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March 31, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:59:40

2652 One Way Ticket to Oblivion - Sunday Call In Show March 30th, 2014

A couple struggling to express their emotions, the danger of not taking responsibility, criticism of the Estrogen Based Parasites show, a military veteran with two children almost drinks himself to death and asks for help.

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well.
	Stefan Molyneux and the Mike-ness.
	As it is, yea verily, the late March 2014.
	FDRURL.com forward slash donate to help out the show.
	It is...
	It is important.
	It is important for food, for shelter, and for the mystical, magical carpet ride known as enthusiasm and encouragement, which is a little bit of the food stuff that keeps us going.
	We've had, of course, some very nice comments recently.
	A guy just wrote, I've only just fairly recently started listening to Sven Molyneux on a I have to say, in my humble opinion, Stefan's broadcast, podcasts, uploaded to YouTube, videocast.
	Is videocast even a word?
	Is the most important show in terms of my own inner personal life that I ever came across, ever.
	And I'm 40-something now.
	I guess I'm going to have to break down and make a donation now.
	I like that, that the resistance to donating is like a mountain, and we are...
	The river carving a canyon, breaking down resistance as we go.
	It's nice that people don't say, I am enthusiastic to help out those who've helped me, or I'm looking forward to sharing some of my wealth with a show that's changed my life.
	It's like, fine, it's your anniversary, I guess I have to give you a gift.
	Well...
	I mean, we'll still take it because we have no pride, but it's interesting to see the way that people talk about it.
	But we've had some nice notes lately, right, Mike?
	A lot of nice notes, especially since the Colin show last week, which people either loved or hated, but more people seem to have really liked it, so...
	Well, I'm glad.
	I certainly had fun doing the show.
	That's all that matters to me!
	Did I have fun?
	Did people spark a conflagration of language within me and then stand back as I crack a toe at some metaphors all over the landscape?
	That's the key to me.
	But anyway.
	Alright, so should we move on to the first caller?
	We shall.
	Alright, up first today is a couple, Katrin and Ola.
	They wrote in and said, My wife and I are currently struggling with expressing anger, frustration, and sadness towards each other.
	She recently started working with reconnecting with her anger.
	Well, that remains to be seen.
	But we can certainly try.
	I'm going to assume that you're both on the line.
	Is that right?
	Hello.
	Yes.
	Hi, Steph.
	Hello.
	Well, thank you so much for calling in.
	What a great topic.
	What a common challenge that couples face.
	I mean, it's not like you're like, well, you know, we want to have a three-way with a mountain goat and we can't find a mountain goat willing.
	Can you help us?
	Okay, so that would be like...
	You and us as a couple, right?
	So that would be two couples that would have that problem.
	But this problem is very common.
	So I really appreciate you calling in and talking about it.
	So I guess you'd mentioned that Catherine had had a childhood in which she was not allowed to express anger.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And what happened if you did?
	That's a question to me, right?
	Yeah.
	I would be abandoned or neglected.
	I would be pushed away.
	My mother wouldn't talk to me, and I would be punished for it.
	So you had the kind of mother, unlike me, where her not talking to you was a punishment, right?
	For me, it was like, Mom's not talking to me.
	But no, I get it.
	Okay, so...
	And did your parents express anger towards you or was it something that was not allowed in the household as a whole?
	We had this interesting rule that my father was told that he as a kid already was a raging, choleric person, so he would usually get angry, scream a little, and then he would withdraw and go to another room or leave the conversation.
	I'm getting angry, I have to go now.
	My mother would get angry, would hire her voice, would then turn into, you have heard me so much, I'm now really, really sad.
	My brother, I have a two-year-old younger brother, and he would have at least daily tantrums where he would scream or destroy things, throw things.
	So, yeah, all versions.
	Now, so your mom would yell, your dad would rage and leave the room, and what would he do when he left the room?
	I have no idea.
	He would leave, withdraw, go to some other room.
