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Jan. 27, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:29:33

967 Sunday Call In Show Jan 27 2008

Thanks to the brave souls who opened their hearts so wide...

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	Thank you, everybody, for joining.
	This is the first one we've had in a couple of weeks because of the fabulous interruption of the Freedom Aid Radio Miami Symposium.
	This is fantastic.
	This, of course, was just a warm-up to the really big one that is coming up in Reykjavik, which should be excellent.
	It will be on February 1st in Reykjavik.
	Of course, since the clothing has to be the same, it's going to be quite exciting for a lot of people.
	So, thank you so much everybody who was able to make it down.
	We had about 20 participants in the conversation, of which only 17 were my unmedicated personalities, so that was actually kind of cool to see other people in the room other than the...
	Bruce Lee House of Mirrors that I generally live in.
	So that was also very nice to meet you all in the flesh.
	It was great. And thanks so much, of course, to Christina for doing an excellent presentation and making me cry by having everyone else prefer hers.
	So it's okay.
	She's better at everything anyway.
	So it was great, and we hope that you will be able to join the next one, and we will keep you posted about that.
	So... We're still going to get the pictures still coming.
	And also we have the video is still to come, I believe.
	And I've given Greg the audio to work on.
	I did a recording through my iRiver, which has fairly good sound, but it's a bit staticky or a bit sort of background hummy.
	And because of all of the droning chants, all the FDR Gregorian chants that we were learning made it tough to hear some of the muttered content.
	So that should be cool.
	And I guess that was – so we'll get the audio out to you shortly.
	We're going to price it to make a killing in the most excellent cult-like manner possible.
	And that was about it.
	So I'm just going to start off with Greg posted a video which was a PBS documentary.
	On drugging children, or rather the millions, this is focusing on the American population, the millions of children who are medicated because they have these, quote, mental illnesses, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ODD, oppositional defiant disorder, actually also known as Christina.
	They have bipolar, what used to be called manic depression, now it's called bipolar.
	And a whole host of other things, often diagnosed shockingly within a few minutes of arriving at the doctor's house, and shockingly often argued for by teachers who are having just a little bit of difficulty controlling the less dead children in the classroom.
	So it's well worth having a look.
	It's on the board. Just go on the board and search for medicating children or something like that, PBS or documentary.
	But the one thing, and what do I know, right?
	I'm no doctor and they certainly, there's sort of contradictory information because there do seem to be some MRIs that are different for the children who have these mental disorders, but of course we don't know.
	Whether or not it is the parenting that is affecting the brain or the brain that is affecting the behavior irrespective of the parenting.
	We do know for sure that a child who does not get proper care very early in his life, and we know this from those horrible Romanian orphanages where the children were left to rotten cribs for week after week, we know that when children are...
	Not cared for early on in their life.
	their brains change.
	They end up with particularly shrunken areas of the amygdala, emotional processing, and the areas around predicting consequences of behavior and so on.
	So yeah, the fact that some of these kids show up with slightly different scans doesn't seem to me to indicate anything other than it may be parenting or it may be biological.
	I don't know for sure.
	Of course, nobody does.
	But what is interesting is that in the 90s, after I think it was 97, President Clinton talked about the fact that all of these prescription drugs designed to be taken by adults were being prescribed to children with no studies whatsoever, pretty much, about their long-term effects on developing minds.
	And so what he did was he offered drug companies an extension of six months on their patent protections if they started studying these drugs' efficacy with regards to children.
	And then what came back was that 4% of children have significantly increased risk of suicidality and that they really couldn't find any correlation whatsoever between the application of the drug and objective or measurable, i.e.
	non-placebo, effects of these drugs.
	Now, unfortunately, they didn't go into the parenting, although every single woman that we saw bringing her child...
	Now, this is America, so with a grain of salt...
	But every single woman that we saw bringing her child into her doctors was obese and not just a little bit, which usually indicates depression and so on.
	But the one story, was it Katie?
	Was that the girl's name? The little blonde girl?
	At the beginning, I can't remember. We'll call it Katie.
	I can't remember her name. Katie, there was a video of Katie who was brought in to a doctor's office when she was five and was considered to be suffering from bipolar or manic depression.
	Which was, you know, grandiose flights of thinking that you've solved the problem of morality and so on.
	Oh wait, no, that was another patient.
	Grandiose flights of fantasy followed by depression.
	She couldn't get out of bed for weeks at a time and so on.
	And she was in the doctor's office.
	It's well worth looking. It's a free documentary.
	You can find it on the web. Sorry, Greg, if you could just give the thread name that people couldn't search for, that would be great.
	But this kid is bouncing up and down In the pediatrician's chair, or the child psychiatrist's chair, and she's saying that she wants to take people's heads off, that she wants to do damage to people, and so on.
	And everybody's just mystified.
	Gosh! Where could this sweet, angelic, tousle-haired, blonde little goddess possibly, where could she possibly come up with all of these sorts of violent things?
	How could that happen?
	So there's this great mystery.
	Why has this child got all this violent imagery going on in her mind?
	Well, of course, she must be mentally ill.
	She must have bipolar disorder.
	The fact that her father is a soldier, well, that can't have anything to do with why she might end up with violent imagery about hurting people or taking their heads off or anything like that.
	Can't be anything to do with the fact that her father is a paid hitman.
	So, the important thing is to put her on a cocktail of six to eight different drugs to manage the symptoms of evil in the parental sphere.
	Because we wouldn't want to confront the moral core at the root of being a costumed hitman for the state.
	So, we have to medicate the child.
	And to me, it would be fascinating to see the correlation between people who are involved in the cops and IRS agencies.
	The soldiers and the correlation between that and their children's medication.
	I'd also like to know how many doctors' children are also on this kind of medication.
	But in the future, they're going to look back on this and their heads are going to explode trying to figure out how we could not see this kind of stuff.
	It would be like us looking back in time to the 18th century and wondering why...
	The child of a slave-owning, slave-beating man ended up with a tendency towards cruelty to animals.
	Knowing that slaves were being beaten in the barn, whipped and raped, somehow a child could end up.
	And everybody in the town And congregating around this child who has a tendency towards cruelty to animals.
	And nobody has any clue whatsoever that it might be related to the violence on the part of the parents.
	You've got to work pretty damn hard to not understand that.
	Like, you've got to sweat brain blood To not understand that a child might end up with violent thoughts or images.
	Because her father is a killer.
	Got shipped off to Iraq during the second part of this documentary.
	And that nobody's talking about it.
	And that it is the sickness of the whole society that coalesces on these children.
	The fact not only that her father is a murderer, but that her father was married by a woman who's happy to have the children of a killer.
	What kind of woman is that?
	And she lives in a society where the heads that her father takes off are praised.
	That what her father does is praised and honored.
	And everybody on the news and the media and the teachers and her friends, they all say, what a hero this killer is.
	And the child has violent fantasies and delusions of grandeur, not psychotic delusions, just grandiosity, followed by depression.
	But a father's a killer, a mother married and gave birth to children Through a killer.
	The entire society is praising the killers, supporting them, defending our freedoms.
	But if this child were the daughter of a mafia hitman, and her mother was a depressed and violent gangster's mall, would there be such confusion as to why she might end up with violent imagery?
	These poor, poor, poor, poor children.
	These poor children being roasted on the spit of our sociopathic fantasies about the virtue of killers.
	And it will come back to haunt us because we reap what we sow.
	So But when I put the words out there, when we put the words out there, when we talk on the board, About the fact that a costume doesn't magically transform a murderer into a hero.
	What we're doing is we're throwing down these ropes down a well.
	For these children, and there are millions and millions of children like this, we're throwing a rope down a well saying, look, you can climb towards the light if you want.
	It's going to be hell, but you can do it.
	Because otherwise, without this rope coming down, they don't even see the light.
	And everything gets so driven into the unconscious and so acted out that their lives are ruined by the violence of those around them.
	And the sociopathy of those around them and the mad, brain-damaging cloud castles that everybody lives in.
	This fetishistic love of Gods and states and armies.
	Blood and corruption and lies.
	So that's what we're doing.
	That's why I try to focus on the people who are younger in this conversation.
	Because we are not born propagandized.
	We are not born believing lies.
	We are not born worshipping violence, or leaders, or soldiers, or cops.
	That all are gods.
	Bleeding Jewish zombies is not the first toy that your average toddler will ask for for Christmas.
	Hey, you know, for Christmas, Santa, can I get me a shitload of guilt-control obligation and fear of hell?
	Could I? Can I, please?
	No, Xbox?
	Screw that!
	I want to be terrified of my own shadow because some bitch listened to a talking snake in a fairy tale.
	And the lights that were sort of popping up there, the flare that was shooting up over the horizon for most of these people who live in these darkened and bloody villages, this medieval mind that we still inhabit, this medieval mind that we still inhabit, this light that we're shooting up, these flares that we're putting up, Thank you.
	I think is magnificent.
	And just as my own way of saying thank you again, because I really can't say it enough, the work that we're involved in here, the brick-by-brick work that we're doing to rebuild a pretty shattered human mind that has spent millennia broken because of the mistakes made in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome, but particularly in ancient Greece.
	The minds that have been broken that we're piecing together, the reasoning, The ethics, the virtue, the integrity, that we're piecing back together.
	This happens because of us, of all of us, of you, of your participation in this conversation, your financial, your time, all the generosity that goes on.
	And I just, you know, for all of the people who are going to see this flair that is going up, I just wanted to say thank you so much.
	This is just the most amazing community that I've ever heard of.
	I massively respect the people who are involved in it.
	I massively respect the trust that it took to listen to some lunatic in Canada and process it and think about it for yourself and come to rational conclusions.
	All of the improvements in our collective thinking that have occurred because people are engaged in this kind of conversation, the joy and beauty and light that we're bringing to the world, I think is unmatched.
	I really, really think is unmatched.
	So that's it for the intro rant.
	I am more than happy to take questions, comments, criticisms, feedback from the Horde.
	Hey, Steph. Hi.
	It's Graham. Hi.
	I've been having some violent dreams, and I wonder if you could provide some insights.
	Is it dreams about, like, taking people's heads off?
	No. Okay, because I was going to say, like, this actually kind of led well into that.
	So, sure, go ahead. What I've been having dreams of is fighting dogs.
	Like, I'll be kind of, like, have my hands in a dog's mouth and the dog will be kind of biting down on my hands and I'll be trying to wrestle my hands out.
	And I often, like, wake up in a cold sweat the next day.
	Wow. You're not dyslexic, right?
	Not dyslexic?
	Yeah. No, no.
	Okay, so it's not about atheism.
	You're not fighting dog. Sorry.
	Sorry. Sorry making light of everyone except myself.
	But, okay, so you've got a dog.
	Are you lying back on the ground?
	Is the dog kind of hovering over your face and you've got your hands, like, trying to keep its mouth open?
	Is that right? And it's trying to bite you?
	No, I'm standing up, and the dog's attacking me.
	And I think once it went for my throat, and I think it got a hold of my throat.
	What's your experience or history with dogs?
	Well, I've had dogs when I was younger.
	We had a German Shepherd and a Rottweiler, and my mom has a Great Dane, which I wrestled with a little bit.
	Jeez, you've been around some big freaking dogs?
	Yeah. I've never got attacked or anything, though.
	Right. And have you ever been frightened by a dog?
	Not really. Like, once one ran at me, my friend and I were in this kind of someone's house, and this dog ran at us kind of in an attacking way, and my friend ran away and closed me in with the dog, but I wasn't really scared, so it didn't attack me.
	And was in the dream, how does it end?
	Is there a resolution or do you just sort of wake up because you're stuck in this impossible situation?
	Like a dog is attacking you, you can't get away, you can't fight it off.
	I mean, what happens at the end?
	I think I usually wake up around without a resolution.
	And you can't get away from the dog in the dream, is that right?
	Right, right. And where are you located in the dream?
	You mean like geographically?
	Are you inside or outside?
	Oh, outside. Outside, yeah.
	And there's no tree to climb? I'm just trying to get the layout of the dream itself.
	No tree to climb, no.
	No fence, no. Like you're in an open field?
	Uh... Well, since it's kind of like a theme, there's not a consistent place.
	But there is consistently no place to get away to, right?
	Right. Okay, okay.
	And when did these dreams start?
	A few months ago.
	Okay, and...
	Where are you in terms of some of the stuff that we talked about with regards to the – like back in the sort of salon that we had?
	Yeah. With regards to some of your own family history stuff, how's all that going?
	Yeah. I've been talking with my mom and there's been some progress.
	Like the chat we had about the career advice, I played that to her.
	And she cried and apologized and said, how can I make this better and stuff like that.
	And with my dad, I haven't talked to him in like 18 months.
	So I was having violent images or violent dreams of me and him fighting for a long time.
	And those have recently stopped, which is nice.
