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April 10, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:10:19
1034 Depression and Infection - A Listener Conversation

Mastering small talk, showing your love for the truth, and negotiating with your fellow students...

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Time Text
Hello. Hi.
So, I hear you are feeling a little bit down.
Yeah. What's going on?
I don't know why.
For some reason today I was just like...
sort of...
Bombarded with all of these feelings of, you know, worthlessness that I haven't had this, you know, in months, so...
I don't have any idea what's going on.
And do you remember the last time that you had these feelings?
Was there anything that may be similar or anything that might have been a similar situation?
Um... The last time I remember feeling like this was about a year ago, sort of just in the middle of school, and I have no idea why, again, that happened then, so...
Right. And, obviously, there...
Could be, obviously, medical stuff, but that's very unlikely, of course, so we can just start with looking at what happened.
Did you get these feelings this morning?
You got these feelings this morning, is that right?
Yeah, pretty much just all day to day.
So was it when you woke up?
Yeah. Okay.
And do you know if you had any dreams?
I did have a dream.
Do you remember what it was?
I'm just sort of remembering fragments of it that Rich asked me about and I couldn't even really describe it.
I have a real trouble with putting together things in sequence that happen in my dreams like what Happened when, and so...
Yeah, that's fine.
fine.
I mean, it doesn't have to be a solid narrative, but do you remember what was the emotional content of the dream?
Definitely things like feeling like I'm There was...
There was one part where I was trying to, like, hide from my parents.
And there was another part where I... There was definitely stuff about, you know, not feeling good enough and...
I guess trying to get attention in some ways and...
So...
Um, go ahead. Um...
I mean, it's really almost sort of embarrassing to talk about, I guess.
For some reason.
Right. Why does it feel that...
Wait. What's the thought?
Like it's inconsequential, like it shouldn't bother you, like that sort of stuff?
No, just like there are some parts of me that are just like totally pathetic.
And was that what you felt in the dream or is that what you feel about the dream?
Both, I guess. No, actually, I don't...
Okay, go ahead. No, no, go ahead.
I'm not really sure if I felt that in the dream, but that's when I felt looking back on it.
Right, right.
Okay. And pathetic compared to what?
Like, what is the ideal that would make that seem less pathetic?
Well, pathetic, like, as in...
Not somebody who is confident or has much to offer.
Like, those are the thoughts that have been going on in my head today.
I don't know why, but it's just like I don't have anything to offer.
Sometimes I don't feel like I have anything to offer.
Okay, and not having something to offer is the same I'm just trying to figure out the thought pattern.
So, if you don't have something to offer, that's the same as being pathetic?
No. The feeling of pathetic comes from what I do because I feel like I don't have anything to offer.
Oh, I see, I see.
Okay, okay. And is that because I know you took a little bit to bed today and you thought, well, yeah, right.
What's that? You took a little bit to bed today and you were feeling really down, right?
Is that what you mean by that's pathetic?
Yes. All right.
All right. All right.
Oh, that's interesting. So sorry, let me call you back in just one second.
I think... Does my audio sound pretty bad to you?
A little bit. Okay, let me call you back in just a sec.
Sorry about that. Hello?
Hello? Hi.
Is that any better? Okay, sorry, I just wanted to make sure.
I think it picked up my webcam.
Anyway, so the feeling that you have is that if you have nothing to offer, then the actions that result from that are pathetic?
Right. Okay, okay, I think I understand.
Whoa, somebody's echoing.
Yeah, if you could just...
If you're not talking, if you could mute.
Greg, if you could turn off yourself.
Now, there is a kind of magical thinking aspect to this, which is not to say that it's easy to combat, but it's just important to recognize this, right?
If I believe...
That I can fly, then...
Sorry, we're getting an echo.
I'm going to just have to...
I don't know where that's coming from.
Alright. If I believe that I can fly, then obviously I can't actually fly, right?
Right. But if you believe that you're pathetic...
Then you end up doing things that justify that opinion, right?
Right. It's the old thing, like if you feel that you're confident or you feel that you're not confident, you're right either way, right?
So this is a trap.
This is not a judgment.
Okay.
And again, it's not like saying that actually makes it possible to fix it immediately or easily I'm not saying anything like that, but it's important to realize this is not an objective judgment.
Like, you didn't just strangle a kitten and say, oh my god, I'm a bad person, right?
Right. So, this is something that...
The thought is the conclusion.
The judgment is the conclusion.
It's not that you do something or you do a certain number of things.
You evaluate them and then you say, oh dear, I've done something bad or wrong or anything like that, right?
I mean, you're not a different person than you were yesterday, right?