	Right.
	Okay.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I didn't follow him as a kid.
	Right.
	I'm just wondering if you could hear him doing some Yosemite Sam impression in the other room or something like that.
	The older I got, the earlier he would withdraw.
	I only remember him raising his wife when I was very little.
	Later it would be very rare, and he would usually, when there was about to be a conflict, he would say, okay, I'm getting angry, and he would leave.
	So there would be no conflict resolution, there would be no discussion.
	So now I'm getting angry, and now he would leave.
	Which is a kind of rejection too, right?
	Right.
	I mean, the message then comes across from your father that my anger is so toxic and negative and horrible and dangerous that I have to leave because it's like setting fire to the house.
	Like I have to get out of the house and set fire to a bush instead so I don't burn down the inhabitants, right?
	Exactly.
	I mean, there is a very toxic view of anger.
	Which, as you say, he got from his parents who said, you know, you're just some crazy, as you said, choleric, which doesn't, for those who don't know their medieval humors, means angry, not has cholera.
	But so when he was a kid, his parents said, well, you're just some angry guy.
	You're an angry kid.
	So, you know, you have to leave the room when you get angry, right?
	Exactly.
	What I maybe could also mention is my brother has been, as a child, extremely angry, always.
	And he would always express it.
	And he would throw things at me, he would hit me, he would be angry and two years younger.
	If I would defend myself, my mother would aggress against me or would scream at me or I would be thrown into my room.
	My brother wasn't.
	I was the bad one.
	And if I did not defend myself, my father would be angry at me or would make fun of me or ridicule me or shame me.
	Like, why can't you even defend yourself?
	It was always like this double bind, loose-loose.
	If I defend myself, I'm being punished by the one.
	If I don't, I'm punished by the other.
	So I didn't.
	I usually didn't.
	And when he was very young, I felt I cannot hit a child back.
	I don't do that.
	Right.
	So your father would say, I've done such a good job processing and handling my anger that you should also do a good job processing and handling your brother's anger.
	Right.
	Right.
	Well, okay.
	So there's anger and then there's rage.
	Right?
	And these two things are opposites.
	Right.
	I mean, they may seem similar.
	Like, people think, well, I get really angry, and if I get more angry, then it turns into rage.
	But that's not true.
	And the analogy is, you don't say, well, I have sexual desire, and if I act on that sexual desire, it's lovemaking, if, you know, the other partner wants to have sex.
	But if I have more sexual desire, then it just turns into rape, right?
	I mean, that's not how it works.
	And more sexual desire is good.
	It doesn't turn something healthy into something destructive, if that makes any sense.
	And in the same way, people sort of think, well, I get angry, I get angrier.
	And then if I get more angry, it turns into rage.
	And I think this is not the case.
	Anger is a healthy emotion.
	Rage is a destructive emotion.
	In the same way that lovemaking is a healthy and positive thing, but rape is horrendously destructive.
	So I sort of want to point out that I wouldn't put the two...
	I don't know if you do, but it sounds like you put the two in the same category.
	I think you said it once so nicely, but I'm not sure if I'm mixing it up.
	I think you said rage is anger plus self-attack plus hopelessness or frustration, if I remember correctly.
	Well, yeah, I mean, it starts.
	It turns toxic.
	So you already gave an example of what transmogrifies anger into rage.
	And it's an impossible situation, right?
	You already said, well, I'm an impossible situation.
	If I defend myself, I get in trouble.
	If I don't defend myself, I get mocked, right?
	Right.
	And I mean, I'm in therapy and I'm working right now with exactly these things.
	So I have...
	I have both.
	I have a lot of rage, which is very, very early, raw rage from these times.
	And I have a lot of anger as well.
	And I'm right now trying to process it and I'm working in therapy with it and it's very raw.
	And what I found out is that I have certain triggers.
	One is shame, like when I feel someone is trying to shame me.
	One is when I feel condescended or someone is condescending me.