	Right, okay. Now, I'm just going to try on a theme here, and you can let me know if it fits or not.
	When you were a child, did you exhibit any particular kinds of aggression?
	Yes. Okay, go on.
	I got in trouble a lot for fighting with my sisters.
	Like, there was zero tolerance for me hitting my sisters, as there should be.
	But I did get in trouble for it a lot.
	And when you say hitting your sisters, what do you mean?
	Kind of like pushing them down.
	This is more like before I was probably before I was 10 years old or something like that.
	And do you know why you were violent at this point in your life?
	I'm not sure, but I think it was because my dad was kind of, he'd get mad and He never really beat me or anything, but he would pick me up by my shirt and throw me into my room and stuff like that.
	So, I think I could have...
	So, scary violence, right?
	Yeah. That's what I would guess.
	Do you know in your dream why the dog is attacking you?
	I mean, have you...
	Shot up with a BB gun?
	Are you rubbed in marinade?
	Like, what might be occurring that the dog would be attacking you?
	Because it's unusual, right? Dogs are not big attackers, right?
	Well, I remember one specific dream.
	I was trying to, like, dominate the dog.
	Like, I was trying to get it to obey my will.
	And then it attacked me.
	But I'm not sure if that's always what happens, but that's the only dream I can actually remember specifically because I wrote it down.
	Got it, got it.
	You don't have that handy, do you?
	Oh, that dream? Yeah, yeah, I do.
	Okay, why don't you grab that, and do you feel like yourself in the dream?
	Like, do you feel like it's you being attacked by a dog?
	Yeah, yeah, I do.
	Okay, okay.
	Yeah, it's a little easier if we have more details, because otherwise I'll have to go on a whole bunch of blind alleys if we don't have the details.
	I have an idea, but I don't want to jump in if there's more details.
	Okay, and Greg also mentioned that I had mentioned at the symposium that I had a broken jaw once from getting physically assaulted like four or five years ago, so he thought that I might figure into it somehow too.
	I've got some theories of my own, too, that I could share with you after.
	Can you read the dream? Yeah, sure. Okay.
	Thanks. So in this stream that I remember, it's a bulldog, and I'm kind of embarrassed that I'm unable to master it, make it do what I want.
	And it's kind of in a courtyard, and there are a few people around.
	There's The big guy from American Chopper who's kind of like a macho guy with a beard and my dad and a female that I'm renting an apartment from who doesn't exist in real life.
	And so it's kind of like male characters that are very male and I kind of want to impress them.
	Right. The dog's crushing my hands and I'm struggling against them, trying to open them up.
	Sorry, can you just say the dog is doing what to your hands?
	Crushing my hands. Like in its jaws, right?
	Yeah. So it's got both your hands in its jaws?
	Yeah. Because, I mean, there seems a bit of space-time distortion, at least space distortion there, because I'm sort of trying to picture how a bulldog would get both your hands in its jaws.
	Are you the same age as you are now?
	Yeah. Okay, so it's got two hands and you're okay going?
	I think it must have lunged at me or something and I tried to grab its face or I'm not sure.
	Okay. Anyways, the big American chopper guy helps the dog off me a couple of times and I react angrily kind of like I turn up my aggression because in the dream I have this idea that If I turn up the aggression, then either the dog will re-attack or shy away, so I kind of take the chance.
	Right. And then the last time it goes for my throat, and blood spurts out.
	Right. And that's where the dream ends.
	Okay. And my theories for what it might be is...
	Well, actually, I'll wait and see what you say, unless you want to hear it.
	Well, I mean, I'll just touch on what strikes me about it, and you can let me know.
	I don't think this dream is about you.
	I think it's about your dad.
	Okay. I think that you are your dad in this dream, and the dog is you.
	And the reason that I say that is you talk about wanting to master this dog.
	And it seems to me that that's what your dad was trying to do, Right.
	Right.
	And there are male, like hyper macho, almost stereotyped authority figures here, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so I think that the dreams that are, in my experience, right, the dreams that are repetitive for us tend to be those where we're looking at it backwards, right?
	So I've mentioned before these tsunami dreams that I had for years.
	And they went away the moment that I realized that I was the tsunami or the truth that I was talking about was the tsunami because I thought it was me being hit with this big tsunami that was outside myself.
	But it was actually a dream to try and help me empathize with the people I was speaking the truth to and what it was like for them.
	And the moment I got that, never had that dream again.
	I've never had.
	And I had those years for years and years.
	So when you say it's backwards, you mean like the roles are reversed?
	Yeah, that what's happening here, in my opinion, again, this could maybe be true, maybe not true, it's just a theory, but there is something that you don't see about your dad's view of you, right? In your life.
	Something that I don't see in my dad's view of me.
	Right. So, for instance, you can't pick up a child and throw him in his room.
	Yeah. And there must have been an enormous amount of implicit violence in your household.
	Otherwise, you would not have beaten up your sisters.
	A son's or a brother's natural desire, natural desire, is to protect his sisters.
	Right.
	Right?
	Not to attack them.
	Right?
	And I don't think that the level of violence that you experienced from your father is well processed for you.
	This is just a thought.
	This is just a theory, right? Well, I think you're right there.
	And so, if you understand that you appeared to your father like a rabid dog that he had to bully and control...
	Then you can understand how fucked up he really was.
	That if you were treated like a rabid dog by your father, then that goes a long way, I would say, to helping you understand the unbelievable inhuman pressure cooker that you were under as a child.
	And I think it's trying to get inside...
	I think this dream is trying to get you inside your dad's head.
	It's not a place I'd like to be.
	Well, I totally understand that.
	But it is a place where a huge amount of relief and release can occur for you.
	Because once you get your dad, right?
	I mean, you get how you actually appeared to your dad.
	Because it's really like one of the greatest challenges of human imagination, of human empathy, is to leap into the mind of somebody else and see ourselves as they see us.
	Yeah. In their heart of hearts, right?
	But how could my dad see like a little kid as a rabid dog?
	Like that seems so...
	Oh, that's very common. It's very, very common.
	And I hate to be the book-pitchy guy, but I just read this section in Real-Time Relationships, this new book.
	I'm just reading the audiobook.
	I'm done the first third, so it should be done early next week, but...
	Buy the book. Sorry to be annoying, but buy the book or I'll ship you one if you're low on cash.
	And it goes into great detail about this whole etymology of how parents view themselves as victims and the children as aggressors.
	It is the default position of parents that they are the victims and the children are aggressors.
	That's crazy. It is crazy, but because it's so common, the fact that you see it as crazy is probably why you're having this dream.
	Right. Because it seems to me that your father probably kind of hated you.
	Ouch. Well, I mean, isn't that reasonable?
	Based on the fact that he threw you around and that you ended up with all this violence in your household?
	It's so hard for me to think that I grew up in a violent household.
	I don't know. It's hard for me to, even though I know it's true, it's hard for me to process it, which is probably why I'm having the dream.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
	Look, I mean, that's because for you, if you did not grow up In a violent household, Graham, then you were a total bastard as a kid.
	Yeah, that's true. Do you understand?
	Yeah. And I think that the more you let your dad off the hook, and your mom, and your mom, right?
	But the more you let your dad off the hook, the more you, as a seven-year-old, are on the hook.
	Right. Right?
	And the more your dark side...
	Which we all need.
	It's a very essential engine in us, right?
	But the more you let your dad off the hook, the more your dark side remains buried and inaccessible to you, right?
	And that's a big mode of power for you, right?
	And there's a part of you, for sure, that feels like you were a total bastard to your sisters because there's this big blank spot where your father's attacks are, right?
	Yeah, that's true.
	And you can't like yourself that much if you think that you picked on little girls, right?
	Yeah. That does kind of fill in a hole for me a bit.
	Well, tell me what you mean.
	Well... I've been trying to understand why I did pick on my sisters, because it just...
	Sorry, I'm sorry to interrupt you just when I asked you to start talking, but I think that the language that you use is probably not too descriptive, because it sounds a little bit like you did more than pick on them, right?
	Okay. Can you expand on that a little bit?
	Well, you physically attack them too, right?
	Yeah, yeah. That's more than picking on them, right?
	Right. I mean...
	It's like worse, I guess.
	Yeah, I mean, if you did that to an adult, it would be assault, right?
	Yeah. So you assaulted little girls.
	I don't say that to make you feel like a bad guy, though I know it does, but so you can understand that this is what you were taught about what men do.
	Yeah. Right? What do men do?
	They attack people. Which is why you have these pumped up stereotypical guys in the dream, right?
	Yeah. Because they're the wrestlers, right?
	I'm gonna tear you apart!
	You know, those guys, right?
	Yeah. Do you watch wrestling? No.
	Oh, okay. Yeah, I watch MMA, which is probably worse.
	Right. Right, right.
	And that's because you're already in, like when you're attacking your sisters, you're already in your dad's head.
	Like you say you don't like to go there, brother, you've already been there.
	When you watch an MMA, you're in your dad's head, right?
	And the dream is like saying, don't do that without understanding what you're doing.
	It's kind of annoying that defooing doesn't solve all my problems with my dad.
	Bummer, huh? Yeah.
	But the good thing is that the clarity that you're getting, damn it, right?
	It's a horrible clarity. The clarity that you're getting is bringing this conflict to the surface, right?
	Yeah. Because you come across, I mean, I've met you twice, three times personally, right?
	You come across as like the tallest hobbit on the planet.
	You're a total gentle giant, right?
	You're soft-spoken, you're deferential, and you're huge.
	And Christina says adorable.
	So I would go with sexy, sultry.
	Thanks, Christina. Right.
	And what that tells me, of course, is that with the gentle giant persona, it means that the dark side that you've got, you don't have any access to, right?
	Because you're kind of inhibited around yourself, right?
	Because you view yourself a little bit like there's this violence and I've got to not have anything to do with it, right?
	Yeah. Well, it's got something to do with you, right?
	Remember when I was talking in the symposium about when we put the wrongs that we've received in their right place, they don't come rolling back to us?
	Well, this dream is because it's keeping rolling back to you, right?
	That's why it's repetitive. Because you keep putting the wrong on you.
	And I guarantee you, prior to puberty, you did nothing wrong.
	You did nothing wrong.
	Your attacks upon your sisters is your parents' business, not yours.
	Because you own it, right?
	Like, you feel like you did it.
	Yeah, well... No.
	No, no, no. I just say before puberty it's fairly arbitrary, but for sure, that's your parents' business.
	You were physically attacked.
	Your parents' job is to protect your sisters and not to attack you.
	Right?
	So you own it like it's yours.
	You've got to put it Where it belongs, this assault on the helpless, on the young, on the dependent, on the children, which you acted out, which your parents are responsible for, not you.
	Not when you were that young.
	That's why the dream keeps coming back to you.
	Because you're owning what you don't actually own.
	Right? So...
	So it wasn't your fault that you attacked your sisters.
	That's so hard for me to process.
	I know. I know.
	But that's because you don't remember the pressures you were under, and that's what the dream is trying to remind you of, how your dad saw you, like a rapid dog.
	That's a lot of pressure for a kid to be under, that fear, that violence.
	I remember he would always want to raise me when I was younger than him.
	But as soon as I turned 12 or so, he'd never want to race me again.
	Well, and what that means is not that he wanted to race you, but that he wanted to beat you.
	Right. Right?
	To be competitive with your own child is so fucking retarded.
	Yeah. I can't even put it into words.
	You should be a coach.
	You should be a mentor. You should be a friend to your kid.
	I had a problem. And especially only, sorry, especially only when you can win.
	That's sick. Yeah.
	I had a problem with your view of competitiveness, but I think I get it now that if you're in a different league from someone, then it's kind of silly to compete with them because it's just...
	Well, it's insecure, right? Yeah, exactly.
	It's like Pavarotti going to karaoke, you know, entering a karaoke contest.
	It's like, dude, you know, I truly need it.
	And if you're way below someone, then it's just kind of like self-abuse.
	Yeah, for sure. For sure.
	But letting go, right?
	Because your parents, see, your parents blamed you for attacking your sister, right?
	Oh, definitely. Yeah, that's total bullshit.
	Total, complete, unmitigated, big stinking pile of foo manure.
	You were an aggressive kid, right?
	You attacked your sisters.
	You were really hard to manage.
	Boy, they had to work to manage you, right?
	You were a handful, by God, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that's all nonsense.
	That's all self-justifying, self-pitying, one-upmanship crap.
	I remember I got a talk from my dad once, like, how can you...
	Beat up your little sisters when they're so helpless and stuff.
	And I was like, well, the difference between us is less than the difference between me and you.
	I didn't actually say that, but...
	Right, which adds rank hypocrisy to the crime of attacking you, right?
	Which means that he's just evil.
	Right? Because if he knows that attacking helpless, independent children is bad for you, it's a million times worth for him.
	A billion! It's not even on the same spectrum.
