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July 12, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:20:38
1950 Social Anxiety - A Listener Convo

Some of the philosophical roots of social anxiety examined life wh a listener.

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Alright, so my friend, how can I be of utility?
Well, I get very anxious around people in general and I wanted to Talk to you about that and it's an experience I've been having for a very long time.
I would say since like the sixth grade I really started noticing it and it's kind of the centerpiece of a lot of my self-work and self-reflection is trying to understand why I just get so extremely anxious Talking about my thoughts and feelings with pretty much, well, with everyone.
Right, right.
All right, and...
I think the first thing that comes to my mind is precision is the key.
Precision is the key. And so a man says, I'm afraid of falling.
It's not quite true.
He's afraid of splatting, right?
Right. And I think that's – so in terms of anxiety, it's really, really important to be precise.
You're not afraid of people.
Right. Right. Like the man who's falling is not afraid of falling.
The man is not afraid of snakes.
He's afraid of being bitten, right?
Right, right. I mean, I'm not a big fan of the spiders.
My daughter is. And so I'm learning to let them walk on my hand.
You know, the idea of these invenom fangs going into my jugular is beginning to diminish because they're pretty small, I guess, and fairly cute.
But I'm not afraid of spiders.
I'm afraid of spiders. And so I think it's important to be really precise about What it is that you're scared of?
Because if you say, well, I'm scared of people, then it's diffusing it to the point where you really can't do much about it except go live in the woods, which means that the fear has won in a very non-specific way, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, and I really don't want to do that.
I really would like to feel much more open and comfortable sharing myself with people.
Well, I would be annoying and say that that's not a good goal to have.
So, let's say that you're surrounded by a bunch of sharks.
Your goal is not to become more comfortable with the sharks, right?
Right, right. I want to become more comfortable putting my hand inside the mouth of an alligator.
Well, you don't actually want to become more...
In fact, you want to stay distinctly uncomfortable with that idea.
So again, anxiety that is diffuse is in my...
This is all just my opinion, right?
But it's very...
It's clouded and it's nonspecific.
And I am going to argue...
Once I start listening, shortly after I start listening, I'm going to argue that the reason that it's generalized is because the specific is too painful.
The reason that we generalize anxiety is because the specific is too painful.
And it's not even in fact too painful for us.
It's too painful for specific others.
So I'll make that case.
But tell me a little bit more about an incident or something which sort of crystallizes this issue for you.
Sure. Well, just to go back to your first point about it being not really correct to say that I'm scared of people.
For me, the scenario that plays out in my mind is...
I think I'm afraid of being humiliated.
And it always feels like humiliation is eminent.
And that if I share what's on my mind, my thoughts and feelings...
On sort of a subconscious level, which I would challenge on a more conscious level, I see the other person attacking me personally for what I say.
I could be talking about just a preference of mine, like a movie I like, or music I like, or I could be putting forth an argument of truth, but what I really What I seem to expect and what seems to get me quite anxious is that I guess I feel like it's a real possibility or even probability that the other person is going to get angry and attack me verbally.
You know, and personally, so even if it's an argument of truth, it's not like...
I'm not scared of other people challenging my logic, but it seems like that's not what I'm scared of.
What I'm scared of is that I'm going to be attacked personally, just to put a little bit more context to...
And that's more specific, and I'm going to urge you to go to another level of specificity.
So you're not afraid of people, you're afraid of attack, right?
Yeah. So you're not afraid of falling, you're afraid of hitting.
You're not afraid of sharks, you're afraid of being bitten.
But I would go one step further, which is, I don't know, let's just take a scenario.
So you're going to go, you want to go buy a dog from a pet store, right?
And there's two dogs, you know, and one is friendly and happy and wags his tail and He jumps up and down and appears enthusiastic and his coat is shiny and his eyes are bright and his teeth are, I don't know, dog's teeth are always yellow, but they look nice, right? And it looks like a happy dog.
And next to him is some mangy dog that doesn't blink and walks in that really stiff gate and looks sort of like Cujo on a bad day and growls and there's little flecks of foam dropping from his mouth.
Well, you are unsettled by the second dog, but you're not particularly frightened of the second dog because you're just not going to buy him, right?
Right. Yeah, that makes sense.
So, you are in a situation where the dangerous dog...
Can't do much to you.
I mean he can glare at you from behind the glass but that's not going to keep you up at night, right?
Right, right. So that's a way of saying it's not attack from other people that is even the most fundamentally alarming thing.
I'll make the case. I mean I could be completely full of shit but I'll make the case.
You can tell me if I'm wrong. It's the feeling.
I think the deepest anxiety comes from feeling that something that is terrible is also inescapable.
Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, especially with the dog metaphor.
I mean, since I'm an adult, if somebody doesn't treat me well, I can just not spend any time with them, so I don't necessarily have to be very frightened of Of irrational people.
Well, yeah. I mean, I think it's good to be frightened of them in the same way it's good to be frightened of the mangy, rabid, glaring dog.
That fear is good, right?
That fear is healthy.
But it's not the same as chronic anxiety.
Chronic anxiety, to me, can only come from a situation where attacks were random, vicious, and inescapable over a long period of time.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the purpose of the fight or flight mechanism is to alert us to danger so that we can fight or flight, so we can do something about it, right?
Right, right. But animals, I believe, seem to get the most traumatized, and we are just another mammal, they get the most traumatized by random, terrible, and inescapable punishments.
Right. Right. Yeah, and I suspect this anxiety goes back to my relationship with my parents.
It's kind of challenging in some ways to think of specific events in my childhood, though.
It's like I have this feeling that that actually was something I experienced because, well, in a general way, I... I feel like I really understand...
I really understand...
Well, I don't know.
I'm starting to fog, but...
Well, for example, if I can just describe my parents a little bit, maybe that'll help me get there.
My mom is a very kind of tense, nervous...
And so I feel like she's always trying to pick on me to deal with her own kind of insecurities.
So, for example, I remember pretty young becoming self-conscious of the kind of music that I was listening to because I remember my mom would would and she'd hear me listening to the radio and she would make some comment about the music being trashy or being stupid or and and so I would you know I started to kind of self-censor whenever I would hear her Come towards,
you know, wherever I was at, I would like turn the music down because I didn't want, you know, I didn't want to hear her critical remarks of music that I like listening to.
And, you know, I think that was like an example of something was irritating her, but rather than being able to say...
I mean, I don't know how young she could have started doing this with me, but I think at the age I remember her criticizing music I was listening to on the radio, she could have talked to me a little bit about how she was feeling irritation, or maybe she should have been talking to a therapist, not me, but...
Okay, so why, I'm sorry to interrupt, but why do you think your mom didn't like your music?
What was it about it?
Well, I think the example I can remember...
No, no, sorry. The example that I can remember, it was a radio station where the DJs would tell jokes where maybe there was some raunchy humor or something I thought was funny, even at that age.
