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May 29, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:12:56
1080 The Heart Starves on Myth (Convo)
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Time Text
Hello? Hey, how's it going?
Hey Steph, how's it going? Not too bad, not too bad.
How are you? Alright, just going through YouTube watching some funny stuff.
So, what's on your mind?
What can I do to help you? Well, I was watching some of the psychology podcasts earlier.
I've got to admit, when I first came on this site, that's kind of the section I kind of stayed away from.
Right. You're not alone in that.
I was down with the atheism.
I was down with the politics and economics, of course.
I don't know. I just...
I don't know why exactly, but I guess I started thinking about it.
The last couple of days, I decided to check out some of the psychology podcasts, and then that kind of got the wheels turning, you know?
Yeah, it's the challenge is to try and lure the dudes over to the psychology and the ladies over to the politics and the philosophy.
So it is a swingy pendulum that I work with.
So what did you start with psychologically on the psychology side?
Well, the one that got me the most profoundly was actually one of the Diamond podcasts.
It was when you were talking to that Jehovah's Witness, or that ex-Jehovah's Witness.
Yeah. And it's when you said to him that, well, there was a period in time, we'll get to that in our conversation, where I almost became a witness.
But it was when you told him that...
You're kind of like intellectualizing things.
You're highly analytical, but you show almost no emotion.
Well, I don't think you said it.
I'm paraphrasing, but that's kind of what you suggested.
I can guarantee that there's no way it was that short and succinct, so that's my curse, but go on.
Right, and I just started thinking about myself.
I mean, Primarily the reason I wanted to talk to you is because I feel I'm in a pretty good relationship now with my girlfriend.
We've been dating for like two years.
And I just kind of like watching that or listening to that podcast kind of just started like bringing up memories and stuff.
And I just want to make sure I got like my ghost out of the closet, you know, so to speak.
So I don't...
I don't want something about me to ever jeopardize this relationship or something like that, if that makes any sense.
Oh no, that's totally wise.
It's like even if you yourself are healthy, if you come from a messed up background, you know what?
It's kind of like coming from a background where people have heart disease.
You just have to be a little more careful, right?
You have to make sure you eat right and exercise and also get yourself checked out.
Just because that's the family history doesn't mean that you have heart disease or you're going to get it, but it's wise to be proactive rather than wait for it to strike, right?
Right, and psychologically speaking, I believe that's the case.
I started thinking about my history and stuff, really deeply thinking about it.
Because I've been told by my girlfriend and some other people I know that you're kind of lacking in emotion.
You don't really show a lot of emotion.
And then you kind of describe to that one guy what it can possibly be, certain events in his past that might have kind of nullified those emotions a little bit or put them away in the locker a little bit or...
Also, I'm an emotional slut, right?
So I garner a fair amount of emotions that should be widely distributed among a small town of men.
So I may have some of yours, and that may be the issue.
I should send them, maybe. I think maybe it's an emotion on my part to kind of want to have...
More emotions. I think I should.
Because my girlfriend's a very emotional, affectionate kind of person, which is maybe why I'm kind of drawn to her.
Right. Well, it's also the case, and we don't have to get into the whys, but it generally is the case that the less emotional you are, the more emotional she's going to be.
And as you start to become more expressive and emotional, her emotional life is going to be less charged.
Well, I think the case is to where if there's like an intellectual one, the one that thinks deeply and stuff, I'm kind of that person to where she's totally on the emotion side, right?
Not in a crazy way, but she's feeling and she senses things with her feelings and I sense things like analytically, sort of.
Right. And it's nice to have both tools.
A guy was in the chat room the other day just saying, you know, well, Steph, how can you get passionate about philosophy, which is supposed to be dry and analytical?
But it's hard for me to understand why reason and emotion would be opposites.
I mean, you know, Kirk and Spock made a good team, right?
I mean, together they solved problems and impregnated blue-haired ladies.
So that is – it's just a yin and a yang.
I mean, the human experience is passion and reason.
And passion came first.
I mean, dogs have passion. They don't have a whole lot of abstract reasoning abilities.
Passion came first. Passion is the foundation for rationality.
I don't think that rationality can really achieve great truths without the underlying structure of passion.
It's like expecting the mind to operate without the brain.
It just doesn't work. I agree, and I think maybe that artificial separation is maybe a product of maybe a religion or even family.
I hate to say that, but thinking about it, I have to be honest with that.
Just kind of what happened in my history.
I was, you know, it took me a while to actually say this in the last couple of days, to say it out loud to myself, but I was actually physically and mentally abused as a child.
Definitely physically abused, but kind of mentally, too.
It's always both, right?
You can't be physically abused without being mentally abused.
To be honest with you, I think I almost preferred the physical abuse more.
I mean, it was...
It gave me a purpose to not like it.
It didn't mess with my head when I was physically abused, I guess.
Well, the physical abuse...
I mean, the fact that people who are supposed to take care of you are physically assaulting you is terrifying in and of itself, but I don't have any physical injuries left over from my physical abuse, but the mental scars are very tough to work with, right? Right.
They're elusive. They're invisible.
They're like birds of prey that strike you when you're blind, right?
Right. And to be honest, I think some of those mental scars are probably, they're definitely in this locker, this conceptual locker I made for myself and kind of just threw it in there, you know?
And I think that has a lot to do with military conditioning when I was in the military for four and a half years.
Right. And then I was, you know, I was away from the United States.
I lived in Japan for three years, but I was based on a ship out there.
So I just really got out there by my, well, not really by myself, because the Navy is like this blob that just overtakes every aspect of your life.
Sure. That's why I wanted to get out.
It's like the ultimate statism.
Well, I mean, it's the ultimate cult, right?
The military. Well, I'd compare it to the JWs, but I think you're right, because they literally control every aspect of your life, and I definitely didn't like that after a while.
I mean, I never got in trouble while I was in there.
I just kind of kept a low profile.
I try not to draw attention to myself, but I just did my time and got out.
Now, what drew you to the military in the first place?
Well, I was going to kind of start like with my early childhood, but I guess we can just...
