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June 16, 2009 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:28:19
1394 Self Attack Through Fog - A Conversation

When the mythology fails, we begin to succeed.

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So you there, Mr. C? Am I Mr.
C? You are, in fact.
It's your call, maybe.
I thought there was somebody named Mr. C on the board somewhere.
Oh, that's right. There is.
There is. There is. Call me Mr.
Anderson, like from The Matrix.
Right, right. And now we must do battle in slow motion.
Yeah. I do want to...
I should probably start off by saying how I feel.
And I'm feeling some anxiety.
More just the kind of anxiety I feel before a performance, before I'm about to sing on my own.
So it's not like a...
That's just how I feel though.
It all will be through song.
Okay, sorry. We're going to be scatting the whole thing.
That's why you feel that anxiety.
Yeah, exactly. This is a performance of me scatting how I feel.
Well, you can't tell by the way I use my wok.
I'm a Chinese cook. No time to talk.
Take it away, brother. Okay.
So, self-attack.
Yeah, it seemed like that's kind of been the theme in some of the board things.
And I've been listening to a lot of the self-attack podcasts.
And this all kind of started my awareness of my self-attack in our conversation we had in the donut place.
On the way to Niagara Falls?
Yes. Do you remember that conversation?
I do. Through the sugar haze, I think I can come up with a little bit of what happened, yes.
Yeah, but that just pretty much began my awareness of this part of me, that conscious awareness anyway, of the self-attack.
I first became aware of it in my conversation with Emily on the bus ride to Toronto, and it really started to blow up recently over the past few days in my interactions with Phil.
The living situation I'm in is four people from FDR living all together.
One thing I've realized is that it's very hard to hide how you're feeling and really hard to be dishonest when you live with four people who are all about the virtues.
Can I also mention how crushingly disappointed I am that the cult has been started and I haven't even been asked to join?
It's crippling, crippling, let me tell you.
You people are signing the commune and I'm not even there.
Anyway, sorry, go on. Yeah.
But, um, so, but yeah, I've just been feeling a ton of, uh, anxiety in my interactions with Phil and just thinking about that.
And it all kind of blew up in a conversation with him I had the other night.
Uh, I kind of took two days.
I was probably, actually, first thing that happens, we had a conversation I mean, it's important, but in the conversation, a lot of anger came out, and I got a little bit out of hand with it, and we stopped the conversation.
I took a few breaths and calmed down.
After that, I took two days to do a lot of journaling about what was going on for me.
I was feeling so much anger and frustration and anxiety in my interactions with Phil.
Before I talked with him, I guess this past Friday night, after two days of kind of mulling things over, I took like a really long bike ride out to Maniunk down the river because I felt like I've just been feeling really unsafe in our home, in the home that we're living in.
I've been feeling anxiety about coming home.
So I just kind of, when I got off of work, I just started biking and I didn't stop until I got like nine miles away from home.
And then I got a chance to do a lot of journaling.
But when I came back, Me and Phil got a chance to talk and then I realized that this self-attack has really been how much it's been affecting my life when I just in the conversation with Phil I just started I broke down and I just started crying and I haven't done that in a really really long time and I just it just like hit me and it came out that I was attacking myself throughout this whole conversation and there was a part of me that wanted to say that it was you know Phil this whole time that's been you know attacking me and but it's really a The majority of it's been,
you know, myself kind of.
Sorry about that.
I was just calling the guy to do the streaming, but apparently he's playing something, so never mind.
Yeah. But I guess there's one other thing.
What was I going to say? I'm so sorry.
I completely broke your train of thought.
Sorry, but please go on.
You were just talking about how you broke down when you were talking with Phil after some conflict and some avoidance?
Yes. Sorry, let me not interrupt and let you regain your train of thought.
And don't take your time.
We could just edit out the silence.
It's no big deal.
Yeah, Yeah, I guess that breakdown I had where I didn't realize it through the conversation as much that it was pretty much the majority of it was me attacking myself in the conversation.
And when I broke down and it just came out of me, I just said it out loud.
I was like, wow, I think I'm feeling so upset here because I'm realizing that I'm just attacking myself throughout all of this.
Because Phil, he's a really super intelligent guy.
He's one of my best friends.
He's really good at pointing out inconsistencies and pointing out inconsistencies in my actions and in things I do.
And of course, that's going to aggravate my inner critic and the self-attack.
So it totally makes sense that I've been feeling that around him.
But yeah, I guess that's just kind of where I am right now.
It's just been really...
I don't... Me and Phil have been in relationships...
I'm one of the, I guess, only few people pre-FDR that Phil's kept a relationship And the same kind of for me in a lot of ways.
So it's difficult for us because we're realizing just now how our past is kind of catching up with us consciously.
Right, okay.
And do you remember what the conflict was with Phil?
Well, we just...
The conflict...
I'm having trouble going back to that first one where I got really angry.
Phil, do you want you to remember?
I don't think Keegan has a microphone right now.
If you don't remember, that's no problem.
Usually if you can't remember what the conflict was about, it's not about what you think it is, right?
Right, exactly. I recently ordered a video camera from a guy on eBay and it broke within a couple of days of coming and then he never responded to my emails because he's supposed to have this return policy.
And in a year, if someone says, what was your conflict with the guy on eBay about the camera, I'd be like, oh yeah, he shipped this thing to me.
It turns out it was refurbished and he never said so and then he never responded to blah, blah, blah.
I'll remember it very specifically because it was about something real.
So when we have conflicts and we can't remember what they're about, that's the first sign that it's about not the content but something else, right?
Yeah, that definitely makes a lot of sense.
And also, I mean, I have had troubles with dissociation big time.
That was like the first thing that I kind of started struggling with when I started getting into the psychology stuff.
So I don't know how much of that is going on.
Right, right. Okay. So you felt anger towards Phil in the conflict, is that right?
Yes, a lot.
And then, after the conflict died down, you felt less angry towards Phil, but then you ended up feeling angry at yourself, or self-attacking, is that right?
I guess after the first conflict, before I took the two days to kind of mull things over, I didn't I had trouble making sense of everything that happened, which is why I wanted to do so much journaling and kind of think things over.
And it didn't hit me that it was, I guess, I was having such a hard time drawing the line between, like, I couldn't tell if it was something I was doing or something he was doing that was making these interactions so anxiety provoking and frustration and those kind of feelings.
Yeah, it wasn't him. Yeah.
Yeah, it wasn't him.
Right, and that's what I was struggling with for the two days, but then it came out in the conversation this past Friday night.
And what I mean by that is not that other people can't make us angry.
Of course they can, but it can't be that someone you consider a good friend is going to make you that enraged, and you can't even remember why.
You know, if it's like, oh, he's a really good friend of mine, but then he used my cat's tail to strangle my dog, and I remember that really vividly, and I realized that he was a really nasty fellow and so on, right?
So it's not that people can't do stuff to make us mad.
Of course they can, but not a good friend and then you can't remember even what you were mad about or what made you mad.
So for sure that's not him, right?
I agree. I completely agree.
Okay. So that's important, right?
And I think it's also important that...
And I use the word act out here loosely.
I know you didn't like, you know, throw pots at him or anything, right?
But you were obviously angry.
But when you stopped yourself from acting out the anger, which is the really, really essential thing to do, right?
I mean, we should not give ourselves the permission ever to act out our anger.
