0:00 - Introduction
9:53 - Struggling with Alcoholism
16:31 - Genetic and Stress Factors
21:01 - Mother's Role as a Stay-at-Home Mother
28:16 - Father's Behavior at Home
31:00 - Experience of Bullying
34:28 - Parenthood Plans and Responsibilities
39:44 - Confession and Confrontation
48:34 - Undercurrents of Violence
59:41 - Encounter with a Bully
1:06:04 - Fights on the Ice
1:09:34 - Parental Negligence
1:13:27 - Introduction to Borderline Girl
1:15:00 - The Band House Encounter
1:26:09 - Complicated Relationship Dynamics
1:35:00 - From Betrayal to Role-Playing
1:45:14 - Uncovering Dark Family Secrets
1:52:23 - Addressing Family Issues
1:55:12 - Reflections on Moral Choices
1:59:00 - Confronting the Past
2:05:17 - Uncovering the Truth
2:20:08 - Reflecting on Apologies
2:25:25 - Confronting Demons
2:31:40 - Embracing Growth
In a heartfelt conversation, I engage with a caller who shares his struggles, from a recent diagnosis of psoriatic arthritis impacting his music career to battling depression and alcoholism. Reflecting on his family history marred by his mother's alcoholism and strained relationships, we delve into his childhood marked by loneliness and bullying due to parental neglect. This leads us to emphasize the crucial role parents play in protecting and emotionally nurturing their children, highlighting the detrimental effects of neglectful parenting on emotional well-being.
Drawing from a caller's experience of enduring long-term bullying and inadequate parental support, we explore the profound impacts of such trauma. The caller's journey of standing up to a bully and grappling with self-worth sheds light on the complexities of power dynamics in bullying scenarios. We touch on the long-lasting repercussions of childhood experiences on relationships, particularly in the caller's struggles with love and intimacy later in life, emphasizing the need to break free from negative generational patterns.
In another poignant recount, we delve into a caller's tumultuous relationship marred by manipulative behaviors and infidelities. Unpacking the caller's deep-seated emotional wounds stemming from childhood neglect, we navigate the intricate connections between past familial dynamics and present-day relationship challenges. The caller's journey of forgiveness and self-discovery unveils the profound impact of childhood experiences on adult relationships, shedding light on the intricate interplay between past traumas and current struggles.
Reflecting on a turbulent relationship characterized by infidelities and exploitative dynamics, I confront my past behaviors with empathy and accountability. Through introspection, I acknowledge the harm caused by prioritizing gratification over my partner's well-being, highlighting the importance of facing one's demons and striving for personal growth. This conversation serves as a poignant reminder of the significance of empathy, self-reflection, and learning from past mistakes to forge healthier, more compassionate relationships in the future.
[0:00] Hello, sir.
[0:00] Hey, good morning. How are you doing?
[0:03] Hey, I'm not doing too bad. And yourself?
[0:06] I am fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. So, yeah, you probably know how this all goes. Just spill your guts and we'll see what philosophy can do for you.
[0:16] All right. So, where would you like me to start?
[0:21] Well, usually the way that we work is current problem, current crisis, and then we go back into childhood. it so i'm if you want to lay it down for me what's going on at the moment then we can get a sense of the problem and then try and figure out the root cause.
[0:35] Okay sounds good so uh right now i'm finding myself in a very dark period in my life the the darkest i've ever found myself and, i'm currently failing at a retail job uh struggling with alcoholism i i lost my driver's license some time ago, almost about nine months ago, almost one month exactly after I got married to my wife, which caused me to lose my job because of required traveling. And so...
[1:12] I'm sorry, are you using, sorry to interrupt, are you using speakerphone because you're kind of cutting in and out a little bit?
[1:18] Oh, am I? I'm so sorry. No, I'm not. I've got some earbuds in. I might have to move location here. It might just be the echo.
[1:29] Yeah, no problem. I just always want to concentrate on what you're saying rather than whether I can hear it better easily.
[1:37] Yes, of course. be better now uh not hugely you yeah um okay how's this uh.
[1:51] That seems fine it's hard to tell until you keep going so sorry for the interruption but please go ahead.
[1:55] No problem no problem um so all right so eventually essentially a year ago i became extremely ill with an illness that kind of crippled me physically and prevented me from working. And because I'm a musician, I wasn't able to play anymore. And this was a huge problem for me because if I'm not able to work, if I'm not able to play, it kind of struck me in the identity.
[2:27] And sorry, what was the illness?
[2:31] It's called psoriatic arthritis. So it's a very severe kind of arthritis that kind of shoots through your whole body like uh like nuclear radiation where every part of you is affected and you develop massive sores and parts of you swell up and become impossible to use so.
[2:52] I'm so sorry that's just that sounds absolutely appalling and and was it fairly rapid in its onset or tell me a little bit about this is i mean health stuff is a nightmare like when it's something you totally take for granted oh i'm fine and then if you don't have it it's like everything else in life falls away and you just become like one thing sick guy so i'm really sympathized and yeah tell me a little bit about the history at the end did you ever have it before did it come on quick or how did that go.
[3:23] It was severely rapid onset. So essentially, I was fine for the first two months of last year. And then all of a sudden, I developed these sort of like welts all over my torso. And then my hand starts freezing up. And I immediately have to go to my boss and say, dude, I don't know what's happening to me. And being a typical man, I just like, well, whatever, we'll get through it. and uh but i call my mom and she says you need to go to the hospital right now and so i did they checked me out um and almost immediately after i went to the hospital i uh stopped being able to move around or use my hands uh i'm talking like my hands were so broken feeling They were so frozen up and swollen that I wasn't able to hold a glass of water and pull it to my mouth. I wasn't able to open the fridge door, feed myself. I basically just became a very sad case of just laying on the couch for the next four months, unable to move or help myself to the bathroom.
[4:33] Sorry, I'm obviously no expert in any of this, but for the people I know who have arthritis, I don't know that it presents with skin welts.
[4:44] Yes. So that's the psoriasis part of the diagnosis.
[4:47] Oh, psoriasis. Okay. Sorry, I thought you said thoriasis. Okay. So the psoriasis is the skin part, and then is it the swelling of the joints and so on that happens with the arthritis part?
[5:01] Correct. Yes.
[5:03] So is it an autoimmune disorder, like your immune system is attacking you?
[5:09] That's exactly right. Okay.
[5:11] And did you take the COVID shots?
[5:15] I did not.
[5:16] Okay. Wow. That is some seriously bad luck. I'm so sorry. Any family history or anything like that?
[5:24] That's the thing i took some blood work last year uh maybe like a year prior to when this first started flaring up and uh it said i may have the potential to develop arthritis um but no family history as far as i can tell but i'm not exactly close with my extended family and i have no access to their medical records so i've never even met my grandfather for example So, there's a whole history there that I'm just completely shut out of.
[5:57] Okay. So, did they say that you have a chance of developing arthritis as a whole, or was it this stuff? Because this seems like a bit of a different animal.
[6:08] Well yeah exactly so they said just in general you may develop arthritis later in life and then all of a sudden i'm swelling up like a balloon and all my joints stop working and i can't move it was very very strange and uh well i'm just gonna say it it was traumatizing no gosh i mean absolutely.
[6:27] I mean in any shape or circumstances this would be traumatizing but of course for a musician in particular it's, you know, I guess I could still vaguely do what I do but you would be shut out of your whole business, right? Your whole career.
[6:43] So that was pretty bad. As a result, I sort of spiraled into a self-pity. I spiraled into a depression and allowed myself to self-medicate with alcohol in order to deal with just the stress and anxiety of losing my identity and my career.
[7:13] Well, I mean, it's almost like losing your life in a way, right? I mean, you're trapped in a body that... Was there constant pain, or if you didn't move, it was relatively okay?
[7:24] That's the thing, Tony. I'm always in pain. Sorry. That's an Avengers reference. I'm serious.
[7:32] Sorry, go ahead.
[7:33] Oh, okay.
[7:34] Oh, that's a Tony Stark reference? Is that right?
[7:36] In yeah well yeah it's uh the hulk he says something about anger oh but uh i'm always i'm always in pain i'm in pain right now i've been in pain for the last year straight gosh and what is.
[7:50] It you know the old one to ten scale um what is it like for you.
[7:54] Okay so it goes up and down i'm actually on a kind of experimental medication right now that costs about a thousand dollars a month um that it reduces the pain it reduces the inflammation but there are parts of my body that are never really going to go back to normal so for example one of my hands fortunately enough my right hand that uh is it's never going to be the same my left hand is going to be okay uh but for pain scale when i was on a 10 before i'm now at about four which is manageable i think and.
[8:34] Is the answer that it's just genetics and age is there any other proximate cause uh you know i obviously a bit hesitate to say you know it's the omnipresent it's stress you know which probably is not true but is there any other course that you've been given.
[8:50] They say that it's genetics and stress. The drinking probably doesn't help. And so I've been paring back on that. But no, those are the three primary excuses that I've been given.
[9:06] Sorry, stress, genetics, and drinking?
[9:09] Correct.
[9:10] But if I understand this rightly, you drank as a result of the ailment, not before it, or was that also occurring before it?
[9:20] Well, it was also occurring before it, but not as heavily.
[9:24] So what did it go from and to as far as drinking?
[9:28] All right. So we're probably talking about typical tradie boy, a handful of beers a night, maybe three or four beers a night, and then working its way up to, well, I have nothing going on and I feel like I'm dying. So let's just drink two bottles of wine then pass out on the couch.
[9:46] Oh, gosh. Gosh. So, I mean, you were a medium daily drinker before, right?
[9:54] That's right.
[9:56] Got it. And from what age were you drinking this way?
[10:04] Mid-twenties, I want to say.
[10:07] Oh, so you might be like a teen drinker.
[10:11] No, not really.
[10:13] I like to be precise and it's just my own particular fetish so I apologize for this but stuff like not really drives me crazy because I don't know what that means.
[10:24] Fair enough so my mom would buy wine very often and I would have the occasional glass on the weekends when I was in high school say 16 or so.
[10:37] No particular drinking that matters or would have much of a health effect And was your mother a drinker?
[10:44] She was, yes.
[10:45] And was she like an alcoholic?
[10:50] I don't know. I mean, yes.
[10:54] You probably do, actually, technically. I mean, if you don't know, who does, right?
[10:59] Right. Fair enough. So, yeah, I suppose, correct. You would meet the definition about that.
[11:07] And what would she drink? How much did she drink?
[11:12] Probably about the same as I did when I got sick. So a couple of bottles of wine. And actually, you know, maybe not every night, but she would have her moments a couple times a week, weekends, and then whenever she felt the affliction coming on.
[11:28] Sorry, what's the affliction here?
[11:31] Oh, sorry, the want to drink.
[11:35] Oh, the urge. She'd feel the urge. Okay. I've just not heard it referred to as an affliction. Maybe that's a lingo. Okay, so your mother would drink a couple of times a week a couple of bottles of wine?
[11:50] Yeah, that sounds about right.
[11:52] So how on earth is that not a clear alcoholic? Again, I'm no expert, but if she's drinking, I don't know, five, six, seven, or eight bottles of wine a week, how is that not a raging alcoholic?
[12:07] Because you had some like.
[12:09] Well, maybe. And I'm like, uh, what?
[12:14] Yeah, yeah, fair enough. All right, so my mother was a raging alcoholic, and so am I.
[12:19] Well, I'm just curious as to the hesitancy, I suppose. And it's not a criticism. I'm just genuinely curious. Like, I thought you said, well, you know, she'd have a couple of drinks on the weekend, maybe one or two during the week. You know, it was social drinking, but it's like, no, no, no, five, six, seven, eight bottles of wine a week. That's like serious alcoholic, right?
[12:47] All right.
[12:48] And is that something that's a surprise to you? Or if I ask you that question more directly, is it like, yeah, I guess she was? Is it that?
[12:57] No, no, not at all. I just, I feel a little bit of shame about it myself.
[13:05] You do?
[13:06] So, yeah, agreed. Well, because I feel like I picked it up from her, and so I feel like I've ruined my life because of her influence, and it's just, it's not a good situation.
[13:22] Well, that's an interesting question of causality, right? I mean, you've heard a million times that, you know, the twin brothers, one drinks, the other doesn't touch alcohol. And you say, why do you drink? Well, my father was an alcoholic. Why do you not drink? Well, my father was an alcoholic. I saw how bad it was. Right, so having a dysfunctional family member does not cause dysfunction in the next generation. It can easily go the other way. Like, you know, both my parents have mental health problems based on mysticism and selfishness, so I try to be generous and rational, you know, sort of. I mean, I don't think you can go too far in the opposite direction, like you can't have too few drinks. So the causality is not that your mother drank. It's something else.
[14:09] All right. So where would you like me to go next?
[14:12] Well, what was your childhood like as a whole? Did you grow up with a father? How did your parents get along? How were you disciplined if you were? How was school? You know, that stuff.
[14:22] Sure. All right. So I was a pretty lonely kid. I struggled to make friends quite often. I had a few friends here and there.
[14:32] Sorry, are you an only child?
[14:35] No, I have a sister, a younger sister.
[14:37] How much younger?
[14:40] Three years younger three.
[14:41] Years younger okay did you play with her much or did you hang out with her much.
[14:45] Oh yeah but we definitely had different interests and i loved to be alone um we would have we would play sometimes and then we would fight and it wasn't really serious you know, rough and tumble and then she would get hurt by accident and then she would hit me and then i'd go go, hey, and smack her back.
[15:10] Sorry, so you would roughhouse, as kids do, and she would get injured?
[15:16] Not, like, severely.
[15:17] No, no, I didn't say severely. Let's not haggle over language here. I didn't say severely. So she would get injured, and how often, roughly, would she get hurt or injured or accident? I mean, I get by accident and all of that, right?
