All Episodes
Previous Next
Nov. 7, 2007 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
33:39
904 DeFOO Part 2 - A Listener Conversation
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
This is something I've actually discussed with Greg kind of a bit.
Me and Greg actually got into talking about my family a bit a few days ago, and I'm still kind of unsure about it.
It's basically, is it really necessary to tell my parents that I don't want to be around them?
Yeah. Well, can you just tell me a little bit about what's happened since our last conversation?
Well, I think I've talked to my parents a grand total of once since then, which is not a bad thing.
But other than that, there's not really too much new that's to report about them.
Well, in that one conversation that you had, what went down?
As far as the last one, it was kind of one of those regular little talk about the weather type conversations.
How about them Mets? Yeah, no, I know what you mean.
And have you had the impulse, or what has happened to the impulse, if you have had it, to talk to them in more detail about how you feel about the reservations that you have?
I'm not saying that you should have or shouldn't have, what the hell does my opinion mean anyway, but I'm just wondering where you stood with that.
Well, I... The only explanation I can give is just that I was pretty much just kind of afraid to bring that up again, because...
As you know, that last conversation was not exactly pleasurable.
Right. And there was no follow-up or fallout from that conversation, which gave you the sense that something more positive could come out of it, right?
So nobody called you afterwards and said, well, that went really badly.
You know, we're sorry about this.
Oh, no. Just everything went into the memory hole, right?
Thinking about that's almost laughable.
Almost, right?
Really seriously, as sad as that is, if they actually did that and said, you know Sean, I think we kind of ganged up on you a bit, maybe we should talk about this a little differently and maybe not so confrontational or something like that.
Right. Anybody who processes, I mean, it's amazing to me, and just to sort of, I think, to validate your perspective as well, it's amazing to me just how people almost never circle back to important conversations and put forward additional processing.
Yeah. Well, if it was me, like, for instance, if I had a heated conversation on the board, or something like that, and it really went bad, and I said some mean things, or they said mean things to me, I mean, I almost wouldn't be able to sleep until I apologized to the person, or told them, I'm sorry, you were right, I looked it up, or something like that.
You know, it's quite a difference.
Whenever I talk to my parents, it's It's kind of odd in that case.
I'm just like, aren't you supposed to be a little bit more enlightened than me?
Aren't you supposed to be like the bigger person, quote unquote?
Well, I think that the common theme, and I'll put out a time stretch here and put myself in with your generation, but one of the themes that we face is that our elders do not seem to have even...
One-tenth of the emotional skills or emotional sensitivity that we have, and I don't know what.
I don't think it's some genetic thing.
I don't know what's happened, or maybe it's just an accumulation of psychological movements that have been occurring for the last time.
It seems like it's been beaten out of them. Or something, but you'd think then it would have been beaten out of us too, right?
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's possible that I escaped that.
Yes, yeah, no, I just, I think that we're facing, I mean, I've mentioned this before, but on just about every sitcom you see, the parents are buffoons who are completely blind and unconscious and non-negotiable, and you see that, and I mean, that's part of, it's a, I don't think it's a particularly modern, Sorry, I don't think it's a particularly common classical sort of comedic device like the fool, right?
The guy who thinks he's a coward or who says he's really brave who turns out to be a coward.
Those are standard comic types.
But the blind and ignorant parents is a new phenomenon.
If you look at the parents in the sitcoms in the 60s or 50s, they were wiser.
But ever since sort of the 80s, it's just been...
And this is a generation, I think, that's come up who've just sort of said, well...
Our parents are almost like a different species.
I mean, it's almost like they're halfway to monkey and we're halfway to God or something.
And it is very hard to cross that gap.
And I've sort of found it to be impossible.
But I just sort of wanted to mention that, that you're not alone in finding this massive gap of understanding or sensitivity when you talk to your parents in this way.
I have no doubt.
I think even some of the things I describe I've heard you talk about with your family as far as some of the experiences I've had.
Right, right.
Okay, so you haven't had any particular desire to be back in contact with them.
