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Aug. 24, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
55:13
851 Mothers and Girlfriends (A Listener Conversation)

Intergenerational depression echoes...

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Hi, how's it going? It's going alright, I guess.
Alright, that's much better.
So, is it mostly work stuff that's going on for you at the moment?
I would say mostly.
I mean, there's also sort of a relationship thing going on.
Okay, could you just give me a sort of brief family history so we can put all of this in context?
All right.
Oh, well, my...
Oh, geez.
How do I start with this?
Well, let's see.
My parents were married for maybe eight to ten years.
I can never actually remember.
My mother sort of checked out emotionally from around five years on.
And then she couldn't handle it anymore.
and my father was non-Christian and became a Christian around maybe six or seven years in or something like that.
I'm sorry, I just missed something there.
What was it that your mom couldn't handle?
She couldn't handle, um...
Well, she couldn't handle my father, really.
Because, you know, my father has sort of got an attitude.
You know, my way or the highway.
And, um... It was like, the way it sort of happened was, you know, she'd say, she told me a bunch of stuff, maybe she shouldn't have, you know, and I sort of just let it happen, I guess.
She told me a bunch of stuff, like, years later that, you know, they tried to do vegetarianism, and my father would go and say, okay, well, I don't want to drink alcohol anymore, so they just, you know, poured all the alcohol down the drain, and Then they said, well, I want to be a vegetarian.
Maybe that'll make me happy. Then he found Christianity and said, maybe that'll make me happy.
So my father was bouncing from thing to thing, making all these decisions, saying, this is what we're doing.
And my mother was trying to go along with this, trying to make it work.
But when he became a Christian, he became like this moral thing instead of just like this thing that they were doing, I guess.
And he started saying, you know, if you can't be with me on this, you can't be with me at all.
And basically saying that everyone in her family is going to hell.
And her objection, I think quite reasonably, was, you tell me all these people I love are going to go to hell because they don't say this one thing.
But she was depressed, I guess, sort of like I was, at least from her teenage years, and she always seems to be depressed, and even now, today, she seems to be depressed, and hasn't really...
I would say hasn't dealt with it, but anyway...
My father would characterize her as, you know, sitting on the couch eating bonbons.
You know, just that tone of voice was like, ugh.
You know, like disgust, utter disgust and contempt.
Right, so sitting around on your fat ass doing nothing and this sort of dripping contempt kind of thing?
Oh yeah, oh yeah, definitely.
You know what? Honestly, that's how I feel about myself a lot of the time.
That you're like eating bonbons and so on?
Oh, not so much eating bonbons, but sitting around my face.
Not doing much with my life.
Not doing much, you know, in general.
Not with my life and everything else.
And so I had this sort of like a theory that my...
And maybe this is very true that when my mother left, that all of the...
My mother was sort of shielding me, and my brother, and me, I think, mostly, because I really haven't had a chance to talk to my brother about it.
But she was shielding me from a lot of the crap that my father was putting out, and then when she left, I got it.
It's no joke, no surprise at all that when my mother left, I started getting weight.
You started getting glasses.
You started getting what? Gaining weight, sorry.
So your mother left and you then lived with your father?
Yes, my mother left.
Is that right? Eight, nine, ten, something around that time.
Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, she lived a mile away and I never saw her, like three or four times a year.
I remember we talked about this before.
I mentioned it before. Sorry, we talked about this, was it in a call-in show, a private chat, or on the board, or just to remind me?
Oh, no, this was on the board, so it was a while ago, so I don't, you know, I mean, it's the stuff that I live with, and you just read it once, so no problem there.
And what do you think was the story behind your mother not seeing you?
Because that's rather remarkable.
I mean, I didn't see my father very much, but he lived in Africa, and I lived in England, so there was a bit of a, you know, a world between us, or half a world.
Yeah, you had sort of a lot of land and desert notion there.
Right, so what was the story with your mom not seeing you?
Because I'm trying to reconcile a couple of things that you're saying here, and I really do appreciate this honesty, and I know that you're telling me everything that is relevant as you see it, but just looking in from the outside, there is a bit of an inconsistency insofar as you say that your mother was interested in shielding you from your father's ill temper.
But then when she moved out, you didn't see her anymore.
And those two, like if your mom was interested, then shouldn't she have gone for sole custody or at least gone for primary custody?
And if she couldn't get that for whatever reason, shouldn't she then come by to try and do what she could or at least take you half the time or at least on weekends or something so you'd have some respite?
Well, let me clarify that a bit.
I'm not saying that she was necessarily interested, but I think that her presence acted as a shield.
So, she sort of was there, sort of absorbed it, if that makes a little more sense.
It's not that she was actively protecting me, I would say, but more that because she was there, She was much more immediate to my father's ill-temper, so she just acted as something to absorb it, so I didn't get as much of it, if that makes any sense?
It does in a way, but let me just go one step further back.
If I get you thrown in prison, and then I hire you someone who protects you occasionally, would you say that I'm doing a good turn in terms of protecting you?
No, no. I'm not trying to make it like...
Well, let's try to go on the other side of things with my mother not seeing me and see if I can sort of approach her from that end.
My mother...
I mean, this is what she said years later, was that her explanation...
