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June 3, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
46:45
1379 Group Convo - Bullying - Freedomain Radio BBQ 2009
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Oh. And you're really trying to figure out Jigsaw character who's at the center of the film.
Trying to figure out his motivations for all that stuff.
And the little bits get revealed more and more along the lines.
Right, right. And how things got to be the way it was.
Like, who would do such a crazy thing?
Right, right. And the way it reveals.
Because it's not all straight up...
Sadistic violence, which I think would be more like, what was the name of that torture movie?
Stortrap? Come on!
Me and Riley liked the movie.
We threw out our brains and when we watched the movie we enjoyed the shiny objects.
It wasn't torture, I'm just kidding.
The rich executive paid to torture people.
Hostel? Hostel, that's it.
I didn't see it. You saw that?
You look like such a nice person.
When this guy enters to the hotel, that's it.
When I saw he was walking to the room, I said, well, that's it.
Yeah, that was just straight murder, violence, and disgusting.
Or like American Psycho, in Alex's novel where he's frying up breasts.
I mean, that to me is like...
Well, I said the movie, I thought it was really stupid, because it didn't show a lot of violence.
No, and it turned out to be somewhat psychological.
I think, is it raining again, or is that now?
It started to be heard back in, like a bunch of frightened sheep rain.
It works for me. We're going to stay again, right?
They're going to come back out. Maybe we go back in, then they come back out.
We'll keep on with this question, because to me it's a very interesting one.
Oh, don't forget the reporter! Yeah, Greg and I actually just watched that movie, American Psycho.
Oh, yeah? It's very interesting.
It's a great portrait. I have seen it.
I read the book, and I did see the film.
And it is, yeah, because they have a twist.
I can't remember if the twist is in the book, but in the film, it is like, but none of this happened, correct?
Right, yeah. It's all his fantasies.
I got a question to you later, if you think.
Oh, the Far Throne is available.
I love the All the smart people inside can still feel their limbs.
I never went out. How are you feeling?
Better. The prospect is sort of...
You know, if you're not feeling better, we can start again.
So you're feeling better?
That might make you feel worse.
It's sort of away a little bit.
You know, I dropped the therapist.
Oh, he's done? Yeah, well, I sent him an email.
Oh, well, he's done. That's good.
Bye, bye, therapist. Awesome!
We're all gone!
Drop me at imatherapist.com Welcome to Dumpville Population U! This is my new phone number, 1-800.
Ain't getting it. I mean, the rest of it is still kind of far out.
I'm not really sure. No, no, no, but at least you got the negative stimulus out of the way, and you got some work for a positive role.
Yeah. Where's our Saw fellow?
Oh, there you are. Alright, so, the question is that I have a certain perspective on sadism in films, and I haven't seen the Saw film, so I don't know.
I've just seen clips or whatever that look pretty horrendous.
So, your question is, are you a sadist?
Is that what you're asking? Well, of course, I don't know, right?
Am I saying this or did I come from a violent childhood and I don't remember it?
Well, let me, I mean, if you don't mind, right?
So let me ask you a couple of questions and you can tell me if it makes any sense.
So, tell me about your childhood.
I guess there's no me here, right?
Perhaps I will answer the question right away, but I was teased all that in school.
My parents, I think, were above average.
I'm not saying they were great and absolutely wonderful, but they were good parents, I think.
Is there anything else?
I hated school.
I absolutely hated school.
Tell me what you would tease the best, if you don't mind.
I know it's not fun. Big front teeth.
The Freddie Mercury's, absolutely.
If they came with a singing voice, I'd be happy.
I was pretty much of a loner.
I didn't make much French. Are you an only child?
I have a little brother.
He's four years younger than me.
For those not from Quebec, that's a brother.
Alright, so...
Were you shy going to school or did you develop shyness?
Because shy kids get teased, right?
And it's not only shy kids who get teased, but the kids who are less certain in themselves, less confident in themselves, generally it's sad but true, right?
The people with the lowest self-esteem, everybody's happy to pile it down even further, right?
Was that somewhat accurate from when you went to school or did it grow more as you went to school, the insecurity?
I don't remember if I was shy early in school, but I remember most of my childhood being extremely shy.
I didn't have many friends.
And when I did, it was with other loners and other people who were...
Let's hold together for protection.
Yeah. Right. And were you shy at home or only outside at home?
I guess I was less shy at home.
And I'm still shy at the end.
We get the shy people to talk about emotionally difficult things in a crowded room, eh?
This is fun. What a rollercoaster.
Okay, and for the next thing that's really uncomfortable, I won't talk.
So you paused there, right?
We were shy at home versus shy at school.
What was that? Well...
I guess I developed the fear of disapproval because of that.
I wanted the approval of people at school.
I wanted to stop being teased.
