Philosopher Stefan Molyneux engages in an emotionally charged and candid conversation with a caller whose life has been marked by trauma and resilience. The caller begins by offering an apology for his previous appearance on the show, reflecting on how the impact of alcohol impaired his ability to contribute meaningfully to the discussion. Acknowledging this misstep merely serves as a prelude to a deeper exploration of his life’s story.
As the caller delves into his narrative, he shares his background as a self-employed freelance writer, specializing in fan fiction – an unexpected trajectory that he found himself on after a tumultuous upbringing. He candidly admits to feeling financially stagnant, attributing it to a passive approach to his freelance career. Drawing comparisons to Stefan’s own journey, the caller expresses a newfound desire to proactively seize opportunities rather than waiting for them to manifest. Stefan encourages him to articulate the challenges he faces, fostering a safe space for exploration.
The caller reveals that his upbringing was fraught with instability, having spent significant time in group homes. He reflects on his experiences, shedding light on the misconceptions surrounding such establishments, clarifying that they often serve as a last resort for children unable to live with their families for various reasons. Through his recollection, he artfully critiques the systemic issues within the foster care and education systems that fail to adequately support vulnerable children.
Throughout their discussion, Stefan prompts the caller to revisit memories of his past, including a painful series of events that led him into group homes at a young age. He dissects the complexities of his family dynamics – a single mother grappling with her own inadequacies, a string of stepfathers, and the chaotic influence of drug addiction. With each revelation, the listener gains insight into how these experiences shaped his understanding of relationships and self-worth.
The emotional intensity escalates as the caller describes the mental health struggles and overwhelming medications he was subjected to during his childhood. He outlines the severe ramifications of being placed on psychotropic medications at such an impressionable age, discussing how this often disastrous approach influenced both his behavior and his perception of reality. The impact of these drugs, combined with the adversities of being in a group home, created a black hole of memory during his early teenage years, a void steeped in confusion and unsettling experiences.
As their conversation evolves, Stefan gently navigates the uncomfortable topic of the systemic abuse prevalent within group homes, challenging the caller to confront and articulate the harrowing tales of mistreatment that he experienced or witnessed. There is palpable tension as the caller recounts instances of both psychological and physical abuse, returning to the theme of adult negligence toward children in institutional settings, leading them down paths of ill-equipped care and neglect.
Notably, the conversation traverses beyond mere recounting of his experiences; it becomes a platform for reflection. The caller begins to grapple with his own emotional detachment, stemming from years of tightly held trauma, and he acknowledges the challenge of expressing vulnerability. As he describes his encounters with love and relationships as an adult, he reveals his ongoing struggles with intimacy and emotional availability, obstacles ingrained from a childhood devoid of safety and trust.
Stefan compassionately underscores the significance of connection and checking in during conversations, urging the caller to cultivate awareness of how his narrative impacts others. This guidance not only seeks to enhance interpersonal relationships for the caller in his future endeavors but also serves as a poignant reminder of the nuances of human connection.
As their dialogue reaches its conclusion, the caller reflects on his desire to share his experiences through writing, recognizing it as a means of healing and advocacy for those still entangled within oppressive systems. He expresses a mix of fear and determination about crafting his narrative, highlighting the public’s hunger for authentic stories of resilience. Stefan offers encouragement and practical advice regarding anonymity and the potential legal ramifications of his truths. Ultimately, their conversation serves as a powerful validation of the importance of shared experiences and the avenues for healing that arise from candid storytelling.
0:03 - The Apology
0:53 - The Freelancer's Journey
1:52 - Getting Into Fan Fiction
3:50 - Understanding Group Homes
4:22 - The Impact of Medication
5:53 - Growing Up as a Navy Brat
6:40 - The Mystery of My Father
7:12 - Childhood Trauma
8:43 - Life with My Mother
10:02 - Transition to Group Homes
12:28 - The Darkness of Group Homes
27:35 - Teenage Years and Group Home Life
30:31 - The Horrors of Abuse
32:38 - My Emotional Disconnect
42:21 - The Irony of Abuse
47:36 - Seeking Connection
48:23 - Emotional Disconnect
56:32 - Teenage Years in Group Homes
1:03:41 - The Journey to Adulthood
1:10:45 - Goals and Aspirations
1:13:36 - Relationships and Dating
1:22:25 - Reflections on Alcohol and Writing
1:33:02 - Importance of Connection
1:37:56 - Struggles with Sympathy
[0:00] I'm all ears if you want to lay out the topic.
[0:04] The topic is, I owe you a huge apology. I was on your show once a few weeks back on a Sunday, and I was out having fun with some drinks with some friends. I came on your show plastered.
[0:15] Well, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Is that the only topic? Because you booked a lengthy chunk of time here, so I appreciate that. But what else are we going to talk about?
[0:27] Oh, I owe you two hours, do I? I'll give you two hours if that's what it takes. Oh, yeah, I didn't get to any of the topics I actually wanted to talk about. Like, on my computer at home, I had, like, a document outlining the things I wanted to talk about on customer relationships as a freelancer and what's worked and what's not. And I didn't get to any of that because I was drunker than I'd been in a very long time.
[0:48] Okay, no problem. So, we'll survive. And how can I help you now?
[0:54] Well, let me see. I think I still have the document. I found it. Yes. so um i really should have just excused myself so okay i'm gonna apologize so i'm a self-employed and freelance writer and of all things i specialize in writing fan fiction which kind of just fell out of the sky and isn't anywhere in the same hemisphere as where i saw myself being in life now i have a few problems though i've long since plateaued financially and i think it's because i'm too passive in pursuing the business side of the art and you on the other hand have gone after it You've gone after what you wanted and you've been aggressive about it. You've pursued your goals. You're a former businessman in tech, right? I know you tried a lot of things and failed at a lot of things, more than I have. You've got like 30 years on me, I think. So I've been sitting around and waiting for opportunity to fall out of the sky, and now I want to kind of attack it. Now, there's a few things in this topic generally I wanted to talk about, but so far, it makes sense.
[1:53] Yeah, I mean, I'd like to know how you got into fan fiction and your general history as a whole. So, yeah, let me know.
[2:00] Oh i got into it by first reading it like in high school like i was in group homes i don't want to get too much into talking about group homes today i want to do a paid interview later to do that because there's a lot of stuff that i think we would rather talk about in private first if that's all right.
[2:15] Yeah it's totally up to you.
[2:16] But um well what do you know about group homes.
[2:21] Well uh i sort of divide them into two categories in my mind, one is where a kid has been sent because there's no particular immediate possibility of, adoption and the other is where kids have been sent because they have done something illegal but they're too young for jail i'm sure that's far from the complete picture but that's my sort of understanding of it.
[2:45] Well i was actually expecting you to tell me what you think a group home is because a lot of people don't um it's right where kids are.
[2:52] Sent when they don't have at a particular home to go to, but they obviously can't be turfed into the streets. If they've done wrong, they're too young for jails, so they go to a group home in the absence of anyone else to take them home. Is that somewhat accurate?
[3:08] Kind of too vague in general, honestly. So what a group home is, it's kind of like a school campus that's also halfway between a prison with a bit of foster care workers, social workers, education majors, people who weren't bright enough to get into public schools, which is a scary thought, and they're the ones taking care of these kids, and they're just not qualified for it. So it's essentially a prison for kids, usually who did nothing wrong, because their parents can't take them, or have been deemed by the state to not be suitable parents, and the rest of the family isn't stepping up. So that's the situation I was in. And so in high school, I was essentially in a prison. I couldn't go out to many places. So a lot of what I did was I read.
[3:50] I'm sorry, but how did you, I appreciate the additional information, but how is it that you ended up in a group home? What happened as a whole?
[4:00] Well, I was the child of a single mother. I had a lot of issues, including some things I don't want to talk about today so i was i was a troubled child and naturally the schools noticed and instead of identifying what was actually wrong with me they just said hey let's give him meth let's give him all these other drugs and that's what methylphenidate is you.
[4:19] Mean the the psychotropics.
[4:22] Um ritalin which is methylphenidate yeah methylphenidate and other drugs that were essentially amphetamines and they did not help me in fact i have spent a lot of my childhood of hallucinating like one drug they gave me i don't remember what it was called i they only gave it to me once and i had a very good time playing with the snakes that my shoelaces turned into wow i'm sorry about that oh yeah and.
[4:42] What were what were the again and you don't have to talk about anything you're uncomfortable with but in general what were the behavioral issues that that the school noticed.
[4:50] There were two in general one was that i fought back when bullies picked fights with me which is a no-no quiet kids fighting back no and there's always bullies plural always, The other thing was Well I think, I don't know if I had it then I know I have it now I do have narcolepsy, Which is, in their defense, easily confused for ADHD, because I'm just falling asleep and not paying attention in class, because I'm sleep-deprived.
[5:19] I'm sorry, I'm certainly no expert on narcolepsy, but narcolepsy is more than just being tired because you haven't slept, isn't it? Some sort of neurological disorder where you fall asleep, no matter how much rest you get?
[5:30] Yes, when I tried to be in the military, I was passing out during marches. So, yes, it didn't matter if I get six to ten hours of sleep at night. but combined with that the also the sleep deprivation of waking up at 5 a.m to get school it was just not a good combination and.
[5:47] Why were you getting up at five.
[5:48] To get the bus to school because i was the first person on the route good.
[5:53] Lord how far away were you how long was the bus ride that's wild.
[5:56] Like two hours for some of some first long periods there so.
[6:01] That i mean obviously there was no closer school you must have been really out in the boonies.
[6:05] Yeah yeah um I was a Navy brat, so we were always closer to, actually, I don't know. I should ask about that. Like, really? But there was no closer to school?
[6:14] That seems unusual, but I mean, I guess it's possible. So you were a Navy brat, but you said that you were the son of a single mother. Was your mother in the Navy, or was this when your parents were together?
[6:26] He was in the Navy from the start.
[6:28] Sorry, he was, being your father?
[6:30] She was.
[6:31] Oh, she was. Sorry, sorry. Okay, so she was in the Navy. And do you know what happened to your biological dad?
[6:37] He had no idea who he was.
[6:40] She was drunk or?