In fact, it seems like the very thought provokes flop sweats in your brain, which of course I can completely understand.
Very much so. So the next question that you had is, are you bound to tell them that you're taking an indefinite shore leave from the sinking ship of family?
Yeah, and I guess it's sort of like I don't want them to think that I've joined some dangerous cult or something like that, which is just, it's not the case at all.
It's just me trying to protect myself.
Right, right, right.
No, I mean, obviously, there's nothing to join, right?
There's a board that's free.
Yeah, and joining myself.
Right, and I mean, I was just mentioning this on a Sunday show that one of the things that helps you understand that it's not a cult is that I suggest, Christine and I both strongly suggest and repeatedly that people go to therapy, form a relationship with therapists.
That's not something the cults really do, right?
They don't like it particularly when you form outside the group.
Getting outside opinions is not exactly cult-like behavior.
Right. I mean, if it was a cult, the last place we'd send you to is therapists, right?
Because the therapist would say, you're in a cult, right?
Yeah, exactly. It's kind of a big red flag.
Right. So I would say that you are not obligated to do anything with regards to your parents.
I mean, that to me would be the basic starting point.
That having been said, I would say that there are practical things that you can do that is going to ease the passage, and you would do those things not out of obligation, but out of practicality.
Yeah, I think that's actually kind of what I was trying to get at with the two questions right there regarding, you know, if I sent him a letter, what would be in the letter.
Just to, you know, because I don't want to make it confrontational because that really could make it worse.
It will make it worse without a doubt.
And at the same time, I don't want to make it so simple that, you know, they'll just, they'll rather bug the crap out of my brother until he goes nuts and has to tell him or something like that.
I don't know. Or, I don't know what happened.
I'm just trying to, if I decide to do this, to really make the leap, then I want to make sure it's worth it and I'm not just starting a bunch of fires.
Right, right. I mean, if you're not going to break out of prison, then don't try to break out of prison, right?
Yeah, you don't want to fall in another prison.
Might get shot in a leg or something.
That wouldn't make much sense. Yeah, exactly.
If prison break ended them with being dragged back into prison, you'd feel really gypped, right, in the show.
I don't know if you've ever watched it, but anyway.
I would say that the most successful approach that I've seen for people who want to get out of a corrupt and destructive family structure Is this.
If you say to your parents or send them a letter saying, I've decided to take some time off from family relations to work through some issues of mine, I will get back in touch when I feel that it's right.
Just leave it at that? And I would say, just leave it at that.
The more they can...
I mean, if you want to get out, right?
I mean, you know, it's the old thing.
Like, if you want your parents to think that you're home, you put the sleeping bag in your bed, rolled up, so that they think you're that Ferris Bueller thing, you know?
And the reason you want them to be able to project as much of their own dysfunction onto your image, right?
Into their image of you, in order to get out most...
Productively, or most peacefully, I guess would be a better way of putting it.
And so the best way to do that is to say, I have issues that I need to work on.
Now, of course, that's true, right?
I mean, because knowing a little bit about your family history, that is the case.
Well, sure, and I've got no problem admitting that.
Right. Now, what they're going to say in their own mind is that they're going to say, oh, good, he's realized that he's a bad kid or a bad seed or he did bad things to us or whatever, and so he's going off to work in it, and they'll let you go, right?
And that's good, right?
That's what you want. And so, in a sense, if they think that you are just going to go off and work at your own stuff and you're going to come back, you know, contrite and, well, you know, I've realized that, you know, mom and dad is always right and family is everything and blah, blah, blah.
They'll let you go then on the complete assumption that you will be back.
And the more that they believe that you are going to take, that you are taking all the responsibility and not blaming them, the degree to which they think that is the degree to which your passage will be eased.
Alright, I can see that.
Right, so it's one thing, and there will be a backlash at some point, it certainly has happened to both Christina and myself, but what happens is this will buy you 6 to 12 months.
