies of being with other woman and an overall feeling of being unattached from my wife and child. I mean I love them, I also feel like I could take them or leave them. Just to be clear I have taken zero steps towards any kind of cheating, no dating apps, no sending messages to woman or talking to other woman nothing of the sort. I do watch pornography which I am ashamed of, but I am unable to stop myself at this time. My wife tolerates the pornography use but obviously not thrilled about it. Our marriage has taken some hits this year, car wreck in Jan, I have changed jobs 3 times in the last year and a half. Our son was in the hospital for a week 2 of which was in the ICU. Yes, my wife has threatened to leave me and take my child and apart of me wants to tell her to just go ahead. She feels life with me is too unstable and I understand her reasoning. I am reaching out to open my childhood experiences and see if I can free myself and become the great husband and father I believe I am capable of. Thank you for your time."
0:00 - Introduction
4:33 - Family History
12:15 - Car Accident
18:25 - Father's Schemes
21:37 - Mom's History
27:01 - Living with Father
29:59 - Grandmother's Role
1:13:36 - Family Dysfunction and Corrosive Money
1:20:11 - Chaotic Household and Busy Days
1:28:03 - Emotional Connections and Dissociation Land
1:37:47 - Mother vs. Father: Understanding the Dynamics
1:43:37 - Redirecting Focus and Asserting Needs
1:50:09 - Confronting Lies and Seeking Apologies
1:53:54 - Explosive Reactions and Conscience Struggles
2:05:51 - The Last Attachment
2:14:12 - The Costs of Avoidance
2:32:46 - The Price Tag of Connection
Stefan takes a call from a listener who opens up about struggling with persistent fantasies about other women despite being married and having a child. The listener recounts a tumultuous childhood marked by their father's involvement in drug-related activities, including introducing their sister to crystal meth and facing legal issues. Stefan guides the discussion through the listener's experiences, such as car accidents, a house raid, and the eventual suicide of their father. Financial support from their grandmother and their father's various schemes contributed to a challenging and unpredictable upbringing for the listener.
The caller shares a harrowing account of their chaotic youth, highlighting early exposure to pornography due to their father's habits. They delve into their mother's troubled history, including embezzlement and a brief prison term. Stefan explores the ramifications of shielding individuals from the consequences of their actions, pointing out the enabling behavior of the listener's grandmother towards their father's drug abuse. The conversation underscores the necessity of accountability to prevent further harm and examines the dynamics of the caller's family, emphasizing the destructive impact of enabling destructive behaviors in loved ones.
Discussing the profound impact of trauma, Stefan stresses the importance of not trivializing or dissociating from past challenges when sharing personal stories. He emphasizes the significance of addressing emotions tied to past experiences, highlighting trauma as a warning mechanism signaling danger. Stefan encourages the caller to confront their trauma as a crucial step towards healing and establishing a sense of safety. The conversation delves into the complexities of processing deep-seated trauma and underscores the importance of acknowledging and learning from past experiences without diminishing their gravity.
Exploring the enduring effects of trauma on relationships and behaviors, Stefan highlights the need to recognize and honor one's trauma without dismissing it. The caller reflects on their journey through addiction, family dysfunction, and the corrosive influence of generational trauma. Stefan expresses dismay at the caller's brother for introducing drugs at a young age, condemning the long-term harm caused by such actions. The dialogue delves into the caller's battles with substance abuse, family dynamics, and the arduous path to recovery, shedding light on the interconnectedness of trauma and personal struggles.
In a poignant exchange, the host tackles the caller's relationship with their mother, delving into past trauma and family dynamics. Despite emotional outbursts and deflections, the host pushes for honesty and accountability from the caller and encourages them to address unresolved feelings and confront their mother about past issues. Themes of responsibility, truth, and the intricate nature of familial connections surface in this candid and vulnerable conversation, urging the caller to navigate difficult truths within their family dynamic.
Stefan underlines the significance of engaging in honest conversations with a cold and manipulative parent, advocating for cutting off contact if necessary to maintain emotional well-being. The caller shares insights into their complex relationship with their mother, prompting discussions on financial matters and familial loyalty. Stefan challenges the caller to prioritize self-protection and transparency in relationships, urging them to confront familial issues honestly. He stresses the transformative potential of taking responsibility for past actions and fostering genuine connections through self-awareness and accountability. The conversation emphasizes the importance of addressing underlying issues to cultivate a positive future for the caller's child and break harmful patterns.
[0:00] Hey, Stef.
[0:01] Hey, good morning. How you doing?
[0:03] Good morning. I'm all right, thank you.
[0:06] Excellent. Well, welcome to your call. And if you want to just jump in, I'm all ears. How can I best help?
[0:14] Yeah, so I will start by reading what I wrote. Hey, Stef, I have been married to my wife for over a year and a half, and we have a nine-month-old child together. My primary issue is near-constant fantasies of being with other women in other women and an overall feeling of being unattached from my wife and child. I mean, I love them. I also feel like I could take them or leave them. Just to be clear, I have taken zero steps towards any kind of cheating, no dating apps, no sending messages to women or talking to other women, nothing of the sort. I do watch pornography, which I am ashamed of, but I am unable to stop myself at this time. My wife tolerates the pornography use, but obviously not thrilled about it. Our marriage has taken some hits this year. I had a car wreck back in January of this year. I've changed jobs three times in the last year and a half, and our son was recently in the hospital for a week, two of which of those days was in the ICU. Yes, my wife has threatened to leave me and take my child, and part of me wants to tell her to just go ahead. She feels life with me is too unstable and I understand her reasoning. I'm reaching out to open up my childhood experiences and see if I can free myself and become the great husband and father I believe I am capable of. Thank you for your time, Stef.
[1:33] I mean, I appreciate that. That's very frank, very honest, very open, and I'm sure we can do some good stuff with this topic. So, just what happened with the car crash, by the way?
[1:47] Yeah, so I was driving to work. Someone made a left turn right in front of me. I couldn't stop, and I slammed straight into their passenger side. It was an adult, a woman, and a child in the car in the passenger side backseat, unfortunately. She was about 12. That girl might have some nightmares. mares um but i'm i'm okay for the most part went to physical therapy did all that i've got a lawyer so i've gotten open case and all that kind of good stuff but i open case meaning.
[2:19] That you might be charged.
[2:20] Uh open case in that um a lawsuit like a personal injury lawyer uh okay and that's to.
[2:28] To because you're concerned about being sued or because you are going to sue.
[2:33] Because i'm suing um i've had a number of car accidents and i've learned over the years to just lawyer up lawyer up lawyer up that's not legal advice that's just what i've learned to do just to make sure i get all my medical care taken care of and okay so obviously it.
[2:50] Was the the woman who was turning left was the one at fault she was turning into your lane.
[2:54] Yes it was a male and yes Yes, I was in the farthest right lane. They were making a left into a plaza. They didn't see me, and they were making the left, and I T-boned them.
[3:06] Okay. And were people in the other car? What happened to them?
[3:16] Yeah, so there was a woman in her 20s, the male driver was in their 20s, and a girl that was about 12 in the backseat, is basically where I hit was to where she was at, unfortunately. I think they were okay. All of us were able to get up and out of the car and talk to the police and ambulance and all that. I have prior injuries to my neck, though, from a previous accident, which is why I'm really worried and why I went by ambulance to the ER, got a complete medical workup done and all that.
[3:53] Right. How many car accidents have you been in?
[3:58] Probably like 12, 13.
[4:00] No, come on. What do you mean?
[4:02] Really, with friends, yeah. Friends and family.
[4:07] No, no, I mean, and not that you've been in, I guess that you've been driving.
[4:13] Oh, and driving? Like four or five that I've been driving.
[4:19] Hmm. Hmm. All right. I bookmarked that. We'll come back later. Okay. So... Uh, and, uh, are you in your thirties?
[4:31] Uh, I am mid thirties.
[4:33] Mid thirties. Okay. Uh, all right. So I assume if you've been in 12 or 13 car accidents, there's a lot of chaos and dysfunction in your family and friends.
[4:44] Yes.
[4:45] Lay it on me. Hit me. Give me, give me your, your, your T bone of history.
[4:51] Yeah. Yeah, so I have five older brothers and sisters that are all half. I'm the half-breed. We all share the same mother, but they have a different Sorry.
[5:05] But half-breed, what do you mean?
[5:08] So we all share the same mother, but I have a different father. Okay.
[5:15] But you don't mean racially, you just mean in terms of family, right?
[5:19] Just in terms of family, yeah.
[5:21] Okay, I was just curious. Go ahead.
[5:23] Well, I suppose that could also be classified as racially as well. We'll get more into that. Good question. Sure. So my five half-siblings are all 10 plus years older than me. And then my mother divorced that man. My sibling's father met my father after that. I don't know the exact timeline. My father at the time had just got done doing five years in the federal penitentiary for the selling, distribution, and manufacturing of cocaine. They met at a bar. Hard to put all the pieces together, but basically, they were together for eight years. I was born their sixth year of being together. they were never married um, My fatherso they were togetherI was born when they were together during their sixth year of their relationship, is my understanding. My parents split up when I was two years old. I was taken to go live with my grandmother. My father I'm sorry.
[6:45] How old ishow old is your daughter? Or your child?
[6:50] My child is nine months old.
[6:52] Okay, sorry, go ahead.
[6:53] Yeah. So my parents split when I was two, and I was taken by my grandmother out of the house. My father started using substances again, or maybe stopped using. My mother, I think, began drinking again, so both of them felt it was not a stable place for any child. All those children, my siblings went to go live with their father. A couple of them were in college by that time where I'd moved out of the house. I was raised mainly by my great-grandmother, my grandmother, and my aunt from age two to about five or four. Before, my mom would come and visit or she'd see me on the weekends or I'd go spend like a weekend at her house here and there. My father was kind of in and out during that time as well. He would come and visit but then have to leave. I'm assuming because he was still participating in his drug abuse. Yes.
[7:59] Um, so I didn't really know my parents. Um, and I kind of feel like this weird kind of only child slash adopted child. Um, eventually it got so bad, I guess, for my dad that my dad called, we went to go pick up my dad, um, in a different part of the state, bring him back to our house. House my father lived with us my father did not work um he would take me to school pick me up from school um my father was a very angry person now part of that could have been unbeknownst to me of him going on and coming off drugs um my father also had a bunch of like weird beliefs like aliens bigfoot um if stuff was disappearing you know quote unquote disappearing or missed around the house he'd go around saying at the house that it was a ghost that a ghost was messing with him um so that that was weird to grow up with to say the least um a one incident of violence that i specifically remember so my dad didn't beat me he had anger but it would just be this his face he would pucker his lips it would look like his eyes were going to bulge out of his head and that was like frightening and it was kind of frightening to everyone in the house um.
[9:26] But there's a specific time where he was grabbing something out of the fridge i had some grapes or something in my hand and my dad does this back kick to me with his leg out of nowhere completely random i fly off my feet and slam my head into the kitchen counter i fall down to the ground and i start crying and my dad just starts laughing at me he's like get up get up i barely kicked you like and and my dad thought it was the most hilarious thing in his entire life um and And he would tell the story, he would tell it as, oh, I barely kicked you, you cried so hard, it was so funny, you were crying and you dropped your grapes, it was hilarious.
[10:15] Yeah, it's like typical addict thinking that all their pain is genuine, even though it's self-inflicted, but all the pain they inflict is exaggerated and not real.
[10:27] Yeah, yeah, that would describe my dad very well. And that was the only time I remember him being physical with me when I was younger. Now, we did get into a conflict when I was 16. There's a lot that happens before this, but I'm just trying to cover this direct violence where my dad refused to take me to school.
[10:52] And the reason why he refused to take me to school was because I refused to help him get an item on a video game.
[11:02] I'm not even kidding. That is the exact stated reason. Because the night before, he wanted help to get the special item on a video game. I had gotten it on my save file. He hadn't gotten it. And he was upset about that, that I didn't help him. So the next morning, he refused to take me to school. school and i told him well if you're not taking me to school then i'm gonna leave i'm out of here i'm tired of this um i walk out of the house out of our front door he chases me down he pushes me or i push him um he doesn't hit me but like we're shoving back and forth um i call a friend to come take me to school i go to school that day while i'm at school i call another i call my mom to come pick me up that day i pack up my clothes and stuff and trash bags and i leave that house and i didn't see my dad for a couple of years after that uh some other chaos points in my upbringing at age nine um our house was raided for substances um like legit i was there um like Like a mailman or someone comes up to the house, knocks on the door.
[12:15] I open the door, and like seven vans show up. There's police with guns drawn. They've got the drug dog sniffing through all our stuff, opening our drawers.
[12:28] My dad's putting handcuffs, put out on this porch. I'm sitting there. I'm on the porch. I've got my hands behind my back. The cops tell me don't move, don't even breathe. breathe um sorry how old.
[12:42] Were you here.
[12:43] I'm about nine when the house gets raided, uh by the police uh i go to my i go with my dad to the jail um you know they're like have you ever seen your dad use drugs you know all that kind of stuff no i'd never actually seen him use anything i you know i'm completely sorry did you uh did.
[13:05] You have i mean is there supposed to to be a child advocate when you're talking with the police.
[13:09] Uh no there wasn't um oh so they just they.
[13:14] Just literally the police are interrogating a nine-year-old for material evidence against his own father no really that's wild i.