[15:30] Very seldom. You know, once every few months or whatever.
[15:36] Okay. So, but sorry, so go ahead.
[15:41] Oh, okay. So I mostly just spent time playing with Legos in my room or playing video games by myself, imagining, drawing, and just entertaining myself. When I was going into elementary school and junior high... Sorry, sorry, sorry.
[16:01] Just to interrupt. I'm trying to sort of figure this out. So your mother, sorry if I missed this, your mother and your father were together, right?
[16:09] Oh, yes, up until I was about 14 or 15.
[16:12] Okay, so you've got two parents home, I mean, in the evenings and on weekends, right? Was your mother a stay-at-home mother?
[16:20] She was, yes.
[16:21] Okay, so you have two parents home and one home full-time, I mean, even before school, after school, and so on.
[16:32] So, why would you spend all this time alone? And it's not a criticism, I'm just curious why you would spend all this time alone. I mean, my daughter, you know, I've been a stay-at-home dad for like close on 16 years, and my daughter wakes up and we plan what we're going to do with her day, right? Because we enjoy each other's company. So did you not seek out your mother's company? Did you not enjoy her company? Did she not play with you or take you to parks or board games or, you know, imagination games? names? Why was the solitude so pervasive?
[17:09] The first thing I think of is I was very severely bullied in school when I was younger. I was a small, nerdy-looking kid. I would seek out the solitude of my room, where I could just engage in my fantasies and play with my imagination.
[17:27] Yeah that's okay so not sorry to be annoying none of this is causal none of this is causal so small nerdy kids are not inevitably bullied you weren't bullied for being small and nerdy looking, Do you know why kids are bullied?
[17:46] I suppose not.
[17:47] Okay. I mean, I know tons of small and nerdy kids and weren't bullied or anything like that. So the reason that kids are bullied is because they lack protection and connection with their parents. They're separated from the herd. They're isolated. They're without protection. They don't have older brothers. They don't have fathers. They don't have a close... I mean, they don't have close connection with their fathers. this uh bullying is a the target of the weak and the isolated who can't fight back because they don't i mean no kids can fight back really but you don't have parental protection and that's why you're bullied it's your parents fault okay.
[18:25] Well i i was not particularly close with my mother growing up she was she did feel very very absent um we would still do you know movie nights on friday and christmas was typical but uh i didn't really see her much during the week and i don't have a whole lot.
[18:46] Of you mean hang on were you in a house or an apartment was it a mansion was she in the west wing like what do you mean you didn't see her you're in the same house yeah.
[18:54] Uh so my dad Dad made a lot of money in the oil field. He was able to buy a big house, and she spent a lot of time out of my view. I had my own room. She just didn't feel like she was there.
[19:10] So she's kind of a thief and a con artist then. To be blunt. No, and I'll tell you why. So your dad's making good money, right?
[19:23] Yeah.
[19:23] And your mother is a stay-at-home mother, right?
[19:28] That's right.
[19:28] Except she's not doing her goddamn job. She's not parenting. She's not engaged. So she's taking money for a job she's not really doing, which is why it's kind of a con artist and a thief.
[19:42] Oh, man. No one's ever put it to me like that before.
[19:45] Hey, listen, tell me I'm wrong. A stay-at-home mother is supposed to stay home, and what's she supposed to do? Run the household and raise the kids, which means you're paid, you know, $100, $150, whatever it is, $1,000 a year. You take your portion of that, you've got a big-ass house, you don't have to work, and you have one job, fundamentally, which is the mother part of the stay-at-home mother, to actually mother, to actually parent your children. So she took the money, she just didn't do the job.
[20:18] That sounds about right.
[20:19] All right. So that's pretty catastrophic. And your father paid her and didn't find out whether she was doing the job.
[20:32] Hmm.
[20:34] I mean, if your father took $150,000 to work on an oil rig for a year and just never showed up and cashed the checks anyway, he'd go to jail.
[20:48] Yeah, that's right.
[20:49] And raising children is a little bit more important than sucking dinosaur juice out of the ground.
[20:56] Yeah.
[21:01] I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I found this outrageous that a woman, I mean, anybody would take, let's see. So she had the job of raising you for 20 years, right? So let's say she got 100 grand a year to raise you for 20 years, right? So that's $2 million, which you invested it and all of that probably would go to $4 to $6 million. So let's just say five. So she got paid $5 million for a job she didn't really do. because her job was to protect you from bullying, to make sure you were close, to keep tabs on you, to engage with you, to give you good advice, to raise you, to parent you, not just be a parasitical roommate.
[21:52] Yeah.
[21:54] Again, if I'm being unfair and unjust, absolutely correct me.
[21:58] No, no, that's a fair assessment.
[22:02] I mean, if I stole $5 million, dollars they'd lock me up until the moon turned to cheese well.
[22:09] As long as we're talking about that uh can i tell you about my father as well uh yeah all right so this guy when i was growing up i have a much stronger recollection of what he was like and i didn't even though he.
[22:26] Was gone a lot right.
[22:26] Yes and there's a good reason for that because he was kind of a rage monster when he finally got home uh though i did not have very strong communication with him uh most of it was just a matter of me trying to avoid him because i he didn't hit me or anything there was no physical abuse at all uh but he he scared me in the sense that i went to my little imagination land in my room. And he would do things like barge in and go, you should stop doing that. Go outside and play and take away all my stuff, my video games, my toys, and kick me out of the house and tell me not to come back until there were bats or something like that.
[23:12] And so how old were you when this started?
[23:18] I don't remember a time before I reached adulthood where that wasn't the case.
[23:23] Okay, so if your earliest memory starts sort of 2, 3, 4, so he would kick you out at the age of 4 to roam the neighborhood and not come home.
[23:35] Essentially, yeah.
[23:36] Sorry, I'm not sure what essentially means.
[23:40] Oh, yes, yes.
[23:43] Okay, sorry, the hedging terms, I always want to make sure that I am precise. So from four years old, or maybe younger, maybe a little older, you were kicked out of the house with no toys, no money, no friends, just go wander the neighborhood and don't be inside.
[24:02] That's right.
[24:03] And your sister too?
[24:06] When my sister too yes uh i think she might have had things a little bit more leniently than than i had them uh it seemed to me when i was growing up that she was allowed to stay in and play with her dollhouse or whatever while i was forced to go out and try and make friends with the neighbor kids and.
[24:27] Did your father, Did your father take you outside, play ball, parks, running games, whatever, climb trees, like whatever you'd be doing outside? Did your father bring you outside and... Did he play with you outside ever or much?
[24:48] It wasn't that he played with me. So I was made to play hockey ever since I was five years old. And that was his way of playing with me. He was usually my hockey team coach. And so I was never really into hockey all that much. I enjoy team sport as much as the next kid, But I didn't enjoy actually playing hockey because it involved a lot of like going to hockey practice, going to arenas and, you know, putting on the stuff and engaging with the other kids on the team in the locker room. And a lot of them were not exactly my kind of, they weren't people that I would wish to hang out with on my own time.
[25:36] You know, some hockey kids are a little psycho. go oh yes i mean there's a huge level of aggression lack of empathy and and uh they're not exactly sensitive or thoughtful i mean they're you know sort of brute uh uh robots of of skating and bashing which you know i mean that's the sport right it's a pretty aggressive sport can be violent and uh you know they're still probably better than the boxing kids but um not exactly the theater other kids right absolutely and they're resolutely anti-intellectual i mean a good friend of mine was a hockey kid and i hung around some of those kids uh and uh yeah not my type of kids either, but i suppose if you have a war to fight they're pretty good and that's probably what it's kind of for so okay so your dad and and did you you didn't really have a choice with this right it's just hockey or get yelled at?
[26:32] Basically, oh, yes. Very much so, yes.
[26:36] Okay. And so were you disciplined in any way that was consistent or memorable in terms of like when you did stuff your parents didn't like?
[26:47] Um so there was one time where my father spanked me but his heart wasn't in it in the sense that i could tell even as a six or seven year old child that he was trying specifically not to hurt me and so when he finished with like two or three pats on the bum i just sort of pulled up my pants and ran away i was like oh i guess that's over with now back to my regularly scheduled imagination land uh but aside from that it was mostly just fear of anger and being yelled at.
[27:23] And when he yelled at you did he call you names.
[27:28] No i think i'm sorry he would imply that i was uh what would you say um Um, being, being a bratty child, I, I don't remember anything specific if that's what you mean, but you know, the feeling I would come away from, uh, the, the yelling match was that I was being a bad son who was a disappointment to him.
[27:59] So did he have this like half ape, like manly standard of manliness? And anytime you deviated from that in his, you're a sissy, you're weak, you're, uh, disappointing, you're not a real son, you're not a real boy, you're not a real man. Was it that kind of stuff?
[28:15] Yes.
[28:16] Okay. All right. Again, not wildly unknown among, I've done my stint among heavy manual laborers, and I'm not saying he was unskilled. Obviously, working on an oil rig is quite skilled. But I know the type, and they have no inner voice, they have no observing ego, go and they just act fairly impulsively and they don't have any particular standards by which they control, focus or restrain their behavior.
[28:44] Yeah, that sounds extremely accurate.
[28:46] Okay. And how did your parents get along?
[28:53] They didn't. They would fight quite often, sometimes loudly. They wouldn't hit each other, no physical abuse, except for this one moment where something very strange happened that will always be lodged in my memory, where they started yelling, started screaming. And so my sister and I went up to our respective bedrooms. We heard this very loud gong sound, and we found out the next day when we were preparing to go for school that my dad had thrown a knife across the kitchen into a giant popcorn bowl and left a big hole in it because he had struck his target. And it scared my mom pretty bad. We were all terrified for a long time after that. But it was mostly just yelling. That is the big moment that struck us.
[29:44] And what did they fight about?
[29:47] I don't know. I honestly don't know.
[29:50] Well, you must have heard some of the language.
[29:55] If I did, I must have been specifically trying not to hear it. I'm talking going up into my room, then into my closet, then putting both hands over my ears and trying very hard not to listen.
[30:08] Right. Yeah. I was just saying to somebody the other day that one of the most frightening things for children is the perception that the parents are out of control right because then you can't be protected and so on right now at what age did you start getting bullied um.
[30:27] Pretty early on um i think at about the age of seven six or seven something like that.
[30:35] And did your parents know No.
[30:40] I didn't tell them. And what is most telling to me about this is when I finally did tell them I was already in junior high, and I admitted it over the over the dinner table, and just very sheepishly like, well, this is what's happening to me now. And this is what I'm still continuing into junior high.
[30:59] Right?
[31:01] Yeah, it happened for a long time.
[31:03] Okay. And how did the bullying manifest?
[31:07] Uh, there were a lot of fights, physical fights, um, a lot of.
[31:11] Sorry, there were a lot of physical fights is very obtuse. I mean, did they, did you get attacked? Did you fight? Did you fight back? I mean, none of this is good or bad. I'm just curious.
[31:22] Oh, sure. Sure. Um, so, uh, they, I would never start a fight myself, but people would attack me. And, uh, it took me several years, uh, before I got to the point where I started fighting back. And then my philosophy regarding having physical fights with people was you need to, if you're going to be in a physical fight, just put the fucker down, hit him in the goddamn face and end it. And so that was how I was resolving my fights from about the time that I was 10 onwards.
[31:56] And when did the bullying fade out?
[31:59] It faded out at the end of junior high. So I must have been 14 or so. And then, well, I started to go through, well, I was in puberty, but I started to really develop my looks and my body started filling out. I started getting stronger looking. And then I was never bullied again after that point.
[32:21] So was it from like kindergarten or primary school onwards until the age of 14?
[32:29] That's about right. Yes, that's correct.
[32:31] So it's almost a decade.
[32:33] Yeah.
[32:34] My God, man, that's just appalling. I'm so sorry. To me, it's incomprehensible what these parents are doing or not doing. So do you feel that your parents are somewhat off the hook because you didn't tell them?
[32:57] No i it's okay uh i didn't tell them because i didn't want to well i didn't feel close with them for one and for two i i didn't want to engage with my father's anger and feeling like i was this tiny little sissy boy who wouldn't fight back right uh because i'm supposed to be a hockey player right i'm supposed to be an athlete yeah.
[33:24] But if you were smaller i mean I mean, it's not like you were bullied for your size, but given that you were disconnected from your parents, the size is a factor in terms of just can you win? Can you be easily picked on? Because, you know, I mean, size variation among boys is huge.
[33:40] Yeah, well, I was smaller as a kid. I think I'm above average in terms of height, and I'm way above average in terms of fitness and strength, I think.
[33:55] Well, no, but I'm not sure why we're talking about you now. We're talking about when you were 5 or 10 or 12.
[34:03] Okay, I was pretty small.
[34:05] Okay. So, let me, I mean, you're not a father, right? No.
[34:13] Not yet.
[34:14] Okay. Wait, is it coming? Is your wife pregnant?
[34:18] She's not pregnant, but we've stopped trying not to have children. So we're just sort of playing fast and loose. And if she ends up pregnant, then happy accident.
[34:28] Right. But, sorry, are you missing the source of income at the moment?
[34:35] No, I actually do have a job, and she works as well.
[34:38] Okay, got it. Okay, sorry, I just wanted to check on that. Okay. Okay, so when you become a father, you and your child kind of share a nervous system, like you're kind of one. You know, your child stubs their toe and you wince, right? And if your child is unhappy, you feel it immediately.