No, no, no. The way that you want to tell the story is the way that I want to hear the story.
So let me stop interrupting you with silly questions and you can tell me the tale.
Oh, that's alright. Well, what I did was, so I don't go off in Tangent City, I kind of like dotted down some things, just so I don't get too far off track.
Just kind of stick to, you know, what I was thinking about earlier, and I guess some things can come up as we go.
But basically, I was born in 1982, April 5th.
In San Pedro, California.
And that's basically where I was raised.
My parents were married and lived together during the time.
And they had a pretty positive relationship from what I... I mean, I can't really remember as a baby.
But, I mean, from what I was told.
And I was baptized a Catholic.
And my dad worked in the shipyards and my mom was like a hair stylist.
Now my parents, they come from Croatia.
I don't know if you know where that is.
But my dad came in the 70s and he pretty much grew up there all the way up to his mid-20s or so.
And he didn't, for one thing I found out about my dad over there is he didn't really get along with a lot of people there.
My dad was kind of like, my dad came from a very large family, a lot of siblings, spaced apart quite a bit.
I think his oldest brother is like 10 years older than him.
And his dad died when he was like 10 years old, you know?
And my dad always was like a troublemaker.
If there was a black sheep in the family, that was kind of my dad, you know?
And this showed because after he got out of the mandatory Yugoslavian army, He made preparations to come to the United States because my uncle already came here.
My uncle was kind of like an entrepreneur.
He started up a construction business here and stuff.
He did relatively well for himself.
When my dad came here, obviously he had contact with my uncle.
But he literally got rid of contact with all his family back in Croatia.
I mean, just very, very seldom would he talk to anybody back there, you know?
And I don't know my dad's issues like that.
As I explain my life, maybe that'll factor into what happened with me.
So basically he moved to Pennsylvania first where my uncle lives.
In the 80s he went to California and married my mom.
Met her at my aunt's wedding actually and married her shortly afterwards.
She was about 30 or so.
And my mom came in the 60s.
She had a really strict upbringing, a super strict upbringing.
She has a total of three sisters, but they're spaced apart.
Only one sister is in her age bracket.
My grandpa was very religious, very strict with her, didn't let her out of his sight, so to speak.
She became church and Croatian culture orientated, I guess.
If there's anywhere my grandpa let her go, it was to the church and the cultural functions.
And her sister got married to a guy in the church, a Croatian guy.
And my mom met my dad in the same church, basically, at the wedding of her sister.
And they got married.
My mom was 21 when she got married.
And she had me at 23, so that's pretty much 82.
I told you I was a baptized Catholic.
Basically, what happened then is I was an only child.
I don't have any biological brothers or sisters because what would happen later is my parents split up.
I was really attached to my father.
And see, because when thinking about this, I don't really have a lot of memories, like specific, like jump out at you memories of being with my mother too much.
Sorry, how old were you when your parents separated?
Probably around five, four or five, five years old.
About five years old. And do you know why they separated?
Well, I know why later on.
I didn't understand why back then.
And what was the reason? Well, my dad...
See, my dad, he had a really good job in the shipyards.
I mean, this is the way the story was told to me, right?
I guess my dad admits it, right?
My dad had a job in the shipyards.
He got injured in the shipyards.
And he went on workers' compensation for like seven months.
And my dad kind of got lazy and he faked his injury longer.
Right. Just to collect more, but then they found out about it and they fired him.
Right. And...
By then, we had a house.
My mom had a Corvette.
My dad bought her. My dad had a BMW. That's down there in the Longshoremen's Union.
That was where the bucks were at.
My dad just kind of screwed it up.
We had a savings.
We had $60,000 in savings and my dad gambled it all the way.
He literally gambled it while he was on workman's leave.
I think shortly after because we had some savings and my dad was like without a job and then he had a bad reputation for doing that.
Right. And he thought, you know, he got together with this bum of a sleazebag kind of guy and they would go to the horse track.
I remember as a child I would be at the horse track a few times.
Just back then I didn't know what my dad was actually doing, you know.
Right. I was probably about four or five, you know?
And what he did is he gambled away all $60,000.
We had to sell our house and everything.
And then my mom separated with him.
They were having...
I mean, surely there were other problems.
And... Basically, my dad moved into an apartment of his own.
I guess he got some kind of an electrician's job.
Because he was a welder and electrician at Longshoremen.
And my mom moved into her own apartment.
And my mom started dating somebody.
Got serious with somebody right away.
I would stay with my dad more.
I didn't know what my dad was doing.
But early childhood memories, my dad jumps out at me because I remember the most vivid memories with my dad.
And surely when they separated, there was a period of time, probably between like four or five years old, maybe up to six, four to six-ish.
I was really with my dad.
Like my dad was my hero, basically.
I would go to soccer tournaments with him because my dad was a semi-professional soccer player.
I would, like, we would build model trains together, you know?
I do remember when my parents were...
I actually remember this.
When my parents were married, a few times we would go to church, you know, all three of them.
Like, my... My mom, I guess she attended a lot of church back then.
After the separation, she virtually cut contact with the church altogether.
And my dad, I guess he cut contact with the church too, because I don't remember really going to church except with my grandparents afterwards.
But, I mean, I had this really, really good relationship with my dad.
And then when they started having problems, they separated.
And what would happen is, I remember I would be at my grandmother's house.
I guess when they separated, they were really bitter towards each other, especially my mom towards my dad.
And I would kind of be taken to my grandparents' house kind of like as a midway, like kind of in stasis, right?
Until my mom would come and get me, and then I'd go to her house or something like that, like a middle point, so to speak, you know?
I guess they couldn't meet on their own too much.
And I remember spending time with my grandparents back then, and Like, let's see, how was my dad towards me?
My dad, my dad was, my dad was, like, he was my hero.
I mean, there's nothing, like, when my dad would drop me off at my grandparents' house, I would cling on to my dad's lake, and I'd be like, you know, don't leave, you know, whatever.
You know, don't, don't go, you know.
Mom's got to get you. So I was really, really pissed that, you know, every time my dad would leave, right?