Was, she was not able to call.
Like, she was, like, paralyzed.
She didn't want to face my father at all.
That's what she says.
And maybe that is very true.
Maybe she was being honest in that moment.
But, you know, it's kind of like, yeah, but I was a kid, you know?
And... I mean, I guess my theory is trying to...
I don't know if my theory is trying to excuse my mother from anything or what.
I mean, it's kind of like...
I don't know.
It's very difficult for me to think about this.
No, I understand. The reason that I'm sort of being annoying and picking at this stuff is because the first things that someone tells me about their parents usually are what they really, really believe.
Right? Yeah.
And my concern is that you have, I don't know, where are you at in the podcast series, just so I can...
I just made it up past 550.
Oh, okay. Okay, well listen to some of the more recent ones.
This may help some of the listener conversations up in the 840s.
The challenge is, look, I'm happy to use your first name if you want, or we can skip it if you like.
Okay. James.
Okay, okay. So, James, the challenge is, right, you have, I guess you haven't come to the Mythology podcast.
Okay, so we'll just say this very briefly.
There's what happens, and then there's the story that people make up about what happens, which almost always is self-justifying or self-flagellating, right?
So, there's what happens.
I've seen that reference before.
Right, okay. So, my concern is, you have an experience of your family.
And, frankly, it sucks.
Right? I mean, to use a technical term, right?
I mean, sucks like a big, wet, farty vacuum.
I mean, it's just bad.
Just from what you're telling me, right?
You've got a random, mystic, bullying dad.
You've got a mom who abandoned you and lived within a mile.
I mean, this is horrendous behavior on the part of your parents.
Horrendous, revolting behavior on the part of your parents, right?
And so you have your experience of that bullying and abandoning and so on, right?
That's your direct personal experience.
Right. And then what you have is you have this constellation of self-justifications.
And we're just talking about your mom's one for the moment, right?
Right. Hold on just a second.
Is that your mom? Does she know we're talking?
No, no, no. This is my girlfriend.
Just kidding. Hold on a second.
Okay, that was my girlfriend.
She finished work and she's about ready to pick up, have me pick her up.
So I said, you know, think of something for dinner and do some shopping.
I guess we'll have to continue this later, though.
So you and I should continue this later?
Yeah, I kind of got knocked off track, unfortunately.
And I got to go pick her up.
God, I mean, if I don't go pick her up, she'll get pretty pissed, so...
Well, is there a chance...
The reason that I'm saying is that this is probably a pretty important conversation, so this would be something where I'd suggest you could take a cab or something like that.
Yeah, okay. It's up to you, of course, and I don't mean if it's 500 bucks to take a cab or something, then that's not...
I don't even know if there are cabs up here.
Um... It's up to you.
We can certainly reschedule, but it's always tricky with everyone's schedules.
We've already done 10 or 15 minutes of the conversation.
It's up to you, of course, but this is probably a useful thing to continue.
All right.
Take a few minutes, call her, see if you can work something out, and then just give me a shout back.
Yeah, all right. All right?
Okay, all right. Okay, thanks.
Bye. Stefan Molyneux.
Hi, this is James again.
Hey, how's it going? So, uh...
I don't know if this thing is going to work out with the girlfriend or not.
She's kind of like, uh-huh, uh-huh.
You know, so...
Ay-yi-yi.
Oh, so, but is she going to make her own way, or...?
Um...
I gave her a couple of numbers for the cabs to call, and I said, you know, just see if you can find someone else in the It's like I'm telling her what to do, and this is something else.
It's something else entirely, but...
Well, but she didn't know that you were going to be on this call, right?
No, no. This is sort of a surprise.
Right, right. Okay. So I was trying to say, you know, this is really important.
Okay, okay. Well, let's plug on and see how far we can get.
So, yeah, I was just saying that you have your experience with your family.
Yeah. And your parents have their justifications.
I don't know. Have you read Untruth by chance?
I haven't received it yet.
I haven't checked the mail today. We'll just touch on this very briefly then, but we'll go into this more in detail in the book.
So my concern is that...
Your mother has, and we'll just talk about your mom for a sec, because it sounds like your dad has gone off-planet for his justifications, right?
Like, out of reality to religion.
Who knows what they are?
I'm sorry? I said, who knows what they are?
Right, but, well, he's gone to God, right?
Your dad and my dad share this in common, right?
They do bad things. And nobody wants to spend any time with them, so they fall into the horrible corpse-like embrace of imaginary Sky Friends and, you know, they get their justification that way.
Yeah, he's got his own martyr thing going on.
Oh, sure, yeah. So your mom has a story.
Around your family and her choices within it.
And it sounds like her choices sort of justify her actions.
So she says, well, there's something that you got the impression that she tried to shield you from your dad.
And then she found she couldn't handle your dad.
And then she left. And then she said, well, I couldn't have anything to do with your dad.
And that's why I couldn't see you very much and so on.
My concern is that It's your mom's story, her self-justifying mythology about the family and her choices within it that you're processing erroneously, right?
That's very interesting.
Because, I mean, it doesn't seem to me that when you say to me, well, my mom shielded me and then couldn't handle my dad and so on, that doesn't seem to me – I mean, that seems like something that would justify your mom – But it doesn't seem like something that would be your experience.
