0:04 - Work Environment Struggles
9:55 - Therapy and Self-Reflection
24:14 - Family and Parental Relationships
55:41 - Acknowledging Anger and Abuse
1:01:22 - Claiming Your Anger
1:30:38 - Understanding Justice and Bills
1:37:16 - Moving Forward and Gratitude
The conversation delves deeply into a caller's troubling work experience with a toxic colleague and the psychological ripple effects stemming from a challenging family background. The caller recounts their initial impression of a woman who joined their organization five years prior, describing her as competent and charismatic. Underneath this facade, however, lay a deeply manipulative and harmful individual who engaged in micromanagement and gossip, creating a toxic work environment. The caller expresses frustration over management's inaction despite continuous reports about this woman's disruptive behavior, ultimately prompting them to consider leaving the company.
As the conversation unfolds, the caller reveals the extent of their emotional turmoil related to this toxic work relationship, even resorting to withdrawing from their 401k as a safety net for their impending departure. A finance director at their company eventually intervenes, leading to the woman's reassignment away from their direct supervision. This change brought temporary relief, but the caller remained apprehensive about potential retaliation. The caller finds empowerment in a principle discussed by the host, Stefan, regarding voluntary relationships. They begin to realize the power they hold in choosing interactions, leading to a newfound ability to confront the toxic colleague verbally, shutting down her attempts to manipulate and control.
Throughout the discussion, Stefan emphasizes that the work harassment described, while not illegal, is nonetheless worthy of serious consequence. He highlights how a company can take action against harmful behaviors that are damaging to the workplace culture, regardless of their legality. As the caller reflects on their work experiences, they begin to parallel this issue with their unresolved feelings toward their parents, revealing deep-seated trauma linked to their upbringing. The caller discusses their father's alcoholism and their mother's rejection of them due to their sexuality, which has shaped their feelings of shame and unworthiness.
Stefan transitions into discussing the caller's childhood history, elucidating how their early experiences with neglect and abuse laid the groundwork for difficulties in handling anger and asserting self-worth. The caller admits to previously feeling shame for their family situation, which Stefan challenges, urging the caller to recognize that the source of their distress lies not in their own failings but in the failures of their parents. He encourages the caller to embrace their anger toward them as a legitimate response to the abuse and neglect they endured. The dialogue brings forth the concept that anger can serve as a protective shield, akin to an immune system for the psyche, helping individuals to establish boundaries against further harm.
The conversation takes a profound turn as the caller processes the implications of their parents’ actions, and Stefan guides them toward understanding the need to confront these emotions fully, instead of burying them. As the discussion reaches its climax, the importance of paying “the bill” in relationships becomes a central theme. Stefan pushes the caller to recognize that those who mistreated them have incurred a debt that must be acknowledged and addressed. Thus, the conversation emphasizes the necessity of authentic emotions and personal agency—asserting that healing and empowerment come from recognizing one's worth and the legitimacy of one's grievances.
By the end of the call, the caller feels liberated by the insights gained, indicating a shift in their understanding of both their work situation and their family dynamics. They express a sense of freedom in claiming their anger and understanding their right to feel it. Stefan concludes by encouraging the caller to explore these feelings with their therapist deeply, reinforcing that their journey of self-discovery and healing is both valid and vital. Overall, the conversation encapsulates themes of personal empowerment, the significance of acknowledging harmful relationships, and the journey towards reclaiming one's voice and autonomy.
[0:00] Well, I wonder if you can just give us the lowdown on what's been going on for your work.
[0:04] Yeah, let me start over again. So this lady started working in my company about five years ago. She seemed very competent, very charismatic. And she basically interviewed me by asking me out to lunch and found out about my aspirations at work. She offered help. She kind of acted like a friend and turned out to be just awful. Now, she hasn't only targeted me. She has targeted multiple people in the organization. And I don't understand why management has not gotten rid of her. When I was so, I'm sorry, I'm like, Um, my heart's pounding right now every time I talk about this is just, yeah. Um.
[1:07] Um, I was so desperate. I was so hopeless for a long time that I thought, okay, um, the only way is out. This company is not going to do anything and I, I need to leave. So I prepared myself. I got out of debt. I actually withdrew a lot of money from my 401k, just in case. So I was getting ready. Now, a finance director, who I was working closely with, asked me one day, how are things going? And I told him, hey, things are, do you really want to know? I first said, and he said, sure. So we went out to lunch and I told him that the situation was so toxic. it. I couldn't take it anymore. And I had spoken to HR and they basically said there was nothing they could do because she wasn't doing anything illegal. And so this finance director, I'm sorry.
[2:08] I just, that seems not true to me. I mean, to be disciplined doesn't mean that you have to do something illegal in a company. To be fired means you don't have to do something illegal. I mean, if you're a salesperson and you're underperforming, then you can be fired, even though it's not against the law to underperform as a salesperson. There are forms of sexual harassment that are against company policies that are not illegal in the workplace, right? Like you don't go to jail for dating a subordinate, but most companies would have policies against that. The verbal harassment in the workplace is often caused for termination, but it's not illegal to verbally harass people. You can't threaten them, but you can verbally. I mean, these are just sort of off the top of my heads. It doesn't like racism is not illegal, but discrimination in the workplace is often caused for termination or at least discipline. And again, I'm no lawyer or legal expert in these areas, but I can't imagine a company saying until they show up with a bag full of severed heads, we can't do anything.
[3:26] Well, that's basically what I was getting from them. So I thought, okay, my only way is out and out of loyalty.
[3:34] Now, I'm sorry to interrupt, but just because you've talked about some pretty abstract stuff, what kind of stuff are we talking about that's happening at work?
[3:48] It's micromanaging. Well, basically, she used to come into my office and just sit down and gossip about people. And she used to just basically, I've heard you discuss how some toxic people literally will like vomit this toxic stuff into a receptacle. I so connected with that because that's how I felt for a long time.
[4:24] And like she would give you um she would give me a task and then like call an hour later to make sure that i didn't forget to do blah blah blah blah um and that still goes on now uh i'm gonna fast forward a little bit because after i spoke to the finance director, he said oh no don't leave uh let me talk to her boss and she did and everything changed like within And a couple of weeks, she was removed from that management position. So I no longer had to report to her.
[5:00] And I couldn't believe it. I'm like, wow. And it was great. That was about a year and a half ago. And I expected her to retaliate. And sure enough, she called me. And I'm like, oh, great. Here it comes. And this is where you came in so handy, Stefan. because I thought, oh, wait a minute. Stefan talks about voluntary relationships. This is our voluntary relationship. I am here voluntarily. She's here voluntarily, and I can walk away. And that allowed me to have a conversation with her where I was able to just shut down every fallacy that she threw my way. And I mean, I don't think I could have done that if you hadn't exposed me to the idea of we choose which is our path well.
[5:56] I look i appreciate that i'm very glad that it was helpful my question is she wasn't your boss anymore so why would you have a conversation with her at all
[6:04] Well this is right before the the uh decision was made to move her to another department when she oh okay.
[6:14] So she was still in your department
[6:15] Yeah so her boss talked her and said, well, having issues, why don't you call him? And she did. Are you kidding?
[6:25] So they, and did you know that, sorry, sorry, did you know that your boss, oh no, sorry, did you know that the finance guy was going to go to this woman with your name as the one who has the problem?
[6:39] Well, not exactly. You know, I'm not sure how that'll happen, but.
[6:46] Did you, sorry to interrupt again, but did you, did you expect that your complaints would be in confidence?
[6:53] No, no, I didn't, I didn't want them to be in confidence.
[6:58] So you were happy with them going and saying, it's the one who has the problem, blah, blah, blah.
[7:05] No, that, that was fine. Cause I, I was.
[7:08] Okay. Okay.
[7:09] Yeah.