[13:21] Thought they had to.
[13:22] Have protective services i thought they had to have a child advocate and all that and wow.
[13:27] No i don't remember that at all maybe that's maybe that's just tv.
[13:31] Policing i don't know.
[13:32] Sometimes not.
[13:34] Quite the same.
[13:35] That's how i I remember it.
[13:38] I'm not doubting you. I'm just, I'm just, wow. Okay.
[13:41] Yeah i remember them like what is this what is that so now you can relate to this a little bit so my dad was into gold mining so he would take me up to like the canyon um in our state to go gold mining stuff like this wait sorry do you mean like.
[13:57] Just like he would be there in the river with a with a um shaker or.
[14:01] Yeah yeah with panning box with panning he taught me how to pan for gold and stuff like which is not quite mining i mean unless he's digging i guess but all right, digging with a shovel if that counts so but do.
[14:18] You do you know what happened to your dad after the raid when you were nine.
[14:21] Yeah so he spent three days in jail um i think i helped him out because what they caught him on which i don't know if he was ever officially charged was He had these containers of mercury, the chemical of mercury, and he would use that to extract the gold out of copper wiring or something like that, or out of rocks, I guess. If you put mercury on, it extracts it. So they're like, why does he have all this mercury? And I told him, because that's what he had told me about the gold. And so he basically got off with no charges.
[14:55] Oh, and they didn't find any drugs, I guess.
[14:57] They didn't find any drugs, no.
[14:59] Wow.
[15:00] Yeah.
[15:01] Okay. So they had just been tracking his purchases of mercury or something.
[15:06] We don't know. So my aunt was also living with us at this time. So his half-sister, my aunt, whom he introduced to crystal meth, his aunt, or his sister, he introduced his own sister to crystal meth. She was using at the time, too. um she was i'm sorry how how.
[15:29] Do you know that your father introduced his sister to crystal matt.
[15:33] Uh they both confirmed it with me later in life okay go ahead yeah uh and, and his thought is that she called the cops on him his thought is that one of someone he other knew called or her thought was that he called the cops on her, his thought is that she called him on him and so when we got back when he got back he was really upset with his sister um i remember them having a few different violent like on the ground where he would push her down on the ground and just start swinging at her face hmm, uh just over that um there's a lot of chaos here uh.
[16:27] And was your father i mean sorry do you know if your father was uh dealing drugs at this period i mean how did you know i'm sorry to to be all kinds of like uh i guess middle class or whatever but it's always my like how do people i was always terrified of anything like that like drugs and stuff because it's like i gotta pay bills i get to get to work you know so i i've never quite understood like how do people have all of these crazy chaotic lives without ending up living under a bridge i mean i guess there's welfare and stuff that never really seemed like and welfare never really seemed quite real to me when i was younger um because you know as a male um you don't really you know maybe for women if you have kids or whatever right but so i guess i mean how did he how is everyone living how are they paying their bills and their taxes yeah so.
[17:19] My grandmother had a really good job and my grandmother supported all of us um.
[17:27] What did she do i.
[17:28] Honestly don't know what she did um i i know the company that she worked for was some financial institution um so my my grandmother support us us all um really really well.
[17:44] Oh boy that's quite an income.
[17:47] Yeah i mean there was nothing for want i mean my dad was also a smoker and so like you know like a chain smoker like two two and a half packs a day and so by.
[18:00] Sorry you say my dad was i mean i assume with that kind of life this is all the past tense is he dead yeah.
[18:07] So my father committed I committed suicide when I was 19.
[18:10] All right. So you don't know if he was... I'm sorry, I would like to give you my condolences, but I can't really feel them. So... Yeah. So do you know he was just living off your grandmother? Is that right?
[18:26] Yeah, he would have these occasional schemes, like the gold mining, quote-unquote, was a scheme to make money.
[18:33] Gold panic. Gold panic. Yeah, yeah. Unless he's in Minecraft, it's not gold mining. Anyway, sorry, go on.
[18:42] That was a scheme. He was also a hoarder, so our house slash our room, I should say, was filled with random stuff that he'd swear he would fix up and sell. Our backyard, i.e. my grandmother's backyard, had two steel sheds filled to the brim. You couldn't get in them of just random stuff. We had two fridges, not working fridges in our backyard. It was Beverly Hillbilly style.
[19:17] Oh, it's like that old joke about the Arkansas state application. Number of cars on bricks in the front yard, three, four, other. There's no zero option. Okay.
[19:31] Right, yeah. He had bought a 1955 El Camino, because that was the year that he He was born swore up and down. He was going to get it fixed. Um, the thing would never stop like catching fire, you know, whenever we go out to drive it. Um, he'd have random people stay at the house. I remember there was this homeless woman living in like her car in our backyard for a while too. You know, he'd have friends, I guess his druggie friends come and stay, you know, on our couch and stuff like that too. So, um, of chaotic stuff me and my dad shared a room in a bunk bed and that's where i got locked.
[20:10] Up in a sense with a druggie.
[20:12] Oh yeah oh my god and that's that's how i got exposed to pornography probably at age like six seven oh your dad introduces.
[20:22] His sister to crystal meth at his little boy to porn.
[20:26] Well i don't think on well the the porn was probably not on purpose but i had to find i I mean.
[20:32] It doesn't just wander into your room and start playing on your screen, right?
[20:36] Well, I'd woken up in the middle of the night and I'd seen pornography on the screen. You know, my dad thought I was asleep. And, you know, from that point on, you know, if my dad went to do whatever he did and I stayed home sick from school, I would go through the room, find the pornography and watch pornography while he was gone. And then put it back and all that stuff right you know put the tapes back uh so that's that's kind of where that starts really uh that and my dad in our room had posters of you know women in lingerie you know women and thongs things like that and in in our room right uh so there was that as well and you.
[21:24] Didn't have any contact with your mom is that right.
[21:27] Um, I'd see her on the weekends. So my mom would pick me up. So I would see her, like, I would stay with her like Friday night, Saturday night, and then she'd bring me home on Sunday.
[21:38] Day and my mom was clean at this time uh my mom just had my mom's issue so my mom was married three times um of course the first to my sibling's father um after that to this guy i don't really remember too much i think he was a cop and then to from and then from druggy to cop excellent.
[22:03] Yeah and then finally this guy who was a felon or like an ex-felon he was a pretty cool guy though he was clean uh before him and his mom got together they they me him and my mom got together they were in aa together and that's where they met uh he had a hell of a rap sheet though uh but at least the time i knew him he was a good guy what ended up happening they were together for 10 years or married for 10 years uh because of his previous substance use he got cancer and passed away um my mom had to have been like 55 or so at the time and so my mom hasn't remarried or dated or anything since i think after that death my mom kind of really started to deteriorate on her own oh the fun part about my mom is though is that she did have a 10-year history of embezzling money from the company that she worked for um like a thousand dollars here and there over a period of like 10 years so what ended up happening is that the company went under and so she.
[23:18] Basically parasited that company into oblivion.
[23:23] Ish she was part of the problem um the feds got involved they you know went through all the records and all that stuff they found this missing money tied it to her so my mom went to jail for a couple of weeks when i was 14 or a couple of weeks yeah because my stepdad spent a bunch of money on like a lawyer to like get her out and all that uh so she steals for.
[23:49] 10 years and she goes to jail for a couple of weeks.
[23:53] Yeah wow and on top of that she sued that company for uh disability due to like carpal tunnel syndrome so she's still so she's still getting payments from that company that went over so she stole from them and she sued them and still continually getting payments from them now you are.
[24:14] Uh laughing about this stuff and i mean you've got a generally completely unemotional way of talking about this stuff, which is kind of disconcerting, just to be honest with you. Like, it's kind of alienating. Because, I mean, this is all just absolutely horrible stuff, right?
[24:30] Yeah, it is absolutely horrible. I feel that the weight of it is so strong that all they would do in this call is just cry, instead of being able to give you information.
[24:43] Okay, and what is wrong with... I mean, one of us is going to end up crying. It It should be you because it's your history, right?
[24:51] I mean, that makes sense. I've shed a lot of tears. Like when my mom went to jail, I spent like a week or like two weeks crying. So I feel like I've grieved it already.
[25:05] Hang on. So why did you cry? And I'm not saying... Nothing I'm saying here is going to be judging. And even me saying it's kind of weird to have all this unemotional conversation about these absolutely appalling things. You know, like, ha-ha, my druggy dad believed in ghosts, and, you know, ha-ha, my mom sued the company she stole from, right? I mean, that's not a criticism, you understand, at all. I'm not, like, saying, oh, that's wrong or bad. I don't mean that at all. And so when I ask, like, why did you cry when your mom went to jail? Was it her sadness? Was it your sadness? Like, what was going on? And I know it's hard to remember, probably hard to remember, but what were these tears for? Yeah.
[25:51] Haven't i been through enough.
[25:53] Right, okay like.
[25:57] Really mom you couldn't just not steal like that's.
[26:03] Okay so it wasn't it wasn't for your my poor mother i and i i'm not again just curious what your emotional experience was so it wasn't like oh my poor mother the jailbird or it was like man can't this ever stop and it doesn't stop, right? It doesn't stop, because when you're down in this layer of society, there are no good people.
[26:22] Yeah.
[26:23] Right? It's all hell down. This is trash planet, right? I mean, I've sort of used that term before, but there's just no good people. And I mean, I get there are wounded people, this, that, and the other, but it's, you know, when they start really harming and messing up kids and drop-kicking kids across the room or whatever it is, then I run a little bit out of sympathy.
[26:47] Yeah trash planet but born and raised i mean yeah.
[26:51] Well yeah not raised born and survived right nobody raises you there you just try and find a way to survive right.
[26:59] Yeah more accurate definitely.
[27:01] So the it was kind of a matriarchy as far as i understand it there weren't other than maybe some of your dad's druggie friends there really weren't males around in this environment outside of your dad because you're talking about your aunt your grandmother mother and and so on right so yeah yes so what and your grandmother i suppose was somewhat functional because she had this high-paying job or whatever right so what were they doing locking you in a room in a sense with a insane drug guy your dad like what were they why didn't they you force him into rehab or why like i'm trying to sort of understand like what the hell was the thinking with all of this that that you end up in a room with your dad like for how long Did you live in the room with your dad?
[27:47] Till in my teens so until my aunt left due to her substance use my aunt left i think a part of it is oh this is the crystal meth yeah okay i think a part of it well first of all i think there's a layer of denial from my grandmother i don't think she could ever admit that her son my father had that deep of a problem what oh come.
[28:16] On i mean there's denial i get i mean i get that there's a denial aspect to life but i mean that's what i mean he's a hoarder he's he's in he's talking about bigfoot and ghosts and demons and whatever the hell like he's doing drugs he's like Like, his car's catching on fire when he drives. Like, I mean, that's not, I don't believe the denial thing. Honestly, I mean, I hate to sort of jump in with your memories, but like, there has to be plausible deniability. If you're going to claim denial, right, like, let's say you have a guy, he's a high-functioning alcoholic, right? Like, he's the partner in a law firm, and he makes half a million dollars a year or a million dollars a year. But you know he also drinks a bottle or two of wine every night okay there's some denial there right because it's plausible but how on earth could is it possible for, denial to be operating with regards to your dad that can't be denial, Denial has to have something to cling on to, right?
[29:34] Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of speechless. I don't know what was going through my grandmother's head. I think doing the best she could. I know that's totally a non-answer. I'm speechless. I haven't judged myI mean, I'm not saying judged, but I haven't objectively taken a look at my grandmother Okay.
[30:00] So why haven't you judged your grandmother?
[30:04] Because she's, like you said, the only high-functioning person No.
[30:08] But that was a disaster, The fact that she was making a lot of money was a total disaster It couldn't be worse, Do you know why, right?
[30:27] Give it to me, Stef.
[30:29] Well, she's paying for everyone. She's keeping people from getting rehab, from getting jobs, from, you know, like what is it that cures addiction for a lot of people, or at least Blunt's addiction is you've got to get a job. You run out of money. You can't buy drugs. You're living under a bridge. you hit rock bottom.
[30:59] I mean, if people who take drugs don't learn from the drugs, the cost, the damage they're inflicting on others, then how do they learn? Well, people only learn through reason or suffering. That's it. Reason or suffering. That's how people learn. Right some people are like well i gotta maintain my health because x y and z and some people are like oh i just had a heart attack i suppose i'll clean up my diet and by preventing suffering you're preventing cure.
[31:39] Like imagine imagine if if you know i don't know someone's got some big problem with their heart and they get huge chest pains well then they go to the the ER. And now, imagine if there's someone can wave a wand and that person doesn't feel any chest pains. Well, what happens? Well, eventually, I suppose, the widowmaker busts and their heart just explodes in their chest and they're dead. To numb negative feedback is to consign people to hell. I mean, one of the reasons I stayed away from any of this stuff, and it was around, like I've never taken any drugs, it's just a basic rational calculation well I gotta get to work and if I start taking drugs my expenses will go through the roof.