Okay, well, are you still having me here?
Yep. Okay.
Okay, let me think about that for a minute.
So, um...
Well, hmm...
No, listen, I mean, this is just my interpretation.
I mean, feel free to keep it in front of me.
Now, I'm trying to kick it around a bit.
Now, what I'm thinking is, I'm trying to think of when I came up with that little theory.
Because that would also be very important.
Because if I came up with that when I was like 12, I hadn't had the conversation with my mother, that would be a little bit different than if I came up with it when I was, say, 24 and I already had these conversations with my mother.
I think. Well, it could be.
It could be, certainly.
It could be. I mean, it's not for sure, but I think that I did come up with it later.
I think you're onto something.
Yeah, and I'll tell you why.
Look, I know you're an absolutely brilliant fellow, and the only reason why you feel kind of retarded at the moment is because you're trained to not know this stuff.
Okay. Right? So I know that you feel like, where's my brain?
You know, I can't seem to, right?
But you're trained in your family.
In families, we're trained, if we have exploitive parents, then we're trained to submit to that exploitation, but not see it as exploitation, but as morally justified behavior, right?
Or as the only possible force of action.
Right. I know that when I have these conversations with people, I get a fair amount of complaints that normally are more intelligent and articulate.
And absolutely, I have no doubt you are.
You're just not allowed to think this way, right?
So you've got these resistances.
But the way that we can figure out whether or not this is the case is if we achieve some sort of understanding of our parents and some sort of I mean, it's hard to talk about, but some sort of forgiveness slash empathy for our parents.
We only achieve that after processing our own experiences, right?
So, you know, my mom was a total witch, and so was my dad, and so was my brother.
Now, I don't sort of wake up every morning, fists clenched with rage, you know, like, I've got to get these people, right?
It would be exhausting, and of course, it would just mean that I would never be free.
But the way that you free yourself of it is...
You experience your own hostility and anger towards your parents.
You accept that.
You work through it.
You get closure with it.
And then you can think about your parents, you know, with some slight degree of sympathy or whatever, whatever, right?
You can see, well, you know, they had their own histories and this and that.
But that comes really far down the road.
But my concern is that I don't know that you – you didn't start off by saying, you know, my mother did these terrible things to me.
Here's what I did with it.
And I went to therapy and I wrote this journal and I figured it all out.
And here are the books that I've read.
And I've talked about it with my girlfriend.
And, you know, my friends have been very supportive through this process.
And now I've gotten to this place where I can sort of see some of the reasoning behind her decisions and so on.
We have to re-go through that stuff.
Because when we're a kid, we can't think, well, my mother had her own mother and, We can't think of all those things.
We just have a direct experience.
So my concern is that you kind of skipped over, and everybody wants to do this.
They want to skip over the anger and get to the forgiveness.
And so my concern is that, and the reason that we know that you've skipped over a phase and you're processing what is beneficial to your mom and to your dad, but particularly to your mom, is that you're depressed.
Yeah, right. Right, so if we simply exist to serve the illusory, self-justifying fantasies of other people, of course we're going to be depressed.
Because we don't exist in a way.
We exist to support the fantasies of other people.
So the story that you have about your childhood, you're just repeating what your mom tells herself and tells other people.
And she has never had to tell you this explicitly, and she may never have told you this explicitly, but we pick up on everything when we're kids.
And when we're kids, the family is the universe, right?
That's all we think about. It's all we process.
And kids are incredibly sensitive to the unspoken needs of the parents, particularly.
Mm-hmm. Right, right.
Yeah, yeah. It's something I've been reading, and I guess I've just only sort of been processing a little bit, but not really, like, getting it in a fundamental way, I guess I could put it that way.
Sure, yeah, no, of course, of course, of course.
Well, I mean, I understand that now.
It's like...
The problem I'm facing is...
It's like, you know, which one's the cart and which one's the horse?
I mean, I know that I need to go to therapy.
I need to be able to talk about these things with, you know, someone.
I mean, I'm not paying you to be my therapist, so I can't really expect that out of you.
And even though I guess I have been sort of trying to do that through the boards, but it's just not fair to you, I understand.
Well, first of all, don't worry about what's fair for me.
That's my decision to make, right?
Oh, sure, okay. But this is a habit, and I'm not trying to pick on you for these statements, but it's just important to understand, right?
If you have a desire, right, and you say, gee, Steph, I want you to be my therapist, whatever it is, right?
Then you just express that desire, right?
And it's not up to you to manage what's fair for me.
It's up for me to do that, right?
But you're used to managing other people's feelings.
Ah, yeah. Oh, gee.
Okay. Yeah, I think I kind of see that a little bit.
Just a bit now? Well, look what just happened with your girlfriend, right?
Yeah, no kidding. She experiences some anxiety about a change in plans, right?
And you have to manage that for her.
Oh, God. Well, the whole thing, I don't want to go into a lot of details, but the whole thing with her recently getting sick, I mean, that was me managing all over.
And I was the one who got upset and everything, and I was...
Yeah, this was with the diabetes and all, right?
Yeah, yeah. Oh, my God.
Look, and this is entirely natural.
