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June 9, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:23:51
1387 Weight, Depression, Suicide, Happiness
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Time Text
Alright, I think we're all set.
Who is my willing victim today?
That would be me. Me!
An excellent name for you.
Yes. Yes, it's European.
No, my name is Rob.
Alright. Okay, so let's get this row on the show.
You've got issues around therapy, right?
Yeah. Tell me all about them.
Alright. I'm not sure how to...
I'm hesitant to enter therapy and I have the money and I have the time and I have the desire to, but I guess I'm sort of ambivalent towards it.
Okay. And how long have you had this on your possible to-do list?
Pretty much since I joined FDR about seven months ago.
Right, okay. And I guess the other question is, how's your life?
Oh, not very pleasant.
I'm sort of dysthymic most of the time, pretty isolated.
I spend a lot of time online, listen to podcasts and stuff like that, not very social.
Right, right. So this would be an example of a problem, this call.
I'm just kidding. Okay. Alright, so...
When you say dysthymic, what do you mean?
I mean, I understand the term, but tell me how that manifests in your life.
Well, prior to sort of recently, it was a feeling of sort of undetectable sadness below the surface, but recently it's just been...
For the past week or so, just persistent sadness that I could actually tell I was sad.
But I don't go out and try to do things I know I would like.
Sorry, you don't go out and do things that you know you would like?
What do you mean? Yeah.
I mean, for example, if I'm bored or lonely or something, it would make sense to join a Some kind of sports league or, you know, do something social that I'd enjoy.
Why would that make sense?
Oh, you're so pre-therapy.
I'd start to be annoying.
This is why you need to go to therapy.
Okay, and maybe you're right, but tell me why that would make sense.
You know, I'm not really sure if that makes sense.
Well, but you had a theory as to why that would make sense.
And look, again, maybe I should be to laugh.
I thought it was funny, but I could be wrong.
But tell me, so you say you feel lonely, and so the solution to that is to go and join a sports league or something like that, right?
Right. Well...
Well, it's not. The solution is to go to therapy, is what I've kind of concluded.
Well, but no, that's a method.
That's not a solution, right?
Like, you go to a doctor to get antibiotics.
Going to the doctor is not what cures you.
It's getting the prescription, right?
So going to therapy won't cure your loneliness, right?
But there's something in therapy, at least I think there's something in therapy, that will help.
And if you don't know what that is, which it sounds like you don't, and there's no reason why you would, right?
Because you haven't been. Sorry, this sounds all kinds of annoying and confusing.
But hey, that's why I get the big bucks.
So what is it in therapy that might help?
Forget therapy, what do you think would help you feel less lonely and isolated? - I think it's not so much spending time with people, It's more...
What I've found lately on FDR that I've felt less isolated is more somewhat emotional honesty, if that makes sense.
I hope it makes sense.
Yeah, I mean, that's the goal. So, yes, I hope so.
I think what I think about therapy would be...
I just want people to sort of tell my past to because I didn't really have anyone to talk with about it yet.
And I've only really been talking about it for the past couple of months and only on a few occasions.
So I feel like that part of me is still isolated.
Okay.
The part that would talk about your history, your childhood, that kind of stuff.
Yeah. Okay, and do you feel that going to join a sports league would be a good environment to talk about your past, your childhood, your history?
No, not at all. Like, hey, that was a great spike.
Do you know what happened when I was seven?
Right? That's, you know, trash talking, yes.
Personal talk, sometimes, or often, not so much, right?
Yeah, not so much. Okay.
So, I mean, it's not a good solution, in my opinion.
Loneliness is not solved by people, right?
Any more than it's solved by drugs or sex or any.
Loneliness is not solved by meeting to or talking to people.
Yeah, I've actually tried it in the past and it doesn't work.
And I assume that's why I'm not doing it now.
Right, except you still think it might work, right?
So you're kind of stuck, right?
Well, I think it's fun, but it's not rewarding on that level.
I'd also like to have more fun with people, but it's hard to do that when you're, you know, I'd really prefer to be talking about, you know...
Me! Sorry.
Yeah. Right.
But enough about you.
Let's get back to me! Right, right.
Okay. Now, there's two ways this conversation can go, and these are just the two ways that occur to me.
The first is that I can sort of tell you what I think there is in terms of value in therapy or how it might help you, and I'm certainly happy to do that.
But the other thing, since you have said that you want to talk more about your history, again, I'm certainly no therapist, I am certainly happy to listen and if you would like some feedback or something like that, I would certainly be happy to listen and provide any feedback that might be of help to you about your childhood and your history.
Right. The reason I was thinking the topic would be hesitancy towards going into therapy is because it's all interconnected.
I mean... If I were to discuss my past, it's obviously the reason why I'm avoiding therapy in the first place.
So I'm not sure if the two topics would necessarily be separate.
I'd be...
How about this?
How about you can talk about the first topic and I will post a...
A letter my mom sent in response to a post I made on FDR. And where would you post the letter?
I could post it right in the chat if you like.
Okay. Sorry, one sec.
Let me just...
Right, so like most people, when I say it can be either this or that, you say both.
I'm just kidding. Of course, it's all about me.
Why would I want to have one or the other?
Okay. Tastes great or less filling.
Both! Right, okay.
So, do you want me to wait until you post?
Are we going to talk about your mom's...
Just a second.
I'll have the post up and...
Sorry, somebody has just asked why loneliness is not solved by people.
Because loneliness is...
The separation from people is only in effect...
Of loneliness in my experience and opinion.
Loneliness is separation from the self.
It's separation from the true self.
It is dissociation from yourself, and therefore you can't solve it with other people.
You just can't.
In order to have meaningful relationships with other people, you have to have a positive and meaningful relationship with yourself, right?
I mean, that's a truism, and so I'm repeating it as if I'd made it up, right?
But you can't solve the problem You know, Steph, I'm feeling a bit nervous right now, and I'm not sure if that hindered my ability to make a great choice there.
Oh, yeah. Do you want to not post your mom's letter?
No, I want to.
I don't want to get too tangential, and I'd like to know what your opinion is where this should go.
Well, I think that prior to posting...
Okay. Alright.
I'm going to read your mom's letter, so there's no names, right?
And I won't put any names in here, so her letter runs...
Is this about your grandmother's birth?
Your grandmother's birth. So her 80th birthday is on April 24th.
Please give her a call. By the way, I'm well aware of what X published on...
Freedom Aid Radio. I'm sure you have also read his blog.
There's really no way at this point to get to the bottom of his problems.
I find the distorted history of his childhood very disturbing and I'm so sorry that my son thought he had cancer for six years.
I don't deserve that kind of attack.
If you feel the same, just let me know.
As far as I'm concerned, he learned from a pro, i.e.
your dad. Next time you talk to him, tell him that your problems do not involve Prozac.
He needs to get the facts straight.