[32:36] And I'll have a tough time making money. And I didn't want to live on the streets. It's Canada. It's cold as a witch's tit, right? Half the year. So because of that fear of consequences, because I never viewed welfare as a real thing. I've always viewed welfare, I mentioned this sort of earlier, and I'm sorry, I don't want to make this about me, but I sort of viewed welfare as a female thing. Right because i mean all of the women who i knew sorry all the people i knew on welfare were women, right the single moms and and under the people with oh you know disabled but they can still garden you know all this kind of stuff right so uh welfare was just a girl thing it was a female thing and as a male i just i just it never really crossed my mind oh well i can you know there's it's always welfare or whatever, right? So because I didn't have access to, I don't know, free government money or whatever, right? And I had to get to work and I was broke because I was paying my own bills since I was 15 and I didn't have grandma throwing money at me. I had to keep my shit together. I couldn't wander off the path. I had to stay on the strict and narrow. That also meant I couldn't afford bad food.
[34:05] I couldn't go to McDonald's. I had to eat cheap. Eating cheap often means eating well. My friends would be out there getting a meal and I'd have two bananas. Right? So, your grandmother having all of this money was a complete catastrophe because she handed out the money to drug addicts. which means she sabotaged the living shit out of her family. Here, drug addict, take some money. Oh, that's going to go just great. That's straight up sabotage.
[34:45] And she knows that your father is a father. So she's like, for you, right, what does she do? She's like, hey, you go live in the same room as a drug addict who's random and chaotic and God knows what, right? And watching porn with a kid in the room, right? Right? So, she's like, I'm going to pay for this drug addict to kind of be half locked up with his son, and he's not going to have to worry about paying the bills, and he's not going to have to worry about getting clean, and he's not going to have to worry about living rough. I'll keep him comfortable I won't have any standards for his behavior I won't say okay I'll pay your bills man but you gotta do like weekly drug testing and the moment you fail you're out on your ass, and also you've gotta do work around the house you've gotta get a job you've gotta clean this hoarding shit up, you know hey I'll pay for therapy if that's what you need.
[35:56] But there's no standards here at all that I can tell. Maybe I'm wrong about that. You can certainly correct me. But your grandmother's money was a complete disaster because that was the real drug. The real drug is giving free stuff to irresponsible people. No standards, no requirements. The real drug is the money. The illegal drugs are the effect. The cause is the money.
[36:30] Sorry for the long speech, but that's why your grandmother's money was, like, the worst thing in the world for your family. You guys would have been way better off if she had had any standards or requirements for all the free stuff. She was addicted, I assume, to sabotaging her kids. And when you shield people from consequences, you make them worse. I mean, look, it's good when, this is the female impulse, right? The female impulse is to shield people from consequences, because babies can't learn by falling down the stairs, and toddlers can't learn by walking, like tripping and falling into a fire. So, women are programmed to prevent consequences. This is why I was pointing out how all-female your environment was, right? So, women have an instinct to not have people suffer the consequences of their own bad choices because women are designed for an endless cavalcade of babies and toddlers, right? They have a whole bunch of kids and by the time they stop having kids, their kids have kids and look at that, there's a new cavalcade of babies and toddlers. And that's how we evolved. For them to say, I'm not going to let you suffer the negative consequences of your own bad decisions because you're three years old.
[37:55] And so, but that instinct gets really pathological when you got druggies around. Well, I can't let them suffer the consequences of their own bad... Oh, and, you know, that's why they vote for the welfare state and the single moms, and, oh, she didn't save her for her retirement. Let's give her Social Security. And, oh, she had three kids by three different guys. Let's give her a lot of money. We can't let her suffer the consequences of her own bad choices. Oh, no. Right? Because that's the female instinct. And I think it's great. There's no problem with that female instinct. Things except when it's combined with political power or with an income in this context right, so yeah uh a complete catastrophe uh that the in my view my view right your family would have been infinitely better off if your grandmother had attached any requirements but women generally have a tough time doing that right i mean we all know this right that that uh that's why you need men around, right? You need men around so that women don't treat everyone like a toddler for their entire fucking lives.
[38:56] Yeah and my mom is totally doing the same thing with my brother right now like the exact same thing.
[39:04] Oh she has negative consequences and it's nothing to do with love it's just because the women feel kind of anxious and unhappy if people are suffering and i get that again your babies and toddlers yeah you you don't let the baby uh learn self-discipline by not feeding it because the baby just dies right so i get all of that but it's got nothing to do with caring for others I mean, outside of the baby and toddler context, it's got nothing to do with caring for others, right? You know, and do you understand this? Like, the moms are like, you know, knee pads and elbow pads and helmets and like, because the kid is, and it's like, no, they'll fall. They'll be fine. They'll learn how to manage risk and, right? They're not going to die, right? So, anyway, we'll get to, was it your mom and your brother? Is that right?
[39:53] Yeah.
[39:54] Okay. Do you want to start talking about a little bit like what happened with you and dating and teens? Because I mean, there aren't exactly, there's not a big overflow of quality women around, right? Or girls to date.
[40:09] Yeah. I mean, so I started drinking at age 14 with a friend of mine going to parties, drinking by the bottle, basically.
[40:20] Basically uh okay so now now this this i'm sorry to interrupt right after you've yeah just started talking but okay tell me tell because you you saw all the addiction around you right, yeah and who who was drinking in your environment your mom right.
[40:39] Well my mom had gotten sober close to like when i started being around her again so like age three Three or four, she had been sober for a couple of years.
[40:50] But you saw a lot of addiction, right?
[40:53] I saw the consequences of. The only addiction I actually saw was smoking. Because everyone in the house, like my father's house, my grandma's house.
[41:04] You knew your father was a drug addict, right?
[41:07] No, I didn't learn this until later. He had hit it really well. Well, to a child, he had hit it really well. I don't know about to anyone else. This is all stuff he had told me before he passed when I was like 17. Okay.
[41:22] All right. So you had no idea your dad was a drug addict?
[41:25] No. I knew my dad didn't work. My dad constantly complained about back pain from a previous back injury because he had fallen off some scaffolding or something like that. And the victim story of the day he was supposed to go to court for that lawsuit for his disability, his dad's funeral was that day. So he had to go to his dad's funeral and couldn't reschedule that court date. So anyway, one of those victim stories, which I barely believe now that there was nothing he could do.
[41:57] Oh, yeah, of course. Listen, I mean, people miss court all the time. And courts are kind of loathe to just go around arresting people. And if you've got your father's funeral, you just say to your lawyer, tell the court, it's my father's funeral, and we'll have to reschedule. And the court would reschedule, I'm sure.
[42:13] Yeah. So anyway, that was the story that I was told as to why my dad couldn't work or didn't work.
[42:18] Okay, so you weren't around, you were around, I guess, heavy smokers, but you didn't see people drink, and you didn't see people do drugs.
[42:25] No, I didn't.
[42:26] Okay, got it.
[42:27] That is true.
[42:28] Okay, so that makes a bit more sense then. Okay, so then your friend is like, let's drink alcohol.
[42:35] Yeah, hey, let's go to this party.
[42:38] Yeah, if you can stay off names, that would be excellent. I'll make a note of that, no problem. Okay so you say you're 14 and you're like yeah drinking sounds good now so did you what was your thinking around the drinking right somebody says let's drink and did any part of you say uh you know life is not that great i'm not sure drinking will help no.
[43:02] I didn't have that instinct or thought whatsoever it was.
[43:05] Hey let's try and you're laughing about all this stuff right Like, you're kind of inviting him into a comedy when this is a pretty murderous tragedy and horror show, right? And I just, I really, really need you to stop doing that, if you don't mind. Because it's really, really weird. Like, ha ha ha, I started drinking, I didn't have a sense of self-preservation. Like, that's not funny. I mean, I'm not trying to be mean at all, right? And I have great sympathy. But you can't do this. It's funny shit. it. Like, I just can't have that conversation at that level. And I mean, no, I'm not trying to criticize you at all. I'm just saying, I can't do that. Because that's incredibly disrespectful to the suffering you experienced as a child to laugh at it. And again, I'm not trying to be heavy here. I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying, I can't have that conversation in that weird way. It's not that you're doing anything wrong, of course, and I don't mean to imply anything like that. I just can't do that. I can't laugh at your suffering as a kid.
[44:27] And I really don't know how to go through it. I've heard other calls, and I know it's a rule, but it's not like a rule. It's a rule.
[44:39] No, it's just an empathy thing. I can't laugh at the brutal abuse and suffering of a child. I can't laugh at it. Like, I can't.
[44:52] Yeah, I will try to do better.
[44:55] Okay, so you said, I don't know how. I mean, you've known we're going to do this call for a while, right?
[45:00] Yeah.
[45:02] So, did you, and again, none of this is a criticism, I'm genuinely curious. Did you say to yourself, well, you know, I'm going to have a real habit to giggle about this stuff, right? So how am I not going to do that? Or are you on automatic pilot over the course of this conversation?
[45:20] I'm on, I'm disassociated when I'm going into these memories.
[45:26] Okay, so do you think that's helpful or unhelpful?
[45:30] I think it's unhelpful.
[45:30] To our conversation. I'm sorry?
[45:33] It's unhelpful.
[45:35] Okay, and again, it's not a criticism, but why wouldn't you say I should try and stay connected while talking about this stuff? Because I got one shot with Stef, and I don't want to waste time with all this dissociative giggle, lofty stuff, right? And again, not a criticism, I'm just curious what your planning was for the call, or are you aware that you're doing it? And you're certainly aware that I don't like and won't giggle at a child's brutal abuse. use. So, I mean, we've been talking for like 50 minutes, right, almost? And, I've had to sort of do the please don't giggle stuff a bunch of times. Well, I think twice, right? So, I suppose, what's the plan for our conversation? Are you going to stay this detached and dissociated? Because then we should probably reschedule for a time when that's not going to happen.
[46:34] Because you're an experienced listener, and you kind of know that I'm not going to support that, right? I mean, it would just be horrible for me to join you in giggling at your massive and horrendous abuse. So, is your plan, and there is a plan, right? I mean, you're here on time and you know that the call's coming. So, if your plan is to stay this dissociated, we should probably reschedule until you can make a commitment to not. I'm not saying you've got to stop the whole time we're talking, but not this. Not this. So if you can make a commitment to stop doing this, in the call, great, we can continue. If you can't, then we reschedule to a time when you can because I'm not going to spend the next hour wrangling you out of, freak-ass comedy land because none of this is funny at all.
[47:43] I think if i slow down it will help.
[47:46] Okay because what i need is the emotional content i don't i mean the facts are the usual grim parade of fucked up stuff but the emotional content is where you and i can have a conversation about this not in this speed run of sick comedy comedy. And again, I'm not in any way critical and I'm not trying to nag you or anything like that. I just, I'm just telling you what I need in order for me to help you.
[48:26] I think I'm just frightened, Stef.
[48:29] I know, I know.
[48:31] Of these events, and I've told myself, I've been to therapy, I've sobbed, I've listened to you.
[48:45] Then you should be able to, if the emotions are resolved, then you should, and this isn't, again, like some moral thing, right? But if the emotions are resolved, you should be able to talk about things. You know, I mean, you hear me talk about my childhood, and I'm trying to hold myself self up as some kind of ideal here but you've heard of me talk about my childhood i don't make it funny but i'm able to talk about it with a relatively clear in a relatively clear direct fashion now you know i'm more than 20 years older than you so there's that as well right that's that's important but if you have resolved some of the emotions then this shouldn't be the giggle fest speed run right especially because you know i really don't like that and won't participate in it and i already reminded you once and again i know this sounds like if i've told you what i don't mean i just this is how detached you are from the narrative right and again i'm with with sympathy i understand why but but no i'm still not going to participate in it that way so tell me more you're you're frightened of what.
[49:56] I'm frightened that it's just too much, if that makes sense.
[50:03] Yeah, yeah.
[50:06] I'm frightened of not being able to change. I know you say we're not rocks rolling down a hill. I feel that my hill is so bumpy, so steep, that the connections in my brain are already so deep. I don't know how to get out of this perpetual chaos.
[50:34] Okay, but the problem is that you're not connected in your brain. The problem is the avoidance. So, I'm going to just spend a minute or two here, because I really need to frame this for you in a way. So, there's a general theory which says, well, if I experience too much suffering, I'm just forever broken, right? Like, I went through too much, and my brain is broken, and my soul has fled my body, and I'm an NPC of, you know, comedy, tragedy, or whatever, right? That's not my particular view. my particular view is i mean assuming you live.
[51:18] There's no such thing as irrecoverable trauma as long as you don't inflict it on others and especially children and again we all make mistakes and do things that are kind of mean or whatever but I'm you know like a big thing like a consistent thing right so to me feeling dwarfed by your trauma is giving it too much power the trauma is just right if you learn the lessons.
[51:57] Right so what is the trauma here for like why does it exist why Why does it exist? Well, the trauma exists to warn us of danger. I still remember when my mom went camping with one of my mom's boyfriends. I think it was at a camper or something. And I remember he had a propane lamp. And I needed to move it because I was reading a book. And I picked up the propane lamp at the base, not at the handle. And it burned my forefinger and my thumb. and I remember putting it in flour and then butter to ease the pain. But it hurt. I also remember when I was a very little kid, maybe like four or so, going on a hike in Ireland with my father and my aunts and there was a nettle and somebody said, that's a nettle and I was curious. So I put my two fingers on the nettle and, you know, it stung and it hurt and all of that. Now, you say, oh, that's trauma. Well, I mean, to trauma, what is it? It's a negative experience. But the trauma exists to warn you. Of danger. Now, when you laugh at the trauma, it can't warn you.
