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April 29, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:19

1049 Deist Muslim Alone

A muslim woman struggles to understand where things went wrong.

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	Hi, it's Steph. How's it going?
	Oh, okay. Hey. Sorry.
	I said no idea what number was.
	So, what we've all done is what we're going to do is we're all going to do a big collective shrug on the count of three.
	No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, no, look, it was just something that I'd noticed that whenever I saw you in the chat room that there was something that you were talking about.
	And this is not to say that this is the only thing that you were talking about, but along with the considerably intelligent and refined arguments and points that you were putting forward was intermixed.
	A fairly vivid or strong descriptions of certain kinds of horrible things that just seem to float up for you.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, no, sorry. That was my remark on it all.
	Right, right. So that's just sort of what I wanted to mention.
	It's not a criticism at all, of course.
	I mean, I think that...
	I never know people online that well, but I try to get a feel for them.
	And I always thought that you had great intelligence, great verbal skills, great reasoning skills, and so on.
	And I also thought that...
	You were kind of standing on a bit of a volcano of history, of personal history, if that makes any sense.
	And the reason that I felt that was...
	And this is just my opinion. It doesn't mean anything.
	It's just my impressions, right?
	There's no basis in anything other than it's just what I thought.
	And I thought that whenever I've seen people talk about...
	Trauma, things that are genuinely horrible and not, you know, like I stubbed my toe, but some bad stuff really went down.
	When people talk about that without an emotional connection, if that makes sense, and you can tell that, or at least I can tell that pretty quickly in a chat room, if they talk about it like blithely, You know, I picked up some groceries, I went to the bank, and these terrible things happened to me when I was a teenager, and then this.
	Because, like, spot the thing that doesn't fit the set, that's sort of what I noticed.
	And so what I felt was that if there's stuff that remains unprocessed, we return to it over and over again, if that makes sense.
	Right. So that was it for me.
	I don't want to talk too much.
	That was sort of my thoughts, and that's what I brought up in the chat room.
	And I just wanted to say, like, frick, I mean, what you just did there was fantastic.
	Because I was just saying, well, why are you bringing it up again?
	And you were like, oh, not like, oh my god, it is a cult.
	I knew it! I mean, that was just great, what you did there.
	I was really, really impressed for what it's worth.
	So anyway, that's just what I wanted to say.
	Great, yeah. Sorry, like I said, I had Absolutely no idea I was doing it, to be honest.
	Looking back on it, does it ring true for you at all?
	About the past few weeks?
	Yeah, just the things that...
	You said that you wanted to be discreet on this call, so I won't list off the things that you've talked about, but it wasn't exactly things you'd write in a yearbook entry, right?
	Right. Looking back at it from what I can remember, because honestly I don't have the best memory in the world, I can see some, yeah, for sure.
	Bringing it up a couple times without realizing that I had, in a completely subconscious manner.
	Oh, no question. I mean, I don't think that you were sitting there going, ooh, I'm going to reel them in with tales of trauma, and then I'm going to shrug so that they don't, right?
	I didn't think that for a moment, and that's why I talked about this with you, right?
	But I think, you know, I'm no mystic far from it.
	I think I'm quite the opposite.
	But I do believe in the power of the unconscious, and I think that you kind of recognize that That there was something in this environment that we talk about here, the stuff that we talk about here, which is all the way from the philosophical to the psychological to the artistic and so on, that this was a place where if you did it often enough, someone was going to say something, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that definitely makes sense.
	I mean, Doug was the one who...
	Right, right, right, right. Well, I mean, there is...
	It's better than not talking about it at all, but it's not as good as talking about it in a way that allows you or gives you this sort of connection with the experiences.
	And I totally understand what you mean, and I sympathize with it, which is like, well, if bad stuff has gone down, why do you want to revisit it, right?
	I mean, that's sort of your basic...
	Isn't it just re-inflicting the trauma?
	Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's just my viewpoint on it.
	More of like, you can revisit the whole, but the little itty-bitty details just sort of seem like you're almost torturing yourself with it, you know?
	Right. Now, is it...
	And certainly this is the case with something like...
	And I don't think this is an unjust comparison myself, but...
	With something like a military veteran, if this makes sense, there is a feeling or a thought which is that you don't take a military veteran to go and see Saving Private Ryan, right? Right.
	Which is like, why would you...
	That would be a reinfliction of the trauma, right?
	And there are some schools of psychology that my wife and I particularly disagree with, which is something like, you know, like if you were beaten by a shadowy guy, then a shadowy guy should pretend to beat you again so that you can...
	And that to me is just...
	That is a complete reinfliction of the abuse.
	Yeah, that's just horrible.
	Yeah. Beyond horrible in my opinion.
	Why would you want to do that to yourself?
	I completely agree.
	That is completely horrible.
	And that's certainly not the way that I would approach the topic.
	And I'm not going to obviously approach the topic with you here because you do want to keep it a discreet call, which I'm totally fine with.
	But that's not what I mean when I talk about revisiting or exploring the feelings or whatever.
	It's not about... You know, let's take the military veteran to a triple viewing of Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan and Platoon, right?
	Which is just going to be just horrible.
	So, yeah, that's...
	And I think if that's what you mean by why revisit every little detail, I completely agree with you.
	Yeah, that's right. That's sort of what I meant.
	Because to me, revisiting all the details would be like sending him to that movie.
	It's just... Well, I think it's not even almost.
	I mean, I think it is a form of torture.
	I mean, I think it would be a reinfliction.
	I mean, then the best therapy would to go and find the people who hurt you and ask them to do it again, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Hey, I feel better now.
	Right, right, right.
	No, and I think that, so yeah, I think you and I, and I think most people who would be reasonable about this would be on the same page, that to re-experience as if it were real is not a way of getting over trauma, right? Right, I agree.
	I think it does almost the opposite.
	It does the complete opposite.
	Yeah, I agree with that, for sure.
	I mean, from trying it, having people tell me, oh, you should do this, and I went, okay, well, whatever.
	No harm in trying.
	It just made it worse.
	Right. And the reason that we know this, like the reason that we know that it's a really bad idea is that if you do it in real life, it's called severe dysfunction, right?
	So if I have a habit of getting involved with women who beat me up, if I do it over and over again, that's called really dysfunctional and the whole point of mental health would be to stop doing that, right?
	Right. Right.
	So re-inflicting trauma, which would happen repetitively if I kept doing the same thing, would be the very definition of bad mental health, right?
	Right. I completely agree.
	Yeah, so I mean, you know, I think we're on the same page about that, and I just wanted to sort of clear that up so that you understand that at least the way I talk about it and the work that I've done in therapy was not about, you know, find someone like your mom and have her yell at you.
	I mean, that wasn't a...
	Yeah. In fact, I could say that it was to stop doing that that I sort of went into therapy to begin with, right?
	Right. Right, right.
	And if I understand it rightly, then, when you say...
	Remembering every last detail, what you're sort of talking about is, why would I want to re-enter this as if it were a movie and remember every last drop of rain, every last bit of cloth, every last drop of sweat, which would just be re-traumatic, right?
	Right. And, I mean, at least for me, if I really think about it, that's what happens.
	Sorry, go on. There's some distance that I have to put between myself and sort of working through it all.
	Because if I don't do that, well then, for lack of a better word.
	Sorry, let me just, is that a Latin word?
	I just wanted to understand that.
	Yeah, that's a Latin word.
	Okay, just checking.
	Just making sure we're on the same Roman page, right.
	Well, no, I mean, I think that's entirely right.
	And when a soldier, when a military person goes through a flashback, we don't consider this to be a healthy process of healing, right?
	Right. Now, that having been said, that's sort of the...
	Sorry, was there anything more you...
	I think we're on the same page about that, but was there anything else you wanted to add?
	No, I think we've got it.
	Okay, got it. Because I've been known to repeat things, so we could start all over again, if you like.
	No, I understand.
	No, no, really. I am Steph.
	Anyway, okay, we'll keep going then.
	So, all of that having been said, it's been my experience that where there is a repetition that is unconscious, it means that There's a trauma or an upset that hasn't been processed.