And that doesn't mean that we never will, but we should not give ourselves that permission.
And it should be something that if we do, it's just wrong and we apologize for it.
For the simple reason that it's a UPB thing, right?
Which is that We sure as hell hated it when people acted out their anger against us as children.
And we sure as hell hate it when people act out their anger against us as adults.
And so we just shouldn't do it, right?
That's the golden rule, do unto others, right?
I mean, if we hate it when people do it to us, we just shouldn't do it to others.
That's just a basic UPB thing.
And so it's interesting to me that you had this conflict.
You were conscious of aggression or hostility on your part.
You did not give yourself permission to act out that aggression and Against Phil in an unconscious manner, and then what happened was you began to aggress against yourself, right?
Right. Do you see what I mean?
If you damn up that aggression, this is why people act out, right?
Because when you're acting out, you're not acting in.
When you attack others, you're not attacking yourself, right?
Right. It's like this fist has to land on someone's face, and if it doesn't land on yours, I'm going to pull a fight club and have it land on mine, right?
Yeah. And that's a very, very important thing to know so that you understand the sequence.
Because in my experience, and maybe you feel differently, but the scariest thing that happens is not that this and this and this and this happens, no matter how alarming the content.
It's that we can't see the patterns or understand why it's happening, right?
Right. And so if you see, he did something that triggered something in your past, you acted aggressively towards him, you stopped that, and then you acted aggressively towards yourself, that makes sense.
I mean, I know that's not an answer on how to stop it, but at least the sequence makes some sense, right?
Right. And the thing is, I'm definitely understanding all of that.
I just want to make that clear.
And the one thing that's been like super difficult in our relationship is I've grown up being extremely passive person and submissive.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I don't feel like you know better than that.
You know better than to start off.
That's not a self-attack, is it?
Oh, that was good.
Would you like to say it again? Because I enjoy it.
This is like a fine wine for me.
And I mean that with a WH. But anyway, look.
Why did I stop you when you said that?
I mean, I do want to say this.
I mean, I feel like it's self-attack.
Is that what you stop?
Self-attack or not, I mean, it's just not even close to accurate, right?
I'm confused. I know, I know.
And that's why I stopped you, right?
Um... You said, I grew up a very passive person, very passive, is that right?
Uh, yes. Yeah.
I'm telling you, nobody just grows up passive.
It's not possible. I mean, I have a kid, she's six months old in a couple of days.
She was active coming out of the womb, reaching for things.
If she got a throat bubble, she coughed, she sneezed, right?
She would cry when she was hungry.
She reached for the breast when she was Just about to feed, right?
She squirmed and she groaned and grunted when she was just about to poop.
Right? Nobody grows up passive.
She wasn't passive in the womb.
She was dribbling like the whole Harlem Globetropper is in there.
And nobody, nobody is born passive.
And nobody just grows up passive, right?
Like it's, you know, like you have dark, I was born and I have dark hair, right?
Yeah. There's no way that is to describe a character trait that results from abuse as if it were innate to your personality, right?
It's like saying, I was walking down the street and mysteriously my money was gone and a knife was sticking out my back.
It's like, no, no, no, somebody stabbed you and took your wallet, right?
If you describe the scars without the actors, then it makes no sense.
And if you don't even describe them as scars, But innate, you know, like, yes, I grew a mustache and I also grew a knife out of my back.
It's like, no, no, no, you can grow a mustache, you cannot grow a knife out of your back.
Somebody has to put it there, right?
Right. So, and I'm sorry to, you know, right at the beginning I stop you, but that's really important.
You didn't grow up passive.
I can tell you that much for sure.
Thank you. So what's a more accurate way of putting it, or even a remotely accurate way of putting it?
Yeah, I mean, as a result of my family situation, I ended up, I mean, my theory behind that is that I, you know, for whatever reasons that are still becoming clear as I delve into this, I mean, I've always been afraid, you know, of punishment, of Doing something wrong.
Somebody making noises? What is that sound?
Do you know what that is? Have you ever lived by the sea?
That's a fog horn. Yeah, as a result of my family situation, I have a theory that this, that, the other.
Come on, you know it was simpler than that.
How do I say it?
I'm struggling to say it.
Well, children are born active and curious and exploratory and assertive, right?
My daughter's not aggressive, but she's very assertive.
Actually, I should say, occasionally she'll get aggressive.
Like when we were sleep training her and she really wanted to, she would get angry and we could hear that in her voice.
But she's not an aggressive person.
So, given that we are naturally assertive and we are naturally energetic and we are naturally curious and we are naturally exploratory, Why would we not be that way?
Why would we stop being that way?
Because I was told it was wrong or punished for it.
Well, okay, not told, right?
Because telling kids stuff doesn't do much to them, right?
Yeah, it's why you have to tell kids stuff a thousand times, right?
And punished is the wrong word.
And I'm sorry to be so annoying, right?
No, this is good. Because you're just not close to the truth yet.
So punished is a word that is used to denote a transgression, right?
Now, we may say I was punished, you know, it wasn't fair.
Like, I only pickpocketed and I went to jail for five years.
I was harshly punished.
I was unfairly punished.
But we still assume that there was some sort of reason to punish, right?
Oh, okay. Right, but if I go and just slap a kid in the face because that kid is happy, I'm not punishing the kid.
Because there's nothing to punish, right?
He's not doing anything wrong.
Right. So what am I doing?
Straight up abusing?
I'm just attacking.
I'm assaulting and I'm abusing.
It's got nothing to do with punishment.
Because punishment is a word that can be justly applied in relationships.
Right? So if an employee were to embezzle from me, I may punish that employee by firing him or her and demanding recompense, right?
But you can't punish a child for being not passive because that's not a crime, right?
In fact, it's a crime to punish a child for being active and assertive and curious and exploratory because that's children's and children's natural state.
You can't punish a child's natural state.
Now you can punish A child, you know, a naughty corner or taking a toy away if the child is hitting another child with the toy or something like that.
You can punish that child, but only if the child is doing something wrong and only, of course, with the curiosity and the explanations and the understanding and so on, right?
So there is punishment, but punishment requires, as a valid use of the word, it requires that there is a transgression of some kind.
Otherwise, It's not punishment, right?
Some guy goes out and rapes a woman, he's not punishing her for anything, right?
He's just assaulting her. Yeah.
Does it make sense why I keep stopping you on this?
Yeah, it makes sense, and I definitely don't want to be using...
Yeah, because if you...
Because this is the most important thing to be...
Yeah, if you assume character flaws that are innate to you, that instead result from abuse...
Then you're continuing to abuse yourself.
You're taking over the parental whip hand and doing it to yourself.
And, by the way, of course, completely letting them off the hook, right?
Yeah. There's no family circumstances that resulted in you being attacked, right?
Because family circumstances is just a concept, right?
Concepts can't attack people, only people can, right?
Yeah. So, let's go back, and again, I'm sorry, I really do apologize, and I hope you understand.
I mean this with all sympathy and all empathy, both for the trauma and for the dissociation.
I mean, I really, really do understand it, and I hope that you understand.
I'm not trying to re-traumatize you, I'm just trying to give you a clarity about what happened.
This is definitely really helpful.
Alright, so let's go back to you being Assertive and energetic and the opposite of what you were describing to me earlier around passive and so on.
Let's go back to an example of you doing that as a child within a family context.
I must have been really assertive because that's what children do and curious.
