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Dec. 10, 2008 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:28:20
1230 Overeating, Willpower, Addiction, Family - Convo

Obesity, overeating, family - and the futility of willpower.

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Time Text
Hi, it's Steph. I lost the beginning where this fellow was reading his email to me, so I will read it to you, and then we will continue with the conversation.
So he wrote to me, Hi, Steph.
I'm really nervous to be making this request of you.
At the same time, I feel happy that I'm asserting that I have a problem that I would like some insight and assistance with in an environment where I feel safe.
Long story short, could we please have a Skype conversation sometime to help me better understand my chronic overeating and body issues?
I have included some information, but I don't want to overwhelm you with details.
I've had weight problems all my life, and currently my weight is climbing back towards its uppermost limit.
When I was a junior in college, I climbed to my highest weight ever, 325 pounds.
I'm 5'10", and I couldn't take it anymore.
Through moderate exercise and a low-calorie diet, I lost 75 pounds in 11 weeks and got down to 250.
During my senior year, I got down to 235, but by the time graduation rolled around, I was back at 250.
I got my current job two weeks after graduating at 255.
In the six months that I've been working, I am now 285.
Whatever insights and progress I've made in regards to these issues has always been done alone and under whatever stray willpower I have lying around.
And while I confess That I do have multiple sources of anxiety in my life right now.
Difu, sibling stuff, loneliness.
Nothing quite matches that heavy sense of doom and self-loathing I feel whenever I look in the mirror.
Of course, all these inner feelings are connected to my behavior, but I'm not sure how exactly, and I want to start fighting the spirals of shame that drive me to continue overeating.
Let me know either way, and I certainly appreciate your time and consideration.
Okay, now, just before we plunge in, I just want to make sure I heard something right, because you just blew my mind a little bit when you said 75 pounds in 11 weeks.
Right. What did you, like, saw off a leg?
I mean, that just seems like an astounding amount of weight loss in a short amount of time.
I ate one meal a day, and it was probably around 250 calories I was eating a day.
And I spent a lot of time exercising in my personal private dorm room.
Even though my school did have a gym, I preferred to exercise alone.
And that's basically where it all went.
And I'm guessing this wasn't exactly doctor-supervised, right?
No, not at all.
I mean, you know that's, like, not healthy, right?
Right, right. Okay, just so we're aware of that.
I mean, it's like, you're supposed to lose about a pound a week, and again, I'm no nutritionist, right, so nothing I say here means anything, but I know that's too much, right?
I mean, that's put a lot of strain on your heart and other organs.
But anyway, that's neither here nor there.
I mean, obviously, the issue isn't whether you should do it doctor-supervised, or whether you, I mean, obviously you should, and the issue isn't whether you go to a Jim at the school or whatever, right?
I mean, the issue is the emotional issues that are the key, right?
Hello, did you hear?
Hello?
Hello?
I lost the last...
I don't think I heard your last question.
Oh, sorry about that. The issue, I mean, the health issues and, you know, where you work out, of course you should talk to a doctor and get a plan.
I mean, there's no, we don't need to talk about that because your concern is the emotional stuff, right?
Right, right. I agree with you.
So what are your thoughts about why you overeat?
Um, I kind of have, like, a lot of logical explanations I tell myself, and I don't know that any of them are especially satisfying, but, um...
It probably works in a way that a lot of addictions work, where if you're feeling extreme emotions, the food will help those emotions kind of settle down into a manageable form.
Even if it doesn't fix your problems, it kind of makes the problems feel more distant, and it kind of has this numbing sensation.
I think that's a large part of it.
And I kind of have a self-talk going where whenever I go through a particularly rough day, I'll tell myself that I have something to look forward to.
You know, the light at the end of the tunnel will be a particularly delicious meal or something like that.
Right, right. Okay. So, it's distancing from pain and a kind of numbing that's somewhat of the goal.
And it's also, it's become a reward mechanism, right?
Like, if you have a tough day, you say, well, I'll get through the day so that I can indulge or have a tasty meal at the end of the day.
Correct. Okay.
Now, what...
And again, I'm sorry to ask this, I just want to get a sense, right?
So, what is a day's eating for you?
Like, what are we talking here?
Where is the weight coming on?
Alright, well right now I'm in this really unhealthy pattern where I eat, if I eat a meal in a day, it'll only be one meal, and it will be a very large meal, like And I've noticed since I started working in the last six months that my stomach capacity has gotten larger and larger.
It's stretching, right?
If you put a big meal in, you're going to stretch your stomach, feel hungry more, right?
Right, right. And if I keep doing that and I keep starving myself in between meals, It just increases the desire as well.
So I think right now I'm at a point where if I don't eat anything today and I eat one meal tomorrow, I could eat two large pizzas.
So when you say that you have the one meal, that's two large pizzas, right?
Right. And what is that?
5,000 calories? I don't know what a large pizza is in terms of calories.
I have no idea, to be honest with you.
Okay, if someone could Google that and just throw it in the chat window, that would be helpful.
I'm just trying to understand, right?
And so basically, that is about as unhealthy a diet as you could possibly have, right?
Because your body starves, right?
And so it's like, oh my god, we haven't eaten in 20 hours, right?
So whatever calories it gets is going to convert to fat, right?
Right. And you give it massive fat calories and so on, right?
Right. And then there's also the benefit of, since I'm an overweight guy, if I'm in public, I'm at work, and my stomach is empty during that time, it makes me feel more comfortable with my weight being in public.
Privately knowing that my stomach is empty and I'm starving myself makes me feel like I'm more presentable or acceptable in public, which doesn't make a lot of sense.
Right. No, it does. I mean, and I understand this, and this is something that is very common with people who are obese, right?
Which is that it's very rare to see an obese person eating a big meal in public, right?
Right, yeah. Because you all want us to think it's like magic or something.
It's just bad glands or, you know, it's like...
But you won't go back to the buffet three times in public because that's embarrassing, right?
Right. Right, right.
No, I've seen that before.
There was a guy I worked with who was bigger than you, and when we would have lunch, he would picket sushi.
I never asked him because we didn't have that kind of relationship, but you just know that there's a head-sized hole in his fridge when he gets home.
It's a weird kind of illusion that people who are obese will try to maintain, that it's not public overeating, if that makes sense.
Yeah. It's less embarrassing if you just appear heavy without showing people how you got that way.
Right, right. Okay. Now, when you have a tough day, you say, okay, I'm going to order these two pizzas, right?
And then you sit down. Is there a ritual associated with the eating?
A set of rituals?
Or do you just basically open the boxes and mow down?
Yeah. I basically always do it in front of the computer, and I'll order it online and kind of just wait for it to get here and get pretty excited.
It gives me something to think about while I'm waiting after I order it.
And once it's here, I basically just start eating it.
Not incredibly fast, but I basically keep eating until I can't anymore.