And, um, You know, like I said, my mom started dating this other guy that she got really serious with.
And my dad would discipline me.
I guess I should mention how my dad disciplined me.
Only a few times he would like...
My dad was pretty strict with me, in a way.
Like... For example, I had a best friend since birth, I knew.
And every time I'd go to his house and we'd both get in trouble, his dad would beat both of us.
And then my dad would come over and find out what happened, and my dad would hit me with a belt.
Kind of like a double punishment kind of deal.
And now, I'm sorry, I'm going to interrupt you because...
We need to get some feelings in this story.
Okay. Because you're giving me like a dry recitation, right?
Which is probably one of the things that your girlfriend complains about.
Right. You know, like then this happened and then that happened and then the other thing happened and then this happened.
And I mean, obviously your personal history is of interest to you, but the challenge that you have is not that you have a problem reciting your personal history, but that you don't seem to have much connection with your personal history, if that makes sense.
I think that's accurate.
Please understand, it's not a criticism, right?
I mean, this is something that you know, right?
I'm just pointing it out. Right.
When I saw that, I mean, I was...
That's how I am.
I mean, I just... And I don't know if that's the right way to be.
I just... I make a cause and effect relationship when I trace something back.
Because what hit me with that JW or that Jehovah's Witness podcast is...
I remember I got so absorbed into their religion because I wanted to be.
And... I was thinking, why did I turn out that way?
At that point, why did I want to be a Jehovah's Witness?
And then I started thinking backwards, you know, like, what exactly happened to make me want to be that?
Right, right. Now, I can tell you why you don't have any feelings about your history, if you like.
It's because almost nothing that you say about your history is true.
And what I mean by that, of course, is not that you're lying to me or anything like that.
But almost nothing that you say about your history is true, and because it's not true, you can't feel anything.
What do you mean by true?
Well, I can just point out a couple of things, if you like.
And again, this is in no way a criticism, and I'm certainly not saying that you're doing anything bad or wrong.
I'm just pointing out that...
The things that you talk about just aren't true.
So, for instance, the first thing that you told me was that your parents had a good relationship as far as you had understood it or had been told, right?
Right. Now, do you think that there's anything that you said subsequent to that that would confirm that judgment at all?
No, not really, no.
Okay, well if it's not really, tell me the part that is that way, because that sounds kind of like, kind of, kind of, and that may be the case, but I was making notes and I didn't get a single damn thing after that statement that would be even remotely indicative of a good relationship.
So when you say not really, I'm more than happy to hear the other side if I've missed something.
Well, I mean, I guess I just assumed that by the time they had me and stuff, and I guess they were...
You're right, because that doesn't mean anything within those first years that they were together that that was even a good relationship.
I mean, because it obviously was going downhill.
Well, we don't know if it was ever uphill.
When you start approaching your past, I think it's always important to approach it empirically.
Because what's happened is, for you and for everybody on the planet, what we get about our history, particularly the time that we can't remember as well, all we get is stories.
And history is almost always a lie.
And that doesn't mean that people are consciously lying and so on.
But things change to suit what they need in the moment, right?
You don't get the truth.
It's not an unfettered documentary.
It's a dramatic recreation or something like that.
And you can expect as much truth out of people who have had pretty disastrous things happen in their family.
You can expect as much truth out of them as you can out of O.J. and his trial, right?
Right. Are you kind of talking about, like, What I actually perceived back then?
No, no. I'm talking about the facts that we have about your parents.
The facts, right?
Right. So, for instance, you said that your parents' relationship was good, and clearly it was an absolute disaster, right?
Right. Now, you said that your dad was your hero, but he left your family, blew the money, lied about his injury and beat you with a belt, right?
Right. Now, unless you're completely psychotic and masochistic, which of course is not the case when you're 5 or 6 or 10 years old and is not the case now either, then there's simply no possibility that your dad was a hero.
Now, you also said that when my dad would drop me off, I would be pissed that he was dropping me off.
I would cling to him.
I would cry and this and that, right?
Well, that is not because you had a good relationship with your father, but rather the fact that you had no bond with your father.
See, children become anxious when separating from their parents if they don't fundamentally believe that their parents are ever coming back.
That's when they get anxious.
A child who has a good bond with a parent may be sad when they don't see that parent, but they don't freak out, if that makes sense.
True. That's very true.
And you also said that your mom had a strict upbringing, and that her father was strict and so on, but that's not true, because you also said that your dad was strict with you, but this is not true, right?
Because the word strict here is used as a euphemism for abusive, right?
Right. So everything that you're telling me is just a mythology and it's a self-serving story, not to you.
In fact, it's at your expense.
But this is the stuff that you've been told by your family and what we're doing is just comparing it to the few minutes of facts that you gave me and found that there's no correlation between the judgments that you have about your history and the actual facts of your history, right?
Well, what I meant by hero, I mean, that was the way I thought of it back then.
I mean, I don't think of that now, but...
Well, see, but I would suggest that it's possible that you didn't see your father as a hero back then, because he sure as hell wasn't a hero, right?
No, not at all. I mean, he was a cheat, he was a liar, he was a gambler, he may have slept around.
I mean, all of these things tend to go hand in hand, right?
Right. So there's no—I mean, children aren't insane, right?
Children are actually incredibly perceptive.
So there's no way that you actually saw your dad as a hero.
What is much more likely is that you were punished for not worshipping your dad because your dad was a narcissist.
That would make sense when I really think about it.
Well, sorry, tell me what, I mean, I don't want to theorize in the absence of facts, right?
This is just the stuff that I get from the things which are objective from what you're telling me, not the judgments, but the events, so tell me what makes sense to you there.
Well, I mean, he clearly thought of himself first before anything else.
I mean, um, If he knew that if he if he cared about his family that especially that time where he was injured you know he wouldn't take a risk like that if he really cared about his family you know if I mean I'm convinced he screwed it all up you know it well I found out things about my mom later but then again those can just be judgments Well, again, we just want to go with the facts.
Now, we do know that your dad got injured, which is tough, but then he milked it and he lied and gambled and so on.