It's hard for me to remember those things in that part of my life.
That's why I guess I have so much trouble talking about it.
No, I'm going to have to stop you again.
Please. I'm so sorry.
I really am. I know it's tough.
I know it's tough. But the reason that you have a tough time remembering is because you're not supposed to remember, right? Right.
This is the family secret stuff.
You're not supposed to remember That's why, in other words, you're punished for remembering.
You're attacked. Sorry, not punished.
You're attacked for remembering, and that's why you don't remember, right?
Right. So, I just, again, wanted to...
And I know very little about your family history, right?
I'm just... I know that this amount of fog is covering something fairly egregious, but that's why I'm sort of going this direction.
Okay, go ahead. I probably should say I have zero memory of...
I asked my mom about this on one occasion...
I have no recollection of any physical abuse ever.
Maybe when I was really young, I think she said she might have swatted me.
When I talked to her about it, she said it wasn't anything that really happened.
How much can I trust that?
Because I was so young that I'm not allowed to remember and why would she...
Well, but of course it's very unlikely That you would have had physical abuse, given the symptoms that you're talking about.
Right. Because physical abuse rarely results in toxic psychological self-attack.
That is a hallmark of verbal abuse.
Yeah. Right, because what you hurt yourself with is language, right?
Right. Because you were hurt with language, and what you hurt yourself with is emotional intimidation, or with the withdrawal of affection, or the dissociation, or whatever.
So, that would be the most likely...
I mean, again, no proof, but this is where I would go first, is to say, okay, well, it's not physical abuse, because that usually has some very specific results, and it's most likely it was a verbal abuse, And most likely the verbal abuse came in the form of a sort of stone-faced or cold-hearted withdrawal of affection.
Because that's what most triggers.
Self-attack is the scar tissue that comes from the withdrawal of affection on the part of a parent.
Right, so let me give you, and I don't know, so I'll just give you an example.
This may not apply to you at all, but I'll give you, as always, this is just my opinion and my experience.
Take it for what it's worth. So a typical example of self-attack is a guy who forgets something, right?
So he leaves his sunglasses at the store, right?
He's driving home and he's like, God, I'm so stupid, right?
Yeah. I'm such an idiot.
Why can't I get anything right?
I would forget my head if it wasn't screwed up.
Or as the Greek proverb goes, he who has no head has legs.
In other words, he has to keep walking back to get stuff he's forgotten, right?
I'm so stupid, right?
And that may come from somebody attacking him verbally, calling him stupid, but most likely, since he's attacking himself, it comes from somebody who will simply sigh and withdraw affection, and he gets angry at himself for causing the withdrawal of affection, and that means that the self-attack is that much stronger.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it's also the hardest kind of abuse to figure out.
Because there's no big Viking drama, you know?
There's no chairs going through windows.
There's no punched holes in the walls, right?
That was my brother.
Right? I'm sorry? That was my older brother.
I evaded all the...
I did a really good job of...
I was a genius as a child, actually.
I mean, I did a really good job of evading all the verbal attacks, and my brother took the brunt of...
Those things. And he did punch a hole in the wall at one point, and that's a very vivid memory in my mind.
I was the younger brother. I had one older brother, and I was the youngest.
It was the two of us.
And how did you evade...
Well, first of all, tell me what the verbal attacks were, or the withdrawal of affection.
From what I can recall, I just remember my...
The verbal attacks I remember were between my parents and I just have memories of me being up in my room and hearing them after we'd gone to bed, hearing them shout at each other and hearing my mom slam the door to go for a walk while there's just this empty silence after that and that's just the scariest.
It was the scariest thing in the world for me.
Totally. What were they shouting about?
I don't even remember.
Probably financial stuff and Well, of course you remember, but you just may not have access to it, right?
Yeah, it was financial stuff, I think, for the most part.
What does that mean? I mean, I understand, but what does it mean?
My mom didn't work for a while, and my dad was working full-time, and I know they had struggles with trying to quit smoking, and I'm sure that there was things with that.
The only thing I really remember clearly is just getting angry about money and things, and my mom spending it, or Sorry, your mother was angry because she was working and your father wasn't and your father was angry because you're...
I wasn't clear about that, I guess.
I'm sure... I think it was my dad, you know, being angry.
Now, you realize you're telling me I'm sure it was rather than it was.
Yeah, it's a little foggy for me.
Yeah, I'm obviously not saying...
I mean, obviously don't make anything up, right?
But what I'm saying is that I can't talk about anything like that, because there's no facts there, right?
Like, I can't do anything with that, because it's like, well, I'm sure it was something to do with finances, because, like, you're kind of inferring, like, there's circumstantial evidence, but you were there, right?
Yeah. And I understand, I'm not accusing you of any kind of dissembling at all.
I mean, obviously, you genuinely don't recall, but I can't say anything about that, because it's almost like it's hearsay, right?
Yeah, I've been trying to get better just saying when I don't know, instead of trying to, you know...
Well, I guarantee you...
I feel pressure sometimes on the spot, too.
Like, oh, somebody's asking me what happened.
I've got to figure out what happened right now, instead of just saying, I'm not sure.
So, I think that's what just happened right there.
Well, but clearly, and I, you know, you were a genius as a child, you say, and I have no doubt of that, and I assume that you're a genius as an adult, right, as I assume everyone is.
Everyone is. Right, and of course, you can't be surprised that I would ask you these questions, right?
Right. And you haven't done any work to prepare.
And you understand, this is no criticism, it's merely an observation, right?
But you haven't done any work to prepare.
Steph is going to ask me about my history, right?
Yeah. Because I'm bringing self-attack up.
I've listened to a bunch of self-attack conversations.
Hey, guess what, right?
They go back to the family. So for sure, Steph is going to ask me, right?
And then you say, well, but I feel on the spot, right?
So it's almost like you have an oral exam coming up, and you've known about it for months, right?
And you don't do anything to prepare for it, right?
And then it's like, oh man, I really feel put on the spot here.
It's like, put on the spot?
You asked for the call, right?
And you knew exactly what I was going to ask about.
And so there's a reason why you didn't do any preparatory work, right?
And the reason may be, it may be exactly the right thing to do, but there's a reason that you didn't, right?
Because you said you were journaling, right?
Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
I guess the preparatory work was more my thoughts about my relationship with Phil and not really going too, too much back to the family.
I mean, some of my journaling I did talk about.
Because you were convinced that I was going to ask about your relationship with Phil, right?
Yeah. Because if anyone had asked you, he would have said, Steph would have said, no, no, that's just a symptom.
We've got to go with something earlier, right?
Yeah. I mean, you knew that's what I would say, right?
Yeah, I know. And again, this is just something important to note and observe within yourself.
Everyone tries to tell me stuff.
Like, they try to tell everyone.
We're just talking about me. Everyone tries to tell.
So you're trying to tell me something by not preparing and being vague, right?
Yes. So what are you trying to tell me?
Right, like a guy shows up for a job interview with coffee stains on his front, broccoli bits hanging out of his teeth, his hair uncombed.
What's he saying to the guy who's interviewing him?
A lot of things. Well, yeah, but what's he fundamentally saying?
I'm not... I'm having trouble picking out the fundamental.
Well, the fundamental thing is, don't hire me.
Okay, yeah. I understand?
Yeah. And it's aggressive, but it's very passive-aggressive, right?