[53:11] It's like the dream you have where you're trying to warn everyone that there's a big wave coming or the city's on fire and everyone just laughs and thinks you're joking. Because you're trying to warn people and they're laughing at you, so you can't save them.
[53:30] So the trauma, it's not like some embedded skeleton in your brain that you can't possibly dislodge without destroying your mind. The trauma is the path to safety. The trauma is, oh my God, did we ever experience some deep evil? As children, we experienced some deep evil. Now once the trauma has taught you how to be safe the trauma, relaxes but as long as you are still in danger the trauma will not relax the trauma will not leave you alone because its sole purpose is to lead you to safety and if you stay in danger the trauma cannot relax you cannot relax if you won't connect. See, people think, oh, if I connect with the trauma, I'm going to be sad and tragic and sorrowful and go crazy or like there's just madness, madness and horror and it's going to eat me alive. And it's like, no, no, the trauma is just there to lead you out of hell. And if you laugh at the trauma.
[54:53] Then there's someone trying to lead you out of hell and you're laughing at them and burrowing deeper. Well, if your trauma didn't care about you, it would leave you be. But your trauma keeps coming back, saying, there's a way out, there's a way out, there's a way out, there's a way out. And you laugh, which I understand. You know, you learned how to deal with your trauma in many different ways, and these are all survival mechanisms as a child, but when your father kicked you across the room, you were very clear about that. Do you remember what you said about that? What was his perspective on kicking you across the room?
[55:41] He thought it was hilarious.
[55:43] It was the funniest thing ever, right? Now, what are you doing with your trauma? It's the funniest thing ever. It's the same as your dad, right? Which you had to, you know, had to ally with your dad because you were locked in hell with a porn and drug addicted, half deranged, whatever, right? Psycho. Whose entire existence was an assault on your brain. Oh yeah, there's ghosts, man. Oh, Bigfoot, aliens. Aliens stole my Buick. Right, this is all a direct assault on your reality processing, a direct assault on your brain. Demonically possessed dad was trying to disassemble your brain to match his broken state. And he couldn't escape his trauma because he laughed at yours. And I won't have you do the same thing because I don't want you to end up like your dad. Your dad laughed at your trauma, laughed at his own, and I won't. Because, you know, we both know what happened to your dad. I'm not saying it's going to happen to you, but it's a pretty bad end, right?
[57:09] Yeah.
[57:13] So, you can't, you say, and the reason I'm saying all of this is what you said. It's you, you said, I'm trying to catch you, right? But what you said was, I'm indifferent to my wife and child. Eh, stay, go, or whatever, right? So, you can't be closer to people than you are to your younger self. He's the barrier, right? If you're distant from your younger self, who can you be close to? If you reject yourself, how can you be close to others? If you're unimportant to yourself, how can other people be important to you? If you have no loyalty and bond with your younger self, how can you have a loyalty and bond to your family? Your current family. Now, I understand...
[58:02] Why you would have this dissociation, of course. Because there's no, like, you can't connect with your trauma, since your trauma is designed to protect you, you can't connect with your trauma as a child because you cannot be protected. Right? If you'd woken up to how absolutely horrifying and unbearable your life was as a child, you probably would have jumped off a bridge. So you when everything around you is horror, you detach in order to survive it's called dissociation right people being tortured like I floated above myself like it's a way to drive your soul out of your body if you can't protect yourself you might as well dissociate, you have to, if you can't stop the pain turn off the pain but turning off the pain turns off a whole bunch of other things it's like that master a switch in the basement of a house. There's no individual switches. Oh, I'll just turn off the microwave and the upstairs bathroom lights. One big power thing. I turn off my connection. I turn off my trauma. I turn off my horror because I can't be protected. So you go into hide, hibernation. You freeze your heart waiting for spring, right? But to spring is sympathy.
[59:28] So, why would you accept your trauma, which is designed to get you to safety, when it is absolutely impossible to get to safety? Because you're a child, and you can't escape. And no one's coming to save you, no one's coming to help you, nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. I mean, you went to school, you had friends, relatives, nobody gave a shit, nobody helped you out, nobody said, my God, you can't have this boy in with a drug addict father in the same room? Like, nobody said anything like that. that everybody's just chiseling and lying and stealing and embezzling and smoking and throwing money at screwed-up people in order to screw them up even more.
[1:00:13] So I truly understand why you'd end up laughing at your trauma, but when you laugh at your trauma, you're saying, I can never be safe. I can never be safe. And that's why I can't participate in the laughing at trauma, because then I'm saying the trauma, like the violence wins, the evil wins, there's no safety, there's no security, and you have to be a child locked in with a crazy psycho addict for the next 50 years until the day you die. And I won't. Your trauma can lead you to safety. But you've got to start respecting it and listening to it, because it's there to help. Does that make sense?
[1:01:06] Yeah, that makes sense. I'm having difficult, like I'm kind of stunned, I suppose. I think I'm just feeling the feelings now.
[1:01:21] Okay, and what are you feeling?
[1:01:27] You said something about the absolute horrific what I had gone through. And I appreciate that level of acknowledgement. Acknowledgement. And I think one of my problems is I think there's very few people out there that can empathize with that heavy of a load. Load you know i've seen therapists and no one's ever said you were a child locked in a room with a drug addict like no one's ever hit that before.
[1:02:17] Now i'm again i'm sorry to interrupt and i'll keep this very brief, so it's not quite true that there are a few people who can sympathize with your load the problem is most people don't have philosophy they don't have a commitment to truth so they will follow your lead so if you're laughing about it they'll laugh about it they don't have an independent way to evaluate what went on with you so it's not that they just well, i have to end up laughing because nobody can carry the load because you laugh about it and turned it into a kind of comedy, and I'm not saying all of this, right? I mean, it wasn't all of it, right? But, you know, where it happens, right? And particularly when things get dark and you laugh. So, most people don't have any standards by which they will communicate. They just follow other people's lead, right? So, if somebody's, you know, these typical stories, right? You know, hey, no really great stories ever started with, and I had a salad, right? So people are like, yeah, I started drinking, and then this crazy stuff happened, and then we were fleeing from the cops, and then the car went into the lake. The people have all of these crazy stories that they are constantly inviting everyone else to laugh at, right? And you can see this in these dark stoner comedies. Like, yeah, isn't it really funny when you don't have a job or a future and you're an addict?
[1:03:46] Right? right? So, it's not that, so I hear those kinds of stories and I'm like, well, how is this funny? I literally do that. This is why I stopped getting invited to parties, thank God, right? Because I'd be like, well, that's not funny. How is that funny? You wrecked a car, you put people in danger, you harmed your health.
[1:04:12] You know, like this guy I once knew, his big claim to fame was he fell asleep at a party holding a beer. Somebody tried to take the beer because it was tilting and he woke up, hey, that's my beer. Right? And this was considered like cool. You know, look, he's just so focused on drinking. And I'm like, that's a sad story. Like he's so desperate for a beer that he only wakes up if somebody tries to take his beer.
[1:04:39] Like that's an addict. that's not funny but if you point that out everyone gets mad at you right, everyone's like you gotta know how to lighten up man you don't know how to have any fun you know this is a these are cool stories and it's like no they're sad stories they're really sad stories.
[1:05:00] A cool story would be yeah I saw this woman screaming at her child and I stepped in to help the child that's a cool story, that's an edge case that's dangerous stuff that's exciting stuff up not i i got so drunk i i threw up on a cop's shoes it's not a cool story that's i poisoned myself so it's not that people can't sympathize with you it's just that most people would just follow your lead and i'm not blaming you it's just that what do they know right they don't have any standard by which they'd say, oh, this is really sad. And they've got their own avoidances, right? So, if you have... This is the sad thing about life. If you have sympathy with yourself, a lot of people will have sympathy with you. If you laugh at yourself, people will just like, okay, I'll just laugh at it, right? They don't have any... They're programmed, in a way, by your approach to it, and they don't think of anything different. Does that make sense? It's like the world is totally cold and there's no sympathy. It's like, if you don't have sympathy for yourself, people will just follow that lead. Most people. If that makes sense.
[1:06:10] Yeah, that makes sense. And I think one thing I love about my wife is she has standards. You know, she knows about my past and she's like, yeah, I don't think your mom should come live with us. Yeah, I don't think, you know, I'm sure if my dad was around.
[1:06:29] Sorry, when was your mom supposed to come live with you?
[1:06:32] It's just this idea being punted back and forth in my family.
[1:06:38] And sorry how long have you listened to what i do since.
[1:06:43] 2016 or so.
[1:06:44] All right look at that nice cozy eight years okay so uh tell me a little bit about your relationship with your mother, no listen it's almost like a growl that you got through your nose there.
[1:07:02] I've communicated to her how deeply hurt I was about her going to prison jail.
[1:07:14] What, the couple of weeks?
[1:07:16] Yeah.
[1:07:18] Well, that's one grain of sand on a whole fucking beach, isn't it? But sorry, go on. I'm interrupting you very rudely. My apologies. Sorry. Please go ahead with the rest of your... It's just I was surprised you'd start with that. But go on.
[1:07:39] And, it's I didn't completely defoo I kind of halfway but you.
[1:07:52] Had a conversation I'm sorry to interrupt you, you had a conversation with your mother about what happened to you as a kid, yeah you talked about her going to jail and what else i.
[1:08:04] Think it was just focused on that i i think just getting on that you know she she went into tears and hysterics and i was like this this is not going to go anywhere so.
[1:08:18] You talked about your suffering and she dissolved into self-pity and narcissistic woe was me right yeah yeah okay so nothing ever happened from that and how long ago did you have that conversation six.
[1:08:38] Or so years ago it's it's been a been a while.
[1:08:41] And you uh and none of this is a criticism obviously and i'm sorry to i don't want to sound like you're some sort of egg that's going to easily break i just want to make when i'm asking questions a lot of times it sounds Sounds accusatory, right? So you had one conversation with that, and your mother never brought it up again, and you never brought it up again. And then what happened with the relationship from there?
[1:09:06] Uh i moved out a few years after that conversation oh so you were living with.
[1:09:11] Your mother into your 20s.
[1:09:13] Like yeah mid-20s uh late 20s okay i was living with my mother my brother roommate in the same house perpetual chaos you know so um.
[1:09:27] Did your is your mother still living off the carpal tunnel stuff or what how does she pay her bills you.
[1:09:34] Know social security Carpal Tunnel. My stepfather had a pension from the state job that he had.
[1:09:41] Oh, so government money and Carpal Tunnel money from the company she'd stolen from for a decade. Oh, God.
[1:09:50] That's so corrupt.
[1:09:52] Anyway, okay. All right.
[1:10:00] And i i i had some health issues starting at age 20 like these severe chronic migraines that made it difficult to keep full-time employment uh oh man so much more and sorry this is in.
[1:10:15] Your early 20s.
[1:10:16] Yeah okay i had these chronic horrible migraines we didn't talk much about.
[1:10:20] What What happened, and I'm sorry, this is my fault, not yours, because I went on a tangent, but, well, maybe not a tangent, hopefully not a tangent, but you started drinking at 14, and what happened with drinking and other stuff in your teenage years?
[1:10:36] So at age 16 i left my dad's house uh and went to went to go live with my mother my brother introduced me to marijuana so i started drinking and using marijuana at age 16, and my brother Sorry.
[1:11:00] This is one of your half-brothers 10 years older or was this something else?
[1:11:03] Yeah, this is my half-brother that's 10 years older. Yeah.
[1:11:10] And then at age 17 he introduced me to ecstasy and ketamine. I went out to parties with him and started using harder drugs and I was an addict myself from age 16 to age 30.
[1:11:38] I mean, off and on with different substances, but age. I just quit marijuana in 2022 as a condition of me and my wife getting married. She's like, you got to stop smoking weed. So I did, and I haven't looked back, but various experiences with various substances up until that point. When you talk about my grandmother's money being corruptive, when my grandmother passed away in 2007, my dad got her retirement, 401k or whatever, and it was a lump sum. And he spent half of it on alcohol, drugs, women. In then he passes and i get what's left of the money it was about uh sixty thousand dollars, and i gave so sorry your dad burned.
[1:12:42] Through a couple of hundred thousand dollars uh before he killed himself.
[1:12:46] Probably about 20 30 grand something like that in a period of six months okay and then i burnt you know i it took me longer like 10 years or so i mean part of that was spent on education but i burned through another like 60 grand or so not working doing drugs i had a girlfriend that became my wife at the time so this is my second marriage uh, And so I just wanted to piggyback on that, my grandmother's money being corrosive, like it was from start to finish, my grandmother's money was corrosive.
[1:13:37] Right, okay.
[1:13:38] So living with mom from age 16 up through, what got me out of there was A, I got healthy. I had quit the harder substances, the harder drugs. I'd stopped going to raves and parties. I got full-time employment. I did divorce my first wife. Uh, and it was fights with my brother mainly. I just couldn't take his dysfunction, him abusing his kids, yelling at them. A lot of stuff parallels what I went through growing up.
[1:14:25] Sorry, this is the asshole who introduced you to marijuana and then, uh, harder drugs when you were in your mid-teens?
[1:14:35] Late teens. So like 16, 17. yes.
[1:14:37] Well, 16 is mid. I mean, you're still a child.
[1:14:40] Right? Yeah.
[1:14:42] So he handed over drugs and encouraged a child to take drugs.
[1:14:51] Yeah.