[35:00] So, just to be clear, your parents had the absolute responsibility to know that you were bullied. It was their job. It wasn't your job to tell them. It was their job to know. So, if you say to parents as a whole, is bullying a problem in school? What would they say? yes yes so they would say yes bullying is a problem in school it is a risk factor you know it's it's sort of like saying to parents of teenagers hey do you think peer pressure is at all an issue and it's like well yeah of course peer pressure is an issue and you need to keep your eye on it and and so on right our our drugs in school yes they are right so do the kids drink And, yeah, of course, sometimes they do. And so this is a sort of natural and normal risk of childhood. Now, for your parents, they'd say, oh, okay, is your kid a little shy? Yes, he is. Is your kid kind of smaller than average? Yes, he is, right? So could he be at risk for bullying? Yes, of course, right? I mean, that's not even complicated parenting. Right.
[36:23] That's very true.
[36:25] So it was their absolute job and responsibility to make sure, you weren't getting the living shit kicked out of you bullied frightened harassed chased haunted living in anxiety looking over your shoulder hiding in the bathroom all the shit that happens to kids who are bullied it was their absolute job and responsibility and a completely fucking obvious one to make sure you weren't bullied.
[36:52] And they failed.
[37:00] Hmm. In other words, the bullies instinctively absolutely knew this about your parents. And that's why you were bullied. That's why I say like a lack of connection and protection. So by not asking you if you were bullied, and the other thing too, like again, when When you become a father, you'll, I hate to be this, like, play the father card, but when you become a father, you'll genuinely understand that your kids' moods are completely obvious to you. You know, like kids, they think they're hiding stuff, you know, like they're trying to put on a brave face or like your kids' moods are completely so obvious. So what that means is that, you know, there was a day before you started being bullied and then there was the time after you started being bullied. and your parents absolutely knew the difference.
[37:51] Yeah.
[37:52] Right. Like if you have a girlfriend and then she gets, she goes to some party and she gets assaulted, right? Let's just say she gets punched in the stomach or, you know, it's not like black eyes and stuff like she gets punched in the stomach or, or, you know, some, some wound that is she can cover up or something like that. And if you went for her for brunch the next day, do you think you'd notice a change in her mood?
[38:19] Oh, big time.
[38:20] Of course you would. Right. Right? So you had before bullying and after bullying, and your mood would have changed enormously.
[38:29] Yeah.
[38:30] So your parents saw that and did nothing. Correct. Your parents can say, we had no idea that our child was being bullied. That's what they always say, right? If it comes up, right? Oh, gosh, why didn't you tell us? It's your fault. You should have told us. And it's like, but if I had been able to tell you, I wouldn't have been bullied.
[38:54] Yeah.
[38:55] Because your dad's a tough guy, right? And as a tough guy, he'd want to protect his small son, right? Because he's a tough guy. Except he didn't. He chickened out. Or he liked it.
[39:13] Or he's not a tough guy.
[39:15] Yeah, I mean, you know, people who consider themselves tough guys because they scream at little kids, that's really just about the most... I mean, that's like some guy saying, I'm a fantastic boxer because I can beat up a girl guide. Like, that's just sad. That's just pathetic.
[39:32] Sorry. The way you worded that was funny. But no, it is pathetic.
[39:38] So what did they say when you finally told them you'd been bullied for like a decade almost?
[39:44] So it is kind of a poem in the story of our family as to when I finally confessed to them that I was being bullied and how it made me feel. My parents, they went down to my school the next day and spoke with the, I don't know what you call them, the principal, superintendent.
[40:04] And sorry, how old were you at this point?
[40:07] I believe i was around 12 oh.
[40:11] So this is like two years before the bullying ended.
[40:15] That's right yes.
[40:15] Okay so your parents go down to the school and what did they say that's what they did the next day but what did they say when you said hey i've been bullied for like seven or eight years oh.
[40:26] Oh this is really gonna raise your hackles.
[40:29] It's not my hackles you need to be raised brother well.
[40:33] My mom uh all but climbed onto the desk pointed at the principal and said.
[40:40] No no when you know that's the next day when you said mom dad i've been bullied for seven or eight years you said you said that like dinner or something that's right yes okay so so what what did they What did they do and say when you told them this?
[40:58] Oh, okay. So my dad became very quiet. My mom said, I can't believe this is happening to you. And then my dad said, you should just punch him in the face. That was his advice.
[41:17] Right. Yeah, so Mr. Tough Guy is putting the protection of his child on his 12-year-old child who's prepubescent, who's facing damn bullies probably a third larger than he is.
[41:30] Yes.
[41:31] Okay. Okay, so that's terrible. And did he offer to teach you how to box or how to punch, or did he take you to martial arts, or did he teach you something about self-defense?
[41:43] He did, actually. He took me to martial arts, and I learned karate.
[41:49] And when did that happen?
[41:53] Pretty much at the exact same time. He was very immediate about enrolling me after that.
[41:59] Okay, so the first thing out of your mother's mouth, which is quite telling when you tell her you've been traumatized and bullied for seven or eight years, the first word out of your mother's mouth is what?
[42:15] Oh, my God, that sucks.
[42:17] No, no, that's not what you told me. Do you remember what you said your mother said?
[42:26] Oh, my God.
[42:27] No, she said, I can't believe this happened to you. So the first word out of her mouth that you remember is I. So you've been traumatized and it's their failure. They're absolute failure, right? They could have homeschooled you. Your mom was home, right? They could have taken you to a different school. They could have asked you how school was going. They could have figured out that you were in a sad mood or a bad mood. So after your mother realizes that she has overseen your trauma, you're being traumatized. She's like the first thing out. I, me, I, me, me, I, I, me, me. I can't believe this happening. I. Did your parents ever apologize for their failure in protecting you?
[43:20] I think they felt pretty proud about how they defended me afterwards, if you can call it that.
[43:27] Okay, so sorry, let's get to your, what was it, your dad leaning over the principal's table or what?
[43:32] Right, so the next day, both my parents went down as a couple to the principal's office, and my, oh my god, I'm sorry, I need to move my cats out of the room here, they're rustling.
[43:44] No problem. even they sense the tension.
[43:47] Behave all right so so my parents went down to the school together, and uh it was during the day so i'm sure my dad took some time off of work my my mom went down there and they're both in the principal's office together and the story that i have been told is that my mother became extremely angry with the principal and said you know this is happening you've always known this is happening it's your fault that this is happening and you need to about it okay.
[44:21] So she blamed the principal.
[44:23] That's right right.
[44:25] Which is i mean obviously the principal is is causal in this but i mean it's really the parent's job to protect their children.
[44:38] I'm struggling not to laugh at myself but i'm just gonna say my god are you ever right yeah.
[44:45] I mean if if some parent takes their five-year-old swimming and the five-year-old half drowns does she get to scream at the lifeguard i mean that's ridiculous i mean is it the lifeguard's job to help out absolutely but the lifeguard can't substitute for the parent, I mean, if they're, hey, go swim for a five-year-old kid, there's a lifeguard. And then the lifeguard is distracted or helping someone else or whatever, and your kid half drowns, and then you scream at the lifeguard. It's like, well, shouldn't you be in the water with your kid? I mean, that's ridiculous. I mean, I can't even tell you how ridiculous this all is and how pathetic.
[45:29] I know. I know. The only reason I found any thallus was just by fighting back as hard as I could. You know, just out-crazy the bully kids. That seemed to work extraordinarily well.
[45:44] Sure.
[45:46] I instilled a lot of fear in my bullies by just unexpectedly whamming them in the face in public in front of authority figures like the teachers or the bus driver, whatever. And then they stopped. and that was the only thing that worked.
[46:03] Yeah, I mean, what would have worked is for you to have a close relationship, with your parents and for them to actually protect you. That would have worked. But in the absence of that, after you hit puberty, you can start belting the kids, right? okay now what is your relationship to not doing that when you were younger like do you feel bad about that are you okay with that like in terms of not fighting back.
[46:30] Uh i'm not proud of it um at all i do feel some some shame but i don't feel like it's particularly my shame uh i do place some blame on my parents up until well up until this conversation i've never really blamed them all that much uh for that for failing to protect me i mean.
[46:53] Okay um i mean in my view in my view you were entirely wise to not fight back until later okay entirely wise so uh i mean i i wasn't really bullied much as a kid um there was one guy who was sort of hunting me through the halls of my junior high school because his brother said that I'd hit him, which I hadn't, but it was just causing trouble, right? Now, this kid was 17 and I was 12. And he had, I still remember his name now, like decades later, and this guy had this, I mean, he was almost an adult, right? He had those cold psycho eyes where you just know there's nothing going on back there that would ever cause him to halt or question his behavior.
[47:39] I've seen those.
[47:40] Yeah, you've seen those eyes, right? Now, I avoided him. And then eventually it just kind of faded away. Now, why did I avoid him? Because he could have killed me. Now, I don't mean that he would have purposefully tried to kill me. But, you know, you reach to hit some kid, the kid jerks away, maybe they fall down the stairs, maybe you break your neck, maybe you're just dead, or maybe you break your arm, or maybe there's some permanent injury. Or, you know, he hits you and then a bone fragment goes into your brain, or your nose cartilage goes into your frontal cortex. I mean, violence is really, really a dice roll. It's Russian roulette every time, right? Right. And maybe some psycho thing just takes over like Fight Club style. Where did you go, psycho boy? Right. So maybe just some psycho thing happens because, you know, the kid obviously was severely damaged and abused as a child.
[48:34] And maybe that all comes out.
[48:37] Right.
[48:38] Maybe maybe he's like genetically or or just weird as a whole. And it's like he views me as superior. And then there's this destruction of the superior that's common to this kind of stuff. Right. And so, the people who aren't smart will sometimes attack the people who are smart. If you ever saw the movie Raging Bull, the boxer's girlfriend is attracted to this handsome boxer and then her boyfriend destroys his face. It's like, well, he ain't so pretty now, is he? The sort of attack upon that which is perceived as better. And so you don't know what kind of psycho stuff is going to go on. Or maybe you take out this bully somehow, right? I don't know, you hit him on the side of the head with the edge of a metal tray or whatever it is you do, right? Okay, and maybe he's beaten and then he goes to hospital. And then what happens? Well, everybody makes fun of him because he got his ass beat by a 12-year-old. And then what's the only way he can retain his status or regain his status?
[49:48] Beating up a 12-year-old?
[49:49] Well, he's going to have to do something, right? And so then you've got a kid in school. Actually, I mean an older kid, in my case, sort of a virtual adult. You've got an older kid in school who is tortured until he takes you apart. heart. Because everybody jeers at him. Women jeer at him. His friends jeer at him. He gets known as the guy who got beaten up by the 12-year-old, and he is crushed and humiliated and extremely dangerous.
[50:21] So do you mind if I tell you a little story about my encounter with a psychopathic, potentially murderous bully?
[50:27] Sure.
[50:29] All right. So this was about at the tail end of when I finally had enough. I was in the gym locker room. I think I was 14 at the time. And we had this kid who everybody knew he was kind of a nutcase. Anyway, so I was laughing at him. Not really. like not making fun of him or anything, just like he was trying to show off his, his macho bravado as a 14 year old kid. And I was just laughing open.
[51:01] And sorry, you were laughing at him.
[51:05] Uh, I, yes, yes. I was laughing at his weirdo childish attempt to prove to everyone that he was a real scary boy.
[51:15] Right. So he was reminding you of your dad and you were angry.
[51:19] I was very angry.
[51:20] Yeah. Got it. So, I mean, the laughing is, like, provocative, right? It's jeering.
[51:26] That's right, yeah. I was almost wanting a confrontation. So then he comes over. He's much bigger than me, slams me into the lockers, pushes me onto the ground, and starts choking me. And when I say choking, I don't mean, like, holding his hands around my neck. I mean, he's actually pushing his thumbs into my tree.
[51:44] Yeah, and you can't breathe. And your trachea can get damaged, and your hyoid can get cracked, and, like, really bad stuff can happen, right?
[51:52] In that moment, I did not fight back. What I did was I laughed at him until I couldn't laugh anymore because there was no air going into my lungs. Right. There was nothing coming through. And I just smiled and smiled.
[52:07] And sorry, you just what?
[52:09] Oh, I was just smiling because I was trying to prove to him that I wasn't scared of him.
[52:17] Okay. So that's a bit of a death wish though, right?
[52:20] Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
[52:21] Okay. I'm sure you're aware of it. I just wanted to double check this. I would die rather than surrender. I mean, were you scared?
[52:34] It's strange to remember. I remember being scared of being hurt, but I wasn't scared of him. Well, I suppose if he killed me, I wasn't scared in that moment.
[52:45] So you weren't scared of death in that moment?
[52:48] That's correct.
[52:49] And what mattered was to not show any fear.
[52:54] That's exactly correct.
[52:56] Which is kind of a death wish. Because he's choking you until he sees fear, which is a dominance thing from him and a submission thing from you. So withholding that would be courting being murdered.
[53:10] Yes.
[53:10] Okay, just as long as we're aware. And your age at this time?
[53:16] 14.
[53:16] 14, okay, got it. yeah and so your life at this point did not seem to be much worth living.
[53:26] Yes i this is when my first inklings of suicidal ideation started to occur.
[53:34] And he probably caught a whiff of that anyway, right right so i mean so submission is i mean submission to a greater force where there's no benefit and in fact the danger increases if you fight back, submission is perfectly rational and wise. It is a survival mechanism. I mean, if the deer has a giant tiger jumping at it, do you tell the deer, hey, you've got some teeth, you've got some hooves, you can turn and fight?
[54:16] So my thinking at the time was, well, I've had enough of this shit of being bullied by people, of everyone in my life not caring about me. I'm just going to laugh at these people until they kill me.
[54:29] Right. No, I get it.
[54:33] Yeah and then after that point uh he he let me go uh i'm assuming because he was scared of what might happen to him if he actually did hurt me but i just stood up went back to my locker continued laughing and went about my day as if nothing happened of course internally i'm I'm screaming, and I just realized the true violence of what can be visited upon me if I don't submit, if that makes sense.