Because somebody who doesn't want to be hired doesn't apply for the job and doesn't waste the interviewer's time, right?
Right. And so if someone shows up at a job interview unprepared, so he's applied and he's showing up, then he feels...
Passive-aggressive, like he's forced into the situation.
He's not prepared, and so not only does he not want to be hired, but he feels angry about the situation.
That's what, and again, I'm not saying this is all the same as what you're feeling, but that's what that example would be, right?
Right. So, when you don't do any work to sort of prepare for a conversation, you're trying to communicate something to me, right?
It's interesting because I was thinking about this, and I do this a lot before I have conversations with people before exams, before performances, where I'm just like, I just didn't prepare enough.
I'll talk about those things, and this time I was just like, you know, I've done a lot of thinking about parts of this whole self-attack thing, but this call can only be helpful.
I didn't self-attack this time around, but I still, you know, I'm still...
It's interesting that I'm still going on with this.
Now, I'm... Of course, you understand.
I'm not... In fact, I would be vociferously against you self-attacking based on this.
The purpose is not to say, damn it, I didn't prepare.
The purpose is to retain curiosity, right?
Mm-hmm. So, I wonder why...
I wanted a conversation with Steph where he was going to ask me about my family and...
I'm going to claim, and obviously, honestly so, that I don't recall, and I haven't done any work to try and figure out, right?
Are you still in contact with, not with your parents, with your brother at all?
No. I haven't made it official with him that I'm not talking to him, but I haven't been talking to him for the past month or two.
Right, okay. But you could have, since it's not official, and again, you understand, I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't, right?
Right. But you could have said, you know, I got a call with a guy who's really interested in family histories, and I have a whole bunch of trouble remembering X, Y, and Z from our history.
I was wondering if you could help a brother out.
Because I know that this deaf guy is going to ask me about my family history, and I swear I cannot remember it.
But you were there, and obviously you got angry enough to punch a hole in the wall, so I'm sure you remember it better than I do.
This is the stuff he doesn't want to remember, and every time I would try to bring up things about, like, I would try to express my frustrations, I felt, I would feel really angry because my mom did something, our mom did something, he would be like, I know, I know, and I get it, like, I'm with you on that, but it would never turn into a conversation, it would just be kind of like this, dismiss this, like, I get it, and then that's enough, you know, and it would never...
Yeah, there may be a lot of reasons not.
I'm just throwing out possibilities.
Of course, there's another very vivid possibility if you wanted to remember what it was like to be you as a kid.
There's someone else you could ask who's actually on this call, right?
You know what you're talking about, Phil?
Yeah. Yeah, because when you got really angry and aggressive and then you followed that with somewhat of a strategy, unconscious though it may be, of withdrawal, right?
Then you were reproducing your parents for Phil, right?
With him as a stand-in for you as a kid, right?
Yeah. And so you could ask him what it was like when you were Feeling that, or when you were expressing your anger, or when you were withdrawing.
And he would then tell you, and you would then reconnect with yourself as a child, right?
Right. So there's lots of things that you could have done.
Or, what you could have done, right, again, you're part of the FDR, and again, you understand, I'm not suggesting or criticizing anything, I'm just pointing out what you didn't do, which you're easily smart enough to do, and that's communicating something which we'll figure out shortly.
Right. You listen to a bunch of self-attack conversations, right?
And you could very easily have contacted these people.
I mean, it's amazing, right?
Because this is the radio show, in a sense, where you get to talk to the callers in a year after the fact, right?
Wait, can you say that again?
Well, this is like a call-in show where you can talk to the people who called in like a year after the show, right?
So you listen to a call with, say, James or Colleen or people who had these amazing self-attack conversations, right?
And they're in the community, right?
They're very easy to connect with, right?
So you could have contacted them and said, I want to do a self-criticism conversation with staff.
You guys have done this before.
What's the best thing that I can do to prepare?
Yeah. And This has nothing to do with self-attack.
I know that you're going to want to go there and say, oh my god, I messed up this conversation.
You absolutely did not mess up this conversation.
In fact, you're doing everything perfectly.
I just want to be aware of what it is you're doing and what it is you're not doing, right?
Right. So that we can figure out what you're trying to communicate.
Right. Now, the feelings that we don't have access to but are very strong...
We will forever and a day attempt to provoke in others.
Does that thesis sort of make sense?
I'm not saying you have to agree with it all, but do you sort of understand the approach?
Yeah. So if I'm a really angry guy and I'm dissociated from my anger, I'm going to act in a way that is going to be consistently annoying and angering to other people, right?
Yeah, I definitely did that with my brother.
Right, and it's perfectly natural, right?
So if you remember that there was a guy who posted recently on the board, right?
And he was very... I thought...
I've experienced him as very passive-aggressive because he posted a picture of me with an angry face from some video and he was basically like, anger never convinces anyone, right?
It's the mark of the losing side and anger is never convincing to anyone, right?
Yes, all that. Right, so I mean...
The clear response to that is, you know, if you say that anger never convinces anyone, then how could Hitler have convinced anyone?
Because Hitler was very angry and convinced millions and millions of people, right?
So that's, you know, anger never convinces anyone.
Hitler was angry and convinced millions of people.
That means that there's a problem with the thesis.
It needs to be revisited, right?
Right. But of course, the guy didn't say, oh, you're right, I hadn't thought of that.
Let me rethink my thesis and get back to you.
He said... Well, Hitler's a bad guy, right?
Like, that has anything to do with the thesis, right?
Yeah. You know, that's like saying, Austrians can't grow mustaches.
Well, Hitler was an Austrian. Yes, but Hitler was a bad guy.
But that doesn't have anything to do with whether they can grow mustaches or not, right?
Yeah. And he didn't have a criterion of good or bad.
He was just saying anger can't convince people, right?
And so he was irritating and annoying to deal with, because obviously he's got a big problem with his own anger, which is why he's got this distant, haughty Buddhist contempt for it, right?
And so what he does is he gets involved with conversations where he's going to make other people angry, right?
Yes, yeah. I see that.
I mean, that's relatively...
I mean, sorry, that's crystal clear when you get used to this paradigm.
Yeah, I totally see that.
Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, so that makes sense, right?
Yeah. Sorry, I keep feeling like I'm talking over you, and I don't mean to do that.
Is there anything that you're not getting a chance to say as I keep yammering on?
I'm good. Okay, good.
I just wanted to check that I wasn't, you know, shut up.
It's my conversation. Thank you.
So, what I began to feel when I was asking you about your history was confused, disoriented, bewildered, and annoyed right and my first guess would be that these are the feelings that you have real trouble processing and I say that not just because that's what I began to feel but that's what I began to feel after I cut through the first few layers of defensiveness about your past Because you started telling me a story about your past like you grew up like Bubble Boy in some isolation and mysteriously turned out passive.
So what I started to do was pry the fog off the bodies.
Shine a light on the crime scene.
So I didn't buy the story that you were just innately that way.
I had said, okay, no, there were people who did it to you and And then you said, well, there was no physical abuse.
And I said, well, that's very likely because self-attack grows out of verbal abuse, right?
So what I was doing was I was steadily taking step by step closer to what was actually happening, right?
Which is where the emotional discomfort began to arise for you, right?
I guess there's just a part of me that says, you know, it's just so hard to tell what happened to you when you were young because...
There's no physical scars.
There's just all kind of...