Right. So, I mean, if I look down and I can't see my feet anymore, and I've gained 20 pounds, then I can reasonably say, hmm, I may have been overeating, right?
Yeah. Right?
And I may feel like, ew, that's gross, or I should lose the weight or whatever.
But if I say, I have been overeating, and it's because I can't see my feet anymore, that is an objective evaluation of actions that result in something, right?
Yes. But in this situation, you didn't perform an action that resulted in an evaluation, right?
Right. What happened was you had an evaluation which produced an action which was predicted by the evaluation.
I have nothing to offer.
I'm pathetic, so I'm going to sit in bed and then, gee, guess what?
I don't have anything to offer.
I'm pathetic because I'm sitting in bed.
But that came from the thought, right?
Right. And again, there's no magic wand that makes all of this stuff go away, but I think it's important to understand that this was not an empirical judgment based on your actions.
I'm assuming you didn't mow down a bunch of preschool kids in a car yesterday, right?
Right. Okay, so nothing particular changed in your external circumstances, but your internal thoughts changed, right?
Right. Right. And then it became like a snowball effect, right?
It feeds on itself, right?
Yeah. It seemed after that I made that judgment that I started to look for evidence to support it.
Well, you actually started creating evidence to support it, right?
Yeah, that's true. Because if I'm not going to get out of bed, then guess what?
I'm going to feel kind of pathetic, right?
Right, right. And I'm not saying that makes you pathetic.
I'm just saying that that will feed the thought, right?
Right. It's like saying, I'm a bad person, so I need to go and strangle some kittens, right?
Right. I mean, it's a bit circular, right?
It's like, well, why didn't you just not think you were a bad person so you didn't have to strangle the kittens to fulfill that prophecy, right?
Right. Right.
And I would guess, I would guess, I would guess that the dream about your parents is involved in this, right?
Yeah. So, do you need me to ask or do you want to?
Um... Yeah, I would like it if you asked.
Do you have parents? No, I'm kidding.
Okay, so look at that.
We almost have a laugh. Almost!
Although I think that was a polite laugh because it really wasn't that good a joke.
But I appreciate... See, you know what you have to offer is kindness to people who are better philosophers than they are comedians?
And that, it warms my heart.
I can tell you that much is necessary.
Okay, so... This is my thesis, and I'm not going to step you through it, because I know that you're down, and if you're looking at a big high cliff, it's like, forget it, I'm going to curl up in a ball, right?
So... My thesis is that something happened yesterday or there's some anniversary or there's something in a time cycle in your mind.
The unconscious is an incredible recorder of time.
I've gotten sad.
Literally, I've gotten sad on days.
When I trace it back, it's a breakup I had three years ago, like, you know, when I was single or whatever, right?
The unconscious remembers these things.
And so it's possible or it's probable that something occurred.
You met someone like your parents.
Some situation occurred where you felt similar to how you felt with your family or there was something.
And it could be something you may even remember.
Maybe you can. It doesn't matter particularly.
And... You went back to a place where this judgment of you, you're pathetic, you have nothing to offer.
You went back to a place where you were helpless when this judgment was imposed upon you when you were younger.
There's nothing quite in the world.
I mean, there's sulfuric acid, there's boric acid, there's indigestion.
There's nothing quite so acidic as that British...
And it happens in North America too.
You're pathetic.
Hugh Grant does this in a way that just makes acid fall off his tongue.
And there's that judgment.
You're pathetic. That is part of the British and North American culture that's really, really acidic.
And... Was that a judgment that people have had of you in the past in your family or any other sort of place or situation?
It's something I was trying to think about because I really can't remember being told that directly.
I'm not saying that they didn't do anything to make me feel that way.
Okay, okay.
And... So, and I'm perfectly...
We can look elsewhere for that.
Siblings? No, I don't think so.
It's... Something different about it is like it's...
It's this feeling of being pathetic after, like...
I fall short of some kind of standard.
Well, okay, I understand that.
But somebody must have given you this idea that you're pathetic if you fail at something, right?
Because we're not born...
No, I agree. I agree.
Yeah, I mean, we're not born with it.
I was chatting with a woman today who had this just adorable one-year-old little baby, this girl.
And we were chatting about, this is somebody Christina knows, and we were chatting about a variety of topics and I was sort of playing with her baby and chatting with her baby as best I could and that kind of stuff.
And the baby was trying to push the buggy and kept falling, right?
And what did she do?
She got up and she tried pushing it again and she'd make it sort of inch or two and then she'd fall again and she'd get up and she'd push it and a foot and whatever, right?
And she was not experiencing any stress over failing to do something in public, right?
Mm-hmm.
She's just like, "Oh, okay, well, I'll try this again.