[1:14:53] Sorry, why is there a pause there?
[1:14:58] Feelings.
[1:14:59] And what are the feelings?
[1:15:03] Anger, which I think is right. Anger. He knew my parents' history, and yet it's not like his life. He's a layabout, pretty much. A straight loser.
[1:15:21] So what does he live on?
[1:15:24] Mom. He lives off mom.
[1:15:27] Oh, God. Okay. All right. I mean, to me, there's nothing bad enough that can happen to people who give drugs to kids. You know, like if you just said about this guy, oh yeah, no, he fell off a ladder and he's in chronic pain, I'd be like, good. Good, I hope it hurts. I hope it hurts more. I hope it gets worse. You know, my daughter is 16, right? Sorry, my daughter is 15, which is, you know, a year shy of when this guy's getting you into drugs.
[1:16:11] Yeah, and he got many teenagers into drugs.
[1:16:17] Yeah, just an evil corrupting force.
[1:16:27] Sorry i feel like i've gotten lost somewhere.
[1:16:29] No no i i just wanted to find out what happened in your teens with the drinking so you spent uh what 14 years on drugs yeah.
[1:16:41] About there if you i mean i know you count it so yes including the regular use of marijuana.
[1:16:46] Which is a drug yes all And on the harder drugs, how long? 10 years? I'm sorry, I just wanted to make sure I get that roughly straight. It doesn't have to be perfect.
[1:16:58] Like 7 years or so, as far as regular use. And then it would be like, you know, I'd go see a friend and he would have picked something up, so I'd do like a couple of lines.
[1:17:13] And no work, right?
[1:17:17] Uh i was going to college at the time uh about i i through all this chaos i did get a bachelor's degree and a master's degree through all this chaos uh psychology of all things huh.
[1:17:35] Okay and did you end up using it in any way.
[1:17:37] Yeah um i have done therapy with with other people I've run intensive outpatient groups. I've done intakes.
[1:17:47] Sorry, we don't have to get into details. I was just asking. Okay. Okay. So, I mean, you really have no excuse to be laughing at your trauma, do you?
[1:17:58] No, it's the exact same thing I tell my clients.
[1:18:01] Okay, got it, got it.
[1:18:03] They tell me terrible things. Yeah.
[1:18:06] All right. So, but not a job, right? right i say working you say school school is not working right yeah.
[1:18:14] Not a job yeah there was a good 10 years there where where i i didn't work i mean.
[1:18:21] I think i have you what would you i mean just genuine curiosity you know like i i have three shows today i'll be working on the peaceful parenting book i got a call with you i got a call at one i got a live stream at seven and you know Maybe I'm working a little too hard, but what do you do when you don't have a job? I assume you didn't have any big hobbies. What do you do with your day? Is it like video games and videos or what? What do you do?
[1:18:51] I mean, I think, Me and my girlfriend, who became my wife, we'd go use some drugs, go hang out at the mall. We would go to a party. We'd go over to a friend's house because my friends didn't work either. So I had another friend that just so happened to come in some money because a relative of his died as well. So we would hang out all the time because both of us kind of felt like we had money and we could just not work and just kind of party. And my girlfriend at the time, she would work for her mom's business like some days too. So my girlfriend would work for most of the day and then I would do like my schoolwork. And a chaotic household does require a lot of work to keep clean, help nieces and nephews with homework, babysitting nieces and nephews, getting calls about my sister being in an argument with her boyfriend. So there's a lot of other chaotic stuff that keeps you busy.
[1:20:11] Right. Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay, so we were talking, there was a thread there that my brain will sort of scamper back and circle back to pick up shortly. But tell me about your relationship with your mother as you were moving through your 20s and early 30s.
[1:20:53] A lot of me just not acknowledging how horrible she is my stepfather would legit say my mother is an evil woman an evil evil woman he when she didn't get her way a screamer, crier, cry bully, as you would say, just completely unchained and then would fall apart into depressions of just laying in bed or only playing solitaire on the computer or these computer games you know and having dogs or pets that she would barely take care of, and just that well i i've got to stay here because i'm not working uh yes i have a bunch of money but i don't have a job so i'm smart enough not to commit to moving out which in retrospect was actually a not intelligent sorry she said.
[1:22:04] I didn't have a job but what so i.
[1:22:07] Have to i was talking i was talking about myself about how i had money but i didn't have income so to me, you know it's cheaper to stay here and that that's the sacchar you know that's that's price that i pay for staying there right and not taking that money and moving out or oh yeah it was like the most.
[1:22:27] Expensive money of your life right it cost you like 10 years.
[1:22:29] Right away right Right.
[1:22:32] But good for you for getting the education, of course, right? Let's not forget that. I don't want to gloss over that. That's like half a decade, right?
[1:22:41] Yeah. So that's really saving my butt right now is me having my education, actually. Right.
[1:22:51] And why does your stepfather, what does he have complaints about with your mother that he says she's an evil woman? Like, what is his experience?
[1:23:05] Just there was no reasoning with her. Again, like that matriarchy. Just my mom ruled. I'm trying to think of a specific example. You know, my stepfather would like to go to the swap meet and bring things home from the swap meet, you know, little trinkets or whatever. But, you know, my stepfather made the money. You know, that was like his hobby, you know, woodworking, guitar, playing music.
[1:23:40] Sorry, what is a swap meet?
[1:23:42] A swap meet I mean.
[1:23:44] I think I get it, but tell me more.
[1:23:49] It's usually take place in a high school parking lot or something where little vendors have little tents or pop-ups where it's just a plastic table or a lunch table where they're just selling. They could sell clothes. They could sell shoes. They could sell jewelry if they wanted to. You rent space. Usually, they're on Saturdays, so you just go to the swap meet if you want something cheap. you know back in the day when like bootleg DVDs were like a thing you could go to the swap meet and just buy bootleg DVDs of whatever movies.
[1:24:27] Okay got it got it and how long were they married for again.
[1:24:33] 10 years so they were married when I yeah about when I was age 10 they got married, till I was about 20 when he passed.
[1:24:46] What did he die of?
[1:24:50] Cancer related to hep C, related to his intravenous drug use when he was younger.
[1:25:01] Okay. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. All right. Thank you. So you lived with your mom until what age?
[1:25:12] 30. I think 30. Yeah. 30.
[1:25:15] Okay.
[1:25:16] And you had, at one point.
[1:25:18] Six or seven years ago, you had one conversation with her where she manipulated you into silence by all of this hysterical self-pity, right?
[1:25:28] Right.
[1:25:29] There's no genuine emotions there, right? I mean, sorry, I'm saying this like it's self-evident, right? But all of these tears and like, it's just, it's a mechanical form of manipulation. It's not any real emotion, right? I mean, this is why actors are considered so disreputable, is that they're really good at faking emotions, but faking emotions comes from manipulating the shit out of children, usually. Oh, he's such a good actor. It's like, yeah, he inherited the child abuse genes of bottomless manipulation by faking emotion. So she didn't have any genuine sorrow. She's just like, oh, I'm going to have to try this strategy because it looks like some truth is coming my way. Oh, good, I've chased it away. And it continues to be chased away six to seven years later.
[1:26:22] Yeah, there's absolutely no emotional content. I don't know if that's the right word.
[1:26:29] Yeah, female tears are often, the truth is drowned in female tears a lot of times. And male aggression and all of that but so um what's the status of your relationship with her now i'd.
[1:26:45] Say it's a emotional there's no emotional it's contextual uh in that we we mainly communicate through text the occasional call my eldest sister is encouraging all of us siblings to contact mom once a week because she's starting to have early dementia signs uh and so just checking on her making sure she's taking her medications.
[1:27:18] Sorry i'm just a little we're we're as soon as we start talking about your mom we go back into dissociation land and i'll tell you why i think that i could be wrong of course right i'll tell you why i think that so you said with regards to your mother, there's no real emotion, right? As opposed to which of your relationships? What do you say with your wife and your daughter? There's no particular bond. Your younger self you have no emotional connection to. You say, well, I don't have much of an emotional connection with my mother. Compared to what?
[1:28:02] Damn that hits hard stuff.
[1:28:04] And do you did you notice that at all i mean your whole first part of your email to me is like i don't have any emotional connection with my family i could take them or leave them and then you say well but my mother you know there's no real emotional connection there and like yes i know but and we just had to give you like 10 minute speech on no emotional connection with your younger self right you.
[1:28:28] Know when i wrote that, and when you read it back to me, I don't translate that I could take him or leave him as no emotional connection, as sad as that is.
[1:28:43] So you don't have emotional connection to you saying you have no emotional connection? Well, of course you don't, right? If you're indifferent to people being there or not being there, there's a lack of emotional connection right if i have a uh a prized book right so i had many years ago i had, i may still have it somewhere uh a first print of the fountainhead right i'm very prized now if that got stolen i'd be really upset right it's one of the big influential book in me and for me and all that, right? And so, I have an emotional attachment to that book, right? If it was, you know, some places you go, they have like, you know, take a book, leave a book kind of thing, and I just pick up some book and I maybe at some point I'll get around to reading it. If someone steals that, I don't have an emotional connection. I, you know, may be mildly annoyed, but there's nothing big there, right? People die every day, right? Tens of thousands of people die around the world every day. It doesn't break my heart. I don't even know them. Someone close to me dies. That's a big deal, right?
[1:30:07] Yeah, and...
[1:30:09] Sorry you say yeah like this is slightly debatable and you know we can debate it i guess but it seems kind of axiomatic that if you go if you don't care whether people are there or not you don't have a bond you know like these rabbits are like the rat the rabbits are all feeding in the field some hawk comes and takes the rabbit they all just look up shrug and go back to eating, whereas if a baby elephant dies the mother grieves for six months.
[1:30:39] Yeah, and I would be sad if my wife and child left. I would absolutely be sad.
[1:30:49] All right. I feel like I'll have to go back to your message because I sure as heck don't want to get this part wrong. So let me just go back to your message. And I'm not trying to catch you out or, you know, well, you said this. I just want to make sure if I have an inaccurate understanding, right?
[1:31:06] However, I will say you are still right, and the message still says true, because in my mind, I'm like, okay, if she does leave and take the kid, I will just go back to my addictions, and disassociate, and in that, I will be okay.
[1:31:28] Now, do you know another reason? So, nine-month-old child together, together uh overall feeling of being unattached from my wife and child i mean i love them i also feel like i could take them or leave them right and also you said the child not my child just now, take the kid take the child not my child my daughter my son.
[1:31:58] Yeah i've yeah.
[1:31:59] I also feel like i could take them or leave them overall feeling of being unattached from my wife and child, yeah okay i didn't have that wrong so what are you doing like why are you why are we changing stories here.
[1:32:19] Because you're saying no emotional attachment and i know i would be sad if they left.
[1:32:27] All right so, so this is quibbling right okay and the quibbling is you say i don't have any real emotional detachment and then i say well you have no emotional detachment you're like well i have some Well, of course you have some, but you're indifferent as to, you could take them or leave them. They're here and they're not here, and it's not a huge difference in your heart. Now, just when I'm saying, do you have absolutely zero emotional, like zero, like the way that somebody in India dies, I don't even know them. Of course, I'm not saying that, but it's quibbling. Right? So I say, no emotional attachment. You say, well, it's not none. And it's like, okay, so let's say it's 10% or 20%. So you're quibbling at the none, right? And saying, well, that's not technically accurate. It's like, well, of course it's not technically accurate. How do we get technically accurate in the percentage of attachment? How many decimal places do we need to go to for it to be technically accurate?
[1:33:38] And I guarantee you, this was a habit of your mother's. Right, so this is the female habit, right? And I'm not saying that you're female, obviously, right? But the female habit is you make a generalization and they say, well, it's not totally accurate. Women are shorter than men. I know a tall woman. Women tend not to go into STEM. I know a woman who went into STEM. So I'm making a generalized statement based upon what you said about a lack of attachment. To your wife and child and you're saying well it's not zero and it's like who cares of course it's not zero but it's a lack of attachment.
[1:34:21] I don't even know what zero would mean like what does that even mean you you married a woman you have a child with her you've spent nine months with your child and of course there's a i mean you'd notice if they were gone right of course you'd have some emotions about them leaving but you said i can take them or leave them i you know i can just go back into doing drugs, yeah and at least i won't have someone looking over my shoulder when i'm looking at porn or something right right so this is a it's an annoying female defense, when again men do it sometimes too i guess as we can say but generally the habit comes from women that they make a general statement and then you take them on that general statement and then they say, well, it's not a perfectly accurate general statement.
[1:35:10] Well, of course. If you say IQ is related to success, you'd say, well, I know high IQ people who aren't successful. It's like, yeah, I mean, it's a way of blocking the progress of the conversation, because it's going somewhere you don't want it to go. Or, to be more accurate, we're talking about you and your mom, and your mother does not want this line of conversation pursued. And so she's throwing up this, in your mind, right, she's throwing up these blocks to the conversation so that we end up discussing what percentage of attachment you have rather than looking at what's going on with you and your mom. Does that make sense? Like, this is just your mom stepping in to block the conversation because she doesn't want it to go where it's going to go. And you don't either, to some degree, right?
[1:36:00] Yeah, I mean, that's a difficult thing to admit. That sucks. I mean, that's horrible. It's tragic.
[1:36:07] Sorry, what is?