It's horrible, but it's entirely natural because you have been raised to be there to manage other people's feelings, right?
So if your mother is feeling guilty, you're the one who has to say in one way or another, whether explicitly or implicitly, oh mom, it's okay.
You know, I understand. I mean, dad is difficult and you've had a tough time.
Am I right or am I right?
You're citing what I've said to her.
Of course you are. Sorry, of course I am.
And that's entirely inevitable, right?
Yeah, yeah. Right?
So anytime somebody feels negatively around you, you, boing, you leap into action, right?
You are a soothing man with a big cape and a pacifier, right?
And you leap into action to manage their feelings, to try and make them feel better, to pull them out of their funk, to race around trying to fix everything, right?
And all the time... I'm trying to ignore the fact that I am sinking into a funk of my own and I'm basically essentially destroying myself for the perceived needs of these other people.
Well, I don't think – I mean they're real needs.
I mean you're not making this stuff up.
But you say – I mean it's the same thing, right?
Jumping in to fix the problems of other people and to manage their emotions for them is the same thing as depression.
Yeah. You say, well, I'm trying to help all these people and be there for them and manage their feelings, while at the same time I'm slipping into a funk.
Well, it's the same thing.
Because to be there, to just endlessly bind the self-inflicted wounds of other people is kind of depressing.
You try to ignore your own stuff.
Well, you have to ignore your own stuff, right?
And the problem is that there's a kind of, and I use this term very loosely and with all due sympathy, there's a kind of hypocrisy in it, right?
Because what you're doing, I mean, you're saying, well, I want to manage other people's anxiety.
I mean, that's what's sort of happening at some level.
But whose anxiety are you really managing?
Hmm. Right.
Well, an easy answer would be my own.
Well, sure. So what happens when your mom gets depressed?
How does that make you feel?
I don't want her to be depressed.
How does it make you feel when she calls you up and, Oh, James, I just feel so down.
I just don't know if life is worth living.
I just feel like I've wasted my life.
And I just feel like this.
I don't even want to get out of bed.
And I don't know. I just feel like I've wasted my life.
Like when this occurs, right?
How do you feel? I don't want to be on the phone with her, for sure.
For sure, but you don't hang up, right?
No, no, I don't, no.
Of course not, right? Because you would get screamed and yelled at or hit or whatever if you did that when you were a kid, right?
So how do you feel?
Oh, man.
Do you want me to recreate your mom again?
Will that help?
Well, actually, you really do well with this to a lot of other people.
My mom's like, no, no, no.
It's like this huge fat ass of the elephant of futility is just sitting on my chest and I can't seem to draw a breath.
Oh, God. It's so terrible.
No, with my mother, it's more like...
It's like she's angry, too.
Right, right. Depressed and angry.
Right. There's just no point to any of it.
I can't see what the whole point of it is at all.
That's closer.
You're doing a lot better. Yeah, so she's got a lot of resentment, right?
Because she feels that somehow she should not be depressed, and if she is depressed, it's someone else's goddamn fault, and they should damn well change what they're doing to make her feel better.
Yeah. Right.
Oh, yeah, that's much closer.
Oh, yeah. And the way that...
The way it makes me feel, I guess, it's like, you know, I can't put it into words.
It's kind of like, oh, my girlfriend's calling me again.
That's good. We're getting some real live evidence of all of this.
You can put me on pause if you like, of course.
I just put the ignore for now.
She's going to be upset, but I can deal with that later.
Yeah, this is really important.
I would say stick with this for sure.
I said to her, is there no one else in the whole place that's going home at 12?
Right. There's absolutely no way you can get a ride home, please.
So, anyway...
So, going back to...
So, we were talking about your feelings when your mom is sort of calling up and is angry slash depressed slash resentful slash demanding.
What are your feelings? I just want to run away.
I want to crawl into a hole and I don't want to come out.
And so, the feeling of wanting to crawl into a hole and not come out, what is the emotion that's there?
I don't know what the word is.
It's kind of like...
I guess this would have to cut back so many years because the only thing I can come up with is scared.
Okay, that's great.
That's great. Now, where does the emotion sit in your body, right?
Because usually it's localized to some particular area of your body.
Um... Like is it belly or chest?
It's like shoulders.
Shoulders, okay. So there's a kind of tension and there's almost like shoulder tension is usually indicative of a fear of some kind of blow.
And I don't necessarily mean physical, but it's like somebody's raining blows down upon you and you tense your shoulders to try and sort of ward them off.
Yeah, yeah. And did you experience any physical violence from your parents when you were growing up?
Oh, yeah. That's sort of the part I missed with the whole family history thing, right?
For sure. Very early on, certainly.
And, you know, I don't know about when my parents divorced and they left, but, you know, not only was it the hand, the bare hand, I mean, usually, I don't remember, like, punching except for when I was a teenager and my father punched me.
Right. Like, for God's sakes, idiot.
But, uh, It was a hand, the belt, a wooden spoon.
I don't remember my mother smacking me so much.
I know she did. So I remember my father much more clearly.
The rage in his eyes.
Don't you cover up.
Don't you cover yourself up.
That sort of thing. Take it like a man.
Something. I don't know. It's a throwback to his own father, I'm sure.
Did you ever see the movie Good Will Hunting?