Mm-hmm. Now, your parents may pester your brother and so on, and I hate to say it, but that has nothing to do with your choice.
How your parents deal with your brother and your brother's choice to do whatever he wants with his family and so on, that's his choice.
Yep. So you can't adjust your behavior based on your brother's choice to stay in contact with your parents and your parents' decisions about blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, that's true. And I mean, I mentioned that just because, I mean, I'm concerned about it, but at the same time, I do realize, you know, it's, I can't control him.
Or them. Yeah, or them either.
And nor can I reform them.
The only way they can be reformed is if they decide to reform themselves.
Right, which is not something that you can hold out any reasonable hope for, again, just sort of based on the history that I've heard.
As far as I know. Well, I think it's as far as just about anybody would know.
Like, I don't think it's a very subjective decision.
Well, sure. No, I'm not saying that.
I guess I'm just...
Ah, never mind.
Well, I mean, the only reason that I say that is that I know that lots of movies and songs and books and so on are all about people waking up one morning and deciding to change their life, but that doesn't really happen.
I mean, I'm not called the dream crusher for nothing, but that doesn't really happen.
What does happen is that people almost always will do tomorrow what they did today, and they will do today what they did yesterday.
That there is nothing in the universe that seems more inert than the human personality in the absence of an extremity, right?
And even I didn't change until after I was unable to sleep for 16 months or something.
There is an extraordinary inertness, and this is particularly true when people get older and their major life decisions are behind them, how they raise their children, the careers that they've chosen, the friends that they have, the relations they've had with their own parents who are probably now dead.
Once people are in that phase of life, the possibility of change is, I mean, you might as well say, well, I'm not going to go to Tibet.
I'm going to wait for Tibet to come to me, right?
Because it has that likelihood.
So I just want to point that out because there isn't a sort of magic cloud of all-changing pixie dust floating above the planet that keeps dropping randomly on people and they wake up with their eyes opened and their hearts opened and with change and so on.
It just doesn't happen.
And so I just sort of wanted to point that out just so that whatever part of you that feels that this may be a possibility that you can work to eject that.
So I should work from the assumption that it won't change first and get comfortable with that.
Right, right. Like, I don't assume...
I go through my life assuming that I don't have some billionaire uncle that I've never heard of who's going to die and leave me a whole bunch of money.
Now, is it possible? I guess.
It is possible. But I don't wake up every day and check my mail and say, God damn it, no check for a billion bucks in there?
What the hell's going on?
Yeah. So yeah, I guess it's possible, but it's not something that I put any hopes on.
It's certainly possible, and I would sort of say that the likelihood is about the same.
Again, you never know.
Maybe they get struck by lightning and it scrambles their brains in some positive way, but I would work from the assumption that there is going to be no change whatsoever on their side.
And structure your life and your decisions accordingly, and if the miracle does occur, then the Vatican will ratify it, and you will be the first among everyone, right?
Good for you, right? That would be great.
It'll be the first rational proof of God.
Yeah, I think so, or not God.
Yeah, probably not, but you know.
So I would just say send them a letter that allows them to put as much responsibility as they want to on you for the problems in the relationship.
And also, you know, I'm going to go and get help, and it's going to take some time, and so on, and I will get back to you when I feel that it's appropriate.
And of course, that is an open-ended statement.
Yeah. Right?
And they will, of course, assume that that will be 6 to 12 months, and this will buy you some time, and they will ask your brother how you're doing, and so on.
And then you will get a chance, though, to establish a life and to feel what it's like without them in your life.
Okay. Well, I'm getting a little bit of a taste of that right now, but I guess it's just sort of like the obligation feels like it's still there.
You know what I mean? It's sort of like hanging on by a thread.
Your obligation to them?
Well, I'm not sure if I'm putting it in the correct way.
It's just like the sensation of obligation, if that makes any sense.
Well, certainly obligation is a sensation.
Obviously you don't have a legal contract, but tell me more.
Like you feel that a good son should do X, right?
A good son should be around them, should be there to help, should be there to support them.