And I... I know that she didn't like that, but I feel like, and I can't remember her criticism against my music, but I feel like, well I know that even if I was listening to music I would turn it down, but I can't remember exactly what her criticism was.
Yeah, I'm really not sure.
Well, and that's not exactly what I asked.
I didn't ask what her criticism was.
I asked her what you thought bothered her about your music.
I'm not really sure.
I mean, the thought I had was that it wasn't the kind of music she liked to listen to.
She liked to listen to country, and I enjoyed listening to pop and rock and roll.
But yeah, I'm not really sure.
I think maybe I'm not really...
Maybe I don't really understand.
Give me an example of some of the bands that you were into, about the songs.
Because, I mean, rock and roll is a pretty broad genre, right?
Oh, yeah. Yeah, totally.
The age I'm thinking of, Ace of Base comes to mind.
This was, like, early 90s.
Right. Sorry, I'm just...
So it's not exactly death metal, not Satan.
Yeah, yeah. You know, this is, like, it's a beautiful life and the sign and all that she wants.
And, right, so this is serious pop, right?
I like them. Actually, they're a pretty good band, but...
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wish I could remember more.
And the reason I just want to get this off my chest, it's nothing to do with you, but just to clear my own thinking, I remember an incident when I was about 15 maybe, maybe 15.
We had a bunch of friends that we'd hang out together, sometimes we'd play Dungeons and Dragons and stuff, and one of them was a really talented artist.
He's actually since become an artist, and he used to do these great and funny cartoons.
And it was well known that I was, at this time in my life, for reasons that are pretty obvious to anyone who's a long-time listener, that I was completely immersed in the album The Wall by Pink Floyd, particularly Side 3, but anyway.
So he drew some cartoon of us playing Dungeons& Dragons from a record player in the background.
Came the lyrics for the song, Mother, by, I guess, by Roger Waters, by Pink Floyd.
And I think I even remember the lyrics that were coming out.
It was something like, Mama's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mama's gonna put all of her fears into you.
It was something like that, right? And my mom found this cartoon.
You know, in hindsight, of course, not entirely accidental and got really, really upset.
And we had to... My brother and I had to calm her down by bringing her the album and saying, no, this is just an album.
This is just lyrics from an album.
It's not what Steph is saying.
It's just lyrics from an album that he finds really compelling.
I don't know what the difference... That he finds really compelling.
It's sort of weird that that was our sort of answer to it.
I think why this memory stuck with me is that everybody knew...
That I was trying to, not trying to communicate something, but something was being communicated by my significant and repetitive interest in listening to this album.
And anyway, that just sort of popped into my head because, you know, my mom was really into like this really treacly elevator music like the Ray Conniff singers and all this kind of stuff.
And, yeah, she had some issues with my musical taste.
Not just that, but I like music with a bit more meat and grind to it, so to speak.
And, yeah, it really bothered her.
Music, I think, is a powerful thing, I think, in families because it does define a lot.
Not just personal taste, but it's like sense of life, particularly being open to new kinds of music or trying out different kinds of genres or if there's a kind of sophistication about exploring the amazing world and the almost infinite world of music and being surprised sometimes.
I'm constantly surprised by songs that I like, which I shouldn't like by sort of many rational definitions and...
So I just sort of wanted to put that out there, because that's why I was sort of asking what kind of music, and Ace of Pace, of course, it'd be hard to find that to be at all offensive, so I just wanted to sort of clarify that.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so now her musical taste, was she...
So you said she listened to country, was that...
Yeah. Was that like two kinds of music, country and western?
Is that sort of the...
Was there much mixing it up of genres or did she mostly stay with the same kind of thing?
Mostly with the same kind of thing and, you know, I would say more of kind of popular country, not more like traditional bluegrass or anything like that, so...
Right, so not old school, but sort of modern country, right?
Yeah, Shania Twain.
That kind of stuff. Clint Black, yeah.
Right, right. Yeah, I don't know.
That's interesting. Maybe the pop music I was listening to was reflective of a younger generation or something.
Maybe there were messages in there she didn't like.
I don't know. I haven't really thought about that before.
Well, it's the first thing that came up, and I, you know, at the point of hopefully not sounding completely repetitive, I think it's worth exploring.
I think it's worth having a look at.
I think there's something important about that.
There's no question my daughter is going to get into music that I'm going to have some tough time with.
And there are certain kinds of music that I have some tough time with.
I was stuck in a tent when I was a gold panner.
I was stuck in a tent... With a guy, the only radio station we could get was some country radio station bouncing off the Northern Lights.
And I distinctly remember the show starting off on a long weekend with, now we're going to count down the top 800 country songs of all time.
I'm like, sweet mother of God, this is going to be a long, long weekend.
Although I did find some of them pretty funny.
There's... I don't know, was it She Got the Goldmine and I Got the Shaft for a song about divorce?
My favorite one was, get your tongue out of my mouth, I'm kissing you, goodbye.
So I had a bit of trouble with country, although I do recognize it's quite witty at times.
And I've had some problems with hardcore rap just because it's alarming and I feel like my watch always goes missing.
But so...
But there are differences and this is in families, right?
The challenge is not where you agree.
The challenge in any relationship is where you disagree.
You don't need to negotiate where you agree, right?
So if you and your girlfriend are big Woody Allen films and a new Woody Allen film comes out, it's like, yay, let's go to the Woody Allen.
There's no negotiation there, right?
Yeah, right, right.
And so in families in particular, differences in taste or preference, these are all I think fertile grounds for exploring difference.
And one of the things I hope is that my daughter is going to open me up to new kinds of music in the future.
It's a cheap and easy way to get some in-house recommendations.
Certainly listeners at FDR have turned me on to some great new stuff.
And Lord knows I could use it because it's been a long time since I've had the chance or really the time or leisure to explore new kinds of music.
So in this question of I like country and you like pop, UPB would say...
That if she gets to, quote, put down your music, then she shouldn't have any problem if you put down country, right?
Yeah. And?
Well, that definitely wouldn't go over.
I'm trying to think if there was a time when I did make a comment to her about About country music and the negative, but...
I can't really...
Nothing comes to mind.
But I can say that with my mom there, that's...
Negotiating with hers is just impossible.
What have I said? I don't ever remember negotiating with her.
She, uh... Just because you're not very good at it?
No, I'm just kidding. No, she gets angry.
She just gets angry really, really quick.
Should we try a roleplay on that?
Because I just want to get a sense of what that looks like.
Yeah, I'll try.
Okay, so, Mom, I'll just be you.
So, Mom, I don't really like it.
When you kind of dismiss or seem to be down about my music, and I just kind of wanted to know what you're experiencing when that happens.
It kind of bothers me. Obviously, my music bothers you.
I don't want to give up something that I like just because it bothers you.
I don't think that's a good life lesson, but I want to sort of understand what it is that bothers you about.
Your music doesn't bother me.
Yeah, whatever you want to listen to is fine.