Now... This, to me, obviously is so blatantly self-destructive that it comes from a really disturbed human being.
It's a really disturbed personality structure that takes a wrecking ball, that has a family and then wrecks a family.
I mean, if you don't want to be a family man, don't have a fucking family, right?
But then don't have a family and then when your kids are young, take a wrecking ball to the whole goddamn thing by lying and cheating and gambling, right?
Right. So, what this is, is somebody who feels entitled, right?
And who lacks empathy.
And so, what he would want from you is to be worshipped, and you would, as a child, have to conform to that for fear of being assaulted with a belt.
Right. Right, like I mean, if I said I was a kid and I grew up in prison and I would get beaten by a belt by a prison guard, but I worshipped him like a hero, would you understand that that would be a scar tissue, a Stockholm Syndrome, a reaction formation to being assaulted?
Right. Maybe what you're saying is that time I did spend with him, what I perceive as, I guess, good, is in a way just kind of self-serving towards him.
Well, yeah, sure.
Look, I mean, if you look at children, so he separated when you're, say, you said four to five years old.
So for the next, let's say for the next couple of years, you would spend time with him.
Let me ask you, did you ever criticize him for what he did to the family?
I did later on, because what happened was...
No, no, sorry. No, no, not again. We'll just take this step by step.
Not later on, the next little while.
I didn't see him the next little while because he left.
I mean, he literally left.
Sorry, I missed that.
For how long? Well, after he separated with my mom, he left because he became broke and he became poor.
And I guess he was on the street for a while.
And my uncle took him in.
And he left to Pennsylvania.
Because I remember getting a phone call, and this was actually pretty emotional for me, is I didn't hear from him for like almost a year.
He just disappeared off the face of the planet.
Now, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I'm not sure if you're aware that you just gave me another mythology there.
What was that? Well, why did you say he left?
Well, I said because he was poor.
Now, why is it that being poor means that you have to leave your family?
I mean, you can get a job flipping burgers, you can come and see your kid on the weekends, right?
Why is it that being poor causes you to be physically unable to see your child?
I think what happened with him was he took, like, loans from people that weren't exactly...
Oh, like loan sharks. Right.
And I think he was threatened in a way, if that makes any sense.
Sorry, do you know that for sure?
Well, I found that directly from him later on.
Well, come on.
This guy lies continually, right?
Right. So, what I'm saying is, let's just stick with the stuff that's verified and not what people are telling you, right?
What is verified is that he left for a year, right?
Right. And then he came back.
Now, loan sharks don't move away, so how was he able to come back if he owed money to loan sharks?
Well, no. When I would see him, I went to visit him.
And that was later on.
I mean, he never came back to California.
When he was gone, he was gone.
He never returned.
Oh, I see, I see, I see.
Okay. And did he have a job out there?
He got a job with my uncle.
Like I said, my uncle run that construction company.
Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Sorry, Welter and so on.
So he was able to earn an income, so then he would have been able to pay off the loan sharks, right?
Right. Did he do that and then see his family more?
I have no idea.
I have no evidence for...
Well, sorry, you do know because he never came to visit you, right?
Right. So whether, I mean, even if we accept that there were loan sharks, we know that he didn't pay them off, and so the couple of thousand dollars or whatever he owed the loan sharks, that he preferred to spend the money on other things rather than pay back the loan sharks and come and visit his child, right? Right.
So the loan sharks don't really answer anything, right?
Even if it's true, which may or may not be, we don't know, right?
Right. But it doesn't explain why he moved away and never came back and you had to always go and visit him, right?
Right. I didn't visit him for like three years, though.
So you didn't see... Sorry, you just said you didn't see him for a year?
And now you... Sorry, tell me. Well, what happened was I didn't see him for a year after he just kind of disappeared.
And then he called me a year after I didn't see him.
And... From what I understand, he was still in California, and he told me he was going away.
I was pretty upset about that, pretty emotional about that.
And he says, look, we'll see each other sometime later, and I want to see you again, I love you, blah, blah, blah.
Then it was three years after that, after that call, that I finally saw him again.
That's what happened.
I see, I see, I see.
Okay, go on.
And my life changed profoundly because I was in a very, very conflicting, physically abusive relationship with my stepdad.
Oh yeah, sorry, you said that your mom was dating someone.
Is this the guy who then became your stepdad?
Right. And he was a military guy.
Well, he was out of the military, but he was in the military for like 20 years, you know?
And he...
And sorry, just those guys are totally toxic.
Right. I mean, you might as well be living with a hitman.
Well, you are. Sorry, go on.
I was, yeah.
And he was the type of guy that accumulated a lot of anger.
A lot of little things bothered him like Like, little undetailed things and stuff.
And like, when I would talk to him, like, he would get pissed off if I didn't say yes.
Like, clear, crisp yes.
I can just say yeah.
And he'd look at me like, what does that mean?
Yeah, you know? Yeah, I mean, you're a typical anal retentive sadist, right?
Right. And if...
I know he came from his own previous marriage and he had two biological daughters that he didn't...
They would come and visit sometimes.
And, you know, my mom and him were so kind towards, you know, his biological daughters.
But they never knew that side of him.
This guy, like...
Okay, you just gave me another story, right?
And I'm just pointing this out, right?
Because if you think you know the answers to your history, you'll stop looking, right?
Right. It is completely guaranteed that his daughters knew that he was a sadistic rat bastard.
Guaranteed. Children can't miss that.
You can't have a little part of yourself that's cold and sadistic and anal retentive.
And nobody has any idea.
It distorts the whole personality.
The kids were perfectly aware of it.
What happened was that they probably had been broken so early and so completely that he just ruled over them, right?
Right. I mean, they didn't live with us, but they would come over, and from what I remember, I mean, him and my mom were very nice towards them.
And... Like, if this guy, like, he channeled all his anger at me, because he would never go against my mom.
I don't know why.
My mom's not, like, physically imposing or anything.
Well, because your mother was not physically dependent on him the way that you were, or physically dependent on someone, right?