Oh, okay, well, I'll try this again." And I think she was enjoying it, because she kept doing it, right?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So, I mean, there's not proof of anything in particular, except that, you know, if she'd fallen and bumped her nose, she would have cried, because that would have hurt, and that's innate.
But the fact that she was trying to push this buggy and failing repeatedly didn't bother her at all, right?
In fact, she continued with pleasure to try and master this task, right?
Right. So, it's not innate for us to feel failure, right?
I mean, she knew that she was failing because she got up and tried again.
It's not innate for us as human beings to feel bad about failure, right?
Right. I mean, she's probably going to be trying for three months to walk before she even begins to master it, right?
Yeah. So, I'm just saying that if we really get down on ourselves about A failure or not living up to a standard or something.
That's something that's inflicted on us from outside, right?
Right. So what happened when you were a kid and you failed to meet other people's expectations or failed to achieve particular goals or tasks that you had or other people had set for you?
Some things that I remember was just a sort of Like disdainful silence around it.
Right. So was it that they felt embarrassed for you?
I don't think that was it.
It was more of like an anger.
And what were they angry about?
Well, for instance, like...
Like, just what's coming to mind is, like, if we were in church and, you know, afterwards, like, they were telling us that, you know, my brother and I, that, you know, we were, like, talking too much or whatever, it would just be like, you know, you were embarrassing us.
So... It was more about...
Not being embarrassed for me, but like...
Embarrassed of you?
Yeah. Okay.
And when your parents would...
Be cold and upset.
I don't want to put words in your mouth.
Is that a reasonable way of talking about it?
Because it's not like they were yelling at you or it's not like they threw you out of a moving car or anything like that.
But were they cold and upset?
Were they angry and withdrawn?
Like, how is it that they would communicate that to you?
It really varied, but when they would be silent, it would just, you could just tell by the expression you could just tell by the expression and, you know, the length of time it would take for them to say anything.
And then they would talk as if I had already understood everything that they were trying to communicate, if that makes any sense.
No, no, I totally get that.
That is like, to be blunt, that's asshole parent 101.
It's like, if you can't figure out what you did wrong, I can't explain it to you.
Yeah. Right? So basically, they just want you to invent your own crimes and punishments and shit like that, right?
Right. So, this is going to be a tough leap for you.
Or maybe it won't be, but it's tough.
Because this is around empathizing with the unempathetic.
What were your parents feeling that made them so upset when you would do something that might embarrass them or would?
What were they feeling?
Yeah. I'm sorry?
Yes, what were they feeling?
Probably, I would say anxious and embarrassed.
I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that because I don't speak Swiss.
They would feel anxious and embarrassed.
Well, I mean, again, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but you went through this so many times that you can't have any doubt really what they felt, right?
Right.
I'd say anger. - Sure.
Right, but anger at what?
I mean, I'm sorry.
Yes, yeah, I mean, that's right.
They were angry, but that's not all they were.
Okay, I'm having trouble.
Sure. The anger was in reaction to what?
Because you said this happened at church, right?
I know it didn't only happen at church, but that was the one that came to mind?
Uh-huh. So they're sitting in church, and you, your kids, are acting up, right?
In some manner, let's just say, right?
What is the first thing that they feel before they get angry?
Anxious?
Yeah, I think fear, right?
Right.
So what are they afraid of?
Other people.
Other people.
Right, and what are they afraid of other people doing to them?
Um... Criticizing them.
Um... Or, like, scorning them, like, ostracizing them.
Right, rolling their eyes.
Ugh, they call themselves parents.
They can't even teach their children basic manners.
What a bunch of apes, right?
Right. Now, were your parents close to the people in church insofar as did they do a lot of socializing with them?
Did they hang?
No. No? No, I bet you they didn't, right?
Nope.
Now, do you know why we're talking about your parents?
Well, because this is where this is coming from.
Well, there is something that is pathetic in your family.
I don't think it's you.
far from it but there is something that is pathetic them sorry I again that was it was that Swedish
Them. Yeah, and I'll give you...
Sorry, you go ahead. They were...
Abusive towards us because they were afraid of other people, which is absolutely pathetic.
That they were afraid of other people?
That they were...
That they...
Not just that, that they allowed their fears of other people to...
that because they were afraid they abused us.
Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, isn't that just beyond horrible?
I don't mean just the abuse, right?
I mean, that's obviously horrible, but isn't it just beyond horrible?
And I'm going to get unabashedly emotional here, because it's just a strong thing for me, but isn't it just beyond horrible that Your mom was probably dreaming about her wedding day from when she was like five years old, and you all do that freaky shit with the dolls and stuff, which guys don't really understand, but apparently it's important, right?
You practice the wedding and so on, right?