[7:12] So anyway so then what happened
[7:13] So they removed her and uh this also got me like what the hell uh the announcement company-wide well i work in a really large company uh department-wide um as far as like the larger department uh was basically uh portrayed as a almost like a promotion for her no no mention as to you know the the health she was bringing down on all of us, nothing oh basically she did such a great job with this department we really need her expertise in this other department so um fine you know she was out of there uh i avoided her she avoided me me. And I'm like, okay, this is good. I've had a really good year. That's why I was so grateful to you at the end of the year when everything seemed to be working out just fine.
[8:13] But this woman has not changed. So what she's been doing is the same behavior with other people and management has been made aware again and again that the pattern continues and she's still there. So it just defies logic and it's not affecting me directly anymore, but it's so frustrating to see it happening still.
[8:44] Sure. Sure. Now, is she fairly far away from you at the moment?
[8:50] Yes, yes, it was.
[8:53] Now, what you've talked about in terms of gossip and micromanaging doesn't on the surface of it sound that bad. Right. So I assume that there's more to the story than gossip and micromanaging. I'm not saying those things are good, but there must be. I mean, when you talk about sort of like what kind of gossip, like was she talking about stuff outside of work? Was she talking about stuff at work? Was she using inappropriate language? Was she sharing confidences? Sorry, go ahead.
[9:28] Yeah, usually stuff that is going on at work, usually putting other co-workers down in everybody's fair game. I mean, even her former boss at one time, she started talking to me and she was about to tell me something really bad. And I sensed it and I said, hey, I don't want to hear it. I still need to work with him and I don't want to know what it is that he can tell me.
[9:55] That was one of the first few times that I stood up to her, basically.
[10:07] And I've been in therapy for a few years with the internal family systems approach, and it's been so incredibly helpful. And I was, I normally, this is funny, I normally have my session at 5 p.m. Specific with my therapist. And today it just so happens he's out of town so I couldn't have a session with him having a session with you, I brought up my idea of contacting you to him and when I said I think I know what Stefan is going to say, when I've been asking where is management how are they allowing this to happen, he's going to ask me or he's going to, say, what I hear you saying is, where are my parents?
[11:08] Wow, I just kind of fell apart. This is where it could take hours. I know you don't have hours.
[11:30] Well i mean i would assume that if you've listened to this show for a while and been in years of therapy that you needed some form of protection or some form of moral stand-up edness from your parents that didn't occur and you know when we have those unmet needs in childhood the great danger is going through life, trying to maneuver or manipulate other people into meeting those needs. But since the basic premise is the needs can't be met or the needs won't be met, we actually put ourselves into situations of danger, of risk, in trying to get those unmet needs met. Because our basic premise is not, I need these unneeds met. But the basic premise we usually have is these unmet needs will never be met. And then we put ourselves in situations where that turns out to be the case and we experience the same horror of the same situation over and over again and we do that to protect the illusion of our bond with our parents if that makes any sense oh absolutely so in what way were you not protected from an immoral woman as a child or a dangerous woman
[12:49] Um I'm sorry, I'm hesitating because I know this is being reported and there's a possibility of it being published in public.
[13:04] Oh, listen, we don't have to publish any of this. Honestly, we don't have to publish any of this. So if it's easier for you to talk about in a non-published way, that's totally fine too.
[13:17] Yes, yes, it would be. Thank you. so um uh okay background a little bit um dad an alcoholic mom a neighbor basically, uh large family um smaller brothers uh my oldest brother um, And I, when I was in the second grade, I started exploring sexually. Eventually, I became abusive from him. And so that is the main reason I felt. The other reason is that I am gay and my mom has totally rejected me and she has always said really awful things about gay people. So I basically viewed food about 10 years ago before I even heard about the concept, but that's what I felt I needed to do.
[14:30] And I hadn't talked to my dad in probably 10 years, or mom in maybe three, but the desire to have this fantasy family life hasn't left me. It's still there. I wish I had once I could call and be supported by. But still, after all these years, this is another reason I'm calling you because I've had a problem with drugs and alcohol. I guess I still do, but I joined the AA program and I haven't done any mind-vulging substances in 17 months. And it's been a great experience. It's been an awesome experience. It's worked well with my therapy and with just my desire for self-knowledge and improvement.
[15:44] I'm getting to a point in working the steps where we're invited to make amends to people we have hurt. And I feel, in a way, I've hurt my parents by decoing and not really having a conversation with them. So the possibility of that is there, and it's a little unmanageable. I know the point. It's far from making my life more difficult. The problem is that after doing something regarding this situation, my life will be more free. And it's not about forgiveness. It's, acknowledging whatever part i played in these relationships.
[16:41] Okay so i i don't know much about sorry to interrupt so i don't know much about aa but um is it like so if if you had i mean if you were straight and you had let's say if you were a straight woman i mean let's cross the wires completely so if you were a straight woman and you had an abusive husband and you divorced that husband because of his abuse would a a think would a a suggest that you had to go back and apologize to him because you had harmed him i
[17:18] Really don't know uh i not this is fair they need to know too so i'm i'm not sure i'm sorry i didn't answer that but i i i.
[17:29] See but if you look if you like if you're sorry if you had to guess if you had to guess would you think that AA would recommend going to people who had abused you and saying, I'm sorry for leaving an abusive relationship?
[17:43] No, that doesn't make any sense.
[17:46] It makes no sense at all, right? That would. Now, a marriage is a chosen relationship. Being a child is not a chosen relationship, right? So if it doesn't make sense to apologize to an abuser that you chose to have in your life, I don't see how it would make any sense to apologize to abusers you never chose to have in your life.
[18:09] Thank you. I mean, who.
[18:16] Failed to protect you from sexual abuse at the hands of a sibling, and they rejected you for homosexuality, for being gay. They said terrible things. Was it religious, their reason for having a problem with homosexuality?
[18:36] I think that's a big part of it. But with mom in particular, it's status. I don't think she could handle the idea of having to, in a way, I felt like I was shaming her. She just couldn't deal with.
[18:58] Oh, like she'd have to say to her friends, my son is gay?
[19:03] Right.
[19:05] That they would find out. or that they would find out. Now, were her friends, was it a church situation or a religious situation that she was afraid of talking about?
[19:15] No, it would be other relatives, mainly. When I tried to start talking openly about it, one of the things she said to me is, stop talking to anybody else about this. I don't want anybody else to find it out.
[19:32] Right. No, sorry. I'm just trying to get some clarity here. is the Klan as a whole religious?
[19:39] Right.
[19:41] Now, so the given homosexuality is a mortal sin as far as I understand it, you know, you might as well have told her, Mom, I'm a Satanist. You know, like we get a box of kittens and run them through a blender every Saturday night and then we drink the blood of young children and she'd be like, well, but at least you're not gay. Right? I mean, because that's a terrible sin. Right? So, so, It is, I mean, it's horrible and it's immoral and all of that to have this approach, but If there's religion involved, then your homosexuality is not morally neutral, right? It's a devastating sin. You know, she probably would have preferred you to be heterosexual and to have had an affair or something like that. Because homosexuality is a choice that you have succumbed to because you are tempted by Satan and, you know, dangling male buttocks in front of you until you forget about how beautiful breasts are or something like that. That's sort of the approach from the religious standpoint, right?
[20:51] Right. And I think that, unfortunately, in her mind, it is her responsibility to save me or to show me that what I'm doing is wrong. And I've come to the point that I understand. She feels it's her moral responsibility to change me. And I know that I cannot change, so it's a stamp job in a way.
[21:24] Sorry, can you just remind me, what does that standoff again?
[21:27] Oh, the fact that I believe in her mind, she believes her moral responsibility is to make me straight, and in my mind, I cannot change, so we will never meet anywhere.
[21:48] Okay, and do you believe that your homosexuality is, your identity is like, it's who you are, that's just, it's the way you are? Like, it wasn't like this fork in the road where you went, hmm, pussy, penis, pussy, flip a coin, you know, this just, from day one, right, I would assume?