No. Yeah, rent it.
Rent it. Rent it.
They talk about physical abuse, and look, I'm really, really sorry.
This is an absolutely terrifying, horrible, evil situation that you went through for many, many years.
And it's not accidental that you didn't mention this.
Right. Because this is not something that your parents want to dwell on.
So you're not allowed to talk about it, right?
You have to talk about, you know, what you couldn't handle and, you know, the...
You know, my dad wanted to be a vegetarian, which is much less important in terms of your childhood experience than the fact that you got beaten with belts and so on.
Yeah. Can I tell you a funny little...
It's not funny like ha-ha, it's just funny like sad or oh my god, right?
When I was in the 4th or 5th grade, I was seeing a school counselor because I wasn't getting along with the other kids.
Big surprise, right? And she asked me the question, you know, did your father ever beat you or hit you or something?
She said, hit you.
And I said, yes. Because he had, right?
And so, New Jersey, Dyfus came to the door.
This guy came up and he's listening before he opens up the door and there's a piano playing.
I'm sorry, did you say the word Dyfus? Department of Youth and Family Services.
It's called, you know, colloquially dyphus.
Right. And so this guy comes to the door and he says, you know, I listen outside.
It wasn't like screaming or yelling or anything.
So it's like not like a clear and present danger at that moment.
Right. So my father got pissed off at me because I had said something because I, quote, brought the state into it.
Yeah. And guess what happened next year?
The next year? The next school year, I was transferred to a Christian school from a public school, and maybe two years after that, we moved from Totowa to Hawthorne.
I mean, it's just so clear now, but it's kind of like, back then, I just didn't know.
It's like, okay, whatever.
No, that's exactly why my brother and I were moved to Canada, right?
Because they know that if we continue as an adult to have contact with relatives and school friends and teachers on a consistent basis, that we're going to tell, right?
So this is why you hide, right?
This is why you soundproof the basement when you're locking someone in, and this is how you know that they're morally guilty, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, so anyway, Rent Good Will Hunting, I won't tell you anything about it, but Rent is a really powerful film with regards to this kind of stuff, and the acting is fantastic.
Okay, so this of course is starting to become a lot more clear.
So when your mother was, at what age do you remember her having these conversations, these sort of angry slash depressed conversations with you?
Oh, I would say, I mean, I don't know about before she left, but certainly, you know, because it was so infrequent, I can remember after she left, even then, there would be, you know, these angry, you know, resentful, depressed sort of, you know, things she would say, you know, if it wasn't things she said, it wasn't the tone, you know.
Or what have you. So, I mean, it was pretty soon after, and I can't imagine that it just sort of came out of the blue.
I mean, it had to have been. So, sorry, did I hear you rightly that it was also before you left that this was occurring?
Before she left? Sorry, before she left, yes.
Well, I don't have any specific memories.
I'm just saying that I can't imagine that after she left, all of a sudden it came up.
I just don't have any specific memories before that time.
Maybe because it was part of the environment and then when it was outside of that environment and I went to it, I would remember it as part of seeing my mother, this whole thing.
Now, I know the answer to this, but it's important that you know the answer to this as well.
Has your mother, James, ever asked you what your experience of your childhood was like?
Do you think that if she had asked me, I would necessarily be where I am?
I really don't think so.
No, she has not. Absolutely not.
She went over her experience and her justifications and everything else.
But not a word about what happened with me.
How did I feel and everything else.
Absolutely not. Now, when you feel the urge...
To manage somebody else's feelings in this way, right?
So they're feeling anxiety, which provokes anxiety within you, which is entirely rational because if you didn't manage people's emotions when you were a kid, you would get screamed at or beaten or rejected or people would be cold or hostile or whatever, right? So you are absolutely trained, like a dog is trained to drool if you ring the bell and feed it every time.
You were asked and trained to leap into action to manage other people's feelings.
Now, when you do this as an adult, let's say, do you do it because you think it's the right thing to do?
Like a good person helps others?
Is it a moral standard for you or is it just a practical standard?
Like if I don't do it, I'm going to get yelled at or whatever.
I don't even know if it rises to that level of consciousness.
It's like an automatic thing.
It is an automatic thing, but let's just look at the layers a little bit here, right?
So you have a car, right?
You speed from time to time, I'm sure, right?
Is the law listening? Yes, of course.
Of course. I mean, look, when we speed, we don't sit there and say, I am now evil, right?
What we do is say, I hope I don't get caught.
Right. I put myself in that five over limit so that technically they can't pull you up.
They can pull you up for anything anyway.
It's pretty dangerous to just do the speed limit when everyone else is speeding.
What I want to know is when your girlfriend calls you up and says, I don't know how to get home or I'm having these health issues and whatever.
When you leap into action to do the infinite band-aid of the universe act, Do you do it because you're afraid of not doing it, or do you tell yourself, this is what a good boyfriend does?
I want to be supportive.
I want to be helpful. I want to be there for her.
I think it's because I'm afraid of what will happen if I don't.
Okay, and so what will happen if you don't?
What is the fear? Um...
Well, I mean, the most clearest example for me was when my girlfriend got sick.
Well, I wouldn't say got sick, but, you know, that's not the right way.