Not all women are like this, but it's a dream day, right?
She's like, who's going to be the one?
Who's going to be the man? Who am I going to marry?
Who's going to be my husband? And then they get married, and they're like, oh, you know, this is great, marriage, and Now I really, really want to have kids, so I'm going to try and get pregnant.
I'm going to get pregnant, going to go through the pregnancy, going to go through the morning sickness, going to go through the ultrasounds, going to go through the pelvic exams, going to go through labor.
God help you, right?
This woman I was talking to today, it was 30 hours.
I mean... My mind is blown, right?
And I asked her, I said, my God, that must have been really hard for your husband.
All pregnant women are storming my house right now.
But... And then what does she do?
She has a baby. She's got to get her, frankly, vagina sewn back up because of the tears.
And she's got to walk funny.
She's got hemorrhoids. She's got lactation.
Her breasts are killing her.
She's getting up at night to feed the baby.
The baby's producing more shit than a...
Cirque du Soleil Volkswagen produces clowns.
She's cleaning it all. She's doing all the laundry.
She's teaching the kid to walk.
She's making the house safe.
Her whole life, in a sense, has been dedicated to the pursuit of creating this life.
Right? Right.
This is her treasure.
This is her core treasure.
Right? And she's put an unbelievable amount of work Into bringing you into being, right?
Yes. And she's got maternal bonding and she's got eye contact and her flesh has created your flesh and her breasts nourish you and like all of this incredible stuff around being a mother, being a parent and the expense, the money, right?
Right. Right. And this is what I can't understand about parents.
I just can't understand it about parents.
You work for decades to create this child.
Go through labor, breastfeed, expense, raise the kid, get up.
Night after night.
Feed, change.
Take your kid to Get the inoculations and this and that.
And then, who do you betray this precious gift for?
Do you betray your child?
Do you turn on your child for a billion dollars?
No! Do you turn on your child because the fate of the free world hangs in the balance?
No! Do you turn on your child because someone has a gun to your head?
No! Do you humiliate and attack your child because you're trapped in a mine?
No! After all of this work and all this staggering, massive, almost bottomless investment of love, time, energy, resources, body fluids...
What makes you turn on your child?
The frowns of strangers.
I can't understand it.
Like, seriously, in my gut and in my heart of hearts, I cannot understand it.
Does that make any sense, what I'm saying?
Amen.
Oh, yeah.
For the sake of who gives shit people you see once a week in church?
That is pathetic.
Like, it's one thing to sell your soul to the devil for The wealth of a king and the power of a god, right?
Right. But it's quite another thing to sell your soul to the devil for five quid and a six-pack.
Right. That's pathetic, right?
I have worked for years to create this child from my blood and my loins, and I am going to betray and humiliate that child because other people might be upset with me.
I mean, you see this all the time.
When I used to travel for business, see this with parents who have babies on the plane.
And the baby, what does the baby do?
The baby cries. Why does the baby cry?
Because the air pressure is changing and it's causing his sinuses to explode, right?
It's painful. It's horrible.
He's helpless. He doesn't even know he's on a plane, right?
He's just in pain. And the mothers are frightened of everyone else.
Oh, I hope I'm not bothering everybody with my life, right?
Mm-hmm. I always used to try and make a point of it, of saying, can't you buy your baby a first-class ticket, for heaven's sake?
No, like, I turn and say, is there anything I can do to help?
I mean, I know it's stressful traveling with children, but, you know, people would get upset.
Like, I'm sorry that we're not born 18 years old, that human beings have to reproduce.
Like, so what, right? I mean, it's natural.
Mm-hmm. Their parents would be embarrassed or get tense, and you see this in stores, right?
The kid is grabbing something and the mother's like, put that down!
Because she's afraid that the cashier is going to get upset.
The cashier! Like I'm going to betray my child for some pimply 16-year-old kid who I'm never going to see again?
It's mad!
Yeah. Does this make any sense?
Oh, yeah, it does.
Like, what does it take for them to break the bond with their own flesh and blood?
I mean, I swear to God, somebody would have to have a gun to my head to make me speak ill of my wife.
I swear.
But our parents betrayed us for nothing.
And I remember, not to make this about me, but I totally remember this, Colleen, when I was breaking with my mom.
Because I remember all the times that she would get mad at us or whatever when we were in public because we did something that somebody frowned at.
The cashier, right? And we'd We'd be bored after, like, an hour of grocery shopping, as little kids would want to be, and we'd grab a magazine, and my mother would shoot a frightened look at the cashier and, you know, get mad at us, right, and humiliate us.
I remember thinking, so I thought, oh, you know, but she's going to get old and she's going to get done.