Well, there have been a number of examples where you've made comments or made negative or disparaging comments about what it is that I'm listening to.
And that's, you know, this is an area of, if this is an area of disagreement, then I'd just like to sort of figure out what's going on so we can avoid, well, not avoid, but sort of resolve whatever difference there may be.
I don't think I ever got this far with her.
Well, if you did, what would she say?
There's a reason why you didn't, right?
Because you know what she would say next, right?
Yeah. Like would she just continue to deny that they did a problem?
I think she would deny that problem.
She would be like...
Yeah, she would say something like...
You know, I don't know what you mean.
I don't have a problem with your music.
Oh, great. Well, then maybe what we can do is because, you know, I've sort of grown up listening to your music at The Country and Western, which, you know, some of which I like.
I'd like maybe if we could spend a bit of time, we could sit down and listen to a couple of songs that I really like and you could let me know what you thought of them.
And I think that would be, you know, because if you don't have a problem with it, I feel like I'd like to share this with you because it's very enjoyable for me.
I don't really want to do that.
You know, that's your music.
That's not the music that I like to listen to.
Right, but I think that if you sort of get a little bit of exposure to it and learn at least what I like about it, I'm not saying you will like it, but there's a greater chance if you're appreciating it than if you don't.
I'd like to share it with you. I mean, you're my mom and this is the music that I like and I've certainly had some exposure to the music that you like and I'd like to share this source of pleasure with you.
I don't think I'll appreciate your music.
It's just not what I like to listen to.
Well, I understand that, but you don't listen to it, right?
So what I'm saying is that it might be something fun for us to do.
Maybe you grab a couple of songs of yours that I haven't heard or haven't heard for a long time and tell me what you like about them.
I'll play a couple of songs of mine, tell you what I really like about them.
I think it could be kind of fun if we get to learn a little bit about each other, a little bit about each other's musical tastes.
Don't you think that might be fun?
I think...
I feel like she would have a hard time turning down that, but...
Or I guess maybe I feel like I would.
I mean, I guess I feel like...
Well, the other thing I might say...
It's hard to say. She would be squirming.
And the other thing that I might say, if that was a conversation I was having, is that first you said that you didn't have a problem with my music, and then you said that you didn't like it.
Right, right. Yeah.
And what would she say to that?
She probably would say that, yeah, she doesn't really like it.
She would say, it's just not what I like to listen to.
And what is it that you don't like about it?
I'm not sure.
I mean, this is, sorry, this is Kyle now.
Yeah, I'm not sure what she would...
So, is it my understanding that you've not had these kinds of...
Because this is not a confrontational conversation.
This is not picking a fight.
It's like I'm just genuinely trying to get a sense of what it's like to interact with your mom.
And it seems like, at least my experience isn't...
God, don't let me tell you a thing about your experience.
But my experience is that it's very surface-y.
Yeah, definitely, I would agree.
That is the relationship that I have with her.
I mean, only once or twice Well, that's – I mean what you're talking about right now is not even a deep topic, a very personal, vulnerable topic.
Well, sorry.
It is – see, this is – I would disagree.
I think it is a pretty deep topic because what it is is saying I have tastes that are different than yours.
Yeah. But they still may have as much value and you might actually appreciate being led into my – Taste center, so to speak, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
It's a love test.
It's not like a test like you're trying to trick her or something.
But it's like a love test.
It's like, am I worth it as a human being for you to open your mind to what it is that I like?
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I mean, I think if you really love someone, you would just be interested.
I mean, yeah. You wouldn't have to be coerced.
Not that what you're describing is coercion, but, you know.
You wouldn't have to be cajoled, I think is what you're trying to think of, right?
Yeah, you just want to.
And that's why I think it's important, and that's why I think these details are really important.
You know, a lot of times we're looking for big things in families, big revelations or big problems, but to me it's a lot of the little tiny things.
Yeah. It's a lot of the – and I'll just give you a stupid example that comes to my mind, which is – Oh boy, back in the day, this is how far back in the day it goes.
And it's music related, so I think it fits with the theme.
I used to really like that, among other songs that I liked, it doesn't sound totally gay.
I used to really like that little piano box.
Music Box Dancer is the little piano piece.
It's a really pretty piece of, it's a really peppy piece of piano music.
Anyway, so I didn't have a recording of it.
And this is how ancient this was.
The way that I used to get recordings of things was I had a little tape deck recorder that you pushed a button and it would record whatever was going on in the room.
And so I would – if I heard something on the radio that I liked, I would record it off the speakers.
I mean that's how primitive it was back then to kind of get your own – this was Napster back in the day.
No, I did that a lot too as a kid.
Yeah, you wait for it to come on the radio and you push record and that's your P2P, right?
Yeah. Speaker to microphone, S to M. Anyway.
And I was...
So this music block dancer came on, I don't know, I was like 14 or 13 or 14.
And I sort of...
It was in the morning and I kind of jumped out of bed and I grabbed my tape deck and I held it up to the speaker.
And my brother kept asking me annoying questions.
And I said to him, like, I'm...
I'm trying to record the song and I didn't want to say it too loud.
And he pretended he couldn't hear me and he said, what?
What? And he was just interfering with the recording because, of course, it picks up everything in the room and I never did get that recording of that music that I liked.
And you say, well, that's not a big thing.
That's just an annoying little thing.
No, that is a big thing.
That is a big indication of a personality type.
That is a big indication.
Of a personality type.
You know, somebody is, oh, this is something that Steph really wants, so I'm going to interrupt it.
Right. Right.
And put him in an impossible situation because Steph can't, you know, he can't stop what he's doing.
He can't sort of speak back to me because he's trying to record this.
So this is a big thing, right?
It's important to look at these little details and sort of keep unpacking them until you get to the core.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I mean, it's certainly what I think.
I mean, I certainly feel like it was a very chronic experience that divided me from my parents.
Sorry, what was the chronic experience?
Yeah, I didn't say, but I agree with you that it's like day-to-day things, you know, the little things that add up.
I mean, my experience with my mom, just contrasting with your example, I don't think it was quite as, I don't know if I want to go so far as to call that sadistic,
but what I mostly got was a lack of interest in things that I liked, I feel like, rather than There's much interruption of things that I liked, if that makes sense.
Like, they just wouldn't show an interest, and maybe if I went to them...
You know, wanting to share something.
They were busy or, you know, watching TV, cooking.
You know, they weren't really interested and I didn't feel like they were interested in the me and the things that I was interested in.
Right. Okay. Okay. So, A, I'm completely sorry to hear that.
I mean, I think that's deeply tragic.
And you would be shocked at how many people live those lives of quiet isolation, of desperate isolation really, of distracted isolation.
It's really, really sad and I don't think that there's enough earth in the universe to fill the hole in the heart that that creates.
That's my perspective on that.
So I just wanted to sort of give you some real sympathy for that because I think that's a real shame.
It's more than a real shame.
It's a biblical tragedy.
But why? Why were they not interested?