It's still, like, very euphemistic there.
Let herself get sick. What's that?
Let herself get sick. Exactly, exactly.
When she was hospitalized, you know, the things that fly in my mind was, you know, this can't happen.
You know, we can't afford this.
And, oh, no, I'm getting off track here.
Yeah. Let's, I don't want to, I mean, the problem with this, I'm sorry, because I asked about your girlfriend, but let's back off from that for a sec, because your girlfriend is like the symptom, right?
Your girlfriend is the cause, right?
She's a symptom of what happened.
What would happen with your mom if you didn't soothe her or tell her everything was okay or just sit there and listen while thinking of other things?
Like, what would happen if you were to say, Mom, this is an adult issue.
I am a child, right?
You need to find an adult, and I would imagine probably a professional, to help you with this.
I cannot help you.
I am your child.
And it is entirely inappropriate, if not exploitive, for you to sit here and chew my ear off about adult problems that I cannot understand and have no wish to hear.
I would only have to think that if I had ever said anything like that...
I can only imagine she would have just gotten angry with me.
And what would have happened then?
Well, I mean, I guess it depends on the age, because if I had not participated as a young kid, I mean, I guess if she got angry, she just would have, you know, wailed at me, you know, hit me.
And when I was older, it was sort of this more passive-aggressive sighing and just sort of...
Silent treatment type thing.
Just sort of this, you know, killing you with nothing.
Right, right. Just piling the soft rocks on your chest until you can't breathe, right?
Yeah. Now, I don't think you'd mentioned, and I'm sorry if you had, I don't think you'd mentioned that your mother had been physically violent.
I know she has. She definitely had been when I was young.
Right. Yes. Right.
Okay. Okay. So you really were in a prison.
I mean, and it was worse than a prison because at least with a prison you can write a letter to the governor and you can call the police or you can call the media or whatever, right?
So you were really in a kind of gulag, right?
Yeah. I mean, I don't think that's a mischaracterization.
You were in a situation where anyone could do anything they wanted to you, that you were completely helpless, that there was no virtue that I can sense in your parents that you could appeal to.
Right, right. I wouldn't say so.
Okay, okay. So this is abominable, wretched, unbelievable, horrifying, monstrously evil, the situation that you went through, right?
Certainly, yeah.
Okay. So, now, the question is, what happens if the next time somebody asks you about your family, you say, well, they're a bunch of evil bastards who enjoy bullying and beating on kids, and that was my experience.
I was raised in a kind of gulag or a concentration camp.
Who's asking me? It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter. Anybody who's asking me.
Right, right, right. Okay, right. Oh, man.
Unless it's someone who's sort of in on the conversation, you know...
You're having a gas.
How can you say such a thing?
Oh my god, that's a horrible thing to say.
If not actually said, that would be the reaction in summation.
Right, right. So then you could, I think, reasonably say – sorry to interrupt.
I think you could then reasonably say to such a person – So I got beaten with a belt, screamed at, hit.
My mother abandoned me, lived down the street but never talked to me.
And my dad is like a really crazy, screwed up religious guy.
And there was physical and emotional abuse all throughout my childhood.
And you think that the problem is that I'm telling the truth about it, not that it happened.
Your horror is at me for saying it happened rather than the fact that it happened.
That was the problem in my family as well.
You know, exactly that.
When I tried to talk about it, when I tried to, you know...
Even as a teenager, I tried to say, look, this is...
Even not really getting to the core, just saying what's going on right now.
Forget even the history, but what's going on right now?
It was like, you don't talk about it.
Nothing. You don't talk about it.
Right, because it doesn't serve your parents' needs to have it brought up.
Of course not, right. Right, and they are completely narcissistic.
Right. Okay, so help me understand why you're still in touch with these assholes.
Uh... If you get out of prison, you don't have to spend the rest of your life going over for Sunday dinners with your prison guard.
Steph, it's because there is no good answer to that, except for prior to now.
It's not that I didn't know, but it's almost like I didn't know I had the option.
Sure. Because your parents didn't want you to know that you had the option, right?
Exactly, right. That's what I want to say about it.
Because if you leave your family, then what happens is your parents experience anxiety and self-loathing, which they do experience anyway, but they're using you to cover the wound up, right?
It's never us who doesn't want to defoo.
It's our parents that don't want us to defoo because they want to do evil, but then have us pretend that it's good.
Yeah, that's actually been my experience.
Right. I haven't wanted to have these conversations.
I haven't wanted to talk about this with my mother, much less my father.
But why do you have to?
No, right. You're right.
You're right. I mean, you can just say, I mean, just from a mere practical standpoint, I generally say, you know, talk about things with your parents and so on.
But this is a totally clear-cut case, right?
You don't have a lot of ambiguity about, are they really nice people or not?
Or can I have a great relationship with the people who beat me when I was helpless?
No, of course not, right? But you can say, I need to take a little bit of time off from the family.
I'm going to go and see a therapist.
I just need to get my head screwed on tight and get my thoughts in order and so on, right?
right and just just fade out right right I sent a girlfriend note to let her know I'll be along when I can you know so Okay, we'll finish up in a few minutes.
I don't want to dump all the troubles of the world on you at the same time.