	And processing is not the same.
	In fact, it's quite the opposite from re-experiencing in a vivid and recreated kind of way the abuse, right?
	But in the things that you've brought up in the chat window, which are, you know, horrible by any standard, in the things that you brought up in the chat window, If you had closure with these things, and closure doesn't mean that they're never going to hurt you again, and closure doesn't mean that you've forgotten about them, or anything like that.
	But if you'd had closure, then it would seem to me that they would not keep coming up in the course of conversation, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	And so, sorry, go ahead.
	No, I'm not going to pretend like I've really had closure about it all.
	I think that's kind of the point of going and seeing someone at the moment, among other things, is to help learn how to get it.
	Because my entire viewpoint on it for about four years was, oh, I just don't think about it.
	If I pretend it never happened, it totally never happened.
	How did that work out for you?
	I just go along with my daily life.
	Right. How did that work out for you?
	Oh, last year I had a meltdown.
	Yeah, not well, right?
	It was exciting. The idea of, like, I'll put all of these demons in a little box, and I'll put that little box in a bigger box, and I'll put that bigger box in an even bigger box, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And I'll lock it up with a ton of teams, and it just won't get out.
	And what happens is you throw that big heavy iron box into the sea, and then you realize that there's a chain attached to your ankle that's also attached to the box, right?
	Right. Right.
	And then that's where the meltdown happens.
	Right, right.
	And so, yeah, I definitely had a point last year where I should have pulled out of school, but I didn't, which was very smart, because my grades suffered, and then I had to make up for it all.
	Yeah, and that's not unusual.
	I didn't exactly have a meltdown, but what happened to me was I just stopped being able to sleep, which is all too exciting for words, and it kind of yanked me out of life for like six months.
	Until I dealt with all this kind of stuff.
	So, you know, I totally understand that.
	I mean, that is to me, I think that what you did in terms of detaching yourself from it was probably a good strategy.
	And then the fact that you had the meltdown and just, you know, started to deal with it was probably also a very good strategy, right?
	Right. There should have been a better way to have the meltdown, in my opinion.
	Yeah. Instead of...
	I basically just completely went off the deep end for about...
	What does it mean, like strangling cats or something?
	I mean, would it be... It doesn't matter.
	A lot of things that I never would have done in any other sense.
	I got into very, very short relationships.
	I drank a lot.
	I'll admit it. More than a lot.
	And... I experimented with a bunch of things and I made myself really sick.
	I got mono, pneumonia, tonsillitis, a lot of bronchitis.
	I stopped sleeping and the whole time I was still in a Division I sport so I was getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning on About an hour of sleep and going, oh, okay, well, I'll go, I'll work out for two hours and I have my second workout of the day and then I did a third workout and stopped eating.
	I had no doubt.
	What it comes down to, I completely, I couldn't function anymore in real life.
	Right. And I couldn't pretend like I could function.
	I actually had my friends, one of my really good friends, Elizabeth, was actually Force yourself to sit there with me every meal and go, okay, now I'm going to put this plate in front of you and we'll sit here for two hours if we have to.
	Right. Because I don't have anything left to do say.
	And I know that you probably haven't done anything towards getting healthy and so we'll sit down and we'll get healthy.
	Right. And it was basically, it was almost to the point where you just, you needed a 24 hour caretaker.
	Right. Which is just not a good point to be.
	No, no, it is.
	It is. But, you know, although obviously it sounds like you did a pretty classic bit of acting out, which, you know, again, is understandable given the stresses and traumas that you'd experienced before.
	The meltdown, although difficult and unpleasant, is much better than the alternative, which is this, you know, Courtney Love spiral into, like, nothingness, right?
	Right. I was on my way.
	You're probably too young to know what Courtney Love is, but anyway, I won't explain it later.
	Yeah, I think I can actually say the reason that I didn't get to that point was probably due to my friends.
	Because they really wouldn't let me.
	And for that, I'm going to be eternally thankful to them for almost taking a broken wing and fixing it in a way.
	I mean, that's one of the good things about particularly women in sports, right?
	I mean, if you're in a sports team, it's kind of hard to sink alone, right?
	It's more of it's hard to get anything past each other.
	We can definitely have completely autonomous thought processes, but it's more of like if you see someone three times a day at their worst, sweaty, they're not looking good, they're not happy, it's hard to To hide anything from them.
	Yeah, particularly if you're trying to play your sport squinting through one bloodshot eye, right?
	I mean, it's not for ease.
	Exactly. Right, right.
	Exactly. I mean, it was a point when it was almost like a, hey, we got a workout this morning.
	Alyssa hasn't told me once you had mono and had a 140-degree fever.
	It's hard to hide.
	And... And it's the coach's job to make sure you don't hide it as well.
	It's more than that.
	The coach is there to make sure that everything is completely fine.
	That all of their athletes are at their peak performance.
	Right. Now, just to note something, I mean, you do realize that we're going to talk a little bit about trauma management, right?
	And I think you're doing an excellent job of explaining how sports work, but as you know, that's not going to be the point of the call, right?
	Right, sorry. I mean, that was a good job, really.
	I mean, I am fascinated by how coaching works, but I just wanted to, and I understand, but I just wanted to sort of mention about, look, just so you know, you have a therapist.
	So this is all some idiot on the internet talking about his ideas, right?
	Just so you understand, this means nothing whatsoever other than it's just some guy with a vaguely fruity accent on the internet talking about his ideas, right?
	So you're aware of that, right?
	Okay. No, sorry. Catch me if I do that again.
	No, no problem. I just wanted to point it out.
	I'll tell you right now, the meds are starting to wear off, so I'm going to tangent.
	At least a couple more times without rewriting it.
	I'll see your tangent and raise you a complete tangent.
	Okay. Obviously, this is something if you're going to do, you do it with your therapist and blah, blah, blah.
	But I think that when you came to the chat room and you talked about these kinds of things, I think it's because...
	They're not visible to you as part of your experience.
	And again, this is all my crappy nonsense theories, right?
	So it doesn't mean anything other than we're just playing around with some ideas.
	But what I found is that when people come and talk about trauma without emotional connection to that trauma, It's because they haven't felt that people in their environment have really got what they've been through.
	Have really, really understood what they've been through.
	And when I talk about what you've been through, I don't mean the stuff that you've talked about in the chat window.
	Right. I don't mean the stuff that you did earlier in your teens that you've talked about.
	I'm talking about Before that, the stuff that you haven't talked about, and you don't have to talk about here, obviously, but there's a reason why you got involved in the situations that you got involved in, and it had a lot more to do with your early childhood,
	and I would guess, and you don't have to confirm or deny anything, because it's just my ideas, but I would guess That you had some pretty damn serious dysfunction in your family that nobody saw outside of your family.
	Because the behavior that you...
	Sorry, go ahead. Sorry, I'm just saying, if that's the case, I didn't even see it, to be honest.
	Sorry, if that's the case...
	I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I'm not going to lie and pretend that...
	You know, it was beyond amazing, just picture-perfect, because it's not reality.
	But at least from what I saw, and from what I remember, there was never really any totally serious thing that was going on that was wrong.
	They were very close.
	We always have been.
	It's almost a little grating because it's so close.
	But, from what I've seen, anything that happened happened later.
	A lot later.
	And later, like, do you mean during the time that these things were happening, or later even than that, or shortly before, or in that?
	Where is it in that time?
	Later than that, even.
	Okay, so in a sense you may feel that the behavior or the situations that you got into may have provoked some less than ideal functioning within your family, is that right?
	It wasn't so much mine, it was other members of my family.
	Divorces started to occur between my uncles and stuff like that, which was You know, the ones were a little crazy, so it was okay.
	We didn't mind all that much.
	There's a definite trend of eating disorders within the family that occurred.
	Because I'm one of the oldest, it all sort of happened when I got to be fairly late as a teenager.
	Okay, okay. So, was it in your late teens that all this stuff happened that you've mentioned in the chat?
	Okay, okay, I got it.
	No, that was early teens.
	That was early teens, yeah, that's what I thought, okay.