And what did your parents do when you told them about the TV? Or did you?
I told them. At first they tried to tell me to either ignore it or to assert myself.
I'm not judging your parents as good or bad.
That's not good parenting. And I know that this is a small instance in a big parenting scenario, so I'm fully aware of that.
But tell me why that's not good parenting.
Because they're putting it on me.
That's one thing, yeah.
You're getting teased because you don't ignore them or because you don't assert yourself at all.
Right. So the onus is on you to solve the problem of teasing and it's a deficiency in you that has nothing to do with them.
Right, so that's definitely, hey, you're being teased, let me help you knock you down further, right?
And again, I've just talked about this particular instance with regards to parenting.
That is not good parenting.
That's only one aspect of how bad it is, right?
So tell me another one.
Because you were there, you felt it, right?
Another one of what? Of why it's not good parenting.
Oh, that was my guess.
No, and you were right, but that's only one.
Only one example. Why that's not bad parenting to tell me that?
No, it is bad parenting. You gave me one example, which is that the onus is put on you.
What is the second reason why that's bad parenting?
I don't know. Anyone else want to...
Well, they're ignoring you.
And they're not... They're telling you to ignore it.
And in that statement, it's kind of ignoring your problem and saying...
They're not dealing with a foundational basis.
They're just dismissive of it.
They're not asking you your experience of being bullied.
They're viewing it as a practical problem to be solved through the mere exercise of willpower on your part.
Asking you how it feels.
Because the bullying is designed to create two things.
Humiliation followed by self-attack in the victim, right?
And those two things are...
You have to have a predisposition for those two things for bullying to occur.
You have to have a predisposition to feelings of humiliation and self-attack for bullying to have any effect whatsoever.
I mean, sorry, that's too big a statement.
Bullying always has an effect, right, but it doesn't really take in someone's personality unless they have a predilection towards it, right?
I was going to say, it's also contradictory advice.
You can't ignore it and assert something like that.
I guess they will tell me, ignore it, and if it doesn't work, try it.
And they're trying to solve the problem of you being attacked by attacking you.
Well, no, it's not attack.
I mean, that makes it even more of a challenge because attacking you would be like, oh yeah, your teeth are too big or whatever, right?
That would be to pile on, but it's a more subtle kind of undermining because it's basically saying, it's setting him up for future failure, right?
You don't solve the problem bullying either through ignoring it, right?
Because the reason they're clicking on you is you can't ignore it.
Because if you could ignore it, they wouldn't have started bullying you to begin with, right?
And if you were assertive, you wouldn't, the bully wouldn't, bullies can sense, right?
They know, they smell, right?
There's an aura or something, right?
Past life influence, right?
So, they're telling you to solve something.
It's like saying, the way to avoid a cold after you've already got one is to wash your hands.
It's like, but I already have the cold, so washing my hands, you know, it's not going to help that much, right?
There's a number of different things.
They're not asking you how you feel so that they can understand where the problem is coming from.
They're not saying what have we as parents done to not prepare our child for this social environment.
They're putting the onus completely upon you and they're giving you solutions that can't conceivably work and will in fact only make the bullying worse.
Okay. Right?
And the reason that I'm saying that is not to pick on your parents, right?
But to hopefully get a bit of a load off your shoulders, right?
Yeah. Because the Saw movies fundamentally are around humiliation and self-attack, right?
Because you have to saw off your own arm, right?
That's a huge metaphor for self-attack, right?
Our self-attack expert can confirm this?
Sorry? Our self-attack expert can confirm this?
I would say it's a metaphor for sure.
Because you're attacking yourself in Saw, right?
You're put in an impossible situation where you have to cut off your own limb to get out of a trap.
He's in one of the movies somewhere, right?
Plus, the people that the serial killer in some movies choose, specifically people who have done bad things or have done something in their lives or are suicidal.
Suicidal, sorry for my English.
Right, no problem. So, you're right about this.
Okay, so let me then ask you, because we'll go to part five of bad parenting.
Again, not to pick on your parents, but just to deal with this particular issue.
When you brought the problem of bullying to your parents and your parents gave you this advice, you obviously dutifully attempted to follow it, right?
It catastrophically didn't work.
Am I fairly right in asserting that?
Yeah. And then what happened?
Did you come back to your parents and say, hey, you know that thing you told me to do?
I lost a tooth, right?
I mean, did you go back to your parents and say this thing did not work?
Yeah, well, yeah.
And then what? Well, and I'm sorry about what you're feeling at the moment.
We'll pause on that.
But that's really important, right?
Because if your parents are really interested in solving a problem, they'll give you a solution, right?
It's like, I come to a door.
I want to open it. I pull.
It doesn't open. Do I keep pulling?
No. I push instead, right?
So, if something doesn't work, you try something else, right?