	Right? I can see how this has repercussions in other ways, too, because I know my anger is, like, really, really controlled, so I don't really have great access to it all the time.
	So... But with your anger will come other things that you want in your life, right?
	Greater sexual success, greater career success, like all of that stuff.
	Anger is a great and healthy engine for us.
	It is our defense mechanism for our virtue, right?
	It's our immune system for our ethics.
	But unfortunately, you've got your parents' perspective, right, in you.
	You say, well, I don't want to go to my dad's mind, but your dad's mind is that you, Graham, were to blame for attacking your sisters, right?
	Right. But you're already in your dad's mind.
	So I've got to get back in my mind.
	Yeah, you've got to back in my mind and say, you know what?
	I don't take a single shred of responsibility for anything that happened, anything that I did before I was 12.
	Everything that I did before I was 12...
	I got a total, complete, and free get-out-of-jail free card.
	Why? Because I was functionally retarded.
	I was a kid. I was struggling to survive in a hellish environment.
	I take no responsibility for anything that I did before 12, and if bad things went down, it was my parents' fault and my extended family and my teachers.
	put the blame where it belongs in the family, which is the adults, right?
	Greg said I should have been on drugs.
	Yeah.
	I don't know what that means. I saw that.
	Like those kids.
	Oh, I see what you mean.
	Yeah, yeah. No, but you understand.
	Let's not go to that.
	I want you to focus on this thing, right?
	That you got a total get-out-of-jail-free card.
	For everything that happened before you hit puberty.
	And in my view, those of us who went through difficult childhoods can even stretch it out a little bit beyond puberty, right?
	Because we started so far back from the starting block, right?
	That's definitely a big weight off because it's been, like, looking back on my childhood, it's kind of been tearing me up a little bit and thinking about being a jerk.
	It's been tearing you up a lot.
	And I guarantee you that it will come right back to you tomorrow night.
	You will have the same goddamn dream about the dog.
	There's no point in stopping attacking yourself unless you're willing to start attacking your parents.
	Because wrong happened, right?
	Your sisters did get attacked.
	So if you just say, well, I'm going to forgive myself, but I'm not going to blame my parents, then you will get a short-term relief.
	But because you're not putting that black ball in the right pocket, which is your parents' pocket, just come rolling back down to you again.
	Well, I appreciate your inside, Steph.
	It didn't go where I expected it to, but definitely helped me out a lot.
	Well, and one of the things you can do, since it sounds like you're in the conversation with your mom, is you can say, Mom, why do you think I attacked my sisters?
	And why didn't you stop it?
	And why didn't you ever ask me why I was attacking my sisters?
	And why did you allow Dad to do what he did?
	Right. And don't stop them.
	Does she burst into tears and, oh, I'm so sorry?
	Fuck that. That's all about her.
	You got a right to get some sort of answers.
	Not just regret and tears and all that nonsense, right?
	Because your mom will cry and she will say that she was sorry and she didn't understand and she did the best that she could and she didn't know what your dad was really doing.
	Like, you'll just get the endless cavalcade of excuses, right?
	Not because your mom's, like, evil or anything.
	It's just that's what people do when the children confront them, right?
	Yeah. Like, last time she started crying, I just kind of felt cold and manipulated.
	And you know why, right?
	Because I was being manipulated?
	Yeah. And you know what to do because you were in Miami, right?
	Say I'm feeling manipulated?
	I feel cold and I feel manipulated and I feel like you're not listening to me.
	Yeah. Because your mom sent you there so she could hear the truth, right?
	Even though she doesn't want to. That's interesting.
	Oh, it's true. It's true.
	She knew what was going to come back.
	I mean, your whole family needs to be freed from this.
	You've got to be the hero to stand up and speak the truth.
	And just for clarity, since somebody was concerned about this on the chat window, when I said you've got to stop attacking yourself and start attacking your parents, I don't mean, you know, with a club or yelling at them or anything like that.
	But it means the anger that you had formally turned against yourself is infinitely more justly applied to your parents.
	And we don't call the prisoner in the cell who's starving to death anorexic, right?
	Right?
	Thank you.
	We say the prison guards are starving him to death, right?
	Yeah. Well, I mean, you've got a lot to chew on.
	Was there anything else that you wanted to...
	What did you talk about with regards to this?
	I'm pretty satisfied.
	Okay, well, just keep us posted about how it's going, you know?
	I mean, certainly my thoughts are with you.
	I know it seems like a tough hole to crawl out of, but that's the amazing thing about the entire ecosystem of our mind, right?
	That the truth comes out.
	It's insistent, right? The truth is like a dog attacking you, right?
	You've got to submit. And I think that this will give you a huge amount of relief when it comes to feeling like a bad guy, right?
	I hope so. Because it's unjust.
	Bad things happen, but not by you.
	All right. Thanks, Steph. Oh, drop Skype.
	Are we still in? Hello, anybody?
	I hear you. All right.
	So thanks very much, Graham.
	I appreciate that. And I'm not surprised this is coming up to the forefront a little bit after.
	Miami seems to have done some good brain cooking for a number of people.
	So I'm more than happy if somebody else wants to have a question or comment.
	All right.
	Sorry, I'm just going to start with the youngest and most attractive people in the room.
	Christina, did you have anything to say?
	Smooth. Jenna Fonica, did you want to jump in?
	You're a little quiet.
	How about now? Much better.
	Too loud? A little.
	She's coming to talk about how to find the middle ground.
	Is that better? Lean in a little further if you could.
	There? Yeah, good.
	I hate to bring up another foo issue, but Graham brought up some points that hit home to me, so I wanted to talk about some things.
	In the past three months, I would say, I've become increasingly more distracted by memories of my father's behaviors toward me as a child.
	And I'll just be studying for an exam or something and I'll have memories resurface and I will literally have to stop what I'm doing and just distract myself in some extreme way.
	And again, it's been like in the past three months and I'm assuming it's because I've become increasingly self-aware of their wrongdoing and of my innocence back then.
	But I was just wondering what I could do to Can you confront these memories and just stop them?
	Well, first of all, you can't stop them because they're here to help.
	I mean, you can stop them, right?
	There's the aforementioned cocktail of drugs.
	But if you view them as an enemy, then they just won't go away.
	So, I mean, you just have to open your arms and accept them.
	Would it be worthwhile? It's up to you.
	Would it be worthwhile to talk about the content of what it is that your father had done?
	Sure, if you'd like. Go ahead.
	Well, I'll just have memories of him just hitting my sister or abusing me or just getting extremely mad at me.
	I had a tendency when I was little, my dad would say just like degrading things to my mom and I would just naturally try to defend her.
	He would get upset and my mom would get upset at me for trying to defend her and I would get punished and it was just so confusing for me as a child to be punished for trying to defend my mother and I would get hit for it and my sister would get hit to it and it was just...
	I'll just have flashbacks of him hitting my sister or hitting me and it's just horrible.
	I understand. I really do and I'm so sorry.
	What is the status of your family relations at the moment?
	Well, I basically have lived with them until about a year ago.
	But since I was like six years old, I would not speak to my father.
	I wouldn't talk to him.
	And basically the problem lied with me.
	It was my issue.
	Everybody was wondering why Jennifer the bitch didn't speak to her father.
	My mom would send me to shrinks and try to figure out why I was not responding to my father.
	And it was just...
	My problem. I don't really speak to him.
	I grew up just answering him so he wouldn't Get upset at me, but I wouldn't really talk to him.
	Right. It would just be like one word answers, but I've moved out from their house and I see them about once a month for like two hours, but it's strictly like practical and I'm totally aware of the fact that I need to defoo completely from them, but it's just difficult at the moment.
	Sure, I understand. I understand.
	I really do. That's good, actually, because we originally – we had a two-day seminar originally sort of set up for Miami, and most of the second day was the topic, why is Jennifer such a bitch?
	So I'm glad that we didn't have to go down that route.
	That's good. Just kidding.
	Just kidding. So, look, I mean, this is horrible, horrible stuff, and, you know, my heart goes out to you, and I'm going to be annoying nitpicky language guy.
	And just go back and say that you said that it was confusing to you why you would be attacked for defending your mom.
	Right. I doubt it.
	You're a very, very smart woman.
	And you have amazing, amazing emotional intuition, right?
	That you could essentially put in the biosphere bubble young child age six defu with your dad is an incredible, incredible thing.
	Right.
	So I don't think you were confused at all.
	Okay.
	I think you knew exactly what was going on and why you would be attacked for defending your mom, right?
	Right. Well, I say confused simply because I was so young and any reaction on my part would have been unconscious and I don't think I could have expressed clearly what I was doing.
	Well, no, for sure. I understand that.
	I mean, that's a language that we get later in life.
	But, I mean, it sounds like you were just like a completely heroic girl and you were rushing in to defend and...
	I think that what you're confused about is not your father, though, but your mother.
	Right. Does that ring at all true?
	Well, it does, because when I do visit them, most of the time it's just spent talking to my mom and trying to explain to her...
	Why I behave the way I do or why I don't follow her beliefs and her way of thinking.
	But she is just, intellectually, she is just so dumb.
	And she just cannot understand.
	For example, I was talking to her yesterday about core beliefs and I just felt so stupid after because she just had no understanding of what I was saying after just a one-hour conversation with her.
	She just completely did not understand my point.
	I was telling her about core beliefs and she asked me what my core belief was and I said, That's private and I'm not ready to speak about that with you yet.
	And she responded and she just said, Oh, do you mean sex?
	And it's just so dumb.
	She wasn't listening to anything I was saying.
	She just said, She just heard private and she thought sex.
	It's just totally irrational, not making sense, not listening to me.
	Okay. Do you mind if I'm a nitpicky guy again?
	Definitely. I guarantee that your mom totally got it.
	I guarantee you that your mom gets it even more deeply than you do at the moment.
	And I guarantee you that her response was completely rational.
	Right. Even though it did not follow at all.
	Well, that is completely rational based on what she wants to do, right?
	Correct. Yeah.
	So what was she up to? Why did she give you such a non sequitur?
	She was just trying to evade the point.
	Yeah. So how come your mom gets away with not protecting you when you were five?
	Right, because you don't speak to your dad, right?
	And your dad's evil, stone evil guy.
	but how is it that the woman who married him and gave him children and didn't protect you is somebody that you want to instruct on core beliefs?
	I guess I feel some sort of pity toward her.
	And did you learn pity because she had a lot of pity towards you when you were a child?
	Is that where you learned this pity from?
	Absolutely not. Okay, so you have no reason to feel pity towards her.
	So why do you feel pity towards her?
	This is something that I've been discussing with Chris a lot lately.
	And it's just, I understand what I'm supposed to do and I know what I should do.
	But for some reason, I just feel like she's helpless.
	Totally helpless. And she was put into that situation.
	And of course, that doesn't excuse her behavior ever.
	And why do you think she's helpless?
	Is she paralyzed?
	Is she... Like, is she functionally retired?
	Like, I'm just trying to understand. How is it that she's helpless?
	Like, does she not know how to dial 911 when your father would attack her?
	Was the service not around?
	Is she in the Middle Ages?
	No, she's perfectly capable.
	Okay, so she's not helpless. I mean, just going by the facts, right?
	Right. So she's not helpless, right?
	No, not at all.
	So, and she's certainly not helpless.
	Like, whenever you bring stuff up about your family, she knows exactly how to dodge it, right?
	How to evade it, how to minimize it.
	And we know that because you are still bringing up stuff about your past, right?
	Right. Now, does she know enough to blame you or your father for not speaking?
	Sorry, who does she blame, you or your father, for you not speaking to your father?
	Me. Right.
	Right. That's pretty sophisticated, right?
	Of course. So she's not dumb, right?
	No, she isn't.
	I just did a podcast recently with a guy.
	Maybe somebody could type in the chat window the name of it.
	It's called Mike Tyson Girl Guide.
	And it's about a guy who underestimates his own mom.
	Right? So she knows exactly that she should be pinning the blame on you.
	And as you say, when you talk to her, this is a repetitive topic of conversation, right?
	So she's constantly trying to take this black ball of evil and give it to who?
	Right? You're the bad daughter.
	You should understand.
	You should sympathize. You should move on.
	You should let go of the past. You should embrace love.
	You should blah, blah, blah. Right?
	Am I wildly off?
	No, not at all. So she knows exactly what strategy to take to avoid her own culpability, right?
	And as long as she's bringing up your dad, what are you not doing?
	What do you mean?
	Well, as long as she's bringing up your relationship with your father and getting you cranked up about that and distracted by that...
	What relationship are you not talking about?
	My mother's and mine.
	Yes. Because you got closure with your dad when you were six, right?
	Yeah, that's over. But you got no closure with your mom, right?
	She's doing this expert puppet string thing with you, right?
	She's kept you stringing along for 20 years after your dad did, right?