I don't know.
I guess that's the part of me that wants to...
That's the defense that wants to avoid all of it.
It is very easy.
No, no, no. It is very easy.
It is very easy to remember vividly what happened to you.
It is three minutes away.
Anytime. Anytime.
Anytime. Anytime. I guess I thought reading Alice Miller books would bring me back to my childhood, but that definitely hasn't been...
No, that's not what I thought I was doing to look into this stuff, but that hasn't been doing the trick, obviously.
Right. And do you know how to remember it?
No, of course you don't. That's a trick question.
You do it, right? Sorry. I could totally just contact my family and then it would all become blatantly clear to me exactly what's going on.
Well, did you have the on-truth conversation with your family before you separated?
You know, the conversation, the RTR conversation about your history and your thoughts and your feelings and so on.
Not a full-out conversation, no.
Come on, this is a binary question, right?
Because if you had that conversation, you would have no doubt about it whatsoever.
You would remember that conversation until three lifetimes from now, if the Buddhists are correct, right?
You would have no confusion about that if you'd actually had the conversation, right?
It's like if I say, did you ask your girlfriend to get married to you?
Did you get down on one knee and propose?
And you say, well, I'm not sure, perhaps, maybe.
It's like, no, no, no, that's...
That's a yes-no, right?
Right. And if you had the conversation, and usually, of course, as I often say, it's more than one, you would not forget it.
it.
It would not be unclear.
And do you understand?
I'm not saying you should...
I mean, I think it's best to, but it's not...
The question is whether you should or shouldn't have had that conversation.
The question is, did you have that series of conversations?
I did not. I did not. Okay.
I mean, yeah.
No, that's fine. The first time I tried, like I called my dad for the first time to just open up about a lot of these feelings I've been feeling.
You know, this was in like February or March and it was definitely one of the most terrifying experiences I've ever had in my entire life and of course I'd want to be...
It was always so hard. Emotions were just not talked about growing up.
I mean, there were...
I was never able to open up about how I felt about things.
I could have opened up, but it would be consequences, of course.
What would those consequences be?
Aggression, verbal attacks.
The blame probably would have been put on me for things.
I'm not exactly sure.
You are sure. Come on.
Come on, man.
Work with me a little. Right?
You are completely sure.
How do I know that you're completely sure what would have happened in those conversations?
They wouldn't have listened because they never listened.
how do I know that you're completely sure what would have happened in those conversations?
I'm not exactly sure.
Because you didn't have them.
Right, yeah. Right, so if we're scuba diving, right, and you know there's 12 sharks, 4 moray eels, and a U-boat in a particular cave, right, and I say, you know, it's really cool, you swim in that cave, and you're like, fuck no, are you crazy?
Then I know that you know that there's something bad in that cave.
And you can say, well, I didn't know if there was anything good or bad in that cave, but you couldn't have got me to go in there with a spear gun and a depth charge, right?
Then I know that's not the case, because you absolutely will not go into that cave, right?
And then you say, well, I don't know what's in there.
Well, of course you do. Yeah.
It's almost like a...
Yeah, I understand.
When I realized that I... When I made the first phone call to my dad, starting to open up about things, and when I... I made a second phone call to him saying, I need a time to think about these things before I talk to him again.
I just didn't feel ready to have those conversations.
So I guess what I did was I told myself I'd try to get some clarity on all this before I went back and try to figure things out.
And how is that familiar to how we started this conversation?
Yeah, it's very familiar.
Go on. I mean, I haven't Figured it out, you know.
Well, what did you do after your conflict with Phil?
I mulled things over.
I journaled. You separated and you went off to think things through into journal, right?
Yeah. So that's a habit, right?
Yeah. I guess, I mean, I just kind of started journaling recently, like a month ago, but yeah, I guess that's a habit.
I mean, I guess that's not clear to me that it's a habit.
Okay, well, that's easy to figure out too.
So give me an example where you had an intense conflict with someone and you didn't do that.
Okay, gotcha. Yeah.
Habits are very easy to figure out.
All you have to do is say, well, if I can't come up with a contrary example, it's a habit, right?
Yeah. So?
Yeah, I mean, it's a habit.
Yeah. Okay. I guess I was thinking habit, like this negative, you know, like it's a bad habit, you know?
But I mean, it's a habit.
It's a bad habit. I mean, it's a bad habit.
I mean, because you can't have close relationships if you retain the right to just vanish and avoid people whenever you feel uncomfortable.
Yeah, and it's been something I've been getting better with for sure.
I've been getting better at saying things, talking about things more in the moment, but I guess I would get so dissociated that I had no access to my thoughts and emotions.
Yes, but Rory, you're missing the point.
The point of conflict is not for you to talk about your feelings, but to talk about the other person's feelings.
You don't solve conflict by talking about your feelings.
You solve conflict by being curious about the other person's feelings.
Right. Because you're saying, well, I get so dissociated that I have to go away and crawl under a rock and look at my navel until the answer comes to me, right?
Right. And there's no way you would know this innately.
Obviously your history has not been kind or easy to you in this manner.
Right? But the reason that you can solve conflict is when you're dissociated, because dissociation is like a big excuse, right?
And I'm not saying it's a conscious excuse or anything like that, right?
But dissociation is a way of saying, okay, I can't do anything more in this conversation, and so I'm going to, because I'm dissociated or I can't figure out what to do next, I can't figure out what I feel, so I'm going to withdraw.
Right? Right?
But that is not going to help you to solve conflict in your life.
Because conflict is solved by...
Because, you see, conflict arises out of a lack of empathy for the other person, right?
Right. And the only way that you restore empathy towards another person is to break the habit of hostility that conflict engenders and to overreach the defensiveness and to continue to be curious about the other person's feelings.
That lowers... The intensity of conflict, it lowers the capacity for projection.
So you can't project your feelings onto someone you're actually empathizing with because empathy and projection are opposites, right?
But I can only have this curiosity for other people and empathy for other people if I'm doing it with myself.
I guess that's where I'm confused right now about how I can do it.
No, you just do it.
You can ask someone about how he or she is feeling.
You don't have to have empathy for yourself in that moment.
Because, I mean, there's a yin and a yang with this kind of stuff.
And I know that I seesaw a little bit on this, so I'm not going to claim that this is all real easy to understand, right?
But we would not need philosophy and principles and rules, for want of a better word, if instinct got us wherever we wanted to go all the time, right?
We wouldn't need a compass if we always could sniff which way was north, right?
So... If we have the rule or the goal or the idea that conflict is solved by asking the other person how he or she is feeling, and that doesn't mean that conflict is always solved in a positive way, i.e. the conflict dissolves and everybody has a big group hug, right?
Because you can continue to be curious about how the other person is feeling and talk about how you're feeling, and if you're not feeling anything, talk about how you're not feeling anything, Because if you keep asking the other person how he or she feels, and the other person never once asks you how you feel so it shows the slightest bit of interest, the conflict is going to diminish considerably, right?
Why? Because it's one-sided, and so it's not a relationship, right?
And so there's not that much of a reason to be upset.
That makes sense. Right?
So what you're telling me in what you're saying...
Is you're saying to me, at least to me as clear as skywriting, which may or may not be accurate, but what I'm getting is that when I was upset, you're saying, Steph, when I was upset as a child, when I was angry or hurt or jealous or greedy or needy as a child, no one ever asked me how I felt and showed interest and curiosity in what I felt.