[1:36:09] Me being not attached to my family. I mean, that's absolutely horrible.
[1:36:13] No, you do admit it. Right at the beginning of your email. Yeah. That's not the problem. The problem is not your lack of attachment to your family. The problem is we're starting to talk about you and your mom, and you start quibbling about inconsequentialities, because you don't want this part of the conversation to go forward. Or rather, it's negative to your mom. And her interests. So you start quibbling with me, to annoy me, so to distract me from what's going on with your mom. I mean do you follow what I'm saying I'm not saying do you agree with it at all but do you sort of follow the reasoning.
[1:36:54] Yeah I do.
[1:36:55] You're now quibbling about something you said I can take them or leave them and I say well there's no attachment so well it's not zero like we get into this nonsense right, yeah and you know it's like going to the doctor he says you got a big big tumor, and you're saying well I'm not an entire tumor I'm not my whole body's not a tumor it's like what the hell does that mean can we deal with the tumor, Now, if you don't want to talk about your mother, it's your call, man. I'm here to serve. If you don't want to talk about your mother, but every time you dissociate the most, you're talking about your mom.
[1:37:39] Oh, wow. That's okay.
[1:37:48] I always thought my dad was the bigger issue.
[1:37:50] You your dad's dead and has been for 14 years 13 years 15 plus mid-30s right and died when you were he killed himself when you were 19 right and your dad is obvious your dad is obviously screwed up and the danger is real right and and vivid but you are unprotected with your mother, because you are neither honest with her, she has not apologized and made restitution, and you're still in contact with her, which means you're still enslaved to her preferences, which is called dissociation. Dissociation is when we're hypnotized by somebody else's needs because we're in a state of danger.
[1:38:41] All that schooling and uh psychology and uh no one ever hit that.
[1:38:46] Well no but i mean i'm a moralist right so i'm looking at the moral stuff, right so uh your father your stepfather referred to your mother as stone evil right your mother is as far as i can understand it a criminal and your mother is um, exploitive and she won't take responsibility for the immorality that she enacted and enabled. She abandoned you to be locked into a room with a psycho drug addict.
[1:39:27] She would say something else.
[1:39:29] Okay good let's talk to her okay so uh let's you pretend to be her because i think i need to meet this chick uh so you you pretend to be her and i'd say mom you know we've really you know we had this one conversation like i don't know six or seven years ago about, my childhood and how messed up it was and i mean we got to revisit this because you know i've got some severe problems in my marriage and my capacity to pair bond and like this is you know It was really, really messed up. So, yeah, let's sit down and have a talk about it.
[1:40:02] Well, what do you want from me? I got sober soon after you were born.
[1:40:08] I'm sorry. I just told you what I want from you, and then your first question is, what do you want from me? I told you I want to sit down and talk about my childhood. So when I say, I want to sit down, you know, it's like the waiter comes and you say, I want a burger. And he says, well, what do you want? It's like, I just told you, I want a burger. So I'm not sure why you'd say that. But the fact that you got sober, okay, that's fine. But you know that dad was a drug addict. I mean, you knew that before, a drug addict and a drug dealer. You knew that before you married him and had a child with him, right?
[1:40:46] I'm sorry. I just need to sort of understand what was going on and how, I mean, I ended up locked in the room with this, half locked in the room. I couldn't really leave, right? I was locked in the room with a guy who smoked two and a half packs a day. That has messed up my health. He was half insane, a drug addict and drug dealer, you know, watching pornography with a kid in the room. I mean, it was really messed up, and where were you? why wasn't I taken out of that situation? Why didn't you ever ask me how it was going with the guy you couldn't stand to live with that I was locked in a room with? You couldn't stand to live with him, and you walked away for years, me being locked in a room with a guy you couldn't even stand to be in the same house with. Like, what happened?
[1:41:43] Well, in your early childhood, we sent you over to your grandmother because I had to go to rehab again.
[1:41:54] Yeah, but not for years. You don't go to rehab for years. So rehab is not an answer. Rehab is what, a month or two? So no, let's try that one again. But, you know, please, just, I'm begging you, tell me the truth. Like, don't insult us both with this nonsense, right? Just tell me the truth. That's all I'm asking, right? Just tell me the truth. But don't give me these silly excuses, which don't make any sense, right? Is that okay?
[1:42:22] I think my mom would just start crying at that point.
[1:42:25] Okay, so then I'd say, okay, that's fine, you can take a breath, take a moment, but you know, I do need you to actually focus on me and listen to me, right? So, you know, I just say, you know, a couple of deep breaths, get a glass of water, you might need some rehydration with all of these crocodile tears. No, I wouldn't say that, it'd be a bit inflammatory. Fake tears are costly on the salt system. So I'd say, okay, a couple of deep breaths. All right. So let's continue, right? Because I'm the one who's upset, right? So if I'm upset and you start crying, it's selfish, right? You're making it all about you. Now, the reason that I would say, okay, you have your tears and let's get back to the conversation is what would happen next if I did that as you.
[1:43:12] You she would most likely just shut down she wouldn't take the deep breaths she would become inconsolable really okay.
[1:43:22] Then i would say so i'm i'm suffering and you're only focused on your own suffering you know i literally would snap my fingers in front of her face like come on come back come back it's not about you this is about me it's about me come on focus on me come on i'm up Up here, up here.
[1:43:38] Stop falling into yourself. It's about me, not about you. And I would just keep doing that. And then what would happen?
[1:43:52] She'd probably say, well, I have to go walk the dogs.
[1:43:57] Say, no, no, I need you to stay here and talk to me. Dogs can wait. Dogs can wait. So just stay here, take a deep breath, and I'll continue. Right? And then what? Right.
[1:44:18] I think it's just more and more excuses to not can it's.
[1:44:21] More and you just you just you just broke a record right no i need you to stay with me come on i'm right i'm right here take a deep breath let's get back to the conversation right i mean if i'm supposed to survive dad for years you can you can survive a half hour conversation right because you abandoned me to dad for years, which means clearly you think that kids can handle being locked up with a psycho drug addict for years. So if you think that kids are that tough and that strong, surely you can handle a conversation for half an hour, right? Because your premise is people are strong. You treated me as if I was like, I don't know, bulletproof or something. And so, you know, since you believe that people are so strong and so tough that I didn't need to be taken care of as a kid and I could be abandoned to a chain-smoking psycho, then you can, you know, you accept that people are strong. I was strong as a kid, and if I could handle this at the age of eight, you can handle 20 minutes or half hour of a challenging conversation now that you're an adult, or you've been an adult for a while, I guess, but yeah, okay, so deep breath, let's get back to it, and then what?
[1:45:33] Well, I had your brother and your sister that I was helping out to, and I was in a one-bedroom apartment. I had to rent out a room to make rent. There was really, really no place for you.
[1:45:52] What do you mean there was no place for me? Did you ask? Did you say, hey, you know, maybe you can just come sleep on a couch or we can get some, a little air mattress or, you know, from one of these swap meets and, you know, we'll find a place because, you know, did you ever ask me what I wanted? Did you ever, I don't remember you ever saying, how's it going with your dad or this is a difficult situation, what would you prefer, what would you like, what would be best for you? I don't remember you doing a goddamn thing to ask me what I wanted. Because if you had, I'd have said, get me out of this 6x12 insane asylum. Right? So, you didn't ask me. You never inquired as to how I was doing or what I needed. Why not?
[1:46:37] Well, I hated having you over there. I knew how bad it was. Your grandmother, you know, she had the guardianship over you. She wouldn't let me do anything. there.
[1:46:49] What do you mean she wouldn't let you do anything? Mom, you sued a company you stole from. Are you saying you couldn't contact a lawyer to try and get some custody with me? Wouldn't it be the easiest thing in the world to come and take some photographs of the room I was living in and get custody? What do you mean you couldn't do anything? You sued someone you stole from and you're still living off that money. So you know how to work the legal system. What are you talking Now you're all rubber bones and helpless? You think a court would say, yeah, no, that kid living with the chain-smoking drug addict who's showing him or watching porn, yeah, that's great. Yeah, that's totally fit. Totally fine. Of course a court would have helped. Or even just give me some relief and have me over more. Or at least just ask me how I'm doing. Show some care. Show that I matter. Show that you think of me. Which you didn't do.
[1:48:01] Well, when I would ask how you're doing, you would just be silent, or you just wanted to play video games. You know, me and your stepdad took you out. You know, we went to amusement parks. We went to the movies.
[1:48:16] Sorry, Mom. Are you trying to tell me that it's my fault? That I didn't? That you asked me once or twice, I didn't say much, and therefore, it's my fault? Like, whose fault is it to get information out of a child? Whose responsibility is it to get information out of a child? And you shouldn't even have had to ask, because you already told me, you just told me, if you remember, you told me I knew how bad it was for you. And then you're saying, well, you never told me, right? You understand those two things are completely contradictory, right? They can't both be true. If you say, I knew how bad it was for you, then you can't also say, well, I didn't know because you didn't tell me. So which is it? Because one of those is a lie.
[1:49:10] I knew it was bad, and I knew not to ask questions. I know...
[1:49:17] Okay, so hang on. So you just lied to me because you said you did ask questions, but I didn't answer. And now you say, I knew not to ask questions. So mom, I need you to not lie to me, okay? And I also need you to apologize for lying for me. You just lied to me and put the blame on me for not telling you. And then I need you to apologize for that because that's bad behavior. It's bad to lie to someone and blame them for the abuse they suffered as a child, right? Right? When you're the mother, you're in charge. So, you do recognize that you lied to me, right? Just now. About something really important.
[1:49:57] You know how your dad could get. I didn't want to make it worse for you.
[1:50:02] Okay, back up. Did you hear what I said? What did I just want?
[1:50:10] There's no way my mom would apologize what.
[1:50:13] Would she say.
[1:50:20] I'm i'm not i'm not sorry for that i i i feel i have the right reasons and i cleaned up the way that i did sorry.
[1:50:31] Do you i don't know i don't know the cleanup stuff is not what i was talking about Okay, do you remember, like, literally 10, 15 seconds ago, I told you what you lied about. Do you remember what I said?
[1:50:46] No, give it to me again.
[1:50:48] Sorry, do you not remember because you weren't listening? Because if you're not listening, hey, look, if you don't want to have the conversation, I mean, I understand it's difficult. If you're just not going to listen to me, I'm not going to pretend to have a conversation. You know, like if you put your hands in your ears like a toddler and said, la, la, la, la, I'm not listening. then I wouldn't have the conversation. So if you're not listening, that's, you know, just tell me. Tell me, say, I have no intention of listening to you. I'm just going to lie and make things up and blame you. And that's fine if you're going to tell me that, because I don't know how it's possible that I just said something 10 seconds ago and you have no idea what I said.
[1:51:27] No i'm not going to listen to this we we should be past this that was a long time ago.
[1:51:35] Well your carpal tunnel was a long time ago you're still don't take in the money so i don't know about that.
[1:51:40] So okay so you're you're.
[1:51:42] Saying to me that you're not going to listen.
[1:51:47] Yeah if you're going to blame me for things and say that things are my fault or i should I should have done this, or I should have done that.
[1:51:53] I'm sorry, when it comes to the parent and the child, do you think the parent is more responsible, or is the child more responsible? I mean, just out of curiosity, we don't have to go in depth in my circumstance, but just, you know, philosophically in general, do you think that I, at the age of six, was more responsible than you were at the age of 36? Just in general. Like, who was responsible for... Did I have a lot of choice and agency in... At the age of six. Is that your theory?
[1:52:30] Yeah, she'd shut it down.
[1:52:32] Okay, what would she say?
[1:52:37] I'm not doing this. You know, with tears and everything, of course. But I'm not doing this. I did the best I could. What more can you want from me? Look, you're stepdad's guy.
[1:52:50] Hang on. Son, do you feel like you're doing the best you possibly can in this conversation? Like you're lying to me, you're blaming me, you won't take any responsibility, you keep dissolving into tears of self-pity, you won't listen to me. Like, do you feel... Sorry, I mean, it's not funny, but it is a little funny to me in a way. Do you feel like you're doing the very best you can in this conversation when I'm pleading for some facts about my childhood and you're lying to me and blaming me? Could you do better could you actually listen and show some sympathy, take some responsibility.
[1:53:38] I i don't know how to continue in the role play with that staff i.
[1:53:42] Well i can tell you what okay she would explode in rage yeah right isn't that the powder keg that's at the bottom of all of this bullshit.
[1:53:51] Right?
[1:53:54] She would just explode in rage. Again, I don't want to tell you, of course, that I know for certain, but this personality structure I've seen about a million times before, and if you are patient and persistent and not abusive, they will just explode in rage. Because you hit the hot wire of their conscience, which they can't stand.
[1:54:25] So, and even if she didn't, if she just kept denying, right, and she got up to walk the dogs, I'd say, okay, listen, obviously, no problem. Then we'll pick this up the next time we talk. And we will continue to pick this up the next time we talk until you either talk to me, or I just stop talking to you. Like, just so you know, I'm having this conversation with you, and you can go walk the dogs, and then when you come back, we'll pick up the conversation. And you can storm out of the house, and you can not call me for a week, and then when you text me, I'll start this conversation up again. Like, the only way you can escape this conversation is to never talk to me again, because I'm having this conversation with you if we're in contact, and the only way to not have this conversation is to avoid all contact with me, because I deserve the truth and I deserve some respect. And I certainly deserve some honesty and I deserve not to be manipulated and I deserve you have you focus on my feelings because you did a lot of harm as a parent, so this conversation is going to happen or no conversations are going to happen just so you're aware.