[55:04] Right, but you were also telegraphing that you were transmitting or transmuting yourself, I guess transmogrifying yourself, into a kind of psycho boy yourself. Because after you laugh at a guy, he almost chokes you to death, and then you continue laughing at him and pretend like nothing happened, you are signaling to the crowd that you are now transforming into a kind of psycho boy, if that makes sense.
[55:29] Yeah, and I'm not trying to make this story seem to be like, and then everyone stood up and clapped or something like that. But I could tell that everyone was very scared of me from that point on.
[55:40] Well, I mean, but that's why. Because the story would have gone around like your name. Oh, man, he was like he was choked out. He was turning blue. He almost died. And he got up and laughed at the kid and went about his day like nothing happened. And so now people are, of course, yeah, people are scared of you. That makes perfect sense.
[56:00] And that's what I wanted.
[56:02] Right.
[56:02] And I got my wit. And so.
[56:05] Well, no, no, you didn't get your wish.
[56:09] Okay.
[56:10] Your wish, like all children, was to be cared for, to be loved, to be treasured, to be played with, and for your family, and in particular your parents, to really enjoy your company so that you don't feel like a weirdo, freak, Cylon, violent robot.
[56:28] Sorry, that was brilliant wordplay. I love that. That's beautiful. You're entirely right, though. My God.
[56:35] I mean, you made the best of an absolutely shitty situation, and you scared everyone away, which did not exactly help with your isolation. And it also would mean that only girls who had probably some sociopathic tendencies themselves would be drawn to you. Because you put out psychobating signals, right?
[56:59] Right so.
[57:00] What happened with dating oh.
[57:03] Boy well um once i hit puberty and i was able to start dating um i i found myself to be very successful with girls so i've never had an issue attracting girls having girls interested in me but i always had this romantic bone in my body where i just wanted I wanted to find my one woman and be with her forever, which was extremely bad because I encountered a BPD woman when I was 19, and she took advantage of that hardcore.
[57:40] All right, so hang on. We've accelerated like five years here real quick. So you say that you're very successful with women, right?
[57:48] That's right.
[57:49] Okay. I would question that. That doesn't mean I'm right. Obviously, we're just talking for the first time. But to me, successful with women doesn't mean getting dates, and it doesn't mean getting laid, and it doesn't mean having girlfriends. Success with women is success with quality women, with moral women, with caring women, with thoughtful women, with women with the capacity to pair bond and love and be great mothers. and right and you after your you know i'm a psycho mating display and again how that would have raced around the school and i carved into the annals of school history or whatever uh equality women would have been like oh god i can't i mean i guess he's a good looking guy but damn i'm not i mean he'd be a crazy dad and and a dangerous guy to have children with or to date so so the The quality women, right, the women of character and of morals and of virtue, and with caring fathers in particular, right? Right, because, you know, I guarantee you these conversations happened where, because you were a good-looking young man or a good-looking boy, they would have been like, yeah, he's cute, man. And, yeah, he got almost choked out and laughed at the guy who was choking him out. And what would the dads have said?
[59:05] It um that kid's nuts and don't talk to him.
[59:10] Yeah like like this is this is a seriously disturbed kid and listen i mean as as a father right i mean to to a daughter i mean you would you would say, listen i'm i'm yeah i'm real sorry that that kid's going through this like whatever has happened in his life that he's like this is really sad and really tragic but you can't have anything to do with him.
[59:34] I would just stress that. Okay, so I did jump ahead a little bit.
[59:41] In between the moment when that happened, and I started getting old enough to date, you know, after high school and everything, I moved into the position of, well, I was starting to go through puberty. I was getting really good at hockey. uh i was a good fighter um with karate and everything you meant but you.
[1:00:05] Were good you were joining the dark side right.
[1:00:07] I i see that's the thing is like i really tried to hone my idea of what it meant to use violence and it was always in self-defense and i never did anything like that again like when i think about that moment of the of the bully choking me uh it scares me even now thinking that i have that within me i acknowledge it but i i always i only how do i put this, i would only ever use violence to defend myself and the people i care about uh but i would never start a fight it was and i just i encountered too many okay this is all.
[1:00:49] A bunch of words but you ended up dating a bipolar girl that's the dark side so you could tell me all you want about your theories, but the evidence is you were on the dark side. Bipolar is about as dark as it... Sorry, was it borderline or bipolar?
[1:01:05] It's borderline.
[1:01:06] Okay, so borderline is about as dark as it gets, right? I mean, it's one of the worst... I mean, we're probably just using this term in an amateur sense, right, because we're not clinicians, and I don't know if she was ever diagnosed or whatever. But, I mean, that's about as bad as things get, right?
[1:01:23] It's the bad it's the worst thing i've ever experienced.
[1:01:26] Oh no question so if you are getting wrapped up in the life of a a borderline, then you're in the you're in the you're in the dark side i'm not saying you yourself are immoral or evil or i'm not saying anything like that but this is the dark side this is the this is trash planet this is like the the underbelly this is like layers of hell this is dantean right this doesn't get worse than this i.
[1:01:57] Couldn't agree more.
[1:01:59] Right okay so did you get any dating advice from your parents particularly as they saw that you were growing into a good-looking young man let.
[1:02:09] Me just say this no.
[1:02:11] Okay so you had to try and figure things out yourself.
[1:02:19] Yes.
[1:02:20] And you had taken the dark side. And again, the dark side is not that you fought back. Although that's semi-dark. Now, listen, self-defense is perfectly morally justified, and I have no problem with self-defense. You know, people break into your house, you can use whatever means, including lethal force, to protect you and your family. Like, I have no issue with that. But the problem is that the bullying is evil seeking to replicate. by imprinting upon children. So, I mean, I'm not a Christian, but we can look at sort of the general analogy of the demon possesses the bully and then uses the bully's body to torture other children so that other demons can take up residence.
[1:03:09] Okay.
[1:03:11] And the only way to avoid that happening, I mean, I hate to say it, is to keep avoiding the fights.
[1:03:25] Oh, I'm sorry. I try as hard as I can to avoid fighting. I never want to fight.
[1:03:36] No, you can always avoid fighting.
[1:03:42] Okay.
[1:03:43] No, I mean, technically you can, right? I mean, you did when you were being choked out.
[1:03:52] Right.
[1:03:53] And listen, I'm not at all criticizing anything. I'm just talking about the different parts, right? So you got lured into a life of violence. Yes. How many fights would you get into in any given school year? And again, I'm not saying you started them, but how many fights would you get into?
[1:04:14] I never started fights, but I think I got into an average of about five per year.
[1:04:24] Right. And these would be full-on bare-knuckle schoolyard or street brawls, right?
[1:04:30] Yeah. Knockdown, drag out, bloody noses, kids crying, everything.
[1:04:34] Everything so and how for how so how many fights do you think you got like you said five a year for how many years uh.
[1:04:43] Um maybe the last five years of my experience being bullied.
[1:04:51] Okay so from the age of say 9 to 14 you got into 25 fights that's.
[1:04:59] About right okay.
[1:05:00] And that's after you learned and karate and self-defense and so on, right?
[1:05:08] Yes.
[1:05:09] Okay. So, you know, I always hesitate because I never want people to think, aha, he's catching me out or I'm trying to jump you or like some prosecution lawyer. I don't mean that at all. But my understanding was, and I could have misunderstood completely, probably did, right? But my understanding was that you said, I learned how to fight back and the bullying stopped. That does not quite square with it went on for five more years, even after I was beating the crap out of kids because I knew karate and they didn't.
[1:05:43] Right. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, no, you're right.
[1:05:47] And again, I'm not trying to catch you out. I got you in a contradiction. I'm just genuinely like I don't quite square the I can't quite square these circles.
[1:05:56] Um, oh, uh, I, I should mention some of these fights happened on the ice in the hockey rink. Uh, a good many. Okay.
[1:06:04] Well, that doesn't really count, does it? I mean, that's, you know, the old deal, the old joke. Like I went to a, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.
[1:06:13] Okay. Well, if that's the case, then maybe one per year for the last five years.
[1:06:19] Okay. Okay. But still it didn't stop when you fought back.
[1:06:25] Um well i stopped being dominated by people.
[1:06:28] I'm i'm not that that's not what i said the fighting didn't stop when you started punching back the the bullying because you just kept for another another half decade which is like 35 years in the life of a child is like dog years right so for another half decade from 9 to 14 you were still getting into fistfights, so it the fighting back didn't stop the bully, that's right okay and and again i'm not trying to catch you out i just want to sort of understand things okay so so that's important right.
[1:07:02] It's all good yes absolutely.
[1:07:04] Sorry you said what.
[1:07:07] Uh uh i just i.
[1:07:09] Thought you said it's all good and i i can't quite understand what that means none of this is good oh.
[1:07:14] Uh no i was just trying to say that uh i don't feel like you're trying.
[1:07:20] Oh, okay, got it, got it. Okay, I appreciate that.
[1:07:22] Yeah, you're right.
[1:07:24] Okay, so you got lured into a life of violence.
[1:07:31] Mm-hmm.
[1:07:32] Now, again, there are lots of options when it comes to being bullied, but punching the kid didn't work, right? Because everyone has this fantasy like I just beat up the bully and everyone cheers and carries me down the hallway on their shoulders and I'm the popular kid forever and nothing bad ever happens. But when you engage with bullies, they tend to escalate. Because you're in a trapped situation.
[1:08:04] Yeah.
[1:08:06] Right? Because you have to keep going back and they have to keep going back and you can't get away. Like school is like a prison. although often with even more violence right so school is like a prison if you're locked in with someone it's a whole different matter right I mean if you use self-defense because someone breaks into your house and then he goes to hospital and then to jail well he's not coming back to your house, but when you're locked in with people week after week year after year you can't get away you have to go back it's messed up.
[1:08:43] Right. I hated school for that exact reason.
[1:08:49] Sure.
[1:08:50] Being trapped in a building with all these crazy-eyed motherfuckers who want to hurt me.
[1:08:55] Right.
[1:08:56] It was...
[1:08:57] Well, they'd try to turn you into a crazy-eyed MF, right? I get that. I get that. That's how it transmits. That's how it changes over. Swearing, just by the way. Okay. Now, your parents knew about your bullying when you were 12, is that right? yes and now did they follow and track because at 14 you're getting choked half to death so it's hard for me to see given that your parents are now fully and consciously aware of the problem of bullying what happened i mean i guess your father took you to karate and what else.
[1:09:29] Uh we all just stopped talking about it and i dealt with it in my own way.
[1:09:34] Okay so your parents are completely responsible then because they should have known since you were five, and they explicitly knew when you were 12 and was there a plan did they say we're going to meet once a week with the principal until this is resolved i need to find these kids parents and go talk to them and tell them to stop bothering my son or i'm going to sue their asses like whatever whatever he's a tough guy right so there was no plan and it all just vanished right, and they never asked about the bullying again that's right okay alright so this is like unbelievably terrible parenting just so you know, appalling like it couldn't be worse okay.
[1:10:22] Well I yeah.
[1:10:24] No I need you to denormalize this because you're trying to have a kid, so you need to You normalize the living shit out of this stuff so that you're not even tempted a tiny bit to replicate what your parents did. And the only way that we stop repeating behavior is we roundly and bottomlessly condemn it.
[1:10:45] I, I'm sorry, Stef, this is sort of difficult stuff for me to wade through, just remembering my history of violence. It doesn't bring happy memories.
[1:10:59] No, of course not. And I sympathize with it. I really do. I sympathize. I sympathize. And I, so, I mean, I don't want to make it about myself. I chose a different path, but in part, I chose a different path because I grew up without a father, right? So it's a different situation when you don't have a dad. because you had your dad's image in your mind goading you to punch and to beat and to be violent and to fight, right? Like, I didn't have any of that in my mind. So your dad was kind of goading you on to fight. But your dad didn't fight. Your dad didn't go and confront the kid's parents or make sure that there was a plan in place workplace or get lawyers and figure out what his legal options were. I mean, seriously, bro, if you'd gone home and told your dad, I was almost choked out in school today. I mean, how old was the kid who choked you roughly?
[1:12:00] Uh, I think about the same age.
[1:12:03] So like 14, 14.
[1:12:06] Maybe 15. He, he was so big that I think he might've been held back a few years. He wasn't exactly in the top.
[1:12:12] Okay, so he could have been 16, he could have been 15. So if your kid gets choked out by a much bigger kid, you contact a fucking lawyer. Because that's like attempted murder. That's like grievous bodily harm. That's some serious shit, right? And you don't do it just to protect your own kid, but the other kids. like you have like if you if you have a lion loose in the school somebody should make a fucking phone call it.
[1:12:45] It's still when i think about it it's still weird to me that nobody said or did anything about this kid.
[1:12:52] Right well you know i mean society is designed to bully kids because that way they become compliant citizens right so it's a lot of political power is based upon the bullying of children. So there's not much incentive for government schools to prevent kids from being bullied because governments rely on kids being bullied and growing up to be compliant adults, right? So, yeah, it is. From a moral standpoint, it's completely weird. But from a sort of mechanics of power standpoint, it makes sense. Okay, so tell me about Borderline Girl.
[1:13:27] Borderline Girl. All right. Right. So I'm just going to start from the beginning of the music stuff because that leads directly into it, if that's okay. So, one day my dad brings home a guitar for me. He paid for it with a bonus that he got, and I immediately took to it like a duck to water.
[1:13:55] Play until my fingers bled. What's the summer of 69? Yeah, okay. That's my singing audition for your guitar. I'm kidding. Go ahead.