Right, okay, so when you, obviously you're hungry when the food comes, right, because you haven't eaten during the day?
Right. And there's a, what happens, right, because there's a bell curve, right, where you're uncomfortable because you're hungry, you eat and then you get full, and you obviously, you go beyond being full, or does it not feel that way?
It definitely feels that way.
I kind of feel like once I'm done, I don't feel like eating, and I don't feel like I ever want to eat again.
Does it feel sick?
Does it feel gross?
Or what does it feel like when you're done with two pizzas?
Not gross, but...
There's no joy associated with the feeling of being full.
If I want to be happy after I've finished eating, I have to try to remember what it felt like to be hungry and to be eating.
Because by the end, that feeling is completely gone.
The feeling of satisfaction.
I'm just trying to understand what the feeling is replaced by, if that makes any sense.
What is the feeling when you sort of I mean, you eat until there's no pizza left, right?
It's not like... Like, if you would have stopped before you didn't finish the pizzas, that would feel bad or problematic, right?
Right. So, you eat until it's gone, and I'm just trying to understand what the feeling is after that.
Um... It's...
I don't know why it's hard for me to remember it very clearly.
There's a distance.
I don't exactly feel like myself anymore.
There's a disassociation.
There usually isn't disgust right afterwards.
I think the disgust hits me either the next day after I've woken up or a few hours later.
And there isn't any regret either.
I just feel kind of Not there anymore.
I just want to understand what not there means.
Like I've satisfied this desire and there's nothing left.
It's over. Okay, so what you're saying is that you experience hunger and then when you're full you experience a kind of absence?
Is that fair to say?
Yeah. And it's the absence of hunger, as you say, there's a presence of a feeling of being overfull, of course, right?
And so there's not really an emotional sensation, but the absence is better, because you said earlier at the very beginning that distance and avoidance of feelings had something to do with the overeating.
So when you are feeling this, it's not quite numbness, at least that's not the sense that I'm getting.
Is that fair? Yeah, I think numbness just kind of...
I kind of threw that out there as just an easy word.
I don't know that it's numbness exactly.
Right, okay. And I'm just trying to get into your skin in a non-Silence of the Lambs kind of way.
I'm just trying to understand...
Like, if I... When I was a kid, before I started working full-time in the summers, I was bored, right?
Because I didn't have much to do, we didn't have any money and so on, right?
I didn't have much to do in the summers.
And so I'd have these afternoons where, you know, it's like one of those long Sunday afternoons where you're not really looking forward to Monday and you don't really have anything to do and so on, right?
Is it that kind of...
And it's not exactly depression, it's not sadness, but it's just a kind of emptiness.
Does that... Make any sense?
Yeah, that does make sense.
Or like if you've watched a lot of television, then you kind of go to bed and you don't feel good and you don't feel bad.
You feel a little bit like maybe you wasted some time.
And it's just a kind of empty feeling, like hollowed out.
Yeah, that really resonates with me because I'll do things like...
Like, Sunday nights before I start my work week, I will watch videos on my computer for just hours.
And when I'm done, I feel like I was in control of that amount of time, but I don't feel happy or satisfied.
It's just kind of a long amount of time I spent with myself kind of doing nothing.
Right, right, right.
Yeah, and so, I mean, I'm just trying to make sure that I'm in the right mental space about where it is that this...
Addiction gets you to, right?
To this sense of emptiness.
Because there's something about addiction, and again, look, as you know, I'm no therapist, no psychologist, this is all just nonsense theories, but we'll see if they do any good.
Addiction is kind of like putting your life on fast forward.
And what I mean by that is you always have something to occupy your mind with when you're addicted.
And So the normal process of self-actualization, of self-knowledge, of expanding your competence in who you are and how you relate, big life plans and so on, those kind of go by the wayside when you have an addiction.
And what happens is you are focused on managing the addiction and that's always short-run management, right?
Yes. Yeah, that really feels...
I really agree with what you just said.
I remember when I first graduated from college, I had a lot of different desires of careers or directions to move in and things that really excited me.
And that's kind of all gone.
I'm just kind of dealing with the day-to-day of what's going on in my...
what I'm managing inside of myself.
Right. And so there's kind of like...
There's kind of like a feeling, and again, this is all just theory, right?
But to me, there's something around addiction which is kind of like, get me to the end of my life more quickly.
Because when you're just dealing with impulses and feelings and stuff that's all about self-management in the moment, that's what I mean by fast forward.
It's like, get me to the end of my life more quickly.
I mean, there's a kind... It's not the same as suicidality.
I mean, I don't want to say that, but it's kind of like a fast forward.
You know, like if you're watching a movie and it's not particularly interesting, but you know there's a good bit coming up or whatever, you'll fast forward.
And sort of people say...
You know, they all sort of start walking around funny and so on, right?
And addiction to me is kind of like getting stuck on fast forward because you kind of go through life in a blur of immediate self-management rather than having...
Big goals and things that you're willing to defer gratification for and satisfaction for.
If this makes no sense at all to you, then we'll totally drop it.
This is just some thoughts I've had about addiction.
It makes complete sense.
The last six months really have been a complete blur for me.
Right, right, right.
Okay, so I don't particularly want to talk about the weight issues.
I'm happy to talk about them if you want to, but they're a symptom in my Humble and completely untutored opinion, they are a symptom.
And so now that I think I have somewhat of a grasp and we have some agreement about a possible framework, I'd like to look at root causes.
Sure. I don't want to hijack, though, if there's something that you want to talk about that's not to do with that, I would be, obviously, I am your humble servant in this matter.
I mean, if there's anything that you think would be more productive, I'm happy to talk about anything else.
I'm sorry, I missed what you just said.
Oh, sorry, if there's anything that you think would be more productive, I would be happy to talk about that.
I missed it again.
Oh, I'm still cutting out? No problem.
We'll just wait for a second for the line to clear.
Just let me know if you can hear this.
Yes, I can hear you now.
I don't want to hijack, though, if there's something that you feel would be more important to look at.
I am your humble servant in these matters.
So we could talk about something else, if this sort of childhood root causes would not be of as much value to you as something else?
No, I think it would be of value.
I just had some anxiety when you mentioned it, uh, about kind of unloading too much, um, more than is appropriate for, you know, a single podcast.
Um, but I do think that you can, you can unload, look, you can unload all you want.
There's very little that I haven't heard by now.
And it's not going to shock or frighten or upset me.
So you can unload all you want, right?
This is your resource. So, don't worry.
Don't withhold yourself for that reason, in my opinion.
Right? It's a rare opportunity, I think, in life where we have somebody who's willing to absorb the stuff, or at least listen to the stuff that's happened to us.
So, my suggestion is, you know, lock and load both barrels, brother.
Alright. Well, I agree that looking at the root causes is a fantastic idea.
Now, obviously, you've had time to think about the root causes.
Do you want to start off or would you prefer me to ask questions?