Now, do you want me to be frank about your existing relationship or do you want to talk about that another time?
I have a pretty good feeling what's coming down the line.
And right now, you may as well just say it because, you know, I mean, put it out on the record.
Well, I don't think I'll need to.
I mean, what do you say?
I say this is a direct reflection of what happened with my parents.
I have a hard time seeing how this can be fixed in any real way.
So when you say you have a hard time, does that mean that you have a plan but you're not sure it's going to work?
I have a hard time even visualizing something close to a plan.
I mean, the only thing I can think of is if, like, you know, we both went to therapy and...
Because, I mean, my girlfriend has her stuff that's going on, too, you know.
Of course. Stuff that she's, you know...
And I've tried to talk to her about some of this stuff.
You know, I'm just sort of trying to blindly grope my way because I'm not in the...
I haven't done the other things that you mentioned earlier, you know, went to therapy and everything else.
Yeah. And that's okay, right?
The reason that the board is here and the podcast are here as well is so that, first of all, it would be great if you could, but if for whatever reason you can't, there's still a lot of stuff that you can do.
Sure, yeah. And the other thing too, of course, is that listening to this show and being involved in these conversations, I guarantee we'll certainly shorten therapy by a factor of 50%, thus saving you thousands and thousands of dollars, right?
I'm sure, yeah. So there's lots of stuff that you can do.
You can read the Alice Miller books, you can read Nathaniel Brandon's The Psychology of Self-Esteem and so on, right?
So it's tough and you can start keeping a journal and you can keep in conversation on the boards and so on.
But if you're in a situation with your girlfriend, how long have you been going out?
Well, I'll start off long distance.
It's always a good sign, I'm sure.
I started around June of...
I guess we first visited each other.
I flew out there. June of 04?
Yeah, June of 04.
And visited a couple of times.
So, I mean, we've sort of been through the boyfriend-girlfriend thing for almost three years now.
But we've been living together since January.
Is it January? Yeah, January of last year.
Okay, I'll just ask you two more tough questions and then I'll let you go to mull it over.
My stomach's already churning.
I know. I know. I appreciate you staying in the conversation.
I know it's hell on wheels.
Do you believe that your girlfriend has gotten better or worse in the time that you've been seeing her?
She's not gotten better. Has she gotten any worse?
She was hospitalized because she wasn't taking care of her diabetes.
Which was just recently, right?
Yeah. And I would say that if that's not getting worse, I don't know what is.
Well, it is getting worse, right?
I mean, it's clear to me at least that she's getting worse.
I was just wondering what your perception of it was.
No, it's definitely not been improving.
It's the sort of thing where relationships generally don't remain stagnant.
And so if they're not getting better, they are getting worse.
I mean, it's not necessarily hard and fast rule, but it's the exception, I would think.
So here is the toughest thing that I have to say.
And it's not to do with breaking up with your girlfriend.
The toughest thing that I have to say, James, is that you are harming her by staying with her.
Right. Because in the same way that other people used you to manage their own emotions, you are using her to continue this pattern of propping up under-functioning people.
You are weakening her.
Every time you prop her up, you make her weaker.
You are contributing to her spiral, which is why you're feeling more depressed.
Right? You can't legitimately and justly and fairly and morally use people to manage your own anxieties, right?
So if you're justifying your parents' behavior and treatment of you, you're normalizing it, which means that it's somehow good or right or that's all you're good for or, you know, you should be there to prop up other people and so on.
And so you find some woman who's under-functioning and you prop her up.
Every time she has any anxiety, you rush in to fix it, which makes her weaker.
Right? So you're snapping the life out of her by doing what you're doing.
Wow. And I'm putting it very strongly, and I'm sure there's great things in your relationship, and I'm not saying you're a bad guy.
I'm just saying that the natural reality, it's like she's really weak, right?
And then every time she says, oh, I really want to go to the gym, but I don't want to, you say, don't worry, I'll go to the gym for you.
You just sit on the couch. Well, what does that make her, stronger or weaker?
I can't inject her insulin for her.
Yes, but you can take ownership for her problems.
Yes, right, right. No, I understand.
And every time you take ownership for her problems, you're recreating what was done to you as a kid, which is that you're using somebody else to manage your own anxiety.
Fundamentally, your anxiety about your parents.
Yes, right. So, if you care about the woman, and I know that you do, you have to stop propping her up because you're killing her.
I mean, to put it in an exaggerated kind of way, but it's really, really bad for her.
You know, it's funny, and I'm just going to admit this, and you, it's just like, this is like, I don't know if it's like textbook or something, but you can just, you can stand back in the moral horror of it if you like.
I was having just conversations with her when we were in the ER, and I told her that by not taking care of herself, she was committing a slow form of suicide.
I put it all on her and ignored really my part in it.
Of course. You did that because you care about her and I understand that.
Your motives are good, right?
I mean you're a good guy. You want to do the right thing.
But because there's this unconscious horror that you're trying to avoid with regards to your own family… You're recreating this behavior.
And with the best intentions, it's like the welfare state, right?
With the best intentions, you're creating the best results.
Right. Well, I'm feeling – it's like my skin is on fire right now.
I know. I know. And this is because this truth is sitting 1.01 millimeters below your skin surface, right?