Is that sort of what you mean? Yeah, except it's sort of like I know rationally that those things are not good reasons, and it's not So that part of my brain says, well, no, that's not correct.
But I guess it's just sort of like that inbuilt emotional response that, I don't think it's innate, but I think it's learned.
Well, it's taught. They always have these science fiction movies where there's some guy, like the Manchurian Candidate, but there's some guy, and he's got a trigger word, and when that trigger word is spoken, he becomes some homicidal maniac.
There's something that's planted in him that then gives other people control whenever they want it over him, or like a hypnosis kind of thing.
That same kind of thing occurs with parents, particularly parents like yours.
I'm not saying all parents, but...
But what they do is they create obligation in you.
I don't know if you read Untruth by chance?
Yeah, I did.
I bought it. You know this mechanism, right?
So they create obligation in you.
We love you and family is everything and so on.
But it's not your desire that is created organically out of your interaction with these people.
When you interact with virtuous people, you want to do right by them.
You want to do good things and so on.
Yeah. But this obligation is your parents' button that they push to turn you into a compliant, all-giving, anxiety-reducing robot, right?
The love robot or the good son robot.
This is a button that they've put into you so that they can get what they want from you.
It's like the back door, so to speak, to control you.
Sure, and yeah, I can understand that.
So, regarding the third question, which is a little bit down, where I'm talking about, like, because basically right now, I mean, I know you already touched on it, but, like, if I, like, for instance, somewhat recently, at the beginning of this month, it was my mom's birthday, and I felt obligated to call her to wish her a happy birthday, so I caved and I did it.
Sorry to interrupt you for just a second.
No, you know what? I'm not going to be that rude.
Please continue your thought. I'm sure I can hang on to mine.
Oh, no, I'm not.
Sorry. But, like, even, like, I remember, like, that entire day, before I had to call her, like, I'd put it off, like, an extra half hour.
Be like, okay, extra half, we'll do it in a half hour.
Okay, I'll do it in another half hour.
And it's, like, this big buildup of anxiety and some frustration that I get even before I even call them.
And, uh... So when I think about them, like whenever I think particularly about my stepdad, but even about my mom at times as well, is sort of like hatred.
I feel hate often when I think about them, and I'm not particularly sure if that's all that healthy, but I'm sure it is to a point.
Is that what you're talking about as far as when, like, it takes six months off to try to work through certain things like that?
Sure. I mean, I can accelerate you down that path just a little bit because I know that you're a staunch and bright fellow.
When you say obligation, do you know what you're really talking about emotionally?
Let me think. Do I know what I really think about it emotionally?
They're making me feel false guilt.
Guilt that's not based on...
So I'm not making my own decision to be with them.
It's just because I'm magically supposed to want to be around them.
I don't know if I'm really...
No, you're definitely on the right path.
You're not Catholic, right?
No. You know this phrase, Catholic guilt, right?
Yeah. The Catholics are supposed to be notoriously guilt-ridden and so on.
And Catholicism is one of the strongest religions when it comes to punishments after death, hell, and so on.
If you ever want to read something terrifying, pick up The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and read through the description of hell that's in there.
It is just absolutely sadistic and savage beyond words.
And so when people talk about guilt or obligation, almost inevitably what they're talking about is, and I can get you there in about 30 seconds if you like, what happens if you don't call your mom, right?
What happens if you don't call your mom on her birthday?
I feel guilty and I mean, I will admit fully that I was managing my anxiety by calling her.
Oh, no, no, I understand that, and again, I know that you understand that very well, but when I say what happens, what happens in your life if you do not do what is considered to be your obligation towards, you know, your mother or your father, whatever, right?
So, let's say that you were 13 years old, and for some reason you completely forgot about your mom's birthday.
What happened? Um...
You know, I can't really, I don't really know what would happen.
I can't recall a time like that.
Alright, so we can move it to something more recent.
What would have happened if you did not call your mother on her birthday?
What would the family have done?
It's still something I'm not 100% sure on what would happen.