And so I can't ask people how they feel because I've never seen it.
And I'm angry that it was never provided to me, so I'll be goddamned if I'm going to supply it to someone else.
Yeah. Tell me why we're in the wind tunnel now.
I can barely think of...
I just have all these...
Not pinpoint memories of exact moments, but just like all these...
I just remember feeling so many times that I was just wishing that my dad would ask me about this or that, or my mom would ask me about how I'm feeling.
I'm just always falling short of giving that to me.
It's an overwhelming amount of times that that was, you know, lacking than actually there.
So, I mean, you're... Yeah.
I wanted that growing up.
Okay, but what's the feeling instead of producing the sighing?
That's what I want to understand.
Again, I appreciate your openness with this.
That's a good explanation, but what's the feeling?
Because you understand, it's like you're breathing directly on my amygdala.
So I want to know what the feeling is that's creating the hurricane.
sadness okay go on because that's that's kind of what I've been doing with my friends I've been kind of expecting...
Now you remember journaling about this.
I realized at one point that I was expecting a lot of things from them.
That I myself wasn't giving back.
Yeah, but you know it's not about your friends, right?
This is just another form of self-attack, right?
Because you're saying, when I'm talking about a terrible loss and lack of empathy that you experienced throughout your childhood, you immediately start to say, well, I'm not providing it to my friends.
Well, right, right, yeah.
But that's an effect. I'm talking about the cause, right?
Uh-huh. The sadness more came from the fact that I never had those beautiful things that I'd see Isabella getting and that interest and curiosity towards me.
I just didn't have that interest and curiosity towards my interests, my desires, my emotions, whatever it was that wasn't there.
You strike me as a very passionate man, deep down.
I mean, I've heard you sing, right?
You have a lot of humor, a lot of passion, a lot of depth, right?
And you're talking to me about the greatest tragedy of your childhood, like you're reading a fucking laundry list, right?
And I'm simply pointing that out, because if I don't, then I'm going to dissociate, right?
Right. And I don't like to dissociate, because that's time robbed out of my life, right?
I like to be here. So don't drive me out of my own body like a ghost out of a house, right?
So what are the feelings that are there about...
The lack of empathy and the effects that it's had upon you as an adult, as a friend, as a lover.
I'm feeling a really, really deep sadness, like deep into my chest.
Okay, well let's talk about that because that's the real stuff.
There's just a part of me that just doesn't want to go there
I've got this wonderful community now, and I guess I just kind of want to escape from...
Well, do you want to keep this community?
Yeah. Well, then you have to be honest, right?
Right. Right?
You can't be in this community and attacking people you live with, right?
Right. That's not fair, right?
That's acting out What you suffered to an innocent party, who himself has his own traumas, which is unfair, right?
That's not... And when I say unfair, it's not my rule.
This is a rule that if anyone asked you about, you would say is unfair, right?
Is it fair to act out your own unconscious history on other people who are not the perpetrators?
You'd say, well, no, that's not fair, right?
It's not fair at all.
Right. So if you have a standard called, that's not fair, and honesty and vulnerability...
And this is what's fucked up about FDR. And it is genuinely fucked up for people.
Because in your family, what you're standing on the brink, trembling on the brink of doing, of opening up, would be the worst thing you could do.
And we know that because you didn't have the exit interviews with your family.
Right? Right? So in your family of origin, this kind of openness and honesty and courage and self-revelation, vulnerability, would be attacked or rejected, which is even worse, right?
Or ignored, or you'd make people embarrassed or whatever, right?
Yeah.
And at FDR, and it's nothing to do with FDR, this is in any honest and open and connected relationship, the exact opposite is true, right?
Right.
It's walking on the ceiling time, right?
in that when you listened to the people literally sob their guts out when talking about self-attack, did you feel contempt for them or admiration?
I certainly didn't feel contempt.
I felt the admiration.
Did they seem weak to you or strong?
Strong. Right.
So here you are.
You are holding in your hands this gift, this glowing gift of your true experience.
You have drunk deep and eaten deeply.
Of this gift that has been given to you by other people.
You have been incredibly grateful for this gift of honesty and openness and vulnerability that has been given to you in this medium by these other people.
And you're standing there thinking, do I want to give the gift to others that I so appreciate others having given to me?
Do I want to talk about what I genuinely and truly feel about my graveyard of a history?
About the haunted house I was trapped in as a child.
Do I want to provide the honesty that has so nurtured me from others?
Do I want to act in a way that I consider strong and brave and admirable on the part of others?
And the answer is, of course you do, right?
Of course you do. I do.
Right. I'm feeling very weak right now compared to, you know, Colleen and James and other people.
Yeah. And I can guarantee you, and you can check with them, that they felt exactly the same before their breakthrough.
And they still feel it, just as I do, right?
This is not a one-time band-aid, right?
Mm-hmm. So, when you think about the lack of empathy, the lack of curiosity, the lack of warmth, the lack of consistency, and the verbal terrorizing that floated around the oxygen of your house,
depleting it for all young and tender souls, when you think about this accumulated history and the effects that it has where you end up snarling at one of your best friends, the loss, the pain, the anger, the dissociation, the lack of self-trust, the confusion, the hostility, The effects that all of that is happening.
What do you feel? Sad.
Go on. You just kind of summed all that up, all those different things that have been going on in our household here in Philadelphia.
I don't want that. I don't want that for them.
I don't want that for me. It's not fair.
Like you said, it's unfair. You're still not opening your heart, right?
Huh? You're still not opening your heart, right?
You're describing and you're panting.
What did you see?
I feel really sad.
What did you see Isabella receiving?
When you were here for the couple of days the other week, what did you see Isabella receiving that hurt the most?
Or caused you to yearn the most?
The curiosity.
Go on. That you have for her.
For every little single thing she does and every movement.
Watching the crawling the other day was just...
I felt so much joy watching that, but also I wasn't really feeling sad in that moment watching that, but I did feel sadness, you know, at the barbecue and seeing all that.
She was receiving all that.
Give me an example. Give me something specific, right?
Because you are described from orbit guy, right?
Houston, I think I may see some sadness over the Pacific.
No, wait, it's just a windstorm, right?
So what specifically...
Did you see? Was there something I did, or Christina did, or someone else did, or Isabella did?
Was there anything specific that you saw?
When we were singing in the car to her?
When we were all singing in the car to her?
Oh, because she was a little upset with the car trip, right?
Yeah.
Okay, go on.
I guess...
I'm trying to think here.
I mean, because I felt a lot of happiness in that car ride, just doing all that singing.
So, I mean... Yeah, it's not a thought.
What was the feeling or the feeling afterwards?
Or, let's put it another way, how would your parents have reacted in that situation or your family if you'd have been upset in the car and were crying?
I guess they just would have let it happen, maybe.
Probably. Most likely.
Yeah. You're back in, right?
Yeah, it's just so hard to say.
Like I said, I know for sure, and I'm still struggling to say for sure.
What would they have done?
Let me cry through it, you know?
And under what theory would that have been?
A good course of action.
What would they have said? If somebody said, why is he crying?
Why aren't you doing something?
I'm sorry, what was your question?
What would they have said if they were ignoring you, which is an incredibly aggressive thing to do to a baby or a child, to ignore discontent?
Particularly for Isabella, because she can't do anything To satisfy her own needs, right?