[22:06] Oh, yeah, from as young as I remember, I just knew.
[22:13] Yeah i mean it's not like a lot of people say to me Stef when did you first decide to like women it's like well really wasn't much of a decision i assume that the same thing is um is for you so it's not so much that there's a standoff it's that your mother's irrational superstitions and hysterical moral condemnations based on those superstitions are deeply offensive and insulting to you, as they should be, right? I mean, she's choosing fucking ghosts over her own son, her own flesh and blood. I mean, I've never understood that. Like, what the hell is wrong with people? I mean, to choose, I guess it's just indoctrination. I guess it's how effective and important it is for people that, I mean, you came out of her body. She forged you in the fires of her womb, so to speak. And I just don't understand how some long-haired hippie guy in a bad oil painting would be more important to her than her own son. I can't imagine choosing any particular abstraction, particularly an irrational one, over my own child. But I guess that makes me a tad different from other people.
[23:38] Right. You're the only voice that I've heard address all these issues.
[23:45] Yeah. Now, Is there anything that you miss about your relationship? Not your fantasy relationship, but your real relationship with your parents?
[23:57] Nope, nothing.
[24:00] Is there anything that you feel you could get out of that relationship, assuming no change, right? I think it's pretty wrong to go into relationships saying, okay, but you have to completely change who you are in order for us to have a relationship.
[24:14] If there's no particular change, is there anything positive that you could imagine getting out of a relationship with them in the future other than of course renouncing your unholy lusts and finding your way to jesus obviously that would be a pretty important one i mean given that you are committed to hell itself and uh you know dancing naked and well-oiled at the feet of a highly muscular satan um is there anything that you can consider positive coming out of a relationship with your parents in the future
[24:48] I i can't even imagine what that would be um, because i go straight to the fantasy.
[24:59] Right that's why i'm you know it's it's fantasy that's caused by prompt right your mother's fantasy of gods and rules and all this stuff right yeah because you know an unmarried guy hanging around with 12 unmarried guys who don't seem to have any pants on is about as straight a story as they come, right? But so is this the short answer, like you can't imagine anything positive that could come out of a future relationship with your parents?
[25:31] The first thing that comes to mind is maybe to stop the avoidance. I feel like I'm still avoiding them and I still have nightmares and.
[25:44] I you have you have nightmares because you still have needs and you still have fantasies about your parents
[25:59] Right a nightmare is a form of self punishment which is supposed to motivate you into fixing something
[26:09] And it's a curse, right? It's put upon you at night so that you'll wake up and do something better or something different, right? So there's nothing wrong with nightmares, but like all unconscious activity, it is with the goal of trying to change something. Right? And so if you're a smoker and you're like 30, you might have dreams about getting sick from smoking. But if you're like three days of dying from lung cancer, I would imagine your unconscious is not like, hey man, you should quit smoking because you can't change the outcome. So the nightmares are your unconscious striving to get you to do something, to change some behavior in order to achieve a better outcome. So my guess would be that you have some illusion about the fantasy, some illusion about your parents, some fantasy of what could be achieved and a refusal to accept who they are, a refusal to accept reality. And this is the ironic thing, right? I mean, because they're refusing to accept who you are. And you are refusing to accept who they are. This is my guess, right? I can't prove this, and this is all relative to your responses to what I'm saying. If what I'm saying doesn't make any sense or is wrong, then just tell me.
[27:37] No, I finally got to that point recently where I saw that we're doing the same thing here. So again, where do we meet halfway or do we?
[27:52] Where does who meet?
[27:55] Me and my parents.
[27:58] Okay. Okay, so this is the issue. You want them, for you to meet them halfway, they have to at least somewhat accept who you are, right?
[28:13] Yes.
[28:15] Right, the penis on penis action, they don't have to watch it, they don't have to picture it, but they do have to accept that that's pretty core to who you are, right?
[28:22] Right.
[28:24] Okay. Is there any indication that they will ever do that?
[28:33] I don't think so.
[28:36] Is there any indication? I did not say, will they ever? Anything's possible. Your dad could turn out to be a reptilian overlord in human form, right? But is there any indication? We have to be empirical. We have to, you know. Like, I could take a bar of gold and drop it down a sewer. And there could be an alien being there who's going to beam me back 500 bars of gold. But would it be a sensible thing to do? No, it would not be a sensible thing to do. Right? So this is what I mean when I say, is there any indication? Now, I don't think so is not a valid answer when we're looking at proof, not conjecture. Does that make sense?
[29:28] Yes, it does. and what is coming to mind is, maybe I need to have a conversation with them before I totally...
[29:37] No, no, no, no, no. I didn't say, is there any possibility, right? And I'm not trying to tell you what to do. The question is, given the knowledge you have, right, you've known them for a couple of decades, they have not tried to contact you much, I would assume, over the last 10 years. What indications do you have that they are capable of changing their perspective?
[30:03] I don't have any.
[30:06] So, again, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but there are zero indications?
[30:16] The last time I talked to Mother, she did not attack me after many years of not talking to her. She cried. we talked about trivial things and I was just simply bored. I wasn't even angry or resentful or I was just bored.
[30:37] Well, she didn't attack you because you were willing and able to talk about trivial things, right?
[30:43] Right.
[30:46] Oh, sure. So if you surrender who you are, then yes, you cannot be attacked, right? I mean, if I'm pro-Jew and I'm sitting in a room with Hitler, he's going to scream when I talk about how great the Jews are, right? But if I talk about how nice the weather is, we can get along for a little bit, right? Because I'm not who I am with him. I'm self-erasing.
[31:11] Okay. Okay.
[31:12] Definitely.
[31:13] I see that that is the only way that I could have a relationship with them.
[31:19] Which is to not have a relationship. Yeah. Which is to not have a relationship. That's the point.
[31:24] That's the point.
[31:25] Okay. So let me ask you this. At this point in their lives, how is their religiosity any different from your homosexuality in terms of foundational to who they are? They're willing to cut off their son for the sake of being for the sake of you being gay so you i mean obviously we joked earlier about it's absurd to think that they could talk you out of being gay because it's foundational to who you are right right and obviously being gay is is you you've made not made but it has incurred challenges and sacrifices in your life right i mean it's better but it's still not a walk in the park being gay right it's obviously better than it was other times in history not at all times in history but uh so you've made sacrifices for being gay being gay is foundational to who you are and you can't be talked out of it right right they have made sacrifices for being religious they have cut off their son um they can't be talked out of it and it is foundational to who they are
[32:35] So you can as much expect To talk them out of their religious bigotry As you can expect them to talk you out of being gay Right Do you understand? It's a mirror image of the same illusion You are as likely to turn straight As they are to give up their prejudices, right?
[32:56] Right It's not going to happen.
[33:00] Right I mean, you're not even bi You're not even like 80-20. I assume it's 100-0. You are like distilled pure Abigail. It's not like, well, if I had to, I guess, I could find a woman attractive if she wasn't a Victoria Beckham clone with an Eastern European mustache. Right. So, I mean, you, so it is accepting that people are who they tell us that they are. Right. It's, it's listening. I don't think that you're listening to your parents who have very amply communicated who they are. And this sort of refusal to listen because we want other people to listen is how we often get stuck, even in relationships that aren't physically proximate to us anymore.
[33:56] Oh, my God.
[33:58] Because in your mind, it's like, well, they should just accept me for who I am. They should just not be quite as religious. They should understand that the world has changed and blah, blah, blah, because that's what you've done, right? Right. And mistaking yourself for other people is a fundamental and highly dangerous error on the part of people who have empathy and self-knowledge. I never assume that anybody I talk to, whether on this show or in my life, I never assume that they're like me. I never assume that they're not, but I sure as hell never assume that they're like me. I assume that they have no self-knowledge. I assume that they've not been to therapy. They've not studied philosophy. They haven't put years of work into understanding the world and themselves. They do not have any degree of mastery or excellence over their own emotions. I assume that they're broken, sparky, historically driven robots of lashing out and hugging in random succession. And because that's the evidence of the world, that's the evidence the world provides. and I try to listen to the world about how little it listens to itself, if that makes any sense. And so you want your parents to change, and your parents want you to change. Now, you are capable of change, but you're not capable of change about your sexual orientation any more than I am, right?