Oh, you know. I know, I know, and I'm not even in this family, and I know what would happen.
I suppose I'd probably get a call or they would say, oh, you're not going to get any birthday presents or something like that.
Oh, I think based on what I've heard about your appearance, it would be a little different than that.
I don't know exactly what would happen.
Well, you do know. I mean, and I'm sorry to be annoying.
You do know because you made the call.
Sure. You don't just make up this feeling that we're trying to get to here.
We don't just pick obligation out of thin air and decide to have it run our lives against our stated values.
So, as you say, you're not a big fan of your parents.
In fact, you hate them in many ways.
And so to wish them a happy birthday would be against your values, right?
Yeah, I would say so.
I'm not very... I mean, how much did the people who cause trouble on the boards, right, the Free Domain radio boards, every now and then we get this troll fest, right?
And I have to ban some people, and they've done me virtually no harm whatsoever.
But I'll tell you this, I'm not tracking them and making sure that I wish them happy birthday.
Yeah. So these are people who've done me virtually no harm as an adult.
And I don't feel any obligation to call them up and say, well, you know, I'm the guy who banned you from the philosophy side because you were, you know, a jerk, but I just wanted to call you up and to wish you happy birthday because that would be kind of against my values, right?
And these people did almost no harm to me as an adult, whereas these people did an enormous amount of harm to you when you were a child.
So, why? What are you avoiding?
And it's not your own anxiety.
I want you to understand that the internal anxiety that you feel is not something that you just made up for your own convenience.
Right? So, what is the feeling that you're avoiding by calling your mother?
Uh... Hmm...
And I know it's tough. I'm trying, man.
I know it's tough, right? It'll be obvious to you when it comes, but it's just that you're trained not to know this connection.
It's not because you're not smart or anything.
This is the null zone that you're not allowed to know in your family structure.
Yeah, and I know on the last call we hit a few of those null zones.
Sure. I mean, I know there's fear attached to it.
Okay, okay. Well, let's pause there for a second and look at that.
So, fear of what?
So, if you don't call your mom on her birthday, what happens?
I guess the worst case scenario is them calling me up and giving me a speech or something.
I don't know. Right, and that speech would be composed of what?
Most likely insults and guilt trips.
Well, it would be character assassination.
Yeah. Right?
This would be swinging the big, heavy, ugly moral club of you're a bad person, you're an ungrateful son, your mother does everything for you and you can't even be bothered to lift up the goddamn phone to wish her a happy birthday, that you are just selfish and your mother is crying and look at everything that you do.
I mean, I'm just making it up, right?
But I mean, this would be the kind of thing that would occur, which would be a savage attack on your character.
Yeah. I think I sort of see where you're getting at.
So some of the fear that I'm having is that I'm afraid they're going to call me a bad person when I don't feel that I am a bad person.
It's not in the present, right?
I mean, if somebody comes up to me in the street and says, you, Baldy, you're a bad person, right?
I'm like, okay, well, that doesn't bother me much, right?
Because I have no history, he doesn't know anything about me.
It's not that they would call you a bad person in the present, it's that that threat has been omnipresent for you from day one.
And it has occurred for you, and it may have occurred earlier than you can remember, where you got attacked for being selfish or being lazy or being bad or being ungrateful or being whatever, right?
But that is what occurs in dysfunctional families, right?
They attack the character of those around them, and if they don't get something that they want, If they don't get the validation that they want, if they don't get the approval that they want, if people around them aren't doing the things that make them feel better or help reduce their anxiety, the only thing they know how to do is to lash out and attack people at their core, to tear them down, to indulge in character assassination.
I can see that.
So when you say obligation, what you mean is fear of attack.
Okay. Now I'm afraid you just said that too quickly and that means that I didn't quite get you to connect with it, which is fine.
Yeah, I mean, I I guess I was expecting more of an impact in my mind.
It does seem obvious that I'm afraid of attack.
That's what we've talked about in the past with my parents is that that's pretty much their core defense mechanism is just to attack others.