How ludicrous that I have all these pictures and photo albums of the happy Bobby X knows nothing about this at this point.
He's a wildcat, and I can't predict what he will do.
Love your bio mom.
Bio mom. I love it.
It really does sound like some transformer, you know?
Bio mom. I can pierce a tank armor with my robotic eggs.
Anyway. Okay, so you published something on FDR, which was...
Related some issues or problems that you had about your childhood?
Right, yeah. It was talking about basically my mom and her parenting style.
It was basically the same topic of hesitation about therapy, but I talked about how I was a hypochondriac for six years.
Sorry, you feel that you were a hypochondriac for six years?
Yeah, I thought I had cancer for six years.
And why did you think you had cancer for six years?
I know if you really were a hypochondriac, there is no reason, but there must have been something, right?
I mean, it would have to be an emotional reason, and I'm not sure.
No, sorry, what physical reason did you believe you had cancer?
Oh, testicular cancer.
There was no real evidence of it, but...
Sorry, no real evidence of it, but some partial evidence of it?
Yeah, because...
The clinical diagnosis for testicular cancer is you get a lump on the side of your testicle.
And oddly enough, you also have a sort of, I forget what it's called, like either seminal vesicle or something like that.
It's the cluster of nerves, right, that sits on the testicle and it feels like you have a lump there even when you don't, right?
Exactly. Yeah, I mistook that for cancer.
Did you ever get, because you can get testicular infections, right, which last, I mean, they can be pretty quickly cleared up through antibiotics, but sweet mother of all that's holy, they can leave an ache for months, right?
Yeah, I don't think I really had any pain.
Oh, okay, okay. Good, good.
All right, so you felt you had a lump on your testicle.
Did you go, I'm just curious, I mean, did you go for an ultrasound or anything like that?
I mean, ultrasound can pick up cancer in the testicle like that, right?
No, what I did was I asked my mom if I could go see the doctor and I didn't say why.
And she said, no, you've already been, why do you, and she nagged me.
I'm sorry, sorry. And again, please apologize for interrupting you.
I just, it's a lot of information in what you're saying.
How old were you when you first thought that you might have testicular cancer?
I was 14. Right.
And I don't know if you...
I guess this was a while ago, right?
You're not 15 now, right?
I don't know. You said so. You were at least 20 because you said for six years, you thought.
And just for those who don't know, so you don't worry, right?
Testicular cancer is really rare, right?
I mean, it's like...
It is actually... It's a leading cancer for, I think, men under 35 or something like that.
But I think they were like...
5,000 deaths from it in the United States last year.
I mean, it's rare. It's not to say it's not something to be considered.
Right. It's highly curable, too.
Yeah, it is. It is. Even if you end up with only one castanet, right?
You do end up with pretty curable if it's caught early and so on, right?
But anyway, so you were 14 and you said to your mother, I want to go and see the doctor.
And she said, and of course, it's a little tough to say, because I've been fingering my testicle, right?
I mean, it's a little, when you're 14, that's a tough thing to say to your mom, no matter how good your relationship is, right?
And your mother said, no, you can't go and see the doctor, is that right?
Yeah, it was... I'm not sure.
It was sort of more just a quick rejection and not so much an argument.
So it was just kind of like, no, you just went recently.
Why do you want to go? Something like that.
Right. And you said what?
I think I just said, never mind.
And I turned around and went back to my room.
Right. Okay. And then so now this...
Just so that I can understand and...
This concern about testicular cancer, you said it went on for six years.
Was it pretty constant?
Did it sort of come and go? Or did you, like, every night, I'm like, oh shit, I've still got a lump.
It sort of came and went.
Like, I'd forget about it for a while, but there were definitely months where it was every day.
Right, right. And the emotional state that was associated with that feeling...
Was it a kind of dread, a feeling that life was short in the future?
I mean, what was going on for you emotionally while the thoughts about testicular cancer were floating around?
It was a kind of despair and hopelessness.
Right. And look, hypochondria is a tag and I'm not sure I'm particularly comfortable with it.
I certainly, of course, am not competent to do anything close to a diagnosis.
But we'll use the word just because it's a convenient shorthand, though again, I don't mean it in any clinical sense.
Is there any history of that within your family?
Actually, my sister at the age of 12 had a similar problem.
And what was that? You know what?
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
So she thought she was sick at the age of 12, and that went on for some time as well?
Right. And do either of your parents have sort of repeated invasive concerns about health without a lot of evidence?
No. Yeah, I think my mom is kind of that way.
She was a physical therapist.
Sorry, I think my mom is kind of that way.
You know, if you fog me, brother, I'll just fog you right back and start speaking Klingon.
And again, I'm not saying it has to be absolute, but I can't do much with that kind of statement.
I remember her.
She really disliked our general practitioner.
She's very anxious and very anxious about health.
Sorry, your mother is very anxious about health, is that right?
Yeah, but it was more centered around eating disorders and weight and less about general health.
So, I'm trying to pierce the fog here, right?
And this is, again, another reason why it would be good to go to therapy, but I'm just going to be annoyingly persistent to make sure I understand.
Does your mother have an eating disorder?
Yes. In your opinion, right?
Again, I know that's not clinical, right?
So your mother, and in what way do you think, or what evidence would you say that she has an eating disorder?
Very concerned that she's overweight.
It's a topic we always talk about.
Now when you say we always talk about, do you mean that you continually bring it up with your mother as well?
No, she usually brings it up.
She always talks about it. Okay, that's important, right?
Because you say we always talk about it, but if it's her obsession, then it would be she who, right?
Right. Okay, so go on.
I mean, in early childhood, I remember it being a joke that she would eat only half a slice of bread at a time, but she'd end up eating like six slices of bread.
So my joke was, it doesn't count if you only eat half a slice.
If you only eat half a slice at a time, it's only half a slice.
Right, so she would only eat half a slice, but she would end up eating six slices as a whole, but she'd only eat half a slice at a time?
Right, like kind of a slow binge, if that makes sense.
Yeah, no, I understand. And so she had concerns about being overweight when I'm assuming that she wasn't, or at least not much, right?
Not too much, but I was very overweight at around age 14, which would be another great reason to see a doctor.
And why were you overweight at the age of 14?
I'm going to go ahead and say I don't know.
Okay, you can try. You can absolutely try.
I can make it stick, Steph.
You know what? What we should do is we should actually have a buzzer booth, right?
So, you know, in game shows, there's a buzzer that you hit, right?
So when a question comes up, I don't know, right?
So we can get that out of the way, right?
But there was a pause there, right?
That's important. Right.
I mean, she has an eating disorder.
I'm sure I was overfed.
My weight went up.
You had a conversation with someone whose weight went up.
Sorry, I'm fogging. Can you ask the question again?
Yeah, sorry. Somebody says, and I don't know Money Jar for donations.
I think that's pretty good. So anytime someone says, $50 right there, brother.