[1:55:30] Are you threatening me no I'm just telling you the consequences I'm going to have this conversation or I'm not going to have a conversation, no hate I'm just telling you that's a fact and then she'd, you know, storm out, and then she'd try pretending nothing happened, and you'd just, broken record. Okay, great, now we're back in conversation, let's talk more about my childhood, and then she'd storm out again, and then she'd text you like nothing happened, and, you know, you're just, broken record, right? Okay, great, we're in contact again, let's pick up this conversation, right? And then what would she would she rather stop talking to you than have an honest conversation about your childhood.
[1:56:24] Probably stop talking.
[1:56:26] Okay so you don't matter to her and that's the price of being in contact with your mother is her coldness infects every relationship you pretend to have, her selfishness her coldness, her indifference to the suffering of others infects you and kills your bond with your wife and child.
[1:56:49] I would have a lot of words about my mother but coldness wouldn't be it but.
[1:56:55] In retrospect No, no, no. I got that coldness right out of this role play. Because she's only thinking about herself. She's completely indifferent to your suffering. She's only thinking about how to maneuver and win in the moment. That's cold. Right? So I, as you, was saying, I'm really suffering, and she didn't care. Right? She didn't care. She only cared about protecting her own ego and her own narrative and, right, shutting down the conversation. She didn't care about you. How is that not cold? Just because somebody is hyper-emotional or uses emotions as a bully mechanism, that doesn't mean that they're not cold. Somebody can be sobbing and crying tears of blood. They're still stone cold. But, you know, you know your mother obviously way better than I do. So tell me how her indifference to your suffering is not cold.
[1:58:09] I think i up until this point would just make excuses for her and this makes sense my wife's attitude towards my mother, uh even though she hasn't communicated don't.
[1:58:27] Don't get me started on your wife brother brother.
[1:58:30] Wow.
[1:58:31] Your wife. I'm sure she's a wonderful woman and I'm glad that she has some empathy, but your wife should be treating your mother as an environmental toxin that's destroying her marriage. She should be like black mold and asbestos in the baby room. Like a house on fire. Well, maybe it's not such a great idea she come live with us. It's like she doesn't have a sense of the urgency.
[1:58:59] I mean, she has said the words, I don't think your mother loves you, or I don't think your mother cares about you.
[1:59:05] Well, that's not even remotely true. There's tons of people who don't care about me because they've never even heard of me, right? They don't care about me. But the people who raised you, raise you up or tear you down, right? So, oh, she doesn't love you. That's 0.1% of the problem. That your mother voluntarily had a child or a child with a raging drug addict, was abusive towards you, neglected you, threw you down a pit with a drug addict for years, only has self-pity, abused her late husband to the point where he called her stone evil, steals, sues the company she steals from for free money, I mean, do you think just, oh, it's a lack of love, do you mean, do you think that's 0.1% of the problems? Does she spend much time, your mother, does she spend much time around your child?
[2:00:20] No, we're in different states. She has not even met my child.
[2:00:29] And your mother is aging out of her mental acuity, as far as I understand it, based upon what you said. Right? Was it Alzheimer's?
[2:00:48] It's leading in that direction. The doctors are kind of leading it more towards her other mental health issues. The result is the same, though.
[2:00:59] Sorry, what are her other mental health issues?
[2:01:04] Officially diagnosed, bipolar, schizoaffective, OCD, obsessive-compulsive.
[2:01:14] Is she a hoarder too?
[2:01:17] No, not a hoarder.
[2:01:19] Okay.
[2:01:20] No.
[2:01:21] So if she has all of this stuff going wrong with her brain, then her defenses should cease to operate at times, right? But they don't. Her defenses operate perfectly. Right? She never accidentally shows empathy or whatever, right? Like, when we were having that role play, her defenses worked perfectly. They were impenetrable, right? So it's hard for me to say somebody has a really broken brain when the defenses are all perfectly efficient. It's like taking you saying my car doesn't work and then taking it on a road trip for six months with no problems. If the defenses are perfect, the mind is not broken. Do you see what I mean? If people say, well, I can't remember it was so long ago, it's like, okay, well, then you shouldn't remember your defenses. But if you remember all of your defenses, then you can't claim to lack memory. So she's and the prognosis is what roughly you don't have to give me the medical stuff but she's not getting better right.
[2:02:41] Most likely I mean no I don't think so some of it has to do with her taking better care of herself, eating better okay is she doing any of that I don't know. I haven't. I'm not at the house, and I don't talk to my brother, who's normally with her. So I'm unaware.
[2:03:11] So you don't. But you said you talk once a week, right?
[2:03:15] Me and my mother, yes, through text. Lately, it's been about the taxes, because I had her do mine and my wife's, our family's taxes.
[2:03:26] What? Your mom's doing your taxes?
[2:03:32] Yeah.
[2:03:33] Then can't she work? Oh, wait, she's got significant mental issues, but she can do your taxes?
[2:03:44] Yeah.
[2:03:45] Hey, look at that. You saved a little bit of money.
[2:03:48] Yeah.
[2:03:50] Oh, my God, man. Oh. But doesn't her carpal tunnel syndrome prevent her from doing the taxes?
[2:04:02] She had the surgeries.
[2:04:05] Oh, so then she should have informed the company that's paying her that she's fixed. Otherwise, she's just stealing again. Again, I'm no lawyer, but isn't that kind of how it works?
[2:04:20] I guess, I don't know. This gets into, like, legal.
[2:04:23] No, but okay, let's just forget the legal. What about the moral thing? You say, give me money because of this injury, you take some of that money, you use it for surgery, that fixes the injury. You should at least inform them, right?
[2:04:39] My assumption is their agreement is for all suffering, or I don't know how it works out.
[2:04:50] Okay, well let me just ask you this, because of course neither of us are lawyers, right? Right. Is it your opinion that the money that your mother is getting, is it moral?
[2:05:01] No. Okay.
[2:05:02] So then if it's not moral, then she's, in your view, right, your opinion, she's stealing.
[2:05:12] That is correct. Yeah. Okay.
[2:05:14] Again, we're not talking about any legal matters. We're just talking about your personal opinion. Right. And in the little that I know, that doesn't seem like a crazy opinion to me. Okay. So what's the plus of your mother in your life? What's the benefit? And I'm not saying there isn't any. I'm genuinely curious, right? But what's the plus? Yes.
[2:05:52] I'm going to try and word this the best way that I can. The last attachment to my past and my father, because my siblings aren't related through my mother, but not through my father. Um and that yeah that horrible experience ah i don't it i'm i'm i'm grasping at straws here so.
[2:06:28] So uh blood and connection is important right okay so if blood and connection is so important why are you less connected to your daughter i mean she's your blood isn't she and she's also or your blood who's never hurt a hair on your head?
[2:06:47] Just one correction, it's a son.
[2:06:49] Son, okay, sorry. Yeah, it's okay. Even more, then, same, same, same sex. Okay, so if blood is important, then why are you somewhat indifferent to your son? Because, I mean, your mother, in my view, treated you horribly. Probably, and your son has never hurt you at all. So why would you have more loyalty to someone who abused you or neglected you, as opposed to your son, who you share just as much genetics with, who's never hurt you at all? In fact, probably worships and adores you.
[2:07:42] I do not want to infect him with my.
[2:07:45] Answer the question don't don't don't pull a mom and ignore the question completely it's so weird i don't know why people do that why do you do that i just i just made a case here and you just completely ignored it like i didn't exist i.
[2:08:02] Apologize in my mind i felt like i was answering the question question.
[2:08:09] But there is no answer to the question. So every answer you give is false. There is no answer as to why you would have more loyalty to the woman who abused and neglected you for decades than the child who never hurt you at all, if what's important is blood and family. There's no, I mean, we know there's no answer to that, right? There's no rational answer to that. I want to remain connected to the harmful past rather than the loving future. Come on. I mean, there's no answer to that. There's no answer to that.
[2:08:49] So are you saying that that's not me? That's my mother that wants me to be disconnected from my family?
[2:09:00] Well, I don't know. I don't think your mother has any desires other than her own preferences in the moment. But the question is, what's the price?
[2:09:10] Okay. What's the price of being.
[2:09:14] Of lying to your mother? Because you're lying to your mother, right? Every time you don't have a real conversation about stuff that's on your mind, you're lying to her, right? So lying, pretending, falsifying, for what? Help me understand, what is the benefit to you? I understand the benefit to your mother if she gets to pretend like things weren't so bad. She gets a son's resources and attention and future loyalty. I mean, so for your mom, it's a good deal. I'm just trying to figure out the deal for you. What do you get out of it? Now you say, oh, blood and loyalty. It's like, but you told me that you don't have much connection with your wife and son. So all this loyalty doesn't make, the whole problem is a lack of loyalty, so you can't suddenly claim loyalty. So what's the benefit?
[2:10:10] I'm i'm not getting a benefit occasional tax prep.
[2:10:17] Okay so it saves you a couple hundred bucks a year right i.
[2:10:21] Apologize for that laughter right there that.
[2:10:24] No i i understand this is kind of like a wake-up laughter right like what the hell this is coming out of a daze right yeah okay so there's no i mean that's not a real benefit right So there's no benefit, really, right? And I'm not sure that you want to give a manipulative woman who sues people she steals from access to all the details of your finances. Do you not get any sense of caution about that?
[2:11:06] I you know i i use it to my advantage i mean i'm hoping she will do everything legally and lawfully.
[2:11:16] No no that's not what i'm talking about your mother who sues people and takes money in in what you describe as an immoral fashion, now knows every single detail about your costs, liabilities, assets, and income.
[2:11:41] I'm putting myself in danger financially by having her do that.
[2:11:47] Well aren't you doing kind.
[2:11:49] Of the best of.
[2:11:51] Everyone, aren't you making the most money i mean you said.
[2:11:56] Your half-brother is her layabouts right, my eldest sister is is doing better than than i but she does not have mother do do the taxes Okay.
[2:12:09] I'm just saying I personally would not feel comfortable handing over financial details to somebody who'd been relentlessly abusive and neglectful in the past. She knows exactly what you can afford and do you not think she'll use that knowledge at some point?
[2:12:39] I would hope not. I know hope's not a plan.
[2:12:42] That's just a side note. That's just a side note.
[2:12:44] Yeah.
[2:12:44] Okay, so you get a couple of hours of tax prep a year, which is beneficial but also costly, because then it means she can work, right? And then she's not, right? So that's a plus and also a big minus, right? And so there's no particular plus, and what are the negatives?
[2:13:14] This uh, disattachment this uh probably an overcling of the past or at least excusing my mother in the events, boy.
[2:13:34] That's some abstract shit right there brother oh can you feel You feel yourself groping on the limits of the galaxy there for a little bit of nebula? What are the costs?
[2:13:50] I don't get to feel love. I don't get to feel attached. I don't get to feel present.
[2:13:55] Right. I mean, the costs of what you're writing about. I'm going to tell you something personal.
[2:14:13] You steadfastly rejected my advice for eight years, right? Regarding family. I say, if you have significant problems with your family, say parents in this situation, what have I always said? Sit down, have conversations with them, try and work it out, try and get some empathy, try and get some sympathy, right? Keep having those conversations until you break through or you don't want to talk anymore. And then if you don't want to talk anymore, you're under no moral obligation to continue to spend time with people who continue to reject and abuse you, right? You've heard that a million times in my show, right?
[2:15:00] So, what do you think it's like for me when you do the opposite of what I recommend, and what is the right behavior in terms of self-protection and in particular protection for your wife and children, or your child, your son? So, what do you think it's like for me when I get a panic message that disaster is imminent without any acknowledgement in the entire call that you've done the opposite of what I've recommended and what is the right thing to do, for eight years straight. And you haven't said I'm having trouble doing the right thing, you didn't do a call in before, but you only call me when disaster strikes, when your marriage is on the verge of collapse, right?
[2:15:57] I would imagine that you feel like people aren't listening or that I wasn't listening, that you're wasting your breath.
[2:16:05] No, you were listening. You absolutely were. You've been listening for eight years, right? You know, it's kind of like, imagine if you had a beloved uncle who kept smoking. I guess you probably did, right, or aren't, right? You had a beloved uncle who kept smoking, and for eight years you're begging him to stop smoking, right? And then he completely laughs at you, scorns you, ignores you, whatever, right? But he certainly doesn't quit smoking, right? In fact, he smokes more. And then he's like hey man i need to come and move in with you because i'm really sick from smoking and he never references at all the fact that you begged him to quit smoking for eight years straight, what would you think.
[2:17:03] Uh why should i help you now you you have you've had all this time to to try or make.
[2:17:10] No not you had all this time i begged you to quit smoking, did i beg you to be honest with your family of origin for eight years.
[2:17:25] Yes that's your message yeah.
[2:17:27] Did i write an entire book real-time relationships about how to be honest.
[2:17:34] You certainly did.