If you're really trying to solve a problem.
So, if they say, ignore it and be assertive, and you say, this isn't working, then your parents should say, okay, well, we're sorry that we gave you bad advice.
Like, if I give someone bad directions, I apologize if it gets into the wrong place, right?
So, why didn't you come back to them, and why didn't they follow up to see what was happening with the bullying?
They did try to send me to, you know, to someone to see...
I don't know if I can tell that a social worker or something.
Okay, but what time frame were you talking about?
How old were you when you first brought this up with them?
Sorry to keep interrupting. I guess, no, no problem.
I guess I was six or at most seven.
I mean, really young.
And then when did you go to the social worker?
Uh, when I...
Well, it's not too bad.
It's about 8 years old, I remember.
So, a year or two after the initial problem solving, right?
Yeah. And you realize that's like 10 to 20 years in the life of a kid.
But let me ask you another question.
Did you tell them that it was continuing to be a problem after following their advice?
Did you, like, say that, oh, it's not working?
Sorry, that's not his job. It's not his job.
It's his parents' job.
His parents' job to say, the thing we told you to solve your problem with bullying, did it solve your problem with bullying?
Did they ask that and did you tell the truth when they asked that?
Did they ask you those questions if it was working and did you tell the truth when they asked that?
I told them that I was still being bullied and intimidated at school and they asked me, did you try ignoring them?
Did you try asserting yourself?
And I said, yes, it doesn't work.
Did they give you any help in how to assert yourself or did they just say go assert yourself?
Because that doesn't mean much to a six or seven year old kid.
You'd need to role play, you'd need to figure out what are they doing, how could you respond to it, practice.
I mean you don't just say go play tennis to a kid, go swim, right?
You practice, you get them ready, you rehearse and all that.
Did they do any of that? So they kind of set you up for failure, and again, we're just talking about this particular aspect, I'm not judging your parents as a whole, I'm not even judging them about this, we're just looking at the evidence, right?
I'm sorry to interrupt, but it's actually quite relevant to me, what you guys are talking about, because I have my son.
He's a total bully, by the way.
You wouldn't think that a five-year-old would be a bully, but he totally was.
I mean, he saw it. Oh, he bullied another kid?
No. Oh, he was bullied?
Our neighbor was bullying him.
So there were a five and a six-year-old, he's four, and they were kind of danging up against him.
And they kind of said something about it maybe a couple weeks before that.
I didn't really believe him.
At first I thought, you know, maybe he's not really, you know, telling me that he's being bullied.
You know, he was, you know, playing, but then he would just keep fighting and just keep playing with the same kids.
And I thought, you know, I'll just, you know, always being bullied.
No, you need to ask a hundred questions today.
And it wasn't too long until, you know, I started watching them every time it went to the back of the dark.
Yeah. Trying to, you know, see for myself what's going on.
And then I saw it and I just, he came back and I told him, you know, I saw what happened and then he realized he started crying, you know, he had feelings, of course he didn't saw it and he was absolutely right.
And then maybe I, you know, through what I did, maybe it's stupid me, I went by, I went to my neighbor's house and then I, you know, tried to start a conversation and then I realized that even the parents actually telling their kids to, tried to start a conversation and then I realized that even the parents What is this?
Well, you know how you said yesterday you weren't a big fan of psychology?
What's that? You know how you said yesterday you were psychology and you were not on speaking terms?
Yeah, yeah, okay.
Well, let me, can I just say something that I noticed about what you just said?
You referred to yourself with a particular phrase there, where just before you said, you went over to talk.
Do you remember what it was? You went over to, you said me, then you referred to yourself using two words.
What did you say?
Stupid me. So, if you're going to bully yourself, your son is going to be more prone to being bullied by other people.
If you're going to talk negatively about yourself, your son is going to be more prone to being talked negatively by other people.
Ah, okay, well...
Take your time. Yeah.
No, no, because I know you and psychology are like not big friends, right?
Sorry? I know, I know, I understand what you mean.
Because you did the right thing by going to talk to the parents, in my opinion, right?
What do I know? My kid hopefully will not, but if she does, I'll probably make even more mistakes, right?
But because what you did was you went over and you talked to...
We'll get back to you, sorry, I haven't forgotten. No problem.
You went over to talk to the other parents and you got the information that it comes from the parents to the kid.
Yeah. Now, what that means is that you can understand that the little kid is not just a bad little kid who mysteriously starts bullying other people, right?
But you have to make sure that you don't self-attack, right?
Because if you talk negatively about yourself, you're kind of bullying yourself.
Like, you'd never go up to your son and say, stupid you, right?
Of course not. So, why would you do it to yourself?
Right? But if you do it to yourself, he sees that that's because he worships you, right?
You're his father, right? So everything you do is right.