	And she's helpless? And she's dumb?
	If she's dumb, why are you dancing to her tune?
	Because you're not dumb, right?
	You're absolutely not dumb.
	You were smarter at six than I was at 36.
	So without a doubt, you're brilliant, right?
	Yes. It's just hard to believe that, or just hard to conceive of her agenda of just completely disregarding everything I say simply to keep the family quote-unquote together.
	But she's not disregarding anything that you say.
	She's completely and totally listening to you with every fiber of her being.
	Because she knows exactly when to change the topic, exactly when to play dumb, exactly when to redirect, exactly when to blame you.
	She's listening with every atom of her brain.
	Because you don't accidentally abuse a child for 20 years and have that child come back for more, especially a child as intelligent and morally perceptive as you.
	That doesn't go 20 years past when it should because your mom is dumb or doesn't listen.
	She is playing you like a fiddle.
	And the playing dumb is fantastic, right?
	Because she's got you coming over and ignoring the past, which is exactly what she needs, right?
	Doesn't benefit you to be told that you should be a good daughter and talk to your dad, right?
	That you're cold and mean and a bitch and this and that.
	It doesn't benefit you to hear that, right?
	So who does it benefit to believe that you're not a great daughter?
	Right. So she's got you coming back for this conversation every month, right?
	To fill her up. To justify her.
	To pity her. To forgive her.
	To reinforce the fantasy that she was a victim.
	That she had no control.
	But somehow you, as a six-year-old kid, should have.
	Right? She's brilliant.
	She's got you coming back to suck the venom out of her soul every month.
	At your expense.
	At your expense. That doesn't sound dumb to me.
	It doesn't sound virtuous, but it sure doesn't sound dumb.
	Absolutely not.
	She's not helpless. She's not stupid.
	She's a puppet mistress.
	Right? Don't underestimate the parent who gets away.
	The parent who gets away is the better abuser.
	Your mother is a much more skilled abuser than your father.
	Because he got caught.
	Thank you.
	And she keeps getting away.
	You know, she's like going through the ducts like smoke to pick up the diamonds, right?
	He's just driving a Brink's truck through the front.
	Of the diamond store. And he's getting caught.
	He got caught. He's been in jail for 20 years.
	She's still getting away with it.
	She's the ultimate cat burglar.
	The parent that gets away is a much better abuser than the one we know of.
	That's an interesting way to put it.
	Interesting how.
	Because if it doesn't hit you emotionally, right, then interesting doesn't mean much, at least to me.
	No, of course it does.
	Of course it does. I mean, that's exactly the clarity I was looking for.
	Yeah, the guy who punches you in the face you can get away with, right?
	The woman who just drips a little venom in your coffee every day?
	That's the person who'll really fuck you up, right?
	Mm-hmm. Was this helpful?
	Yeah, sorry. I'm just reflecting.
	No, no problem. I don't want to, you know, I'll try.
	My new year's resolution is to try and stop talking when I've said what I need to say.
	So we'll get the three-minute podcast underway soon.
	That's the next plan.
	But is there anything else you wanted?
	Do you want to sort of go chew this one over?
	Or is there anything else you wanted to talk about with this?
	Yeah, it was just basically just those memories that I'm having just constantly.
	And they're just about my father and not about my mother, so...
	They're totally about your mother and your father.
	But I think more about your mother.
	Right. Because your mother saw your father abusing you, right?
	Right. And did what?
	Did she even put down the nail file?
	Like, how did this happen? Oh, no.
	Right? So, when you observe your father abusing you in your mind's eye...
	That's what your mom saw.
	And you need to understand what it's like to be in the mindset of somebody who can look at that and do nothing.
	And maybe even get off on it a little.
	No, seriously, I mean, this is hard for us naturally decent people to get our heads around.
	But... Your mother didn't just, it's not a drive-by shooting that she didn't stop down, that she didn't slow down for, right?
	She married this sicko.
	She gave him children.
	She probably, in fact, I guarantee you, that she enjoyed watching you get abused.
	And we know that because it didn't stop, right?
	So there's a lot of sadism and masochism and sociopathy and screwed up, messed up, sicko stuff going on here, right?
	But you're horrified by what happened to you, but you already know that.
	So I would bet you that these visions are occurring because you're not getting that your mother saw exactly what you're seeing and horrifies you.
	She saw that and liked it.
	I just got shivers.
	That's disgusting.
	It is, but it's a fact.
	And she's still doing it!
	Every time you go over there and she takes this ball of shit that was the evil in your family and dumps it on you, she's getting off on it again.
	Okay, Steph, that was very helpful.
	Well...
	It's like, okay, enough!
	Enough! No, I could keep going on for hours.
	Are you bleeding from the eyeballs yet, or should we keep going?
	Just from the ears. Okay.
	Good. Was that useful?
	I'm sorry if I was a bit aggressive, but I just wanted to...
	I was just searching for that. I needed to hear that...
	I wasn't being totally irrational by defooing my mother completely, which obviously I'm not, but...
	Yeah, I mean, you know, go have the conversation with her if you like, but...
	Yeah, I mean, you know what's going to happen, right?
	Right. But, you know, if you have doubts, then for sure.
	But, oh, yeah, look, I mean, I know the practicalities that, I mean, we all have this.
	I mean, you more than certainly me when I was in my 30s.
	But it is – there are always horrible complications.
	I had a relationship with my nieces and all these complications.
	I was in business with my brother and all that.
	But, oh, yeah, no, you've got to just let this – this black history has got to go.
	Got to get out of your life, right?
	It's just financial practicality that I have to deal with right now.
	Did you ever listen to the podcast where I talked about the economic arguments for the DFU? Yes, I did.
	Yeah, might want to listen to that again.
	You know, just as a thought, right?
	I guarantee you that the financial practicalities won't work.
	It's costing you much more than you're ever going to get at it.
	I have a four-year max time limit.
	But it's just these thoughts that are constantly resurfacing and making it worse and making me think that I can't go on for four more years.
	Is it because of college?
	Well, I'm in medical school right now.
	Sorry, I'm just putting you down for massive future donations.
	Okay. Absolutely.
	Hang on. I'm giving you the ka-ching icon.
	Okay. Absolutely.
	You should stay with your parents and have them get you through medical school so you can really hit your earning potential.
	Wait, sorry. Christina's twisting my ear.
	Apparently, that's not what I think.
	Okay, go on. It's all for you, Steph.
	All of it. That's right.
	I'm enduring the pain to help you.
	Free medical care.
	Yeah. Talk to me, babe. Absolutely.
	Absolutely. No, because look, now that Christina doesn't work at a hospital, you would not believe how tough it is for her to get my medications.
	I mean, talk about it. I get a horse needle.
	Anyway, so yeah, look, I mean, I understand that, but your exams, these interfering thoughts and so on, that's your unconscious way of saying it's time, right?
	To get out, yeah. Yeah, because I mean, if it were truly the best course of action, this is the weird level of self-trust that we need to get with ourselves.
	If it was truly the best course of action, you wouldn't be having these visions.
	Because your unconscious would be like, hey, we're going to suppress all this shit so you can get through the exams and then we'll do it, right?
	But the fact that it's happening now means that it's right to happen now.
	I mean, it's weird. It's true.
	But it's true. We have these incredible, wise tribes within us.
	Right. But...
	I just want to milk these bastards for all they're worth.
	Well, and you can do that.
	You really can.
	But you've got to be conscious.
	Right. Oh, which I definitely am.
	But now more so about my mother than I was before.
	So it's much... Well, but that's the issue, right?
	You can go, you can cut down your visits to an hour every two months, and you can bore them to tears with stories of your medical school escapades, the really boring ones, you know?
	And then the library was a little stuffy, and I wasn't sure whether I should stay or not, and then it was a little cloudy, and I had some bread.
	I think that's cool. You could just bore the pants out of them, right?
	And expose nothing of yourself.
	And don't talk to your mother about core beliefs.
	My core belief is I'm evil.
	I mean, she's not going to go with that, right?
	Right. My core belief is that I sacrificed my children to sadism.
	You know, you've got to go there like you're a Sherman tank.
	They see nothing.
	They hear nothing. You're a cipher.
	You're like that fog of lost.
	Expose nothing to these people.
	Go in. Christina had this down to a fine art.
	She actually turned into a kind of mist when she passed through her parents' door.
	It was incredible. She didn't even need to open the door.
	She'd just kind of fog up and slither through the keyhole.
	It was really cool and kind of sexy.
	But you've got to go there and expose nothing to their sadists.
	You don't say to the torturer, hey, that doesn't hurt.
	It really hurts when you do this, though.
	Definitely. Give them nothing.
	If you're going to go, give them nothing.
	Alright. Yeah, that's a really good idea.
	Yeah, just ask them questions.
	There's nothing wrong with going to your parents and asking questions about, hey, how did you guys meet?
	And what was your date? What was your dating like?
	That's torturous. No, but get a view of what, you know, because you still don't see your mom, so map her out.
	Go over and just ask her questions.
	Expose nothing of yourself.
	Imagine like you're Mike Wallace on steroids, you know?
	Just go ask questions, ask questions, ask questions.
	Map out how she thinks.
	I mean, she's narcissistic.
	She had no problem talking about herself, right?
	Mm-hmm. But you can go and mine her for information.
	That's all great stuff, right?
	And get the money and ka-ching and great.
	But for God's sake, don't go talking and say, hey, I learned this real-time relations stuff.
	Want to try it out? I'm just so eager to use it.
	I understand. I really do.
	I really do. But don't.
	No, with them, right?
	Don't with them. That's no good, right?
	People have to earn the real-time relationship, right?
	I'm just working on this sort of idea, right?
	But if you lend me 500 bucks, then I got to pay you back 500 bucks.
	But that doesn't mean that everyone in the world owes you 500 bucks, right?
	It's part of a relationship.
	There's a trust relationship that you grow.
	RTR, it's like love. It's like sex.
	It's got to be earned. Okay, I'll give that a try and I'll keep you posted.
	Okay, and remember, PayPal is the S dot...
	No, I'm just kidding. All right, you go and you up your earning potential.
	That's good stuff. Okay, thanks.
	Thank you, Steph. You're very welcome.
	You're very welcome. All right, so we had Greg Yvonne M. Was that right?
	He had a question? Okay.
	Yeah, yeah. This is what I was mentioning to you last night, and I think I can actually toss it out of the way right now to save time.
	I've been doing a lot of thinking about it, and I'd really like to just sort of run through an email that I got yesterday that made me very...
	Well, first I felt sick, like the gut feeling, and then I felt insulted, and then I felt angry, just to give the background.
	Now, you don't have a stutter, do you?
	No. Because you're kind of cutting out quite a lot.
	Oh, okay. Yeah, I can just say I felt first.
	Is this better? Here. Seems to be, yeah.
	Okay. I felt first sick, then insulted, and with the insultedness came anger.
	Right. So can I just read?
	Yeah. The email?
	Yeah. Hello?
	Hello. Hello.
	Okay, so can I just read the email?
	Are you on the board here?
	Like the message thing?
	Yeah, paste it in there and I'll read it just because you're cutting out a lot.
	Oh, okay. You can do it.
	You can whisper it to me so nobody else can see it.
	All right. Good.
	That's good. Stop downloading porn.
	Actually, sorry. What he means is stop uploading porn to Steph.
	But it's six of one, half a dozen, a dozen of the other.
	It's just really hard to get that good goat stuff.
	Anyway. Okay, so this is the email.
	I'm sorry to bypass you just so that we...
	It says, Hey, I've actually had this nagging thought in the back of my mind for a little while, which means I should have brought this up sooner, and I noticed it more last night.
	I actually didn't decide to say something until after the conversation when Bob said in passing, I felt like I was talking to Steph, which is just a side note, he said, completely casually as an observation.
	The podcast, books, board are all great and are obviously an awesome source, resource, I think he means.
	However, I've come to develop this annoying mental twitch when talking with you sometimes.
	Like, I'll get irritated because I feel you're just, you're using the exact same cadence or rhythm in your speeches as Steph, or you'll use the same interjections or phrases in the same manner, like, right, or just curious, or there's a gun in the room, and stuff like that.
	Those are pretty common phrases that you have every right to use.
	There's just something about it.
	It's not that you're saying them.
	It's sort of something in the way or behind the way you say them.
	I don't know what that means. Sometimes I almost get the feeling that I'm talking with a podcast.
	Podcast, I guess. I mean...
	The actual references, it's interesting that I'm actually reading an email that somebody's complaining about how he sounds like me, but I'm reading it.
	It's kind of very meta.
	Anyway, well, meta narrative. To continue, I mean the actual references you use are pretty good, and I obviously think that he's an excellent source, resource.
	It's just, I feel like you're Crutching on FDR in more than a great idea sauce kind of thing.
	Like as a cradle to wrap yourself in and then using that shroud to project to the world as you or something.