[35:23] Right.
[35:23] But your parents are also not capable of change because there's zero indication that that they were going to change or have changed. And I'm telling you this, I'm sorry to be so luxury, but let me tell you something very fundamental. If people haven't changed before they make an enormous sacrifice, dear God in heaven, they are never going to change afterwards. Right? So your parents have now not had you in their life for 10 years, which is a huge sacrifice, a huge loss to them, right? So if they weren't able to change before they made the sacrifice of not seeing their son for 10 years, then it meant that it wasn't a big enough deal for them to change before they lost you for 10 years. Now they lost you for 10 years. And if they change now, it means that they could have had you in their life for 10 years, but didn't because they were assholes.
[36:27] So every day every day that passes without them calling you makes it less likely that they will ever call you and after 10 years there's just no way um to uh to imagine that i mean people who lack self-knowledge it's as easy to read them as physics you know people if they lack self-knowledge they're just going to continue to do what they did before and the deeper hole they dig the faster that they're gonna dig, and expecting them to jump out is completely irrational.
[37:00] It's like expecting a bat to go suntanning. It just doesn't work that way.
[37:06] So they are run by mythology. They are run by history. They are run by programming. They are run by superstition, which means they don't have the rational capacity to intervene in their own actions. So the only thing that could change is an accumulation of agony. That didn't happen when you were living with them for the first 20-odd years. It hasn't happened over the last 10 years, which means now if they change they then have to accept that the last 10 years were for nothing which is blindingly agonizing for them to open their hearts and minds in that way so i can guarantee you i can get like if i were a betting man i would not put one thin dime on your parents calling you tomorrow and and changing and i you know i haven't seen my mom in 13 years and i'm never going to get a call from her and she's never going to come my driveway down my driveway and say oh, Stef, I was wrong. Here's what I've learned. I've been to therapy. That is never going to happen. She is going to die clutching the same crap that she always clutched. And she's going to continue to double down on everything she believed in the past. And the occasional messages that filter through are exactly the same messages that she had to me or for me 13 years ago. There's nothing that is ever, ever, ever going to change. Because without self-knowledge, without considerable work, without therapy, people don't change. All they do, and this is well known scientifically, people seek out confirmation bias for their own prejudices, and they double down on everything.
[38:35] And the longer the time passes, the less likely they are to change, with one exception, with one exception, and that is illness and or imminent death. Because that gives them power over you, that gives them power to control you. And this is why the mythology of go hug your parents on their deathbed is so strong because it's the last ditch gasp that parents have to abusive parents have to reassert power over their wayward children and to pretend to themselves that all tragedies can be solved at the end of life. But any tragedy that is only solved at the end of life remains an even worse tragedy than one that wasn't because it meant the solution could have come at any time in the past. So does that make any sense?
[39:22] Absolutely that is um those ideas have freed me up uh greatly and, i i agree i agree with everything you just said um.
[39:39] So they're not changing right you know that they're never they're not and going to look if you want to go talk to them obviously you know yeah if you want to go talk to them go talk to them i mean obviously that's you don't need me to tell you that i i don't but they're not they're not going to change
[39:58] Um if they were going to change you would have heard from them already if they woke up one morning, which is the fantasy we all have, right? Every child of abusive parents has this fantasy that your parent has some dream or some connection or God reaches through their ears and flicks wires long dusted together, seals them up, massive charge goes through, and they wake up with empathy and they wake up with curiosity and they wake up with the capacity for love and they wake up realizing all the wrongs that they've done and this and that and the other. And I'm telling you, This never happens. I mean, it literally is like saying, well, without any studying, one day my parents are going to wake up from a very powerful dream, and they're going to know Mandarin. It's like, no. You either learn Mandarin as a toddler, or you learn Mandarin through 10 years of intensive study, right? Like hours a day. But you don't just spontaneously learn Mandarin. And it's the same thing with empathy. You either, empathy either grows within you because you're in an empathetic environment and it just transmits itself, or you spend years in therapy learning how to be self-empathetic and learning empathy with others. In the absence of either of those two conditions, empathy does not exist. It does not spontaneously come into being. There are 12 or 13 complex sectors of the brain that need to all work together in harmony
[41:24] In order to produce empathy. If it's not present, it's harder to learn than Mandarin because there's no moral content in Mandarin and somebody can learn Mandarin without self-attacking. But if you're somebody who's 50 or 60 years old and you've been a jerk to your kids and you've been mean and you've been cruel and you've been exploitive and you've been selfish and you've been greedy, do you know how much it will cost you to learn empathy? I mean, the reason they don't is they'd throw themselves off a cliff and say, well, you know, with this I remove a savage stain from the world. So there is a fantasy that they're just going to wake up and be like you or be like me, but it is a complete fantasy. The brain does not spontaneously acquire massive skills and knowledge. There's no matrix where you can plug your parents in and have them upload the empathy program. Does that make any sense?
[42:13] Absolutely. So that leaves me with the question, how do I make peace with the reality that basically I have no parents anymore. I haven't had parents all my life.
[42:31] Oh, it's worse than that. Come on. It's worse than that. No, it is. Look, having no parents, you could be raised in a test tube and whatever, right? I mean, you could be birthed from a test tube or whatever, or your loving parents could have been washed away by a tsunami when you were 20. And in both situations, you would have no parents and you would be sad and you would have lost a great deal. But that's not the case with you. You had anti-parents. That's a whole lot different from having no parents, right? No parents you mourn, anti-parents you mourn and rage, right? Because not only did you not get the right instruction, you got a fucking crap load of the wrong instruction too, right?
[43:15] It's one thing to say i don't know mandarin it's another thing to say my spare my parents spent 20 years teaching me all the wrong words in mandarin and now if i've got to learn mandarin i got to unlearn all that crap and go learn the other stuff no parents is not uh harmful in in that it's not sadistic or it's not cruel anti-parents right people who teach you all the wrong stuff. And basically they teach, it's like teaching your eyes to work in negative. You kind of have to imagine what colors look like. It's not like your eyes are closed, but you're actually looking at everything and seeing the opposite colors or the opposite spectrum. So anti-parents is a whole lot different from no-parents. And anti-parents has a very, I think, very different and emotional flavor, again, if that makes any sense.
[44:08] Yes, I mean, it's even more devastating, more, I mean, it feels true and it's hard to, I mean, I mean, as I can't even speak now.
[44:28] No, I know. Because you used the term devastating again, right? Like, oh, my parents, I'm so devastated, right? But if your parents were assholes, I'm not sure why you'd just be devastated. I mean, can't they be assholes that you just get angry? I mean, do you feel anger? I mean, at them saying that who you are was a sin and not protecting you from sexual abuse. and I'm sure that there was 6 million other terrible things that happened in your childhood. I mean, it was their job to protect you and their job to love and respect you and to teach you empathy and to keep you safe and to keep you happy with yourself and to accept you as whoever you are. I mean, every parent thinks about, oh, I wonder if my child is going to be a lesbian. I wonder if my child is going to be gay. You know, well, it's your job as a parent to have your child grow up with self-respect and self-acceptance, no matter who they are. I mean, if what they're doing has no moral quality and homosexuality has no moral quality, it's neither good nor evil, it's just an orientation. And it's like saying, North is good and South is evil. Well, it's different orientations. But is there any anger in that?
[45:43] At this point, I don't feel that much. I have explored that. I have experienced the rage, the anger in the past. That's when I do food. In the last few years, I've just got a sense of loss. Yes, but loss with anger.