[6:43] She was a drunk woman in the Navy, a young woman in the Navy. She did what a lot of young women in the Navy did.
[6:49] So she had a drunken sexual encounter and didn't even know who the man was?
[6:54] Correct.
[6:56] And did she ever try to find him?
[6:58] She did. And she got two wrong men that were tested. They weren't them.
[7:03] And you know i'm sorry to be the usual nag but when you laugh about this sort of stuff it's a little bit uh disconcerting.
[7:10] Because this is.
[7:12] Pretty tragic right.
[7:13] It's very tragic um i did have stepfathers um but no the real problem happened was that when she still had to go on naval trips when deployed and i had to be left with other people and some of those people were very bad people i do not want to go into details but yes i was troubled in addition to the problems I had neurologically.
[7:31] And how, uh, how many stepfathers did you have? Step parents or step boyfriends or whatever did you go through? Or what did your mom?
[7:37] I know she had, she, I know of only two. She was married to both of them eventually, not immediately, but yes, she married one that I don't remember because I was a baby and they were divorced by the time I was five, my earliest memories. And she married another one after that. So I had two.
[7:51] And the second one was the bad dude.
[7:55] Bad dude a bad guy no i wasn't left with i wasn't left with them no i was left with other relatives that abused me and they left me very troubled no no neither of my stepfathers ever raised a hand to me okay in fact my mother believed in peaceful parenting uh when i was with her life was very good ah.
[8:12] Okay so it was neither your mother nor the stepfathers who were negative.
[8:17] No neither of them were ever a problem with me in fact when i was with my mother she was an amazing woman i mean when I was allowed to be with her. Her mistake was having a child in the military and leaving me with bad people. But when I was with her, I mean, because of her, I was reading at a seventh grade level when I was in the second grade. She taught me how to read more advanced books and sat down and read them with me. She knew I was a quiet kid who just wanted to sit around and read and play video
[8:43] games and listen to music. And she provided me a very good environment at home. Yeah.
[8:49] And how often did you not see her?
[8:52] Uh i only remember i know only know of two long periods um where i didn't see her which was which were both half a year long and one when i was four to five i'm sorry go ahead no go ahead one when i was four to five and one when i was six to seven and.
[9:09] The first one you said you didn't remember too much because you were so young but uh you do you remember the older one.
[9:14] Oh yeah i remember staying with uh friends of the family and then later then my aunt s who i will avoid saying the name of.
[9:24] All right.
[9:25] So during that period, I stayed with two people, just family, friends, and then my aunt.
[9:28] Okay. And those were negative experiences?
[9:32] No. Well, the experience with my aunt was, but it wasn't any physical or sexual abuse. Same with the family there, the other family I was staying with. They had a son my age, and I lived with them for a little while. The only thing I'll say about them is they had too many dogs. They didn't quite clean up after them the way they should have. But other than that, no things were fine okay.
[9:52] So good mom good step parents not too negative experiences with the family and
[9:57] with your aunt so where did things go wrong for you.
[10:02] I don't really know the exact moment well i know exactly uh the first time things started going really wrong was they kept uh giving me more medications because i was going to school at a school that doubled as a group home so that that was my i wasn't in the group home yet i was in the school connected to the group home if that makes sense okay.
[10:23] Hang on so a school that's connected to a group home i'm not sure if had a process and a school that doubled as a group home because those two things don't seem similar to me.
[10:33] The campus had the housing that was the group home like you when you're at the school you can see the house it's right there and it's connected yeah.
[10:43] But the school itself was not the group home.
[10:45] That is the same organization.
[10:50] So is it a high school for troubled kids or is it.
[10:53] A school for trouble it was a primary school yes trouble kids okay.
[10:57] So so how did you end up going to a school for troubled kids.
[11:00] Fighting um mostly getting into fights we're not getting into fights fighting back i never started a fight growing up it was the except once i yeah and but yeah no i just you what.
[11:11] Age were you fighting back.
[11:12] As soon as the first i first got into a fight like five five and a half.
[11:18] Okay and so you've got a mom at this point you've got a stepdad and how did they handle this these conflicts.
[11:25] Uh my mom let's see trying to think i should talk to her about that um how does she handle me getting so many fights it wasn't a daily occurrence or even a weekly or monthly occurrence but i i fought back which was just unheard of well no i get that and then you.
[11:44] Get into a conflict or you fight back and then the teachers come and then they call your parents, right?
[11:50] Yeah. I know my mother had to come several times. Um, okay.
[11:54] So your mother was aware and she would ask you what happened and you would say they were bullying me or they were picking on me. And so your mother would know that she would go into the meeting. And I would guess if, if she hasn't told you since there's, I guess, no way for you. I mean, you were, were you in these meetings? Do you remember what she said?
[12:12] I don't, I was very young and And there are huge black holes in my memory for reasons, mostly to do with the even more intense drugs they gave me later and several concussions I had growing up. I have very bad memory of long stretches of time.
[12:26] Like there's one three-year period where they got me on a lot of drugs. It's a black hole. Nothing.
[12:31] And what age was that?
[12:34] 11 to 13.
[12:36] Okay. So.
[12:38] But yeah, I do remember one incident in particular. It wasn't even at the school, but it was with children from the school, which was that I was just sitting around reading in our neighborhood, and they forcibly invited me into their water gun contest. Ruined my book. I came home soaked and crying, and their mother, if they were siblings, their mother came over and complained about how I punched them. And she showed, and I was, it was like right after, I was still covered in these soaking wet clothes in my rude book, and my mother went off on it. Now, I don't know exactly what Instinct got Child Protective Services called on the first time, but you should know, it doesn't take much for them to get involved. These days, I've known several parents that say, I had CPS called on me for letting my children play out in the neighborhood unsupervised with an eye shot at a house. So, I don't know what incident first got them involved, but eventually somebody called them on us. And it only took one thing. Oh, sorry.
[13:40] What age were you when you were put on the Ritalin?
[13:44] I think I was six.
[13:46] So, that would have to go through your mom, right? I mean, they can't just put you on Ritalin. Don't they have to have some sort of parental permission?
[13:53] Not only that, the thing that finally got me taken away from her.
[13:57] Sorry, sorry. Not only what? I don't understand what that refers to.
[13:59] Not only do they not need her permission, did they not need her permission, the incident that got me finally taken away from her was when she took me off the drugs without their permission.
[14:10] Oh, okay. So you were put on the drugs. They would inform your mother, though, right?
[14:15] Yes, they informed her she knew, and they ordered her to give me the drugs as well. And I remember her exact words for when I asked her why she took me off drugs. She said, you were sleeping 18 hours a day. I wanted my son back. You were a zombie.
[14:31] Okay. So they put you on drugs without your mother's permission. And then CPS was called or child protective services was called when your mother tried to get you off the drugs, I assume with some sort of doctor's supervision.
[14:45] No, what happened was the reason I admitted that she took me off the drugs. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to talk about that because I was already going to the school with a group home. And when they, uh, She, maybe I wasn't just picked up on time to go home. So they said, oh, it's time for your medication. I'm like, oh, I don't take those anymore. Uh-oh.
[15:05] Okay, so then CPS got involved because your mother took you off the medication, and that was at what age?
[15:11] I don't know when CSI Health Protective Services got involved. I know it had to have been before I was attending the group homeschool. But I know that's the reason I was taken off. And I, I'm sorry, that's the reason I was put there, properly taken away from my mother. that was the initial reason and um i think i was eight when i was finally fully taken into the group homes i'm.
[15:33] So sorry that's i mean that's that's a hell of a story and uh.
[15:37] Yeah that's.
[15:38] That's really something so so it really was just it wasn't about anything but the drugs when you were on the drugs you weren't i assume getting in fights.
[15:47] Oh no i was in fact i was worse on the drugs and it was the funniest things those two months of clarity when i wasn't on the drugs i was getting all these accolades like wow his grades are improving he's more well-behaved it's ridiculous.
[16:02] Okay.
[16:04] So in other words, my behavior kept getting worse, so they kept giving me more drugs. At one point, I was on at least five different ones. I have no idea what they are. I've tried to get my medical records. Nothing.
[16:15] Right. Okay, so then you were taken away from your mother about the age of eight. Is that right?
[16:22] Yes, and for a couple years, though, she only had weekend visitations, and she was able to take me out, I think, in those times. So I was spending weekends with her for a while, and then not at all.
[16:33] Not at all means that she was not allowed to have any contact with you.
[16:37] Yes. And the incident that caused that was when she had to go away on a business trip, my aunt called the police and lied and claimed that I was in danger with my stepfather, that he was beating, beating me. And later I learned that she falsely accused of sexually molesting me too. This was the same aunt I spoke with. Yes.
[16:55] Oh, and this is your mother's sister? Yeah, of course it would be because you don't know who your father is. Okay. Got it. Got it. so your mother's sister called like like ratted her out in false ways and then accused your stepfather of molesting you.
[17:09] Yes uh and physically beating both her and i do.
[17:13] You have any idea why she would do these kinds of things.
[17:16] Well i know that uh there was an incident where he accidentally as stupid as it sounds broke her wrist when he tried to twist keys out of her hand so sorry she being.
[17:28] The the aunt.
[17:29] My mother your mother like so your stepfather hang on let's let's let's let it's.
[17:34] All familiar to you i'm just trying to understand all right.
[17:35] Yes sir so.
[17:36] Just slow down a little so your stepfather broke your mother's wrist trying to twist keys out of her hand.
[17:42] Yes because she was leaving they were having an argument it was like one of only two arguments they ever had and he tried to twist keys out of her arm to it broke her wrist i.
[17:53] Mean that's pretty dangerous, right?
[17:55] It is. So she was, I understand why she thought he was violent towards her. And that's the best information she ever had about this man. Like, she never even met him, I think.
[18:08] Oh, the aunt had never met your stepfather.
[18:11] Yeah, she met him. Never mind. Yeah, no, she met him.
[18:15] Okay. And so your aunt was worried about her sister, your mother, and the violence or the broken wrist that she'd experienced at the hands of your stepfather.
[18:26] No, my mother had to go out for the weekend for a couple days for something Navy related. And my aunt somehow found out, called the police that I was in danger.