Because one of the words that my daughter has learned over the past few months is because, right?
Cause and effect, right? This happened because.
Why are we doing this? Because.
Why can we not do that? Because, right?
So she's learning the cause and effect of things.
And that starts at about, at least for my daughter, started around the age of two, maybe a little older.
In other words, that's how young the word because starts in people, right?
And so I can guarantee you that you have in your head A because.
My parents weren't interested because.
Yeah. So what's the because?
And it's almost certain to not be the real reason, right?
Not because you mistake anything but just because in childhood you are so constrained and so dependent upon your caregivers that everything that you make up for negative behavior is not the truth, right?
Yeah. Like everything that is printed – to take an extreme example, I'm not comparing a family to a dictatorship, but nothing that's printed in a dictatorship is true.
And nothing that's taught in public schools is true with the exception perhaps of two plus two equals four.
But so we're so dependent on our parents and so unable to act in a voluntary way in the environment that all of the things that we make up for negative behavior – I mean, they can't be because we're not in a free situation.
So, if your parents weren't interested in what you were – I'm not saying this is a complete and absolute they never were, but in general, if you feel that they weren't interested in what you were thinking and saying or experiencing or preferring, what was the because that you had as a child?
They're not interested because what?
Yeah. Well, the first thing that comes to mind are words like stupid and bad.
Things that I liked and things that I did were just not interesting and I guess they were the wrong things.
I was supposed to be interested in something else or I was supposed to be doing something else that That they would appreciate, you know?
What were the other things that you were supposed to be doing that would be more interesting?
I'm not sure.
I feel like I never figured it out because I don't think that there was really something But that was really a mission for me, I feel like, for a long time, and I'm sure I'm still living it on some level.
Kind of that there's something fundamentally wrong with me that I have to discover and change.
Right. Okay, so they're not interested because there's something wrong with you?
Well, I think because there's something wrong with me, it's like I'm not kind of what they want me to be.
Right, okay. So I think I understand that.
Sorry, I know it's so general.
No, no, no. I think I'm getting it.
So it's something like they're not interested in me because I don't have the right...
Hobbies or tastes or preferences or whatever, right?
I guess. It must have been the things that I liked.
It didn't seem like they really liked.
So it's like I couldn't share those things with them.
I just had to do them by myself.
But what were the things that they liked?
So if you'd be more into country music, then your mom would have been more interested in the music you were interested in?
Well, they didn't really have what I would call interest.
I mean, they liked to watch TV. I mean, a typical day in the house would be, like, my mom gets home at 4.30, and she's recorded soap operas during the day, and so she'll spend, like, the first hour watching them.
And she can't be bothered during that time.
If I went to go talk with her, she just would ignore me or get irritated and I don't want to talk right now.
And then when she was done with that, she'd make dinner.
And could you talk while she was making dinner?
Yeah. Well, I could talk, but I never felt like I had her attention, you know?
And so she wouldn't really...
I couldn't have a conversation, I guess.
I could talk at her, but there wasn't...
There wasn't listening.
She just didn't seem interested. And, you know, if I got responses, it would be very...
They would be very...
Uh-huh. Undetailed.
Yeah, like, uh-huh. Oh, that's...
Yeah, yeah, you know?
That's interesting. And I would feel, of course, like, she doesn't care, you know?
Right. And then, yeah...
And what were the dinners like?
I see your dad would come home or whatever, I assume, unless he was a night worker or whatever.
No, he would come home, there'd be dinner.
My dad, he talks very little.
So he would normally be pretty silent during dinner.
My mom would probably try to ask a couple questions about how...
This would be a little older, like how people today were, you know.
What did you learn in school today, kind of thing?
Yeah, and if you answer, I mean, it's meant to be a short answer.
Like, if it's anything longer than a short answer, then, you know.
And what's a short answer? Good.
Oh, so if it's more than one syllable or more than one word, that's like, man, he's just running on.
Yeah. Sorry, that's a completely unfair southern accent, and a pretty bad one too, but...
Right, everyone...
See, my daughter's really into Mater the car at the moment, so I've been doing bad southern accents all week.
Oh. No, it's alright.
I can appreciate it. Uh...
Okay, so there's not much talking during dinner.
Is the TV on during dinner, or is it off?
The TV's not normally on during dinner, and then there's a period of washing dishes after dinner.
Which is similar to the cooking thing?
Yeah, which is similar to the cooking thing. In terms of conversation, right?
My dad's home, so maybe my mom and dad talk a little bit during washing dishes.
About their day kind of thing?
Yeah. Yeah, their day or things they want to do that weekend, chores, that sort of stuff.
I mean, that's kind of what most of the weekends were, were chores.
And they do housework all weekend, basically, except for maybe...
Watching sports in the afternoon, you know, on TV, and then evenings were TV again, so they didn't really do much.
Hang on, sorry, before we get to the weekends, and I'm always fascinated by how people live.
I mean, I just, I really do find it completely fascinating.
Yeah. So, okay, so the dishes are done, your parents are sort of roughly caught up, and then what?
So it's what, like 7 o'clock, 6.30?
Yeah, it's probably 7 o'clock, so they're...
I mean, at this point, it's like maybe my dad has a little bit of work to do that he brought home.
Maybe my mom is going to do some ironing.
So it's short time. Yeah, it's short time again.
It's not like...
They wouldn't then turn to the kids and want to do something.
Now that you've been home from school for three hours, how are you?
Yeah, yeah.
And then after starting by eight, it would be like straight TV. And at that point, again, like if I... What do you mean?
So like, hang on, so like 7 to 8, it's Jaws or whatever.
8 o'clock, the TV comes on, and it's like Rockford Files, Matlock, Murder, She Wrote.
I don't know. I don't know what the hell.
Yeah. But is it like show after show?
Is it like we're going to watch this show and then not, or what?
It's like show after show until the nightly news into bed.
So like nightly news, like 11 to 11.30 kind of thing?
Yeah. Yeah. So, of course, I'm to bed earlier, you know, if I'm younger.
Right, right. Before that ever comes around.
But, yeah, so, I mean, they were just kind of, like, hooked into the tube all night, and I could either, like, sit there and watch the show, or I could go, you know, do something.
Which, if you're young, is not too gripping, right?
Because you know what the hell's going on, right?
Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah.
I watched a lot of TV, too, during those years, but...
There were times when I would have liked to have done other things, I'm sure a lot of times.
And I certainly don't live that way now.
I haven't had a TV in my house for six years, so it's not the lifestyle that I choose and prefer.
But that's what they did.
And I didn't feel like I was very much a part of that.
And in terms of your preferences about how your family spent its time, what was your relationship there?
So could you say, hey, how about we don't watch TV and we play a board game, or how about we don't watch TV and go for a walk, or how about whatever, right?
Well, I don't have a memory of doing that, though.
I'm sure I did at some point.
Why are you sure that you did?
Because I think I know how they would react.
Well, also, I think as a kid, I would have, before they...