Okay, so my question is, why?
Were you overweight?
And look, it's not an easy question, you understand.
I'm just like, oh, it's because, right, I was abducted by space aliens who fed me duck butter through my ass, right?
I mean, I understand that it's a complex question.
And the reason I say that is there's no possibility that a child can be overweight, substantially overweight at 14.
Without there being some crap parenting going on.
Again, this is all my opinion and absent objective medical reasons.
There's simply no way a boy of 14 can be substantially overweight without some seriously crap parenting going on.
Because you're not buying your own groceries, right?
No. Did you have a job?
Did you work at McDonald's and say, listen, I just want to take a straw to the leftover oil that you use in the fries.
I don't want even any pay, right?
So you didn't have a job.
Your mother bought you groceries and you simply can't get overweight without being sedentary and eating a lot of shit, right?
Right. If you want a specific, food was often used as sort of a reward for good behavior.
Like if we didn't fidget too much in church, we'd go get donuts.
I assume with dessert it was the same idea.
If I was argumentative during dinner, I wouldn't get dessert or something like that.
Well, but donuts once a week and dessert, right?
That's not enough, right? Right.
Not for any active 14-year-old.
14-year-old boy, you can like mow down a field full of cattle and barely burp up a hair and you'll be fine, right?
Because your hormones and you've got your puberty is going on and all that, right?
Yeah. So, what was it that caused the weight gain?
I'm going to go ahead and be annoying and say I don't know, but...
Okay, well, were you very sedentary?
Oh, yeah. I was very depressed, and I wasn't an active 14-year-old.
Okay, and did you binge?
Yeah, I binged.
All right, so you understand that the I don't know is not particularly honest, right?
Oh, it's not at all.
No, so... Stop being dishonest, right?
And I say this with all sympathy.
I know this is tough stuff to talk about, but you've got to be clear, right?
I mean, and you don't have to be clear, but there's no point chatting if you're not, right?
Right. Okay. Instead of saying, I don't know, it's more, I'm anxious and I can't think.
Well, no, you do know, right?
It's like, well, why did you weight gain?
Well, you tried to sell me on donuts and dessert, right?
Which is not what's going to cause that kind of weight gain.
Right. And so you binged, right?
And look, I understand it's tough to talk about, but that's the fact, right?
And it's not your shame. You understand?
I mean, what you were doing at 14 to manage your anxiety and depression, it's not your shame.
It's not your fault. It's your parents' fault, in my opinion.
Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I'd binge mostly on, we had freezer pizzas.
I'd microwave those and eat them.
How much? Probably two at a time, maybe.
What size? They were like personal pan pizza type things.
Red Baron. Okay.
And how many calories, just roughly, how many calories would that be?
Oh, I think that's about 1,400 combined with like I was slamming soda pretty constantly.
Oh, right. So you had sugared soda drinks, right?
Right. Okay. Okay.
Got it. Got it.
So you might have been consuming 2,000 extra calories a day with the sodas, right?
Yeah. Right. And you see that's not donuts once a week, right?
No, not at all. And again, I'm not trying to put you in a corner.
I'm certainly not trying to embarrass you.
I just want it to be clear.
And what were your parents doing while you were, you know, depressed and inert and eating?
I mean, they would notice, right?
They would notice that the food is gone, right?
And they would notice that you were gaining weight and they would notice that you were eating and drinking all of these pops, right?
So what were they doing in the face of this?
At one point, I remember in middle school, my mom came...
I got a note from the office that said my mom was coming to pick me up.
And she took me to a gym and said, you're going to work out.
But in the face of the daily eating...
I'll need a minute to remember.
And in my opinion, the reason that I'm asking, and again, I'm not a therapist, but in my opinion, this is very much related to your hypochondria.
Sure. How so, Steph?
Um, okay.
I mean, because I was asking a question, I'm happy to bypass that and go on with what I think, but I also am happy to stay on that question.
And the question was, what was your mother doing while you were eating yourself?
Right. I'm feeling kind of sad and anxious.
I'm having trouble remembering what the specific response was.
was, I think my dad didn't really, I think he kind of avoided it and What's really odd is I have a lot of trouble remembering conversations with my parents at that age.
I have a block towards what was said.
I just remember how they acted.
Right. It's not odd, in my opinion.
It's not odd that you would have a block.
But, okay, I mean, you wanted to at least have some thoughts about why I thought, again, it's just my thoughts, why I thought your hypochondria might be related to the overeating?
Sure, yeah. Now, I'm just going to say this once because I'm tired of putting all these caveats out, right?
These are all just my opinions, and of course I'm not a, I'm no therapist, but this is what I, this is what I think.
Okay. Hypochondria is the unconscious...
It's an expression of an unconscious feeling that there is an extraordinary amount of aggression directed to us at an unconscious level.
I'm going to say that again, because I didn't say it very well.
I'll try and say it better. Hypochondria is the feeling...
That arises or the paranoia that arises when we have an unconscious experience of someone else's unconscious aggression against us.
And rather than face up to that aggression, it usually starts in childhood, rather than face up to that aggression, we internalize it and we, in a sense, metastasize it within our own body.
So instead of saying, my mother has very strong aggressive impulses towards me, We end up thinking our balls are going to try and kill us.
And the reason that I say this is related is, and I'm going to have an unapologetic rant here, any parent who allows...
Okay, how much overweight were you at the age of 14?
At least 100 pounds. Okay, so any parent who allows a child to be 100 pounds overweight at the age of 14 is a criminal.
Is a criminal and might as well be putting rat poison into the child's food.
It's violence.
It is unbelievably aggressive.
It is a murderous impulse.
It is vile. It is disgusting.
It is gross.
It's beyond negligence.
To me, it is exactly the same as poisoning your child.
Because it is poisoning your child, right?
That excess level of fat, you know all it does, right?
What it does to your heart, your cholesterol, what it does to your back, what it does to your knees, what it does to your insulin levels, what it does for your risks of Hypertension and heart attack and diabetes and all this heart disease and so on, right? It is a poison, it is a poisoning of a child.
And so, in my opinion, if a mother is, and sorry to pick on your mom, right?
I'm going to go with the stereotype and say that she did the majority of the grocery shopping.
So if your mother is enabling this kind of poisoning of yourself, that is, to me, that is a murderous impulse towards a child.
And so for you to feel, you said it came on about the age of 14, is that right?
Your fear of testicular cancer?
Right. Right, so for you to feel, right, that That you have a lump in your body that is trying to kill you, well, that's your belly, right?
But it's coming from the parents.
I know it's a lot, right?
From a guy who didn't want to say that he was binging, right?
But that is why I wanted to pursue the weight thing, because I think it's related to It absolutely is.
It's integral to the whole depression I've had for a long time.
I still binge.
I have just a terrible body image.
Well, do you have a terrible body image or a body that is not healthy?
I'm down. I'm at a reasonable weight right now.