[18:37] Because you were alone with your stepfather.
[18:40] Exactly okay got it and that's when i was taken away from her full time later she both of them became drug addicts as well so then i couldn't go back with them i'm sorry but they never being who my mother and stepfather became drug addicts, yes they be the after the i was fully taken away from her she got into drugs and yeah they both became drug addicts. She eventually kicked it. She's much better now.
[19:07] What kinds of drugs?
[19:10] Ironically, the same thing I was put on, meth.
[19:13] Okay. Okay.
[19:17] But yeah. So after that point, I couldn't go back with them.
[19:20] I'm sorry, how old were you when your parents became drug addicts?
[19:25] I think I was nine. So that was about a year. It was probably a slow descent after I was fully taken away from her at eight. So after about a year after that, I didn't see them at all for a, Five years, maybe six.
[19:40] Wow.
[19:42] Yeah, really rough. But I think I kind of skipped over some things here. Namely, I didn't really tell you how much of a hellscape group homes are.
[19:51] Hang on. I'm just, I'm sure you're right. I just, this sort of goes against my understanding. So in the United States, schools generally cannot administer medication to a child without the explicit written consent of a parent or guardian. This requirement applies to both prescription and over-the-counter medications. Parental consent is a fundamental part of the process, and schools must have written permission from the parent or guardian to administer any medication. There are limited exceptions, primarily in emergency situations where a child is experiencing a medical crisis, and immediate treatment is necessary to prevent serious harm. In such cases, schools may administer medication without prior consent to address an acute health issue. federal and state laws reinforce the principle that schools cannot force a child to take, medication title 20 of the united states code explicitly prohibits state and local educational agencies from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for a substance covered by the controlled substances act as a condition for attending school or receiving services several states have enacted laws that specifically prohibit school personnel from recommending or requiring psychotropic drugs for students and in many cases a parent's refusal to administer medication does not constitute grounds for child protective services intervention. Now, again, what do I know? I'm just sort of reading this as a whole.
[21:11] I'll say two things to that, which is first, in 1999, which is notoriously bad for its treatment of children. Second, I was made to see a psychiatrist before then by the schools. And they could, I need to know what the law, it was in 1999, so 20 plus years ago, in San Diego, California.
[21:34] Well, I was trying not to, I mean, remember I said, like, don't use identifying stuff.
[21:42] But I know that maybe she, I don't think I'll have to ask her if she ever consented to my drugging, but I know that I was originally fully taken away, partially taken away from her because she refused to drug me any longer without their permission. And they probably could construe that as putting me in danger.
[21:59] Um okay yeah i mean what do i know right so um it just it seems it seems unusual to me but again i'm certainly no expert on what happened in your neck of the woods in the 90s okay all right so uh you ended up i'm sorry i.
[22:16] Need to take notes on that um laws in 1999 drugging children it. There we go. All right. No taking it.
[22:25] Okay. So, sorry, remind me what age you were when you were put in the group home?
[22:31] Fully put in the group home, eight. Last saw her for a while at nine.
[22:37] And when, to your knowledge, did she get into drugs?
[22:41] I don't know the exact year. I think it was by the time I was nine.
[22:46] And are you sure that she did not get into drugs beforehand, and that's why maybe you were taken from her.
[22:52] Yes, we've discussed this.
[22:54] Well, um...
[22:55] Because she didn't get her dishonorable discharge from the military until after I was taken away. They tested regularly. They would have... None, yeah. She would have been discharged much earlier if she had been.
[23:06] Well, I don't know, again, what do I know, but maybe they give you a couple of chances.
[23:11] Fair.
[23:13] So maybe she was in the process of trying to get clean and they were trying to have that work or help or something like that but, Okay. All right. So, seven, you go into the group home and eight, you last saw her? Was that right?
[23:34] Nine, I last saw her. Seven, I was already attending the group home, not living there. Eight, I was put in there to live in the group home.
[23:44] Okay. Got it. And do you know how long your mother was addicted to drugs for?
[23:53] I think it was for a good five, six years.
[23:56] Oh, gosh.
[23:57] Well, no, not quite six, four or five years, because I know by the time I saw her again at 14, 15, she was off the drug. She was working a proper job that did drug test. So I know she was clean by then.
[24:10] Right. That's I'm very, very sorry about that, of course. I mean, that's a terrible situation. And, of course, I assume that the agencies that put you in the home would have preferred, in some ways, to have you back with your parents. But if they were on drugs, that wouldn't be possible.
[24:34] No. Well, first of all, they didn't. What I saw with other children, the only children that ever got put back with their parents were the ones that came from the worst environments. Right. It was a really evil irony. And some of them I know died because of that.
[24:54] Okay.
[24:55] Like it was never, there was never any effort to get these kids back to their real homes. And the reason is being because the financial motive was there for them to keep the kids. I know today they get $3,500 per month per child. So just basic financial incentives, they wouldn't be working too hard to get the children back.
[25:16] Yes, but I mean, if the parents petition and the parents are evaluated and so on, if the parents are pushing for it, maybe it's more likely. Again, what do I know? But I guess if your parents were drug addicts, that wasn't happening.
[25:30] Yeah, that wasn't happening. But also none of my extended family ever tried either. And I think they didn't because they saw. Well, no, she did go through periods of getting clean, and they continued to deny her even when she did everything they demanded of her, because they didn't tell her the real reason they were keeping me.
[25:48] And so, for your case, is that the real reason they were keeping you was for the money they were getting from the government for having you?
[25:54] No. The real reason was because my aunt falsely accused my stepfather of sexual molesting me, and so long as she was married to him, they wouldn't give me back.
[26:00] Ah, yes. Okay, okay. Got it. Got it.
[26:04] And I didn't find out about that. None of us found out about that until I was 15.
[26:08] And how did you find out about it?
[26:11] Because I was there when they were on the phone, when my caseworker was on the phone with my mother and said, so long as you're with that child molester, you can't have him back.
[26:23] Well, isn't there an investigation of some kind?
[26:27] There are a few things you should know about social workers and these caseworkers. The first is that they have qualified immunity and they get away with anything. like no social workers have qualified immunity i'm not kidding okay.
[26:42] All right okay listen i i don't have any way to evaluate all of this stuff and frankly neither do you to some degree because you're relying on what your mom says about.
[26:55] Some documents i was given when i'm sorry on on some of it i have her word for it and other families word for it but a lot of what I know I was given documents for when I graduated. I know a lot of my medical records, what little survived, my school records. I have those. So I know a lot of things. Some, not all of it, though. Like, there are periods where I just don't have any records. I told you I can't find any.
[27:23] And you said three years of, like, no memory.
[27:27] That was 11 to 13, two years.
[27:31] Two years, sorry. Okay, got it, got it. Okay, all right. So then we move into your teenage years.
[27:41] Well, first, I think we should actually just discuss what the environment of a group home is like, if you're okay with that.
[27:45] It's your call, man. Whatever works for you.
[27:48] Okay. Have you ever been brought to an HR board disciplinary meeting?
[27:52] I have not.
[27:54] Ah, well, just imagine that 24-7, 365, where nothing is too minor. Because you're in this facility that's essentially a prison if it was designed by corporate committee to be corporate-friendly.
[28:09] Okay.
[28:11] So even on without all the abuse going on there on its best day it's just bureaucratic abuse in like the worst company you ever worked for, it's like being in a very badly disciplined badly ordered and badly maintained school 24-7 365 like I remember well for one we didn't have summer vacations, I think the longest one I had was two to four weeks like the longest one I had was one month but we usually got two weeks because why bother you're on the school, but um the problem with it was the people in charge were just not qualified to be around children these are education and social work majors and these are the dropout education and social work majors i'm sure i'm sure you know i know you know this the two lowest iqs of every college major are social work and education majors right they were dumb and they were power tripping karen's taboo like i know oh i just remembered the color system um they had this system where you were assigned a color to oh.
[29:20] Hello, uh hello.
[29:25] And to the point that i'm sorry you just cut out for a.
[29:28] Second there some you started they.
[29:29] Talk to.
[29:30] You about the color system.
[29:30] Uh yes there was a color system uh um that essentially was uh how good of a kid you were and usually your allowance was also tied to it which is nice and so like red is the lowest green is usually the medium sometimes some places had silver and gold that were even higher and so your allowance was reliant on this but it was completely arbitrary enough to any staff's member decision to take you down one and so they did it for arbitrary reasons all the time. And it doesn't take long for all the children to just stop caring because, okay, my behavior has no correlation to outcome at all.
[30:08] Right. Right.
[30:10] So this is even without the psychiatric, psychological abuse, the fighting, the and some abuse that I'm going to. Oh, I don't know if I want to talk. Oh, I should. I don't think you'll believe me, though. OK, you said you wanted to jump to teen years. Let's do that.
[30:28] No, no, it's your call. Whatever you want to talk about, it's fine with me.
[30:31] Well, I think what would be best is to talk about the group homes in order. So after the next group home, I was there for a few months and they got me off the drugs. They slowly weaned me off. The group home after that, no drugs at all for most of my time there.
[30:47] Right.
[30:48] And it was great because this one was actually just a house. They had a little house for the little kids, which was ironically bigger than the big house for the teenagers. And so we had a house, all of the people that worked there, to my memory, they were men. And they weren't just men, they were men who actually had testosterone, which I'd never seen in the group homes or schools before then. And things were good. But there was an incident with a new social worker I got, who I wish I could name, because I can't find her anywhere, any information on her if she even existed, and I want to find other victims of her. But there was an incident where she was visiting me and talking to me, said, so like, what do you want to be when you grow up? This was the actual conversation. I said, you know, it would be kind of cool to work for the military building bombs and missiles and stuff. Her reaction was to run around like her. I'm not exaggerating slightly. She ran around claiming, he wants to build a bomb. He's a body terrorist. I'm not kidding. Once she demanded I got back on the drug, she got me seen by a psychiatrist. I was back on the drugs. Because of that.