Right? So if you refer to yourself negatively, he's going to say, well, putting people down is good because dad does it to himself.
So when he's put down, he won't know how to fight back because it's good.
Did you see what I mean? Yeah, I know what you mean.
And so, you have to refer to yourself positively and with confidence and so on, right?
Or if you refer to yourself negatively, as I do sometimes as well, it has to be so ludicrous it's obviously a joke, right?
So, like when I refer to my Mohawk or something, right?
As opposed to the reverse Mohawk, which is actually going on, right?
Mother Nature's mowing stripe, right?
But I think that...
Yeah, yeah. Because your son is going to relate to the world in many ways how you relate to yourself.
And so, if you treat yourself with respect and dignity, then he's going to expect that behavior from other people towards him.
But if you put yourself down, then he's going to be susceptible to that from other people, if that makes any sense.
Because kids... I mean, you see this, I'm sure.
Isabella will watch me, just watch me, right?
And you're not used to that. I'm like, oh, I shouldn't really be picking my nose at that one.
Even if I'm itchy there, I'll go to the next room, right?
Because they watch, and they're absorbing everything, and the first relationship that they understand is your relationship to yourself, right?
And that's what they'll internalize as their relationship with themselves.
So, if you call yourself stupid, he's going to end up calling himself stupid.
Then, when somebody else calls him stupid, it's harder for him to push back.
Does that make any sense at all? No, it makes sense.
Yeah, I would see my dad doing that to himself, I remember starting to do that after...
Yeah, because you're prone to I'm so stupid, right?
Although you're kind of genial about it, so I understand you'd be a little more ferocious about it, right?
Good thing you don't have a fork at the time, right?
Yeah, because children are on the stage of massive neural change and they're learning really quickly and put in those situations and the best way to learn and know what to do is look at other examples of how people What do you want to do and just mirror it?
What? Just mirror people, and the first people we'll mirror is their parents.
Yeah, for sure. For sure.
Oh, we're talking about it. Okay.
Excellent. My work here is done.
How is Isabella, sweetheart? She's good.
Hi, boo-boo. Hi. We're coming back.
We're coming back. We're coming back. Just hang on.
I'm sorry. We're coming back. I just wanted to check in with, you know.
I don't want to talk about good parenting and ignore my daughter, right?
Hi, boo-boo. Hi Amy, over here in the sea of faces!
How are you doing? Hi Amy!
She hasn't quite seen me yet. Alright, we'll come back to my door in a sec.
Right, so, yeah, that's what I was saying.
It's the parent's job to follow up, right?
If you complain of an ache as a kid, right, it's your mom's job to say later that day, how's your ache, and is it right?
She's the adult and you're the kid, right?
So, it doesn't seem to me, at least this is my impression, and correct me if I'm wrong, it doesn't seem to me that you felt like you had very productive allies in terms of your parents when it came to bullying.
That's a pretty good assumption.
I mean, when you asked me this question, did they do anything?
Did they say anything? I have a complete blank in my head.
Sure. I cannot think about anything.
Right. And that blank is replaced by self-attack, right?
Because if they didn't fail as parents, you failed as a human being.
Because failure happened, right?
Because you kept getting bullied and that is a failure, right?
And so if it's not a failure on the part of your parents, then it's your failure.
Does that make any sense?
No. Like if I'm a nutritionist and let's say you don't have to, but let's say you had to lose 50 pounds and I'm a nutritionist and I give you a diet and you follow it to the T and you gain weight, right?
Then either I'm a bad nutritionist or you're a bad patient because failure has occurred because you're gaining weight when you're supposed to lose it, right?
So if you've got a problem called bullying, And it continues, then there's a failure.
Is it a failure on the part of the bullies?
No, they're bullying very successfully, right?
Because you're continuing to be bullied, right?
Is it a failure on your part?
No, of course not, because you're a kid, right?
Kids can't fail. They can only be failed, right?
It is a failure, obviously, on the part of the bully's parents who taught them that.
But more fundamentally, because we're talking about your parents, it is a failure, and a very significant failure, because I can see that it's contributed to some degree to your adult life, because you're watching the Saw movies, right?
That it is a failure on their part.
And if you don't identify it as a failure on their part, the burden stays on you, right?
Which is how the bullying continues, because you view yourself in some level as not having succeeded in solving the problem, right?
Does that make any sense?
Yeah. How are you feeling?
You seem a little uncomfortable, and that's totally fine.
I just want to know how you're feeling.
I feel less uncomfortable than when I started to ask you a question.
But what I'm saying, does it make any sense?
Yeah, yeah. I heard one yes from you and one no from your parents, so...
Oh, really? Well, but I'm thinking that you say that that's a little late, one year or two years.
Let's say one year. Let's say it's a year.
Let's say it's a month. That's fine, too.