Right. I mean, your mom could leave him.
You couldn't, right?
Right. Right.
This is how brave these military heroes tend to be and how often they end up like priests just picking on children endlessly, right?
Right. And, I mean, there was stuff.
Like, you know, I was opposed to him, like, right away.
I just... I was always afraid of the guy, you know?
Sure. And, I mean, I don't want to even go down the list of, like, all the...
If I chewed with my mouth open just a little bit, like lightning quick, I'd get this backhand right to the face.
So hard that I would see black for a couple seconds or something.
Now, where the fuck was your mom in all this?
I mean, she brings this asshole into your life, gives him power over you.
What the fuck? She was...
I don't know.
She would only intervene, so to speak, when I guess she had enough.
I'm sorry, intervene?
She brought this guy into your life.
Right. Well, sometimes she would take the command, I guess, away from him.
Because the whole time I know he had no power over my mom.
But my mom would sometimes step in and say, well, no, he's my kid and I'll discipline him my way.
Okay, sorry.
I'm going to have to back up because this is a hard point for people to understand, and you're not understanding it.
And that's not because you're dumb.
Obviously, you're highly intelligent.
It's just because you're not allowed to understand this, right?
So – I've used this metaphor before, so if you've heard it, I apologize.
I'll keep it brief.
Okay.
If I drive up to you in a black van and I tackle you, put a rubber bag over your head, drive you off to some mafia hideout where I know that you're going to be tortured, right?
Right.
And then you start getting tortured, and then I come back an hour or so later and say, Hey, you know, take it easy on the guy.
Am I being nice to you? No, obviously not.
You're probably making it worse.
Well, you wouldn't be in that situation if I hadn't kidnapped you and delivered you to the mafia to begin with.
So anything that I do to alleviate that situation afterwards is kind of immaterial relative to the fact that I created that situation, kidnapped you and drove you to a mafia torturer to begin with.
Right. So when you say to me, well, my mom intervened and so on, it doesn't make any sense to me.
It's like saying the guy, like, I dropped you off at the mafia torturer, but then I did intervene from time to time.
It's like the whole situation is created by your mother.
She chose the guy.
She married the guy.
She gave him power over you.
She didn't kick him out.
You know, she knew you were being assaulted.
I mean, he's not there if she doesn't want him there.
Right.
You're not getting it because if you got it, you wouldn't be giving me that, right?
No, she did it.
She had the power to, because I was under her, and she brought him in.
Like I said, I'm not an emotional person.
I mean, I feel that, you know?
I just, I'm not...
I want to feel it more, you know?
Okay, no, that's fine. That's fine.
Let's put it this way.
Let's put it this way. Do you still see your mom?
Not very much. Not anymore.
Okay, but you do from time to time.
It's not a criticism. I just want to find it out, right?
Right. So you see your mom.
Now, how would you feel if your mom's boyfriend punched your girlfriend in the face?
I would be pretty pissed.
I would never strike a woman, but I would really get on my mom about that after I handled that guy.
What does handled that guy mean?
Probably break his face.
Okay, so I'm not sure I would agree with breaking his face, but let's at least understand that you would be angry if your mother brought someone into your life who punched your girlfriend in the face.
Right. I would be angry.
Now, why do you as a child not merit the same consideration?
Because you as a child, infinitely more helpless and dependent than your girlfriend as an adult, right?
Your girlfriend could just get up and walk out.
She's got her own job. She's got her own place.
She's got her own car. She's got her own bank account.
She never has to go and see that asshole again, right?
Right. But you as a child couldn't leave, right?
Nope. So how would you feel if some boyfriend of your mother's kidnapped your girlfriend, locked her up in a basement, and beat her once or twice a week?
I feel really good about that.
I'm sorry? I wouldn't like that.
You wouldn't like that? Jesus Christ, for an ex-soldier, you want a tepid son of a bitch, aren't you?
I wouldn't like that?
You mean like you don't like ice cream or something like that?
No, I would hate it.
I would be infuriated.
You'd be psychotic with rage, right?
Probably. Okay, well, tell me what part of you, if somebody kidnapped and repeatedly beat up and imprisoned your girlfriend, I mean, unless you don't really like her, what part of you would not be insane with rage?
I would be, but, I mean, I don't know if I'd, you know, I'd definitely hurt the guy.
Well, no, forget about hurting you.
I don't care about the hurting.
What I'm concerned about is, what pisses you off?
Like, what assault on an innocent person is enough to piss you off?
Any assault. No, because you're not that pissed off about you being assaulted as a child.
Alright, let's take another approach, right?
So you're sitting there in the park having lunch or whatever, right?
And you see some guy sitting there with his 10-year-old son or whatever, and the son accidentally burps after taking a sip of Coke, and the man reaches over and BAM! Punches the kid in the face.
How would you feel? I'd feel pissed off.
I would... I would...
I know you want to...
I generally would feel pissed off.
I swear. I know I would.
And that would...
But you don't get that feeling at the moment.
I'm not criticizing. I just want to understand where you are.
You don't get that feeling at the moment.
Well, not that insane rage...
No, no, no. I'm not saying you can bite your computer in two or anything, right?
But do you feel angry about that?
I mean, even at the thought of it?
Yeah, I do feel angry at the thought of that.
Okay. And what if the woman were holding him down while the guy is wailing on his little boy?
That would be even more sick.
It would be, completely.
But that's exactly what your mother was doing.
She was holding you down while this guy slapped or punched you in the face, right?
Right. Because she had care, custody, and control over you, and it was her responsibility as a mother, as a woman, as a parent, to protect you from harm, right?
Right. And that was only kind of...
That was kind of the light stuff, if you really want to know.
And what was the not-so-light stuff?
Well, he was a woodworker by trade, and...
This, while I'm thinking about this, this is totally sadistic, but he would, he crafted this paddle at his wood shop, and he would use it to hit me with, and he would hang it up on his, like his closet, and it was kind of there to kind of warn me, you know, to listen to him.
There was times where I had to go in a corner and he would make me kneel on beads for like an hour or more.