[31:57] So, one last thing with that group, the one time I was ever visited by a relative, it was that same aunt. And she visited me after I was back on the drugs. I don't think she and I had ever met when I wasn't on drugs. so she never met the real me and so she met me with her son my cousin and all I remember from that meeting was me trying to protect my cousin from my foster sibling because he was so annoying we all wanted to beat his ass that's all I remember.
[32:28] Sorry whose ass did you want to beat.
[32:30] My cousin well all of my foster siblings wanted to because he was he was a real little monster sorry.
[32:38] How old is he.
[32:40] Same age as us, 11.
[32:42] I mean, it's kind of rough to call a kid a monster at the age of 11, isn't it?
[32:48] True, but his mother worshipped the ground he walked on. Like, even when I was with her during that one stage.
[32:54] Hang on. I mean, he's 11. He's not in charge of his own family environment or what his mother does.
[33:01] You just reminded me about a really messed up frame of thinking they instilled upon us as very early ages in these group homes that we are they put responsibility on us, so they trained us to take responsibility for our lives very early on I remember these long-winded lectures on that, oh oh those bastards I remember saying hang on hang on hang on.
[33:29] You're kind of skipping over what I'm saying though.
[33:31] Oh yes but thank you I'm sorry you just reminded me of that yes and the reason I'm thinking I now know why I said that about my cousin when he was 11, because I was trained to be responsible for my behavior at all times, and I was never given any excuses, and I didn't do the same for other children. So, yeah, you're absolutely right. It was very messed up of me to think that way about my cousin who had a much more normal childhood than me.
[33:58] Well, and I mean, you said that you never started fights, and then you're telling me how much everybody wanted to beat up on your cousin, including you.
[34:05] And I protected it. I said I wanted to. I didn't say I did.
[34:08] I didn't start a fight.
[34:09] I never thought I ever wanted to start a fight.
[34:11] Okay, got it. All right. And so, um, yeah, sorry, going on into your, into your teenage years.
[34:19] One last thing about that group home. That was the first time I was ever exposed to racial issues. Am I still there? I'm seeing bad network quality.
[34:28] Uh, I can hear you. Yeah.
[34:30] All right. That was the first time I was ever introduced to racial issues because we had one teacher, the one Caucasian person that worked there at the school that was connected to the group home again. uh not physically but legally and i remember unsolicited she once just gave me an 11 year old white boy a lecture on my white privilege in 2003 yeah.
[34:52] It's really bad that's that uh has been around for a long time and it's really sad.
[34:56] And people don't know like people were talking that mid 2000 mid 2010s about how this has just started like oh where have you been in the last 20 years yeah yeah and but to really emphasize how good racial relations were even with kids in the group homes before then i never heard a racial slur before until i was 11 and like we were out at a ymca and some random girl wanted to play with me i didn't want to play with her she went around told somebody i called her the n-word and so when the lifeguard came around asked me did you call this girl the n-word my face lit up like that's awesome what is it.
[35:29] I'm sorry that's what.
[35:31] That as an 11 year old boy i said that's awesome what is it there's an n word right i thought i knew all the bad words it was not awesome okay so yes that was my first encounter with racial issues something happened in 28 2008 around that time where racial issues in this country just got really bad i don't know what it was yeah it's a mystery yeah it's a mystery but on to my teenage years the next group home I was in, oh no, there was one more group home before the black hole in my memory, and this is really bad. This is why I have a black hole in my memory. This next group home was shut down, and thank God. Oh, I forgot. And this is important. Aside from the group home I was just in before this, and two more later on, there was this thing that's done in group homes. Two things of physical abuse. One is they will restrain students, as in two grown adults Pinning children down to the ground Until they stop having Whatever psychotic break They're having from the drugs, The other, I don't remember what they called these rooms, but there were these stark white, frigid, they almost looked like walk-in freezers. They would throw the kid in there, hold the door closed, they weren't allowed to actually put locks on the doors, and wait until you wore yourself out. And I just remember, like, you know, when you're cold as a kid, you pull your arms into your shirt, hide your head inside?
[37:00] Mm-hmm.
[37:01] Just doing that for long periods, trying to escape the stark white light and cold. must have done hundreds of times in those.
[37:10] I'm so sorry that's just wretched.
[37:13] But this is worse in this group home they had the same but they had the broad idea hey maybe we should put a carpet on the floors and walls sounds like a good idea right problem other children soiled themselves in those rooms, and as far as I could smell or feel those were never cleaned, so I came out of that one feeling like there were insects crawling under my skin.
[37:37] Now i find it i mean obviously my sympathy is enormous but it's disconcerting to hear you tell these stories.
[37:44] Yeah that's because i've been i've already written them down and i've been planning to write a book about it for a very long time and never pulled the trigger and i only started so hang.
[37:55] On hang on you're not asking me why.
[37:58] Why are you disconcerted i know why you're just disconcerted even as bad as your childhood was you can't you have the same problem i can you can't fathom how people can do this to children the children well you're wrong hang.
[38:11] On you're wrong though.
[38:12] Oh like.
[38:13] It's it's a little rude to to assume that you know what i'm thinking because then.
[38:18] It's not a conversation then.
[38:19] You're just talking to yourself right.
[38:21] Yes sir so.
[38:23] Why do you think it's disconcerting.
[38:26] Uh i'm sorry i got a little whiplash there you said it was rude to try and guess or assume what So I said.
[38:35] I'm a little disconcerted by what you're saying while I have massive sympathy. And you're like, well, I know why it's because I've written any books and blah, blah, blah. And, and, and that's not like, isn't the polite thing to do to say, well, what's happening for you in the conversation?
[38:50] Well, why, what are you feeling right now, Stefan?
[38:52] Well, it's disconcerting because you have absolutely, as far as I can tell, no particular emotional content or connection to these horrible tales. Yeah.
[39:03] Correct. Do you want to know why I don't?
[39:10] Well, I guess we can get back to you, but how about we spend a few moments on me? You and I have been talking for 40 minutes. I barely said anything, and let's get back to me, right?
[39:21] I thought you just left a big old sign, so I'm like, are you inviting? Is that an invitation for me to tell you why? Or go ahead.
[39:28] Well, I mean, does that make sense to you, what I'm saying? Does it accord with your experience? Or I suppose another way of asking for it, and I don't mean this with any criticism whatsoever but do you what do you feel when you're because the way you talk it's kind of like a documentary and like or like i'm trying to sort of understand what because this is you know this is just horrible stuff right this is completely wretched and horrible stuff and i'm trying to sort of figure out what your emotional experience is because this is a public call right so in a public call, I have to battle dissociation. Because if you are telling, you know, these absolutely appalling stories of what was done to you, but you have no emotional connection to anything, that's going to cause the people who listen to this to emotionally disconnect. And they're just going to hear some dissociated babbling, which is unfair to the horrors that you've experienced.
[40:25] Fair. There are things I'm angry about. They aren't the things most people would assume and it is does freak people out that i am dissociating now you're back to.
[40:33] You're back to narrating yeah like i'm trying to figure out like what is your emotional experience of.
[40:41] My emotional experience is my emotional experience is i'm very angry about different things than this these things i wasn't angry about for the longest time and i know why, because they trained me not to be like there was constant anger management quote-unquote training where they just don't want you to be angry about your situation.
[41:03] Okay, so now you're back to blaming other people, which again, I accept, right? But I'm still trying to get a sense of what your emotions are about this. Not your complaints about the anger management or things like that, but what's your emotional experience of your mother having sex with a guy she doesn't even know, having no idea who your father is. and being, you know, in a sense, dumped with others, with the family and so on, and then being drugged, and then your parents becoming drug addicts, and you going to these terrible homes. I mean, this really sad, awful, and terrible stuff, right? And I find it disconcerting to hear, You know, it's like, oh, yeah, well, my parents were murdered in front of me and then my sister was raped and then I did. And then I went, you know, and it's just like, like, I'm trying to sort of connect with you rather than in a narrative sense, which is kind of disconnected, but in your emotions.
[42:11] Well, with my emotions, the things I'm really horrified of and still angry about
[42:16] are things I kind of didn't want to talk about because they usually involved outright sexual abuse.
[42:21] Well okay and i'm not asking you to talk about what you don't want to talk about i mean of course i'm going to respect everything that you don't want to talk about but what you've talked about is already horrible enough and that's what i'm trying to sort of understand it's your emotional connection to what happened to you.
[42:39] Okay i'm going to explain the emotional connection uh it's going to sound bizarre to you but i need you to understand in con in compare our frames of reference are different in that there was two reasons one is i experienced things worse than this that these other things seem minor to me and always have and i've not been able to emotionally connect in that way with these things that i can't believe i'm saying it to me were minor at the time and i didn't have that emotional connection at the time for these things so i didn't build that long-term emotional connection that stayed with me no.
[43:14] But this is the foundation of the terrible stuff that happened later the stuff that you don't want to talk about and so if this stuff hadn't happened the later stuff wouldn't have happened right.
[43:24] No though the most horrible things happened when i was five i'm sorry i skipped over that earlier the most horrible stuff i said that we skipped over earlier was when i was five with distant relatives oh and that's the sexual abuse that you.
[43:37] Don't want to talk about right.
[43:38] Sexual and physical abuse that i don't want to talk about yes sir okay.
[43:41] Got it all right.
[43:43] And that would not have happened hang on hang on.
[43:47] And this is when you were still with your mother right.
[43:49] Uh yes when she was out on a naval trip okay.
[43:53] So why didn't your mother know or that something had happened.
[44:01] It's a very good question part of it is i didn't talk about it i don't.
[44:07] No no that's not the answer it's your job as a parent to keep your children safe and to be emotionally connected with them to the point where if something bad happens to them and you're not there you know because they're different afterwards and and you.
[44:23] Understand that right he did notice i was different afterwards but she didn't make the connection and i am baffled that neither did i call him again slow down bro bro okay sorry so.
[44:33] It's a lot of narrative right i'm I'm trying to get to the person here, not the narrator. Okay. So she knew that something bad had happened to you. And so what is her responsibility as a parent?
[44:51] Okay. Well, it was her responsibility as a parent to not let me get in that situation in the first place.
[44:57] Okay, I understand that. But given that that was not achieved, that she handed you over to people who abused you horribly, which is a great failure as a parent. So given that you were then horribly abused at the age of five, what is her responsibility after that?