	Yeah. So, in your early teens, the bad stuff went down, and then was it in your late teens that there began to be divorces and so on?
	Yeah. It was in my late teens that my cousins, their family started to really start It's so strange.
	Okay.
	No, look, I certainly don't want to create anything.
	It's not like, in order to conform to my theory, right?
	I mean, that's the last thing I'd want to do.
	I mean, obviously, that would be terrible, right?
	Highly irresponsible. So, obviously, and I know you're telling me the truth, so we'll go with this, right?
	So, tell me a little bit about, you said that your aunts were a little crazy.
	Now, was this throughout your childhood or...?
	Yeah, but it was sort of that kind of crazy where it's funny crazy.
	Like, for example, one of my aunts was totally into the occult and thought she was psychic, which was kind of funny when she hung out with everyone because, for example, she held a seance for one of my cousin's birthdays and it was almost hilarious to watch because I was like 15 at the time, so I'd grown out of that phase.
	But my other cousins were much younger, and they were totally, like, into all this stuff.
	And it was almost funny to have them be in the family, in a way.
	And I'm sure there was a lot of stuff that happened behind closed doors that I really wasn't privy to.
	Our families were close, but there...
	You know, marriage is marriage, and you're not going to air all your dirty laundry out to the world.
	Right, right. But they were that sort of crazy.
	Like, the crazy were, it was almost like you were a little worried about them, but at the same time, you weren't worried enough to have it matter.
	Right, okay. I understand.
	And so you had a seance, your aunt had a seance for who?
	Was it a seance for someone's 15th birthday, was that right?
	It was a seance for my cousin's 10th birthday, I think.
	And there were ones held every Halloween as well.
	And it was a serious seance, right?
	Oh, she was into it. She was very into it.
	She was calling on the spirits.
	And she completely believed it.
	She was a very superstitious woman like that.
	All of us kids were, you know, we were just kind of, oh, let's, what do you call it?
	Let's just do it. And, I can't remember the word.
	Humor her. So she was summoning, sorry to interrupt, but she was trying to summon the spirits of the dead at a child's birthday party?
	Yeah. But not like evil spirits.
	Okay, wait, wait, wait, wait.
	Now, do you notice how only one of us is laughing here?
	Yeah. I mean, I think I have a fairly good sense of humor, even if I only enjoy my own jokes particularly, but it's not funny to me.
	Right. It's not normal.
	It's very dysfunctional.
	It's why we're divorced and why we're all Really happy they divorced in the end.
	And my cousins definitely have some things that they will have to deal with and are sort of already working through, which is good.
	Well, but...
	Sorry, just help me to understand.
	Your parents didn't stop this, right?
	They couldn't.
	They'd expressed disapproval Sorry, sorry, sorry.
	Again, I'm sorry to interrupt and I just want to make sure that I understand.
	Were they in prison? No.
	Were they bound and tied?
	Were they locked in the trunk of a car?
	Were they rolled up in a carpet?
	Were they sunk in the box that you put your feelings in?
	Because they could, right?
	They could have stopped it, right?
	Well, you can only sort of do so much.
	Well, I'll tell you this. If my kid was going to a party where I knew there was going to be a seance, I can tell you where my kid would not be going.
	Oh, well, they didn't know.
	They didn't know there was going to be a seance?
	No, not at the birthday party.
	And we only went to one Halloween party, and it was the first one that she held it that we were like, oh, we're not going anywhere.
	But... After that, we hosted them.
	Sorry, after that what?
	After that, we hosted everything.
	We could control the environment.
	And was your aunt still, like, did she still come over?
	I mean, did she tell you that she'd speak openly about this psychic crazy nonsense and ghosts and demons or whatever?
	Did she talk about this in front of the children?
	No, not after that.
	But before that, she did.
	Yeah. It wasn't so much...
	The seances were kind of the first inkling that that had ever been a real passion of hers.
	If you know what I mean. It wasn't really an open thing.
	Because I think that she knew that it wasn't okay.
	But at the same time, she had some very...
	The issues that she needs to work out in a very big way.
	And once we started to host things and control things, it definitely stopped.
	Okay, yeah, and I'm not trying to lead a lynching mob against your kith and kin here.
	Like, I'm just trying to sort of just understand the family structure or what's going on, right?
	And the reason that I, I mean, obviously that I'm fixated on this, and my mother was a great believer in her own psychic abilities, so let's say my antennae goes up.
	Just a little bit. And I'm trying to make sure that I don't put my experiences into your world.
	But that's some pretty crazy stuff to expose kids to.
	And again, you say it's once and this and that.
	But you know when people are crazy, right?
	I mean, you know within the first few minutes.
	You certainly know when they're married to someone in your family, right?
	Right. And, you know, she was never fully accepted.
	And it was always kind of like, oh, is Darlena coming?
	That sort of thing.
	But she was the one that was really crazy.
	My other aunt was just a very busy mom.
	She was a teacher, and she had a lot of obligations, and that's why that marriage broke up.
	Okay, okay.
	Now, I'm going to just try and trace, and again, this is not a lynch mob, I'm just trying to understand, because it's my strong opinion, which is to say that it's a crazy opinion from some guy over the internet, right?
	So, again, it's just my opinion, right?
	But it's my strong opinion that a group has a tough time being saner than its craziest member.
	Right. Right?
	Like, you don't see a bunch of friends, three of whom are preppy and one of whom is a skinhead, right?
	Right. And I'm not saying who's crazy or sane in that situation, right?
	But what I'm saying is that you don't tend to have a whole bunch of druggies hanging out with one hard-working lawyer, right?
	Right. So, in this environment of your family...
	You have somebody who we would technically call kind of batshit, right?
	Right. I mean, technically, right?
	I'm using Latin, too.
	Right. And what that says to me, and all it does is say it to me, right?
	It doesn't mean anything. But what it says to me is that...
	Was this on your mom's or your dad's side, this marriage?
	This was on my mom's side.
	On your mom's side, okay.
	So this means that your mother's mother must have had some kind of batshit stuck to her.
	Well, Darlena wasn't related to any of us.
	It was her husband.
	And Darlena was his first love, I'll marry my first love as soon as I meet her, sort of thing.
	Let's go run off to Vegas and elope.
	Because his parents did not approve.
	My grandparents.
	Right. They didn't approve.
	So we have some real impulse control problems here, right?
	Right. There's a definite trend of working on the impulse control in my family, I won't lie.
	But that was the worst sort of impulsiveness that I can remember.
	Right, right.
	It was really his marriage.
	Right. Now, I'm not going to try and ask you leading questions.
	But here, I'm afraid I'm going to ask you a leading question, and I apologize for that ahead of time, but here's a leading question, right?
	And this is, again, this is just some nutty guy on the internet, so whatever, right?
	But here's the reality that I see, which is that your family has some dysfunction.
	It doesn't really matter how much, right?
	But we've got occult Woman who thinks that it's good to have a seance at a kid's party.
	We've got impulse control problems, we've got running off to Vegas to get married with no thought for the future, and we have your parents in this mix with these people, right?
	Right. I mean, I don't know any of these people.
	Hold on a sec, sorry.
	Yeah? Sorry, my mom just came in to say hi.
	No problem, we can put her on next.
	No, I'm kidding. So, let's just say that there are a couple of little crazy people floating around the family structure, right?
	Right. And like I said, I'm not going to pretend like my family is perfect.
	I'd be lying to myself and to everyone else around me, which isn't fair to anybody.
	But, let's put it this way, from what I saw growing up, from the people around me, my friends, everything, the Newport Beach vibe, I'd say my family is not dysfunctional, but at least mild.
	Okay, I thought that was a wonderful disclaimer.
	I felt like we were just right at the end of one of those commercials for headache remedies, you know?
	Very well put.
	If you could do that in a really deep and slightly ominous voice, you know, my family is not crazy.
	I understand that.
	I'm not coming to any conclusions, obviously.
	I'm just trying to get a map, right?
	Right. And look, no family.
	Sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry.
	I was just going to say, I understand.
	And that's why I said that.
	I'm trying to help you build the map.
	Right, right, right.
	Okay. So, the question is not whether your family is perfect, because no family is perfect.