	Almost as if you've copied and pasted Steph FDR on top of yourself.
	With the instability and trying to heal, I know you're going to need a crutch on something or someone.
	I mean, we all do. It's just that this stuff has been really irritating me.
	My thoughts about it included maybe you were transferring that crutch to the therapist you're planning on seeing because that's a real relationship where he'll see you often, know basically everything about you, and who you can interact with.
	What do you think? So, go ahead.
	Well, obviously, I'm going to keep open the possibility.
	Am I cutting out now? It's not too bad.
	Okay, should I maybe switch to my Mac internal mic?
	Maybe that could... No, it's not a mic thing.
	It's a bandwidth thing. But go on.
	It's not too bad at all. Alright, I'll close out of Gmail.
	I don't know. Okay, so while I felt first sick just reading it, I can't quite touch that.
	It was a kick in the gut. One of those instant emotions you feel.
	Yeah, I know, and you're totally right to feel that in my view, but go on.
	And then with the insult and anger, because if it's not true, which I don't think it is, I mean, you've talked to me several times.
	I do have a bit of a cadence and rhythm to my speech, but it's not like I'm thinking, must speak in cadence, must speak in cadence.
	That's just how I speak.
	And with the right and just curious, and there's a gun in the room, I don't think those are necessarily bad things to say because I try to be more curious and try to be more responsive during conversations with the right and stuff like that.
	So it was insulting because as someone on the chat said, it's implying that I'm just not thinking about what you're saying, just being a parrot.
	Yeah, right. Yeah, no, I understand.
	Go on. So, and then the whole email seems to be like a...
	I didn't see much curiosity in it.
	You didn't see much curiosity.
	Can you tell me where you did see curiosity?
	What do you think at the very end?
	Yeah, that's not curiosity.
	Okay. You can't say to people, here are all of my insinuations and conclusions.
	What do you think? Right?
	Like, if you punch someone three times, and then you bring them a cocoa, you're not a waiter.
	But an assaulter, right?
	Right. And I was talking with a couple people on the chat last night about this just to see what I could think about this and what they could help me process.
	And one thing that we came to is...
	That I have listened to listener conversations with you, and I do hear that you say, well, I'm just curious.
	Can you tell me a little more about this?
	And then I've tried that out empirically in my own life, and it's worked well.
	So that has become in my vocabulary.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, I mean, God, don't we, like, do what works, right?
	I mean, every time I use the phrase, the best predictor of future behavior is relevant past behavior, do I have to send five bucks to Dr.
	Phil? No, because it's just a sensible way of looking at things and explaining them.
	Right. So I felt like this person was saying, I'm feeling irritation about what you're doing, so change what you're doing.
	I'm sorry, can you just say that last bit again?
	I'm feeling irritation, so you should change what you're doing.
	And what's very revealing is that it's not that this person is saying crutches are bad, it's just that Steph crutch is bad.
	Well, I don't even know that he's made any kind of case for the crutch thing, right?
	It's a she, by the way, if that's relevant.
	Well, it was saying...
	Let me try to find it.
	No, no, I mean, I know that she said it's a crutch, right?
	Yeah. But I don't know that saying something is a crutch proves that it's a crutch, right?
	Right, right, right. Because let's say that FDR is a total crutch, right?
	And you're completely mimicking me, like I've got my hand up your ass making a hand move, right?
	And don't clench, by the way.
	It's a painful circulation.
	But let's say all of that's true, right?
	That you are involved in this brain-irradiating FDR infection that is completely wiping out your true personality and is replacing it with BCF chattybox head, right?
	Let's say all of that's true.
	Yeah. Well, if that's true, And she wants to help you.
	That needs to be approached very delicately, right?
	Because it would mean that you have such an unstable sense of yourself that you just, you're like zalig, you morph or you just merge into somebody else, right?
	Lose your identity completely, right?
	That would be indicative of a pretty significant lack of identity in you, right?
	Right? Correct.
	Right now, and again, I don't think it's true, but let's say it is completely true.
	Rebuilding somebody's shattered sense of identity, if what they do is glom on to other people and never think for themselves and, you know, just find a cult leader or whatever, if that were the case with you, it would literally require years of intensive therapy to rebuild your sense of self, right? Because you would be empty.
	You would be so broken as a human being That you'd be just trembling on the brink of a nervous breakdown pretty continually, right?
	Because you wouldn't have any identity.
	Right. So, if she's right, this would be the very worst thing she could do.
	If she's wrong, it's insulting.
	If she's right...
	Saying it this way, pointing it out directly, would be the very worst thing that she could do.
	If you lack an identity and you glom onto people and so on, right?
	Then just saying to someone like that, you lack an identity and you just glom onto people, is going to provoke all the defenses, the flight, the rage.
	It's going to destabilize the person even more, right?
	Right. Like, if somebody's a coward and you say, well, you're just a coward, what are they going to do?
	What are they going to do if I tell them they're a coward?
	Yeah. Well, they'll act in a cowardly way.
	Yeah, they'll either lash out or they'll withdraw.
	You're provoking all of their defenses by putting your finger right on the sore spot, right?
	Right, which is why in one of the early 300 podcasts you said...
	No one tells your mother that she doesn't take responsibility for her own life because she doesn't take responsibility for her own life.
	Right. If you really were this pathological, then this is the worst thing that she could do because if she wanted to really help you, then the important thing is not that she sees this.
	What's the important thing? That I see it.
	Right. And if you really are this unstable and defensive and lack the ability to think for yourself, if she just blurs this at you, you, if this were true, you would just get rid of her from your life.
	You would just say, fuck you.
	Block her email, right? Because she would have hit the spot.
	She would have gotten way too close to home with no preparation in an email, no less.
	Not even taking the time to have a conversation with you, right?
	Right. Be like emailing your best friend and saying, your wife's a bitch, you should leave her.
	Right? Can you see how deranged that would be?
	If you care, then at least pick up the phone and talk the person through it so that they understand.
	And it may take weeks or months and it will require curiosity and you won't even know what's happening until way afterwards.
	Does that make sense? Right.
	Like how your podcasts drip slowly to talk to the true self rather than just bam.
	Yeah. I mean, it's like the Chinese water torture of irritating insights, right?
	Right. And actually, just to update you, I mean, my hands are really sweating right now.
	I don't know if that's relevant, but I'm just updating you on my emotional response right now.
	No, I don't doubt it, right?
	Because what I'm pointing out is that this is an attack designed to destabilize you and make you feel insecure.
	That's why you got the bam, right?
	Why? Because you got bammed!
	Right. It wasn't even, I mean, it was an attempt, but it wasn't even like a failed attempt.
	It worked. Well, it's good that it works.
	You want it to work. No, I mean it worked that it made me feel insecure briefly.
	Yeah, but you want that.
	That's good. Don't fight that.
	Because now you know where you stand with this person, right?
	Yeah, and actually my first instinct after I read it and sort of thought about it for a few minutes was Okay, I need to call her in a real-time relationship.
	But then I realized it was an impossible situation because if I call her and say, now I'm just curious, I'm feeling this, that will be in a way validating to her what she was saying because RTR is a Stephian.
	Right, right. Yeah, Steph told me to respond to your accusation that I always talk like Steph in this way.
	Yeah, because she's very, as you can see, she's pretty well-versed in FDR and even sees it as a great resource and is familiar with it and she knows about RTR. So if I call her and start using RTR, she'll instantly get that I'm using something that's the topic of Steph's new book.
	Yeah, well, I mean, if you wanted to call her, though, you would...
	I mean, you weren't at the conference, but grab the audio when it comes out, because you can reverse RTR people, right?
	Well, you don't tell them what you feel, but you just try to get them to No, just left-click on the area.
	The point is to keep asking them how they feel.
	You can RTR by not talking about how you feel, but by asking, you know, what was it that you felt when, like, when did this idea about me and FDR first come to you, and what did you feel That prompted you to sit down and write this letter, and what was the intended goal?
	Like, what were you hoping to achieve?
	Like, you can just ask them questions and not reveal a damn thing about yourself, right?
	Right. Yeah.
	I see that, and...
	Yeah.
	I can understand that, but it's tough to see that.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure. Like you said before about, now I see where I stand.
	Well, look, this woman does not want to help you.
	I guarantee you that. Because if she wanted to help you, she'd have picked up the phone, and it would have been a conversation that lasted on and off over days, and only towards the end would you go, oh, I get it.
	I glommed onto FDR. And you would get it, right?
	Or, conversely, With the curiosity, she'd realize, oh, wow, now I understand why he's using those phrases.
	Right. Or she would say, you know what, the whole FDR thing makes me feel anxious because I think that it's kind of putting a demand on me to do things, and I'd rather peel you away from that conversation than have you peel me further towards it because then it puts me in the spotlight with my own family.
	Right. So I kind of wanted to turn you off the conversation, and I put this kind of vaguely – well, not even vaguely, but mostly insulting email about your lack of intellectual integrity and your lack – and the thing that's the problem is that what the fuck does it mean to say you're using some kind of wrong cadence?
	You know, it's exactly the same as saying, oh, RTR – sorry, UPB is wrong because it's not the right font.
	Right. I can understand, like, if, hypothetically, I were, like, using your exact argument and just, like, reciting podcasts.
	I mean, I can understand that, but, I mean, you can tell when I'm talking with you, I think, that it would be pretty damn hard every hour of the day to try to speak like you.
	I mean... I do, as I said at the very beginning of this chat, I do talk in a credential way.
	Yeah, but see, even if you were reciting my podcast, the very worst thing that you could say to someone like that is, hey, you're just reciting Steph's podcast.
	Don't you have a thought of your own?
	Right, you'd say, well, tell me about this whole FDR thing for you.
	Like, I'm really, really interested.
	Tell me, you know, what lights you up about it?
	What do you find frustrating about it?
	What has been the toughest part of that thing?
	Like, you just ask questions.
	Yes. You wouldn't sit there and say, oh, you're just parroting Steph.
	That's just abusive, in my opinion.
	Right, the curiosity that isn't there.
	Yeah, you don't just sort of say, I think that you're a parrot, just parroting Steph with no thoughts of your own.
	What do you think? And call that curiosity.
	Because she's already got all these conclusions, right?
	And she's not talking about her feelings.
	And she's talking about your experience, which is invalid.
	We can only talk about her.
	I can't tell you what you experience.
	I can tell you what I think or what I feel.
	She's also... Not arguing against any of the positions that you're putting forward, right?
	It is, just to stop you, well, I'll answer that and then go back.
	No, she's not in this email.
	Well, and has she argued against other things in other emails?
	Well, the debate that spurred this, for what it's worth, was a social contract argument.
	Right, and do you know much about her family history?
	Yes. And has she experienced any kind of manipulation or denigration intellectually in her own household?
	I don't know. I can't say about that, but it wouldn't surprise me.
	Okay. Well, I mean, obviously it's not about whether you're parroting FDR, right?
	She's just trying to make you queasy.
	And why is she trying to make you queasy?
	Because she's feeling queasy.
	Now, why is she feeling queasy?
	We don't know. But we do know that her response to queasiness is to try and infect you.
	Right. Because it's easier to infect me than it is to look into herself.
	Yeah. I mean, this is like a test, right?
	This is like a test.
	The children need boundaries. This is a very early part of her life, but it's combined with an adult language sophistication and manipulation, right?
	So... What she's doing is she's saying, I think that FDR does not make you more authentic, but less authentic, right?
	And the reason that she's doing that is she wants to know how you're going to react.
	If you react with doubt, with insecurity, with like, oh yeah, maybe you're right, maybe I'm just parroting Steph, maybe I haven't had my own thought and Steph's even taking my shits from me, right?
	God knows sometimes after Indian food it feels like that, but...
	But if that's true, then she's going to come back and say, wow, fantastic, I don't have to follow this philosophical conversation because even a guy who's really into it doubts, right?
	Whereas if you come back and say, no, that's not the case.
	Right? Then she's got something.
	I don't know. It's up to you, right? But if you value this relationship, then she's got something more firm to hang on to, right?
	Which is that you're not cowed by manipulation.
	People just try this shit all the time.
	Half the time that you're talking to people, they're setting up trial balloons to see, is he going to fall for this bullshit?
	No? Okay. I got this bullshit.
	Will he fall for that? Okay.
	No? No? Okay. I got this fog.
	I got this bullshit. I got this little bit of poison.
	I'm going to try all this shit on him to see if it works or not.
	And when you stay sort of firm in those conversations, and it doesn't mean aggressive or anything like that, then what happens is people drop their box of manipulative tricks.
	They drop their evil magician's box of Black pigeons and endless silk scarves and all those annoying little card tricky things.
	And then you can have a real relationship with them.
	But most times when you're talking to people that you've not met before or first, they're just trying all this bullshit on you to see if you'll fall for it.