[46:08] Because it wasn't loss. It wasn't loss. I can lose my cell phone. That's different from somebody grabbing my cell phone and smashing it on the ground. There's a there's a past i mean again i'm sorry i don't mean to be imposing my values or my history on you so again you know push back hard if anything i'm saying doesn't make any sense please
[46:27] Please that's like you did talk about your loss this is.
[46:32] This is not yeah this is not lost this was inflicted it wasn't a loss you know if i don't know someone i love gets struck by lightning out of a clear blue sky and dies. That's a terrible loss. Nobody did it to that person, but this was done to you, right? That you were attacked, you were rejected, you were unprotected, you were molested, and that's your parents' fault. It's their goddamn job to keep their children safe. And that level of molestation, or as you termed at the beginning, sexual exploration, which, anyway, we'll figure that one out another time. But no, this lack of safety, this lack of acceptance, this attempting to turn you against yourself and your own deepest nature, this was all inflicted upon you.
[47:27] You can lose teeth because of bad genetics. I guess you can lose teeth because you didn't floss or you can lose teeth because somebody repeatedly punched you in the face. There are different emotions to go through. And it seems to me like, it seems to me, right? Because 10 years later, you're thinking about going back. That means that there was an incompleteness to what you did, right? So what happened to the anger? I'm not saying you should have been angry for 10 years, but what happened to the anger? You said you had it when you separated.
[48:02] Right. Well, I wrote a letter. I explained a lot of my disappointments. I didn't go into the molestation thing. I ended up editing it out. Disappointments?
[48:19] Oh, my God. Hang on. I'm so sorry. I just asked you a question, and now I'm interrupting you. I apologize for that Disappointments? I'm going to tell you why I can't process that word Which doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it A woman who was raped Would she ever say she was disappointed in her rapist?
[48:49] Of course not.
[48:54] A man who was assaulted does he ever say I'm disappointed in the man who beat me up
[49:06] No I think I see what you're saying.
[49:13] I'm devastated I'm disappointed these are all it's like gay anger yeah right uh it's it's it's very guru like and noble and superior yes my parents were flawed human beings i was very disappointed and like oh my god no you were you were a mammal who was fucking cudgeled like a rat bites when you corner it and you're 200 times its size right i think you've kind of got this like well to be mature means i you know to be angry is to be immature i need to strive for a superior form of having outgrown outgrown these these things yeah
[50:01] Yeah right it's like it's like.
[50:02] A base a base reptile rage at having been violated and not protected and scorned and mocked and humiliated and told that you're evil in an existential manner and for something you never chose? Is there no part of your reptile brain that's like, fuck you assholes. Or is it all this hyper-rationalization of disappointment and, you know?
[50:26] Yeah, that's where I've been stuck for a long time. A long time ago, I had another therapist who tried to get me in touch with that rage, with that anger. And it just seemed unfathomable to me. I just couldn't imagine going there. But again, that was a long time ago. Yeah, yeah.
[50:50] Now, why could you not imagine going there? What's wrong with the anger?
[50:59] At the time, it felt like you just don't do that. I mean, it hadn't occurred to me to be angry at my parents, to allow myself to feel that way.
[51:14] No, no, no. Okay, okay, okay. You've done the internal family system stuff, right?
[51:19] Yeah.
[51:22] Who would your rage benefit if it's real, if it's there?
[51:29] I'm still protecting my parents.
[51:33] Who does your rage, whose interest does your rage harm?
[51:39] My parents, my abusers.
[51:42] Right. So if you can't feel anything. Yeah. If you can, well, no, no, you're neutral. What do you mean they did nothing? You've given me a whole bunch of stuff that they did. Right. You say, well, and of course it's true. We both said they failed to protect you from your brother, right?
[52:01] Right.
[52:01] But that's active, not passive. What was most important was they failed. Okay. What was most important, Javier, was that they failed to create a bond with you strong enough that you couldn't be exploited. Right. Right? My daughter will never be exploited Because our bond is so strong And the predators will understand that That there's no way That they could have her keep a secret from me Right? Do you understand? The way that children are exploited Is some asshole Gets the children to keep a secret from the parents This requires two things A, a weak bond or a no bond or an anti-bond from child to parent. And an anti-bond is, if I go to my parent with a problem, there will be more problems. And a third of kids are like this. If I go to my parent with a problem, it's going to get worse. So I'm going to hide problems from my parent. So that's number one. That's the sort of the first thing that predators need to understand about children that they're going to exploit.
[53:20] So there has to be a very weak or anti-parental bond. And therefore, the child will find it easier to keep the secret of being abused than to go to the parent and say, I am abused. That's number one. Number two, predators rely upon parents who are so fucking self-absorbed and clueless that they don't happen to notice that their child is carrying a huge secret.
[53:51] I took my daughter rock climbing the other day, and she was trying to climb up a very difficult wall with sort of an overhang. And she was getting frustrated, but she seemed to be okay. When she came down, I knew, I just, I knew she was really upset, even though I couldn't see her face. And I went to her and I said, are you okay? What's the matter? And she said, I'm fine. And I said, oh, you're really frustrated about not getting up that wall, right? And she burst into tears. We had a big hug and we talked about how frustration means that you really care about something and all that. And it's natural and we all feel it. And I had a great chat about it. But that's because I know my child. I know when she's not, when she's covering something up. I know when there's something that's not, I know when she's not free, easy, and open. I know when she's not available for even two seconds. I know that. So the first thing that predators require is an anti-bond or a weak bond between parent and child, where the child will not go to the parent with difficulties because the parent will make those difficulties worse. Oh, what now, right? And number two, they have to know that the parents are gonna be too clueless, self-absorbed, and narcissistic to even fucking notice if the child is keeping a secret and say, what's going on, you're different, right?
[55:07] So even what happened to you from your brother was the result of your parents being who they were, right? At no point do parents ever do nothing unless they're actually dead.
[55:26] They created a whole environment that led to you being exploited. To continue to be exploited in any other way. And to continue to be exploited all the way to your work situation, right?
[55:41] Right.
[55:47] So your your parents your inner parents move to block your anger because it threatens their interest their seat at the throne or the head of your table and And some other part of you is willing to transmute the anger into something that seems more respectable, you know, like sorrow, right? Or loss or feeling devastated and so on, right? Which are all things that can happen when good people are not in your life due to illness or death or accident, right? Those things would all be appropriate. Those are emotions that have no moral. They don't face evil in any way. Right? And so those emotions are acceptable to your inner parents because that's pain for you, right? Anger is pain for them. Loss is pain for you. So it's a continuation of what happened as a child.
[57:05] Yeah i keep thinking you know uh mom used to talk to me for hours about other relatives yeah eventually i said is that familiar i know i i'm just like who else is this crazy woman at work, and eventually I had to say no to mom for going on about whatever and I had to say no to this crazy woman at work to stop her from telling me stuff that I didn't want to know so yeah it's the same thing and the rage that I am failing to feel for my parents I've been feeling for management for allowing this crazy woman to run rampant, Well.
[57:55] You know, what's funny is that your complaint is the same, which is that your parents did nothing and management did nothing, but that's not true in either situation. Let me ask you a question. Did I do something before this?
[58:16] They're enabling.
[58:16] I'm sorry. No, no. They're paying her. It's more than enabling.
[58:20] Exactly.
[58:21] They hired her and they're paying her.
[58:23] Right. Right?
[58:24] It's not neutral.
[58:25] And I'm not the only one suffering.
[58:27] Yeah. Did I, before this call, did I do anything about your work situation?
[58:33] No. Well, I emailed.
[58:36] So you can legitimately say that bastard Stef did nothing about my work situation. And that's true. right? Am I morally responsible? Am I a bad guy? No, I didn't even know about it, right? But her bosses, her environment, this corporation, it's not that they're doing nothing. They're paying her.
[58:57] No, it's more than enabling.