And the reason that I paused on this is that you kept telling me about obligation and guilt.
Sure. But that's not the reality of the situation, right?
No. The reality of the situation is you're terrified they're going to attack you, and I don't blame you, right?
I would be too. Sure.
Right, so it is fear of abuse, not obligation, not guilt.
That's why I mentioned that the Catholic guilt is associated with the abusive...
Retaliation of God in the form of hell and eternal brimstone and fire and you're boiling alive and never dying.
So guilt just means a terror of abuse.
Yeah, definitely in this.
Are you saying in all cases or just in this particular case?
Well, I certainly think that it's a broad enough Generalization that's valuable, that's where I'd start with every case.
I haven't come across one that's not that way.
I don't come home at the end of the day with flowers for my wife because I'm afraid that she's going to be mad at me if I don't.
Well, sure. I do it because it gives her joy, it makes her happy, that makes me happy, and so on, right?
You don't listen to the podcast that I produce because I call you up and say, well, I guess you're just not at all interested in philosophy, are you?
I guess you just want to run through your life doing whatever the hell you want with no regard to the feelings of others, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Because I hope that they give you some kind of pleasure, right?
So that's positive motivation.
What I call negative economics is the things that we do to avoid punishment, not in the pursuit of happiness.
Yeah. I think that's the core difference.
It just goes back to comparing my relationship with my parents as opposed to someone that I would consider my friend.
With a friend, you're trading a value for a value.
With your parents, it's avoiding punishment.
Right, and that's a perfectly noble and right thing to do when you're a child, and as an adult, it's not, right?
You have choices. But what I say that you will get 6 to 12 months free, what I mean is free of attack, of character assassination.
At least from your parents, right?
Lord knows other extended families might stampede in and do this, that, and the other, but you need to know what life is like without careening like a pinball from one abusive situation to another with regards to your parents.
Yeah. Because you don't know what that's like yet, right?
And you can imagine it and so on, but you still have this hump to get over.
But once you're over it, in a month or two afterwards, and of course you have to examine all your relationships in this context, right?
Because the driver is going to be, the instinct for you is going to be that it's going to be disorienting to be in a situation where you're not getting emotionally punched.
It's going to be disorienting, and you're going to feel anxiety, and that's all the historical anxiety, and you're going to want to manage that anxiety by getting punched.
I mean, it sounds weird, but it's what people do.
A lot of people go out and get, when they do food, they'll get tattoos, they'll get piercings, because they're just used to being attacked, and they just do it in some other way, or they start abusing substances, or I'm not saying this is true of you or anything like that, but you have to be careful that you don't give up Something that is awful but you're used to for something else that is equally awful just to avoid the anxiety of what is released when you're no longer in a situation of danger.
Yeah. Have you actually had people that do things like that?
I'm just curious. Yes, yes, yes.
And this is in conversation with them directly, so...
Oh, okay. Yeah, again, I'm not saying that you go up and join the Merchant Marine.
Oh, no.
But what is going to happen is that the relationships that you chose prior to seeing the attack that you were subjected to by your parents, the relationships that you chose, you chose...
Not seeing the fear of attack that your parents inflicted on you, and those relationships are going to need to be evaluated, right?
Not rejected, but just evaluated in that light.
Sure. I do think I have a leg up, though.
I mean, I haven't lived in the same state as them in probably three years, and we don't talk that much.
And when I do, like I said, it's always the weather type conversations.
Well, no, and I understand those conversations are not directly abusive towards you, but the only reason you have them is because you fear being attacked, right?
It's the fact that those conversations are occurring that is the evidence of the prior attacks, not what's being said in the conversations now.
And that will change, I guarantee you, that that will change when your parents have some kind of leverage over you, right?
The reason that they're more pleasant and are willing to not be aggressive or abusive is because you're far away and they don't need anything from you right now.
But the moment that they need something from you, if they get sick or they, whatever, right?
Then all the old tricks will come out, right?
▲
Export Selection