	I mean, that's not even a question.
	This community is not perfect.
	Okay, well, my wife is perfect.
	But no family, because I'm part of the family and bring the imperfection into her, but no family is perfect, and that is not an issue.
	But I have two other questions for you, if you don't mind.
	Of course. And the first is, what was your relationship to religion and the state or the country when you were growing up?
	I grew up a very, very lenient Muslim where we sort of had this general belief that we are Muslims.
	My mom came from Iran and my dad Ended up converting when they married because he was like, of course I'll convert, this is very important to her.
	But she never really imposed it on us.
	Nor did she impose any political belief on us as well.
	For the most part we were Muslims for the celebrations and the holidays and the fact that we could get out of school when no one else could.
	So you weren't sent for religious education, is that right?
	No, I wasn't.
	We talked about it with my mom on occasion, just very, very basic teachings that could be really just said as moral grounding for us, like, don't steal. Don't cheat on your partner.
	Don't cheat in business.
	Don't kill anyone.
	That sort of moral teaching.
	But for the most part, it was very, very lenient.
	We didn't follow anything very strictly.
	I barely fasted as a kid for Ramadan.
	Well, kids don't fast, do they?
	Yeah, actually, you do.
	You just don't do an adult fast.
	Oh, it's the same thing as puberty.
	After puberty, you have to do the adult fast, is that right?
	Yeah. After you have the age of 13 as a female and 18 as a male, because by then you've sort of stopped physically developing.
	Right. It's not as crucial.
	Then you can do the full-day fast.
	Okay, but, sorry, sorry.
	But for children, if you need to eat three meals, you just don't snack.
	I understand, but help me understand this.
	If you weren't given religious instruction, then what were you fasting for?
	And I'm sure there's good reasons.
	Because as far as I understand it, if you're a Muslim, you fast because you're showing piety to God and so on, right?
	And you give to the poor because you show piety.
	So if you take the God part out, if this makes sense, if you take the God part out, I'm not sure where the fasting sits, if that makes sense.
	Right.
	Sorry, I have to actually think about that because it was a long time ago and I haven't done it for so long.
	When it came to that, there was the general thought that you were doing this because you were showing God that you cared about the other people that were starving.
	And like I said, we never did it very religiously.
	My mom did it. My mom's side of the family did it very, very strictly because they grew up in Iran and it's what you do.
	But she never really imposed it on us.
	We had the choice to do it if we wanted to.
	And I liked it because I could control what I ate after a certain age.
	Without anyone thinking too harshly on it.
	But yeah. You mean from a diet or a weight perspective?
	Yeah. Around the age of 13 or so when you become a teenager and start to notice the fact that, oh look, you're skinnier than I am.
	It was a good crash diet for lack of a better word.
	Right, okay, okay, I think I understand.
	So, because I'm trying to understand what the relationship was with God, and it doesn't sound to me like it's an easy one to explain, and that doesn't mean that's bad, I just sort of wanted to sort of understand, right?
	Right. God was always there.
	My mom and my dad were both religious growing up, They didn't want to impose it too harshly on us because there's a sense of they have to come to God themselves, which is very important in the Muslim religion.
	You don't brainwash your child.
	You discuss it openly after a certain age.
	And you tell them, this is what I believe.
	This is what this says.
	Now you choose.
	Well, and of course, I'm sure you're aware that this is not all Muslims, right?
	Right. I'm just saying, in the sort of the Sunni, that's the sect that I belong to, that sect is very, very, you have to openly come to God.
	God's not going to come to you.
	And God's not going to judge you for not coming to Him, so long as you still live a moral life.
	Right, okay, I got it.
	So, there was God...
	You can't explain it. No, I understand.
	So, God was put forward as a being that was out there who wanted you to be a good Muslim, but you had to find your way to God through your own steam, so to speak.
	Yes. Okay, I understand.
	And was the...
	Were the teachings, I mean, the Koran, the Prophet, I mean, was all of this stuff, I shouldn't say this stuff, I don't want to sound that flippant, but was it brought to your life in your family, or was it something like, yeah, yeah this is book you can have a look at it if you want when you get older I'm right it harder
	it's hard to explain it because it wasn't what really big thing I It was the thing that mom did, and that grandma did, and that grandpa did.
	But at the same time, it wasn't like it's the thing that you have to do, in a way.
	And it was talked about on occasion, but very, very lightly.
	Nothing really, no heady discussion.
	I don't think I really learned about Anything related to Islam until I got to high school and had a religious class as part of my world history course.
	That's sort of how little I knew about it growing up.
	Right. And how light the discussion was.
	Right, right. But there was a certain amount of outward show that you were encouraged to participate in, right?
	Um... On holidays, yes.
	Other than that, it was a very, very private thing.
	And the only way that we sort of knew that Mom did this and Grandma did this was because holidays would come around and they would do it.
	And they'd do it full force.
	But there was no scarf.
	There were no rules about covering all your body.
	Even within my grandma and my great-grandma's Generation, they're very Americanized.
	Very Americanized. So they're not doing the five times a day thing and all that?
	No. No, they don't.
	Do they do the Mecca thing?
	No. There are a lot of rules with Mecca, and no one in my family has actually qualified for Mecca yet.
	Just out of curiosity, what does that mean?
	Because I thought you just had to go to Mecca.
	There are a lot of things that you have, there are steps that you have to reach before you can go to Mecca.
	One of it is you have to be very financially stable.
	You cannot have any young children.
	You have to be completely healthy.
	You have to be so old before you can go.
	You have to have given so much charity before you can go.
	From what I remember.
	Okay, and so they will go at some point, but just not yet?
	Possibly. My grandma never qualified for it, and now she's too old to go.
	She'll never go. My mom has a back injury.
	She'll never go. Right.
	My uncles might go eventually, but they might.
	Now, I mean, you know my perspective on religion, or do you?
	Yeah, I do. Okay, because I... It's not too subtle, I guess you could say.
	Yeah, no problem.
	And obviously, you are obviously not, you know, learning about my...
	listening to podcasts or whatever it is that you're doing on the site.
	You're not doing that in order to fuel your outrage against an unbeliever, right?
	I mean, there must be some part of you that goes like, at least, huh, that's interesting, right?
	Right. I'm not outraged with religion.
	I am to an extent, because I'm a deist, and I think it's immoral to have that religion.
	I'm sorry, just to interrupt.
	You said you were a deist, is that right?
	Yes. Okay, got it.
	Watchmaker got deist.
	Right. It's very, very lenient.
	And I think the only reason that I'm really...
	Not an atheist or an agnostic even is because of the fact that I was really, because my teachings were so lenient and I was allowed to come to it at my own pace and to do it if I wanted to and to not do it if I wanted to.
	And I think it was that freedom that was like, oh, I like this sort of thing.
	And my friends definitely helped.
	My friends were all fairly religious Christians.
	There was definitely a sort of path to God.
	Sorry, did you say that the Christians helped?
	Helped me on my path to God.
	Helped me... You realize that you and I might use the word helped there a little bit differently, right?
	Yeah, well, it's helping quotes.
	You can't see the quotes that I'm doing with my fingers.
	It's helping quotes. They greased the irrational pole down to the pits of religion, right?
	Okay, okay. I understand.
	Okay, and... Sorry, go ahead.
	No, sorry. No, no, I didn't want to interrupt.
	Please go ahead. No, I'm done.
	That was just me saying, yeah.
	Okay.
	So, is it reasonable or...
	No, let me skip to that.
	So this is your relationship to religion, which is exciting.
	Even from a non-atheist perspective, it's...
	I don't want to say unusual because that's going to put my cultural context in place where it's not.
	But it's complex.
	Not average. Yeah, it's not average, I think, is a good way of putting it.
	I think even for where you're, from the cultures that you're from.
	Hello. I'm sorry?
	Okay, right. Right, okay, good.
	With all the centrativity and not wanting to be like, you know, blind ass white guy or whatever, right?
	But I just wanted to get that across.
	So tell me about, because obviously the God and the government thing to some degree go hand in hand.
	So help me have some sense if you could of where, was there cultural patriotism?