If it's more than a day, it's a problem, right?
Before my parents sent me to a social worker or to a psychologist or whatever.
Yeah, okay.
But, now, before he...let's take the diet metaphor.
That takes time before knowing that something doesn't work.
I mean...
No, it really doesn't.
There's a good solution to end bullying and it will end tomorrow?
No, of course.
But you don't wait for a year to find out if you're gaining or losing weight, right?
If you're on a diet, you weigh yourself every week, right?
Maybe every couple of days.
You don't wait for a year, jump on the scales and say, holy crap, I'm twice the weight I was before, right?
I mean, it's not the best metaphor because you'd notice in other ways.
It's like not being able to see your feet or whatever, right?
But you understand, the question isn't whether it's a year or not.
The question is what happens in that year.
Because you brought a problem.
I mean, I was bullied sometimes too, right?
It makes your day horrible, right?
You dread waking up.
You dread going to school.
I remember I... I used to play Defender.
It's an old, old video game.
It's like being locked in a closet with a bag full of bees.
It was a great fun game. And this guy was really having a great game and he wanted to play and he unplugged the machine on me.
So I called him a jerk or an asshole or something like that.
I was about 12 or 13.
And his brother was the school sociopath.
I didn't even know, right? And he said, oh, you push my brother.
I'm going to get you. I'm going to kill you.
And he had those kind of stone-cold eyes where you go like, I could really be in danger here, you know?
And I remember I had a harmonica.
I just wandered around my apartment playing taps.
You know, because I really felt that doomed, and it's kind of funny in hindsight, it wasn't at the time.
But the only thing that ever happened was I was going up the stairs, he was coming down, you know, the general slow filing that you do in school, and he punched me in the arm, and he's like, I'm going to kill you.
You know, and he never ended up doing anything, but that was really the most significant time that I was ever bullied, or one other time when I was hiking with a friend of mine, some older kids made me shake him a fire and whatever, and bullied us for a couple of hours.
So for me it wasn't extended, it was just a couple of times, but it was during real crisis times in my family when my mother was going mental and before she was institutionalized, so they pick on the weak, right?
They're like a bunch of nasty predators.
So I have a little bit of experience, but I remember it consumed me.
It was what I thought of when I woke up in the morning.
I thought of it on the way to work.
I was constantly hypervigilant, scanning the environment, looking for this guy or anyone else who he might know who might attack me.
I lived with this dread in my stomach and this went on for weeks.
And then I've sort of, you know, it never resolved itself either way.
He probably just went on to some other victim or whatever, because I wasn't doing anything to provoke him.
So I do have a small taste, and I don't know how extended or violent yours was, but it poisons your day.
It's not just like a bummer, you know, it's not like, I don't know, my leg went to sleep and it's really painful.
Like, it's chronic. Was that somewhat what it was like for you, or was it not that bad?
Perhaps, I mean, bathing or not remembering or anything.
I don't remember... It being that bad...
Well, let me ask you this.
Were you threatened with violence?
By the bullies? It was more of a verbal violence.
Sometimes they would throw snowballs at me and...
Which sounds innocent, but if you pack those things, right?
Yeah, I got a black eye once.
Oh, yeah? And that can actually...
You can take out an eye, actually.
Yeah, if there's ice in it. Yeah, if there's ice in it or a rock or something, right?
Yeah. Okay, so, snowballs.
I know the verbal teasing, that can be completely crazy-making.
What about, did you get pushed, or did you have to pay money, or did they take any lunch money, or did they steal your lunch?
No paying money. I think I got pushed a few times.
Do you have an example of a verbal abuse?
Do you remember?
It's hard for me to remember, actually.
You know, mean nicknames.
Yeah, yeah. And what was the duration?
You said it started around 6 or 7 and you said you went to 8 to a social worker.
Did she solve the problem?
No. No, no.
Because otherwise you wouldn't bring it up now, right?
Yeah. And when did it begin to diminish?
It got it worse when I was in maybe 13 or 14.
Right. Then I changed schools.
Then it wasn't that bad.
People didn't know me and I was a bit taller that time.
So, from 6 to 13, 7 to 13, was the...
I mean, you're saying peaking around 13, right?
Yeah. And so, that's 7 years, right?
And that's the majority of your early childhood and certainly the majority of your childhood in school, right?
So, that's a pretty chronic condition.
So, it makes sense to me that it didn't feel as bad because the reason I think that I remember mine so vividly is that it wasn't constant.
Right? But when things are constant, they become less difficult.
You hear a sound for long enough, you know, you stop hearing it, right?
So, your parents didn't intervene successfully.
I'm sure teachers may have seen it.
Didn't intervene successfully. The social worker didn't intervene successfully.
Was there any intervention after the age of eight?
There was another...