Before I learned that it just wasn't even an option, I think I would have been curious about it because I wouldn't have been interested in them and sitting watching TV shows that probably when I was pretty young I didn't understand anyhow, so that's not what I wanted to do.
Well, even when you get older, it's not like the shows you would have chosen to watch probably.
Yeah, I don't want to do it all the time, not now after night, you know.
And was that pretty much the deal for the weekdays?
Yeah. Yeah.
Wow. I mean, pretty much my whole life, that's what they're still doing, more or less.
As far as I know. I mean, I've been out of the house for several years, but...
Yeah, yeah. No, I really...
Yeah, I have a bit of a problem with TV that way.
Just between you and I and whoever else ends up, whatever it may be.
Yeah. But, yeah, I really do have a...
Yeah, I have a problem with that. I mean it's such an arcolepsy device, right?
It's such a way of not having relationships.
And I mean, I do have a TV. I have a daughter and she likes a couple of shows.
And yeah, I like a couple of shows too, though I haven't really had much of a chance for shows or movies over the last couple of years.
But I'm not sort of like, oh my god, it's a demon box.
It should never have any. I mean, I think it's fine.
But I have a big problem with the degree to which...
The tube just obliterates lives—and I'm not saying this is true—of your family, I don't know for sure, but it really just looked back and you say, well, I digested a lot of mid-level entertainment, and that's my legacy, right?
I think it can be a real drug for people that are, you know, wanting to dissociate or, you know, are not very...
I mean, I think if you're kind of in touch with yourself, yeah, you like to watch some TV, but you also like a lot of other things and you like some real quality time with people, so it's, you know...
Yeah, or the TV can be sort of a shared experience that you talk about, right?
Sure, sure. So, you know, if Christina and I watch a particular show that's really interesting, we can say, wow, you know, that was really fascinating, and then this happened, and what do you think that meant, and how does this talk about the larger culture?
I mean, it can be a good springboard, in a sense, for some great conversations.
But yeah, of course, a lot of time, that's far from how it's used.
Anyway, sort of minor rant aside.
Okay, so you get to the weekends and you wake up on Saturdays and what goes on?
Probably, first thing I would do is go watch some cartoons, Saturday morning cartoons.
My parents are probably up already and reading the paper and then maybe making breakfast and maybe starting about 10 o'clock the chores, they start to move on to kind of like Daily chores, you know, just talking about it too, I just had the thought how they don't ever, I don't ever remember them kind of checking in with me or my sister.
I have a younger sister as well, you know, kind of like, what would you guys like to do or would you like to do anything, you know, or just, you know, if even not so direct, just kind of.
Coming and saying what we were doing, or whatever, you know?
Yeah, like, I mean, again, not to toot my own horn, but I mean, this is something that Isabella's now able to say.
And I say, well, what do you want to do this morning?
Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that?
Do you want to do the other day? So...
You know, like yesterday we went to the Play Center and then there's a little model train store across from there.
She likes to push the trains around while I sweat and hope that we don't buy half the store.
And so, yeah, I mean, I really want her to – I want to facilitate what she wants to do.
And sometimes we have to negotiate if she wants to do the same thing again.
Then I might, you know, be a little bored of going to the park for the 50th time.
So I'll suggest something else.
It was a back and forth. Right. But I think that's important.
I mean, that's part of my pleasure as a parent in the moment, but it's also a significant part of what I'm supposed to be doing as a parent, which is to help my child to develop preferences and negotiation skills.
Yeah, yeah. And to feel valued, of course, right?
Yeah, and just thinking about how I've spent a lot of my time since I left my parents' home during college is...
I kind of worked all the time, too.
I mean, with schoolwork, I would spend, you know, most all the weekends studying, and same thing with the evenings, and that's kind of what they were doing, you know?
It's like I didn't really ask myself what I wanted to do either on the weekends.
Well, yeah, I mean, how could you?
I mean, how could you have thought of that?
Because the absence of the question is itself kind of a pressure point, so to speak, right?
Because you can't sort of just wake up on your 10 and say, okay, now I'm going to start having preferences in this family.
I mean, you just can't any more than you can wake up suddenly speaking Gaelic.
Yeah. Yeah.
Right. Okay. Okay.
That makes sense. So there'll be sort of chores and then lunch and then what, Saturday afternoon?
What goes on there? Well, it's probably still kind of a mix of chores.
I mean, on the weekend, my dad would probably pretty much do chores mostly all day.
My mom might take a break.
We had a pool in the backyard.
I think of like in the summer, you know, she wanted to lay out and Sunbay, they're kind of like float around in the pool, you know, and then on a raft or something in the afternoon.
That might be like a leisure thing she would do.
And I also think of times when I would go out and approach her while she was in the pool, and there was so much just sort of very subtle, I think, communication that kept me from kind of asking some of the questions of her, like you were suggesting earlier, where there's just this almost kind of a scowl on the face as you approach, like, you know, you better not be thinking about Interrupting whatever it is I'm doing or asking me to do something else.
So the sense that I'm getting is that you're like an imposition.
Yeah, I think I could say that.
Not you, like, as an entity in the house, but you as an individual, you as a person with preferences that may not be the same as your parents, right?
Right, right, right.
Like, there might be some pressure for them to, yeah, negotiate a little bit if I was...
I mean, maybe if I was persistent.
I don't know. I mean, my approach with them...
Has been to just kind of stay out of their way.
You know, I don't really go to them with...
Sorry, that is a very non-natural thing for a child to experience, I believe.
I think that the idea that children are like, well, you know, I don't want to bother my parents.
I don't want to... To distract them or interfere with whatever they're doing is very – I think it's very non-natural.
What I mean by that is that that's something that needs to be conditioned by the parents.
That's not just something you come out of the womb with.
I mean children come out of the womb.
They call it the fourth trimester, the first sort of six to nine months of life because biologically we should still be in the damn womb.
It's just that biologically we couldn't because our heads would get too large to fit out the vagina, right?
So that fourth trimester, I mean, kids are welded to their babies, are welded to their parents.
Again, I won't generalize everything for my daughter, but she's certainly going through a phase of extreme attachment to me where I have to take her out of the car.
I have to wash her hair.
I have to brush her teeth. Everything has to be me, me, me.
And it'll switch back to my wife after a while.
But she very much is attached to us.
And we are who she wants to interact with.
She can maybe do five or ten minutes on her own.
And after that, it's like, you know, daddy come or mama come.
And or she'll say, I'm stuck.
And she needs to have us come and sort of pull her off whatever she's, quote, stuck to and so on.
And so I think that, again, this is my amateur knowledge, but I think that it's very non...
Natural for a child to feel that way.
I think that most children are sort of born with an intense attachment and enthusiasm for their parents.
It takes work to sort of push that back, so to speak.
Right. Yeah, I mean, this really resonates with my feelings of social anxiety, too, because my thoughts are around being an imposition on whoever I'm talking to.