Oh, great. Well, congratulations to you.
I mean, that's fantastic. I actually lost all the weight right after I figured out I didn't have cancer.
Right. Which sort of helps a little with...
Anyway, well, and you were 20, right?
When did you move out of your home?
I moved out when I was 18.
Right. Okay. Um...
Now, I mean, obviously don't feed me anything that's not, you know, real or true or valid, but if there's a thesis that your mother had, or has, let's just say had, aggression towards you, would there be any evidence for that elsewhere in the relationship?
Well, both of me and my sister have been kind of chronically suicidal.
You know, it's always when people stop talking that you want to turn up the volumes.
It's like, oh, what were you just about to say?
Right. I'm trying to think of physical violence that happened, and...
No, I would not assume that it would be physical violence.
In fact, I would be really shocked if it was.
Alright. She would override every personal preference I ever had, and...
The stories she tells when I am with her, she considers them funny stories, and they're all about how she made me cry as a child.
Can you give me an example of one of those stories?
Sure. There's one she tells where I was in kindergarten for the day, and while I was gone, she and...
I guess not my dad because he was at work, but she and someone redecorated my room from...
I had rainbows and sort of a sky blue wall, and they put up basically a dinosaur theme without asking me.
I didn't like dinosaurs, never showed any interest.
And she goes, and then you cried and cried.
My rainbows! You took away my rainbows!
Why? And then she just laughs.
She thinks it's hilarious.
Right, right.
And what is another story?
Uh... I think...
She...
She talks about how when they would be dragging me someplace when I was, you know, two or three, how much...
You were a brat because you were complaining that your legs were tired and you wanted to be carried and stuff like that and what a brat I was and...
The same story from dragging me to the gym when I was in 8th grade was like, I really didn't want to go.
She's like, you're going, you know.
Right, right. Listen, I mean, it's completely heartbreaking.
I certainly want you to understand that this is just beyond wretched.
Just beyond wretched. Ugly stuff.
But I'd like you to tell me more, if you can.
Right. Those are all the stories I've said recently at Can you give me an example of a decision that she overrode in you?
I mean, you said the dinosaur theme, right?
But other decisions that she...
And also, how would she override them?
Sure. A decision I made.
Okay. One time when I was, I think, about 12, it was dinner time, but my friends were playing football.
And I went, it was just down the street.
So I went down the street to play football.
And she drove out and grabbed me in front of all my friends and said, time for dinner, get in the car, and just kind of shoved me off in there.
Yeah, it's kind of humiliating.
Yeah, yeah. A lot of things...
I just kind of stopped making decisions, though.
Like, it would be more she would force her decisions on me.
Like, I got forced into Sinclair...
Not Sinclair.
Still been learning centers where I was given math and basically crap to do because I had refused to do homework for years.
Right. And how would you force...
It was the same kind of thing.
Grab me, put me in the car, and take me there.
And look, I mean, I want to dig into this for just a second, because when, again, this is all just my thoughts, but when children experience physical abuse, like violence, like punching and beating and kicked and so on, of course, they grow up with a plethora of problems, but what they're usually not foggy about is how brutal things were, right?
And so they tend not...
To end up binging or being that passive-aggressive, if that makes sense.
Because it's clear, right?
I mean, they may be all kinds of screwed up in other ways, and they may still be attached to this destructive, monstrous family, but...
They're usually pretty clear that there was aggression in the family and that things were unpleasant and violent and ugly and dysfunctional and so on, right?
And because they have that knowledge, they don't have the same levels or the same unconscious depths of crying for help, right?
Right.
Which is obesity.
Right.
Obesity is especially in a 14 year old is obesity is this huge.
Massive world shattering cry for a witness to brutality.
But unfortunately, witnesses to brutality in this world are tragically few and far between.
And so this is why it often goes on for so long.
And so I want to dig into this.
And I'll just tell you, I mean, my daughter has...
This amazingly fierce will.
And I don't think she's unique in that at all.
And Christine and I were just talking about that.
I mean, Christine and I had that fierceness of will, which I think is innate.
It's not aggressive, it's not abusive, but it's fierce, right?
And when she wants to learn something, when she wants to learn how to crawl, I mean, she'll just, you can feel, like, when you touch her, you can feel her whole body is quivering like a pulled bow and arrow.
Because she wants to learn it so much.
She wants to figure out how to crawl.
She wants to figure out how to turn over.
She wants to figure out how to reach that toy.
She's fierce. And, I mean, certainly for Christina and I, that was all pounded out of us decades ago, and it never came back.
I mean, at least, and it never will, right?
That's just the price of having that kind of childhood.
But I do believe that children do not give up that fierceness of desire and will without extraordinary pressure.
Without an extraordinary level of tension and fear.
And fear comes to children in only two ways, in my experience.
They're either afraid of being hurt or they're afraid of being abandoned, right?
And they're more afraid of being abandoned than they are of being hurt.
Right. I had both.
Okay, so good.
And it makes sense that you, sorry, not good, right?
But it makes sense that you would have both.
So tell me more about that.
Sure. To start, I had very, I was very strongly willed until about probably age five.
Like, they'd take me to a movie theater and I'd go, this movie's stupid!
Get me out of here! This is, you know...
Ridiculous. I didn't say ridiculous at five.
I really only remember being spanked once, but it was totally life shattering.
That was the first time I really felt like I just was done.
I just dragged my feet after that.
And what was the spanking?
What happened? I've thought about it before, and I have a lot of trouble figuring out exactly what the rationale was behind it.
No, I don't mean what the rationale was, because there is, I mean...
Yeah. And, you know, we say spanking, but everybody knows it's a beating.
I mean, everybody knows, right?
I mean, because you don't get to, you know, I'm like twice Christina's sides.
I don't get to hit her and then say to the officer, no, no, no, I was just swatting.
It was just a spanking.
It was, right? No, it would be a hitting, right?
It's just a word that's invented so that parents don't feel like they're hitting their children or beating their children.
But anytime there's that kind of size and power disparity, without a doubt, it's violence.
You cannot hit a child without it being a brutal thing to do.
So what I'm asking is not what their rationale was, because that's irrelevant, and that's also to assume that there was anything other than just a desire to hurt.
But what happened?
What was the spanking?
What was it like? Where would you hit?
How would you hit? What was it?
Sure. I was taken from my room by my mom and led to sort of the living room type area.
And there were these green stools that my dad sat on.
I was bent over his knee and he struck me on...
Well, he pulled down my pants, bent me over his knee and struck me...
I'm sorry to be...
So he was... Was it a bare bottom?
Yeah. Yeah. And he struck you a sort of open or capped hand on bare buttocks, is that right?
Right. And you were on his lap, you were squirming?
I was squirming at first, and then when he hit me, I think I went numb.
And what was the level of pain on sort of a 1 to 10?
Emotionally, it was unbearable.