[58:59] They're paying her. They're giving her an office and a computer and a data line and a phone and a secretary and a retirement plan and business travel and that expense account.
[59:12] Right. Right.
[59:13] It's one thing to enable like, well, I'm going to call for my husband because he's too drunk to go to work and I'm going to pretend that he's sick or whatever. It's quite another thing to directly fund. Right. It's like a guy who hires a hit man to kill his wife is not doing nothing. Right. He's paying this guy. The only reason it's happening is because he's paying. If they stopped paying her tomorrow, she would be fired and gone. They're paying her. They're actually enabling and creating and sustaining the whole situation.
[59:48] Right. And I am feeling the anger and I think it's time to leave again. I stayed because they did remove her from my immediate circle, but she's still there.
[1:00:00] And yes, yes. But you still want to go and talk to your parents oh
[1:00:07] No oh no.
[1:00:09] I must leave work which is a tiny after effect of what my parents did but i must go talk to my parents
[1:00:20] Oh, no.
[1:00:21] Why didn't you say, I must go talk to management at work? Because?
[1:00:29] Because I already have.
[1:00:33] Have you talked to your parents before? Yes, you have.
[1:00:37] Yes, I have. Oh, okay.
[1:00:41] Why is leaving work okay, but leaving your parents, who are the cause of the problem, I'm not okay.
[1:00:53] It is. No, it makes absolutely no sense. I should be more willing to walk away from the parent relationship than to walk away from work. And I feel it. I know it. It's there. It's there. I, that's why I needed to talk to you because I needed to hear this.
[1:01:23] And because nobody else will, will tell me what you're saying.
[1:01:32] All right. So what did your parents do to you, enable within your environment, support and foster in your childhood?
[1:01:45] It uh what did they do to foster i'm sorry you broke up a little bit.
[1:01:52] What did your parents do that harmed you in your childhood not just directly but what environment did they create that harmed you allowed you to be harmed
[1:02:03] Um well uh one of the things that uh One of the many things was certainly no bond with them at all. Dad, like I said, was an alcoholic. He would travel for work a lot, so he'd be gone a lot. And then on the nights that he was supposed to be in town but didn't come home, it was palpable. You could feel that mom was worried sick about where he might be because he clearly didn't fall. And usually it meant that he was out drinking and pouring, really. And those nines were terrible.
[1:02:54] I'm sorry, do you mean actually going to Horus?
[1:02:57] That's what I heard many years later.
[1:03:01] All right.
[1:03:05] So the horror, the fear that I felt during those times was just horrible. There were money problems because of his drinking. I could go on and on.
[1:03:23] Go on.
[1:03:27] The money issue has haunted me forever. Or at one point, he lost his job, and we ended up moving into a- Wait, wait, sorry.
[1:03:38] What do you mean when you say it's not to do forever? What does that mean?
[1:03:43] Oh, I felt such shame for having been poor that I have a really difficult time relating to people. And I keep it as- Sorry, why did you feel the same?
[1:04:02] I'm sorry to interrupt. Why did you feel shame for your parents being poor?
[1:04:12] That's a good question.
[1:04:14] Again, this is gay anger, right? I'm so ashamed, right? It's like your parents blew the money that they needed to support their children. Assholes. Yeah. Why are you ashamed? It's like it's another one of these emotions that makes you feel bad for shitty things your parents did.
[1:04:33] Right okay now I see that oh yeah.
[1:04:46] Why is that your fault? My mom was broke all the time. She was a ridiculously incompetent human being, a bad single mom, and a woman who basically never fostered her own career because she thought some rich guy was going to come along and take care of her because she was so pretty. But why is that? I mean, that just makes her more of an idiot and a bad person. I don't know why would I be ashamed of that? I mean, I understand that as a kid or whatever, right? You get ashamed of your parents because people will judge you according to your environment. But as an adult, I mean, you understand that this was just really terrible and irresponsible behavior. On their part, which is not shameful to you, it's abusive for them.
[1:05:34] I think that I feel like I got stuck at like age seven or eight. Because that's when that change happened.
[1:05:44] Oh my God, dude, you're so passive. You're driving me crazy. I got stuck. Do you have a choice in this? You got stuck. We all get stuck, but you've been in therapy for years now. It's like you're trying to infect me with this constant sense of helplessness.
[1:06:06] Oh God.
[1:06:08] I mean this with all respect and affection, but my God, you're just constantly giving me all of these helplessness vibes and feelings and words and approaches, right? Like I'm saying, no, it's not shame. You have every reason to get angry. And then you reply with, well, I felt like I got, I feel like I got stuck at eight. Like you're doing that so that you don't actually have to feel angry. You're just coming up with a helpless eight-year-old vibe so that you don't have the healthy adult anger at people who screwed you around a lot as a kid. So now I have to feel your anger, right?
[1:06:49] Oh, no. And I promised myself I wouldn't be one of those callers who is unable to touch what I need to touch in order to get through this. And here I am.
[1:07:06] Which is, it's completely fine. I have no fundamental problem with it. I'm just sort of trying to be honest with, I'm not going to try and, you know, squeeze your legs like a pair of bellows and get you to push out big breaths of anger or anything like that because this may be something that takes a while or something you need to work on with your therapist but if you have the capacity for a righteous rage abusers stay the fuck away from you because they know you have the self-defense right of being a being able to identify exploitation and tell it to go fuck itself, right?
[1:07:42] Yeah. Yeah, that's what I dream of. That's what I want to have in my life.
[1:07:49] It's the ability to feel the praise. But then why are you fighting it so much now?
[1:07:53] I don't know.
[1:07:57] Okay, repeat after me. My parents were abusive assholes.
[1:08:10] They are they are.
[1:08:12] I did not ask you I asked you to repeat after me oh
[1:08:19] Sorry I didn't hear you my parents are abusive assholes.
[1:08:25] Alright I was sexually molested under their care
[1:08:31] I was sexually molested under their care.
[1:08:35] My father was a repulsive alcoholic who blew money on whores instead of being a reasonably decent husband and father.
[1:08:49] My father was a horrible alcoholic who spent his money on whores and booze instead of what was important for the family.
[1:09:03] And spent his children's money on booze and whores.
[1:09:07] And spent his children's money on booze and whores.
[1:09:13] My parents called me evil for genetic homosexuality.
[1:09:22] My parents called me evil for genetic homosexuality.
[1:09:27] Which is like calling me a pedophile because I'm bald.
[1:09:32] Which is like calling me a pedophile because I'm bald. Well, my heart is racing right now.
[1:09:44] You feel like you're speaking something taboo, right? Like you're about to get in trouble?
[1:09:49] Well, yeah. I mean, who says such things about their parents?
[1:09:57] Honest people, in fact. If that's who the parents are, honest people say that. Thank you. Tells you how many honest people there are in the world.
[1:10:05] Exactly. Thank you.
[1:10:06] I was raised to call a spade a spade, you know? And, uh, you know, if it, if it walks like an asshole and talks like an asshole, guess what? It's an asshole, right? So these are true statements about your parents.
[1:10:22] They are. They are.
[1:10:26] And you had no control over being born into that viper's nest. You had no control about being born homosexual and you couldn't get out. You were a biological prisoner. It's like you were unjustly imprisoned in a concentration camp of sadists. And it doesn't take a lot of brains to say, I shouldn't drink and whore away the money that keeps my family stable. The fuck was wrong with your mom to stay with such an idiot, right? You even said, she was worried sick, like she's some fucking victim.
[1:11:11] Yeah that's what's been on my mind all these years she was until i said yes.
[1:11:19] She's not a victim no she wasn't a victim she could have left at any time there are social agencies that would have supported her there are women's shelters that would have supported her there are people who will help her get a job and will help her get back on her feet did she work when you were a kid no
[1:11:34] She said at home.