I think it was a child psychologist that I saw.
And how old were you then? Maybe...
10, 11, around that time.
And what were the suggestions from the social worker and the child psychologist?
Ignore it and...
Sorry. I'm just curious what they said.
Suck it up. I think I went only once to see him.
Maybe... I only remember once.
And it was more about, you know, getting out my emotional luggage.
I mean...
And, no. Now, sorry, you were 10 years old.
Did he say the purpose here is to get out your emotional baggage?
I don't even know what that means at 41.
I don't know what it would mean at the age of 10.
I mean, I guess...
Um...
And one session is not going to do a damn thing, right?
No. It doesn't go a damn thing.
Guaranteed it's not going to do a damn thing, right?
Oh. It's like putting down one candy bar.
It's not going to help you lose any weight, right?
But what it does do is it puts the onus back on you, right?
Because if parents really want to solve a problem, they keep working until it's solved, and they keep trying different things until it's solved, right?
But there was no commitment from any of the adults around you, it seems, for the bullying, right?
Because this is not just a family issue, you understand, right?
It's a school issue, it's a mental health issue, it's a societal issue, right?
There's a kid being victimized, having his childhood poisoned, right?
I don't think that's an exaggeration for constant bullying.
It is a poisoning of childhood.
And if you were being physically poisoned, everybody goes nuts over, oh my god, there might be chemicals in baby bottles.
You know, that affects one child in a million.
Maybe. And everybody goes completely insane and bans it, right?
But something this toxic.
Which is bullying year after year after year for a child.
People take barely any half-hearted efforts once every year or two to try and solve it and don't care when it's not solved, it seems.
Right? Yeah.
And there's a tragedy, right?
I mean, it's the single biggest shadow it would seem to me on your childhood, right?
That's true. I mean, was there anything else that was worse?
I don't think so. No.
I mean, I can see that doesn't mean it's real.
It just means I can see something. I can see that, I don't know if other people can too, but it seems to have had a pretty strong effect on you as an adult, right?
Yeah. Just that other people see that, right?
There's a certain kind of... I see that.
I stay with him at the hotel.
Yeah. I mean, there's a certain kind of sadness, a despair, a hopelessness.
A resignation. And again, these are all just things that I... It doesn't mean any of this is true.
This is just sort of what I see. Like even this...
I'm thinking.
Yeah, yeah, you know. But the body language and so on.
And it would be crazy if it didn't have a long-term effect on you.
This is seven plus years of constant exposure to fear and to aggression.
Right? And without a support mechanism that is at all effective or even seems to be that involved in searching for a solution.
And the solution to bullying isn't easy.
I'm not blaming your parents because they passed up on something really easy.
It is tough and it's complex.
But you keep working until it gets solved.
Because you can't just let your child live in fear that way.
You just have to do whatever it takes to solve the problem.
And not stop until it's solved.
We were talking about this with Bill.
The people with real problems weren't the ones being dealt with.
Yeah, it wasn't the bullies fault because they're just kids, right?
At least it wasn't mostly their fault.
Obviously they weren't acting well and they knew they weren't acting well because they didn't do it when teachers were around.
It certainly wasn't your fault.
It absolutely and completely was not your fault.
Right? It's certainly not, you didn't sit there in the womb saying, Dear God, give me buck teeth, right?
Not mean born at all, right?
Or whatever it was that they picked on, right?
I'm not saying you have buck teeth, right?
I'm just saying, this is what these people, you put your hand in front of your mouth, right?
Like I'm immediately picking on your teeth, right?
No, but you didn't, whatever they picked on, right?
I mean, it didn't, it's not what you wanted in your life, right?
You certainly didn't sit there saying, you know, I'm just not going to be happy today until someone has a snowball at me and gives me a black eye, right?
That wasn't how you woke up and wanted your day to go, right?
And you did try the right thing to get the support from the adults around you to solve the problem and they uniformly let you down.
Threw you to the walls, right?
Because the reality is, I guarantee you, your parents felt helpless in the face of bullying.
Because otherwise they would have solved the problem.
We give up when we feel helpless, right?
And so, if your parents, with all their power and efficacy, can't solve the problem of bullying, how the hell are they giving you advice on how to solve the problem of bullying, when you're just a little kid, right?
If the psychologist, the social worker, the teachers, the principal, the police, none of these people can solve the problem of bullying, what the hell are they doing heaping the problem and the solution on the little shoulders of a child?
That's true.
They couldn't solve it. And you realize that to put the onus of solving the problem of bullying on a kid is bullying, right?
Because it's a whole inverted pyramid of power that says the entire problem, the entire solution to this problem of bad parenting, bad school, bad societal ethics rests on the defenseless, already bullied little shoulders of a seven-year-old.