What would work best for you?
I think if you start, it'll help organize my thoughts a little bit better.
Okay. I could go in a million different directions.
Sure. Well, I mean, in a way, that's what addiction is, right?
It's paralysis through options and self-management.
Okay. So, I mean...
My experience, and again, because I'm not a therapist, I just work with my experience.
My experience has been that parental body issues have a big effect on children.
They just do. And, I mean, I just know from my own experience, I put on, I don't know, maybe a couple of pounds after I got married, which I then sort of lost again.
I've been sort of the same weight since I was in my early 20s.
But at the same time, because my mother is very...
I could say, I think fairly safely I could say my mother is obsessed with slenderness and body issues.
You know, every man on the planet who's not Brad Pitt looks at the Brad Pitt washboard abs and goes like, okay, well maybe I'm not being paid $10 million a movie to have those abs, but they sure would be nice and blah blah blah, right?
So I've had to be careful about My body image issues, particularly as I get into my 40s, right?
Because you just don't have the same metabolism and so on, right?
So when I think about those kinds of things in my life, because I grew up without a father and grew up with a mother who did like leg lifts in the bath, you know, she was that much into keeping herself trim and she could not pass A mirror or even a store window where there was even that translucent reflection.
She could not, without checking herself out and patting her stomach, she was really, really, really obsessed with maintaining this slender willowy figure and so on.
And I can see the effects of that on myself and my brother.
And it is this idea that You have to...
Like, for her, it was like, because she didn't like herself, she had to look a certain way, right?
So that was the value that she brought, and so on.
Now, I don't want to make this about my family, but that's sort of the first place that I look for when looking for body image issues is at the parents.
So maybe you could start with what your parents were like in terms of self-liking, self-acceptance, body issues, and so on.
Okay, well my dad was, he's been basically very overweight my whole life.
He hasn't really fluctuated much at all, at least since I was born.
Sorry, just so I understand, very overweight means what?
It means probably around 320 and my same height.
Wow, okay, so like double body weight.
Right, double, yeah.
Like, I mean, it depends on body type, but you say 510, is that right?
Yeah. Okay, so between 160 and 200 depending on body type or whatever, right?
So this is quite a lot.
Okay, got it. Right, and I think he was comfortable with it.
He was kind of an aggressive alpha male type and there wasn't any indication to me that he wanted to change or was uncomfortable with how he looked.
My mother was someone who, before I was born, had been skinny her whole life, but after she had children, she just got progressively heavier.
She's a very short woman, and she probably has the same percentage of excess body fat that my dad has, but I'm not sure exactly how much she weighs or how much extra weight she has on her.
But they've both been heavy my whole life.
And what are the habits that contribute to the heaviness?
I mean, is it just like carb, sugar, essential in the household?
Is it like endless snacking?
Is it a complete lack of exercise?
Or is it all?
What is it that contribute to that?
Lack of exercise and...
Kind of my mom would be the one who makes the huge meals and brings everyone together and makes them eat her food.
So it's kind of looked at as a sort of bonding exercise, everyone eating together.
Well, everyone over-eating together.
Everyone eating together is great, right?
Right. Everyone over-eating together.
That's correct. Sorry, go ahead.
No, that's it.
I was done.
Now, when you were a kid, was this overeating, was this something that was encouraged or was it part of your environment to eat more, have more and so on?
Yeah, especially from my grandmothers and my mother.
It's really hard for me to understand exactly how it worked with my mother because from a young age I kind of displayed this desire to continually just eat more and more.
My mother loved to tell this story.
She thought it was funny about how before I had teeth, I really wanted to eat rice, and she would just feed it to me, and I would sit there trying to chew for hours, trying to digest, well,
trying to chew the rice without teeth, and she also would mention this story where She would feed me and I would keep eating, so she would just continue feeding me because she didn't want me to be hungry until I vomited.
Hearing those stories growing up and always just wanting to eat, it's kind of hard for me to say that I was pressured I don't have memories of being pressured to eat a lot.
It kind of was something that I wanted to do.
Well, not till you vomited, right?
Right, not till I vomited.
I mean, unless you're actually Nero, right?
I mean, you don't...
No kid wants to eat till they vomit, right?
Right. But what I do get a sense of, and this is all, again, it's all nonsense, right?
But let me know if it... What I do get a sense of, which is interesting, is that I get a sense of almost of intimacy.
With your mother during this time period.
And let me ask, did you feel that...
How did you feel in terms of your mother's attention towards you?
Did you feel that you had a reasonable amount of attention?
Or did you feel that your mother was distracted or something else?
I was kind of...
Since I was probably in about fourth grade...
Probably before then.
Probably my whole life. I've kind of been...
Kind of like my mom's second husband.
So, in that creepy, bad, sort of unloving and ultimately bad sort of way.
I always talked to her.
We spent a lot of time bonding and spent a lot of time eating together, too.
Right. Okay, okay.
And, of course, there is no non-creepy way that you can be a second husband.
So, I appreciate that distinction, but just to be clear.
So, okay, so you're, quote, bonding with your mother, which I would question that term, but let's use it for now.
This involved food, a fair amount, is that right?
Right. Yeah.
Tell me a little bit more about that.
How would that show up?
What would that look like? She would cook meals, and some of my siblings would be picky eaters, but I almost never would be.
So it would get to the point where she would claim that she couldn't cook to everyone's specifications, but she'd always end up cooking things that I would enjoy eating.
And it was kind of like, we would talk about it before she cooked, and I would always have a positive attitude about it.
Whereas if she had probably tried to talk to some of the other siblings, they would have expressed more of a preference for what she was going to make, and there might have been some arguing.
But we never argued about it.
And why not? Because I think I could eat anything that she knew how to make was something that I would enjoy eating.
Right. And something that would be, certainly in the quantities, unhealthy, right?
Right. Okay.
Now, what would have happened if you had said to your mother, I don't want to sit here and eat and talk.
I want to go outside.
She would have taken it very personally.
She probably would have pleaded that I stay until I was done eating, or if I said I didn't want to eat, she would probably badger me about my decision until I just relented and finished my meal just to please her.
And what if you didn't please her?
What if you said, no, I'm full.
I don't want to. I don't want to eat anymore and I want to go outside and play.
I'd be sent to my room or punished in some other way.
And so your mother would get angry, is that right?
Sorry, did you just lose me there?
No, I'm trying to think about that question.
Yeah. If she ever made something that we didn't like to eat, she would get angry.
No, no, no. I'm not talking about that.
I'm sorry to interrupt you, right? Because we just hit our first pocket of resistance.
Fog. Right? So just so you know, right?
I heard a click, right, on the mine, and then I stepped up and there was nothing there, right?
So let's go back and poke around a little here, right?
Because did you feel that?
Yeah. I felt...
I couldn't think after you asked me that question.
I was really trying to Processed the question and I was having trouble.
Right, right. Okay, but that's good.