[1:14:04] Oh, thank you. Well, I'll sing for you, too. No, probably not. um so this thing took over my brain my soul my entire life i spent probably eight hours a day playing this thing uh by the time i hit high school i was uh creating bands and leading them and playing shows and stuff so by the time i was 19 i managed to get into a somewhat prolific local band that needed a an expert guitar player and i was the man for the job they wanted me to move into their house with them uh which it's like hey man you have those long god-given.
[1:14:46] Spider fingers like the brian may full-on daddy long legs or i.
[1:14:51] Have giant italian hands there you.
[1:14:53] Go okay got it got it okay now that helps i unfortunately have stubby irish hands so for me an f chord gave me a a seizure but anyway go on.
[1:15:00] All right so i move into this band house and a girl from my past uh i want to say i'm trying to remember exactly uh i think i was, 16 when i met her um i meet her again three years later she comes to a house party uh with another guy on her arm now as soon as she sees me how pretty is she, um i think most people would think of her as like a five or a six like not beautiful in the face but uh her body is is incredible i'm just gonna say that okay.
[1:15:41] Smoking body nice legs shame about the face got it okay.
[1:15:44] Yeah exactly so as soon as she walks in the house she remembers me i remember her her, she drops the guy's arm, you know, like she's doing the reverse Gene Simmons, just like, I can make her drop her hand. Anyway, so then she just walks straight over to me and for the next, I don't know, four hours of this house party, she's all about me. We're just face to face.
[1:16:11] Yeah, you get love bombed. Yeah.
[1:16:13] Yeah, love bombing, exactly.
[1:16:15] And a sexual presentation, heavy breathing, hair tossing, touching your arm, like sexual presentation? Yeah.
[1:16:22] All that stuff, yeah.
[1:16:23] Okay, got it.
[1:16:26] And so, when I think about this memory, I think about how I've never experienced anyone paying that close attention to me and giving me the kind of, what would you say? I don't know, validation?
[1:16:46] Yeah, you hove into view in somebody else's consciousness and you finally start to feel real for yourself, right?
[1:16:53] Manifest socially yeah.
[1:16:55] I get it it's like it's like being summoned back from the dead by an expert witchy necromancer with great tits all right go on.
[1:17:01] Yeah uh okay uh i'm just gonna warn you uh as i go further into this story it's going to be harder and harder for me to uh keep my emotions straight um i'm gonna be this this is hard hard stuff to talk about but this is why i'm here so anyway uh we start dating um she is unbelievably um sexual uh she she wants to have sex and she wants to have sex uh two three four five times a day right so she was abused.
[1:17:40] As a kid right.
[1:17:44] That's, yes, yes. That's what I was told.
[1:17:49] I'm sorry?
[1:17:52] Oh, that's what she told me.
[1:17:55] Yeah, okay, got it. So she's completely love-bombing you, and she is making you a dopamine addict to sex and attention. She's reeling you in. I wouldn't say grooming because you're an adult, but it's kind of like that.
[1:18:12] Yeah. Yeah, and, oh, all right.
[1:18:15] And you know what, take what you want, right? Take what you want and then pay for it. Hey, look at that. Really great sex, four or five times a day with a smoking hot female. I wonder if there's going to be a price. No, there's not going to be a price to this. It's all free. Can't lose anything. Anyway, go on.
[1:18:34] Yeah. Sorry. So she wants to have sex all the time. this is kind of like the entire basis of the relationship she's like oh hot musician boy i want to have sex with him all the time and make him addicted to me i didn't know this at the time but now that i look back that's how it felt.
[1:18:54] Well i mean you're not getting any advice right i mean your idiot peers are like yeah she's hot you know good for you man five times a day go for it bro and your parents aren't giving you any warning and there's no uh village elders to punch you in the nads and say snap out of it kid this goes straight off a cliff.
[1:19:12] Yes, exactly. And I am, I did, uh, sorry. Uh, one thing at a time. I, uh, it was not easy to, uh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Uh, okay. Let's get, let's continue with the having lots of set. All right. so anyway so three months go by everyone's very proud that i have this girlfriend and we're all crazy in love and everything and she breaks up with me out of nowhere with very little explanation and i am uh i'm relatively heartbroken because it's like well now i i don't have access to this great source of fun anymore and that's wait hang.
[1:19:57] On the bullet like.
[1:19:59] Just passed.
[1:20:00] Right past your ear like the borderline broke up with you?
[1:20:05] Yes.
[1:20:06] You got an out? You got to get out of jail, free clod, fluttering down from the infinite cleavage? Holy crap, bro! What happened?
[1:20:15] We're only starting this story, Stef. I'm sorry.
[1:20:20] Okay, but she gave you an out. She broke up with you.
[1:20:25] Yes.
[1:20:26] Okay. And so she gave you some post-nut clarity, right?
[1:20:31] Yes then what happened and then uh i spent about a week uh wallowing in self-pity missing a girl who i thought i'd connected on a deep and psychological and emotional connection with, and uh i reached out to her and tried to rekindle things and she accepted and only after sorry what was.
[1:20:55] Her story about breaking up with you why did she let you break up with you.
[1:21:01] See, it's hard to even tell, like, I still, to this day, don't even know why we initially broke up or why she broke up with me.
[1:21:08] Oh, she just said, I don't want to date anymore. And that's it, right?
[1:21:12] Yeah, basically.
[1:21:13] Okay. So it's kind of sadistic, right? To get a guy addicted and then yank it away. It's, you know, it's kind of cruel, right? But all right. We understand. Borderline. Okay. So then what?
[1:21:23] All right so then we get back together and i find out that basically what she had done is she became attracted to another musician guy and decided that she wanted to have sex with him and not feel guilty about being with me at the same time sorry i'm trying to understand.
[1:21:41] This because i've never heard this before are you saying that a groupie was unfaithful.
[1:21:47] No like hang on.
[1:21:48] Let me just i gotta jot this shit down because this is like revelatory.
[1:21:52] Okay groupie.
[1:21:53] Unfaithful no my pen just broke it won't write it it just won't write it it's like trying to draw a square.
[1:22:00] Circle it's impossible okay.
[1:22:01] Sorry go on.
[1:22:03] No it's all good it's all good um so anyway um then uh after this she has a week long fling with this other musician guy and then i reach out to her and go hey i actually really miss you I thought that we were going to be able to hang out Well, I just wanted to have sex with her That's all it was At least at that time But I was also completely addicted to her And I don't even know what emotional connection feels like At this point I get.
[1:22:39] The psychology of it So what happened?
[1:22:42] Okay So then we get back together, From that point, we stayed together for about three years with, as far as I'm aware, no infidelity issues or anything. We hang out constantly. We're constantly having sex. And it's like this crazy, weird dream with the occasional bump in the road that, for whatever reason, didn't seem to bug me at the time, where she would do something like, you didn't have sex with me today. That makes me sad. I'm going to go sit and cry and then spend the next week not talking to you because you made me feel bad. And then, I'm sorry. I'm very sorry. This is hard to talk about. Yeah.
[1:23:40] I mean, I'd really appreciate it if you stopped apologizing to me. I mean, mean this is what we're here to talk about i mean like if you go to a doctor and you start saying where it hurts you say i'm so sorry i don't mean to burden you with where it's like that's the whole point right so we could talk about i understand you don't have to apologize and i sympathize go ahead thanks.
[1:23:58] Stef um so i'm picking up on this pattern of behavior uh within the relationship over years but i do nothing about it where essentially not essentially well.
[1:24:13] No but compared to your parents marriage this is bliss and your parents fighting all the time and and right this mother's drinking all the time and your dad's yelling and frightening you and like i mean isn't this relative bliss.
[1:24:28] It was supreme bliss. Okay.
[1:24:31] And that's a long time for that kind of bliss to go on, right? I mean, I have some hiccups and all of that, but that was not my guess as to the next chapter of the story. But anyway, go on.
[1:24:41] Okay. So basically what she would do is I would be completely addicted to her. and then if i failed in any way to live up to her expectation of what she what she wanted from me then she would withdraw sex withdraw affection uh just completely leave me in the dark not talk to me on the phone not come over to my house and i felt this impending doom of like oh god i'm gonna lose this girl again yeah so she was.
[1:25:18] Sort of training you like a puppy with positive and negative stimuli so when you did what she wanted she'd reward you with sex when you didn't do what she wanted she'd withhold affection and so she wasn't communicating you but she was trying to train you like some wayward puppy right.
[1:25:31] Exactly yeah okay so this this is going on for several, years um and then she does the bpd thing where she mirrors my behavior she changes her personality to match mine so that she can further sort of dig her claws into me yes.
[1:25:52] Mirroring yeah i got it okay.
[1:25:54] Yeah so then she becomes a musician uh stated it should be stated here that her father is a musician and she had musical inclinations before did she become an.
[1:26:07] Actual musician or just a drummer.
[1:26:10] No, no. We're getting there.
[1:26:14] All right.
[1:26:15] No, she actually did become a real musician, but she wasn't very good. But, you know, she's this hot chick who's kind of the slut around town, and so people want to be associated with her. And so she joins a band, joins her own band, not my band. And she wants to be a guitarist like me. Who would have figured? And at this point, she is telling me things like, well, I need to spend more time with my bandmates because I'm serious about wanting to be a musician just like you. And so I can't be around you as often. Sorry about that. I immediately start thinking, oh God, here we go again. And turns out that she cheated on me with her drummer from the band that she joined and needed to spend more time.
[1:27:08] Oh, it's the drummers.
[1:27:09] Okay always the drummers yeah yeah okay, all right so he confessed to me one day when she realized that I'm suspicious of her she goes hey I just want this thing I'm sorry it's so serious and dark but this guy and I we my drummer we actually made out and stuff and I'm sorry I was there and sleep together.
[1:27:37] I mean it's not great but.
[1:27:39] Well and then so i say look even kissing is infidelity get the fuck out of my house, so then i message the guy and i say hey man uh i don't blame you uh but don't do it again, and then he messages me back yeah so sorry about this but uh she and i have had kind of our hands all over each other for a long time now and I didn't know how to tell you but, basically he was saying she's a hoe man like your girlfriend's a hoe but he.
[1:28:16] Knew that she was your girlfriend right.
[1:28:19] He did okay and so then I get back to her you didn't just kiss did you and then she breaks down so I'm.
[1:28:29] Sorry then she does what.
[1:28:33] Emotionally breaks down like starts crying She's crying.
[1:28:35] She's caught. Right. Which is inevitable, right? I mean, it's not that big a community musicians, particularly budding musicians. They all know each other. So. Okay.
[1:28:44] Very much. So, yeah. So then, uh, she decides to message me again and say, Hey, we're like, I'm, I just want to meet up with you. I just want to express how sorry I am about everything.
[1:28:58] And then she throws herself at you and you have sex again. Okay.
[1:29:04] Correct the Mundo. Yeah. Um, but during this conversation, uh, when we meet up, uh, I, this is, uh, this is the revelation that kind of broke my mind when it comes to this stuff and the nature of this relationship. Uh, so she comes to me and says, yeah, I'm, I'm a cheater. I'm, I'm a bad, I'm a bad bitch. Uh, well, she, she didn't put it like that. I'm, I'm, I'm doing this thing. Okay. She says, I'm a cheater. I'm a bad woman, but I just want you to know that I actually truly really only love you and only you. And, uh, so then I decide to ask her, okay, so how many times have you cheated on me? And she says, she doesn't remember. So I'm like, well, can you count it on your fingers? And she's going 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, loses count of her fingers, has to start counting her toes. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, how many people...
[1:30:05] Fingers and toes, 40 things we share. 41 if you include the fact that we don't care. All right.
[1:30:12] Oh thank you for that but yes and then uh i asked her okay so how many times have you cheated on me where it's led to sex and she she gave me a look that i will never forget it's kind of like a sad tired eye like where she knows she's caught out in a lie but she doesn't know how to cover for herself like do i tell her right now and she just goes i don't remember right doesn't remember how How many times she's cheated on me where it led to.
[1:30:43] Or she does. Oh, she does, but she just doesn't want to say it. Right.
[1:30:50] Yeah. Yes. So I'm fortunate at this point because I am tested. I don't have an STD. She's not pregnant. We're not married. Like, okay. So can I forgive this woman? I don't know, but I really want to because she's hot and nobody else in the world. I, I feel like is going to give me the amount of attention. Sorry. Yes. Well, sex, but yeah, like, yeah, I'm, I'm so lonely in this world. And this woman is here to make me feel like a God, basically as long as she's not cheating on me. Right. Um, okay. So anyway, um, I choose to forgive her and we continue with, uh, being a supposed being in a supposed relationship uh some wait sorry but.
[1:31:55] How was the cheating resolved.
[1:31:56] Uh whoops whoopsie yeah essentially very very badly i essentially said oh okay so you love me though right and she's like yes baby and then like let's forget about this now All right.
[1:32:15] So we're talking about your girlfriend, but we're not, really.
[1:32:22] No.
[1:32:22] Who are we talking about, really?
[1:32:25] Oh, gosh. Why don't you tell me so I don't have to say it?
[1:32:30] All right, paging Dr. Freud, right?
[1:32:34] Okay.
[1:32:36] What are we really talking about here? Why would you be in this mindset or this way inclined?
[1:32:47] A lack of attention from my parents and especially my mother.
[1:32:52] Sorry say again.
[1:32:53] Uh a lack of parenting a lack of attention and affection from my mother well.
[1:33:02] Okay let's uh let's let's dig into it okay so, why did your father marry your mother.
[1:33:13] Uh they married basically as soon as they were able to they met in high school and they were both extraordinarily good-looking people there we go look.
[1:33:24] At that that didn't take long.
[1:33:27] All right well very good so my mother was a model straight out of high school and my dad was a typical you know hockey jock okay.