	And this to me is just a kind of bullshit.
	She's trying on you to see if you'll fall for it.
	And if you don't and you value the relationship, then You can just say, no, I don't think that your analysis is true, but I'm certainly interested in understanding why you would have sent that email to me.
	Right. So point out that I don't agree with her analysis, because I don't, and then say, I'm curious what your goal was in writing this email to me.
	Just tell me, you know, what was your goal could sound aggressive, but just say, well, you know, when did you start to think that I was, and you don't even have to say I disagree with your analysis, but you can say, when was it that you started to think that I was under the sway of the bald, freckly guy from Canada?
	And what was it that, like, how would it make you feel if that were true?
	And all of that kind of stuff.
	stuff.
	You can just ask her.
	Now, if she's honest, then you may then feel, and you'll know if it feels right, you can then be honest about your feelings with her.
	But if she's not honest, she says, well, look, I'm just trying to help you because I think you're getting swallowed up by this cult.
	And if she won't reveal anything about her own emotional experience that's authentic, then you're just like, okay, bye.
	Right.
	And I think that's part of my sweaty palms.
	Yes.
	Well, no, but you don't have to reveal anything about yourself.
	Your sweaty palms are based on, shit, now I've got to go and tell her how angry this email made me.
	And now I'm fucked, because the moment I tell her that I'm angry, she's going to say, oh, so I guess you're angry because I questioned the great Steph?
	Or, oh, I think, so you're just using RTR because that's what you've read in Steph's books.
	Right, so you're then in a trap.
	Oh god, there's no way out, right?
	It's a trap! Yeah.
	But there's no trap when you just ask people how they feel.
	Right, right. Yeah, how did you feel after you sent it?
	You know, tell me a little bit about your history, right?
	And you can say, like, maybe you're right.
	Maybe she's right. Maybe this is a massive cult and it's, you know, it's the worst cult in history, but maybe everybody's right.
	So you can be open to that, right?
	I mean, maybe I'm parroting myself.
	I'm actually a small Asian gardener.
	I don't know. But...
	It's okay for that theory to be right, but you've got to try and say, okay, but help me understand your history with this.
	Did you ever fall into this kind of stuff where you parrot someone else?
	Or what happened in your family where you brought up intellectual life?
	Just map out her world, where she's coming from, to find out if she's being objective.
	So she's either being objective or she's giving her subjective experience of me as objective fact.
	Well, her subjective experience of her own history, right?
	She's either projecting, or she's just anxious and trying to manage her anxiety by screwing you up.
	Or she's right, and I do have my hand up your ass.
	You know, you can figure it out by talking with her, right?
	But it's no, you know, if you go in like, oh, well, that's an interesting theory.
	Tell me more about sort of how you came by it.
	And, you know, you don't have, what's your proof?
	It doesn't have to be antagonistic.
	You can just be curious about. And I guarantee you, within like five minutes...
	It'll be very clear what her history is that prompted her to do this, and either then she'll admit it, in which case she's a valuable and honest person that you should keep close to you, or she won't, and she'll accuse you of trying to manipulate her, in which case don't let your hand linger too long before getting to the eject button.
	Great. Well, yeah, this helped.
	That was just, I think, what I needed.
	Yeah, don't be frightened of traps because you can always just ask people what they were thinking and feeling and then there's no trap, right?
	People can't get mad at you for asking what they're thinking and feeling, right?
	I mean, they can, but then it's just like, oh, life's way too short for this shit, right?
	And I think that's what I'm scared of.
	Yeah, because you think, well, now this person who's kind of shot, who's been kind of dangerous in this email, now I've got to go and reveal myself to this person.
	Holy shit, I don't want to do that.
	Right. But you don't have to.
	You've got to figure out where she's coming from, right?
	Correct, yeah. Does she have your best interest at heart, or is she playing some shit out from her own childhood at your expense?
	Until you've established that beyond a shadow of a doubt, I wouldn't reveal a damn thing about myself to this person.
	Great, all right, well...
	So what you're saying about I'll know is just what you've said to me in previous call-ins, just monitor my own...
	Yeah, what's my experience?
	Do I feel this conversation getting lighter and better, or do I feel myself getting more baffled, confused, and irritated?
	Right. And then act on that.
	Yeah, and you don't know. The real-time relationship doesn't mean, like, it's about action, too.
	You don't just have to sit there and say, well, I'm getting baffled and confused and irritated, and what do you feel like?
	If you're really not enjoying the conversation, you can make your polite excuses, you know?
	Oh, shit, my ferret attacking my leg.
	I'll have to call you back. All right.
	Well, thanks. This was illuminating.
	I'll definitely keep in touch about this.
	Yeah, please let me know what goes on.
	And I think that you're totally right to feel caution.
	And the first RTR is with yourself, right?
	The first RTR is, do I want to do RTR with this person, right?
	Right. Yeah, yeah.
	Great. Well, thanks so much.
	You're very, very welcome. Bye.
	All right. And yes, it's very true.
	Audacity does suck. All right.
	The Divine Missy had a question, or was it just rabid praise of my tan?
	It's always hard to tell. It's rapid praise of your tan, absolutely.
	I think lobster red is absolutely your color, Steph.
	It's not quite... Sorry, just to correct you a little bit.
	It's not exactly lobster.
	As I mentioned at the conference, after seeing the first pictures posted, it was the Florida Tomato Growers Association who actually want me as their mascot.
	So I certainly would have been happy to go with the lobster people, but those claws make it really hard to get my hand up Greg's ass.
	So we'll have to go...
	Oh, I got Christina with that one.
	It's too bad you weren't drinking something.
	Get a nice nasal snot of cappuccino.
	But sorry, go on. Oh, you just hurt me.
	It's nothing Greg would have gone through.
	Okay, I hope you're going to edit all of this out.
	Good lord, no, this is actually, this is going to be the entire, everything else is going to get thrown out.
	This is what it's all about for me.
	It's all this annoying psychological and philosophical crap that I have to get through just to get to the karaoke, bad karaoke and stupid jokes.
	That's everything else is filler.
	There you go. You should make a blooper reel.
	I'd pay good money for that.
	125 euros.
	But anyway, I've had a feeling that I can't quite identify and I was hoping to throw some tomatoes at it and see what sticks.
	So I posted the email that I got from my aunt on the board.
	She basically said, oh, your mother's going through such a difficult time, and if you could just send her a couple of words via me, it would brighten her day so very, very much.
	And we were having a debate before the call started about whether that means that my aunt knows that I'm no longer speaking to my mother or not, but that's not finally the point.
	What I began to think about, though, was since my aunt wants to establish herself as the I don't know, the communications channel between my mother and me, she's kind of continuing a pattern that I've noticed so much in my family, which is that everyone sort of ends up infantilizing my mother.
	And I've done this to a degree myself, especially, oddly enough, when I was younger.
	But, I don't know, just seeing it again in that form sort of brought home a feeling like, I don't know, I don't actually pity my mother because, you know, it's my mother and she's pretty stone evil.
	But I guess just realizing that I have such a loathing for, you know, what my aunt and uncle and other folks have done, and yet I've realized that I've sort of done the same thing myself.
	It's like, I don't know, am I a little bit evil too?
	I think the question is a little bit...
	Just kidding.
	Okay, so if I understand this right, you're feeling a kind of something-something which we'll try and figure out, which is to do with behavior that you loathe in other people you have exhibited yourself?
	Right, exactly. And that behavior is the infantilizing of your mother, right?
	Yes. Well, this might actually be a relatively short one.
	I could be wrong. But what happens to your mother or what does your mother do when people don't infantilize her but treat her as a responsible adult who has made all the choices that she wanted to in her life?
	I've never actually seen anyone do that.
	Yeah, but you know exactly what would happen if somebody did, right?
	That's why nobody does. Oh, yeah.
	I mean, she would probably get extremely resentful.
	Wow, that's very Weasley.
	She would probably get extremely resentful.
	Yeah, I don't think that's it, to be honest with you.
	Okay. I don't know what more to say, frankly.
	Extremely resentful is... Like, not true, right?
	She's your mom, right?
	So when you're a kid and your mother has all the power in the world over you, if you treated her as a responsible adult, I don't think that resentment would be what would flow out of her mouth.
	I'm kind of at a loss.
	That's good. That means either I'm completely wrong or I'm completely right.
	Let's find out, shall we?
	It's probably the latter.
	I have a very large blind spot, which, you know, that's just what it is.
	Well, you're not in touch with your mom at the moment, right?
	Okay, so how would you feel if you were to call her up and say something like the following?
	Mom, I have felt in my life quite a lot of pity for you, and I don't think that that actually comes from me.
	Like, I think that it seems to me that that's kind of your thing.
	Like, it's your way of controlling the situation or manipulating people to come across as helpless and so on.
	But I don't think it's true.
	I think that you wanted to marry dad.
	I think you wanted to have kids.
	I think that every choice that you've made in your life has been exactly what you wanted to do.
	And how would you react to that?
	We can roleplay this if you like.
	It's up to you. Well, no.
	I think that the first thing that she would do is deny the entire thing.
	She wouldn't deny, obviously, that she'd wanted to marry my father, that she'd wanted to have kids.
	But she would, I think that she would deny the responsibility.
	She's always in her life, her absolute favorite phrase is, stop jerking me around.
	If you're talking about locus of control, it is so far outside her that she can't even see it anymore.
	Well, no, she can totally see it because that's why she uses this absence of control to manipulate people, right?
	Because when people give up control, they get control over other people, right?
	When you say, I'm helpless in a way that is convincing to people, they rush in to help, right?
	I mean, this is something that men can't understand, right?
	Because when men say, I'm helpless, guys just go through your pockets and take shit, right?
	I mean, it's different for women and it's certainly different for moms as a whole, but this is sort of what I understand, right?
	So my mom says, her story, right, is that, well, my life turned out badly because the doctors made me sick or she's got this whole hypochondria thing going, right?
	Epstein-Barr and fibromyalgia and all that freaky shit, right?
	And so what happens is when you say, actually, no, mom, you were responsible for your life, you chose these doctors, and you've also chosen to spend the last 20 years of your life trying to pursue fruitless legal action against them, right?
	So you were completely responsible for your life, and the doctors are not to blame at all, right?
	Right. What do you think my mom would do with that?
	Yeah. I don't know.
	She would probably go off on some sort of bitchy tirade.
	Why aren't you supporting me?
	Et cetera, et cetera. Well, what my mom would do was, and I know this because I've had these conversations with her, even in a restaurant, is she would jump up, kicking her chair back, and she would start screaming at me that I was in league with the doctors and in league with the insurance companies and possibly even, God forbid, in league with my father.
	Oh, that's charming.
	Right? So, when you pierce through the veil of helplessness, what is on the other side?
	I don't know.
	A yawning, screaming void of some sort?
	Rage. Yeah.
	Well, there you go.
	Well, I mean, this is my experience, and I don't want to prejudice your experience, right?
	But if just some kind of resentment was on the other side, then it seems to me that people...
	Because it's not that much fun to prop up people artificially.
	It's not that much fun to agree with all their crazy self-pity.
	So the fact that nobody has spoken the truth in your mom's life, the fact that you Who is a human being not uninterested in the truth has never spoken the truth to your mom in your life.
	If nobody has ever done it, it's not because she might be resentful.
	It's because she would take you down.
	Oh, dear.
	Did Charlotte go down?
	I'm still here.
	I just didn't hear what you said after the fact that she would take you down.
	Well, that's all, right? She would take you down.
	She would abuse you.
	She would humiliate you.
	She would denigrate you. She would insult you.
	She would accuse you of the most heinous things.
	And she would never, ever, ever, ever let you forget that betrayal.
	And she would be your implacable enemy and not give you a moment's peace for the rest of her natural born life.
	I don't know, for some reason I can't imagine that from her.
	I mean, her life is the way it is because she's never particularly wanted to do anything.
	I mean, she's literally, when you walk into a room with her, she's a human fog.
	If you try to make her into anything more substantial than that, she melts away.
	She's never actually there.
	Well sure, but that's a choice too, right?
	Right.
	And if you say, well, your life is the way it is because you've chosen to avoid any kind of, you know, real conflict or any kind of real commitment or any kind of real decision.
	And there's real payoff for that, right?
	Being a fog person, as I talked about in a recent podcast, being a fog monkey is kind of cool, right?
	Because you don't ever have to stand up for anything.
	And blaming other people for everything that goes wrong in your life is also kind of cool because you never have to take responsibility.
	You never have to confront your parents.
	You never have to confront your past.
	And so there's lots, there's a near infinity of secondary gains that come out of this kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah. But all people ever want you to do is pity them, right?
	They never want you to see the secondary gains that they're picking up from their behavior, right?
	Yeah, and I suppose that she's getting something out of, I don't know, like the latest situation that my aunt's telling me is they're, I don't want to say that they're making her, but that's the word that my aunt used.