Physically, I don't think it was too bad.
And do you remember roughly how many times you were struck?
I think only one to three times.
Go on. Okay, uh, he...
Alright, let me think. Yeah, it was three times.
Then they put me down, my mother chastised me, and then I was led back to my room where I had a timeout, and I think I just cried.
And did you have to pull up your pants yourself, or did your dad do that for you?
I think my mom did that.
So your mom was pulling up your pants?
Did she pull them up gently or roughly?
Roughly. And she was chastising you while she was yanking your pants up?
Yeah. Do you remember if the pain...
Because it's a stinging, right?
I mean, I don't mean this to be a one-upmanship or anything.
I was caned, right, in boarding school, and it's...
That's terrible. It's a stinging pain that lasts.
Particularly cupped hands on buttocks, it's very, very painful in the moment, right?
It's shocking more than, you know, sometimes even an inoculation can be worse, but it's shocking and of course it's very loud and you feel it through your whole body, right?
Right. How old were you?
Five? I think I was around five, maybe four.
Four or five, right? So imagine, I'm just looking at my own hand here.
I mean, basically your dad's hand would be like five times the size of a normal human hand for an adult.
So it'd be kind of like being hit with a boat oar that was cupped, right?
And so did the pain, did it last for a while afterwards?
Like, do you remember having that soreness or that tenderness?
Yeah, it stung when I went to sit down in my room.
And do you remember how long that lasted for?
I think only about 15 minutes or so.
Not too long. And do you remember if you had any marks afterwards?
I had a big red mark on my butt for a while, but it was only very temporary.
Well, that's two contradictory statements, right?
Sure. Okay, I had...
Well, I mean, if you've ever been slapped, I had a red mark on my butt for probably a half hour.
Yeah, I mean...
I've been slapped on stage.
It lasts longer than half an hour.
But, you know, we don't have to get into...
And, you know, it's important to remember, too, that children's skin is incredibly sensitive.
And again, I know that Isabella's a lot longer than you, but if I pick her up, if she doesn't have a top on, if I'm giving her a massage or something, and if I pick her up and she's squirmy...
Just for a few minutes, when I put her down, even though I've just been holding her as gently as possible, her skin is red sometimes, right?
I mean, the skin is incredibly delicate for children, and certainly the age of four is not that different.
And you said that emotionally it was a 10, and in what way was it emotionally a 10 in terms of pain or discomfort?
Just sheer terror.
It was terrifying.
Sure, and what people often forget, or maybe they don't, I don't know.
I've never hit a kid or anyone else for that matter, but what they often forget is that the kid doesn't know that it's a spanking.
The kid doesn't know that it's only three hits.
The kid doesn't know that it's going to stop.
I mean, it's completely unknown.
You didn't know what the hell was going to happen, right?
Right. Just someone yanked your pants down.
Exposing your genitalia, which is a fundamental aspect of torture, right?
Again, I'm not necessarily applying the term, but, you know, that kind of genital humiliation is fundamental to breaking someone's will and nudity.
You look at Abu Ghraib, they're all nude, right?
I mean, it's fundamental. So you're naked, your father is going to hit you, and it's incredibly invasive.
And so as a kid, you don't know what's going to happen next, right?
You just know that someone's just yanked your pants down, you're kind of dangling and hanging there, and something's going to happen that's going to be ugly, and you don't know what it is.
And then when it starts, you don't know when it's going to stop, right?
Right. It wasn't...
I mean, with my mom, it was more just humiliation.
Like, it was totally humiliating, too.
Sorry, but with your mom, in this instance or in another instance?
In this instance, but in, like, in all instances.
Right. Right.
Right. Okay, so...
It doesn't seem to me that confusing why you would be depressed and suicidal at all.
And I'm not talking about the spanking or the beating or whatever it was, right?
I don't mean that. I simply mean that your existence as a human being seemed to be...
Because your parents seem to be opposed to your existence as a human being, and I say that not because they were trying to strangle you, but because existence is, for human beings, existence is willpower, right?
I mean, to have a choice, to have a preference, doesn't mean you always get you to want or whatever, but to have a choice, to have a preference is the essence of being A human being is the essence of being alive, right?
Which is why when we want to punish people, at least in a state of society, we take away their choices and preferences by putting them in prison, right?
That's at least for the poor.
We take the richest money away.
But anyway, right?
So it sounds like you had choices and preference, but as you say, your mother would continually oppose those, which is to say that she opposed...
Your existence as a human being.
Because if you're alive, but not allowed to make any decisions, then you're just a mute prisoner, right?
Right. That was how it felt.
I'm sorry? That was how it felt.
Right, right. So if somebody is opposed to your existence as a human being, again, this is all my interpretation, so take it for all the grains of salt, but if someone is opposed to your very existence, that to me is a murderous impulse.
So if every time you had a preference or the impulse or a desire to do X, Y, or Z as a kid, if your mother or your father Opposed that, or even the majority of times.
That, to me, is an act of erasing another human being, and that's why I call it a murderous impulse.
Right. And so the fact that if you were in this environment where there were these murderous, life-opposing impulses floating around, that both you and your sister felt that you might die of some illness...
I mean, you understand, to me, that's an unconscious way of accurately identifying the situation.
Right. While you were saying that, I thought of another funny story they like to tell, or what they call funny.
Sure. I was around the same age.
I think I was maybe six or seven.
And I had a flu.
And... I was sitting on the couch, and they were both kind of hovering around me.
And I was just saying, you know, I'm sick.
I was feeling really, like I was really sick.
I was feeling terrible. And they were saying, you know, take this Tylenol, take this Tylenol.
And I was like, I don't want to. You know, I fought them for about five minutes on that.
And then I finally took it, and it was a chewable, so I just chewed it up.
And I swallowed some water.
And they were like, here, take, eat this banana, you know, you're low on potassium or something like that.
And I was like, no, absolutely not.
No, no, no. And we bickered about that for a little while and she finally got me to take a bite of it and I chewed it up and swallowed it and just threw up everywhere.
Huh. And this is told as a funny story, like you didn't want to take this medicine and they made you take it and then you threw up?
Right. How old are you now?
I'm 23. 23, okay.
You know what I'm going to ask next, right?
Whether or not I see them, or...
I'm not sure. I assume you see them because you're getting emails from your mom, right?
I don't. That was an email to my sister.
I moved away basically right when I started reading FDR. I don't see them.
I sent them do not contact me emails, which isn't really honest or RFR, but I sent those right out prior to my birthday.
All right. Go on.
They proceeded to call me, send me emails.
My mom called me from multiple phone numbers, so did my dad.
And so how long ago did you take this break?
That was in April, so a couple weeks or a couple months.
Right, okay. And how have you been doing since then?
Well, I moved out in January and I wasn't seeing them, so it's not much of a change, really.
No, no, come on, come on.
It's a big change to not see someone as opposed to formally, right?