He was...
I can't believe I've been through all that shit, man.
I mean, he...
You want me to be what I'm trying to do honestly right now?
And it's probably really something I shouldn't be doing.
I'm trying to think about, because this is the way I think of everything.
You know, I try to balance it out, I guess.
I'm going... Because it's what he told me when I was younger.
He was like, well, who would support your ass?
Who would, you know...
Financially, he was there.
You know? But...
So what you're saying is that if I feed my dog, I have the right to burn its eyes out with cigarettes?
No, that's not what I'm saying.
Well, no, but that's what he's saying, right?
Because I pay for you, I put food in your belly, I have the right to torture you.
That's basically it.
But you understand the logic is the same, right?
Because I feed a hamster, I have the right to burn its feet off with a lighter?
I hope that you don't have that right.
I'm sorry? You wouldn't have that right?
No, of course not. Of course not.
So the fact that you voluntarily decide to support a child, which nobody forces you to do, does not give you the right to physically torture that child.
And nothing, of course, gives you the right to physically torture a child.
Or anyone, for that matter.
The problem is that you're lost in a fog of evil self-justifications from corrupt and sadistic people.
And that's what crowds out your direct rage and horror at your own experience, right?
Right, and like I said, it was when I went in the military, that point in my life was like a bridge, I guess.
Like, I wanted to just kind of go somewhere else, I guess.
Well, and you just went somewhere else from what we were talking about, right?
Right. Because here's the pattern, right?
And it's not a criticism, again.
It's just if you want the feedback, right?
The pattern is that we start to approach something emotional in you and you try to move on to something else in the story, right?
Right. Because we're talking about torturing pets...
And that there's nothing that you could conceivably have done that would have justified having you kneel on beads for an hour or be beaten with a belt or beaten with anything else or hit at all.
And then you wanted to talk about joining the military, right?
Right. I was trying to create a...
just kind of, I guess, an escape or...
Well, yeah. What was it that – I mean, is it that you felt uncomfortable?
I mean, what did you feel when we're talking about the torture of you as a child and as a teenager?
What is it that you feel about that?
And if we take away the justification of, well, he was paying the bills, and we could do it with any other justification that your asshole parents come up with, we could do the same it's bullshit with anything that they come up with.
But what is it that you feel when we talk about that?
And I don't know if you hear the sympathy in my voice.
It's unbelievably heartbreaking what happened to you.
And so sick and evil that, I mean, the light of day should never strike these people's faces again, as far as I'm concerned.
I just... I find it kind of extremely difficult, I guess, to bring myself to hate my own damn family.
Why? I mean, if you would hate someone who hurt your girlfriend, why wouldn't you hate someone who tortured you?
I mean, if it would be unacceptable to do that even once to your girlfriend who's an independent adult, how is it more acceptable to do that repeatedly, year after year, week after week, to you as a helpless, independent child?
It's not justified at all.
Well, of course it's not justified, but we're talking about the hatred.
What's wrong, and maybe there's a good answer that I don't have, but what's wrong with hating people who torture you?
I mean, obviously we can't love them, right?
Right. That wouldn't be anything worth loving.
Well, it's impossible.
I mean, we can get masochistic, we can get some sort of weird fetishistic attachment to them, but we can't love people who torture us.
That would just be self-annihilation, right?
So we can't love them.
And if you would hate what they're doing to somebody else, why would you hate it less if they did it to you, when they did it to you, since they did it to you?
I don't know.
I guess I thought I was a bad kid back then.
I don't know. No, you didn't.
See, this is it again.
I'm sorry to be annoying as I always am, but you in no way, shape, or form seriously and deeply thought that you were a bad kid, right?
That's just another piece of mythology, right?
It's just another piece of storytelling.
It's another piece of evil self-justification on the part of sadists and brutes, right?
Right. There is nothing that a child can ever do, there is nothing that a teenager can ever do that justifies beatings and physical torture.
Nothing in any planet, in any universe, in any dimension.
It's not possible.
Therefore, it had nothing to do with your goodness or badness.
Your, quote, badness, obviously, was just used as an excuse to punish you, right?
It's like the guy who rapes a woman because he says, well, she was dressed in shorts, she wanted it, she had it coming.
He blames her, right? Right.
I don't know.
I don't know why.
I don't know what's inhibiting me from really...
I mean, I hate it.
Obviously, it still bothers me.
Or else I wouldn't talk to you about it.
But... Something's like inhibiting me from just...
I guess...
Sorry, do you not know what's inhibiting you?
Probably the mythology.
No, it's nothing that subtle.
What's inhibiting you is the fact that if you ever felt this...
Okay, let me put it to you this way.
If you had looked, let's say you're 12 or whatever, and you had looked at your stepfather with anger and hatred in your eyes, what would have happened?
Well, if I did anything to piss them off, I would have got punished.
No, not punished.
You've got to stop using their fucking words.
Do you understand me? Right.
It's not punishment, is it?
No, because I didn't do anything.
Doesn't matter if you did anything or not.
Torture is not punishment.
I mean, if I hit my dog with a baseball bat because he pooed on the rug, can I say, well, I'm just punishing him?
No, you can't. No, I'm having a psychotic flip-out and being unbelievably, satanically abusive, right?
Right. It's not punishment.
It's just assault.
It's just torture. It's just abuse.
Punishment is like the word strict you used earlier, right?
Right. It's like a cover word or something.
Yeah, well, it's the word that the abusers use.
Well, I was punishing him. No, you were assaulting him.
you were torturing him.
People say strict when they mean sadistic, right?
Thank you.
But the sadist never says, I'm a sadist.
He says, well, I'm just strict.
I have high standards, right? I like things done a certain way.
And it's all bullshit, right?
What he really means is, I like to hit children, so I'm going to make up a bunch of rules that for sure he's never going to be able to fulfill, not because I have high standards, not because I like things done a certain way, but because I like hitting children.
I don't know, I guess thinking about it that way is...
Your reasoning is sound.
I mean, there's no other way it could be, you know?
Well, and let's talk about your mother, since we're on a roll, right?