Right. So, what would your parents have said if somebody said, well, why aren't you attending to your son?
Why aren't you taking care of him?
Why aren't you finding out what the problem is and making him happy?
Why doesn't he have the right to be happy in this car?
You're the goddamn parents.
Do your job. I'm sure they would have said, that's what babies do.
do, they cry, he'll get over it.
All right.
So you take their role.
We'll just go for a few more minutes if that's alright.
You take their role. So, Mr.
sister and mrs cold stone parents uh your theory then is that if if if a human being is upset ignore them and they will get over it i just can't i can't take that role i'm I mean... Sure you can. You know that role.
Right? So it's that theory.
It's the theory that it's good parenting if your child is crying to ignore the child until the child stops crying.
I was having such a strong resistance to taking that role on it.
It's not.
It's totally not. I know it's not.
No, but it's the theory, right?
Yeah. And the reason you're having trouble taking on this role is this role takes you over in your conflict with Phil and other places, right?
So you need to be able to inhabit this role so you know what it feels like so when it comes along you can stop it and not act out, right?
Right. I mean, we step into these cruel shoes so that we know what they feel like and can kick them off when we find them on our feet, right?
Right. So, you let the child cry because the child will get over it.
Is that the theory? That's the theory.
All right. Now, is this a theory that is good for human beings in general?
So, if any human being is upset, you simply ignore them until it gets better on its own, or the human being...
Gets over it, as you say.
Is that the theory?
That's the theory. Alright.
So, in this case, then, how is it explainable that you had these continual vicious fights about finances, since you have this theory that if you just ignore things, they get better?
Why would you apply that theory to each other?
because you found it to be so effective and wonderful with your son.
What was the question again?
I'm having trouble comprehending that.
Well, if the theory is, if someone's upset, you simply ignore them because it's going to get better on its own.
They'll get over it. Why did you guys not do that with each other, you parents, when it came to the financial difficulties that you were having?
Well, they did ignore it and it would come out in bursts of anger.
And that's when the arguments came about.
They never really talked about anything.
They would just wait until...
The anger built up so much that it would just explode.
So that's a contradiction to the theory, that if you ignore something, it's going to go away, right?
They themselves are complete victims of if you ignore something, it gets worse, right?
Right. They ignored me and I kind of disappeared, so yeah.
Right, and then you ended up with the passive-aggressive followed by the aggressive, right?
Yeah. Followed by the, oh shit, retreat and journal, right?
Or retreat and think about it.
So I guess I would like to know from your parents or from your inner view of your parents, how do they sustain this thesis that this is the right course of action when it didn't work anywhere that we can find that they've applied it?
It's just not sustainable.
Right, which means it's sustainable for some other reason, right?
Right. So what's the other reason that it's sustainable?
Why is the thesis sustainable in the absence of evidence, or when the evidence contradicts the thesis?
I mean, they must have been ignoring their own thoughts and feelings on just about everything, so...
I mean, that's...
It would make sense why they would do that with everyone else to me right now.
No, nobody is capable of ignoring all their own feelings.
It is a natural human response to tend to your child when your child is crying.
I mean, it takes a lot of fucked up stuff to take that response out of that.
I mean, I can tell you that for sure because when we've been sleep training Isabella, Isabella has been crying and it has literally taken everything we've had to not go and comfort her.
And it has worked beautifully.
She's sleeping seven hours now.
She's much happier. But in the same way that when we take her to go and get her shots, you know, we cry harder and longer than she does.
It is against every fiber of our parenting instincts to not sing to and comfort our child when our child is unhappy.
And so they can't ignore that desire.
And if your parents, say, feel anxious about asking you how you feel, then they are aware of that anxiety and they're avoiding it, right?
So you can't avoid feelings you don't have any awareness of, right?
Right, that makes sense.
So they can't avoid all their feelings.
They have to have the feelings in order to avoid them, right?
Right, right. You can't avoid rocks in a stream, if you're kayaking, that you can't see, right?
If you're going around the rocks, you can see them, right?
At least at some rate. So it's not that they're avoiding all their feelings.
Right, that makes sense.
I'll tell you what it does do for a parent to ignore a crying child.
Go on.
Well, it gives parents a sense of power and control.
Right, so think of the bullies who steal the kids' glasses, right?
The tall bullies, and then they yank off the kids' glasses, some little kids' glasses, and then they hold it up And he can't get to them, right?
So he has a need that they are not fulfilling, right?
The bullies do that because it gives them a feeling of power, a feeling of control, and a sadistic pleasure in humiliation, right?
Right. And we say, well, that's not the same because the parents aren't taking the glasses from the child.
But that's not true. The parents are taking the glasses from the child.
Why were we responsible for making sure that Isabella was happy in the car?
because we put her in the car.
Right?
Everything parents do is hanging glasses over a kid who's grasping for them.
Because we control their entire environment.
We put her in the car.
She didn't ask to be put in the car.
She didn't chose to be put in the car.
She didn't chose to have us as parents.
We control her entire environment.
And so if she's not happy, it's our responsibility.
So if you put a kid in a car...
And drive for an hour and a half, and halfway through the kid gets too hot, or uncomfortable, or bored, or gassy, or poopy, or whatever, and is unhappy, of course you've got to fix it as a parent, because you put the kid in the car.
You had the kid, you put the kid in the car, and you made the decision to go to Niagara.
Kid didn't make it. Isabella didn't make those decisions.
So it's our responsibility.
And if we put her in a situation where she is crying...
And we don't comfort her, that is identical to yanking the glasses off a kid and dangling them over the kid while he's crying and screaming and reaching and falling, right?
It's sadism and power and control and humiliation.
Right.
To not fulfill a child's legitimate needs is cruel.
And a child has both passive and proactive needs, right?
And the proactive needs are the needs for curiosity and engagement and a goddamn sense that the child is a source of intense pleasure for the parents because that's the only security the child can ever have in this world is the feeling That he is a source of pleasure to his parents.
There's only one thing that I care about, fundamentally, in my days with Isabella, and that is, does she get that I completely enjoy her company?
That I think she is the coolest, most amazing, most fascinating kid this planet has ever produced, right?
That's all I really care about.
Because if she understands that, then she will feel security.
She will feel intimacy. She will feel the joy in her own existence because I feel the joy in her existence.
And she is going to reach for herself through my eyes, right?
She is going to find out who she is through my perceptions of her and Christina's perceptions of her and other people's.
But primarily it's going to come from Christina and myself.
Yeah. It's just hitting me right now how...
I'm just having the hardest time connecting everything you're saying to my child self and my past.
You're really hating me now just how much you have to do to really get this emotionally that this comes from.
Everything that's happening right now is coming from my past because you're saying all these things and I totally get the love and the curiosity and everything that I experience.
See that you have with Isabella, but I guess...
I guess I'm just still not seeing that I didn't get that.
I know I didn't get it from...
I just get it all intellectually, of course, but I just...
Emotionally, I guess it just hasn't hit me yet, and...
Well, that's because it's a gap, right?
It's a gap. Yeah, it's a gap.
I'm just having an association fest here when you're talking about all those things, and just...
I kept thinking about, like, this just isn't connecting emotionally to my past, and I'm...
Wondering why not, you know?
Well, because your past is an absence, right?
Big absence. Right?
I mean, in a sense, they didn't even care enough about you to hit you.