She's going to get old and she's going to die.
She's going to need help.
She's going to get sick and blah, blah, blah, right?
I remember thinking, and I don't know if this was...
It doesn't feel like a bad part of me, but I just remember thinking really clearly.
It's like, hey, just get the fucking cashier to come to your bedside since clearly she was so important to you.
Right? Compared to...
My brother and I, this cashier was much more important, right?
Right. Because in order to avoid even the hint of a negative glance from the cashier, my mother would shit on us, right?
Like, hey, well, so clearly, we're totally at the bottom of the totem pole.
There's all these other people who are more important, so they can take care of you when you get older.
Right? Right.
It's like if your parents ever get mad if you don't talk to them, it's like, go talk to your fucking church people.
Right? Because they were clearly and are clearly much more important than your own children.
If those are the values that your parents live by, then by God, those are just the values your parents are going to have to live by.
If my mom frightens and humiliates me because of the possible negative opinions of random strangers, then she can rely on random strangers for help the rest of her life, if they're so important, right?
If their opinions and their possible decisions are so important.
I don't know if this makes any sense.
Yeah, it does. So I do believe that there is something pathetic in your family.
And it is the betrayal of children that your parents spent their lives working to create for the sake of the possible frowns of total strangers.
I mean, we've all seen this kind of nonsense, even in romantic relationships, right?
So some couple's having a big argument, right?
The woman's screaming at the man, say, and then the phone rings and she's like, hi!
It's like, you don't even know who's on the other end of the phone.
But you can be polite to that person while screaming at the person you claim to love, right?
Right. Why does this anonymous stranger on the phone get your best behavior and your lover gets your worst?
Right? My mother would never hit us in front of other people.
So their disapproval or their possible disapproval of her hitting us Was enough incentive for her to not hit us, right?
But our fear and pain at being hit didn't mean anything, right?
Yeah. So she saved all her best behavior for anonymous strangers, people at the mall.
And we got the worst.
Why this happens in personal relationships?
Completely beyond me.
Shouldn't we not save our best behavior for the people we claim to love?
Right.
And your parents didn't, right?
Right.
Right.
That's it for my speech.
And I know that this hasn't quite connected with you emotionally, which is totally fine.
This is just my rant, right?
But tell me what you're thinking and feeling.
Well, I just...
It is, I mean...
Really kind of...
It's disgusting to look back and realize that that's the reason I went through what I went through when I was a child.
It is really, really sad and also angering, but I'm just still really confused as to why This is happening to me right now.
You mean these feelings of worthlessness and so on?
Yeah. And have you...
When I was doing my Spittlefest, Ramble Tangent or whatever, was...
Did anything come up for you that was more emotional?
I mean, I know that you understood it intellectually.
I'm not saying it wasn't effective emotionally, but that was not something that got you to an answer to that, right?
And that's no problem. I just want to make sure that I understand that.
Right. But you do understand...
Of course you do.
I'll just mention it, right? But you do understand that...
You were taught that you had no worth, right?
If we're worth less than a random stranger's possible opinion we're not worth squat, right?
Right. If our parents are willing to attack and humiliate us because some random stranger might frown at them we're worth less than nothing, right?
We have negative worth.
Right. So there's no bond Here, right?
The bond can be broken at any time, right?
Stranger frowns, bam!
No bond, right? There's nothing to rely on.
It's like trying to hang on to an ice wall, right?
Right, right. So that's going to make you feel what?
Worthless.
Well, tell me more.
Well, I mean, I mean, it's obvious.
They treat me like I'm worthless than a random stranger.
I'm going to feel worthless.
And also...
I guess constantly afraid.
Right. Afraid of what disapproval might cause them to attack me, right?
Right. Right.
And the reason that we're talking about your parents is because it's possible that what you're feeling is their shame.
Because I'll tell you, parents are not proud of that.
Yes.
Deep down, parents who treat their children like shit because random strangers might frown at them do not, in their heart of hearts, look in the mirror and say, I am really proud of what I just did.
Right. Right.
How do your parents feel in their heart of hearts at three o'clock in the morning about betraying you and attacking you for the sake of strangers in bad suits?
Just totally pathetic.
Go on.
Like there's no point in even living.
Go on.
I mean, if your parents' conscience, their genuine true conscience, which none of us can escape, if your parents' true conscience were to lecture them about what they did, what would it say? if your parents' true conscience were to lecture them about Thank you.
Thank you.
It would say that What they did was totally cowardly and pathetic and evil and wrong and that there's nothing they can do to make any kind of restitution now and that they're just going to either have to live with how pathetic they are or Now,
do you know why you stopped here? No.
Why do you think you stopped?