	Was there nationalism? Was there statism?
	I mean, where did that sort of fit in your upbringing?
	There was definitely pride in the fact that we were American.
	My mom and I was very, very much raised in my mom's family.
	My dad has a very small family and in my mom's family we're Muslim and they had eight kids and they all live within a five mile radius of each other.
	So I was very much raised in my mom's family and they were very proud to say I'm an American.
	Because they fled Iran when it became very, very constraining and dangerous.
	Yeah, after the Shah, right?
	Right. They fled during the Shah, actually.
	Oh, right. Yeah.
	And so they were very, very proud of the fact that they were Americans.
	And that they could say, I'm part of a democracy.
	I can vote.
	If I so choose. I cannot vote if I so choose.
	I have freedom of speech, etc., etc., etc.
	Okay, so they value some of the freedoms that an American democracy rightly gives, I mean, to give credit where credit is due.
	So they were proud of that and they valued those democratic or liberal institutions, is that right?
	Yeah, definitely.
	Just because I think it was so much better.
	Oh, no, no question.
	No question. I mean, I'm an anarchist, but let's still have different degrees of equality in governments, you know?
	Right. You know, I may not drink, but that doesn't mean that I don't recognize there are different qualities in scotch, right?
	Right. I can understand that, for sure.
	Okay. So, tell me what your theory is.
	About why...
	I mean, if it's reasonable to you or a fair statement to you to say that you kind of went off the rails a little bit, right?
	Right. What's your theory as to why that happened?
	College. It's definitely...
	I can attribute it to college.
	My college is very, very involved in politics.
	I mean, to an extreme...
	Davis is 20 minutes from the California capital.
	I'm sorry, can you just say that line?
	I missed that last sentence. Davis is 20 minutes from the California capital.
	Okay. So there are definite...
	You're in an anthropology class.
	You're going to go visit Sacramento.
	You're in a philosophy class.
	You're not going to go visit Sacramento.
	I was in a debate group.
	We wasn't going to visit Sacramento.
	And it was definitely getting to see how corrupt Sacramento was, like the Sacramento Congress was.
	I'm sorry, sorry.
	I just want to make sure we're on the same page here.
	I'm certainly, I'm always interested to hear about government corruption.
	But when I talked about going off the rails, what I meant was some of the stuff that happened when you were in your early teens.
	Oh, sorry. I thought you were talking about...
	Oh no, I switched topics completely, and I'm sorry.
	Normally what I do is I do a little dance in front of the webcam, but we don't have that.
	I'm like one of those guys with the planes landing and the flag, so I'm changing topics.
	Sorry, beep!
	We're changing topics completely.
	So I just wanted to get a sense, because I think it's fair to say that, and this is with no negative judgment on you, but that you kind of went a little bit off the rails when you were in your early teens, right?
	Right. You kind of went a little wild there, right?
	Just a bit. Just a bit, right?
	And what's your theory as to what was going on?
	I wanted to be like my friend.
	I really did. I had a lot of older friends.
	I hung out with a lot of people my age, but I hung out with a lot of people that were very much older than I was.
	And because they're older, they are, quote, God.
	So you want to emulate them in a way.
	Well, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, and I certainly am not saying that that's an incorrect explanation, but it doesn't do much to answer what I'm asking, which has nothing to do with your fault or anything.
	It's just my... Because, I mean, we all to some degree want to emulate our friends and so on, but the question is, why did you have friends around you, or why did you have friends that you wanted to emulate that were that destructive?
	Everyone was, to be honest.
	Everyone in your high school or junior high school?
	Yeah, in my high school.
	Well, I'm sorry.
	I'm not that old.
	I'm trying to explain it.
	Sorry. Okay, go ahead. As a high school, we are known for regularly...
	Busting children from pot and coke.
	The girls typically have at least one eating disorder.
	Very, very rich community.
	Most parents are not there because they're working hard to give their children what they didn't have.
	We're a self-made rich community.
	And there's a lot of self-destruction that goes along with it.
	Sorry, and I don't want to interrupt this.
	I just want to make sure that I... Because what happens is I lose track as stories get longer, which is just because I am that old.
	But is it that there was no...
	Because the high school was in a rich neighborhood and the families were dysfunctional, that there was no one who wasn't into drugs or X, Y, and Z? There were, but I didn't end up finding them until later, and most of them haven't tried it.
	And we're into it when I was an early teenager.
	So you got no chess team, you got no mathletes, you got no guys who hang out in the computer science lab?
	I mean, none of these people, really?
	At the age of 13, no.
	So you don't think that there was...
	And again, this is just blowing my mind because I didn't go to a rich high school and my mind is tender and easily blown.
	But is it really...
	I'm not saying there's anything wrong with what you're saying.
	I'm just trying to process it.
	There was nobody there who wasn't into drugs or had tried drugs or had gone down that route.
	I'm sure there was.
	I didn't know them. Which has been a lot because my class is very small.
	And if you weren't, you pretended that you were, I think.
	No guys with flat hair carrying Dungeons and Dragons books, did you see them at all?
	Sometimes they're hard to see because they blend.
	If they're in front of a velour couch and there's a blonde fern, you can't even see them.
	I actually didn't see any of them.
	Right, right.
	We have the money to look good and to look popular.
	But yeah, I mean, even within the drama dorks, which they were probably the least popular people in the entire school, I still think that there was that sense of you have to do it in order to belong.
	Okay. Because everyone else was.
	So, this is a wildly dysfunctional environment then, right?
	Oh yeah, Newport Beach was.
	I mean, looking back, you're all a bunch of wolf children, right?
	We weren't hairy like wolf children, but we definitely...
	But seriously, it's kind of like Lord of the Flies here with nice mansions, right?
	Yeah, kids were definitely left to raise themselves.
	And like everybody who raises themselves.
	I'm sorry? I said, which is why I think my family was so mild.
	Well, but here's the thing though, right?
	Here's the thing. A person is known by the company he or she keeps, right?
	Right. And this doesn't mean that you were bad or anything like that.
	What it means though is that if you say these people all came from destructive or dysfunctional or it sounds more like inattentive households, right?
	Right. If these people all were, like, I mean, this is going to be hard, and this is going to make me sound like a complete square, not for the first time, and certainly not for the last, but, I mean, this shit is pretty far out there, right? Yeah.
	I think that's easy to say.
	We had some kids who, you know, we had the stoners out back in my high school and we had the full-on ecosystem, right?
	And I was one of these guys who bounced between cliques all the time.
	But we had the full-on, you know, with the stoners, we had the jocks, we had the drama geeks, we had the D&D geeks, we had the muscle men, we had the whole thing, right?
	And there were some people who did drugs, and there were some people who were promiscuous and so on.
	I couldn't find any of the promiscuous people.
	Unfortunately, I was looking hard, like most boys that age.
	But we had a lot of normal kids.
	I mean, normal doesn't mean perfectly healthy or anything, but parents were there and made them lunches and so on.
	But it sounds like you're in an environment where...
	There's not a lot of variety, right?
	There wasn't. It's like, coke or marijuana or PCP or like, what is it that you want?
	But it's not, well, what do you mean we're doing drugs, right?
	That wasn't a question, right?
	Yeah, there was never any question.
	That's very easy to say that there wasn't a question about it.
	Now, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but within your group or area, do you think that you went more off the rails than other people?
	Or about the same?
	That's hard to say, because everyone definitely is very out there.
	All in different ways.
	Mine was to definitely be a very self-destructive person.
	Other people I know was to...
	I'm sorry, sorry. Could you just...
	I just... It's a little...
	Because you're on a phone, it's not quite as clear as a computer.
	Could you say that last bit again? I said mine was definitely to go on the self-destructive route.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	You mean your group, is that right?
	No, me personally.
	Within my group, we could all be considered very self-destructive.
	And in my high school, we could all be considered very self-destructive.
	It's almost the right of passage.
	Right. So you were one of the more self-destructive people of a self-destructive group?
	Yes. Okay.
	Why do you think that was?
	And obviously, it's not, you're just born bad, girl, right?
	I mean, obviously, it's not genetics, it's not whatever, right?