That means that we're getting somewhere.
Not that we haven't been, but it means that we've got our first rabbit hole, right?
Okay. When you say to me, my mom would send me to my room for not wanting to finish my food when I am full and to go outside and play, which is to get exercise, clearly that is an act of anger, right?
Yes. I mean, you don't get sent to your room because your mother's happy with you, right?
Right. So, why was that hard to process?
I mean, it's so obvious, right, when you look at it that way.
My mother would get, she'd take it personally, she'd get upset, she'd try and convince me, but if I continued, she would punish me, right?
That is all manipulative and angry, right?
Yeah, it is. So, why is that hard to process?
I think it was hard for me to process because I was trying to imagine that happening and I couldn't think of any cases where I actually fought that hard against her.
So it was hard for me to see the anger because it was hard for me to imagine me resisting that hard.
Well, but, and just so you understand why I ask you that, the reason you didn't resist that hard is because you were perfectly aware of the anger, right?
Yes, yes.
Right? Because there's a great question, and you may be feeling this, and maybe you won't, maybe you're not, but there's a great question that always came up to me when I was younger, right?
Which is, why the hell didn't I resist more, right?
Like, why did I let my mom turn me into her second husband?
Right? That would be the question for you, right?
Mm-hmm. And have you asked yourself that, or is that something that's on your...
On your thinking roundabout?
I think it had...
I have thought about that.
And I think it had to do with...
It had a lot to do with feeling responsible for my...
The well-being of my siblings.
And the well-being of the family.
And feeling obligated to...
Be a sort of a peacemaker, leader type.
And feeling guilty when I failed at doing that.
And you realize that that is all completely incorrect?
Yeah. Yeah, it was messed up.
Okay, and I say this with all sympathy, right?
Real, real sympathy for you, right?
But tell me why the story you gave me about nobly wanting to help the family be healthier and so on, why that's all nonsense?
It would have been impossible for me to succeed at that, and there's no reason that a child could ever, in a million years, be expected to behave that way.
Well, children are expected to behave that way all the time, right?
But you're right. I mean, of course, it's certainly not a grade four child's responsibility to maintain the mental health of the family, right?
That's not possible, right?
Right. And it was not a noble goal that you voluntarily wished to pursue, because as you say, you found it creepy, and I bet you found it creepy at the time, right?
Yeah, yes I did.
And the other way that we know that it was not a goal that you chose or was noble is because you faced the threat of punishment if you did not comply.
Alright, so it's like a guy who's standing in his jail cell, locked from the outside, saying, I have decided to stay here because I like the idea of being a monk.
It's like, well, you're locked in, so don't tell me about your choices, right?
Right, right.
So these weren't choices.
You were forced to appease your mother because of the threat of punishment, right?
Yep, yep, that's correct.
Okay, and it's just important to be precise because otherwise you're going to have a distorted view of yourself if you ascribe choice to yourself where there was neither choice nor preference and in the face of punishment, that's not choice, right? Right.
It's just you think that you wanted that, right?
Or would have chosen that or it was a responsibility of yours or whatever, right?
Right. It would be self-abuse to tell myself that it was something that I wanted.
Right, or any kind of noble goal, or you wanted to keep the peace.
No, you were forced to sacrifice your own interests in order to appease those who would punish you, or guilt you, or manipulate you, and those who had all the power.
Yep. So what would have happened If you had stood your ground.
And I'm not saying that it was at all possible for you.
In fact, I'm entirely sure that it wasn't.
Right? But the reason that you didn't...
Because if you don't know the pressures that were arrayed against you, then it's easy to slip into, I don't know why I did it.
I must have been a coward. Right.
And I have to admit, I have trouble articulating those pressures.
Sure. And that's because you weren't allowed to know them, right?
No, I wasn't. That's right.
And this is why when we first hit that fog patch, that's because we were hitting parental resistance, right?
Yeah. You said you had siblings.
How many siblings do you have? Three.
And where are you in the birth order?
I am the second oldest.
Okay. Do you mind if I try layering another little theory on this and to see if it fits?
Go ahead. I'd like that very much.
Okay. It is my theory and has been for some time.
If you ever see the movie like Water for Chocolate, that's where I first got it from.
It is my theory that when you have a neurotic or codependent or needy mother, it's usually the case, it can go the other way, but we'll just go with the standard.
When you have a non-functional relationship between the husband and the wife, and you have a needy and neurotic and bottomlessly insecure and parasitical mother, one child One child is picked out of the litter,
and that child is inserted as a kind of finger in the dike of the neurosis of the mother, so to speak, to use metaphors that we won't even try to unravel, it's so complex. But the child is jammed into the neurosis of the mother, So that everyone else gets relief from her neediness.
Right? Yeah.
And that child is groomed to serve the needs of the mother which means is discouraged from having outside friends is almost inevitably overfed to reduce sexual attractiveness is constantly Channeled into spending time with the mother,
right? And becomes the boyfriend.
Yep, that's exactly what happened to me.
If I ever expressed a preference for an attraction to a female my own age, My mother would basically...
She'd basically ridicule me for it and try to dress it up as a funny but shameful story of a kind of youthful ignorance or immaturity.
Right, right.
And that is very common.
And it is, at the very least, quasi-incestuous.
Yeah. And it is also characterized usually...
Yep.
Yep. My mother was married,
but when I was in fourth grade, I would watch Oprah with her all the time, and there's just so many topics that would be discussed on that show that are completely inappropriate and disgusting for a young child to be watching.
But it was something that we did together, and we talked about it.
Well, no, no, no.
You didn't talk about it.
Come on. Do you understand?
When you say we talked about it, I mean, come on.
That's like saying when I was seven, I chatted with my mother about her relationships.
I mean, when you're in grade four, you can't talk about Oprah.
Right? No, you're right.
Yeah. I wouldn't have the maturity to even process what I was seeing.
So how could I talk about it?
Right. What happened is, it was inflicted upon you, it was traumatizing, and then your mother would drone on about it for her own satisfaction, right?
I think there was a curiosity there, though, on my part.
Sure, look, I understand that, absolutely.
I understand the curiosity.
I really do. But that doesn't mean that it's appropriate, right?
Right. I mean, to take a ridiculous example, right, if you show some...
I don't mean a sex movie, but like a violent movie to some kid in grade four, there's going to be a kind of sick fascination, but it completely overwhelms him, right?
Yes, yeah. I remember my mother, I don't even know where the hell she got these movies, but they would be like movies on really late at night that were just completely weird.
I really strongly remember some song, Call Me a Cannibal, I Can't Die, and there was all these guys shuffling naked along the floor on their hands and knees, and all these naked guys.
And it's like, dear God, right?
Wildly inappropriate stuff to show a five- or six-year-old kid, right?
Yeah. And, of course, it was fascinating because it was so overwhelming, right?