[1:33:36] So your parents married each other, For sex. Not for virtue, not for equality of character, not for integrity, not for being good parents, not for being good partners. Your parents married for sex.
[1:33:57] Yeah, that seems about right.
[1:33:59] Boy, they didn't like each other, right?
[1:34:02] No.
[1:34:03] Now, come on, as men, is this that complicated? Why is a man with a woman who's young and attractive that he doesn't really like?
[1:34:12] For sex of.
[1:34:13] Course of course right okay.
[1:34:17] And uh if i'm anything like my dad uh he was a sex maniac and so that makes complete sense jesus christ yeah so i mean.
[1:34:28] I hate to say this is why i said paging Dr. Freud, right?
[1:34:33] Right. I shouldn't be laughing. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty rough. So, shall I continue with the relationship story?
[1:34:54] Ah, well... yes yes do that.
[1:35:01] Okay all right because this becomes compoundingly more complicated and weird um so anyway um we have several instances over the next several years where she continues to cheat on me then i break up with her then she comes back to me weeping and sobbing and spreading her legs and i go oh okay i guess we'll get back together and we do this literally so many times that i don't i personally don't remember how many times we had broken up and gotten back together, um so it's so strange in the way that it ended because she became uh it psychotically obsessed with sex as if she wasn't before she started playing around with ideas and kinks and she was obsessed with a k-pop band and was.
[1:36:09] This is so ridiculous she's kind of a girl who uh writes fan fiction about her favorite uh celebrities and somehow she ends up obsessed with the idea of gay men having sex with each other and this is sort of like becoming disturbing to me and yet i'm addicted to this woman and so So she's increasingly putting this stuff into the bedroom where she wants to do role play where she is a guy, a celebrity of her choosing, and I am the other celebrity of her choosing, and she wants me to play this out. Now, at this point, if we don't have sex, she's going to leave me, cheat on me, whatever it is. So it's like, well, I get to have sex with this girl. But if I don't do it her way, she's going to leave me and cheat on me and hurt me again, and I'm just going to forgive her. So hey, may as well just try and maintain the peace by diving into whatever it is she wants to do in the bedroom. So I'm just going to play along and pretend like I like it.
[1:37:24] Talking about this is really hard man um so even outside of the bedroom she's talking about her favorite celebrities she's writing fan fiction about it she's completely obsessed with it and the obsession just grows and grows i'm becoming concerned at this point because i I just want to be with the girl that I met, one who just matches my energy and is just wanting to, I don't know, play around, I guess.
[1:38:05] But it's becoming unbelievably difficult to deal with her for the only reason that we're together now. i'm just trying to make her not cheat on me by allowing her to what increasingly feels like, a violation in the bedroom she is doing things i'm at first i tell her i don't want to do this and then i go okay well you know you want to be experimental and fun and i'm i'm with you and i'm I have an open mind, and I'm playing around with her, and it's getting increasingly, increasingly weird. And I'm growing to feel more and more violated as time goes by. she starts talking about hey did you know that did you know that when trans people when trans women when they get their tits topped off they have to like push their nipples down so that they stay in place proper when the scars heal and I go what?
[1:39:16] So she's obsessed with gay sex she wants me to play along with her sexual fetishes, now she's talking about uh getting a double mastectomy and i am very much starting to pull away because if the cheating wasn't enough i actually have to start telling why does.
[1:39:35] She want that.
[1:39:39] All right what uh the surgery you mean yeah Yeah. All right. So she was so obsessed with sex and so obsessed with growing her sexual interest that when she became obsessed with gay sex, like specifically gay men, she wanted to have gay sex. and this is what she wanted and i was her boyfriend sorry she wanted.
[1:40:16] To have gay sex as a man.
[1:40:19] Yes, correct.
[1:40:20] Okay, got it.
[1:40:22] All right.
[1:40:23] Was she doing drugs?
[1:40:27] No, no, she wasn't doing drugs, at least as far as I know.
[1:40:29] Okay, so listen, over the course of the sort of five years that you were with this woman, what did you find out about her childhood?
[1:40:39] All right. So her mom and dad met, and her mom immediately tagged her father as the guy who's going to give birth to their child. Now, the story that I've been told as to why her mom wants to have a child with this man is because she wants to get impregnated, have a kid, and then run away. and she thought that she could take advantage of this guy basically steal his sperm have the baby and then run off into the mountains and just be this mother child perfect couple who never has to deal with the world crazy shit i know um and her mom is i mean she she was extremely Extremely overprotective, like hovering over her child at all times, pulling her out of school because she stubbed her toe or something. Was complaining to teachers about how they treated her child.
[1:41:46] And her father... All right, this is... Again, I said this is going to be difficult to talk about, and I'm getting emotional. um so her father uh also a musician uh he was sent to court because somebody overheard i think he was on the phone with like a phone company or a cable company or something and they overheard him saying something while he was on hold and he didn't know he was being recorded and some kind of interaction happened between him and my ex-girlfriend and then lawyers were called and he had to go to court to defend himself against accusations that he was sexually abusing his daughter.
[1:42:36] Well, I mean, I think it's more than accusations if it's recorded, isn't it?
[1:42:42] Yeah. Yes. So, I believe that these events that have been described to me actually occurred, and this is why she ended up the way she did.
[1:43:01] Well, hang on. So, do you know whatever happened to this court thing?
[1:43:06] What I'm told is that he paid a high-power lawyer and just got himself clear to the entire thing. Let's just say if the prosecution hired somebody who was super expensive, he just hired somebody more expensive. And somehow he managed to get away with it.
[1:43:28] That must be a pretty successful musician.
[1:43:32] He's extremely successful, yes.
[1:43:36] All right, but not Steven Tyler. Okay, got it.
[1:43:39] No, he's not Steven Tyler.
[1:43:41] Okay, that's fine. We won't go through the process of elimination. All right.
[1:43:45] All right.
[1:43:46] Okay. So, when did you find out about her childhood?
[1:43:54] It was a slow drip when we first started dating. There was not much time for talking about childhood, and we were too busy fucking each other's brains out.
[1:44:02] No, there was tons of time to talk about childhood. that you chose not to. So when did you find out about her childhood?
[1:44:09] Oh, about four years in, I believe.
[1:44:17] No, no, no. I can't imagine that's true.
[1:44:22] Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, I mean, uh, about the court case. I learned about that four years.
[1:44:27] No, no. Her childhood into the court case. How bad childhood?
[1:44:31] Okay. Well, I, I learned about that pretty quick just by watching her mom. Uh, oh, so you met her parents. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[1:44:41] And did her mom stay with her dad?
[1:44:44] They were together in the same house. Her mom lived on the upper floor in a separate bedroom, and they didn't spend any time together. She doesn't work.
[1:44:53] Sorry. The father was recorded, as far as we know. We don't know for sure, because I'm sure we never heard the recording. But the father was recorded sexually abusing his daughter.
[1:45:08] That's right.
[1:45:09] And the mom stayed.
[1:45:12] That's right.
[1:45:15] So her mom is like your mom in a way in that she's got a job called parent which she's paid to do which she's not doing, I mean I can't even tell you what kind of human being you'd have to be to hear this recording and stay under the same roof with the man Thank you.
[1:45:50] I can only imagine what, oh my God.
[1:45:56] I mean, this is how foundationally unprotected this girl was, right? The mother listens to a recording, which we assume, based upon the court case, is either proof of or strong indication of the rape or sexual abuse of the child, and she sticks around.
[1:46:18] Yeah.
[1:46:21] And, of course, we don't know much about the court case, if anything, but it's hard to imagine that if the mother had not been a strong witness for the prosecution, that the dad might have been convicted, right?
[1:46:39] That's right.
[1:46:40] So my guess is that spouses can't be forced to testify, right, against each other. They can't be forced to. They can. And so, again, I don't know any of the details, but one of the theories that could fit the facts as we know them is that the mother refused to testify against her husband.
[1:46:59] Well, my understanding is that she supported him.
[1:47:03] Right. No, I get that. I get that.
[1:47:06] It was like, oh, well, he's innocent or something like that.
[1:47:12] Listen, you wouldn't, and I'm not talking about this woman in particular because I don't know her, right? And these are just very sketchy details, which is fine. But the number of women who sell their children to pedophiles for money is not zero. You keep paying, you can have the kid.
[1:47:35] Right.
[1:47:36] I'm not saying it's this woman, because I don't know. I don't know. I'm just saying, I actually have just read a case about this for research on another other matter, where the mother would deliver the children to the grandfather in order for him to molest, and in return, he would give her money.
[1:47:55] Right.
[1:47:57] So you learned pretty early on, maybe you didn't learn about the court case, but you learned pretty early on that she'd had a completely screwed up childhood, right?
[1:48:06] Yes. Yes, that's right. She was. This is so stupid. I. I loved her for the crazy. Well, I didn't.
[1:48:22] You didn't love her at all. Come on.
[1:48:24] No, I know.
[1:48:25] Come on. Don't even try. Don't even try. It was lust.
[1:48:32] Absolutely.
[1:48:33] Come on, if she was 200 pounds or like, come on. You'd love her for her quality. Please.
[1:48:39] Well, when you put it like that.
[1:48:41] No, come on. If she had the same personality but was a man, would you be her friend? No, you'd be like, oh, my God, what a nut job. Good luck with all that, right?
[1:48:51] Yeah, 100%.
[1:48:52] Okay, so let's not talk about the love stuff. And you think the darkness is in her, right? Like you're saying, oh, this is dark, this is tough for me to talk about. So you think the darkness is in her, right?
[1:49:05] No, no.
[1:49:08] Okay, so where's the darkness?
[1:49:12] It's within me.
[1:49:14] Right.
[1:49:14] I know that.
[1:49:15] Okay, so what is the darkness within you?
[1:49:21] Um lonely uh isolation.
[1:49:27] Okay what is the darkness within you with regards to this woman, you know where i'm going i.
[1:49:52] Know i know.
[1:49:53] Where's the darkness in you relative to this woman.
[1:49:59] Um what's uh what's the term here That one complex that, Alright, The relationship with my mother.
[1:50:16] Nope It's not Oedipal I mean there may be elements of that But that's not the darkness Boy you might not actually really see this And sometimes people know it But they don't want to talk about it You might not actually see this one at all.
[1:50:29] I don't think I do actually.
[1:50:31] Alright All right. Let's just go with the assumption based on the evidence that this girl was raped as a child, right?
[1:50:42] All right. Right.
[1:50:44] And how old was she when you first had sex with her?
[1:50:50] 19.
[1:50:50] Right. How old was she when this recording occurred?
[1:50:58] I believe she was a toddler, like six to eight sort of age range.
[1:51:06] Right. the darkness, my friend, is that you, to some degree, exploited a woman who had been raped as a child for your own sexual gratification. That she had no boundaries, she was hypersexual, she'd been completely screwed up by her childhood. She didn't need another guy banging her. She needed some TLC. She needed a friend. She needed some care. She needed some...
[1:51:43] Oh, my God.
[1:51:45] But you picked her off the rubble of her childhood and kind of used her for sex for half a decade. You didn't sit there and say, holy crap, she had a really bad childhood. I know what that's like. I got to pull back on this, because this is not what she needs. This is not healthy for her. This is a repetition of the trauma.
[1:52:10] Which would have meant that I would just have to stop being with her.
[1:52:14] Well, no, you could have been her friend if you cared about her. You could have said, hey, you know, I'm no therapist, but talk to me about your childhood.
[1:52:23] You really should probably go and see a therapist, and this is really appalling. Did you take her side against her mother? Like, your mother is really a terrible person. Did you try to help her at all with her family? Did you try to help her at all with her issues, or did you just bang her?
[1:52:48] Well, I'm not going to make excuses for myself. I, holy shit, man. Nobody's ever said anything like that to me. I feel like a monster.
[1:53:01] Well, if I'm unfair, I'm trying to figure out what's going on deep down in your body.
[1:53:07] Okay so all right i don't i don't feel like that's what i did like this relationship lasted a long time and we did connect as people we shared interests bro oh bro bro come on did she get Get better.
[1:53:37] Or worse over her time with you?
[1:53:41] What worse?
[1:53:45] Right. So that's the empirical fact, right?
[1:53:50] Mm-hmm.
[1:53:50] I mean, she went complete and total degeneracy with you, and after half a decade with you, she wanted to saw her own breasts off. And I'm not saying you were the direct cause of that, but you were involved. You didn't love her. You just wanted to have sex with her. What did that do? I mean, and also she was sexually exploited as a kid. And of course, she was a kid. I'm not putting you in the same moral category as her father, of course, right? Please, understand that, right?
[1:54:24] Yes, absolutely.
[1:54:27] But you didn't like her. Because she cheated on you. And she lied to you. And she betrayed you. And she broke up with you for no reason. And lied to you about that. going to sleep with the other guy and she slept with the drummer. So she was not a good moral person. I sympathize with her, but she was not a good moral person. We can only love virtue. It's all we can love. And while I sympathize, of course, with all of her trauma, she sure as hell was not a virtuous person. So you kind of loved her. So you used her for sex. Now, I'm not putting you in the same moral category as her father, but it's not the total opposite behavior.
[1:55:12] Right.
[1:55:14] And that's why she got worse. All I have to offer is my body. I am a piece of fuckable meat.
[1:55:30] Yeah.
[1:55:31] Men don't care about me. They only pretend to care about me. I mean, the funny thing is you had this whole tale of being hard done by by this woman because she lied to you. And you said, I was the victim and I was the victim and this was terrible and it was so bad and I was so hard done by and so hard. You lied to her about the whole fucking thing. Because you were there for the sex. And the fact that she was defenseless and had no boundaries and had a nymphomaniac sexual compulsion based upon being probably raped as a child was fine with you. That was a plus. Now that's the darkness I'm talking about.