Right? That is putting an unjust and utterly wrong amount of responsibility on a child to solve problems that adults aren't willing to face up to.
It's like calling a child with a learning disability stupid.
Yes. Yeah, it is, for sure.
Except it's even worse, because a child with a learning disability may have a physical issue, whereas this is almost entirely generated societally, right?
And it's deeply tragic.
It really is. And it makes you feel very alone relative to society, because it was society as a whole that failed to solve this problem, right?
Your parents, your teachers, your social workers, your psychologists, your extended family, whoever, right?
everybody just like, okay, let's let the truck keep rolling over this kid because we're afraid of the road, right?
Sorry if I'm not responding with more than two words.
Oh, you're responding. Anyone can see, we can all see the response, right?
You're responding for sure. You really are.
And very openly and very warmly, I think, too, to be credited for that, right?
Your heart is still open, which is an incredible gift to still have after that much bullying, right?
That you can still have an open heart and not, you know, be shut down completely in a conversation like this.
That's an amazing bit of artistry and acrobatics that you kept your heart open during this whole thing.
Not this conversation, but your whole life, right?
Now, does this put the movies that you brought up originally in any kind of perspective?
And I would have fantasies of violence because of this?
No, I didn't say fantasies of violence, though you may, right?
Because you would have a lot of anger about this.
Right. Now, you cloak the anger in helplessness and despair and hopelessness, right?
And shrugs and resignation and all kinds of Gallic abstractions, right?
Well, these movies are all about helpless situations.
They dumped their helpless situation on him.
So wouldn't it be a playing out of a helpless situation involving self-attack and...
It's actually better if you answered it.
Oh. No, but I mean, that's a real question, right?
Because the movies evoke a feeling in you, right?
And if it is a feeling from your childhood that is unprocessed, then you're going to be drawn to it again and again, right?
Okay. Right, so if you have a feeling around helplessness and horror and self-attack, that is unprocessed for you.
And the reason we don't process those feelings is because we feel that we are to blame for them, right?
So, we feel ashamed and so we don't want to process the feelings because we feel guilty.
So, if you feel that you were bullied because of something you did, rather than a complete failure, worse than a failure on the part of the adults around you, then you won't be able to get angry because it's your fault.
It's like if I don't put on sunscreen even when people tell me to and I get a sunburn, who am I going to shake my fist at?
Well, no one, because I'm to blame, right?
I didn't do something sensible and I got a sunburn, right?
So, if you view your bullying as like, well, people told you to ignore it or be assertive, put on the sunscreen, you didn't do it, you got a sunburn, you will feel all kinds of despair and heaviness and self-attack because it was your fault.
But it wasn't your fault.
You're a seven-year-old kid. It was the adult's responsibility.
It was your parents' primarily responsibility To make sure that they did not sleep and no stone was unturned until this problem was solved to your satisfaction.
Not to their satisfaction.
Not so that it went away and you didn't bring it up with them anymore.
Not so that you dragged yourself through the day like a compliant little slave, but solved to your satisfaction.
And that's why parental communication with children is so important, right?
The problem is solved not when they think it's solved.
The problem is solved when you think it's solved.
And they do whatever they can As good parents, to continue to work at the problem night and day, and if that means homeschooling, if that means moving, if that means whatever, right?
It doesn't matter. I mean, if the water was poisoned in your taps and was causing you to have developmental disorders, they would fix that, right?
They wouldn't just sit there and say, well, you know, maybe try and drink a little less.
Right? They would call the city, they would move, they would get filters, they would whatever, right?
But this is the same situation, but they avoided it for whatever reason.
It doesn't matter, right, at the moment.
It matters to figure out at some point, but...
But if you have all of these feelings that because you feel it was all your fault, there's no one to get mad at, right?
But if deep down you know it wasn't your fault, as everybody in this room knows and everybody in the world knows it wasn't your fault, right?
Then you can actually start to get angry, which is the assertiveness your parents were telling you to do when you were seven, right?
Which you should do now, and I would talk to them about this, and I would frankly call them on the carpet a little bit about this, saying, I was a little kid, how the hell did this go on for so long?
How the hell did I end up being bullied for most of my childhood when you knew about it?
I mean, too aggressive?
Is that a fair question to ask? I wouldn't start with that, you know, because you don't want to necessarily put all their defenses up at once, right?
I would just start with, how the hell did it happen?
Because that's a real question, right?
Yeah. Right? I mean, that's a damn important question because it was the single greatest shadow on your whole childhood, right?
You can't go back and be seven again.
You can't go back and have happy times at school.
That's never going to happen again. It's a complete theft, right?
So, if you get angry, then you can actually say, hey, you know, remember you told me when I was seven to be assertive with bullies?
I'm going to talk to you now, right?
Because that's taking their advice, right?
Finally being assertive with bullies.