Yeah. Like if I stuck a fork into an electrical socket, I'm sure I would be a little bit fascinated by electricity.
That doesn't mean that you let kids stick forks into electrical sockets, right?
Yeah. Okay, so if I understand this rightly, you were groomed for eternal breastfeeding, so to speak. Although, in fact, it's your mother feeding off you, right?
Right. Yep.
So, again, just tell me if these don't apply, right?
Because I don't want to put something out that doesn't fit the facts, right?
And even if it does, it doesn't mean it's true, right?
So you were not encouraged to travel, to take jobs far away from your mother.
You were not encouraged to date.
In fact, you would have been actively mocked for dating.
You were not encouraged to go to school away.
So all of this is keeping the umbilical only with the blood flow reversed.
It's draining your future and your life and your sexual potential in order to keep you attached to a neurotic relationship.
And needy mother, right?
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't, my school was very close to home.
When I moved out, I moved out somewhere that's about 10 minutes from where I used to live with my parents.
Before I defood, The biggest conflict that I had with my mother was that I wasn't calling her every day.
So yeah, basically just there to placate her.
At the expense of your life, right?
Completely, yeah.
So does this at least provide some root causes as to why Your family is heavily invested in your obesity.
You mean now?
Yes, now. This doesn't end, you understand.
This ends when your mother dies.
This is not designed to end.
This doesn't end until you stop it.
But yes, now and for the future.
I don't see how they're invested.
Okay.
In your weight gain?
Right. Okay.
Tell me where the thread was dropped, right?
Because we were talking about your family grooming you as basically a vampiric soul source for your mother's emptiness, right?
Until she's dead, right?
Yeah. Is she dead?
No. Is she dying? Nope.
Do they want you to get married?
No. Do they want you to have a life?
Do they want you to move away? Do they want you to take big risks in your career?
Do they want you to go to Thailand and travel?
No. And what's the best way of doing that?
What tethers you close to the family all the time?
Isolation and obesity.
Depression. Yeah.
This is what it's like to have a vampire off your neck for a couple of decades.
Wow.
Of course they're invested in this now, right?
Yep.
I mean, tell me if I'm going astray.
I don't want to put words in your mouth or lead you down a garden path.
This is the way that I see it in accordance with what you're telling me, but this is all just theory, right?
It really feels correct.
I got this disgusting image of when I'm eating pizza.
This image of my mother kind of watching me silently in the dark.
Yes, I completely understand that.
The truth as to why you overeat is all within you.
It's just that you're not supposed to know it.
Yeah. Are you in your 20s?
Is that right? Yeah.
Okay, so let me tell you how it's supposed to work, right?
I know that you're defooing or have defooed, but let me tell you how this is supposed to work and then you can look at what you have avoided, okay?
Okay. The way that it's supposed to work for you is this.
You are given low self-esteem through obesity, through overeating as a child.
You are under-socialized relative to your peer group because your mother fastens on to you all the time, right?
And you can't get away.
So it means that you then not only have less confidence because of obesity and because of a lack of sportiness, a lack of physical dexterity, all of the stuff that young boys and young girls should be doing, which is Playing and going outside and building up their dexterity and their strength and their flexibility and their coordination and also you're obese, you're a mama's boy, you're bad at sports, right?
Nobody wants to hang with you and you're self-conscious and you're awkward and you can't quite connect with the people around you, right?
All of this is designed and I'm not saying consciously, right?
But this is the effect, right?
Yeah. It really makes sense when I think about it that way.
Yeah, if you're raising a cow for veal, you don't give it free range, right?
You feed it milk and you prevent it from moving, right?
You domesticate it.
You turn it into livestock.
You don't exercise it like a racehorse, right?
Right. So you are crippled in your capacity To gain social points with your peer group, right?
Is that fair to say?
Could you say that again, please?
You are crippled in your capacity to gain status with your peer group, right?
Right. I mean, can you tell me a time where you ever felt that you had status with your peer group?
No. No.
Never. Right.
And... I know this because I went through this, right?
I'm not theorizing in a vacuum here, right?
I mean, I'm with you.
I'm down there with you, right?
I know what this is. So, what happens is then you are kept in a low-status situation, right?
Always, always, always low-status.
And always, always, always distant and fearful of your peer group, right?
Yep, always.
And you weren't encouraged to...
I mean, some people just aren't athletic, right?
And that's fine, right?
They can gain status in some peer group, right?
With chess or Dungeons and Dragons or math or whatever, right?
But if I understand this rightly, that wasn't the case for you, right?
No, I was really uncoordinated in sports, and the fact that I was nervous all the time just made it even worse.
Now, now, you've got to be precise, my friend.
You have to be precise. And I know it's not easy to be precise.
Right? You were prevented from becoming coordinated in sports.
You understand? Yeah.
Now, that's important. This is really important.
You say, oh, well, I wasn't coordinated.
and it's like it's just I'm blonde right but that's not how it is right yeah Right. You were overfed, under-socialized, and prevented from going outside to learn better coordination, right?
Yes, that's true.
I mean, I at least had the benefit that my mom worked.
So I had a couple of hours between school and my mom coming home where I could do sporty stuff, right?
So you were prevented.
You didn't not play sports because you just happened to be uncoordinated, right?
You were prevented from being coordinated as if you had been hamstrung.
Right? Yeah, that's true.
And therefore you didn't play sports, right?
I mean, if somebody cuts my Achilles heel and somebody says, well, why didn't you become a runner?
You don't say, well, I just didn't have much strength in my left heel.
Mysteriously, right? Right.
Some asshole cut my heel.
Right? Yeah.
And so what happens is You can get by to some degree with boredom and with frustration and with a feeling of inhibition, but it's somewhat manageable until you hit puberty, right?
Now, puberty to these families, for the child who is marked out to feed to the mother in a kind of emotional cannibalism, The child who is marked out for this will almost always be told or have inferred that puberty is disgusting.
Yeah.
Go on.
Well, Well, I was basically made fun of for bringing issues up relating to the physical changes that accompany puberty.
Right.
It's hairy, it's smelly, it's disgusting, it's, you know, vile, it's ew, it's right...
And suddenly, there's a weird switch, right?
Because suddenly, this woman, who's more than happy to have you sit there and watch all the gross shit that goes down on Oprah, is turning into Blanche Dubois, right?
Oh, the vapors, right?
Yeah.
And do you know why that happens?
I would think that going through puberty...
Would, in a natural environment, that would make all the natural desires of a person to explore the world and explore new relationships even stronger.
Right. The will to do that would be even stronger.
Yeah, you know all this, right?
It's because puberty leads you away from mother, as it should, right?
Yeah. Unless you're living in the Ozarks, right?
I mean, puberty is designed to catapult you out of the family over time.
I mean, out of the...
It's supposed to point you out of the family to the creation over time of a new family, right?
However long that takes, right?
Yep. I had a long puberty, having a baby at 42.