It's just that we're trained to avoid it at all times, right?
So I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
I'm just doing one little pinprick and out comes the gusher of truth, right?
I've been wanting to have a Skype conversation with you for a while and I just didn't really know what it was I wanted to talk about, but it's like I knew that it had to be something like this.
Well, it's about freedom, right? And if we're there as a slave to manage the needs of others and we use other people to manage our own needs, that's not freedom.
No, of course not. I see that.
Now, can we talk for a few minutes about where we go from here?
Because... Absolutely.
I mean, I really do care about this person.
I don't want to be doing this to her anymore.
And, I mean, I don't want to be doing it to myself, and I don't want to be doing it to her, you know?
Of course. This is like...
This is hell. Yeah, and look, you need to switch this track so you can get on to a happier and healthier future, for sure, for sure.
Well, where you go from here, start recording your dreams, start writing things in a journal.
And when you have an impulse, right, the key thing to do, James, the key thing to do, when you have the impulse to go and help someone, don't.
Don't! And if your girlfriend is like falling down, right?
And you feel like, oh my god, I've got to go pick her up or I'm a really bad guy or something terrible is going to happen.
What you do is you don't go and pick her up.
What you say to her is, do you know how much anxiety I'm feeling and it's not used to fix.
I feel so much anxiety.
I totally want to rush in and help you.
But you don't act it out.
Like if you're feeling angry at someone, you don't punch them.
You say, I feel really angry at you.
You talk about it. And so when you feel this anxiety, when you feel this anxiety, then you say, I feel this anxiety.
And if she gets mad at you and you start to feel afraid, then you say, now I feel real fear.
This is the real time relationship.
What's happening for you, you communicate in real time.
You don't avoid it. You don't manage it.
You don't try and control her.
You don't try and control your own emotions through actions.
You simply speak the truth about what's going on for you.
Right. That's going to be hard.
Right. So in the car, on the way home, or maybe after you get home, you say, my skin is on fire because I just had this conversation with this nutty Canadian who says XYZ, right?
And you just talk about it in real time.
Give her a little time to prepare.
It's going to come out of the blue for her and so on.
But whenever you feel that impulse to manage your feelings, whenever you feel that anxiety, don't reject it.
Don't try and wallpaper over it or put icing on top of it.
You just experience it and say...
To yourself, if you're alone, wow, I really feel anxiety.
What's going on? What's the thought that's provoking it?
You don't just try and cover it up by acting out.
Because it's trying to help you.
The anxiety is trying to help you.
It's not your enemy. It's your friend.
The anxiety is saying, this is bad for me.
And if you cover it up, then it's like you got a toothache and you just take heroin.
Well, your tooth doesn't get any better.
In fact, it gets worse. Right, right.
You know, it's funny.
Right down at this very moment, yeah, I feel like my skin's still on fire.
But what I'm also feeling is something like...
I wouldn't say...
It's like a profound sense of weakness, but not in the sense that I can't do anything, but that I'm aware of just...
It's like as if I've been ignoring the fact that my leg was atrophied.
Right. You know, for years.
And all of a sudden now it's like... Why do I keep falling down, right?
Yeah. I try to run a marathon and I can't do it.
All I'm going is in a very small circle, right?
Exactly. And it's very much like...
I'm aware so much of the profound weakness that it's just the potential...
It's just not... The potential is going to take a lot of time to build up.
For sure. And it only will be built up if I start using it.
Yeah, I mean, once you know that you've got a weakness, then you start to exercise it, right?
You don't pretend it's strong. You start to do the physio, and it hurts, and you end up stronger than if you'd never had that injury, right?
You will end up wiser, more powerful than if you had never gone through this.
This is how the moral superheroes are born, right?
Yep. I just want to give a little bit of a shout-out to one of the people I've been talking to.
He knows who he is, sort of on the side.
I think we've been scratching the surface, so I just want to give him a shout-out, sort of a thanks for helping me on the side.
Well, that's great. I love the fact that people are talking to each other.
I think it's a great community, and this is the most important conversation in the world.
I really do believe that, because I don't know anything else that's going on like it.
Actually, I think it's two guys.
At least two guys. Oh, excellent.
Aside from everybody else on the board, it's at least two guys.
Two other guys have been talking to me privately, so it's really good.
Right. I want to give them sort of a public thanks.
Good.
So, wow, hey, you know, I have the word somewhere in there.
It's not coming out right now.
No, no problem. Listen, I'm going to compile this, and I won't post it publicly.
You're welcome to have a listen to it, and let me know if there's anything that you feel uncomfortable with, and then if you can let me know later today, that would be great.
Okay. All right, well...
I mean, I don't know how many, you know, if we stayed away from enough details.
I think so. I mean, we don't even know where you are.
And, I mean, we never mentioned that you're actually in the suborbital space station, so...
Oops! Hey! Bummer.
So close. But no, have a listen and let me know.
I'm certainly happy to bleep stuff out if you like, but we haven't mentioned anyone's name except yours, and there's no location info and all that, so...
Right, exactly. Okay.
Well, listen. Keep me posted about how this goes and let me know what happens.
All right. Thank you very much for the conversation, Steph.
I appreciate it. I'll talk to you soon.
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