You know, for example, I live with one other person, my housemate, Ben.
I mean, we've been open on the boards about it, so I don't feel uncomfortable saying his name, Benjamin.
I mean, he's working through this He's working through self-knowledge and stuff too and we try to have a very open relationship where we can talk about our feelings and talk about vulnerable stuff and we're trying to put these rational principles into action and I still feel a lot of anxiety speaking to him sometimes too and I notice especially when he comes home from work I really feel a lot of fear about overwhelming.
That's the word that I put to it.
For me to go to him and talk about what's on my mind or what I'm thinking or feeling is overwhelming him, bombarding him.
That's very interesting.
I think it's very interesting that you use that word, overwhelming.
Yeah. It reminds me of a line from a Reese Witherspoon film.
This is ridiculous, but it's what pops into my head.
I'll just share it and then we'll move on to something useful.
I think it's clueless.
Unless you're Silverstone, clueless.
And there's a bunch of shallow valley girls in the back of a car and one of them says, okay, so you can be like overwhelmed and you can be like underwhelmed.
Can you ever be just like whelmed?
And the other one says, I think you can in Europe.
Anyway, I just thought I'd mention that.
I think it's pretty funny. But the reason why I think that's interesting is that I think it can tell you something about – possibly something about your parents' mindset while they were not having time for you.
Yeah. Right?
Because if you are experiencing being boring or being inappropriate, but they are experiencing you coming in and wanting something as overwhelming, those are two, in a sense, very opposite perceptions, right?
So for you, you're turning the engine and the engine just doesn't turn, doesn't start, right?
But for them, the engine is going, you know, mad, like crazy sparks flying out, red hot engine casings, spitting out spark plugs, shaking, jumping, right?
So for you, it's like, damn, this engine, it's not even turning, what the hell's wrong?
And then it's like a space shuttle about to explode.
Those are two very opposite perceptions.
Yeah. That's true.
I think that I've held the belief, or at least consciously for a long time, that they were just not interested, which would be very different from them being very stimulated or whatever, in sort of a negative way by...
Okay, so we need to ask that question.
Sorry to interrupt. We need to ask that question just so we don't sort of waste too much time.
And sorry, I don't mean to say that you're wasting time, but I just want to make sure that we don't sort of do a two-hour conversation when we could compress it just because, I mean, it's sensitive to your time as well.
So what was going on for your parents when you would come and want something?
And want something doesn't mean like, you know, give me $100 worth of toys and a back rub, but interact with me, play with me, show some pleasure in my existence, show some desire for my company, show some interest in my thoughts, show some pleasure at the existence of a child of your loins in your house.
Yeah. I want to say that it was kind of agonizing and that they would, you know, like they'd be really uncomfortable, really anxious probably as well.
And then they would get angry.
You know, my mom would...
But angry why?
What comes before the anger?
I think angry at being uncomfortable...
But uncomfortable, why?
Why were they uncomfortable?
Sorry to be annoying. As usual, but this is a...
Well, I would...
I mean, I would say that they were uncomfortable because their needs weren't met as children, like their parents.
That's too abstract. Yeah, yeah.
And you're right, I'm sure, right?
But what is the feeling?
So your mom's In the pool or cooking and you want to say something, you know, something that happened to you, something that you thought maybe you had a really cool dream or whatever, right?
Or maybe something said something really interesting at school or you learned, whatever, right?
right?
So you're talking to her, you open your mouth and you talk to her and what, what is occurring for her in that moment?
I'm not really sure or I'm feeling or I'm blanking on it.
I mean, I would say she experienced it as an imposition, like it was an interruption of whatever it is she wanted to be doing.
But they're watching TV and floating in the pool and watching sports and cooking.
This is not like I'm about to solve the theory of relativity here, right?
Yeah. I don't know.
You're less important than a meal I've cooked 500 times before, which takes one half of 1% of my brain to complete.
Less important than some dumbass show on TV. Less important than some stupid sports game.
Less important than floating.
I mean, if there's anybody, if there's ever anybody who's not doing anything, they're floating in a pool on a sunny afternoon.
And there's nothing wrong with floating in a pool.
I think it's great. But you're not interrupting something there, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, maybe because I kind of really wanted to be kind of intimate with them and share my thoughts and feelings.
They never did that with me.
I don't think they wanted to do that.
Or it was painful to do that.
So, sorry, them sharing their feelings with you?
Yeah, I can think of other times.
I'm talking about you sharing your feelings with them, right?
So you come up and you say, Mom, I just, whatever, right?
I saw this cool thing or I had this cool thought or whatever, right?
Why is there a recoiling?
Why is there a signal for you to back off?
Why do you need to feel inconsequential?
What is the alternative?
So let's say, another way of asking the same question is, let's say that your mom had dug deep and summed up and sat down with you and looked you in the eye and said, look, you know what, I'm not the best listener most of the time, but I really, really want to listen to what's going on for you now.
I'm so sorry. Tell me what's on your mind.
What would that have cost her?
What would that have done to her?
What was she avoiding by not doing that?
Well, I mean, maybe that they kind of were not being good parents to me.
And that would have to come up if they were going to start listening to me.
Yeah, and I'm sorry. That was not the best example because that's kind of circular, right?
Because they're already doing that, right?
So the question is why did they start doing that, not what are the effects of it after 10 years so to speak?
I'm sorry. That was not a great example because I already said don't listen or whatever, right?
But why did it start out that way?
Because yeah, after 10 years for sure, but the question is, what were they avoiding by avoiding you?
Not you, right?
Obviously you're just a kid, right?
So it's not you.
What were they avoiding?
I would say they were avoiding their own feelings, maybe.
Maybe. Sure.
I mean, I feel like if they were going to pay attention to me, they also had to pay attention to themselves.
At least that's kind of what I experience as kind of like an empathy thing.
If you have it, you kind of have it universally.
Yeah, you have empathy for yourself first and then others second.
And if you don't have empathy for yourself, then it's tough to feel empathy for others, right?
Yeah. I'll tell you the image that popped into my head and you can tell me if it makes any sense at all.
I'm thinking about a dad who's broke.
And like not just like broke old school, like not broke like we can put it on credit card, but just broke.
Like 1930s broke kind of thing.
Grapes of Wrath broke. And his kids are going, he's going with his kids past the toy store and they see this toy in the window and they really, really want the toy.
And he's like, he's going to try and minimize their desire first off, right?
Ah, those things break in a week.
They're no good. I had one when I was a kid.
They're just, you know, you think they look great, but he's going to try and do something like that probably because he can't buy.
He's got no money, right?
Right. And then if they persist, he's going to get what?
He's going to get angry.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Why? Because he's humiliated.
Because he can't give his children what they deserve, what they need, what he owes them, so to speak.
Right.
As a parent, because he's got nothing.
Yeah, I think that makes sense.
Right? Nobody made your parents have kids, especially two, right?
Yeah. But if you have kids, then you owe them your attention.
You owe them your attention. You owe them your attention.