But that's the purpose of puberty, right?
That's why you have friction with your family.
That's why you want to spend more time with your peer group than you do with...
Because they're falling away like stages in a rocket.
They're supposed to fall away, your family, right?
Doesn't mean that you don't ever see them if you like them or whatever, but...
But that's what puberty is designed to do, right?
And that's not what happens.
No, it's a great threat, right?
Because if you catch on, and there's no way you ever would have, right?
But if you catch on, and you're like, holy shit, I'm getting tingly bits, I like it, right?
And you're like, okay, I'm losing this weight, I'm going to the gym, I'm getting a better haircut, I'm whatever, right?
Whatever, right? I'm going to go and practice basketball for four hours a day, whatever it is, improve my coordination, any of that, right?
Then what happens is that leads you away from your intended purpose, which is to be stuffed into your mother's mouth so other people don't have to listen to her.
Right, and that's sort of...
I gave it a shot during one year of high school where that summer...
I went to the gym and I worked out and I wasn't done.
I didn't achieve a 100% healthy body weight, but I was getting really close.
It was during the summer and I got the impression that it was okay for me to do it during the summer, but as soon as school started, That week, the first week of school after that, I never went to the gym again.
And you know why? And it just kind of fell away.
And you know why, right? I'm not sure.
Okay, well, did you have access to a lot of girls over the summer?
No.
Well, what happens when you go back to school and you're looking good?
Yeah.
Did you say?
Yeah, that's exactly what happened, and it just...
As the school year progressed and I started gaining the weight back and got depressed about it, all the little opportunities that I started noticing at the beginning of the school year were completely gone by the end of it.
Right, because you were not supposed to be the girl, right?
Because that interferes with the whole point, right?
Yeah. Of you having to carry around this whispery, whiny mother on your back, right?
For the rest of your natural-born life.
Right? This body. So...
And they don't need to do it for too long.
Because what happens...
Is this helpful? I want to make sure that we're doing useful stuff here for you.
Yes, this is very helpful.
Well... Because here's what happens, right?
Is that if they can keep you away from girls for a couple of years through piling down your self-esteem, through keeping you overfed, right?
Overfed cows need fewer fences because they can't get very far, right?
If they can keep you away from girls just for a while, then...
You missed the bus, right?
That's exactly what happened in college.
I got even more...
I was even more socially retarded, and it seemed even more impossible than ever before.
Right, right, because everyone's moved ahead, right?
Yeah. And now it becomes...
It's like the 40-year-old virgin thing, right?
It becomes like, how do I go back, right?
Yeah. How can I circle back?
It's like having a job where you pretend you can read, right?
Although, I mean, do you know what I mean?
After a while, how do you say I can't read, right?
If you missed that, if you had to fake it, right?
Yeah, and the last few years of college, I just started making plans for living a life completely alone, just because it was too painful.
Not completely alone. Completely alone would have been a vast improvement.
That's true. The plan for you is not completely alone, right?
The plan is...
Talk to your mother.
Go see your mother. Go be with your mother, right?
Yeah. So I made plans the last few years of college to...
Just kind of live, not as a monk, because I would be, I'd still be in contact with the family, but of just abandoning any intrinsic desire to meet new people or have romantic relationships.
Sure. Because it's just too hard to think about it, knowing that Knowing that I wouldn't be able to do it.
Telling myself that I wouldn't be able to do it.
Right, and of course that becomes more and more true the longer you leave it, right?
Yes, yeah. And...
So this is where you are, right?
You're in this, you are substituting, and again, this is all just theory, right?
But I'm just going to let rip like it's not, and you can tell me if it's all nonsense.
But what's happening is you're poised on the brink, and you're panicking, and it's damn good that you're panicking, in my opinion.
And you're panicking because it's like, I don't have forever to turn this around, right?
Yeah. If I'm going to turn it around, and it sounds like you're doing great work, right, if you're separating from these people, and again, I'm just assuming that's a good decision.
It certainly sounds like it. I don't really care about the details because we've got to focus on your future, right, because it sounds like you've got a pretty good grip on your past.
But you don't have forever to turn this around, right?
Life moves along, right?
We don't pass the same number of forks in the road when we're 40 that we do when we're 30.
Or when we're 20, right?
Yeah. When I was 20, I could have become a doctor.
Now that I'm 42, it's not very likely, right?
When I'm 52, it's pretty much impossible, right?
Because there's not much point becoming a doctor at the age of 65, right?
Or 60. Yeah.
And so this is occurring for you, right?
That you recognize that your window of opportunity will wink out at some point, right?
Yeah. And you feel, I would imagine, that it's relatively close.
And this thing where you do, because you're distracting yourself from the big arcs and choices of your life with these petty things, these little things about how much should I eat, or what should I eat, or should I not eat, and oh look, people aren't seeing me eat.
This is all distracting nonsense, right?
Yes, yes it is.
Tell me what you're feeling.
Dissatisfaction.
I feel...
I knew when I started the Dafu process and I moved out and I did these things, you know, the idea in the wings was this is going to be great.
I'm going to meet people and it's...
That is not even close to what's happened since then.
Right. Not even close.
Right, because you moved out of your parents' house, but you didn't kick them out of your head, right?
Because this stuff is relatively new for you, what we're talking about tonight.
Yeah. And your obsessions with the little details of the everyday are entirely designed to keep you from seeing this big picture, right?
Like the same way the obsessions with did Barack Obama wear a fucking lapel pin is all designed to get people to forget that the state is violence, right?
Yeah. So you're like, oh, how do I feel right now?
How do I feel right now? Are I going to eat this food?
These little things. Addiction is all about these little tiny things, right?
And I know. I mean, I know. And it's designed to let the big choices in your life just roll by like clouds over your house in the night without you even seeing them until it's too late.
Right? Yeah.
That's exactly what's happening.
It's working really well so far.
Of course it is. Absolutely it is.
And it does work.
And Many great souls, many great men, many great women have been brought down by just this kind of mechanisms within the family.
This parasitism, this role reversal, right?
This second husband, this quasi-incestuous feeding of the children to the neediness, narcissism, and vacuosity of the mother.
But that doesn't have to be your fate.
Right? As long as you think it's about whether you eat a pizza or two, it will be your fate.
Because you will be managing the symptoms rather than the cause.
Right? But what you were robbed of, my friend, goes right back almost to the fucking womb.
The socialization that you were robbed of, the sportiness that you were robbed of, the childhood carefree playingness that you were robbed of.
No one who is a boy who is in grade four wants to sit with his mother and watch Oprah, right?
Right. I mean, of all the list of things, right?
Right. I worked in a daycare not once!
Not once! Did a little boy say, can we watch Oprah?
Oh god, I never thought how messed up that was.
That's not what you wanted.
Yeah. You want to be out on balls and running through the woods and playing war or playing whatever, right?
Yeah. You wanted to be out running around, right?