I think there was a good reason I don't know because you were trying to say that there was some other alternative right?
You can't possibly make restitution so...
Right? You'll have to live with whatever, right?
Mm-hmm. But there is no so after that, right?
In reality.
Right. Right.
That you were so terrified of the world and so self-righteous with your child that you felt bullied by other people and you turned around and bullied your child, that you shattered your nest, that you attacked your offspring while claiming virtue, right?
And there is no parole for that.
And this basic reality that we can damn well lock ourselves up and throw away the key.
And that there's no outside agency that can change the sentence that we pass on ourselves for the evils that we do.
Right? That's why I say to people, if you've been maltreated by your parents, your forgiveness is only enslaving them further.
Because it cannot be forgiven.
Right? To attack your child out of fear of strangers.
I mean, yes, we can do it, and then we go, oh my God, that's terrible.
I should never do that again. I've got to find a way to solve this problem, and we work day and night to solve it.
It's not like we have to be perfect, but we have to take responsibility.
Right? There is no absolution for wracking a childhood.
Right? Right? I say to people, don't forgive your parents because it's meaningless to say it.
Because they can only forgive themselves.
And if restitution is impossible, forgiveness is impossible.
If restitution is impossible, forgiveness is manipulative.
Right. Right.
The despair that you feel, I am worthless and I do not want to live, is not yours.
I can't go back in time and have my mother do different things than what she did, right?
Thank you.
Right.
You can't go back in time and make your parents treat you differently at church or not bring you to church, or if they treated you badly, to try and figure out a way to treat you better.
Right?
We can't go back.
We can't fix it, right? I mean, it's sort of like going to a lung doctor when you're four days away from dying of lung cancer and say, Doctor, I need you to forgive me for smoking.
What would that mean? It's irreversible.
The forgiveness can't change the fact that you smoked for 30 years and you're dying, right?
Right?
Forgiveness doesn't take one cigarette out of your lungs from the past, right?
So, the despair that you feel is empathy with a tortured conscience, or rather, a corrupt and evil soul in the presence. a corrupt and evil soul in the presence.
Our conscience is omniscient.
in my opinion. It doesn't miss a damn thing.
Because people can lie all they want about how happy they are, but at 3 o'clock in the morning, everybody knows the truth.
And I think that what you're seeing is your parents' conscience, your parents' experience of their own decisions.
Why would I be seeing that now?
I don't know. I don't know.
I don't know. What's your status with them?
And I'm so sorry, I should remember all of this, but I can't think of it at the moment.
I've defued for about...
How long? A little over a month ago.
Over a month ago, and I haven't blocked their...
I've blocked their emails...
Seems like three or a couple weeks ago, so...
And we'll just try a couple of quick diagnostics.
None of this may mean nothing.
Doesn't matter. We're just going to see if we can figure it out.
Parents' anniversary? Anywhere close?
Parents' birthday? Family get-together?
Church event?
Anything like that? Um...
Actually, I'm just terrible at remembering those dates, so...
No, no problem. Again, we'll just cast it about here.
What happened yesterday?
Yesterday, I went to some job interviews, and I was excited about them, and then I was contacted later that my references...
That I had put down and actually had asked them to be my references and they said yes.
We're not actually giving me a reference and we're referring them to a 1-800 number because of company policy, so that was really frustrating, but I mean that's pretty much all that happened that day.
Right, so you do realize this makes you a very naughty person, right?
Very naughty person indeed, I must say.
Why? Well, young lady, because we're talking about betrayal by people who have authority over you, right?
Oh, fuck. I mean, please!
This is so naughty I can't even speak.
I wonder. No, no, that can't be it.
It can't be the job interviews followed by the rejection where you put your heart out there and then people screw you after they promise to give you assistance and betray you.
No, no. And they betray you for the sake of anonymous strangers called a policy.
No, no, no, that can't be it.
What did you have for breakfast yesterday morning?
Maybe it's food.
Sweet mother of all this holy woman.
You got me asking about church holidays?
I'm sorry. Rich was even sitting here whispering, you know, references.
And I was like, no, it's not.
Oh my god. Alright, you have to go back to bed.
bed no supper for you go on right okay um okay Well... Yeah, I was...
I was... I did feel pretty betrayed when that happened, and I was kind of thinking about it, wondering, like, okay, is my frustration with this warranted, or is it just I'm overreacting to some sort of snag?
But I was thinking, like, Yeah, I called them up and personally asked them if they would be a reference, and not only did they say yes, but they seemed very positive about it, so I didn't have any worries about that.
And then I've been searching for a job for, I think, two months, over a month.
Over a month. And I've been putting these people down every single application I've filled out, every single interview I've gone to, and just now was informed that they are sending everybody to this 1-800 number, so... So you totally got screwed here, right?