[45:17] Her responsibility was to figure out why. And I know she tried to. And the psychologist, psychiatrist, were so off the mark. It's ridiculous. Like, how do you get a six-year-old who responds violently to being tickled by his mother, who doesn't like being touched, and not realize, oh, somebody molested him?
[45:34] Okay, so why didn't your mother know that?
[45:38] She's not a very, she's not trained in that things. We have the internet today. We know that when a child acts that way, it's usually due to some kind of sexual molestation.
[45:47] Okay so why didn't you well let's just forget the sexual molestation not that i'm saying forget it but just for the purposes of this you said that you were physically abused right you.
[45:58] Knew about that um but that's because she got that from other hand sources and asked me.
[46:02] Okay so she asked you and you told her that you had been beaten or violently assaulted yes as a five-year-old right Yes. Okay.
[46:13] And the rest of the family thinks still, to this day, thinks I was lying about that.
[46:19] I don't quite follow that one. Sorry.
[46:22] My aunts and grandparents and other people in the family still, to this day, think that as a six-year-old, I just made that up.
[46:31] I mean, the aunt who accused your stepfather of sexual abuse.
[46:36] Yes, the aunt who falsely accused my stepfather of sexual abuse.
[46:39] It's still, it's so eerie to me. Yes, my mother. Like, I just, I need to try and get to the person who's not narrating, but actually experiences things.
[46:50] Well, one last, well, before that, I feel like I need to justify my laughter on that one.
[46:55] I mean, this is an aunt, you say, falsely accused a man of sexual abuse. So you don't need to tell me other bad things she did.
[47:03] No, no, just the irony of her doing that after not believing me about actual sexual abuse. That's why I laugh about it. Like, there's just a really sick irony to that.
[47:11] But it's not funny, right?
[47:13] It's not.
[47:14] It's not funny. None of this is funny. It's all absolutely appalling. And that's what I'm trying to connect with. Is that I don't know that you know what it's like to be on the receiving end of this kind of information.
[47:37] I do.
[47:38] No, you don't.
[47:41] I had foster siblings that went through very worse than they told me.
[47:47] Well, I don't know if you know what it's like to be emotionally connected, Or try to be And be on the receiving end of this kind of information, To be on the receiving end of this kind of information Is to feel great sorrow And sadness and anger, And To have you And laughing from time to time It's a very great disconnect.
[48:23] Because what I'm, in my mind's eye, and again, none of this is critical. I'm just sort of telling you my experience, right? But in my mind's eye, I'm seeing this, you know, abused and violated and neglected and drugged and like just almost every conceivable negative thing that could happen to a poor, innocent little child was inflicted upon you. And I'm seeing that child in my mind's eye being hurt and abused, raped, molested, assaulted, whatever happened, right? And I'm seeing this narrator. And then this happened, ha-ha, and then that happened, ha-ha. That's the disconnect. I understand. That I see this very sad, broken, abused, and angry, and hurt, and neglected child. And the narrator of the story doesn't seem to have any connection with that, to me. And so that's the disconnect.
[49:32] Um if you're hoping that i'll express emotively about my own story.
[49:38] No no don't don't no no hang on hang on what do you mean hoping i'm telling you my experience i'm not trying to manipulate you oh i'm not trying to get you to like remote or i'm just honestly telling you, why it's difficult to connect when you're telling me, these stories. I'm not trying to get you to do anything. I'm just being honest about my experience. Maybe you've had a lot of manipulators in your life, but I'm just telling you honestly about my experience. Because I don't want to just not give you any feedback or any sort of person-to-person, man-to-man connection on what you're telling me and just have this sort of wall of narration hit me without any feedback, right? Because that would be isolating for you.
[50:26] I get it. I get how that, yeah, you're right. That is really disturbing. And it's weird that I'm so used not only to speaking to people about these things like that, but being spoken to by people who've experienced similar in the same way. That's fucked. You're right. Because that's how we were trained to talk about things by these psychopaths. right so you'll never find any of my foster siblings who will who when they open up are at all emotional about it there is deadened in the way they talk is me.
[50:57] Well i i didn't say deadened right so i don't want you to get that.
[51:00] Impression for what.
[51:01] I'm saying yeah no no i'm just saying.
[51:02] But i.
[51:02] Bet that's not coming from me if that's what you.
[51:05] Experience i'm an idiot and i do feel that's how it is it is deadened and i i've never been able to say be angry or sad about i've only been angered or saddened by other people's experiences. Never my own. Like a self-emperity thing.
[51:21] Why do you think that that is?
[51:24] Well, part of it is I already lost so much of my life. I remember saying this. When I was 16, we had this weird pity party therapy session. And somebody said, why aren't you getting involved in any of this? I'm like, look, dude, I'm going to die someday. I don't know how many years I have ahead of me. I already know I lost the ones behind me. I ain't going to waste time emoting about this shit. I remember saying that.
[51:52] And what do you mean by emoting?
[51:55] Being sad and angry and wellowing on this in ways that prevent you from living in the now or the future.
[52:02] Okay, so being sad or angry is bad because it's wallowing and prevents you from living. Is that right?
[52:09] I viewed it as a waste of time, yes. And especially with the sexual stuff, I'm like, well, I still want to be able to connect with people physically and sexually. And if I'm constantly reopening these wounds, that makes it difficult. And it did. In addition to, like, just people were, I saw, okay, I saw a trend and I was protecting myself from it, which was that the people who talked about the things more got worse over time. They didn't heal from opening up about these things and constantly having therapy. They got worse.
[52:45] Okay.
[52:47] And apparently science has figured that out lately. Like, no, constantly talking about things that happen to you over and over again is just recausing the trauma. You shouldn't be doing that a lot. Like, oh, I kind of figured that out on Earth's head. Oops.
[52:59] Okay. So if that's the theory, and I'm not going to argue, of course, with you about that, but if that's the theory, then why are you talking about it with me? if talking about it is bad?
[53:11] Well, I'm talking about it with you because you asked last time I was on and you made me start, well, you didn't make me, but you got me thinking again. Like, you're right. There's a lot of angles from this I didn't understand or think about. I should talk to Stefan some more, not only because he's making me think about things that I should. When I said earlier, that was when I was 16. That's what I thought when I was 16, half my life ago. I don't think that way.
[53:35] I thought you were talking about how science is shown and it's a bad idea in general. But that's what you thought back then, but that's not what you think now. Is that right?
[53:41] That's not what I think now. I don't think it's a waste of time now. I do still agree that going to a therapist every week and talking about it over and over again is not the healthiest coping.
[53:49] But that's not the purpose of therapy is not to have you talk about it over and over again and never release, right? And never.
[53:56] Ideally, but the, my experience with therapists that I was forced to talk to weekly about nothing, but I don't have a lot of hope or respect for the, therapeutic industry.
[54:11] Okay. Yeah. I'm again, I'm not going to, I'm not going to question or debate your experiences. I obviously accept your experiences. So sorry, go ahead.
[54:19] But she did ask me, why do I want to talk to you? And part of it is because I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of people out there that kind of need to hear that they're alone because for the longest time, I thought what happened to me was normal.
[54:34] No, no, you didn't. No, come on, come on. I did. No, you didn't.
[54:38] For like the first three years of my adult life.
[54:40] Bro, bro, bro, you were in a group home. That's not normal. That's not average.
[54:44] And I grew up only around other people in group homes. And even in the first few years of my adult life...
[54:49] I get that, I get that, I get that. But you also knew that there were entire legions of people not in group homes.
[54:57] I don't mean identical to me in every way. I mean that all of them had had some kind of abuse and they all... had terrible childhoods in one way or another. I didn't think everyone grew up in group homes.
[55:09] Right, but you knew that you were in an unusual situation relative to the general population. Okay, I just want to make that. Yeah, so everybody who's in the group homes is probably traumatized. I get all of that, so, okay.
[55:21] Yes.
[55:22] So it's normal for the group home, but it's not normal in society.
[55:25] Correct.
[55:26] Okay, I just wanted to make sure I understood that. So, sorry, go ahead.
[55:29] I didn't mean the group home situation was normal. I meant people being abused as children was normal.
[55:35] Well the people in the group home for sure would would have yeah terrible tales of okay got it got it all right so um do we want to pick up in your 20s or or where would you like to go from here i.
[55:47] Want to finish that group home with the carpet in the.
[55:49] Oh the hugging yourself because it's cold and your hands inside the shirt and stuff okay go ahead yes.
[55:54] Uh the room in people had the carpet and it was soiled so i came out feeling disgusting but so in this group home this was when they Instead of the white, hard, cold rooms, it was a warm, carpeted room, which they thought was a mercy. It was not. It was gross. And probably one of the reasons they were shut down. But something started happening when I was living there. I started having blackouts. Like, full-on days missing. And what I think happened was they were just mixing up our medications. And so, I started having blackouts. And then, the next group I was in, all black. Except for, like,
[56:30] locations. and weirdly I remember names. I'm terrible with names. But I remember the names of the children there.
[56:39] So now we pick up on the teenage years. I was in another group home. This one was also fashioned like a house. And the woman who made it was one of the most racist people I've ever known. She only hired black people. She treated the black kids better than the white. like I remember once there was a lice infestation and she made all the white kids shave their heads but not the black kids, and actually none of us had lice, like what so i don't know but that's when the black what i really want to talk about there is now this is when i started getting off the drugs again because i think at 13 i was 14 when they finally told me at 13 you can just refuse the drugs just refuse and say no and the moment i real i was told i'm like oh i'm gonna refuse these and it was like a week's like i don't know if you know this but when you get on these drugs it takes weeks for them to really start working like i'm not sure if you know that six.
[57:47] Weeks yeah something like that but go ahead.
[57:49] And the same when you're coming off them so like there was this three to six week period where i was coming to and it was kind of like um what was that movie where the guy took the pill and he was suddenly smarter limitless have you seen that movie yeah.
[58:03] It's from flowers for algernon as a as a book but yes go ahead.