Keeping you pressed up against your mother's flank and feeding you like a piece of meat, like a veal-fed calf, is child abuse in the extreme.
If you don't finish your food, I will punish you!
And now food is and remains your punishment, right?
Yes. And you have a huge pit to climb out of.
And I really sympathize with this, right?
You're like the guy raised by wolves who has to learn English at the age of 25, right?
Yeah. Now, you can do it, but you have to look at the big picture of your life and what you want.
Otherwise, you won't have any compared to what, right?
Why would you lose the weight?
What's the point? Your life is not very satisfying, right?
Right. This is why you want to fast forward with addiction and just get it the fuck over with, right?
I mean, what do you see in the future that's so appealing?
More days like today?
Like yesterday? Like the day before?
Is that what you want? No.
This is why you want to fast forward, because it's like...
Well, I'm not unhappy enough to kill myself, but I'm not happy enough to plan for anything because there's nothing to look forward to.
Same as today, only fatter and older, right?
Yeah, that's so true.
And that's what addiction is designed to do, to get you distracted with these stupid little details so that you miss all the big choices until it's too late.
And then, I tell you this, when it's too late, the choices will become clear and you will live with a kind of regret that it's hard to imagine now.
I'm sorry, I missed that point.
When the choices have genuinely rolled past, and there is no turning back, change is not a lifelong privilege.
Change is something we have to maintain, right?
And when your choices have rolled past, and it is too late to go back, and it is too late to relearn, Then everything that you have missed, every choice that you have avoided through these little addictive obsessions, all of those choices, all of that loss will become clear to you when it's too late.
I've seen that happen, and it is not a pretty thing.
It's like the guy who only gets how bad smoking is when he gets lung cancer, right?
Then it's completely clear to him how bad it is.
But before, it was all the distraction, right?
Oh, well, I'll wait. I'll cut down a little bit.
I'll wait another five minutes to have my next cigarette.
All that stupid little shit that we all think about, right?
So this is hard for you to see, right?
But this is the downside. You will not continue in the same way for the rest of your life.
What will happen is the choices that you missed in conformity With your family's parasitism will become clear to you when it is too late to change them.
And that you do not want.
Yeah, no, I definitely do not want that to happen.
Thank you.
But you have to rouse your manly heart in order to avoid that, right?
You have to say, it's not about one pizza or two pizzas.
It's not about whether people see me eating or not, right?
It's not about every time I look in the mirror, you said you feel disgust, right?
That's all just nonsense.
That's all just distracting, crappy little nonsense.
And look, I do it too.
I'm not casting down any judgments from on high, right?
A couple of times a day, I will look at my belly in the mirror and say, like it's going to change from morning to afternoon, right?
Am I getting any weight?
We all do it. I understand that, right?
You can't eliminate it, but you've got to change the way it's mastered you, right?
Right, and it's so funny because that's, it's not funny, but that's exactly the kind of insight I was looking for in this conversation.
Little things, little insights that would help me maybe in the moment to make a small decision that would help eventually have a big result.
Like little logical tricks.
Yeah, yeah, no, fuck that. It's way too late for you to get little force corrections here, right?
And I say this with all sympathy, right?
It's not your fault that you ended up in this situation, but it damn well is your fault if you stay here.
Right? You got pushed down a big pit, and I totally sympathize with that.
Right? And I'm saying, hey, you're in a big pit, and I'm throwing down a rope as best I can.
You gotta climb. Nobody can climb, right?
For you. But you gotta have a goal, a picture of saying, okay...
I was raised by vampires, right?
So I'm a little anemic. In fact, I'm a lot anemic, right?
what am I going to do about it now?
And I've never thought about it that way before.
I never... I've never connected with it that way before at all.
Not even close. It always became me fighting myself, like a battle of wills.
Sure. Which was never effective in the long run at all.
No, willpower doesn't.
Willpower does nothing.
Willpower is, in my opinion, it's a complete myth.
Now, self-knowledge and understanding achieves miracles, but willpower is for the weak.
Willpower is for the people who can't face their past.
Willpower is just another little distraction to manage addiction.
It's a way to get you to battle yourself in a classic Catholic manner, right?
Willpower is bullshit.
Self-knowledge is everything.
Wisdom, philosophy, truth, authenticity, self-actualization.
That is power.
Willpower is weak self-manipulation where you always end up taking the hit, right?
Getting blamed. Yeah, when I lost all that weight in college, I was consumed by the entire idea of losing weight.
It was all I thought about.
Right. It wasn't willpower, right?
Yeah, and the Christmas break that I had before I started doing that at college was immensely depressing.
And it was after that semester of losing all that weight...
I started listening to FDR and really started feeling satisfaction in a way that getting to bigger issues than a whole semester of just dealing with unimportant...
I mean, because dealing with the weight, I thought of it as a productive thing.
But it wasn't a fulfilling process or I didn't enjoy it at all.
And it was just so bogged down in those stupid details.
And that's exactly what I'm doing now.
And that's really dissatisfying.
Right. I'll tell you, I mean, it's a little thing about willpower that I always remembered.
You know, I sucked my thumb until I was in my mid-teens.
Literally. I would not be able to go to sleep without putting my thumb in my mouth.
Yeah. And I tried everything.
I got the wormwood, you know, put it on my thumb, and I tried everything to not do that, right?
Because it just seemed kind of silly, right?
And every now and then, right, I'd fall asleep on a couch watching a movie with friends.
You know, like, it's embarrassing, right?
It's like bedwetting. Yeah.
And so I tried everything.
Willpower, willpower, willpower, right?
And then it stopped when I was 16 in one night, and I never had the urge again.
And do you know why? Well, of course you don't know why.
Sorry, I'll tell you. It stopped because I went to Africa and slept under my father's roof.
And I fell asleep under my father's roof without even thinking of sucking my thumb, and I have never had the urge since.
Now, of course there's lots of dense psychological reasons for that, but the reality is that willpower just distracted me with this back-and-forth tug-of-war.
It became another stupid little obsession that wasted time and kept me away from the big picture.
That totally makes sense.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I was an on-again, off-again.
I mean, very light, like one to two cigarettes a day, off-again, on-again smoker for, I don't know, maybe eight or nine years.
And I would quit for a year, and then I'd have another cigarette, and then whatever, right?
And when I was like, oh, I should quit, and then I'd want a cigarette, and I'd wrestle, right?
But self-knowledge and therapy and having a larger purpose, I just...
I can now, I mean, I watch a movie with smoking in it, and before, I'd always say, well, goddammit, they should put warnings on these movies, right?
If you are trying to quit smoking, there will be lots of people happily smoking in this movie.
Don't do it, right? Don't see it, right?
It's like watching porn if you want to be a monk.
It's not a good idea, right?
But self-knowledge, self-actualization, then you don't need willpower.
Because you understand the roots of the evasion and the self-destruction, and you don't need to will it, right?