It's like you buy a dog, you don't have to feed the dog that's in the pet store.
You buy that dog and bring it home, you damn well owe it food now, right?
Yeah. Right?
And people who don't pay their debts...
Do so either because they're trying to exploit or whatever, and that's not the case with parents, I think.
But if they don't pay a legitimate debt, which is attention towards a child, it's because they've got no currency.
They've got nothing inside to give.
Now, they can't take ownership of that and deal with it because that would be – well, not they can't, but they won't or whatever, right?
And won't becomes can't all too quickly, right?
You know, won't run a marathon becomes can't run a marathon very quickly, right?
Yeah, it's a lot easier to deal with can't because then you don't have the choice.
Yeah, yeah, and of course, you know, our parents made choices back at the dawn of history long before we were around or certainly when we were very young, which we don't know about, so all we see is the can't, not the won't, right?
But if... Yeah, I have nothing to offer.
I have nothing to give.
I can't listen.
And I can't admit that.
So I just have to keep this kid at bay.
I can't give him the toy called me.
Because I've got no coin.
The father who won't buy his children the toy because he has no money will often in an extremity call them selfish and greedy and materialistic and try and intimate that we're rich as long as we have each other and you don't need these crappy toys and a lot of poorer parents are – they fall into this left-wing anti-materialism.
It's the commercials on TV that are causing all the problems in my family and so on, right?
Because they feel so fundamentally humiliated about not being able to give children what children legitimately deserve.
They make up a whole, almost like ideology.
And you can see a lot of this stuff floating around in terms of kids.
Kids are whiny. Kids are demanding.
Kids have tantrums.
They're relentless. They don't give up.
You can't negotiate with them.
You can't reason with them. Right, right?
Yeah, definitely. And that's all complete and total and insulting bullshit.
And the fact that we say this about children is not shocking to people until they realize that if we said this about any other minority, it would be completely shocking.
Oh, blacks, they're just – they're so greedy and materialistic and you can't reason with them.
They can't think. They just use violence or they aggress to get whatever they want and they don't – you can't control them unless you hit them.
People would just – you put that out about blacks and people would be like, oh my god, it's the most racist thing or Jews are the most racist thing you've ever heard.
You talk about kids this way and it's like, well, yeah, a lot of people will agree with you, right?
Yeah. And parents, like the parents, you know, this is another little rant, so pardon me for saying that I wanted to keep this short.
But parents also have this thing where, like, they're victims of their children.
Oh, they just, you know, they just run roughshod over me and they don't listen and I have to scream at them and I have to do this and they won't do that and blah blah.
Like, what are you talking, nobody makes you have kids?
You're not a victim here.
You chose to have kids.
You're choosing to keep them. And God help you, you're choosing not to read any books on parenting, right?
Or any decent books on parenting, right?
Yeah. Like, I just read you today.
70% of college-educated women spank their children.
90% of parents as a whole spank their children.
Every single, with the exception of a few fucking lunatic Christian parenting experts, spare the rod, spoil the child, assholes, Every child-raising expert that I've ever read or heard of is absolutely against spanking.
I don't think there's a greater divide between experts and laypeople in the world.
It's not like there's a big debate.
There's no debate.
There's more unanimity on anti-spanking than there is on evolution.
Then – more – never mind.
Right.
So, yeah, anybody who reads any parenting books or looks anything up on the web about spanking, of course, right?
They get all of this.
But still, people are like, eh, screw the experts, I'll hit my kid.
Or maybe they just avoid that information or whatever.
Yeah. And I think fundamentally the reason that the parents hit their children or ignore their children, which by the way is, in my view and not just my view, also abusive.
It's also abusive to bring a child into your house and to ignore it.
In the same way that it is abusive to an animal, let's say you get some greyhound into your house and you refuse to take it for a walk.
Is that not abusive to the animal?
Because greyhounds need their exercise and children need attention.
They need attention.
It is equal to food and water and medical attention.
To me, it is abusive to bring a child into this world and ignore that child and to make it clear to that child, whether consciously or not, that everything but that child is more important.
My TV show is more important.
My soap operas are more important.
My cooking is more important.
My lying around is more important.
My chores are more important.
That is abusive.
Yeah, and there never seemed to came a time when it was like me time.
Right, now we've got down the list and you're only 17, so it's you, you, you all the way, right?
Yeah. No, I was reading, I was reading actually about how, you know, this is not my, I'm not certain about this because it's not my field, but somebody was writing, and I can send you the link, that neglect can be as harmful as sexual abuse to the psychological development of the child.
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's had an incredible impact on my life.
I feel like it's defined in my life up to this point.
I'm trying to figure it out so I don't have to live with so much anxiety, but it's just dominated all my choices through my life.
When you're just terrified of being humiliated, it just really affects all the decisions you make.
Right. Right.
And I, you know, what do I know?
But my approach would be something like this, that I think that you really do need to figure out what was going on for your parents.
And if you can talk to them about this, I think that would be, as I've always said, I think, you know, just sit down and say, you know, I've got...
It's this experience of childhood where I'm feeling like I was an imposition, like you didn't really take a lot of pleasure in me and so on.
Just sit down and talk with them if you can about it and just try and figure out what was going on from their end because if you're carrying their burden, it will never ever stop.
If it's a dysfunction on their side that you're carrying, then it won't ever stop.
If, you know, to take that example of the dad with no money, if you're sort of like, well, you know, capitalism and materialism and selfishness and greed and blah, blah, blah, these are all fundamental human evils that blah, blah, blah, when it's just, well, this is all the bullshit your dad told you because he just didn't have the money to buy you what you wanted or the guts to tell you that he didn't have the money to buy you what you wanted.
If he created this whole story about why you shouldn't have these things when he didn't believe it himself but just needed to say something.
To avoid the truth, well, I think it's really, really...
So if you're carrying that burden, it'll never stop until you put the burden back where it belongs.
You are not a boring person.
You are not a boring person.
You were not a boring child.
No child is boring. Except maybe when they're sleeping.
Even then, they're fantastic and beautiful.
But children are not boring.
Children are incredibly fascinating and funny.
I'll just give you a tiny example.
I just point this out because my daughter is two and a half and I've been complaining because she wants to be carried everywhere.
She's a real lap baby. She's like 36 pounds or whatever, right?
So you try that on your hip for half the day and you end up looking like a question mark.
So, she's taken to imitating me in a very funny way.
So, I sometimes when I lift her up, I'm like, oh, baby gang, you're so heavy!
Right? Anyway, so I lifted her up the other day, coming back from the park, and she reared up her head.
She threw back her head, and in almost a perfect imitation of me, she said, ah, I'm too heavy!
Oh, I'm just too heavy!
Right? It's so funny.
I literally almost fell down laughing.
I just laughed until I – because it was such a note perfect imitation of me and she could do a fantastic impersonation of her mom, right?
So we do this joke where I say – because Isabella is going through a no phase, right?