[58:06] There was this scene in that movie where he's on it for the first time he looks around his house like my home wait no this can't be my home who would live like this, and so there was this moment where i was regaining sentience essentially and i looked at myself, my nails were long and unkept my hair was long and unkept and i couldn't remember the last time i brushed my teeth and i'm pretty sure i spent an entire year without once brushing my teeth they drugged me so much I couldn't even keep good hygiene anymore, and as soon as I was off, I was human again, I'm sorry go ahead yes I'm debating myself if I want to tell you this next part it was a very specific kind of sexual abuse it was so bad, the woman in charge was forced to do this and eventually she stopped doing it. I think that's why the place was closed down.
[59:08] Sorry, was forced to perform the sexual abuse?
[59:13] Okay. Maybe people are going to think I'm weird for calling this sexual abuse, but I think you'll agree with me. I can only describe it as anti-rape training. So we had these weekly, lessons, let's call them, and she had to read out of this book, and I want that book. And what they were really hypothetical sexual situations and what you'll do with them. It's anti-right trading. And I only remember the final question. God, I don't think you're going to believe me. I don't think anyone's going to believe me. I need that book. It was so bad that this woman, who was a real piece of work, never did any more of these. And I didn't see her do it, but I saw her go into the office. It sounded a lot like a waif of a woman slam-dunking a book into a trash can, is what I heard. So this was the hypothetical question. You are babysitting a seven-year-old girl. You decide you're going to rape her. Her hymen blocks you. What do you do?
[1:00:33] Sorry, that doesn't sound like anti-rape training.
[1:00:38] This was the actual question. That's the only one I remember in detail because it was just so bad. We were not made to answer that one. so i later learned that the reason this i was in this group of all of us was there was because we were viewed as budding sexual predators, us specifically i found out later the reason i was is because while blacked out on these drugs i zombie walked from the shower naked to my room and exposed myself they claimed well i'm sure i did walk to my room naked, they in Pupply, be deliberately exposed yourself. The worst any of those kids did, when he was 13, he had consensual sex with a 12-year-old girl. They were both from a foreign country where that was...
[1:01:32] Okay, no, no, there's no... Hang on, hang on, hang on. There's no consensual sex with a 12-year-old girl.
[1:01:40] He was 13.
[1:01:42] I don't care. He wasn't consenting either.
[1:01:45] Fair enough, yes. I agree. I agree completely. But I remember this woman who I hated. I still don't respect her as a human being. like I do most people I meet as strangers. But even she went on the rant, like, there's nothing wrong with these boys. She had three daughters, and she's like, my daughters are worse than these boys in that way. I said I wasn't going to get emotional, and here I am. Jesus. Do you mind if I take a quick break to get a cup of water, sir?
[1:02:11] Yeah, go ahead.
[1:02:12] I'll be back in like 30 seconds. Okay. I'm back. I never told anybody about that before today.
[1:02:19] Okay, I'm all used to go ahead.
[1:02:22] Oh i said i never told anybody about that training until today.
[1:02:27] Right okay so um and then.
[1:02:30] Next group home oh there was i defended i went to juvenile hall next oh well okay i can say that one i went to prison next uh because i defended what do you.
[1:02:43] Mean by prison oh sorry you were going to say why sorry about that.
[1:02:46] Juvenile prison uh because i defended myself against a grown man who put his hands on me and the charges were dropped for self-defense. And the weirdest thing happened there.
[1:02:55] Sorry, if the charges were dropped why were you going to prison?
[1:02:59] The charges were dropped a month later. So it was juvenile hall, juvenile detention facility. So not, I haven't been charged yet. It's, I forget the distinction jail versus prison, which one you're in while you're waiting for your court date.
[1:03:12] Okay.
[1:03:14] And the weirdest thing happened, I was happy and safe there. It was the best group home I was ever in. I joked at the time which is a terrible joke and the guards were confused by me they couldn't fathom why I was there and they said as much to me, And I remember a social worker came to meet me there, and she said, and she was all concerned, like, how are you doing? I'm like, I'm great.
[1:03:42] And I think I horrified her, and she realized something was seriously wrong with that group home I was in. Because the next group home I was in, next two group homes I was in were great.
[1:03:55] Trying to remember nothing really bad happened in the final group home I was in, which is thankfully still open it was an academy, housing school, housing and they were connected to like several agriculture fields in the area, and I got jobs working in agriculture and that was the start of my adult life working mostly as landscaping because it made me happy. But the one thing I'm really angry about with all of this that really came to a head there was my education. After hearing all I've said, it's going to weird you out that the thing I've been angriest about for the longest time was how I was kneecapped educationally. Because I read at the seventh grade level when I was in the second grade. I later got my IQ tested officially when I was in one of the group homes, 145. And I think they knew. And the quality of the education was just so bad. I only learned later that despite being an A and B student in math, I never learned Algebra 2 or Trigonometry. So I spent a month once teaching myself Algebra 2 and Trigonometry for fun. And I remembered, oh, right, I loved math. I loved learning. What was wrong with them? and as aside from maybe that training we were just talking about that's the thing that i've been angriest about for the longest time sorry.
[1:05:24] I were you in the middle of a thought there i don't want to.
[1:05:26] No i i was finished i want to give you time to talk this is your show no.
[1:05:30] No um uh i'm i get that so when did you get out of the group home so to 17 or 18.
[1:05:35] Uh 18 oh okay anybody listening please take this advice to heart. Nobody told me. You can graduate high school at 16 by just testing out your GED. Nobody told me I could do that. Otherwise, I would have studied a GED exam book for a month and graduated two years early.
[1:05:57] Right.
[1:05:59] Another thing nobody told me about was the Job Corps, which I highly recommend everyone listening who's young enough look into. If you're American. But, yeah, there were three final middle fingers. Oh, the reason I was so angry about the schooling is because they misplaced my transcript so many times that I repeated grades. They once had to, they twice, they had to jump me up two grades because they realized, oh, he's not behind. He's fine to be with his peers. I jumped from the third to the fifth when I was 10 or nine and a half, 10 or whatever. And then I jumped from the ninth to the 11th. so i essentially missed out on four years of schooling and still graduated on time but the only reason i graduated on time is they shuffled me along, they didn't actually teach me the material um but yeah the there were three final middle fingers that the group home system gave me on the way out when i turned 18 one they were supposed to expunge my records which means that charge for self-defense was supposed to be gone They didn't. I did the paperwork. They didn't do it. So every time I have to do a security clearance, I've worked a lot of security before. It keeps coming up like, hey, what's this charge? It was self-defense. I was 14.
[1:07:19] And I don't know why that always made me so angry that I had to talk about that with so many employers. So two other things they did was they misplaced my transcripts one last time and I had to go to an adult school to get the last credit to graduate. Because I did something very stupid in high school the last two years. I know why I did it, because I thought it didn't matter, which was that I said, okay, what GPA do I need to graduate? 2.0? Okay, I'm just doing that. Didn't do any homework. Just sat around reading Heinlein and Ho and all the great sci-fi authors who were playing video games. And I just did the classwork. I'm like, yep, on track to graduate with 2.001. And I had to take an adult class for one credit where they taught me Excel. Like, oh, here we taught you Microsoft Suite, there's a credit. And the final middle finger they gave me? I have my high school diploma somewhere over there in a folder. I can't find any proof I graduated high school. The records just aren't there. I have the physical diploma I graduated it hasn't come up except once when I tried to go to college like we can't find any evidence you graduated high school by dude.
[1:08:43] I have my diploma right here, right here. So, yeah. I'm sure you have a lot more questions about how this impacted my adult life. I've had a lot of time to think about that. I promise you.
[1:08:58] Right. Well, I mean, how did it impact your adult life?
[1:09:04] Well, both in terms of work and dating, in very strange positive and in very stranger negative ways. positively because I've just not put up with corporate abuse and it paid very well not to. The people who stuck around just did not do well. Do as well as me and I didn't do well financially in adult life. Oh, I should take a step back. A lot of people would not consider me a successful person. 31, no family, no house. But by my standards, I am because I as soon as I exited high school I went out with like a handful of goals, one don't get into a debt to get into any debt success, two don't get hooked on any drugs the only thing I ever struggled with was alcohol or really caffeine even more than that but I'm beating both it's a slow battle but it's working three don't get any girls pregnant, and I think four was don't go to jail never went to jail never been arrested, as an adult at least and I think five was, don't get any life debilitating diseases or injuries, success I succeeded in all those goals and I set them out for myself because I saw my foster siblings dropping like flies as soon as they got out.
[1:10:32] Some of them even died and I remember deleting my Facebook account because people from my old group homes kept reaching out to me. And like a coward, I ran away.
[1:10:46] I didn't want to hear how they destroyed their lives or who died this time.
[1:11:02] So I succeeded in my goals. Now I have new goals. Ones that you and other people on, and I don't know if you want to call this, is this still called the Manosphere? It's time for me to start looking towards building a family. But I was, even when I was young, I realized why I was terrified of doing so. And it took a lot of very, it took a lot of life sending me beautiful things for me to realize I was wrong. You're better at asking questions than I am at coming up with things to say, sir.
[1:11:49] Well, yeah, I'm still here. It's interesting. How's your dating history been in your 20s?
[1:11:58] I had an unfair advantage in that I was six foot two and skinny. I didn't earn my success with women, but I also didn't use it. As weird as that is, I turned down more girls. okay just just just give me.
[1:12:11] The give me the facts before the narrative right so you go off a narrative.
[1:12:14] Before i even know what the facts are sorry i do do that um sex came easy relationships came very hard very hard um but i turned down more sex than i took just because i'm like oh you went to school for poetry and you have 50 grand in debt no and i was really judgmental about people's financial choices.
[1:12:39] Back on narrative. So let me ask more simply, and you don't have to give me any numbers you're not comfortable with, what's your rough body count?
[1:12:47] More than 30, less than 40.
[1:12:50] Over like a 10-year period?
[1:12:53] Over my entire adult life. And I haven't had sex in five years now.
[1:12:58] So from 18 to 26?
[1:13:03] Seven.
[1:13:05] I'm sorry?
[1:13:07] To 27.
[1:13:09] I'm sorry. I thought you were 31.
[1:13:11] No, I'm 32. Did I say 31?