Right. Take that break, right?
I'm feeling more resolved, if that makes sense, but I'm still very depressed.
Right. Right. And of course, I mean, it's been basically, what, six or eight weeks, right?
Right. Well, let me ask you another question, if you don't mind.
This may sound a little startling, but I hope you don't mind.
Sure. Do you think that you have the fight in you to reclaim what was broken?
Yeah. Why do you think that?
I'm not saying you're wrong.
You understand. I'm not saying you're wrong.
I just want to know why you think that.
I've hated them the entire time.
I refused to hug them when I was a kid.
I stopped seeing my mom when I was 16.
Just when they got divorced, I wouldn't answer her phone calls, these kind of things.
And I feel like if I'm capable of...
I mean, I can easily get them out of my external surroundings.
It's more...
I want them...
They're in my head, you know?
But that's all rejection.
Right? Sure.
And I'm not saying it's bad, right?
But that's all rejection.
Rejecting your parents.
Right. Escaping from this destruction, right?
Right. But that's not what I'm asking.
I'm not asking, do you have the strength to reject abusers?
I mean, you do, clearly, and good for you.
I mean, that's hugely to be admired.
But you say you're still feeling depressed, and again, I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't, but I wanted to know the degree to which you think you have the fight in you, not just to reject that which is bad, but to pursue and hunt down your happiness, right? Because happiness is not something that drifts into our life, particularly with This kind of history, right?
Happiness is an elusive, invisible rabbit, right, that we have to chase down and bag, right?
Right. And how strong do you feel for the hunt?
Right. I'm not sure.
I'm not sure I've ever been that happy, and I'm not sure if it's really that possible.
Well, that's, again, that's not what I asked.
I didn't ask you whether you thought it was possible.
I asked you whether you thought you were up to it, which is not quite the same thing, right?
Right. Yeah, I think I'm up to it, but it feels like a daunting task.
Why does it feel daunting?
What's in the way, right? What's in the way of you not being depressed?
What's in the way of you being happy?
And again, I know these are all ridiculously silly questions in many ways, but bear with me.
I'm trying to get someone. All right.
What's in the way? Could you ask it another way?
I'm not sure I have a response. Sure.
No, you're quite right to push back.
That was not a good way of putting it.
Why? Okay. Why do you still feel depressed?
I still self-attack all the time.
Okay, and why do you still self-attack all the time?
Because I bought that I'm a bad person.
I know. I understand.
You told me that you rejected your mother and you left her when you were 16 when she got divorced.
You pushed back and you're a fighter, right?
Right. So, it's safe to say that you have some fragments here, right?
Yeah, for all the horrors I've been through, I'm still ambivalent about...
About, sorry?
Oh, you're so ambivalent about it, you don't even know the word to use yet.
Is that right? Sure, yeah.
No, no problem. No problem. No problem.
I'm not sure if you get what I'm trying to convey.
I think I do. I think I do.
And I'm going to try and do a little bit of radical, messy triage, battlefield surgery here, right?
So I'll make it quick.
And of course, you know, call the therapist, right?
Absolutely. But this is what I would say.
That you absolutely do want to be happy.
And you, fundamentally, are not depressed.
You have lost the weight.
You lost the extra hundred pounds.
Of fat, and you lost the extra couple of hundred pounds of an abusive family, that's a good weight loss program.
You know, that's good stuff, right?
So I think you should be proud of that, and I know you should be proud of that.
But I think what's not clear to you is this.
That your family...
Does not want you to be happy.
I think that's fairly clear to say.
And the reason that they don't want you to be happy is that your depression shields their crimes.
Because the only way that you can be happy is through an acceptance of your helplessness and the ugly and violent behavior that you were exposed to as a child.
The controlling, obsessive, anti-life, anti-choice, anti-happiness environment that you grew up in.
That the only way that you can be happy is to accept that nasty, corrupt crimes were committed against you as a child.
Psychological, to a small degree physical, emotional, right?
Right. Sorry, is that you banging?
Oh, I'm sorry. My roommate's walking upstairs.
Right, so as long as you're depressed, they're not bad people.
And for you to give up the depression will be for them to become aware, even at an unconscious level, or perhaps especially at an unconscious level, of the crimes they committed.
And I'll give you a silly example, just to sort of try and step you through it, or launch you through it, rather.
I'm not stepping you through anything, right?
If I think...
Are you still there?
No, I'm still here. I'm muting, so you don't hear my roommate walking around.
No, no, I appreciate it. Yeah, so if you can just mute for a sec, then I appreciate that, because it's a bit distracting.
But let's say that I'm an abusive husband, right?
And I hit my wife, and I... I call her names and I make her so unhappy, give her lots of food to fatten her up.
And I say, I'm a great fucking husband.
I'm a prince to be married to.
And my wife is depressed and under-functioning and she's working at McDonald's and fat and all this kind of stuff.
And I think I'm just a great, great husband.
And then my wife Leaves me.
Gets away. And she drops the weight.
And she gets her hair done.
And she updates her wardrobe.
And she gets a great job.
And she goes back to school.
And she's just alive and vibrant.
Vivacious and happy.
Happy. She's really happy.
What am I going to understand about myself as a husband?
A few things.
Could you continue? - No, you know this one.
Well, that you're actually happy and you're not depressed.
No, no, sorry.
If my wife leaves me, I'm the husband, I'm the abusive husband, and she flourishes, right?
She becomes really happy.
What do I get, what do I understand about myself as a husband if my wife becomes really happy after she kicks my ass to the curb?
I was making her unhappy and minus character assassinations, I'm a bad person or something.
Yeah, that I was one shitty, nasty, abusive husband.
Right.
So the degree to which I can infect my wife with a lifelong depression is the degree to which I can still maintain the fantasy that I wasn't a shitty, abusive husband.
That's what I mean when I say your depression, a major purpose of it is to cover up the ugliness done to you by your parents. a major purpose of it is to cover up the you Thank you.
You're protecting them.
Now, I'm not saying you want to protect them or anything like that, but that's what the depression infection is for.
It's not the only thing, right?
But it's a really core aspect of it.
That if you're happy, what happens is, think of it like a seesaw with a big cannonball on it.
And you can even think of a hissing Detonator on the cannonball.
So there's this cannonball and there's your family, your parents, on one side and there's you on the other.
And there's this hissing cannonball called dysfunction or crime or ugliness or sadism or whatever you want to call it.
All the nasty stuff that was going on.
So if you're down, it rolls down towards you and away from your parents.
And that's called self-attack.
And then when you stand up...
And if you in particular get off the goddamn seesaw, right, your end goes rocketing up and it all rolls down like a bowling ball towards your parents, right?
Right. And I would submit that that's...
That's a large reason as to why you're still feeling it.
Because that's what you're programmed to feel.
It's not like you, right? That's what you're programmed to feel, right?
You must be 100 pounds overweight.