Willpower is... It's like trying to change the tides by beating at the surface of the ocean with a paddle, right?
You're busy and you feel like you're doing a lot, but nothing's changing deep down, right?
Using willpower to solve addiction is like trying to vote to fix government, right?
Does not get to the root issue.
And as I say, it always ends up just biting you in the ass, right?
Because you always fail, and then you feel like you're weak, right?
Yeah. That's what I've been doing this past six months.
Right. And you can spend six years or 60 years doing the same thing, and it will get you nowhere.
But if you understand...
What happened in your childhood, and you understand, I'm giving you a framework, but the real work is yours, and I really, really, really, really strongly suggest doing it with a therapist.
Wherein you might find out that my framework might be completely wrong.
I don't think it is, but it might be.
But the important thing is that you're thinking about it in these terms, right?
Yeah, I mean...
It doesn't matter whether your mom might turn out to be a saint and maybe something else happened, right?
Maybe an uncle grabbed your ass.
I don't know, right? But the reality is that you have to think about it in these terms in order to solve this problem.
It's not like, well, just picture that someone farted on your pizza and you'll never want to eat it again.
This is the nonsense that people fundamentally say, these little stupid tricks.
Put a picture of a thin person on your fridge.
Literally! This is the level that we work at in society.
It's embarrassing.
But that's not what's going to save your life, right?
Literally and figuratively.
Because you know, right?
You're not likely to make it much past 40 or 50, right?
At this rate. No.
It's not sustainable.
Not even remotely. No, and I mean, if you don't have it, you're going to get early onset diabetes and heart problems, and it's going to get worse and worse, right?
I mean, you've got to deal with it now, and willpower is not going to do a damn thing.
But understanding...
Everything that was taken from you, the pressure that you were under to appease your mother, the bullying, the manipulation, the aggression that you were faced with, is something that you need to really get.
And that way, you can stop blaming yourself for the situation that you're ended in.
If I had been born into your family, I would be on your side of the phone.
Right? Nobody can resist parents.
Nobody can resist parents.
You can appease them or you can fight them tooth and nail.
And it's the people who fight them tooth and nail who generally end up worse.
So I think that you did the very smartest thing that you could have done, right?
This is where you get the medal if you want it.
And I'll just end up with this because I know you've got a lot to think about.
But I believe, I truly believe that you did the very wisest and very smartest thing that you could have done.
If you'd have started dating with this family around...
And it will take you a while to appreciate how bizarre these people are.
How Fellini-esque these people are.
I mean, they're like big players in Blue Velvet or something, right?
If you'd have started dating, you would have been ritually humiliated in front of your date.
And that would have been much worse to recover from than what's happened, right?
So I think... That you should trust that you did the right thing in appeasing, that you did the right thing in eating, that you did the right thing in not dating.
And the part of you that managed to guide you through all of this while retaining the capacity for curiosity, change, self-knowledge, right?
The part of you that latched on to FDR and said, Water in the desert, drink deep, right?
Yep. That part of you is your fucking savior.
And you should be, in my opinion...
No, it's not even my opinion.
You just damn well should be incredibly proud of what you have done and what you have managed to salvage from this slow, multi-decade plane crash of a family life.
It could have gone a whole lot worse for you, but you navigated this with incredible skill.
Thank you.
And you appeased where necessary.
You kept your awareness where necessary.
You had the balls to call me!
I mean, that wasn't fun or easy, right?
No. No, it wasn't.
I mean, that's horrible, right? All day, you're like, fuck, I can eat five pizzas now.
I've got to talk to this guy. Yeah.
Right? So, Jesus, I mean, take a bow.
Seriously. And you say you've recently finished college.
You can do this. You can turn this around.
You totally can.
Look, I didn't meet my wife until I was 35, 36.
I'm not saying it's going to take that long.
It won't. But you can totally do it.
As long as you rely on deep self-knowledge, big picture planning, and a refusal to obsess about this slice or that slice, but to go deep and to go early and to understand how deep the roots of this tree go, right? I mean, if you want to uproot a tree, you've got to figure out how deep the roots go.
Otherwise, you can't, right? You just push at the tree and saying, I'm willing it to fall over, right?
It doesn't. Yeah.
But once you know how your roots go, it's quite easy.
Sorry, are you going to say? I feel more equipped than ever before in my entire life to deal with this problem.
Like in the last hour and a half I've been talking to you, I feel more equipped, better equipped than ever before.
And you will talk to a therapist?
Yeah. And my, you know, there's lots of suggestions about choosing therapists, but you really need someone who's on your side, right?
And who understands, right?
Who understands the family you came from, right?
The exploitation. And who doesn't think it's willpower and so on, right?
Yeah. Yeah. And who doesn't think that, oh, it's low self-esteem, which causes you to gain weight, which causes you to have low self-esteem, like you're some vicious cycle all on your own, right?
Like you're orbiting a sun, but there's no sun, right?
I mean, it makes no sense, right?
So I think you just need to find someone and be picky, right?
It's your money, it's your time, it's your soul.
Find someone who's going to be on your side.
But you can totally turn this around, I truly believe.
Wow.
Thanks a lot, Steph.
I really feel a lot of gratitude right now.
I couldn't have seen this If I continued doing what I was doing before.
No, no. And it's all designed to not have you see it.
And defooing wouldn't have solved the problem.
And there's nothing...
I mean, this is why we need each other, right?
We all have this image like philosophy is a mountaintop pursuit.
It's not. We absolutely need each other.
I can't see the stuff about myself.
You can't see the stuff about you.
Because that's how we're raised, right?
So that's why it was so important for you to call and why I'm so glad that you did.
Me too. Me too.
All right. So listen... Tomorrow, call a therapist, set up an appointment, and talk to them a little bit beforehand and just ask them about their experience with weight issues, with, you know, quasi-incestuous, parasitical, vampiric family issues.
You may not want to put it quite like that, but just get a sense of their experience with it and, you know, get the big picture going, right?
It's not about whether you eat in public.
It's not how many pieces of pizza you eat at all.
But you can reclaim that which was taken from you, and you've already done The big work of detaching from the family, and you can totally have the life that you have earned through your courage and persistence, and you should have it.
Alright, so you'll post on the board, let us know how it goes with the therapist, if you don't mind?
Definitely. I will send you a copy of this.
How do you feel about it going out?
I know that you've gotten some great comments and lots of backslaps.
Backpats! Probably a little nicer.
Do you want to listen to it beforehand?
Do you mind if I put it out?
I think I want to listen to it beforehand, but I feel really good about sharing this with everybody.
Okay, I appreciate that.
I will send it to you tomorrow and just take your time, but listen to it sooner rather than later.
Not because of it going out, just because it's important to review this stuff.
All right. Well, thanks, man. Great, great, great work.
You should be incredibly proud, in my opinion, and I will talk to you soon.
All right. Thanks a lot, Steph.
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