	Why do you think that was?
	Well, my version definitely included a lot of negativity.
	I wasn't a coke addict.
	I wasn't a sex fiend.
	I wasn't cutting my wrist every day.
	The way I got dragged into it is definitely, I wasn't very open and I let myself be sort of honest with myself.
	And then when you start the cycle, it keeps on happening.
	And I'm not making an excuse for it.
	No, I don't...
	Honestly, I don't care.
	Excuse, not excuse, doesn't matter to me.
	I'm just trying to sort of be Joe Archaeology guy and sort of figure out what your theory is about what happened, right?
	Right. But I thought about it a lot, especially last year, because I had nothing better to do.
	And the best that I could come up with was initially...
	Fool me once, shame on me, sort of thing.
	But there was never a shame on you moment.
	Sorry, can you say that again?
	I just missed that. If you could just say that again?
	No problem. I said, there was never a shame on you moment.
	From who? You know that saying, fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, shame on you?
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was never the shame on you moment.
	So you felt like you just kept getting fooled again and again, right?
	Well, after a while, I wasn't even fooling.
	It was just I wouldn't let myself be honest about it all.
	Right. And I'm very, very good about doing the whole lockbox thing.
	Yeah, no, I got that sense for sure.
	Right, and that's the first time I locked it away and pretended it didn't happen.
	So I wouldn't let myself see the signs when it happened again.
	Got it. Okay. I got it.
	Yeah. I have to say it was definitely me just ignoring it.
	Even when I got to the point where you were unable to ignore it, I'd find a way to ignore it.
	Oh, sure. No, I mean, I understand that this stuff can definitely spiral and it takes a strong effort to hit the brakes after it begins.
	Right. But, because the way that I understand this kind of stuff, or at least the people that I knew who went this kind of route, what What I've seen, and I did have a friend who I had as sort of my early to mid-teens, who later on did hit a lot of drugs and had real problems with conformity and identity, right?
	He was like a zealot or a chameleon.
	He'd take the shape of, you know, if he was around the jocks, he'd be jock guy.
	You know, if he was around other people, he'd be a chameleon, right?
	And he didn't really have a strong sense of identity, and he did have real problems with drugs.
	I'm not saying this is all you, right?
	It's just sort of my experience with this fellow, which was a really heartbreaking situation, but what I always got a sense of from him, and this was even before this all went down, and just let me know if this means anything to you, but what I always got a sense of from him was an extraordinary amount of isolation.
	And because This guy, his name is Chris, this guy, Chris, had this extraordinary amount of isolation in him, separation from people.
	I mean, he'd be there, he'd be funny, he'd be joking, but you always got the sense that there was this interstellar distance in a way.
	He just couldn't quite relax and connect with people, if that makes any sense.
	Was that your experience at all?
	I don't think so.
	To be very honest, it was actually fairly popular.
	People really did actually want to associate with me.
	And after the initial time, yeah, there was that sense of distance.
	Oh, sorry, yeah, no, this guy was actually very popular, but I always got a sense that he just couldn't quite, there was always something guarded about him, in a way.
	Like, he was very entertaining and very popular, and he was on sports teams, and he was a very good friend in many ways, but just a kind of, I always felt that was just an isolation, right?
	A lack of a compass, if that makes any sense.
	Right. I'm trying to think about it and sort of work my head around it because, to be honest, I don't think about myself very much.
	And... Because, alright, and the reason that I bring this up is that it seems like...
	It seems like...
	Like, when you go down that...
	When you sort of tumble down those stairs, right?
	Right. It's like you went down alone, so to speak.
	I know you had people around you and so on, but it's like I get a sense.
	This is just my sense, right? But it's like you're going down alone, and there's no one that you can reach out who's going to grab you.
	Right. Um...
	And let me give you a silly example just from us today, right?
	Right. So that's when I just sort of said, well, I asked you some questions and I said, do you notice that you're doing this thing?
	And you're like, wow, no, I didn't notice, blah, blah, blah, right?
	I mean, that's just a tiny, silly example, right?
	But it's like you fell down in isolation, if that makes sense.
	Right. Um...
	Yeah, it does, but it was self-imposed.
	No, isolation is not self-imposed.
	I mean, sorry, I'm totally open-minded about lots and lots of things, but this one is not the case.
	You can't self-impose isolation.
	Isolation occurs because you don't have a connection with the people around you, and you don't bring that on yourself when you're a child.
	The, um... Okay, let me try to explain what I meant by that then.
	Sure. Because definitely when I was young, I don't have a sense that I kept myself at a distance from anything.
	I was very open, regardless of friends or anything like that, but I was very open, very willing to connect to everything around me.
	And it wasn't until I sort of got older that I can say I started to close myself off in a way.
	And to keep that personal part of myself, very personal.
	Because I don't think until I was 14 I really did that, if you know what I mean.
	Well, I can't conceivably tell you what your life was like, obviously.
	Right. But I can tell you.
	That when a child has a really solid bond with a parent...
	Right. There obviously is turmoil in the teenage years and there's upsets and there's hormones and all this kind of stuff, right?
	But when a child has a very strong bond with a parent or both parents or whatever...
	They don't just start closing themselves off when they go into teenage years and they don't go into this kind of stuff with drugs and the other stuff that went on.
	Right. I don't think I actually started to close myself off until after the first one.
	Now, sorry, do you realize, though, that this is part of the isolation that I'm talking about, though?
	Right. Because you're always talking about yourself as if you're not part of any family.
	Because you say, I was open and then I closed myself off and I made these choices and I did this and I did this.
	It's all in isolation, do you see?
	I get what you're saying now, sorry, um...
	No, don't apologize. I mean, I think this is your genuine thought about this.
	Right. Then yeah, I would say I was.
	Right. Because I think I've always thought that way.
	Right. And I never realized it.
	And look, I'm really, really, really a million times cautious, and this again, it's just some guy on the internet, I'm really cautious, I don't want to create any thoughts in you, but just based on the words, and you'll have a chance to listen to this, I mean, I'll send this to you, but when you talk about it,
	you don't talk about it like you're in an extended family and social structure, But it's like, I was open and then I was closed.
	And then I met these friends and I did this and I was more self-destructive, but then I closed myself off over time.
	It's all your choices, your decisions, but in isolation from a context, right?
	Like, just to give a stupid example, but I think it's valid, right?
	I don't say to people, I decided to come and move to Mississauga to live in this house, right?
	Why wouldn't I say that?
	Because there were other people that helped you decide it?
	Well, not even that helped you decide it.
	I mean, I didn't decide it.
	Like, I didn't decide it because I don't decide things in my family.
	Thank you.
	Great. I understand what you're saying.
	I negotiate it with my wife and we talk about the pluses and minuses and we discuss it and, you know, all of this kind of stuff, right?
	Right. And that's what I don't get a sense of.
	When you were talking about your parents and you were talking about your community and you were talking about your extended family, it was they, mother, father, this, never we, right?
	Right. Not once did you say we.
	Right. When you talk about growing up and what happened to you, it was always I, right?
	Gotcha. Not we negotiated.
	We decided, I went to my parents and we thought about this and we talked about that approach and we decided this and I talked about that and whatever, right?
	Right. And...
	I never noticed that.
	And again, I'm not trying to create anything in you.
	I'm just telling you what I'm hearing, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that makes complete sense.
	Now, if this is...
	Sorry, go ahead. I was going to say, and I think it's very valid.
	Yeah, you can't go off the rails unless you're isolated.
	You can't go off the rails unless you feel isolated.
	Unless you feel like you're driving the train, you're hooking up the carriages, you're serving the tea and you're building the tracks and you're shuffling the coal and you're just doing everything yourself, right?
	Right. And this was the symptom of your meltdown that you tried to do everything, right?
	Right. Everything.
	Your party girl, the sports girl, academic girl, good daughter, right?
	But you're trying to do everything, right?
	Right. And so I would have a sense, again, this is just me, I don't want to put anything in your head so you can just, you know, tell me it's ridiculous if it's ridiculous, but I would imagine that you have challenges trusting people, opening your heart to people, that you have challenges leaning on people, right?