You must be depressed. You must be suicidal.
You must be a hypochondriac.
Because otherwise, your parents recognize that they're bad people.
And as we well know, bad people will do almost anything.
In fact, they will do anything to avoid the knowledge Of their own actions.
Of their own immorality, right?
Because if they were capable of processing that level of self-criticism, they would never have been immoral to begin with, right?
Particularly against a helpless child, right?
Right. Whereas if you get away from your parents and you're like, oh my god, it's like getting a goiter the size of Manhattan carved off my back.
I dance, I sing, right?
I'm happy. Then they're much more aware.
Well, not that they are at all, right?
But it becomes pretty inescapable to them, you know, what shitty parents they were.
So your depression is a big foggy shield for their crimes.
Because this is a win-lose.
I guarantee you, it's a win-lose.
And that's why I asked what level of fight you had in you.
Because it's a win-lose.
If you get happy, your family gets more unhappy.
There's no other way for it to work logically and emotionally.
And I'm not saying you're going to try and make them unhappy, but that's going to be the inevitable effect.
And of course, as a frightened and bullied child, you were never supposed to make your parents unhappy, right?
Right. And now, their unhappiness stands in the way of your happiness, right?
Because if you get happy, they're going to get unhappy.
And that's why it's so hard, because we have to go directly against all of the programming that we experienced as children, which is to never upset the abusers, right?
And now, we have to make them as unhappy, or rather, our own happiness will come at the price of them being about as unhappy as they can be.
And it's a fight.
Now, it's not a fight with them, right?
Because they're in your head, right?
But it's that programming that is the real fight.
Because we programmed, I can't ever make them unhappy, but their unhappiness stands in the way of our happiness.
Right, uh... I went through a few things while you were talking about that.
I was a little worried that...
No, no, you can't be thinking of anything while I'm talking.
You must only pay attention to my words.
That's it! No parallel processing.
Never! I had a concern that...
I have this concern that making them unhappy, which I'm not making them unhappy.
But I have this sort of concern that it's sadistic.
I was talking earlier in the chat about how I'd really like to, if I could go back in time, just kill them.
Sure. I totally understand that feeling.
And you understand, right?
Because I was saying earlier that they were murderous.
Right. Impulses, so you would have gotten some of those, right?
And the amount of aggression that I felt towards my own mother in particular during therapy was extraordinarily high.
It was hands shaking, teeth rotating in their sockets, intense.
So that's, again, it's perfectly healthy to feel it.
It's nothing you ever want to act on, of course, but it's absolutely essential to feel that anger, right?
Right. But look, if we run away from a lion, the lion ends up hungrier, right?
Right. The lion is not happy that we got away, right?
Right. But we don't sit there and say, well, okay, I'll give you a leg just because I hate to see a hungry lion, right?
Mm-hmm. They've been pulling out new tricks now that it's kind of apparent I'm leaving them.
Sure. Like, all the letters they send me will be like, love.
She sent me, you know the letter you just read on the air earlier?
That was sent to my sister.
And after sending that to my sister, she sent me a letter about how much she loved me.
Sure. And do you know what love is?
The word love from an abuser, do you know what it translates to?
No. It translates to two words.
Fuck you. When an abuser tells you that she loves you, what she's saying is you're insane.
That she's full of love, that everything you feel negative about the past is your crazy misinterpretation, which is what your mother said in that email to your sister.
You're the bad one, she's the good one, fuck you!
Because abusers live in negative land, right?
Everything is backwards.
It's like a reverse of a photograph.
They hate virtuous people.
And they love slimy shitbags like themselves.
And they use the word love to indicate hatred.
And they use the word hatred to indicate a kind of twisted love.
It's all backwards.
It's upside down, bizarro, negative world, right?
Absolutely. She claims to be the most virtuous woman ever.
Sure. Sure, and you see, in this bizarro world, my son is overweight, not because I keep buying these pizzas, not because he's so depressed, not because I'm not helping him by getting him to a psychologist and nutritionist and getting myself into a therapist.
Right? He's fat because he's lazy.
This is how bizarre these people's, quote, thinking is.
Right? If someone gets away, if I'm an abuser and I abuse a child for 20 fucking years and that child gets away, they're bad because they're hurting me, you see, because hurting others is so wrong.
But this is the insane world that they live in.
Right? Everything is backwards.
You might as well just run the email through the opposite machine.
Right? And you'll get something close to the truth.
Right? So when your mother says in the email, there's really no way to get to the bottom of your problems, of course there is.
What a bitch. Right?
There is every way.
It's easy. It's completely easy.
I find the distorted history of his childhood very disturbing.
That's the exact opposite of the truth.
She finds the accurate history of your childhood very disturbing.
Right? Right.
I am so sorry that my son thought he had cancer for six years.
Well, no, she's not.
Because that's a pretty easy problem to solve if you're a parent.
Your kid says, I got a lump in my testicle.
You say, fuck, let's get to the doctor.
Maybe without the swear word, right?
That's easy to solve, right?
Well, did she see she stretched out the O and so to make it sarcastic?
I'm so sorry. Yeah, so it's sarcastic, right?
She says, I don't deserve that kind of attack.
See, that's completely the opposite of the truth.
A, she does deserve it, and B, you weren't attacking her.
You were simply talking about your experience of the family.
Right. Right? As far as I'm concerned, he, which is you, learned from a pro, i.e.
your dad, right? So in other words, you learned how to be unjust and vicious and so on from your dad, right?
Right. Now, in other words, you're bad because of your dad, but who brought your dad into your life?
She did. So she says, he needs to get the facts straight.
Well, all she's doing is twisting the facts as much as humanly possible because you did get them straight.
You see, everything is the opposite of the truth.
Right. How ludicrous that I have all of these photos, pictures in the albums of the happy you, right?
I used to refuse to smile in pictures for that reason.
Well, look, even if she does, even if she's got a million smiling pictures of you, the fact that you weren't happy while you were smiling makes it even worse.
Right? I mean, there's no smile as creepy as the smile of an abused child or wife or husband or whatever, right?
Because they're forced to smile, right?
Like, you see those creepy Christian photos, right?
Kids grinning from ear to ear.
It's like, it's creepy, right?
Right. I mean, I used to...
Sorry, let's just finish up this letter, right?
Sure. He's a wild card and I can't predict what he would do.
That's referring to my stepfather.
Oh, okay. Whereas, of course, your mother was so predictable when you were a kid.
So stable, so nurturing, so predictable, right?
Oh, very consistent. Right.
And then love, right?
And the other thing, too, is that she sent this to your sister, right?
Right. Well, this is a clear message to your sister.
It's got nothing to do with love.
What is the clear message in this to your sister?
I'm thinking, don't you dare even think about doing what he's doing?
Oh, yeah. Oh, it's clear.
It's clear. Don't you dare fucking side with the truth.