[1:11:35] Right so maybe she just didn't really feel like working probably not maybe that was just a little bit too hard for her she sure as fuck didn't work at parenting right true so maybe she's just lazy Maybe she was worried sick because the breadwinner that kept her from having to get a goddamn job might not come home.
[1:12:05] Oh, that is very likely.
[1:12:08] How many children did she have with this asshole?
[1:12:11] Six.
[1:12:13] She had six children with him?
[1:12:15] Yeah.
[1:12:16] So basically, she's just serving up abuse victims. And this is an abuser.
[1:12:26] Just criminal. criminal behavior.
[1:12:30] Absolutely monstrous in criminal behavior. These people should be thrown in jail and the key should be thrown away. And if there were a God who had any justice at all, they would burn in hell for at least the average length of their children's lives end to end. And you can't feel much anger about how these people treated you and how they used you. Maybe she just kept having kids so that he wouldn't leave her because then she'd have to get a fucking job or she'd have to try and woo a decent man which is a complete vapid bitch she would have been humiliated by because any decent man would have run screaming right right and you want to call these people to patch things up are you kidding me
[1:13:37] No i do not no i do not that was a complete uh i guess drawing back to to the past and and i know better and after this conversation i and.
[1:13:54] You feel that in my mind you feel shame you feel shame for your father's horick
[1:14:01] I did. I used to.
[1:14:06] Well, I would say that anger is your best friend and your closure mechanism at this point, in my opinion. You were really, really horribly treated by people who knew better and people who had access to huge amounts of resources. People who knew that they were doing a shitty job as parents people who could have taken a parenting course people who could have called social workers for help people who could have relied upon their church for better advice on how to raise children i mean my god they they they just selfishly clung to you kids despite their own ever increasing and abusive failures rather than take a simple fucking step of saying you know what we're in over our head maybe we should stop having children. Maybe we should figure out how to be decent parents. Was there ever any single goddamn parenting book on their shelf?
[1:15:02] Absolutely not.
[1:15:06] Well, fuck them with a 10-foot pole of Satan. That's all I can say. Fuck them with a 10-foot pole of Satan. These people have done astounding, irreparable harm on the world by bringing all these children in Failing to protect them, failing to nurture them, failing to love them, abusing them, neglecting them, ignoring them, using them, and then condemning them for that which they never chose. I mean, you tell me, could you design a worse set of parents? I mean, who weren't actively setting fire to their children?
[1:15:47] It's like a horror flick already.
[1:15:50] It is. It is. It absolutely is. And I mean, you have my absolute eternal sympathy for what you went through as a child. And you absolutely have every right. And I believe the absolute necessity to get angry at the incredible conscious harm that was done to you and neglect. They chose the easy way out. They did. It's easier to keep pumping out children and get the approval of the priest than it is to start questioning anything. It's easier to stay with an abusive relationship than it is to do what's right for your children and get them to safety. This is pure fucking laziness for which you children paid the price and they received the benefits such as they are. Absolutely wrong absolutely ghastly
[1:16:55] You're never going to get anything from me except maybe some anger oh thank you yes absolutely, I wrote down that is definitely what I'm going to get in touch with we pay.
[1:17:13] People we pay people what we owe them what they have earned we pay. Do you understand? I borrow $500 from you. I pay you back. We pay people what they have earned. That is justice. Justice is the prompt settling of a bill. And if people have done right by me, I owe them my love and my gratitude, my allegiance, my reciprocity, my virtue, my time, my money, my resources, you name it. When people have done right by me, I pay the bill. When people have fucked me up, I pay that fucking bill too. Do you understand? Pay people what they have earned. Settle the bill of history with gratitude, with anger, with compassion, with love, with hatred, whatever the fuck people have earned, pay them. Pay what they have earned. What did your parents earn from you?
[1:18:19] I guess mother, I'm receptacle for her whining and gossip. I guess, me for companionship. My dad, I read and saw him, so not much.
[1:18:46] So you don't want to answer my questions? You want to go off on your abstract land again, right? Descriptions. Oh, no. What did your parents earn from you? What do you owe them?
[1:18:59] Nothing. I owe them nothing. No.
[1:19:03] No. I owe a guy in India nothing because I've never met him.
[1:19:09] I owe them my anger.
[1:19:11] What did your parents earn from you?
[1:19:15] They earned my anger, my despise.
[1:19:20] Exactly
[1:19:24] Yes, it feels like blasphemy But I gotta say it.
[1:19:29] Pay people the coins that they have earned Pay people what they have earned That is justice That is right That is self-protection Because if people give you counterfeit bills, you pay them back with counterfeit bills. And if people give you good money, you pay them back with good money. But everybody gets paid. Everybody gets served. Everybody gets a clear mirror of who they are and how they have been. That is justice. That is philosophy. And that's why bad people hate philosophy with a passion. Because philosophy says, pay your bill. Take what you have earned For good or for ill I will withhold no sympathy From those who have earned my hatred I will withhold no empathy From those who have earned my love
[1:20:30] But I am a giant cash register With bills of fire And bills of flowers And I pay people What they have earned And I withhold nothing from that payment. Love, hate, I pay. Don't give me this bullshit coinage of wounds and sympathy and uncertainty. That is you just not looking at the bill that is right there in your hand that you have been describing to me for 90 minutes. That is the bill right there. Alcoholism, sexual abuse, rejection, shaming, hatred, financial irresponsibility, too many children, too much travel, no parenting, neglect, avoidance, abuse. I'm sure there was physical abuse as well. That is the bill. It's right in front of you. It's wrapped around you like a mummy shroud. That is the bill. Pay it. Pay back the bill. Read the bill. What does it say? Plus or minus? What's at the bottom of that bill for you?
[1:21:43] It is definitely a deficit.
[1:21:50] It is a childhood that can never be recovered. Doesn't mean you are forever damaged or damaged goods, but it's a childhood that can never be saved. It is a childhood that can never be recovered. It is a childhood of uncertainty Of abuse Of terror Of absence Of a lack of mentoring Training, education, wisdom, virtue A lack of love Followed by A supersized me bag Of hate yourself From a homophobic fan fiction Of a desert ghost that's all on the bill my wife gives me a bill every day all pluses My family gave me a bill. They wrote in the ledger every single day. Wrote in the ledger. Every single day. Ignore. Abuse. Exploit. Ignore. Abuse. Exploit. Ignore. Punch. Slap. Smack. Abuse. Exploit. Emotionally vomit on. Spend money off. Take money from. Blow money on.
[1:23:11] Exploit, abuse, scream at, corner, bore, hit. Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. And the bill just kept on coming. And everybody runs out that fucking bill. All abusive parents, all abusive people run that fucking bill up to the moon. It's why we have a national debt. It's the same goddamn thing. Vote, bribe, steal, buy votes. Fuck the people at the other end, the next generation. Everybody runs up that tab because they think the bill is never coming due. Well, guess what, motherfuckers? In this philosophy show, the bill comes due. Do you understand what I'm saying?
[1:23:56] Absolutely. Absolutely.
[1:24:04] And that's what I would focus on. Pay people what they have earned. Don't take on their bills. Don't take on what other people have earned for better or for worse as if it's yours. The debts die with the debtor. Parental debts, financial debts cannot be transferred to children. Moral debts, moral deficits cannot be transferred to children. If my father dies owing money on a car, the car goes back to the dealer. It doesn't come to me. I don't have to pay the goddamn thing off, right?
[1:25:02] Right.
[1:25:03] And parents keep running up that bill, keep running up that tally, keep running up that tab.
[1:25:11] Because all of society is obsessively focused my friend on never ever giving bad people their bill no but saying to children you pay you pay you pay you pay you pay because i'm a shitty parent too and i never want the idea to get out there that my bill should come back to me that i should ever pay for what I do, which is fine with me, except most of the reason that asshole parents are assholes is because they have made their children pay endlessly for wrongdoing, right? Why do children get attacked? Why do they get punished? Why do they get yelled at? Why are they thrown in their room without supper? Why are they put in timeouts? Because they've done wrong. And guess what, child? The bill is due. Well, guess what, parents? The bill is due to you as well. And the bill of all of those maledictions all throughout childhood, boomerangs a bitch, karma's a bitch, payback's a bitch. You hand out bills, you get a big fucking tab at the end of it all. And your unconscious is nodding with me now, I believe, because in our unconscious, called the conscience is the infinite tallying of all the good and ill that is done to us in life.