Right. Your mother's reality is I love watching my children being assaulted.
I like it when my children get beaten.
I like it when my children get tortured.
I like to watch my children being abused.
Because she invites this abuser into your life She leaves you alone with him.
She knows of the abuse.
She'll intervene from time to time.
But it doesn't really matter because she invited him in in the first place.
And your mother's desire to watch her children be abused is something you say, well, I have a tough time hating my family.
But they just use you as meat to sharpen their satanic little teeth on.
That's just, that's pure evil right there.
That is pure evil right there.
You don't get more evil than that, save maybe pedophilia.
That didn't happen.
Right, right. But what I'm saying is, that's pure evil, right?
It's no different than, you know, somebody shooting you with a gun or stabbing you with a knife, you know?
Well, and in a sense it's worse because that's a one-time thing that you can heal from whereas this can leave scars that take years to recover from and a lot of people never make it, right?
Right. I just...
I guess I just don't want to be, you know...
One of those people that, you know, that...
I see people that deal with this stuff all the time, you know?
And I don't...
I mean, I'm an extroverted person.
You know, I'm... I like social interaction.
It's... Oh, you mean like, do you think you have to go and live in a hermit's cave and, you know, count grass leaves for two years to fix it?
I mean, it's like – I guess I believe that I like – I just moved on and – Well, but see, first of all, I mean I understand where you're coming from.
But this stuff is not a paralytic, right?
I mean, let me ask you this. Are you interested in settling down and having kids at some point in your life?
Definitely. Do you think that you'll be able to have empathy for your children if you don't have empathy for yourself as a child?
I want to say yes, but that wouldn't make any sense.
No, with all of the very best intentions, which I perfectly believe you have, which is why I'm on the call, with all the very best intentions, you would find your children enraging because their freedom would cause alarm bells to ring in your head all the time.
Their self-expression, when they chewed with their mouth open, you would flinch and get enraged internally.
It would be inevitable that some aspect of this would be reproduced in your life in the future.
And you want to deal with it now, not when you have children.
Right.
I mean, you know, my girlfriend and I probably get married pretty soon.
And I just I want to get this this all out in the open, because when you talk to that other person, you know, you already brought up some of this stuff, and if I got any of these ghosts in my closet...
I'm sorry, if...
Well, no, I do, obviously.
I got these gloves in my closet, and I want to deal with them.
So, I don't have to deal with them on somebody else or something.
I have no impulses to ever do anything sadistic to anybody, but...
Well, except yourself, right?
And I don't mean sadistic here, but you're cold to yourself, right?
That's true. I've been told, you know, I should maybe be more emotional or something.
Well, let me ask you this.
Are you the kind of guy who cuts his arm and doesn't notice it until people point it out?
So you don't have a high pain threshold or anything like that?
Okay, okay. Well, sometimes that can be the case.
Oh, no, no, no.
I never... Things hurt me like normal.
But when we talk about you as a child, you have stronger reactions when we talk about other people being hurt.
But when it comes to you being hurt, it's all very muted.
You're kind of cold towards yourself as a child, right?
And I understand that. That's all perfectly healthy.
that's a survival mechanism that you had to deploy to get through this sadistic minefield that you were born into right definitely I that's a pretty damn good description Yeah, I mean, empathy would have, you know, it's like if you're around a torturer, you don't say, ooh, you know, it really hurts when you do this, you should do more of that, right?
Right. It's just...
I mean, I gotta do it.
I gotta confront it, you know?
Well, you don't have to, obviously, right?
Well, no, you're right.
I don't have to. I mean, your parents sure as hell didn't.
didn't they just acted it all out again, right?
Right.
But my first suggestion, and there's lots of stuff in psychology of self-esteem, there's explore your inner child workbooks, and I know that for an ex-military guy, that stuff all sounds like 12 acres of pansies, but it's a lot tougher sometimes than going that stuff all sounds like 12 acres of pansies, but it's a But, you know, the first thing, the first thing is that you've got to get these fuckers out of your life, at least for the time being.
Yeah.
I mean, you cannot have sadists around your life while you're working on the after effects of sadism.
You just can't. Right.
And if that means, you know, saying, well, take a couple of months off to work on some issues, blah, blah, blah, whatever you need to do to get that space, right, is really important.
But when you're working on these kinds of tough issues, you can't have the abusers around, even though they can't abuse you anymore.
It's hardwired into your head, right?
Right. Right.
That makes sense.
Are you going to give me some recommended reading then?
Well, I would say that the problem that you have fundamentally is solitude, right?
I mean, I know you're a social guy and so on, but from what I do, do you have any siblings?
Sorry if you mentioned that. No, I don't have any siblings.
Right, right. So, you were alone with these rat bastards for most of your childhood, right?
Right. So, I know you're a social guy and I don't mean that, but the problem that you have is solitude and because you didn't have any siblings and although they sometimes don't help that much… You really got lost in this mythology, which again is perfectly understandable and perfectly healthy at the time.
But I think that you can't solve these particular problems solitarily because part of the problem is solitariness, right?
Right. So I would suggest grabbing a hold of a counselor and giving it a shot.
A therapist or a psychologist or whatever, giving it a shot for a couple of weeks and see how it takes.
Yeah, I... I did see a therapist once, and...
Yeah, you mentioned he wasn't such a fan of doing it.
Well, it was a she.
A she. Well, you might need a guy.
In fact, a guy would probably be helpful for you, as long as he's the right guy.
But, I mean, it's okay.
I mean, it's not like... I mean, I went to see a therapist before I saw the therapist that I stuck with, and he sucked.
So, I mean, you don't always have to go to the first restaurant you see on a map, right?
You can just try a couple and see which one works best.
Yeah. I mean, how do I know this guy's...
Well, I guess I would just know, right?
If he's doing a good job.
Yeah, you'll feel it.
You'll feel it, right? You'll feel it.
And I... You know, the reason that I say that is that just based on our short interaction, this is all just my opinions, right?
So take it or leave it. But the problem that you're going to have is things like eye contact, right?