Right? And to have a child and to not meet that child's emotional and physical needs is exactly the same, though obviously much, much worse, than going to a pet store, buying a hamster, and slowly starving it to death.
I've never understood the goddamn parents who don't want to do whatever it takes to meet their children's needs.
What the fuck have children at all then?
I don't understand it.
Like, if you don't want to feed a dog, don't buy a dog.
But why go out and buy a dog and then don't feed it?
I mean, the only thing that I can understand is that people want to have power, control, and sadistic abuse or withdrawal.
Right? So they're buying the dog in order to starve the dog because that's what they're buying is the starving of the dog.
They're getting the dog in order to starve the dog, and I cannot understand why people have children and then mistreat them, because it's very easy to not have children.
I mean, did you feel like a source of pleasure to your parents?
Did you feel that they took delight in who you were as a human being?
No. Right.
So how fucked up is that?
Pretty messed up.
Why did they have you?
If they didn't like you.
If you were a burden, why did they have you?
If you were a burden, why did they have you?
That's a good question. It's like somebody wins the lottery and then keeps showing up to a job that they hate.
Why? Why did they have you?
What were they trying to achieve by having children?
And you're the second, so they weren't blind to what they were getting into.
Why did they have children?
The third for my dad. I'm sorry?
The third. Okay, so, why did they have children?
I wonder if they know the answer to that question.
You know the answer to that question.
Yeah, I do. Why did they have children?
Out of that question? Yeah.
When you have somebody that's completely dependent on you, I was kind of forced to love them, you know, like I had no choice but to...
submit every everything they needed me for wasn't love out of virtue that I had for them - Thank you.
You're talking about you.
I'm not talking about them. What's the question?
Why did they have children?
Why did they have you? Why did they go for number three?
I'm having trouble answering that question.
But you know the answer. It's not coming to me.
Alright. Well, I'm not going to tell you because you can listen to this and you'll get it.
I'm sure I will. This is definitely going to be worth a re-listen.
How's the conversation been for you?
I'm just really, I'm feeling really sad and I'm just like knowing that I'm totally not getting a lot of things that would be really helpful to get, you know?
Well, dude, dude, it's been 80 minutes and you started with, I mysteriously was passive.
So, Lowe, give yourself credit, right?
You're like 90% up the mountain and you put yourself in a cannon, right?
I mean... That's my middle name, actually.
A cannon. A cannon?
Really? Yeah. Yeah.
Fantastic. I should really be trebuchet.
But so you've got a huge amount out of this.
You have gotten a huge amount out of this conversation.
I mean, if you look at where you started to where you are now, right?
Yeah, definitely. Don't keep looking up the mountain and saying, well, there's still 10% to go.
How come I didn't get there? Look at the 90% you've climbed, right?
That's the temptation to do it the other way around.
Yeah, it is a temptation, of course.
But, you know... I'm sure a crack is a temptation too, but we try to resist, right?
Right. So you've come a huge, huge distance in a very, very short amount of time, which I think is fantastic.
Yeah. I'm wondering how you're feeling right now, because I know I've been feeling dissociated since towards the end of the conversation, and I can't imagine this has been easy for you to talk about, because this is not a fun thing for you to talk about.
No, this is great.
No, I feel fantastic.
I mean, I feel great sympathy and empathy.
I really do. I wish I could give you a big bear hug.
I feel great sympathy and empathy because you have one of the most difficult histories to unravel.
Because I'm saying there's a city, and you look out there and you say, no, there's just sand dunes.
And I say, no, there's a city.
And you say, no, there's just sand dunes.
This guy nuts, right? Yeah.
So it's harsh. You can't match what you can't see, right?
Phil's definitely been telling me that.
He thinks I've had the hardest childhood to sift out.
Dissociation, separateness, withdrawal, third-party verbal abuse, that's all really, really hard to unravel.
It really is. And that's not just my opinion.
For instance, verbal abuse has deeper and longer-lasting damage than physical abuse.
That's a fact, right?
That's well-established psychologically.
So it's really, really tough.
But I'll tell you why I do these calls, right?
And why I'm pleased and excited is that I love seeing how brilliant everyone is.
I just think it's fantastic.
For me, it's like the most amazing brain fireworks every day.
So I'm thrilled with seeing the degree to which you stare down some of these devils.
I mean, I think that's fantastic, right?
Because from where you started to where you came is a massive...
I was just talking about this for someone last night about the conversation I just posted with someone else who was up at the barbecue, Jason, about ambition and so on.
Look, how old are you?
21. You're 21.
Fuck, that's great. I mean, that's great.
This is just the right time.
The right time. To do it any earlier would have been stupid.
To do it any later... If you have the opportunity to do it sooner, it would have been to miss the boat, or at least delay.
So I think it's fantastic.
I feel incredibly honored, obviously, at the trust that people give me by opening up their hearts and their histories in this way.
I feel unbelievably honored by the trust that you give me, and I try to always do my best to honor and respect the trust that you give me.
But... I think the thing to me that is most exciting is twofold.
One is that who really wants to talk about sports and the weather when there's this incredible, exciting human engineering, Krakatoa, mind, heart, body, and soul explosion that you can be doing in the time, less than the time that it takes to watch a crappy movie, right?
Yeah. I mean, that's important, right?
This is the important stuff.
And the second thing, of course, is that I think that you could have...
Been stuck, like I was, figuring this shit out in your mid-30s, right?
And isn't it better to have a jumpstart, right?
Everything that I do is around, here's a shortcut.
Don't take the route I did.
You don't have to, right? Here's a shortcut.
Because this is 90 minutes out of my day, which is not out of my day.
This is what I do, right?
But it is a conversation that has the potential to start you down the path of shaving years, if not a lifetime off, Dissociation and aggression.
And withdrawal. So I am honored.
I am thrilled. I like a challenging conversation, right?
One of the reasons that I stopped, I was resisting doing some of the family stuff for a while, is that the conversations weren't.
But this was a very challenging conversation.
I like that. I mean, I'm the kind of guy who really likes a challenge, right?
Right. So, no, I appreciate the work that you did.
I appreciate the honesty that you brought to it.
Even in your ovations, there was great, in your lack of vibration, there was great honesty.
So, no, I feel this has been very productive.
I'm sweating. I've got such a workout.
I'm sweating, too. I do want to thank you, like, big time, because I've been doing some therapy sessions, like, every two weeks, and, like, I knew I wasn't getting to what I needed to get at, and I definitely knew that you'd shine a huge light on whatever's going on with me, and I really do appreciate that you did take this time out of your day.
If I haven't been sounding appreciative throughout the conversation, I really am feeling that right now.
It means so much to me and to my friends who I'm living with.
I know that means a lot to them, too.
Well, first of all, you're absolutely welcome.
This is what I do. This is not time out of my day.
This is not an interruption. This is my day.
So I appreciate that.
And obviously, I really appreciate the honesty and the openness of the call.
And I know that just glancing at the comments that people have been putting in, that other people absolutely feel the same way.
So thank you so much.
And you'll keep me posted about what else you come up with?
Definitely. I'll definitely keep you posted.
All right. And yeah, so thanks so much and I appreciate it and let me know what happens.
You got it. Thanks, Steph.
Take care. And say hi to everyone for me.
I won't be there Friday night, but maybe we can get together on Saturday night.
I look forward to it. I really do.
All right. Thanks, man. Take care.
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