[1:56:15] Okay. Okay. See, I'm...
[1:56:23] Okay you were there for the sex primarily and the sex was available to you because of the wound left by the father right but so you were exploiting the wound left by the father to get sex, i'm not saying it was conscious and if i'm unjust unfair or wrong absolutely tell me push back and And maybe I'm being completely unfair here, but it seems to match all the facts and I'm happy to be corrected.
[1:56:56] Okay, so I didn't know about this until four years in?
[1:56:59] Nope. No, you didn't know about the court case. And that's because you didn't ask. Oh, now you're blaming her for not telling you in the same way that your parents blamed you for not telling them about being bullied. lead but the evidence was clear of course what did i say you said she's compulsively sexual what's the first thing i said she was sexually abused as a child everybody knows this this common knowledge right uh.
[1:57:30] Yes absolutely okay i'm sorry.
[1:57:32] So you knew she had all the symptoms of significant and probably quite rampant childhood sexual abuse, you knew that from the beginning and you knew about her childhood in the first couple of months now did you know all the details of the court case no it doesn't matter but you didn't ask, But you knew, you showed all the symptoms. Like, what was I saying earlier? What was I saying earlier? If your girlfriend got beaten up at a party, you'd know the difference, right?
[1:58:06] Yes, the difference in her behavior after.
[1:58:08] So her nymphomania and sexual compulsions arise out of a loving, happy, healthy childhood with great protection from her father? Nope. Not at all. and you knew all you knew all of that don't give me this four-year bullshit that's a cope you knew all of that almost from the very beginning i.
[1:58:35] It should be stated here that she didn't even know it until it was revealed to her at that moment at the four-year in period.
[1:58:44] So we i just said don't give me the section don't give me the court case and you're now going right back to the court case bro oh.
[1:58:50] Okay fair enough.
[1:58:51] Like at least acknowledge that i said I said something, and don't pretend I didn't. I may be wrong, but I'd still like to be heard.
[1:59:00] All right.
[1:59:01] It's not about the court case. Your court case is your technical excuse, in the same way your parents would say, well, you know, we didn't do anything for the first seven or eight years, but hey, he didn't tell us.
[1:59:19] So...
[1:59:19] You knew she was messed up the moment you met her. You knew that she was messed up the moment you met her.
[1:59:27] Yes.
[1:59:28] Right? And you didn't do much to inquire as to why, because then you would have had to change lust into empathy, which is what would have helped her.
[1:59:42] Right.
[1:59:43] You didn't want to interfere with the lust, so you didn't ask much about her childhood, because you knew what the answer was going to be, and you just wanted to keep fucking her rather than have some empathy for her suffering as a child, which is kind of what she needed.
[2:00:02] Man, I really feel like a monster right now.
[2:00:10] Look, we all do bad things, right? Nobody's perfect. We all do bad things.
[2:00:19] Yeah.
[2:00:21] So, but we have to be honest with ourselves, right? Because the funny thing is, right? You said, as a victim, you described yourself or portrayed yourself or brought yourself forward as a victim in this relationship.
[2:00:42] Yes.
[2:00:43] Which is kind of a lie. Not a total lie.
[2:00:52] I've been lying to myself.
[2:00:53] But if you'd said to me, if you said to me, you know, I fell prey to the sin of lust and I exploited a woman whose sexual defenses had been destroyed by being sexually abused as a child and I just had a lot of sex with her and didn't inquire as to her childhood because I didn't want to know because I just wanted the lust. I wanted my gratification at the expense of her mental health. I'd be like, damn, this guy's got it going on. That's some honesty. Did you help her mental health? It got worse and worse and worse. And you sort of have this odd thing where you're like putting yourself at a distance and saying, well, you know, she got into this strange stuff and kinky stuff and weird stuff and right. Like you're not a huge participant in all of this. Like you're just observing this like it's a movie you have nothing to do with. I mean, what I hear is, what I hear is, well, she started out with me, you know, kind of promiscuous and untrustworthy, and then after five years with me, she wanted to hack her own breasts off.
[2:02:14] Hmm. Yeah.
[2:02:16] And yet you feel like a victim? Like she just did bad things to you, and she was cray-cray, and... Jeez, bro. you're using her like the other men and you say well she betrayed me it's like well you lied to her you told her you loved her right which was a lie you could have cared about her you could have been compassionate with her for sure i understand all of that but you didn't love her, because she was too wounded and broken, so So.
[2:02:57] How do I redeem myself of this?
[2:03:02] Well, let's talk about, I mean, this is why I, there was a kind of primal innocence here in a way, right? Which is, you're like, well, it's, my loneliness is the darkness. It's maybe something Freudian. And I'm like, and I was like, remember I said, like, maybe you really don't know this. Because, you know, bro, you might have a daughter. And when you have a daughter, and you watch that daughter grow, you will understand that your ex-girlfriend did not come with the Barbie figure and the plain face. She was birthed from nothing to where she was. And what she went through to end up where she was, was hell itself.
[2:03:46] Right.
[2:03:47] And you, in a sense, there's a wounded woman on the road. She desperately needs help. She needs someone to call 911. she needs someone to bind her wounds and you steal her fucking wallet and move on, you used her, now of course people will say ah yes but she used him too and I get all of that I'm not saying it's totally one sided right I'm not saying you're both adults I get all of that but I'm talking to you not her, yeah, because I'm telling you man this story the way you tell it would make almost all decent, compassionate people run for the fucking hills. And it's going to keep you isolated from quality people. Because you need to take ownership for what you did. Now, you were a young man. I get that. You were untutored. I get that. She was hot. I get all of that. I understand that there's mitigating factors.
[2:04:49] But the question is not whether there are mitigating factors. The question is not can you make excuses. The question is one thing and one thing only. What does your conscience say about this? It doesn't matter what I say. I could be totally wrong. It matters what you think very much deep down. You knew that she'd had a completely screwed up childhood. You didn't ask her about it.
[2:05:18] you didn't try to help her you lied to her and you had sex with her body knowing that her sexuality was largely a compulsion that resulted from rampant probably rampant childhood sexual abuse, she wasn't healed she wasn't whole she wasn't better and you found her as a young woman who was messed up and you left her as a woman on the verge of psychosis wanting to cut her breasts off.
[2:05:53] There's there's no appealing to hormonal stupidity on this one i are, I have, I have.
[2:06:11] It doesn't matter it doesn't matter what appeals you make to this that or the other because you're the one who has to live with your conscience not me we're just flying past each other right, now if you're you have to open yourself up to your conscience now if you start making if you start making excuses your conscience will escalate, okay right So you just have to say, you know, with regards to your conscience, you say, I am here defenseless. Give me the case for the prosecution.
[2:06:41] Okay.
[2:06:42] Give me the case for the prosecution. Now, you'll want to ward off that prosecution, right? Because your conscience is trying to get you to connect with people. And the more you lie to yourself, the less you can connect with people. so when you say gosh there was I was a victim and this crazy bipolar girl and she started off hypersexual then she betrayed me and then she got into gay sex and she wanted to cut her breasts off and I'm like yes but you're you're part of this you're related to this you're causal in some of this.
[2:07:12] So, I honestly have never heard this idea about how this has all gone down. Sorry, this is, my conscience about this was very clear for years. And now that I'm hearing about it in this way, it makes me feel so utterly stupid.
[2:07:39] No, no, because listen, I could be wrong. If your conscience was clear, I'm perfectly happy to hear that case. So don't assume just because I'm saying something that I'm right, this is a case, right? And the case could be false, right? Sometimes people get prosecuted and the case against them falls apart. This is a case. So tell me how your conscience was clear. What was the case?
[2:08:08] It really felt like i was just trying to be with her okay so let me put it uh, so this sexual relationship was uh i'm i'm just telling you this i'm just telling you the fact she was the one who instigated all of these sexual interactions and part of the rule base for our relationship at that time was you must have, this is her talking, you must have sex with me or I'm going to emotionally blackmail you and kick you out of my life.
[2:08:43] Okay, so she was kind of like a sexual terrorist.
[2:08:47] Yes.
[2:08:48] So she threatened you to have sex with her.
[2:08:52] Oh, yes. And so this is the part of the story.
[2:08:55] You don't think that's pretty fucking disturbed?
[2:08:59] I absolutely do, and you did at the time right.
[2:09:03] Like this that's that's seriously fucked up.
[2:09:07] So this uh this kind of i i got a new job at one point and i had to be up very early in the morning and she demanded that i was and when i say these words i get it.
[2:09:21] She's a sexual addict i got it.
[2:09:23] No no i i'm being specific about uh our time schedule she was like you must hang out with me we have to be together and regardless of what time you have to wake up in the morning regardless of what you have going on in your life yes she was a sexual addict, so I actually didn't want to do this I, I didn't want, oh my God, there was about a period of two years.
[2:10:00] Semi-consensual sex. You were threatened into having sex, right?
[2:10:09] I didn't want to do it, Stefan.
[2:10:11] No, I get it. I get it. It's kind of creepy and looming, and your instincts were, this is A, dangerous, B, completely fucked up. This is coming out of a very dark, bad place, right?
[2:10:24] Yeah.
[2:10:25] And did you say to her at any point, tell me a little bit about these sexual compulsions? What happened in your childhood? Did anything inappropriate happen? Or when did you first get these sexual compulsions? Or like, you know, basic, you care about someone's stuff and you want to find out about them.
[2:10:39] I did ask her. And it was kind of a whirlwind of emotions where she was telling me these stories about how, you know, her first boyfriend she found when she was 15 or something. And he was a bit of a sex addict as well. And this was very emotionally traumatizing for her. And I didn't want to push her to do anything that she didn't want to do.
[2:11:05] What do you mean pushing you to have sex when you don't want to?
[2:11:10] Yeah but you know i figured at the time hey i can take it like if this is what it to make the relationship work i know it's so stupid i'm this is why well there's a lot of trauma.
[2:11:23] Here but you're not a victim alone.
[2:11:26] No you also victimized, Oh my God. I feel so stupid.
[2:11:42] Well, tell me what you mean. If stupid is not a feeling, what do you feel? Stupid is a judgment, right?
[2:11:48] To i feel like i should have known that she was that this wasn't like just hey i'm a crazy horny young teenage girl let's go and fuck forever like i feel stupid for not knowing that she was in so much pain or if i did then i ignored it because i wanted to escape my pain as well well i mean I mean.
[2:12:17] Again, there's sort of mutual exploitation here to some degree, for sure. I mean, did she ask you much about your childhood?
[2:12:27] I was still trying to unpack it when she was asking me.
[2:12:32] Sorry, did she ask you much about your childhood?
[2:12:36] Yes. And I didn't want to talk about it much.
[2:12:42] Okay. And she was okay with that, right? Right. So you all basically pretended you didn't have a past and then found out you don't have a future. That's inevitable, right?
[2:12:51] Right.
[2:12:51] Okay. So you were both avoiding pain by using each other.
[2:12:58] Right.
[2:13:00] Except you ended up married and she wanted to saw her breasts off. So you got the better deal.
[2:13:10] I'm not going to feel guilty about getting married to my wife.
[2:13:15] No, I didn't make any suggestion like that. I'm just saying, of the two, she came out much worse off from your relationship with her. Which indicates who did the more damage, right?
[2:13:32] Honestly, I don't...
[2:13:33] If there's two cars in a car crash and one can drive away and the other one can't, which car got more damaged?
[2:13:41] The one that can't drive away.
[2:13:42] Right. So she is completely messed up, and you're married. Now, I'm just saying that's an indication of who did more damage. And you know, come on, you know that promiscuity for men is not nearly as bad as promiscuity for women.
[2:14:02] Yes, yes.
[2:14:03] Right, because we're designed to repopulate the planet in the event of the pretty common male die-off, right?
[2:14:09] Yes, exactly.
[2:14:10] So promiscuity for women is much worse than promiscuity for men.
[2:14:14] That's right.
[2:14:16] And she slept probably with hundreds of people, and she certainly slept, you said she ran out of fingers and toes, so dozens of people when she was with you, right?
[2:14:25] Yes.
[2:14:27] And, you know, that's terrible, right, for women? Yes.
[2:14:34] Oh, my God.
[2:14:36] And you didn't say, honey, listen, you know, all due respect, I really care about you. You got to see a therapist. Like, you're going to fucking looking for Mr. Goodbar. Some guy is going to lock you in a windowless van and disassemble you in a forest. Like, you've got to stop. This is incredibly dangerous. You're going to get a stalker. You're going to get a psycho. Like, you have to stop. Like, this is incredibly dangerous. And you're destroying your ability to pair bond. like you got a long life to live on this planet and what's going to happen when you're 40 or 50 and your looks are gone and your body's sagging and like what are you going to do this is this is like i i care about you and you're heading in such a terrible direction i will work night shifts to help you pay for therapy you you have to stop my.
[2:15:27] God i am a monster.
[2:15:28] Um i i i see monster is a way of avoiding your conscience by giving yourself a label that's hard to believe, right? You're not a monster. So you're just saying that in order to ward off your conscience. All right, I cop a plea. I don't want to hear the charges. I'm pleading out. It's like, no, no, you've got to hear the charges because your conscience wants to be heard. Because if you just plea out, then you don't hear the charges. And they will cut, as they do. And every man who's exploited a woman in this way has to face this trial, right? Right? So, you just want to stop hearing the charges by jumping a monster, right? And I understand that. I don't. Right? Don't. Because you need to confront this lack of compassion within you, because you want to be a father.
[2:16:14] I do. I do. Okay.
[2:16:22] What if you were to contact her and apologize to her? I mean, I know you're married and contacting exes and all of that. I get all that complication as a whole. But just as a mental exercise, do you have any, like, when, how long ago did you break up?