[1:13:13] I just turned 32. I may be, sir. No biggie. Okay. Okay. So from 18 to 27, so nine years, more than 30, less than 40. Do I have that right?
[1:13:22] Yes, sir.
[1:13:22] And what was the long, you don't have to call me, sir. It's a bit disconcerting. I'm not, I'm not a military guy. So I'm sorry.
[1:13:29] Sorry. I can't help it. I am. Well, you can help it.
[1:13:33] I'm making a request. Don't tell me you can't help it. Just try not to call me.
[1:13:36] Sir.
[1:13:36] I find it disconcerting. uh disconcerting so you get it now ah what's the longest relationship you've had.
[1:13:48] Two years. But I don't know if I want to consider that a relationship.
[1:13:55] I don't know. I mean, you tell me.
[1:13:58] She only came around for sex. She didn't want to go out on dates. And it took me a long time to realize why. She was Muslim. I'm Jewish. Her family would have literally maybe killed her.
[1:14:08] Right.
[1:14:08] So she was having a relationship with me in secret.
[1:14:11] Okay. Got it. Got it. Okay.
[1:14:14] So besides that, the two longest relationships I had were both about six months. One I didn't even realize was a relationship for most of that.
[1:14:24] What do you mean you didn't realize the relationship? Did you think you'd been kidnapped? What do you mean? I don't understand.
[1:14:28] I thought we were just friends. I thought we were just friends, but I thought we were just hanging out as friends, and she was Japanese. And everyone in her school knew she had a boyfriend, and it was me.
[1:14:42] So you were.
[1:14:43] Just hanging out but.
[1:14:43] You weren't kissing holding hands or having sex but she thought you were her boyfriend.
[1:14:46] Yes and i enjoyed our company she was really cool i did like her i just didn't push for that until i realized until she told me she was like i don't remember what the conversation was what is it uh i don't remember how she's told me i was her boyfriend i'm like oh really oh that saved me the trouble of asking you but.
[1:15:08] How how often did you guys hang it?
[1:15:12] Uh... Three times a week? Usually with other friends present. That's why. Usually with other people present. With me, traditionally, dates are one-on-one. Having dates with other people there was kind of a new thing to me at the time.
[1:15:33] Got it. Okay.
[1:15:37] She's actually the one girl I kind of wish I'd married. She was the best relationship I ever had. uh the other one i'm actually but.
[1:15:48] It was a friendship yeah.
[1:15:50] It was a and it was amazing that i didn't feel that i was in a relationship with somebody i had a this connection with a woman that wasn't entirely sexual i wasn't feeling pressured into sex all the time like uh my experience dating women is like if you don't rush into sex like you i felt pressured to rush into it all the time and if you don't there was actually a trend i saw is that if you don't sleep with her on the first day you're not seeing her again huh.
[1:16:18] So this woman you hung out with a couple of times a week often with friends for six months.
[1:16:23] But didn't.
[1:16:24] Make any moves.
[1:16:25] Yeah i don't i it's because there's a cultural divide were.
[1:16:31] You sleeping with other women during this time period or were you.
[1:16:33] Monogamous i was not weirdly enough i wasn't sleeping around during those six months.
[1:16:40] Okay got it.
[1:16:41] So i didn't feel bad after like oh shit i accidentally cheated so.
[1:16:45] What happened when she said you're my boyfriend um did you have a relationship.
[1:16:49] We did we went out some more kissed some more and the relationship started to fall apart when we tried to have sex.
[1:16:59] Um what happened what do you mean tried to have sex did you miss she.
[1:17:02] Was she was an intact virgin and i couldn't fix that and either emotionally or yeah.
[1:17:08] Oh so this is back to that reminds me of the horrible sentence in that book from when you were in in um the group home so, so she was an intact virgin and you said i'm not going to take your virginity because some reason, right?
[1:17:27] Yes.
[1:17:28] Okay. And so what happened then?
[1:17:33] Well, I think I said, that's, I don't think I said this, but I think this was my frame of thought because that you have this gift. You have the choice of who to give it away to. And I'm just some American even dating. Let's wait. And I said, let's, you should wait maybe till marriage and that i didn't go marry her but.
[1:17:55] What happened to the relationship after you decided not to have i mean i mean obviously there's.
[1:18:00] More than i'm sorry we still dated a little bit after that but we started to fall apart i mean i'm sorry we started drift away and then what happened oh my time there ended um i was part of this forgot what it's called well i can't tell you the name of it anyways uh there was this agency that did housing for former group home children at reduced cost, and i think i was i came into it late so i only had a year of it, so i it was time for me to move and the prices of rent in that area just shot up during that time i was barely working two part-time jobs that together were maybe a full-time job and not enough to rent a place and some and i got better job offers across the country i'm like i can't even afford to live here, let alone to be a boyfriend, let alone be a husband and father. And I know I'm not emotionally ready to do that. I broke it off. Okay.
[1:18:59] Got it all right and so that was the longest sort of relationship and what was the longest actual romantic sexual relationship that you had.
[1:19:08] From the beginning to the end it was a girl i regret having a relationship with because well i'll tell you how it ends um hi girl i met her at the library we hit it off went out eating all the time i helped her with her school homework, work uh we made love all the time she was like sex made human form it was great but the entire time there was like this weird sense i had that something wasn't right eventually she broke up with me a month later she was pregnant and married and.
[1:19:44] What was not right well you had to i i was waiting for the sort of big reveal the sort of sixth sense.
[1:19:48] That was the big reveal a month afterwards she was pregnant and married which means she was dating other people at the same time. Oh, and she was just there for the green card. She was just there for the green card.
[1:19:58] Okay. Got it.
[1:20:00] So I'm like, this is too good to be true. I was warned earlier, if a woman is that good to you all the time, be careful.
[1:20:10] Okay.
[1:20:12] And yeah.
[1:20:13] And what's with the Schicksal thing? Your mother never said, find a knight's Jewish girl? What's the story there?
[1:20:17] I'm only Jewish by blood, not by faith. Same for her. She's Catholic now for some reason. I'm Christian by faith Protestant but I'm Jewish by blood and that matters yeah she was a Jewish woman when she had me okay got it I'm Jewish.
[1:20:36] Okay got it.
[1:20:37] By blood I'm Jewish so but yeah so like the longest term romantic relationship proper that I consider actually romantic was six to eight months, maybe a month of petering out I think I still talked to her on text for a month afterwards I think we tried the long distance now yeah.
[1:21:02] Okay, got it. And you haven't had sex in five years, is that right? That's sort of continuing to now or there was a five-year stretch?
[1:21:09] No, for five years from today to today.
[1:21:11] To today, okay. And what has caused you to back away from that arena?
[1:21:19] Hmm. Part of it was just most of my dating experience was just awful, but also 2020, there was this thing going around that people were panicking about and after that forming yeah yeah.
[1:21:33] Got it got it.
[1:21:33] Yeah nothing else going on in the world i think that other than mighty platforming.
[1:21:37] But yeah sorry go ahead.
[1:21:38] Correct there's nothing else and after that dating became like an order of magnitude more teeth pulling and i also realized oh the 2020 was also around when i became really banned alcohol like a lot of people did during the panic right, mine was because i finally gotten a job that would have launched me out of poverty and got me in a position where i could afford a house and family i was a radio tower technician thing like 80 something k per year three times more than i've ever made or like yes finally i can start a life economy starting to improve under trump for two middling years and jobs gone everything's gone all the friends are locked up uh nothing
[1:22:24] yeah it was horrible yeah.
[1:22:26] It was just horrible time.
[1:22:27] That was one of one of only three times i was ever offered a job that would have gotten me into financially the positions i wanted to be the other two i turned down, um but yeah nothing and so thank god i discovered people were willing to pay me to write otherwise i wouldn't have been able to feed myself during that time right right that was around the time i started doing freelance writing for actual money and.
[1:22:54] Sorry what was the arc of the alcohol stuff.
[1:22:58] Um as soon as things opened up it got better much better and what was at the.
[1:23:04] Height what were you how much were you drinking.
[1:23:06] Believe it or not the worst wasn't during covid it was during a one-month period after COVID, when I got into a new place, I had a roommate who was, I think he was straight-up schizophrenic, screaming at the walls all hours of the day and night, exposing himself to the rest of us. The police kept having to be called. Everything was being stolen. The place was filthy. And at that point, I was drinking 750 milliliters of vodka per day.
[1:23:37] Wow, that seems like a lot.
[1:23:39] I couldn't, I I can't believe it today now.
[1:23:45] And how long, I mean.
[1:23:48] That was one month.
[1:23:49] One month period there. When did you cut back from that? Is that right?
[1:23:54] I did cut back from that. As soon as I moved in with my grandmother after that, because nobody else is willing to take care of her. That's when I kind of got off the alcohol. Problem is, she's a heavy drinker too. So there's so much alcohol in the house. And you know, with people who've struggled with alcohol in the past, or unalcohol. but my drinking mostly was only correlated after that to my writing because I like to drink while I write. It's a very bad habit of writers. And yeah, but I've gone down to less than one serving per day, less than five per week right now. As in like one beer.
[1:24:33] Okay. Good, good.
[1:24:35] So I'm doing much better. I'm almost completely off caffeine too, which as weird as this is going to sound, I think is way worse than alcohol, especially for me. because narcolepsy it it interferes your sleep okay.
[1:24:48] Okay got it all.
[1:24:50] Right so hang on so i just.
[1:24:53] Want to make sure because we got about another 20 minutes to 25 minutes to go what's the best way that i can provide value for you in the time that we have remaining.
[1:25:01] The best way you can provide value to me how.
[1:25:07] Would you know it's a successful conversation when we're done talking.
[1:25:10] I want people who hear this, to talk to you to get their stories out there and spread from there because the reason there were three reasons I wanted to share this with you after our conversation however many weeks ago. One is this is right up your alley in terms I know that you fought a verbal war against public schools. Good. It's starting to die. I'm not sure if you've seen the data lately. These group homes might be your next beast to conquer hmm, Um, that, and I know that a lot of people that listen to you probably aren't, weren't willing, just aren't willing to come on and talk to you because there's, some of their stories are a lot worse than mine if they were in group homes. But the third is, I kind of want people who are in the same group homes as me to contact me so I can get receipts. because i found out recently after our talk a lot of this stuff is not outside of um what's it called on the time limit for crimes oh.