You exist only to serve my vanity, my narcissism, my delusions about my own virtue, which I know are completely false.
But don't you dare follow him down this path Of discovering the truth about his history.
Absolutely, yeah. So this is not love, this is just warning, right?
Right. And, uh...
Sorry, go on. I'm just saying I'm really mad.
Good, good, good.
You're a real bitch, you know?
Uh... Yeah, and yes, I certainly, everything that you told me is like crazy-ass narcissistic monstrous bitch.
That would be my amateur diagnosis.
You won't find it in many manuals, but you will find it carved in the hearts of all too many children.
Right. Go on.
For what it's worth, the next sort of horrifying step in this is she retired from being a physical therapist, and now she teaches autistic children.
Hmm. Yeah, and, you know, who knows, right?
Who knows? But that's, you know, you took your lumps, you've got your life to live now, right?
It's up to these kids' parents to deal with that, right?
Sure. But it certainly is not uncommon for people who are abusive to children that when their children grow up, they gravitate towards other children, right?
Because they miss it, right?
Right. She actually retired right when I hit puberty.
To start to study for basically a teaching degree.
Right. Now, sorry, just the last thing I'll ask, I don't want to keep you up all evening, but I'll keep you on all evening, but do you know much about your mother's own childhood or history?
I know her father was an alcoholic.
I've spent a lot of time with the grandmother.
I know her brother died when he was 20.
He got run over by a truck.
She was very poor, I think.
Since her father was an alcoholic, I'm guessing she was physically abused a lot.
I know the grandmother is sort of guilty and manipulative.
She's a lot like the mom, just to me.
But I don't... I've never heard her tell stories besides how poor she was.
Right. So she grew up in a pretty traumatic environment, to say the least, right?
Right. And not to frighten you, right?
Because I'm certainly not expecting you to...
would not suggest that you have any empathy for your mother in this area, right?
Understanding is useful.
Empathy to abusers is not.
But your mother, I'm assuming, or tell me if I'm wrong in assuming this, did not spend a lot of time in therapy?
No. Right.
So, your mother had an abusive history, we can assume, and she did not go to therapy, right?
Correct. If there's not another...
I can't come up with a stronger argument for you to go to therapy than that.
That your mother is an example of somebody who had trauma without healing.
You don't want to be that, right?
Right. Actually, yeah, it's kind of terrifying because I still have that crap.
I was babysitting a friend's two-year-old once, and she washed her hands for like ten minutes straight, and she was using just tons of soap.
And I swear, I got mad at her, and I took sort of like an aggressive stance, and I was terrified with myself.
I just yelled at a two-year-old for washing her hands, you know?
Right, right. And you don't want to be that guy, right?
You want kids of your own at some point, right?
You just don't want to be that guy, I'm telling you.
You would just break your soul in two.
If you became that guy with a kid.
Yeah. Yeah, that would be terrible.
Right. So, you know, your mother is the example of the road of self-knowledge not taken.
And so you want to, you know, I got to think that's got to have you running, screaming as fast as you can in the exact opposite direction, right?
So go see a therapist, right?
Right. That's all I've got to say.
I mean, obviously for now.
Was the call useful to you?
How did it go relative to what you thought or what you expected or what you wanted?
Sure. It was great.
It's what I expected, but sorry, that's kind of dishonest.
Right now I'm feeling anxious about seeing a therapist.
Good. No, that's good because that means you're considering it, right?
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Because if you were like, I feel no anxiety about going to see a therapist, I'd know you were not going to go and see a therapist, right?
Right. Yeah, I'm pretty anxious.
Good. And you understand, it's your mother who doesn't want you to go see a therapist.
And really, haven't you had enough of obeying that bitch?
Yeah. Yeah, it's time to make a decision for what's good for you now, right?
Not... You know, enough protecting the abusers, right?
Right. If what they did makes them unhappy because you become happy, fuck them.
You know, they made their choices.
They had their life. Yeah, right now I feel like I've lost the anger, though.
Like, I went from tense and now I'm feeling kind of...
Sort of apologetic again.
Like, oh, it's not, you know, all that crap.
They did the best they can. Bullshit.
Look, that's good. See, again, if these defenses come up, it means it's because you're challenging them.
Right? So if I say, if I use colorful language and call your mom a bitch or whatever, right?
Then your defenses come up, right?
Well, they did the best they could and she had a bad childhood or dad was an alcoholic or all that kind of stuff, right?
Right, so, and this is the complexity of all of this, that we have all of these perspectives simultaneously, and that's why therapy is so helpful, so that we can get all these issues out, get some clear and professional feedback on them, so that we can get some resolution.
So we don't waste our lives revisiting all these issues and going round and round and round, like a moth around a light bulb, right?
Because that's a huge waste of life.
Well, they really hurt me, but they did the best they could.
Yes, but I'm really angry. Yes, but I should have some sympathy because of X, Y, and Z. Well, yes, but you can spend half your goddamn mental energy floating around that light bulb, right?
Right. And there is an answer to it.
And the answer doesn't mean that we never have any ambivalence again, but it means that we get emotional closure and calmness.
I don't know.
But I've had closure because I went to therapy and had a great therapist.
And I worked really hard.
A therapist doesn't open you up like a surgeon and fix your problems.
They're like a coach.
You still got to go to the track and run around until you throw up.
But you do that and then you get closure and then you can move on with your life.
And I don't sit there and worry about how I should think about my past because I got it.
I understand. Is there anything else you wanted to add?
Did you mute again? No, just contemplating what bastards they are.
Sorry, sorry for all the swearing, but...
No, hey, you know, don't worry.
We're not made of glass, right?
And given the way that you were treated as a kid, the last thing I would ever be worried about is a bit of salty language that doesn't bother me a bit.
And I think that's not bad at all.
So are you going to call a therapist?
Gonna give it a shot? Yeah.
Can I say that again so I can believe you?
Yeah. Hang on, hang on.
What does he need me to say now?
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, come on.
Just do it. I'm working for almost 90 minutes here.
Just do it. I'm going to call a therapist, Steph.
Okay, good. I'm not going to pester you or anything, but if you could drop me a note after you go, I sure would like to know.
Trust your instincts with the therapist and listen to a couple of the Ask a Therapist.
There is one on how to pick a good therapist, and that may be of some utility to you.
I've listened to it, and I've read some Alice Miller on the subject.
Oh, fantastic. So, you trust your instincts, follow your gut, and don't feel at all obligated.
You are the customer, right?
And don't feel at all obligated to go and see a therapist who doesn't make you feel really excited, challenged, and scared, and exhilarated about what you're doing.
Great. Well, thank you so much, Steph.
This has been great. You feel better?
Yeah, I'm happy now. Excellent.
Okay, well, get ready for the crash, but for now, really enjoy this, because this is what we're trying to get you to, right?
Right. All right, well, have a great night, and thanks for hanging in there on the call.
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