	Leaning on people is a really hard thing to do.
	It's a very undervalued ability, right?
	Because I lean on my wife all the time about this conversation.
	What do you think of this? What do you think of that?
	Should I take this approach? Should I take that approach?
	I take notes from her sometimes when I'm on calls if she can hear them and so on.
	I lean on people with business advice.
	I ask people questions. I'm just begging for feedback and opinions and help half the time, if not more, because I can't do it all myself.
	But I got a feeling I got a sense that you're a very much I'll do it by myself kind of person, right?
	Yeah, I am. You're completely right.
	I definitely am.
	Right. And I have been for as long as I can remember.
	Right. And what that indicates to me is that you vaulted into a kind of self-sufficiency too soon.
	Right. If that makes sense.
	Yeah, it does. Children should not be self-sufficient when they're children, right?
	Right. They should not have to figure things out for themselves.
	They should not. I mean, you don't send your four-year-old to say, hey, go pick up some groceries for the family, right?
	They should just play with toys and then be given food and then play with adults and so on, right?
	Right. And the reason that I went down this road with you was when we were talking in the chat window.
	What I sensed was a lack of easy intimacy with yourself.
	Because as you said, shrug, I don't feel anything, right?
	Right. But that is going to grow, I would say, or suggest.
	I mean, this is your relationship with your therapist and so on.
	But that's going to grow when You achieve, I mean, intimacy with yourself, intimacy with other people, when you learn that to be really part of a team, right, which is where you just don't have to do everything on your own and figure out everything on your own and all that, that when you're part of that kind of group or part of that kind of, whether it's a marriage or whether it's a family or whatever, that there's real openness, there's real intimacy, there's real give and take, there's real negotiation.
	That's when the walls of solitude dissolve.
	And that's when you can really melt into somebody, and this doesn't mean romantically necessarily, it can be just about anything.
	But this is where you can really open your heart, but I think that's not something that comes too naturally to you.
	No, it's not. And, I mean, it's safe to say that my boyfriend and I right now are very, very stable, and it's I'm sorry, a very, very what?
	Stable and very, very open and we definitely negotiate, even though I don't like it.
	It took a long time to get to that point.
	A very long time.
	Well, and I'm not, again, I don't want to diss anything to do with your boyfriend or anything like that, right?
	Right. But is he someone...
	Because you have a very good ability to self-reflect.
	I know you say, well, I don't think about much.
	I think that you jump to conclusions where you have the responsibility too quickly.
	So you say, well, I did this and I chose that, but then I started not being too open.
	And I think you don't look at yourself as part of a system.
	Like a familial system and a product.
	We're all products of our family and cultural systems, right?
	And that doesn't mean that we don't have any choice, we don't have any free will, but we really are produced from this, right?
	And I think, I would say that you probably have a tendency, again, this is like an hour and a half on the internet, so whatever, right?
	But you probably have a tendency to, when you're faced with a problem, that you take ownership of it yourself too quickly, right?
	Right. Right?
	Well, I did X. I chose Y. I got involved with this.
	I chose not, like you said, I chose not to reflect on what I was doing, right?
	Right. But when you're in your early teens, that's not really your job.
	That's the job of the people around you, the adults.
	Right. And I think you take a lot of bullets for your family.
	I think you say, well, I did this.
	Now, I also think that your family says, you did X, right?
	I don't mean accused, I don't mean that they beat down on you or anything like that, but you didn't get this habit out of a vacuum, right?
	Right. There's definitely a very large sense of independence.
	Oh, sorry, what? Everyone.
	There's a very large sense of independent, the autonomous, you, you, you, and everyone in my family, I think.
	Right, but here's the thing, right?
	I mean, a family whose child goes off the rails, and you were a child, no disrespect, but you were a child when you went off the rails, The reason why I asked you what is your explanation as to why you went off the rails is I wanted to get a sense of whether there was any self-reflection in your parents as to what happened.
	Right. And what I mean by that, and again, it's not to throw your parents under the bus or anything, this is just what I heard and I'm trying to reflect it back as accurately as I can.
	But if I had said to someone whose parents had really stepped up and taken ownership, I'd have said to them, well, why do you think you went off the rails, right?
	And what would have happened is they would have said, oh, man, you know, well, when this started to happen, My parents got themselves into therapy.
	They got me into therapy or whatever.
	I mean, however they did it.
	We talked about it.
	We realized that this had been coming for quite some time and it had come out of X, Y, and Z within the family system and we read these books about where this stuff comes from and we sat down and we talked about it and we cried and we laughed and we hugged and we figured all of this, right?
	Do you understand the difference?
	Right. Whereas you said, I just made bad decisions, right?
	Right. And then I wasn't honest with myself.
	It's all just you in isolation, right?
	Right. So this is not a...
	And your parents seem to be quite happy for this to be the explanation, right?
	Well, my parents did...
	I think they didn't realize it for a very long time, the extent...
	When they did, there were different levels of acceptance of guilt.
	And I think this year they fully went, okay, we made a mistake.
	We're going to fix it.
	Well, and I understand that.
	I understand that. And sorry to interrupt you.
	But that's not what is part of your theory yet.
	Right. It may be in the future, right?
	But it's not part of your experience yet.
	Right. And from my perspective, I accepted full blame.
	Yeah, I mean, I think you did.
	And I think that that was unfair in the extreme.
	And I think that that was unjust.
	In fact, I know that that was unjust in the extreme.
	Right. That it's not fair that your bad behavior, and obviously it wasn't good behavior, right?
	But it's not fair that your bad behavior, that you take the entire bullet for family structure that contributed and created that.
	Right. But the way I always thought about it was, yeah, you can be influenced, but I always thought in the end it was on you.
	It was, sorry, what?
	It was on you.
	No. No, that's not the case.
	I'm sorry, and it took me to be blunt, and I don't do this a lot, right?
	So I hope that you understand that this is not my default position.
	Nope, nope, that's not it, right?
	But in this case, no.
	When you went off the rails in your early teens, it was absolutely, completely, and totally not just your choice.
	Right. Um...
	But I think that was just how I've always thought about it.
	Well, do you see what you're doing again?
	Yeah. What's it called?
	I can't remember the word that you used.
	I'm sorry. Well, but tell me in your words.
	It's fine with me. I'm taking full blame and disconnecting myself.
	Yeah, you're isolating yourself again.
	Yeah. That's the word.
	I'm not saying this is conscious, right?
	Right. It's not like you're saying, ooh, I'm going to move this chess piece over here.
	I understand that.
	And I have huge amounts of sympathy for you in this area.
	Honestly, I'm moved here.
	It is sad.
	It's sad.
	Because your family seems to have been relatively happy, or at least relatively content, to put the blame on you.
	And this is just not fair.
	I mean, honestly, it's not reasonable.
	It's not reasonable and it's not fair.
	And you may never change this about them, and it doesn't matter fundamentally whether you do or don't.
	The important thing for you to know is that it was not your fault.
	Right. That this is a family problem, and it comes from long before the behavior manifested itself.
	Right. This was an effect of some problem within the family.
	I don't know what it was. I suspect it's to do with isolation, and I suspect it's to do with outward appearances.
	It's to do with how you show.
	But it doesn't matter particularly, because I don't want to theorize in a vacuum, but...
	But the reality is that the reason that you have such a hard time having empathy for yourself in feeling these kinds of things, I would strongly suggest, is because when things went off the rails, when things in your family as a whole, as a structure went kinda nuts.
	You ended up holding the whole stinkin' mess, right?
	I tried.
	No, you didn't try.
	I bet you tried not to, but I bet it was given back to you anyway.
	Right. Well, I say I tried because it was fairly impossible after a certain point.
	Fairly impossible to change or alter things?
	To hold everything together.
	Sorry, I'm just not sure what you mean by that.
	I tried at an early age to be there for my cousins, be the big sister sort of role, the projector role and stuff like that because everyone else was definitely, all the adults were dealing with stuff.
	Right, but see, here's the thing though, right?
	And I don't want to keep pounding this because you'll get a chance to listen to this again and you can choose whether or not what I'm saying is valid or not.