[1:26:20] Statute of limitations.
[1:26:21] Yep there's a lot i just found out that some of the abuse ended for me a year ago and i could have gone after them at any time i didn't know and i want everyone out there to know you can go after these people legally not with a gun don't find out where they live but.
[1:26:38] What about the qualified immunity thing.
[1:26:41] That's for social workers not necessarily for the psychiatrists or the workers in these group homes or the group homes themselves, which can be sued as legal entities okay so I want I don't want you to provide value for me I want I want us to provide value for the people who might listen to this.
[1:27:07] Okay, so that they can look into, if they were mistreated, they can look into the legal remedies. Okay, is there anything else that you wanted to get out to people?
[1:27:14] Yes. Yes, people who are still in the group homes. I said one earlier, when you're 16, 100 bucks, get your GED, either get out of there or make them pay for your college, which is why they'd ever told me because I could have gone out with an associate's degree.
[1:27:30] Okay, and is there anything else that you wanted people to know? I mean, to contact you if they knew you and anything else?
[1:27:38] Job Corps. My God, the Job Corps. Nobody told me about the Job Corps. I'm still angry about that. For those of you who don't know, the Job Corps is a free trade school for people under the age of 24. I found out about it when I was 24 and a half. So there's one. If you're a young man, don't join the military. There's this thing called Small Claims Court. if your employer steps one toe out of line in breaking employment law sue them i would be a millionaire today if i sued i pretty much had license to sue half of every employer i ever had, working in america was just not, work for small businesses work for yourself independently if you can, that that's especially to grow up in group homes because it's just more of the same those same people that ruin your childhood are the ones in charge of hr when i say imagine your entire childhood just in a meeting with human resources morons that's what it was right.
[1:28:43] Right okay okay all right uh is there anything else that you wanted to mention as we as we close down.
[1:28:51] Yes uh one big issue i face that i think you'll find very telling um it's to do with that anti-rape training i went through i remember they went on and on inferring the negative in saying that most people who sexually abuse children were themselves sexually abused as children, i grew up as an adult because of that training i was terrified i was like a danger to children like there was some demon inside of me that would make me rape children. And then I started being put around children and they were wonderful. And I couldn't imagine ever hurting them. And children are wonderful.
[1:29:36] Okay, that's obviously good. I mean, certainly if people have been abused, I recommend seeking some help, some professional stuff and so on. And is there anything else that you'd like to mention?
[1:29:54] I'm trying to think. You're better at asking pointed questions about all the stuff I've shared so far. Like, you know, there are parts where you think I should have a takeaway, or I probably do, and I just am not thinking about it.
[1:30:06] Well, you know, I think the only thing that I would mention is, and this is somewhat the nature of these kinds of conversations, so I know that this is not your average everyday conversation, but you don't check in with people. So, earlier in the conversation, I was saying I was having difficulty with the conversation.
[1:30:34] Oh oh you're talking about how i talk to people yeah.
[1:30:36] Well i was plenty about no i was i was talking about my experience of the conversation so obviously if you want to get married and have kids you need to check in with people about how they're doing with what you're telling them, right so when i'm having conversations i'm like does this make sense or uh do you have anything to add or or you know that kind of stuff i almost want to check in with people to see how the other person is experiencing the conversation. You have a bit of a canon, you know, just like stuff just coming out, coming out, coming out. And I think it eclipses the other person a little bit. I don't think that you're necessarily saying, okay, how is the other person processing what I'm saying? And even when I did say, I'm having trouble processing what you're saying, you kind of went on and you never circled back to say, has that changed for you or how are you doing with your side of the conversation? And it's just, it's a minor tweak, but I think it might be important in terms of maintaining a longer-term relationship, that you really do have to check in with people to see how their experience of the conversation is. Otherwise, people tend to sort of zone out or space out or disconnect or dissociate because there's no participation.
[1:31:46] In the conversation. And it really is just about an information dump. And again, I know this isn't a sort of standard average conversation, but I think you have to, if I were to give you sort of one, one tip, it would be, you know, to, to, even if you've got a set of time, like every five or 10 minutes, check in with the other person and see how they're doing, see if what you're doing, see if what you're saying makes sense and see how their emotions are, particularly if, you know, you're going to be dating out there in the world, hopefully at some point soon. And at some point, you know, the past or the history of the childhood is going to come up. At least I hope it does, because it's important stuff to talk about in any relationship. And if you go into motor mouth mode and this sort of disconnected mode, I think the other person is going to have a very tough time connecting with your childhood. And eventually, if somebody just keeps firing trauma at you without checking in with you, people are going to start to feel used or ignored, if that makes sense. And again, this is a minor tweak. And again, I want to reiterate, I know this kind of conversation that we're having tonight is not a standard issue conversation, but I would say, make sure that you are pausing and checking in with people about how the other person is experiencing what you're telling them.
[1:33:02] I wrote down dominating conversations as something to work on. You're absolutely right. And you're not the first person to say that, but I will say, this is only ever comes up when i'm talking like on online forums like on discord chats or things like in person i'm really quiet with people but you're all right in.
[1:33:20] No but that's why i said when you date they're gonna ask about your history yes sir and uh just make sure that i.
[1:33:25] Said sir again i'm sorry.
[1:33:26] That's fine but but yeah just just make when when you are talking about this kind of stuff i think because i think some of it is unprocessed and i think that you narrate it in a very emotionally distant way and you don't check in with the other person and and just when you know i remember when i when i would date uh you know before i met my current wife and people would ask me about my childhood i'd sort of say little things here and there or say a little bit more and say well what do you think or how do you feel i know this is kind of an unusual history and and all of that and and and try to get people's um experience of what it is that i was saying Otherwise, I would just be like, boom, boom, boom, trauma dump, and disconnected, dissociated with no checking in with the other person. And that kind of reproduced my childhood if I were to do that, because I felt invisible to people in my childhood. And I don't want people to feel invisible when I'm talking about my childhood, because then I'm kind of recreating in them what I experienced as a kid. And I was not as perfect with that, of course, right? But I generally did try to avoid that stuff.
[1:34:30] That's very good stuff. And I think this really is just that this isn't a face-to-face conversation. I kind of forget you're there. As weird as that sounds, I really prefer, like, I don't see your facial twitches.
[1:34:43] So, I mean, you either take the coaching or you don't, because there's going to be times when you're on the phone with people, right? There's going to be times when you're on the phones and saying, well, but it's not face to face. I mean, I'm just, I'm just, yeah, I don't need the, you know, caveats and that, because there will be times when you're talking about this stuff on the phone or, or on Skype or, or not Skype anymore, I guess, but on Discord or whatever. So just, yeah, that's just a sort of minor tweak that I would suggest to make sure that you stay connected with someone when you're talking about your history.
[1:35:12] I agree completely and you're not the first person to say it on as again you're not the first person and it's something i've made mental notes to work on but now i'm putting it a little bit higher in priority because it's coming from you it must be real bad.
[1:35:24] Well i mean if other people have said it before and it still hasn't taken then uh it would be something to to focus on well listen i appreciate the call i really do and i also i appreciate the apology and i also would really like to say that but I'm incredibly sorry for everything that happened to you as a child. I think it's just terrible. I mean, how are things with you and your mother if she's still alive?
[1:35:46] Things are great between us. I did remember something I wanted to talk about. It will only take a couple minutes. I've been terrified about writing this book about my experiences. And talking to you last week made me add outline two additional chapters, no, three additional chapters, because you asked questions that I needed to be asked, and you did the same today. And thank you so much. This really helped me with my project. But I'm terrified of actually writing and releasing this book because it shares too much of my story. It's embarrassing. It's humiliating. And I'm worried about any social consequences it would have in the future.
[1:36:27] I mean, first of all, you could just write it anonymously. And secondly, if you're going to be making significant accusations, I would run it through a lawyer before you...
[1:36:36] Yes, it's on my list.
[1:36:37] Okay yeah but i mean you could just you could just write and publish it anonymously and change the names and the details as people often do with these kinds of things because the important thing is the story gets out and if you feel like you're doing it anonymously it might be easier for you to be more direct and honest as opposed to if you um if you're thinking oh what are people going to think of this is going to trace it back to me and so on it might interfere with the honesty process i.
[1:37:02] Just wrote down write it i'll write it anonymously so i could be more direct and honest Steffi braced up. Um, But yeah, if anybody ever contacts you about wanting to talk about a group home stuff and they want a second opinion on hand, you have my number.
[1:37:19] Yeah, yeah. I'll forward emails to you if people do want to. They can always email me support at freedomain.com and I will forward the emails on to you. And I, of course, wish you the very best and hope you have great luck with writing and great conversations with people who choose to contact you.
[1:37:35] Thank you. I'm hoping that some of them talk to you and hear what they need to hear. but oh besides the dominating conversations and the slight dissociation any other criticisms i'm actually way more as a freelance writer who gets a lot of feedback i'm more open to criticism than you might think yeah.
[1:37:51] No that's the major stuff that i would mention and again just massive sympathies
[1:37:56] for what happened with you as a child.
[1:37:57] I i don't know if i should share this um one problem i've had throughout my adulthood just because it's come up here a few times is, which is why trigger warnings is so stupid. People who feel sympathy or sorrow for me secondhand has always made me irrationally angry. And I know it's stupid. You should be. But that's one of the only triggers I've had. It's like, so sorry you had that. Because there was just so much false sympathy growing up. So just one last problem I want to share with you for other people to hear is that's not normal. You shouldn't be angered by people saying, that's not right. I'm sorry.
[1:38:37] Yep. I agree with that. Although I understand if there is a lot of fake sympathy, it can make you kind of twitchy that way. All right. Well, I'll stop here, but I hope you'll stay in touch and let me know how things are going. And I'll forward you any emails I get from people who want to chat.
[1:38:49] Yes, sir. Maybe next time we can talk about writing. So as I know, you know a lot about that.
[1:38:53] I have a little bit of experience with that. All right. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate it. Have a great night.
[1:38:58] You too.
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