So we say, Isabella says, no.
And she says no. And then Daddy says, yeah!
Because Daddy's a yes person, right?
And then Mama says, Isabella, what are you doing?
Because that's what Christina asks her all the time when she can't see her.
Isabella, what are you doing?
It's note perfect, her imitation of us.
It is incredible.
And it comes out of nowhere.
She has to practice this. And that is hilarious.
And she does things that...
Are so funny.
And they're not funny like, oh, aren't kids funny?
They say the funniest things, right?
Like genuinely funny.
A funny human being.
And surprising, because it comes out of nowhere.
Oh, Isabel, I'm just too heavy.
Oh, Dad, I'm too heavy.
Too funny. Two and a half years old is incredible.
And so you were not boring as a kid.
I don't imagine for a moment that my daughter is any more sparkling or effervescent than you were as a child, as a newborn, as a baby, as a toddler.
And so it wasn't you that wasn't interesting.
Unfortunately, it becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?
Because if enough people don't think you're interesting, hey, guess what your self-perception is, right?
Well, I don't want to impose because obviously I'm an imposition and I'm not really very interesting and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Yeah. But if you can figure out what was really going on for your parents – and you may not get a straight answer from them.
I don't know, right? But you've got to have the conversation if at all possible either way in my opinion.
But try and figure out what was going on for them.
Why did they experience you as an imposition?
Now, you'll either get – it may take a number of conversations.
It may take a while. It's really, really worth pursuing.
Yeah. Now you may not get a clear answer from them, but what you will get is all of your adult sensibilities breaking through what was forbidden for you as a child with all of the keen eyesight of a philosophically minded individual and a psychologically self-aware individual.
So even if you don't get an answer, you will see the defenses with infinitely clear eyesight in a sense than you had as a kid.
Well, not infinitely clear eyesight because kids are incredibly perceptive, but you will Because the costs of seeing your parents' defenses are much lower when you're an adult, you'll be able to process them much more clearly.
That's probably a better way of putting it.
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
I think that's some good advice.
I haven't talked to my parents in five months now.
I took a break from them.
I tried having some conversations, but I just was flooded with feelings too strongly, and I wanted to take a break.
I'm sorry about that.
I never want to tell anyone what to do with their family.
You can see them, of course, and not see them as you see fit.
But if it's not a final break, I would go for this one.
And look, I could be completely wrong.
What do I know? It could be something else completely.
But I'm just giving you my opinion if it's worth anything.
I would go and just try and figure out.
Because, yeah, if it's their issue, if it's their issue, then a burden will be lifted from you.
Because unconsciously or consciously, every dysfunctional person in the world tries to bury us in their shit.
And you've got to be a fucking ninja.
You've got to be like walking on walls and wires and dragon meets puffadder or whatever the hell these movies are called, right?
But you've got to be nimble.
You know, shields up and evasive maneuvers, Sulu, you've got to be nimble.
Because people are always trying to dump their shit on you.
If your parents had some shit that they had that made them emotionally unavailable to you, you need to see that as their stuff, as their issues.
That will be a burden lifted from you.
And my guess is that Most of people are just paying their shit forward, right?
So your parents' parents dumped stuff on them, then they dumped it on you.
And so people get pretty panicky when you attempt to hand their shit back, right?
And say, listen, I've had this shit back for long enough.
It's got your name on it.
You really need to hold this.
They really, really don't want to, right?
Yeah, definitely. But it doesn't matter whether they...
Are willing to take it back or not.
The only thing that matters is you get that it's not your name on the back.
It's not yours. It's not your burden.
Yeah. Right. Even if they really refuse it, it's still, you know, I'll be able to see and experience that as an adult.
Yeah. And the refusal is, you know, hey, you know, mom and dad, you kind of dumped a log on me.
I'd really appreciate it if you could lift this up.
And like, well, you know, that could put my back out.
And, you know, by the way, there's something on TV that I really want to catch up on.
And we got some chores to do. And they wander off.
And it's like... The log banishes because they take it with them either way.
As long as you see it clearly for what it is, as long as you see the interaction clearly for what it is, it's not up to other people whether we carry their burdens fundamentally.
That is up to us.
And you did deserve attention as a child and you did deserve empathy and listening and curiosity and fun and laughter and the TV set being turned off.
You did deserve all of that.
And your parents owed you that.
They owed you that like they owed you medical attention as a kid.
You don't have a choice.
You don't get to have a kid and say, well, I want to take him to the doctor.
There's not a choice that you have after you make a kid.
And neglect is not a choice after you have a kid.
And yeah, if you see that and where they're coming from, maybe, God knows, right?
Maybe there's some miracle that happens and it's a real breakthrough and you guys can start to have a more normalized relationship and start to deal with some of this stuff together collectively as a family.
Beautiful. Do I hold my breath?
Who knows, right? I mean, it seems to me these habits take a long time to turn around, but maybe it could be the start of a beneficial conversation.
But yeah, I would say if there's any possibility of sitting down with them...
And trying to sort some of this stuff out.
I know it's terrifying, but I'm telling you.
And talk to a therapist as well, as I always say.
But I really think that's the way to get this burden off you.
Yeah. Well, I'd be willing to do just about anything to gain some relief.
I mean, I think that I'm a pretty interesting person too, but I just get flooded with anxiety and I feel like I really don't get a chance to kind of be myself.
Right, right. Yeah, because I mean, if you feel like an imposition, you can't be yourself because all you're doing is monitoring the other person's supposedly fading level of interest and like, oh shit, you know, then you start to feel like someone who's going up to the person for the 12th time to borrow 500 bucks, right? Yeah.
Yeah, you can't be yourself in that situation.
So yeah, I would take that approach if that helps at all.
Yeah, thanks. I mean, that's been really helpful.
Yeah. Yeah, sorry, just before we go off, I mean, I'm a little rusty on listener calls because I haven't done too much lately, but how was that for you other than me blathering on about my own past?
I really...
I really enjoyed it. I think there was some really useful stuff in there.
There's a few things that you said that I really haven't thought too much about.
One was thinking about the little things that happened in my relationship with them.
Well, things I might be calling little, but actually were pretty big.
And then also thinking about my parents feeling humiliated.
That's not something I've really thought much about, but it seemed to resonate With me, it's certainly an experience that I have, so I feel like I can empathize with that.
It's hard because they're my parents.
I feel a lot of rage towards them.
I mean, that's kind of one of the most prominent feelings that comes up for me when I think about them nowadays.
But, you know, I think I can understand why humiliation could cause them to act in that way.
So, yeah, I feel like I got some good stuff out of this, and it'd be nice to listen to it again.
All right. All right. Well, I will obviously send it to you, and you can have a listen and just make a note of where your name came up in case we ever release it.
I can pull that out. And I'm glad it was useful, and I certainly wish you very the best.
And do let me know if you have a chance how it goes with your parents.
Sure. Thank you very much.
All right. Take care, man. Yeah, you too.
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