[2:17:38] So you understand your mother is in the avoidance, like if your uncle says oh man you know i didn't listen i i i'm really sorry sorry, you know, I really need your help now, and I need your help precisely because I didn't listen to you, and I know it's going to be tough to provide, but I really didn't follow your advice, I didn't listen to your good counsel, and now I'm really screwed. Like, no acknowledgement of any of this! It's weird! You know, Stef, I didn't, I wasn't honest with my family, I didn't follow your good advice, I didn't do the right thing, I listened to you for eight years, and now I'm really screwed. Because I mean your email comes in I mean I look at these emails with the depth and clarity that is sort of second nature to me right so look at your email right.
[2:18:31] And I'm like okay so he still has an he's still enmeshed in destructive relationships he hasn't listened and he doesn't even seem to acknowledge that he hasn't listened. He's done the exact opposite of what I recommend as the right and moral thing and now he desperately wants my help, but he won't admit fault at all. Just like Mommy. Mommy won't take responsibility for her bad choices. Do you? In contacting me. That's the real mom. That's the cost.
[2:19:17] This part is a little critical, by the way. Just the other part wasn't. This part is. But you see, you don't take responsibility and say, Stef, I did the exact opposite of the right thing for eight years. Now I'm really fucked. Help me. I know it's tough to help, you know, because I didn't listen, right?
[2:19:41] You know, somebody you love, they're fat, they don't exercise, you tell them, man, you gotta you gotta eat well, you gotta exercise you can have a stroke or a heart attack or diabetes or something, and then they contact you saying man, I need your help, I gotta move in with you I had a stroke and I have diabetes and they don't reference anything about the good advice you gave them for close to a decade, you would be played right? you would be being played, they would be hoping that you would follow them down this line of unreality, and just pretend oh wow this thing happened to you gosh let me help, they would be fogging out and playing you and you're trying to play me I'm not saying consciously but you understand you're trying to play me, because you haven't once referenced the fact that you did the opposite of the right thing that I beg people to do. You haven't referenced that once. I'm sorry I left it so late. I'm sorry I didn't listen to your good advice. I get it now. Nope. None of that.
[2:21:09] Do you see where I'm coming from? Yeah yeah literally listened to probably hundreds of call-in shows where i'm on my knees begging people to tell the truth to those in their lives right and you've seen the effects of when people don't right and you're still like well screw that i don't need to do it and then when disaster hits i'm going to call up making no reference to the fact that i've known better for close to a decade and haven't done it, and it's fine don't do it that's your choice, but then when disaster strikes, you gotta reference it, because otherwise that's really bizarre right.
[2:22:02] Your mother won't take responsibility for her past bad choices. And you're not either. And your mother won't apologize. And you won't either. Your mother won't take ownership. And you won't either.
[2:22:19] And that self-avoidance, this is the essence of why you cannot connect with people, my friend. Because you can't connect with your own self-ownership. You can't connect with your own choices. and your choices are who you are. If you can't connect with your choices, if you can't take responsibility, you can't connect with anyone because you're not really there. In the same way that your mother is just defenses and avoidance and minimization and gaslighting. This whole conversation, I've been like, well, I'm sure he's going to mention at some point that he didn't take my good advice for eight years. I'm sure he's going to take some ownership for being the author of his own problems, right? I mean, you've known this stuff since your mid to late 20s. You're in your mid 30s. And you're calling me up like you never heard any good advice. And I've just got to help you. And there's no acknowledgement of the fact that I've been trying to help you, for years and years and years and years and years and years and years. Years, and you have refused to listen, and you're not taking responsibility for that.
[2:23:36] The path to connection has to go through self-ownership. Because other people in your life have to have someone to connect to. And if you don't take responsibility for your choices and your avoidances, and we all have them, I have them, you have them, everybody has them, so I'm not perfect, of course, in this way. But if you can't take responsibility for your choices, there's no person to connect to. too. Because there's just avoidance. You can't connect with avoidance. It's like trying to push two opposing magnets together. You just can't do it. So I would say that the real price is this infectious avoidance of responsibility that's showing up throughout the entire length of this call.
[2:24:26] Because, look, the fact that you did the opposite of what I recommend and is the right thing. Honesty is the right thing, and you've known this for years, and you've listened to it role-played and you've listened to call-in shows and you've read the books and everything is pointing towards honesty. The fact that you didn't do it, you've got to own that. You made the choice to not be honest. You took the easy route to avoid talking honestly with your mother or other people. Right? You didn't talk about whether you have talked about your older brother who introduced you to drugs when you were a child. No confrontation there, which is fine. No confrontation with your mother. No honesty with the people around you.
[2:25:12] And now you're saying to me, well, strangely enough, when I keep avoiding facts, reality, truth, and honesty, and directness, I find I can't connect with people. Well, no shit, Sherlock! That's exactly why I say don't do that! And there's no acknowledgement of that. And that's the price. And again, I say this with some sympathy, but that's the price. And I don't honestly I don't know what therapists are doing if they're not saying just go be truthful and honest with me I don't know what they're doing but that's a topic for another time, but that's the price you have to take ownership for every choice you make as an adult, otherwise nobody can connect with you because you're not really there you're just like a hall of mirrors just avoidance and manipulation and lack of self-ownership and and lack of responsibility, and you became like a ghost, like your father felt, right? That's why he felt the house was full of ghosts, because it was. Because if you don't own yourself, you're not material. So that's the funny thing, for me. That's the odd thing, and I think that's the real price, if that makes sense. It's kind of odd that you'd hope I wouldn't notice that, you know what I mean?
[2:26:35] Yeah i i had many thoughts about this conversation and that that was not one of them none.
[2:26:41] Of it none of it not in that email and that's i mean almost didn't take it for that reason because i'm like what this guy is obviously still enmeshed in terrible relationships, But you know what? Sounds like a long-term listener. I'm sure he'll call up and say, Stef, I need your help because I didn't follow your advice.
[2:27:03] And, you know, it's kind of tough because now it's an emergency, right? Eight years ago, you could have prevented all of this stuff, or five years ago, or maybe even two years ago.
[2:27:13] But you're enmeshed in bad relationships. You decide to get married and have a child, and then you only call me when things are falling apart, right? And I was, you know, because I've always said, like, I'm a nutritionist. I'm there about prevention, not cure. So if you don't follow your nutritionist's advice for eight years and you end up having a heart attack, you don't call the nutritionist, right? If you call the nutritionist, the nutritionist says, oh, no, maybe you could have solved this 10 years ago, but now you've got to call ER. You've got to get an ambulance, right? You've got to call 911. So you'll call the 911, but I'm a nutritionist. And part of me is like, okay, but it's going to be too startling for him. It's going to be too unsettling for him. But that's the price. The price of being in pretend relationships is you're kind of pretending to exist. And if you're kind of pretending to exist, who can connect with you? Because we only exist in the responsibility that we take and the truth that we speak. That's the only existence we have for others is the responsibility we take and the truth that we speak. And when I was role-playing with you as your mother, she took no responsibility, which means she doesn't exist. All that exists are avoidance and defenses. And that always comes at the expense of erasing other people in your mind and your heart, which is why I called her cold.
[2:28:42] And if you had that uncle who said, hey, man, I've got to come live with you, because I've got emphysema and lung cancer, and he never once references the fact that you told him to stop smoking. And apologizes for that. Man, I know I'm putting a real burden on you, but I mean, I didn't listen to your advice, and now if the grace of your heart, and I'm so sorry, and now this is a burden on you, and right, then he's playing you. He's just pretending that he deserves all of your kindness and consideration, without having to pay the price of saying, I'm sorry I didn't listen to your good advice. And again, that's the price, right? Because you're surrounded by people who don't take responsibility, don't take good advice. Did your parents ever take good advice? Did they?
[2:29:44] No.
[2:29:47] Did you take good advice?
[2:29:51] No. No, I didn't.
[2:29:53] Did your parents ever apologize or admit that they didn't take good advice?
[2:29:59] No, they didn't. You?
[2:30:00] With me? And again I say this with sympathy I really do I mean I get it it's mildly annoying but that's fine right but I say this with sympathy it's like that's the price right you can't take self-ownership to this extent, you can't be direct and honest and you can't apologize.
[2:30:25] Because you were raised by some very very selfish and defensive people people. And defenses are always defenses against connection. That's all defenses are, because otherwise you have this direct connection, right? And I'm sure this has, this is sort of at the root of what you talk about, your lack of connection, 18.49% connection with your wife and your son. You're indifferent to them being there because you've yet to to show up in a way. Because you've lied to your mother by omission and commission, by not being honest with her. And you kind of falsified things with me by not being honest about not taking good advice and needing help after you ignore eight years of good advice. So, when you start taking real responsibility, and learn how to apologize, then you can connect with your wife and your son. I think. But not children.
[2:31:43] I mean this is sort of back to when I was talking about your lack of responsibility in and this is before I even knew that you were a mental health professional who tells people don't laugh about trauma right, so you know that's a temptation you know that I really find it disconcerting and upsetting right when people laugh about the trauma and you just for half an hour you're off and on giggling about your trauma, and I'm the one who has to stop you and point it out. When you actually give this, and that's just a level of, and that's also the price, right, of being in contact with NPCs, defensive, non-empathetic NPCs. So, you know, maybe you get a couple of hours of tax prep But I think the price tag is infinite.
[2:32:46] And in that way, the price tag could be your current family. And you know, you don't have the right, like you chose to have a kid, right? Your wife is with you by choice, your son is not, right? You chose to have a kid. So now you have to clean up your relationships and you have to be honest, direct and connect with people. Like you have no choice about that anymore because you chose to have a kid. And now you're responsible for all of that. And you know, if you were still single, okay, whatever, if you just had a girlfriend or maybe even a wife, she's still there by choice. But you've now invited this child into your life by choice. you don't have the fucking right to not bond.
[2:33:20] Because you know what it's like you in particular know what it's like to grow up without a bond, you know how awful it is and you chose to have a child you owe that child everything and if everything means, the cost of your whatever bullshit you've got going on with your mother too bad, pay it, if the cost means confronting people and have them blow up at you till you figure out that they're bad people pay that price because everything about this conversation for me is your son is to do with your son you cannot be indifferent to his presence or absence you cannot be indifferent to his mother's presence or absence because then you're just recreating, the trash planet you were born into and you don't have the right to do that because you're a mental health professional you've done therapy you've listened to me, you've listened to hundreds of shows philosophical conversations about all of this you have i mean you could say your parents were in a kind of a state of nature they didn't know their ass from a hole in the ground but you know all of this stuff so you have absolute complete and total responsibility to connect which means get rid of all of the avoidant bullshit non-connections in your life so that you can connect with your son that's your job and you have to do it this is not a choice, this is not an option. You must connect with your son, which means connecting with his mother. Whatever's in the way of that is absolutely disposable.
[2:34:49] Everything in the way of you connecting with the family you chose and the child you chose to create is expendable. You know, if you had a demon in your little finger that was blocking you from connecting with your son and you couldn't get it out any other way, I'd say, go get the shears. Everything that is between your heart and your son's heart is expendable. And it's not a choice. Because he deserves everything that you didn't get. And you have full responsibility because you know everything you need to know. Does that make sense?
[2:35:36] Yeah, I mean, owe it to him is not even a strong enough phrase. It must be done.
[2:35:43] It must be done.
[2:35:44] This is what I must do.
[2:35:46] Yeah, you've got to clean shit up with your family of origin, You've got to talk to whoever you talk to, break through, break out, like whatever is causing you to fog out and dissociate. I assume it's your mother, it could be your half-brothers, it could be, I don't know. But whatever's between you and your son, I don't care if you've got to take a metaphorical flamethrower, you get that shit out of the way. You connect with your son. Or he is going to be a curse on your conscience and your choices will be a curse on your conscience. And literally it's now or never because he's already nine months old. So his personality is being formed as we speak. So this is like five alarm fucking fire emergency make 10 phone calls today.
[2:36:31] Get this shit cleared away.
[2:36:32] Break through, break out, I don't care. Don't have dissociative people in your life. Find a way to connect with them or throw them out.
[2:36:43] Because everything that is between you and your son must go I don't care if it's your illusions I don't care if it's your mother's preferences I don't care if it's your sister's vanity I don't care if it's your half-brother's, insecurities I don't care because all that matters is the person not here by choice your son and that's how you redeem, your childhood is you don't re-inflict it on your son and that's how like you reason you're not connecting with your son it's because when you connect with your son it will be finally revealed to you how bad the people were to you in your childhood you're still able to hover around this shit by dissociating you connect with your son you will realize like i didn't get my mother's evil until i became a mother a father right i didn't get my mother's evil until i became a father and truly connect with and genuinely and deeply enjoy the company of my daughter and love her beyond life and without reservation. Then I get how cold you have to be to do the opposite of that. Then I get how stony-hearted you have to be. I would tear through a mountainside to protect my daughter and your mother can't even show up when you're locked in a cage with an addict.
[2:38:04] You are protecting your mother by being distant from your son because when you connect with your son, what your mother is like will become completely clear to you. Does that make sense?
[2:38:29] Yeah, that's... Yeah, it's... I've i've got yeah i've got phone calls to make i've got letters to write good all.
[2:38:43] Right will you keep me posted about how things are going.
[2:38:45] Yeah Stef thank you it's been an absolute pleasure i don't know if it matters at this point but i do apologize for not following your advice for eight years i.
[2:38:58] Appreciate that and um i hope that you will listen now that you know what the mistakes are. All right. Well, listen, keep, keep in touch and I wish you the very best. And I really do appreciate the call.
[2:39:08] Thank you, Stef. Take care, brother.
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