I mean, and if you hadn't lucked out hearing about this, this could have gone on for another month or two, right?
Or more. Where you're going like, holy shit, why am I not getting these jobs, right?
Right. And these people, of course, even if they thought they could, when they found out they couldn't, they should have called you and said, listen, sorry, but I really want to give you a reference, but I'm not allowed to, right?
Right, exactly. But they screwed you, right?
Yeah. Well, damn, woman!
That's cold! Yeah.
I mean, aren't you pissed?
Oh, yeah, I was.
I'm really pissed about it.
Yeah, I mean, that's really crappy behavior, right?
Yeah. Because it's not just that they betrayed you, but they're wasting your time.
You're going on all these job interviews and you're thinking, oh man.
And they know what this is going to do to you if you're not getting jobs because they can't give you references.
You're going to feel like they don't like you, right?
Yeah. So this is just nasty, right?
Right. But I still don't think that we've got why you might feel depressed.
No, just kidding. Did anything happen?
I wonder why I had this dream.
I still think that what I was saying about your parents is true, right?
That you're not feeling your own despair and hopelessness and lack of desire to live, but this is a foo-faction, right?
This foo-infection. Right.
Yeah, I would agree. Okay.
So, then, and we'll just touch on this very quickly, because I'm sure you've got stuff that you want to talk about with the dude, but there's this book that I wrote once called, hang on a second, let me just look it up.
Oh yeah, Real-Time Relationships.
I've never read that.
No, I know. It's new.
And we haven't really talked about it much.
But one of the things that I talk about in that book is being curious about your own emotions, right?
Yeah. I don't think there's a chapter called, I'm sure I'm overreacting.
Let me repress it and become catatonic.
Right. There's not that much to be upset about.
I'm going to bed.
Yeah. Right?
Right. So, when you found this out, you felt angry, right?
Frustrated, hurt, upset, like you'd lost opportunities, because obviously you went for the jobs that you wanted most in the first week, in the first month, sorry, and you got totally hosed, right?
Yeah. So, the cream of the crop is gone, right?
You can't go back and say, oh shit, I'm sorry, I found out my references really hate me.
So, new references, you know, Ed the Sock and four other unicorns, right?
Right. Right, so, I mean, with all seriousness, it's pretty bad, right?
Oh, yeah. And...
You did want with those feelings?
Well, when I first found out, we were out to dinner.
So I was like, okay, I don't really want to make a big deal of this.
I don't want to make a big scene of this.
So I didn't really get that upset.
And I kind of just went to action and like...
I started calling, like, the last place and asking them, you know, what was up with this?
And they just sort of gave me the same story and I called back the other place and said, you know, what do you want instead?
The place that was hiring me and said, you know, what can I give you instead?
And that sort of thing. But I just went to action and I didn't really get that upset about it at first.
And then I thought about it later, but I still said...
You know, maybe this is an overreaction.
Right. And, of course, maybe it is an overreaction, but that's why we keep...
Right. But you kind of use that to wish them all away, right?
Wish those feelings away? Yeah, I think so, because even though I was sort of talking about it and writing about it, I just went on to something else, and I didn't stay on that.
Right. Well, don't do that.
Right? Sorry, that's complicated stuff, and then this is one of the not-so-complicated things.
First of all, you can be angry in a restaurant.
I don't know what your scenario is, whether you're, like, throwing waiters at people or something.
Like, you can be angry in a restaurant and talk about being angry and upset without there being a big scene, right?
Right. Right.
I just didn't want to, like...
I guess I didn't want to bring everybody down, I guess, because we were out with...
With friends. Three other FDRs.
Yeah. Oh, right.
Yeah, no, you certainly don't want to be doing FDR stuff with FDR people.
That's really confusing for people.
Because the important thing is to take your books and put them on the shelf so that they keep your bookshelf in place, right?
But not to live them, right?
Because that's chapter one.
This is all academic.
Remember, that's at the beginning of all my books.
So that's an excuse, right?
You didn't want to. But here you have...
This is how your parents got into your head, right?
This is the moment of transmission, right?
This is the infection.
This is the wound that they infected you through.
Yeah.
I'm sorry, that was half Swiss.
I couldn't tell if that was a question or a statement.
Yeah. Yeah. I can see what you mean.
That... Sort of, it really relates to the whole fear of others sort of thing.
Yeah, everything that I was saying about parents and children is us with our own souls, right?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. I betrayed my true feelings for the sake of what other people would think.
Exactly. See, we all get mad at our parents for doing this, and rightly so, I think.
But then we do it to ourselves, right?
Yeah. Which means it's kind of unjust to only get mad at them.