[2:16:36] It would have been eight years ago.
[2:16:38] Eight years ago. And have you heard of anything about her since?
[2:16:43] Um, only, uh, things that have been sent to me by friends who have kept tabs on.
[2:16:52] Okay.
[2:16:52] So what have you.
[2:16:53] What have you heard about?
[2:16:55] Uh, I know that she moved away to the other side of the country and doesn't talk to her parents anymore and, uh, has gone through with the top surgery as far as I know, not the bottom surgery, uh, but is lonely and writing internet fan fiction.
[2:17:12] Okay that's all me got it and uh i assume that she had you said she had a great figure so i assume she had attractive breasts.
[2:17:26] Well i like i i i just liked the way she looked she had nice breasts yes.
[2:17:33] Okay so so part of the the mastectomy might have been to cut off the addiction, to control the addiction, to reduce her attractiveness so that this compulsion and being used in this way was less agonizing.
[2:17:50] Well, it seems like her activity regarding, well, pursuing the idea of being a gay boy is such an obsession for her that she's still obsessed with it. But she's, like, her fiction about this topic is...
[2:18:08] Okay, sorry, I don't want to, I mean, that's probably a very bleak place to go. But obviously, she's not improved.
[2:18:18] No, she's only ever gotten worse.
[2:18:20] Okay. Okay. And, you know, as a young man, I mean, obviously, you couldn't save her, right? I mean, that's not, right? But that didn't mean that you had to use her as she had been used in the past.
[2:18:36] Right now just to be clear she wanted to use me as well i'm just pointing just pointing that out.
[2:18:43] Well again i understand that but what does your conscience say.
[2:18:49] My conscience is telling me that i know that i screwed up big time by even getting into a relationship with this woman in the first place and i should never have done it, It makes me feel horrible that her life turned out this way and I couldn't, I didn't help her.
[2:19:14] No, you harmed her. No, no, it's not that you didn't help her. I didn't help her. I didn't know her. But by continuing to use her for sex, when she obviously is clearly has a very disturbed and dysfunctional relationship to sexuality, you were exploiting a wound left by her father, most likely, right? right and now she's like oh great so all men do is use me for sex that's all I'm worth that's all I'm good for.
[2:19:49] So, I should reach out to her and apologize.
[2:19:53] Well, no, I don't know. You know, your responsibility is to your marriage. So, I'm just, as a mental exercise, and also, she may be at this point so disturbed that it would be toxic. I don't know. It was just sort of as a mental exercise. It might be something you could write the letter and burn it.
[2:20:08] You could do it in your mind. I mean, I don't know about contacting her, because it sounds like she's in an even more messed up place, and who knows how that would play, right? And also, you know, she's already cut her breasts off, right? So, it's not like there's a return journey from that, Mr. Frodo, right, as the meme goes, right? So, I don't know. I mean, probably not, but it may be worthwhile as a mental exercise.
[2:20:32] Size okay um so i'll just uh point out here that i have never blocked her on any medium i haven't reached out to her but i made a point of allowing the methods of communication open she has called and left me drunken voicemails at three o'clock in the morning she has recently as when uh this This was probably five years ago, maybe.
[2:21:02] So what would your conscience direct you to say to her if you could speak to her without repercussions? Like it wouldn't stimulate any stalky behavior or 3 a.m. voicemails or her contacting your wife? Or like if you could speak to her with no repercussions about anything that you regretted, what would you say, do you think? Like talk to me as if I were her.
[2:21:25] Okay. Oh, I really did have a wonderful time with you. We shared so many.
[2:21:36] Okay, how about we don't start with lies? Okay, like, seriously, bro, you got to get out of this Hallmark bullshit. You did not have a wonderful time with her.
[2:21:46] Oh.
[2:21:47] Because the whole thing you said was I dated this borderline, which is the worst time of my life, you said. Okay, so let's try this again, but without, can we just un-bullshit it, if you don't mind, right?
[2:21:59] Fair enough.
[2:22:00] All right. What do you regret?
[2:22:12] I regret, I regret not treating you the way you should have been treated. with the kind of respect and love that you've never been given. And I can't believe, you know, I, you're such, you're such a beautiful person.
[2:22:57] No no no stop it stop going to sentimentality what do you regret and she's not a beautiful person she's very much messed up which we can sympathize with, what do you regret don't go to sentimentality okay Okay.
[2:23:19] As I said, this is very difficult to talk about.
[2:23:24] But you need to clean the nest. You've got a kid coming, hopefully, so you need to clean the nest, which means this kind of honesty. So go ahead, sorry.
[2:23:32] That's why. Thank you so much for talking to me.
[2:23:36] You're welcome.
[2:23:40] I deeply regret the way I treated you. With my own selfishness. believing that I was some sort of, genius musical sex god when all I was was a pig. I could have tried to help you, but I didn't. For years, I let this happen.
[2:24:11] You didn't let it happen.
[2:24:13] I made it happen.
[2:24:15] Thank you.
[2:24:18] And I did nothing to stop it.
[2:24:23] And you also did things to accelerate it, right? Exploitation.
[2:24:29] I ruined your life.
[2:24:30] No, that's too much. That's too dramatic. That's too sentimental again, right? I mean, she's ultimately in charge of her life, but you did continue a pattern of exploitation that she'd experienced from childhood, right? Right?
[2:24:47] Right.
[2:24:48] But it's too strong. Again, that's the fact of sentimentality. We have to be precise, right?
[2:25:00] It's my fault.
[2:25:02] What's your fault.
[2:25:09] It's my fault that she ended up worse off after the relationship and when and when it began.
[2:25:16] You contributed it's not your fault she made choices too okay sorry go ahead.
[2:25:24] I'm sorry man no.
[2:25:25] Because if you make the case too strong you can just dismiss it later saying well that's not true and then you can get rid of the whole thing you need to be precise she made bad choices you made bad choices she was an addict you exploited the addiction, you were an addict she exploited the addiction you both made bad choices but she's not a shadow cast by your choices she's her own being because if you reduce her to just a shadow cast by your choices that's dehumanizing her again.
[2:26:02] I allowed my demons to grow so strong in my heart, and you ended up being the victim of that. You were the victim of that, and I didn't.
[2:26:14] You did not allow the demons to go. I mean, I know we used this analogy before, and I'm sorry to be such a nag. I really do apologize. You can't cast it off on demons. It was you. And, you know, you had your bad childhood and you had your exploded parents and your parents would get together for sexual reasons and so on. So I sympathize with all of that. But it wasn't just I allowed the demons to do this to you. That's not taking ownership, right? I mean, I know it's tough. I mean, this is a new language for you, right? And I sympathize with that, too.
[2:26:48] Thank you for bearing with me.
[2:26:50] Sure.
[2:26:58] I failed you. I did you so wrong. I, it's my, it's my fault, man.
[2:27:19] What's your fault?
[2:27:25] That I, I didn't, that I didn't, I didn't even tell her how screwed up it was, what she was doing. I just made her feel bad. I just made her regret it by exiting the relationship and getting back together over and over. I was so stupid. No. I'm really... I hurt her I took advantage of her and, I allowed myself to believe that I was the victim of her.
[2:28:29] Which you also you attacked her reputation really I assume in countless conversations since then about this crazy girl who was borderline and ruined your life and how sad it was and you know, Rather than saying, yeah, I chose to sexually exploit a pretty damaged woman. I mean, it's hard to say. Like, it's hard to say how much consent there is in an addict.
[2:28:59] Sorry, just allow me to have a glass of water here.
[2:29:01] Yeah, of course.
[2:29:08] Well, okay. Okay. um how's that for a start.
[2:29:14] No that was very good that was very good well done well done, and you know obviously this is a you know a lot of journaling conversation i'd be a big fan of talking to a therapist and and not because there's something you know terrible or toxic about you but just because you you you grew up without empathy right and so empathy is going to be a challenge challenge, right? I mean, if I grew up without speaking Japanese, I got to learn Japanese. It's going to take a little while, right? And I'm not saying it's as bad or as hard as Japanese. You obviously do have empathy, which is what I was probing for. Like, can you connect with some regret, right? And all of that. And you could, and you did. So that's wonderful. Like, good for you. Well done. But you're going to need to really, really empathize with a child. And if, you know, one of the things that blocks empathy is guilt, particularly hidden guilt. Thank you. And yeah, she did wrong to you, and you're aware of that. You did wrong to her.
[2:30:19] I did.
[2:30:23] And you enabled her addiction. You fed her addiction. You mirrored her addiction. You know, like you said, oh, she mirrored me. It's like, well, you became a sex addict too, right? You mirrored her. And I'm sure the sex was, you know, physically pleasurable, but I mean, there was a coldness and a distance there. I mean, didn't you just look into her eyes sometimes and see these dead glass beads?
[2:30:49] At the end, especially, yes.
[2:30:53] But you knew it was a compulsion for her.
[2:30:58] Yes.
[2:30:59] It wasn't like, I feel so connected, I feel so close, I feel so loved and safe and secure and loving. It was a compulsion, right?
[2:31:07] Right.
[2:31:08] Right. Right. So, I mean, you used her addiction for sexual gratification, and that's tough, right? Because it fuels the addiction, right? And you're not getting to the root of why it's occurring. It'd be kind of like if I played along with your victim narrative here. That would be a way of keeping your conscience at bay, which is to say keeping your empathy at bay, which is not going to be good for your wife and your future children.
[2:31:36] All right i'm i'm calming down now i think i could i'll be able to talk a little bit more.
[2:31:40] No that's that's fine i mean that's really the most of what i wanted to uh to to get across, and i say this with sympathy like you're not a monster and and so on right you've done some bad things we all have right but so i i don't want you to go to some opposite extreme i should not i cannot get out of bed i am i am the devil incarnate it's like like you you were young and untutored and traumatized yourself, but you ain't a victim, brother. You did some bad stuff. And, you know, we have to fight, like we all do bad stuff. We have to find a way to fight through that and commit to virtue and empathy and kindness. We have to find, even though all of us, and particularly, you know, us, I mean, you're younger than me, but, you know, that kind of fucked up generation that had no tutoring. We don't have a God. We don't have a church. We don't have mentors. We don't have parents. We don't have teachers we respect. We got to figure all the shit out for ourself, which means there's a lot of fuck-ups and a lot of progress.
[2:32:36] Right.
[2:32:37] So, you know, you're a child of boomers, right? And boomers are notoriously, they don't give a shit about training their kids or parenting their kids. They're hedonists. And so you became a hedonist. And hedonism comes at a great price. I just did a show about this issue. Check it out at FDRpodcast.com. mom but so so there has to be a way that you say i did bad things i'm not a bad person right because once you define yourself as a bad person then you can't escape it it becomes existential and then your parenting gets screwed up and you can't be a good husband right so how do you do it right i did bad things like you know if you have bad health if you're bad habits of health it doesn't mean that you're going to be sick forever and ever amen i mean in terms of like if you smoked for a while when you're younger it doesn't mean you have to keep smoking and get lung cancer right you can say yeah i was a smoker i stopped smoking i did bad things health-wise and i can do better things now and you know there was this innocence for you because you didn't know right now you didn't know unconsciously right the way that you know is what you avoid right so of course if you want to get to know someone right so i wanted to get to know you so what's the first thing we talked about sorry well i yeah so you you were asking for so we talked about we talked about some of of the current issues and then we talked about childhood right and we did like two hours on your childhood right which is small it's a tiny slice right you've had this woman for five years of course you had two two hours to talk about your childhood in between like compulsive.
[2:34:05] Adderall bangathons and so.
[2:34:09] It's in the avoidance that the danger is, right? So you knew she was messed up. You didn't really want to ask about her childhood. Now you catch yourself, right? This is where our conscience is. So the devils, if you want to say that, right? The devils within you want to avoid her childhood. And so that's where you have to go. Because if you had found out that she had been viciously and repeatedly and brutally raped as a child, your sexual desire would have dried up. and would have been replaced with compassion. So you avoided that knowledge. And it's in the avoidance that our conscience is. So you say, oh, shit, I don't want to ask her about her childhood. She's got some very strange behaviors. Everybody knows childhood has a big effect on the personality, and you met her when she was only a year out of childhood. So she's very strange. Let me ask you about her childhood, right? And then you say, well, I don't want to, because it's going to interfere with my sexual gratification. It's like, okay, well, then there's your next five years.
[2:35:09] So it's in the avoidance that we need to most look. And just, you know, personally for me, I'm absolutely positive my mother went through like horrendous things as a child, sexually and so on, the war and all of that. And there were a bunch of men who had sex with my mother, right? A bunch of men who dated her and had sex with her. And nobody tried to help her. And she just got worse and worse and then she lost her mind. and i'm you know that's nine so i i don't just come out of this out of nowhere like this isn't just blindingly obvious like i had to live this for decades.
[2:35:46] And then by the time like after all the men had used her then by the time i became old enough to try and help her she was too far gone.
[2:35:57] I i just have to give you such a heartfelt thank you for talking with me about this.
[2:36:03] You are very welcome. And I'm afraid I will have to jump off. I've got to get a little bit of food. I have another call shortly. I've scheduled things sort of back to back. Will you keep me posted about how things going? And will you accept a big hug for me and promise me that you won't just lay into yourself as some bad guy, right? But just accept that, you know, you, like everyone, made some mistakes, were untutored, did some wrong, and you got to commit to do better and be open to that in the future. But not just, you know, lay into yourself and, you know, feel bad or whatever. That's helpful. helpful, but I just promise me that. And if you'll drop me a line and let me know how things are going, I'd really appreciate it.
[2:36:39] I will. Thank you, Stef.
[2:36:40] All right, brother. Thanks. Take care. Bye.
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