	They're making my mother move out of her house and rent it out so that she has some sort of income even though she doesn't want to work.
	And my uncle has devised a plan by which she must divide this income and give certain parts of it to certain people and save some things for her retirement and something like that.
	And I suppose she's getting something out of that.
	I mean, she doesn't actually have to do anything.
	You know, other people are providing her mode of power, I guess, and carrying her along.
	But Well, and so she basically has not taken care of her finances, and she complains about it and is facing imminent disaster to the point where other people have to rush in and save her, and now she gets to complain about it, right?
	Right. That's a pretty sweet deal, right?
	I mean, if you have no self-esteem whatsoever, that's a pretty sweet deal.
	Yeah, she gets something to organize her life around, which is resentment of my aunt and uncle, her brother and sister.
	Oh, sure. And now she's got this whole soap opera going where they're her enemies and now she can float around the family and sow the seeds of resentment and division.
	And I mean, it's great fun, right?
	I guess, well, she's always liked being the hard done by person.
	Oh, yeah, absolutely.
	The sort of old time black and white overacting heroine with her back of her hand firmly planted on her forehead, right?
	As the Sorry, the only what?
	I'm quoting Shakespeare, which is pretty stupid of me to do on here.
	What? Like I don't know Shakespeare?
	Hey, come on. I took half an English degree and was in...
	I played Shakespeare. I played Macbeth.
	Anyway. Yes, I know that you know it, but you don't seem to like our friend Bill for some reason, which I can't...
	Sorry, pitch and moment. Where's that from?
	I can't remember that. Hamlet.
	Yeah, he's rabbiting on about enterprises of great pitch and moment, yada, yada, yada, lose the name of action.
	Right, right, right. Yes, excellent.
	Good quote. But yeah, I mean, this is great stuff, right?
	And she will consistently and continually do this.
	And the moment that you point out that she's being manipulative, what happens?
	And that none of it's true, right?
	It's all just a fun mythology, right?
	That she's just trying to be puppet mistress with her own self-pity, right?
	Right. And I guess her, this, whatever it is, resentment or whatever, immediately kicks in, you know, you're just jerking me around, oh look how hard done by I am, etc., etc.
	Right, but then you'd say, well if your criteria, I would say, but if your criteria is that people shouldn't jerk other people around, do you not think that by playing the helpless god and getting other people to rush in and then complaining to them and sowing the seeds of discord, that you're kind of jerking other people around and have been doing so for decades?
	Oh, then she would just turn the fog machine on and there would be no talking to her.
	Yeah, I don't, I mean, you know your mom, right?
	So what the hell am I just, I'm talking out of my armpit here, but there's a reason that nobody's ever told her the truth.
	And it's not just because she'd be mildly resentful or foggy or even whatever, right?
	There's got to be some punishment that she would inflict upon people who would tell her the truth.
	I don't know, frankly.
	You know, if it was me and I was still living, whether she would, you know, go off on some sort of screaming rampage and then not bother to buy me food.
	Ah, the screaming rampage.
	See, that's what I was looking for.
	That's what I knew was behind it.
	The screaming rampage and then the starving me out for two months, which is awesome as well.
	Starving you out? Yeah, she basically, whenever she would get pissed off with me, would like refuse to buy groceries or to give me any money for like two or three months.
	So Charlotte, do you know what you've been doing to me?
	Oh yes, I've been, I've had my fog machine on as well.
	You've been, dare I say, jerking me around a little here.
	I have. Just a little.
	Just a little. Yeah, and that's one of the things that I've been, I don't know, I guess that's one of the causes behind the feeling, because I'm like my mother, and it really scares the hell out of me.
	I understand. I understand, right?
	So why didn't you want to tell me about the Screaming Rampage, but gave me all this nonsense about resentment and didn't know?
	I don't mind. I'm happy.
	It's good exercise, chasing the wild goose.
	I'm just curious why, like, what would it have cost you to say up front, oh, she's a screaming, rampaging witch, right?
	I don't know. It didn't...
	You're going to think that I'm completely lying, I think, but it didn't really occur to me because she stopped screaming at me, you know, the day that I became basically big enough to fight back physically.
	Which means it's even more evil, right?
	It means she's got the capacity to not do it.
	Yeah, I mean, she screamed at me to scare me.
	And the, like, starvation thing was later because, you know, I was 12 and I couldn't get a job to make money.
	So that was a way that she could fight me without actually, like, physically fighting me.
	So that was later. Okay, so in which ways do you feel that you're similar to your mom?
	I don't know, it's just...
	She's always had this need for attention.
	You know, bad or good, it completely didn't matter to her.
	She just wanted attention of some sort.
	And I find that sort of happening with me as well.
	I mean, I don't want bad attention.
	You know, I don't go out and tart myself up or do any of that crap like she did.
	Um... But I really can't stand it when someone that I think well of starts praising someone else.
	And I specifically have this problem with women.
	Like, you can praise men in my face all day, but if you say anything nice about another woman, I get very weird.
	Right. And that's something that she does as well.
	And why does she do that?
	I think because she knows that she doesn't have anything praiseworthy.
	That she's actively avoided doing anything praiseworthy in her life.
	But she wants to feel as though she had.
	Right. So if another woman gets praised, it just highlights her lack of value, right?
	Right. Right.
	Okay. Okay.
	Well, I would say, just based on the little goose chase that you sent me on, I would say, Charlotte, that you've still got a bit of a foo-faction, so to speak, like a foo-infection here.
	Well, yeah. Because when I said there would be, you know, rage, and you said, no, no, she'd just get resentment, right?
	That's your mom, right? That's not you, right?
	Because you know the rage and the starving is serious shit, right?
	That's horrible abuse, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	But the weird thing is that it didn't even occur to me at first.
	I didn't even... No, no. Look, I understand that.
	I'm not saying that you were misleading me in any way, shape, or form.
	Consciously, I totally understand that.
	But what I mean is that your mom is still ruling parts of your brain, right?
	Yeah. Right, which is sort of why, and this is, so you've got this queasy feeling like, you know, we're talking about, you know, we do have hands up our asses, just not me and Greg, it's you and your mom and me and my mom and all this kind of stuff, right?
	Right. Right, so you've got the foo brain, right?
	You've got the dark, evil spots within your brain, which we all have, which come from our parents, right?
	Right. Right. And that comes because you are blaming yourself for what your parents did.
	Okay. Could you elaborate a bit?
	Well... How am I blaming myself?
	Well, the first thing that you do, like when you say, I act like my mom and that scares the hell out of me.
	Right? Right. Then you're owning the infection.
	You're saying, I'm acting like my mom, right?
	Right. But I would say that that's not a particularly, I would say that's actually not at all an accurate way of putting it.
	My mom forced me to have certain habits that I have trouble getting rid of.
	My mom got me addicted to heroin and I'm having a tough time quitting.
	Okay. Not, I got addicted to heroin randomly, just like my mom did.
	Okay. That makes sense.
	Right, so the things that are in you that trouble you because of their similarity to your mom were inflicted upon you through the threat of emotional and physical abuse.
	Right. Like, the guy who's told to stand outside your prison cell can't walk more than 10 feet, and neither can you.
	Right? But there's still a huge difference.
	You're both walking back and forth 10 feet, but one of you is free and one of you is not.
	Yeah. Right? So the prisoner doesn't reasonably say, well, I'm doing just what the guard does, right?
	No, because you were the kid.
	You were enslaved. You were not free.
	Right? And so saying I'm like my mom, I just, I mean, that's taking ownership, like it was a choice, like it's, you know, but this is what you were abused into having to mirror or avoid, right?
	Like you couldn't tell the truth to your mom because otherwise you'd have been punished.
	And when you're starved for two months, you don't know it's suddenly going to end, right?
	You fear dying, don't you?
	Or malnutrition, or my bones aren't going to grow, or I'm going to get anemia, or hypoglycemia, or God, I don't know what's going to happen.
	It's terrifying. And that's not allowed under the Geneva Convention, let alone parenting.
	Yeah, I still have some of those habits hanging around as well, and that's something I've been working on, like physical habits, but I guess I have this large blind spot again where I couldn't see the emotional habits as well.
	Yeah, this is just stuff that you took on in order to survive a situation of extreme physical and emotional danger.
	When you look at yourself like a POW, and not someone who just mysteriously mirrored her captor, if you look upon yourself as a POW, you say, I did some freaky brilliant shit to get through that.
	I'm incredibly proud of what I did to get through that concentration camp.
	And come out with my sanity and myself intact.
	Now, that having been said, yeah, there's some stuff that I'd like to drop from my time incarcerated.
	Because I'm no longer in a prison cell.
	And I'm going to drop some of those habits that I wisely and intelligently took on to survive my imprisonment.
	Yeah. Does that give you a different perspective?
	How does that feel? Yeah, it does give me a different perspective and I think that it's enormously useful.
	Now I just have to figure out how the heck to stop them because I've been having some trouble with the physical things that I do as well.
	It sounds like I didn't quite connect with the emotional side of things, and that's totally fine, but it probably didn't happen because we're not talking about the physical stuff that you're doing.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about the emotional stuff.
	It's not the physical stuff that I'm thinking of right now, but I need some time to absorb, I guess.
	So is it my understanding, and obviously it's totally your choice, but you don't want to talk about the physical stuff that you're doing now, is that right?
	Or would you like to talk about that?
	I could talk about it if it would be useful to anyone.
	I mean, I don't want to drone on for 55 hours.
	So you're not too comfortable, but you wouldn't mind?
	I wouldn't mind, no.
	Okay, so what is the physical stuff that you're doing?
	Well, the physical stuff, you know, since mother didn't bother to buy me groceries, I mean, she ate herself.
	She worked in a grocery store.
	Sorry, I'm still working with the image of your mother eating herself.
	Yeah, she's like a snake.
	Right, right. Yeah.
	I don't think she could get into that position.
	But she worked in a grocery store.
	So she would have time on her break to eat, and she would eat there, but purposely not bring me home anything to eat.
	And I didn't have any money, obviously.
	So after my grandmother died, my grandmother was sending me money, like, on the sly, because she knew that my mother was starving me, but there wasn't much that she could do.
	Can I just interrupt you for just a second?
	And I really do apologize for this, right?
	Now, all due sympathy for this is just a completely horrible concentration camp-like existence.
	My heart goes out completely to you, but you are aware that you're laughing about it, right?
	And I understand that's a defense mechanism.
	I'm not trying to, you know, pick on you or anything like that.
	But just so you're aware that you're talking about the starvation of a conscious, deliberate starvation of a child, and one of the defenses that you have about it is that you laugh about it, right?
	Yes. As my favorite character in my favorite movie said, it's the way I register despair.
	Right. Well, I would suggest that don't laugh about it.
	It's not funny. I mean, this is horrible, horrible, horrible stuff.
	And I don't mean to sort of drop a serious anvil on our head or anything, right?
	I mean, it's not disapproval in any way, shape, or form.
	It's just that, look, if you don't feel the horror of what you went through, I got to feel it 10 times, right?
	Right. So it was horrible what you went through.
	And I don't want to not listen.
	I do want to listen to it. It's just that if you laugh about it, it really messes up my ability to process what's happening for you, right?
	Which is kind of what it's designed to do.
	But I just wanted to point that out.
	Yeah. So, after my grandmother died and she couldn't send me money anymore, my grandfather had Alzheimer's, so he came to live with my mother and me so that my mother would get his social security check.
	Sorry. It's okay.
	I'm just pointing it out, right?
	That this is not a cute sitcom, right?
	This is a horrifying exploitation of the elderly here, right?
	Right. Right. So she would use his social security check to buy him and her food and then not feed me.
	So I'd end up, frankly, having to go steal my dinner.
	Right. If I wanted to eat, I had to go steal something.
	And what did you do?
	Like you went to grocery stores and stole stuff?
	Yeah, basically. And, you know, that's why, I mean, I've always been fat, even as a four-year-old.
	But, you know, the stuff that you can actually steal isn't the most healthy stuff.
	Kind of hard to steal lettuce.
	Right, right, right.
	Very easy to steal unhealthy stuff.
	So, my weight kind of went up, even though my mother was starving me.
	Plus, if you can grab a handful of stuff that doesn't go off, You've got some, right?
	If you steal an orange and you've got no fridge, you've got to eat it relatively quickly, right?
	But the stuff that you can steal that is not as healthy can last longer.
	Right, exactly. So it's, you know, less chance of getting caught if I don't have to go and steal something every day, which is the first thing that I thought of.
	Right. So, eventually I ended up moving out of my mother's house.
	But, you know, I still have...
	It's weird.
	Because whenever I see something that I don't need, like...
	I mean, I buy groceries.
	I mean, I don't steal things that much anymore.
	But whenever I see something that I think that I want but don't want to pay for, yeah, I mean, that's...