Yeah, with bullies, right? And if you put the onus on them, which it should be because you were seven, right?
Then my feeling is that you will no longer feel as helpless and as hopeless and you will no longer be drawn to watching people having to abuse themselves when they're in a situation of helplessness and hopelessness.
Okay. You thought just a couple of sandwiches, right?
Does that make sense, Jeff?
Does that make any sense?
Because you did ask about the movies and that's why I wanted to know if you'd experienced that kind of humiliation.
Yeah, you're right. I had a feeling it would come to that eventually.
Well, no, you asked the question, your unconscious asked the question because you knew that somebody would be able to tell you the answer, right?
And you know the answer. I'm not telling you anything you don't know, right?
You just haven't had it put that way, right?
So, will you talk to your parents, do you think?
And it's not, you know, shake them by the neck and you ran past it, stole my childhood, right?
I'm just, you know, help me understand how this went on for so long.
As soon as I get back out, I'm supposed to see my own stuff.
We have a speakerphone. No, I'm just kidding.
Yeah, I really would, because it's, you know, and it's not because of the past, fundamentally, because of the future, right?
Because, obviously, this is still showing up in your life, right?
Richard is a total bully, by itself.
So, I mean, you don't want to live with that burden, right?
Because it's not fair, and it's not just, and it's not yours, right?
For the future, right?
And if you ever have kids, you never want to do that, right?
If they end up getting bullied, you never want to make the same mistakes your parents did, right?
That's the best we can do with that kind of pain, right?
It's to make sure it doesn't never happen again.
Yeah. To those who come after us, right?
That's true. That's true.
Sorry, I hope that's not too dull for people.
But that's what I do.
That's not dull at all. How do you feel?
I know, we really...
Oh, my parents were above average, right?
Well, here's where they were woefully division.
You know, we took you on quite a ride there.
Sorry, Dad. No, no, it's alright.
And you hope everyone... I'm not trying to pick on parents, right?
Because I am a parent, right? But I just wanted to...
That's why I had Isabella, so I could pick on parents with that excuse.
The only reason she's here.
Oops, is that being recorded? Just kidding.
Right, so no, but we took you on a pretty lengthy stretch there.
Okay, well... Thank you.
No, no, but how are you feeling?
I mean, don't thank me yet, because you're still going to talk to your parents.
Well, how do you think they will respond to that question?
Like, what happened there, what?
My last experience is any kind of...
Direction? It will be not good, not great.
Not good, not too bad, not horrible, not great.
Well, if you ask the question like, why?
What happened? Why was I bullied?
What happened there this whole time?
Why was I bullied and I knew about it?
Yeah, it's a pretty provocative question.
I don't think you can just get like a lukewarm kind of...
No, they will give him a lukewarm response and lots of fuck, right?
I'm guessing, right? Well, it was busy, we were busy, we thought it was soft, you know, we had to move and there was things going on at work.
We did talk to you, we tried lots of things. Yeah, we tried therapy, we tried this, you know, it was just, you know, they will try lots of things for sure and you will have that, oh, okay, I guess I'll just go watch Saw 4, right?
You'll have that feeling of despair and hopelessness and, okay, I'll just go find a hamster and a fork.
But stick with it until you're satisfied.
You'll know emotionally when you've got a truthful answer from them.
You have to be annoyingly persistent, like I was, like I always am.
Just annoyingly persistent until you feel that there's some satisfaction and closure.
It's about your satisfaction.
Because in so many of our relationships, and I say this more for myself than anyone, We're so used to satisfying other people's needs and requirements that it's very hard for us to remember that it's about our satisfaction and pleasure in the relationship as well.
Mutual exchange of value. Mutual exchange of value.
We all talk about it in the free market and then when it comes to relationships, it's like, can I rub your feet?
Can I get some drink? Can you do anything else?
And we never think about what is satisfying to us, right?
And it's really, really worth pushing in relationships to make sure that you get The satisfaction that you want.
I do it with Christine all the time because if I'm not satisfied in my relationship with my marriage, she's actually unhappy because the marriage is not happy for me.
So I always make sure that I try to get what I want in a mutual way in our marriage.
That's having respect for our relationship because she wants to be a source of pleasure for me but she can't make it happen for me.
I have to sound all kinds of sexual now.
I just get all these images in everyone else's mind.
What's he talking about now again?
Is there going to be a video? I don't know, but I want to.
But you know, it's really important in relationships to make sure that you get what you want, because that's how you end up with a sustainable relationship, right?
It's like we've talked about with restaurants, right?
If you go to a restaurant, you get a bad meal, and you just never talk to them and go back, all you're saying is you break your relationship with the restaurant.
The manager would much rather you say it was a terrible meal, I want you to fix it, because then he's got feedback to fix it, right?
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