[1:26:40] And this surging urge to give people their bills, to pay what they have earned, to pay what we owe, their vices and their virtues, we are constantly straining and striving. Like a Zeus-squeezed, pimple-popping volcano, we are just striving to pay the bills, to give people what they have earned. And all of society is grinding down and pushing that down. Don't pay the bills. Don't pay the bills. Well, the bill either goes to the bad people or the bad bills come to me. Your parents' bills go to them or you have to pay them with your life, with your happiness, with your capacity for love and security and safety and a different life than you grew up with. It's your bill to pay if you don't give it to the right people.
[1:27:38] And the parents don't want to pay the bill and that's just the last way that they continue to fuck the kids i'm not going to accept the wrongs that i did i'm not going to accept that i was bad you pay my bill you little shit you pay it no i won't and society's like yeah yeah you pay it too you you pay the bills because you gotta i want my kids to pay my bills too because i don't want to stop abusing them or harming them or ignoring them or being selfish. So everyone, the kids have to pay the bills always. And then the kids grow up and have more kids. And then those kids have to pay the bills and the parents always get away. And then we wonder why the cycle of violence doesn't stop. Well, it stops now. Pay the bill. Give the bill to the right people. Give people what they have earned. And not this neutral, airy-fairy bullshit. Not this wounded devastation and loss and shit like that. No. What have they earned from you?
[1:28:42] They're my anger, my, rejection. They're my rejection of them. And the same with management. They burn my rejection of them.
[1:29:03] And that's called safety.
[1:29:09] So counterintuitive, but...
[1:29:14] No, it's countercultural. It's very intuitive.
[1:29:17] Oh, thank you.
[1:29:18] Look, when I grew up as a kid... No, it's just culture that gives you all this counter... It's completely intuitive. Dogs know this stuff. Lizards know this stuff Like I knew a guy Who hit his dog with a rake I never saw him hit the dog with the rake I just knew the dog was terrified Of rakes And he gave me some bullshit about the prior owner I'm pretty sure it was that guy So every time he lifted up a rake The dog would run away Because the dog was paying the bill Or was delivering the bill You hit me with a rake I'm running away It's not counterintuitive if dogs do it. But dogs don't have the lovely, sycophantic, snake-eared, choking-neck friend called culture to screw up their basic instincts and impulses. Of course you're angry at your parents. Of course they screwed you up. Of course you want to give them their bill. Everybody pays the bill. I pay my bill. Some good, some bad. Everybody pays the bill in their unconscious. Just nobody ever actually wants to do it in action. So, no, I think it's entirely natural for you to feel anger. It's not counterintuitive. It's just countercultural. Because culture is the ultimate enabler of abusers. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:30:39] That makes complete sense. I wholeheartedly agree with you.
[1:30:50] Well, good. Well, good. Well, good. Yeah, look, I want you to be protected. I want you to be safe. And anger is the immune system of the soul, right? It's what keeps the viruses and parasites at bay. And if we don't have anger, we are like people with immunodeficiencies, right? Sorry to use this analogy with a gay man, but it is, you know, you have to live in a bubble or you're just going to get eaten alive.
[1:31:23] So just a quick example of when I did express anger towards one of the management team who tried to legitimize crazy woman's behavior by saying, oh, but she's such a good producer. And I went off on him. I said, I will not, and again, this is thanks to you, I will not stand for you legitimizing her behavior and dismissing my experience. And he nervously just kind of laughed and said, oh, you got me. And we never discussed it again.
[1:32:03] Yeah, of course. Yeah. And look, I mean, they don't know. I mean, is she a good producer relative to a great manager?
[1:32:11] No, not at all. I mean, it's not.
[1:32:14] Of course not. So what they're saying is she's making enough money for us that I don't want to get involved in getting this crazy bitch coming after me with some sort of lawsuit if we try to fire her because she's going to go straight and she's going to claim sexual harassment and she's going to tie us up in court for years and she's going to cost us a huge amount of money. And so just let it lie, right? I mean, that's just people that are taking the path of least resistance and then going home and calling themselves good and fine citizens. That's natural, right?
[1:32:43] How about if I file a lawsuit?
[1:32:51] I mean, you can do whatever you want. I would think that what I have found the best policy with bad people is just don't engage. You know, the only way to win that game is not to play. You can get a lawsuit involved if you want. It's going to take years and, you know, a huge amount of money. And they probably have an in-house lawyer if they're a big company or more than one. So it's not really going to cost them much, but it's going to get you all tied up into knots and it's going to prevent you from moving on with your life. Maybe you'll get some money at the end of it. Maybe you won't, but nothing's really going to change. The culture is the culture of the company comes from the ceo and the executives down and um you could if you wanted but again i don't know if they've done anything legally actionable and i find that kind of stuff is uh gonna cause you more grief than it's going to help and that's that's your desire to strike back and i would understand that more accurately if you had talked about retaliation with your parents before this company i think it's more of displaced stuff about your parents. Not that I'm suggesting you sue your parents or take any actions against your parents. But when I start talking about anger, you start to talk about lashing back. And I think you just need to sit with the anger for a while and let it inform you before you try and rush into action. Because if you rush into action, when you start feeling a new emotion, you're basically saying to your new emotion, well, that's enough. I'm going to go do something, which basically is a nice way of telling you to shut up because it's making you uncomfortable. right wow
[1:34:14] That that rings very true and yeah i would just be reacting again.
[1:34:25] Yeah and i wouldn't rush to any action right i mean i wouldn't i wouldn't rush to quit i wouldn't rush to to do anything i mean i think you need to explore the emotions with your a therapist and you know this is this is going to be tough for some therapists too because you know this is culture right and some therapists are more comfortable with voluntary family and and with anger against parents and some parents some uh therapists are not for um pretty obvious reasons but i wouldn't do anything or make any substantial life decisions for the next little while i just really focus on on this talk to your anger you've got the internal family systems therapy stuff talk to your anger and try and figure out what it really needs you to do to let down its guard and all that. So does that help at all? That's sort of my suggestion for what it's worth.
[1:35:12] Oh, yes. Yes, that is exactly what I was hoping to hear. And yeah, placing the anger is something that I know I need to do. I know that there's a lot of value to it.
[1:35:33] Right. So, yeah, I don't know if you do the journaling where you talk to your anger back and forth. I found that really helpful. But I think, I mean, I don't have much more to say right now, but I would really suggest sitting down and trying to really connect with that anger. And the bill collector probably is very close to the surface now. And I think that would be helpful.
[1:35:56] Yeah, my therapist has been tremendous at guiding me through the process and dealing with all the other parts that get triggered and managing them in a respectful way, but persistently saying, okay, we need to speak to this part right now. And it's been the most rewarding thing that I've ever done. Next to this.
[1:36:27] Call oh fantastic will you yeah listen i appreciate your your work and your patience with this um will you of course drop us a line let us know how it goes oh absolutely um i well fantastic i hugely appreciate your time and uh yeah i'm i'm sorry you said you're Feeling good?
[1:36:47] Oh, yeah, yeah, this is, I feel so freed up again. It's kind of like that idea of volunteerism, it's like, oh, I'm free, I can function in a different way now. So now I'm entitled to feel angry. I can behave differently.
[1:37:09] Right. Well, again, drop us a line, let us know how it goes, and thanks again for all of your time tonight. I think it's a very useful convo.
[1:37:16] Great. Thank you so much.
[1:37:19] You're welcome. Take care.
[1:37:20] Bye.
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