Yeah. With vulnerability, which obviously you can't get over the phone or anything like that.
So yeah, I think that having a wise, strong, gentle therapist to break some of this alienation you have from yourself and to open your heart up more, which, I mean, you want to be that hero dad.
You want to be that glorious golden god of a dad to your children in the future.
And you also want to be the warm and supporting and loving and emotionally available husband for your wife, right?
Yeah. Absolutely.
And unfortunately, and it is truly tragic and it sure as hell isn't your fault, I mean, you got the shit pounded out of your heart for many years, and you're just going to have to spend a bit of time to shock it back to life, to bring it back to life.
It's not dead, obviously, but I think in order to be the kind of husband and father that's going to make you truly proud of who you are, and to truly conquer the past, we don't move past it, we don't spring over it, we have to go through it, right?
Because there's treasure in that sadness as well, which can sustain us for the rest of our lives.
Yeah, it's just a big step, you know?
Oh, I know. I know.
That's changing my entire psychology around.
Everything I thought I dealt with, that would mean it just didn't mean nothing, you know?
No, no. See, it does.
It does. This isn't like, oh, you've never dealt with anything.
As you say, you have a relationship with a woman that you're happy with, right?
Absolutely. So this isn't like, oh my god, I thought I was running a marathon and I didn't get out of the wheelchair.
I mean, you are out of the wheelchair.
You have a relationship that you're happy with.
You're able to talk about this stuff without, I don't know, yelling at me or anything, right?
So it's not like you haven't done anything and you haven't, right?
But this is just a case of, you know, do you want to be in the race or do you want to win the race, right?
That's the difference between therapy and non-therapy for you, I think.
I mean, if you don't have it, you'll stumble your way through life and you'll do okay, but you won't be as proud and you won't have as rich an experience as you could.
Yeah, I kind of got that out of your...
Your book. It wasn't RTR, actually.
It was Everyday Anarchy. And that's like...
That kind of started getting me thinking, like, you know, if our personal lives are truly liberated, then it's like we can do anything, you know?
We can... We can be true 100% to the things we believe in, you know?
Right. And you and I can march forward and raise the kind of kids in the next generation where they're going to look at the state and laugh.
And they're going to look at religion and laugh.
Because it's the laughter that's going to bring that shit down.
Not fighting, not Ron Paul, but where it's just like, really?
Are you kidding me? Take half my money at the point of a gun because I'm not competent to run my own life?
Give me a break. Right?
I mean, it'd be funny, right? Right.
Absolutely. I don't think my kids would ever say that.
I've tried my best.
But the freer and more open and more honest and more vulnerable that you are, the greater the chances are that the kids will do that.
I feel I owe that.
Well, you made me think of something.
I actually probably owe that to myself first.
Look at that. There you go.
See, I told you you were smart.
Yeah. I was about to say I owe that to other people, but no, I owe that actually to myself.
Because if I can be that honest and true to myself, then the other stuff is just going to flow like a river to the people I love.
Absolutely. That's what Polonius says in Hamlet, right?
Above all, to thine own self be true, for then it shall follow as night follows the day.
You cannot be false to anyone.
Exactly. I just, I won't...
And she loves me so much, my girlfriend, that she knows this stuff is inside of me.
She knows it's in there.
And, you know, I think, you know, it's something that's good for me first, and then it's just going to be good for both of us.
And it's, you know, I just...
Damn you. You got me.
Good. Look, I mean, you're going to take this to this stuff like a fish to water, and this is how the world gets saved.
We break the chain of abuse, and we liberate ourselves, we liberate our kids, and that's how the world changes.
There's no vote. There's no quick route to it.
It's just a long, hard fucking slog with an incredible amount of joy along the way.
And, I mean, I think you'll take to it like a fish to water.
She's giving me this stuff that, you know, it's...
I have, you know, I... Damn, I gotta think the right way, you know?
I gotta see things for what they really are, you know?
Yes, yes, that's very true, and that means reclaiming the story, the stories that you were given as a kid, and actually getting to the facts of what happened.
And part of me, I don't think I'm ready yet, but part of me, in that fashion, with the objective facts, want to go to them, like my mom, and say, look, did you just want to watch me get hit like that?
Did you want that?
Because how can you reason that you didn't, you know?
When you had the power not to...
I don't know if I'm ready for that yet, though.
I mean... Well, take your time, right?
I mean, you'll know when you're ready and you might want a bit of therapy before that.
But definitely, I would say, you know, take a break from these people and get your own space back.
Well, you know, I live in an apartment near my mom's.
And, you know, I don't see her hardly ever anyway.
And, you know, I won't just...
You're right. Yeah.
I'm going to go see if I can get somebody.
I just kind of have this thing with therapists, man.
And maybe because I just had a one-time experience.
Well, give it a shot, right?
Give it a shot. It works if it's the right person that you're willing to work.
It works fantastically. There was never a better investment that I made in my life.
It beat out my education for sure.
And as far as the happiness, I got a fantastic marriage out of it and an amazing career where I do this crazy shit on the internet.
So, I mean, it works out beautifully if you get the right person and if you're willing to work it, which I'm sure you will be.
I know there's good therapists out there.
I saw stuff on TV and whatnot.
There's part of me that feels like they just kind of exploit you.
I don't know. I'm going to try to look for a good one and see if I can hash some of this stuff out.
Fantastic. Well, and let me know how it goes.
Alice Miller's good to read.
Nathaniel Brandon is good to read.
Some of the John Bradshaw stuff around Family Secrets is good to read as well.
So you'll get a copy of this, so you'll have a chance to listen to it.
You'll have to write it all down. But I'm going to stop now because I think that we've got a huge amount out of the conversation.
But I'm certainly glad that we had a chance to chat.
And your history wasn't quite as freaky as I thought it was going to be, which isn't good or bad, but just so you know, I've heard a lot worse.
I figured you did, but, you know.
Alright, well, you know, thanks for getting me to kind of realize that there was fog there.
I'll just keep tabs with you.
Yeah, please do. Let me know how it goes, man.
Take care.
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