	It's like once a year, but still, for some reason, it's still, even though I know it's evil, like a valid option in my mind for some reason that I can't get rid of.
	Well, I can tell you why, if you like.
	Okay. The reason that you do it is the same reason that you laugh about it, right?
	The reason that you're tempted to shoplift is the same reason that you put it forward as a funny story.
	I guess to, like, normalize it?
	Well, the problem is that, the problem, Charlotte, is that nobody has seen what you went through and really gotten it.
	So you're trying to communicate to people the horror that you went through.
	And unfortunately, and this is just all too sad when it comes to these kinds of family situations, but unfortunately, everybody in your family has rejected, minimized, or laughed at what you went through.
	Yeah. And I bet that you have not had a hand into that Dark room.
	No hand has come into that dark room where you were abused and starved, ignored, yelled at, screamed at, frightened, terrified.
	No hand has reached into that room.
	And so you're trying to communicate to the world the horror that you went through so that you can feel more safe and secure and gain some kind of closure with your history.
	And nobody reflects back to you Rational, healthy, normal human compassion for what you went through, which was grim beyond words.
	And so this is the cry for help, right?
	The stealing things is nobody is seeing what I went through.
	And the laughing is also nobody is seeing what I went through.
	Nobody is getting the horror that I went through.
	Yeah. Well, I see it.
	I do. I really do see it.
	I mean, it's not the best thing in the world to have a hand slithering down from Canada or whatever, right?
	But there is a hand coming into that dark room, right?
	That, too, Christine is listening as well, and she's moved beyond words by what it is that you're saying, and as am I. I mean, this is just an absolutely horrible fucking gulag that you went through as a child.
	A monstrous, demonic, hideous experience that went on throughout your entire childhood.
	And I can't obviously do smack all about your mom or about your history, but what I can say is that you have two hands reaching into this dark room, and it is that at least there are two other minds on the planet, and there are more people on the chat window who get what happened.
	Thanks. I appreciate it more than I can say, really.
	Because the whole point of the abuse is to isolate you, right?
	Yeah. Charlotte, it's Christina.
	I just want to express my deep sympathy for what you went through.
	What a horrible situation to have to go through as a child.
	I'm curious about something.
	Have you ever spoken about this with anyone before?
	Um, just, well, no, not really, no.
	Okay, well, I just, I want to just tell you that I know that it probably took a lot of courage for you to talk about it today in such an open forum, and, you know, kudos to you, and If you need to talk about it, we're here, but I really think this is big.
	This isn't just something insignificant.
	There's a lot of pain here.
	There's a lot of, probably a lot of shame and a lot of humiliation and a lot of deep feelings that I think you really need to work through.
	And once again, I think the biggest thing that you've ever done or the best thing that you could have done is talk about it here today.
	Thanks. Yeah, it's difficult, but, you know, Thanks for being there, I guess.
	You know, thank yourself, you know, for taking the steps to talk about it and to bring it out.
	And there are a lot of people here who are, you know, who are right behind you and who are holding you up and supporting you through this.
	This is, you know, this is not an insignificant thing.
	And congratulations for having the courage to talk about it openly today.
	Thanks. You're very welcome.
	How are you feeling? Um, okay.
	I mean, I'm getting all sniffly now for some reason.
	Well, I know the reason. Yeah, um, I guess this, it's, um, I don't know.
	Needed to happen. I think so.
	I think so. I don't know how long you've been a part of this conversation or how long you've been listening to the podcast, but I think this probably has had something to do with, you know, where you're at right now.
	Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's been on and off, depending on how strong my false self was relative to my true self.
	Right, right. And I think you've been reading a little bit about the real-time relationship in the book, is that right?
	Okay, I think I'm back again.
	I think you're back, too.
	Can you hear me? Hey, I can hear you.
	Okay, good. Good.
	The timing sucked.
	Yes, it did. You were right in the middle of what I'm sure was a beautiful monologue that I didn't hear.
	No, I don't do monologues.
	Steph does monologues. Oh, okay, well...
	I was just asking you about...
	I know that You've been reading and editing The Real-Time Relationship, the book that Steph has recently written, and I'm wondering if maybe this has affected you in some way, and maybe brought this on.
	Well, I don't know, not overtly.
	I mean, I've read all of Steph's books, and they've never really had an emotional impact to work with.
	I don't know, physically manifested anything.
	It's more like reading it is, you know, I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense, that makes sense.
	But I don't know, it's caused me to go back and rethink some things.
	So I think Greg might be right when he says that the book is a mental time bomb as well.
	Yeah, the book certainly had an effect on us here when we were reading it.
	It certainly sparked some conflicts between us and a lot of discussion and, you know, I think it really is.
	How did you refer to it, Steph?
	As an evil, evil little tome.
	So, you know, I know that for us it's had an effect and I know that some of the other people who've had an opportunity to read bits and pieces of it have also expressed some Some feelings about the emotional after effects of it, so I wouldn't doubt that it's affected you in some way as well.
	It really is an evil little tome, but a very necessary, particularly the mother-daughter scenarios that Steph wrote about in the book.
	Anyway, I want more about your thoughts and feelings about what just happened for you.
	I don't know.
	One of the things about me is that I'm Not exactly what you would call in touch with my feelings.
	So it's kind of hard for me to think about what it is that I'm actually feeling.
	So I don't know...
	I probably do, but I can't express what it was that's made me cry, I guess, but...
	I don't know.
	If I might take a stab, I think it was just, first of all, voicing this, talking about it, taking a risk, sharing it with a group of people, and then have someone actually validate sharing it with a group of people, and then have someone actually validate your experience rather than do what everybody else has done for you in the past or to you which is to mock you, to humiliate you, to minimize and to deny your experience.
	And it's really quite powerful when somebody actually says, wow, tell me more about what happened and how you're feeling, rather than, oh, that's nothing.
	Don't make mountains out of mohills.
	Yeah, let go of the past, move on.
	Yeah, it's nice to know that there's actually someone who, like, hears and understands, because one of the things that I got from my family is, oh, you're trotting out the old list of grievances again.
	Oh, let's hear them. And they would listen and they would find some sort of amusement in that, I guess.
	Yeah, I think you have not just found a person who actually listens and understands, but a whole group of people who are compassionate and empathetic and curious and very, very caring.
	I think that this is what this community is all about.
	I really do. I firmly believe that.
	Just a really good group of people.
	I think the fact that you went ahead and talked about this today says that you are also feeling pretty safe.
	Yeah, definitely.
	I mean, I've met so many people here that I really appreciate all of y'all.
	I really do. We're here for you.
	Honestly, I would say, and I don't know very much about your personal circumstances, Charlotte.
	I don't know if you're in treatment.
	But, you know, this really needs to be talked about.
	This really needs to be talked about.
	I mean, just... Even how you were saying today that you have these characteristics or these traits or these behaviors, the emotional or the actual actions that you take that remind you of your mom that you hate and you're in battle with yourself.
	Go talk to someone about that.
	Go get some professional guidance around how to deal with these things so that you're not in constant conflict with yourself.
	Yeah, it's, I don't know, a block that I still have because my mother sent me to a whole variety, I think like five or six therapists, you know, trying to manage her own anxiety.
	And it would always be, except with the first one, that I would meet with a therapist for like four weeks and then he would say, Oh, I don't think that you need to come see me anymore.
	And my mother would never believe them.
	She would never believe the therapist when he said that he couldn't diagnose me with anything or give me any drugs.
	Right, right. And the difference is that when your mom sent you to therapy, your mom was probably paying for it and your mom was the one who was choosing these people and you had no power even in these relationships.
	So as an adult, you get to choose.
	You get to direct your therapy.
	You get to say to your therapist, no, this is what I want or this is what I think or this is how I'm feeling.
	And you have more power as an adult than you ever did as a child.
	Yeah, that's definitely something that I'm going to be looking into, you know, starting tomorrow.
	Good for you. I would really, really strongly encourage it and recommend it.
	Steph has something to say. Plus, you have an enormous amount of charm, right?
	You have an enormous amount of charm as a human being, and you have an enormous amount of wit as a human being, right?
	And you have an enormous amount of good humor, and that's not entirely false self stuff.
	I mean, that's part of the buoyancy of your nature as well, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I could make the therapist believe anything that I wanted him to believe.
	Right. So you just, you didn't meet anybody smart enough or courageous enough or wise enough or deep enough to not be fooled by what is a shiny, glittery, charming exterior, right?
	Right. I mean, I just didn't want them to report back to my mother that, you know, I actually hurt.
	Frank? Yes. Yes, for sure.
	Because as I talked about earlier, you don't say to the torturer, oh, it really hurts when you do this, right?
	Right. Right.
	And that's, I think, what it would have been.
	Oh, there's no question that that's what it would have been.
	The therapist would have gone back to your mom and said, she appears really vulnerable in these areas.
	And your mom would have been like, you know, like, now I know where to stick the taser, right?
	Right. And, you know, her full frontal assault stopped working after a while.
	So I guess that's why she went underground, as it were.
	Oh, you mean in terms of when she was less aggressive?
	Yeah, she would be less aggressive, as in she wouldn't confront me and scream at me and try to scare me because I would scare the hell out of her right back.
	Once I learned how to do that, her screaming fits stopped.
	Yeah, it's amazing how reasonable abusive bullying parents get when they get a little scared.
	Yeah. Oh dear, I did a whole Linda Blair thing from, what's that, I can't even remember the movie now.
	The Exorcist, wasn't she in The Exorcist?
	Yes, yes. That movie.
	Yeah. Now, you never did, and you don't have to of course, but you never did talk about the physical stuff.
	You said, the physical stuff that I'm doing.
	Yeah, the physical stuff, I mean, apart from the stealing things once a year, it's like, um, I hide things sometimes.
	I mean, obviously, my mother isn't here, um, and she...
	And she can't find any of my things to break them.
	But I still end up shoving things that I like under other things so that people can't see them when they come in the room.
	It's just Right.
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but I mean, you're aware that this is also part of the psychological approach that you take, right?
	That you hide your pain under a highly positive exterior, which is, again, not to say that it's all false or anything, right?
	But you hide yourself, right?
	That's how it acts out interpersonally.
	Right. And, you know, the two are obviously intimately connected.
	And I don't want to sound, like, completely insane.
	It's not like I'm a schizophrenic or anything.
	I've lived with one of those.
	That was not fun. But, yeah, it's just, like, things like that.
	Okay, but we're not talking about cutting or anything like that.
	I just sort of wanted to get the parameters.
	Oh, God, no. Nothing.
	Okay. No, I just wanted to check, right, because I just wanted to make sure we had stuff out on the table, I mean, to whatever degree you felt comfortable doing that.
	Yeah, I mean, I've never done anything to actually, like, carve myself.
	That's always been absolutely out of the question.
	And binge purge, bulimic, anything like that?
	No, no, not at all.
	Okay. Okay.
	And how are you feeling now?
	A little spacey? Floaty?
	Euphoric? Frightened? Um...
	I don't know.
	It's like...
	I just want to sit down in a dark room and think about things for a while.
	So I should keep talking?
	Sure. It doesn't matter what you say.
	That's what I always hear from people.
	Steph, for God's sake, don't ever shut up.
	Yes. It matters completely not what you say.
	Just keep talking.
	I have a little quieter singing elves just saying, don't ever stop talking.
	Anyway. Okay, so should we stop this at the moment so you can mull with a big Canadian mental hug wrapping your form?
	Thanks. I'll go and mull and you can get someone else on to blather about their food for however long this was.
	That's all right. You know, we probably had some food stuff backed up because we didn't have a call like last week.
	It's been a while. There you go.
	The floodgates have been opened.
	That's right. We're all bunged up and damned up.
	Okay, well, thanks, everybody.
	If anybody had a real last-minute yearning burning, but we've had a long show, I will cut it off unless there's absolutely somebody on a ledge.
	Anybody? Anybody?
	Okay. Well, thank you so much, everybody, for tuning in.
	I've really got – I mean, I can't tell you just – I can because I will – how much I just completely admire everybody's honesty and openness.
	It is a real honor for me to be on the receiving end, and I think it is true for the community as a whole.
	To be on the receiving end of this kind of trust and vulnerability, I think it is magnificent.
	I think it is incredibly courageous.
	I feel incredibly honored to be a part of this vulnerability and this openness that people have in this conversation.
	I'm incredibly certain how generous it is for other people and how it feels horrible when you're doing it, but You don't know until you maybe hear it back or you see somebody else do it.
	Just what a beautiful thing it is to see when people are that open.
	So thank you everybody so much.
	Once more, no other particular news of note.
	The UPB book should be out, sorry, RTR should be out this coming week.
	And thanks again for Charlotte for doing a wonderful job of commisiding all of the excess punctuation.
	And I will talk to you guys next week.

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