	But you keep sliding forward in time, right?
	This is the challenge that you and I have, right?
	I feel like I'm trying to wrestle with somebody who's very well-oiled, you know, and not in a good way, right?
	Because it's like, what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to move you back into the past, right?
	But what are you trying to do?
	They go into the future.
	Yeah, you're trying to say, well, you know, by this time, by the time I was doing this stuff for years, and it's like, no, that's not the point, though.
	Right. Right.
	So I'll try to realize when I do that.
	Yeah, this isolation that you feel and this feeling that you can't, that you're not part of a system that you can rely on and part of people whose opinions you respect, and the fact that you fell down these stairs for years...
	Until you actually had a meltdown, you understand?
	That's like, for Christ's sake, will people please notice that I'm suffering here and do something about it?
	Which is what you were doing in the chat window, right?
	To me, anyway. Will somebody notice that I'm suffering, right?
	And I said at the beginning of this call that I felt that I believe, and I still believe more strongly now that this stuff occurs when people don't notice your suffering. and I still believe more strongly now that this stuff And this obviously isn't going to do anything in terms of like, "Oh, you're so right, Steph,
	Okay, no, I'll take the donation. But no, and I'm not trying to – these are all just my thoughts and ideas, right?
	So this is not like, oh, you're right, and when I was four, I understand all of that, right?
	But I just want to point out that from the outside, at least from my outside perspective, There is something here that is not particularly mysterious.
	And I think for you, it still sort of is, right?
	Right. Because what you say is, well, I was open and then I was closed.
	It's like, what are you, an elevator door?
	Like, what does that mean?
	Like, that doesn't explain anything, right?
	Right. And it's scary, it's terrifying when you don't know Why you went off the rails, or why you tried to do everything, or why you had a meltdown, right?
	Right.
	That's terrifying.
	fine.
	And I think it's because you're trying to run a huge ship called you all on your own.
	And I don't think that's your fault because then what you're going to do, I would guess, is you're going to say, well, I should learn to try to be more trusting of others, right?
	Right.
	Because that's where you're going to go.
	It's like, oh, I'm not open enough.
	I'm going to pull myself open, right?
	Because you're going to immediately take this on as yourself.
	What I'm going to say is that the question is not how do I become more open?
	How do I trust people more?
	How do I become part of a system?
	The question is why am I not more open?
	Not I'm going to fix it by opening myself, which you can't do anyway, right?
	Right.
	The question is why?
	This is a real-time relationship, does this mean anything to you?
	Yeah, it does. Have you read, listen?
	Part of it. Part of it, okay.
	How far did you get?
	How far did you get? Fifteen pages.
	Now, I know how intelligent you are.
	I know how intelligent you are.
	And I know it's not because the words are too big, right?
	Right. No, it's because I just started it.
	Okay, good. Keep plowing along with it.
	Yeah, keep plowing along with it.
	Really, keep plowing along with it.
	The Simon the Boxer stuff, really listen to that attentively.
	It's not actually about boxing, which I'm sure you'll get right away.
	There's a repetition thing here, which is well worth you looking at.
	Right. And how do you feel at this point?
	In our conversation. Sort of like someone would feel after the tornado came through and destroyed everything around them.
	In a good way?
	Because you don't sound that unhappy.
	I think...
	I think...
	In a very shocked way so far.
	I don't... I'll probably work my way to unhappy in a little bit.
	And be curious.
	Sorry to interrupt because I just asked you how you felt.
	And all I'm saying is you're going to slide back to the default position of I should change something to improve this.
	And I'm saying don't do that.
	No, I'm not saying that I will.
	It's more in the shock phase and why did this really happen and that sort of phase.
	Right. Like, right after the tornado came through.
	Right, right. Where in a couple minutes, it was like, oh crap, a tornado just hit my house.
	Right, right.
	Now, but you knew this was coming, right?
	Right. No, I mean, like, you know a little bit about how I do what I do, right?
	Uh, yeah. So, you know you're not the only person looking at a house going, shit, this used to be a whole lot less flat, right?
	Right. Um...
	I understand. And I've got to say that you probably wanted something that was at least a perspective that may be helpful.
	That's all I'm going to say it is, right?
	But it certainly jolts your mind a little bit and it's something worth exploring, right?
	Right. And I'll try.
	Oh, you'll do more than try.
	You've got absolutely the skills and capacity to work through this stuff.
	I know that. I know that by how you reacted in the chat room.
	That's why I picked up the phone, right?
	Right. It's not so much not having the skills and capacity.
	It's when it comes down to the really hard stuff, having the strength of will to actually...
	Do it. Right.
	And do you know what you just did again?
	It's not hard. I isolated myself.
	Yeah, you isolated yourself.
	It's all about my will.
	It's all about my will to push through all on my own.
	And it's going to be really tough because every morning I have to get up and get the sun up and I have to get the planet turning and I have to make sure the tides are working and I have to make sure the gravity is plugged in.
	Right? Does that make sense?
	Yeah, I got it.
	I don't realize when I do it.
	Yeah, I know. I understand that.
	This is not with any negative thought on my part.
	I'm just pointing it out. This is your default position, which is to isolate yourself and will stuff, right?
	Right. Well, don't.
	There you go. Just don't do it.
	You're fine. Right, and the question is why, right?
	So rather than trying to fix the problem, which is our first impulse, right?
	Right. Is to say, well, why is this even a problem?
	Well, why did this...
	Right. Right?
	Yeah, and I'm saying that that's going to be the hard part.
	It's not jump to default.
	Yes, yes. Because I'm so used to doing it.
	Right. Then it's obviously very apparent.
	But I'm so used to doing it.
	Right. And when you also get, in RTR, when we talk about follow the benefit, right?
	Right. This is, I mean, I know that one of the reasons you take things on is to avoid stuff in your family.
	And we all do this.
	There's nothing unhealthy about it in terms of a survival strategy.
	It's totally fine.
	But it's not just you who wants you to take it all on.
	Right. It's other people as well.
	Yeah, it's beneficial to other people if you take it all on.
	Right. So there's always negotiation in relationships, in a sense.
	It's either conscious or it's unconscious.
	And what I try to do is to just try and drag up the Titanic.
	And I know this because I had to drag up my own damn Titanic and still have to from time to time, which is the unconscious to the conscious.
	But you can absolutely do it for sure.
	Well, and not to isolate myself again because I'm about to say something that will...
	I'm definitely going to try and do my best.
	Well, your best will be perfectly fine and fantastic and perfect.
	And I don't want to keep you up all night.
	Was there anything else that you wanted to add to what it is that we've talked about here?
	I don't think so.
	I think you... Did it fairly strongly?
	And how was the conversation for you in terms of the way that I approached it?
	It was good. It was definitely good because it's almost not jumping straight into it, which probably just led to me shutting off and shutting up for most of the conversation.
	No, I saw what you did in the chat room and obviously I didn't approve or appreciate what people were doing to you in the chat room a couple of days ago where they're just powering in on you and your family and it's just like, well, that's not going to help because you're not listening to the girl.
	So, no, obviously that was not a good approach.
	And obviously I knew that that wasn't going to get you anywhere useful.
	Right. And the approach you did take Was probably the best you could have.
	I tried. Yeah.
	It sort of almost made it so I couldn't just shut up.
	Right. Congratulations.
	You've accomplished what an outside therapist couldn't...
	Excellent. Bagged another one.
	What I'm going to do is put a little tattoo on the back of my neck, which is good.
	You can keep tally now.
	Yeah, duck feet. Of course. Absolutely.
	Okay. Yeah. So there's nothing else you want to add right now?
	I'll send you a copy of this recording.
	You can let me know what you think. I think there would be useful stuff for other people, but you have to make that call yourself.
	But you can have a listen to it and let me know what you think.
	Honestly, I'm fine with whatever you're fine with.
	It's the internet. Okay, I appreciate that.
	But do me a favor, just have a listen to it first and just let me know again, okay?
	Yeah, of course. Okay.
	Thanks very much. I appreciate your time.
	I appreciate yours as well.
	Okay, take care. Bye.

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