I'm not saying the solution is to get mad at ourselves.
But you did to yourself what your parents did to you, right?
The fears of the disapproval of strangers caused suppression and rejection, right?
Right, right. And that's how they got into your head, right?
And that's why you ended up experiencing your parents' agony at having betrayed that which is most precious to them because you did it with your soul, right?
Yeah. So you got a tiny taste of what they did, right?
But it was all unconscious, so boom, right?
Right, right. And this is great progress.
This is fantastic.
Yeah. Sorry, that was another half question.
No, I mean, yeah, I'm actually really excited that we sort of figured this out because I've had a really hard time being able to trace things back.
Well, what I mean is that, sorry to interrupt you, but what I mean is that you getting really depressed is incredible progress.
Maybe we were talking about different things, which is probably why you had a half and half question coming.
Because you hadn't experienced that before, except maybe a year ago, right?
We don't know. I can't remember. I mean, we don't know what happened a year ago, but it doesn't really matter.
But I guarantee you that you had rejected yourself many times over the last year, right?
You just hadn't felt it. Yeah.
Yeah. See, here's the thing.
If you're in a wheelchair because you've, I don't know, severed your spinal cord or something like that, and you can't feel anything in your legs, what is the best possible thing that can happen to you in terms of the prognosis?
You start to feel pain.
Yeah, that your legs start to hurt like all the mad devils on the planet, right?
Right. When things are numb, we're totally screwed, right?
But your body is giving you some feedback here, right?
And your body is saying what you couldn't say as a child, it hurts to be rejected.
Yeah.
That's beautiful!
Right.
I'm not saying it's fun.
*crying* Right? I mean, we can be sure that it wasn't fun at all, right?
But it's fantastic that your soul is complaining that it's not being listened to, right?
Right. Because now you have an incentive to really Focus on this, right?
Yeah. See, the thing is, believe it or not, it's actually huge progress to transfer our fear of others to our fear of our own soul,
right? Because that's just a really hellish place that I don't want to be in.
No, you don't. You don't, obviously.
And, of course, the real terror is not knowing the why, right?
Mm-hmm. Right.
If I put my hand on the stove and it hurts, that's one thing.
If my hand hurts randomly, that's another thing, right?
Mm-hmm. So the real fear is not that experience, although I know it's horrible, but the real fear is like, what happened?
Did I just get shot with the magic arrow of depression here?
Yeah. But I think that we can see that there is a cause and effect here, right?
You were betrayed by other people that put you back into your childhood situation, but you've gained enough strength and independence that you can actually feel the rejection now.
You weren't able to make the conscious connection because, as I said before, you were being very naughty.
But that is incredible progress.
I think you should be amazingly proud.
That's all I have to say.
So if there's anything else you want to talk about, that's fine too, but I know you've got a lot of stuff that you want to talk about with yourself and with others, but that was just sort of the main thing that I wanted to talk about, if that makes sense.
Yeah, and I mean, thank you for helping me figure that out.
I don't know how long I would have just been there.
And Steph, I asked Colleen this, but what would be a better way for me to approach her when she gets depressed?
Elephant tranquilizers?
Can you get those? I'm not sure what the cause are in terms of what you have.
I don't know how you bring down this naughtiness.
I don't know. Just kidding.
The approach?
Well, I can't sort of give you anything in particular, but...
The thing to do is, I mean, if you can't get her to RTR, which is not easy when you're in that state, right?
It's like, well, why do I want to put my hand back into flames, right?
Right. But if she's feeling self-hatred when she has not done anything to deserve it,
right? Then it can't be her feeling, right?
It has to be somebody else.
I mean, this is just a few principles that I work with, right?
But it's all just about the empiricism, right?
Which is like, okay, well, what happened?
Was this similar to anything that happened before in your life?
What did you do with what happened, right?
So this very bad news occurred about these references.
What did you do with your feelings?
Oh, well, I repressed them, right?
And then, I mean, that's, you know...
That usually is the way that I would approach it if that's of any help, right?
What happened and what did you do with what happened, right?
Yeah, I'll try it that way next time.
Thank you.
All right. Well, thanks.
I mean, I know that it was not a fun day, and I also know that it was not the easiest conversation, but, I mean, I think you did great.
I think you're doing great. And I think that, horrible though it is to feel this tingling agony shooting back through your limbs, it is evidence of their liveliness, and I think that that should be a cause for celebration.
Yeah, definitely. All right.
I will send you all a copy of this, of course.
Again, fantastic conversation.
Do let me know what... What I think I can do with it after you have a chance to listen to it.
Okay. Thanks so much.
Thanks, Colin. Bye. Thank you, Steph.
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