	And the other one is when someone is trying to overstep my boundaries.
	And when these things happen, I get extremely triggered.
	I get super angry.
	And I know how not to react, but it's new for me to...
	To react properly, healthy.
	And I feel I'm getting easily overwhelmed with anger, particularly when I perceive someone as being overstepping boundaries, for example.
	And then it's quite difficult for me to stay in self and to calm myself down.
	Well, okay, but sorry, just before we race ahead too far, I just want to sort of understand.
	So when you feel triggered...
	What that generally I would assume means is someone is acting in a way that's similar to how your parents acted.
	Exactly.
	Well, you want to be triggered.
	You want to be triggered by that, right?
	Right.
	But the problem which I have with that is I absolutely, absolutely want to be triggered.
	And I do absolutely want to be able to say, okay, this is the border.
	But I don't want to be...
	Overreacting to it.
	I want to be able to say, okay, well, I don't like that you do this.
	I would prefer you don't.
	Instead of burping out of fucking get away from me.
	I want to be able to be reasonable in this situation.
	And not be overwhelmed by anger or frustration about it.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, it makes sense.
	I'm not sure.
	It's like if I'm almost eaten by a lion...
	Then I have a very strong reaction to lions, right?
	Right.
	I mean, I'm not sure that I want to say, well, I don't want to have a strong reaction to lions.
	I want a strong reaction to lions, but one which does not...
	I mean, I don't know really.
	Please, you can maybe tell me.
	I don't want to...
	For example, when I feel that someone is trying to shame me, I don't want to shame them back, which I feel I want to do.
	No, I understand that.
	Look, if I don't want to be around lions, there's things that I can do.
	Of course!
	My concern is why are you in situations where you keep getting triggered by people?
	Because you're looking at how can I be around lions and not be upset?
	It's like, well, you almost got eaten by one.
	So you can't be around lions.
	It's like saying, well, I spent 15 years in a combat zone, and how can I go and watch Saving Private Ryan or some godforsaken blood-soaked war movie and not be triggered?
	Well, the answer is you can't.
	Right, but maybe I should have expressed that better.
	No, no, no.
	You're expressing yourself fine.
	What I'm saying is, why don't you look at prevention rather than cure?
	I'm more referring to situations where I cannot prevent, where I, for example, have to go to health offices or where I'm in situations in normal daily life in the supermarket.
	I mean, I'm not in the situations with friends or people around me.
	Well, does it happen that you get triggered and tell people to fuck off in a supermarket often?
	Well...
	No, it's a good question.
	I'm curious about the answer.
	It's not a...
	Okay.
	Yeah, it does happen sometimes lately.
	The thing for me is I have never been angry and I don't recognize myself doing it.
	There was lately a woman in the supermarket, the cashier, and I forgot to put this little dividing piece of plastic between my...
	And the person after me.
	And she lifted it up and said like, yeah, you know, we have these things and we use them so that I can understand where your products end and where the next customers start.
	So it would be really helpful if you could use it.
	And I was starting to boil.
	So, Ula was next to me and I was extremely passive-aggressive to this woman.
	I mean, I didn't say, fuck you or something, but I said, like, you know what she just said?
	She was like, I was very passive-aggressive and shaming her.
	And I don't want to do that.
	Do you understand what I mean?
	Well, no, I understand that.
	I mean, what's wrong with not doing that?
	I mean, just don't open your mouth.
	No, I'm sorry.
	I mean, there's no magic here.
	Well, if you repeat this ancient Sanskrit phrase, then a little lock closes over your mouth like a piece of luggage about to be pulled open by LAX employees at the airport, and then you won't magically see.
	You just don't say those things.
	It is not a thing which I have done a lot.
	It has been really troublesome for me lately.
	It's really new.
	It's a new problem.
	I get it.
	There's a lot to talk about here and I hugely appreciate you guys.
	Don't worry.
	We'll get to the man soon.
	Don't worry.
	He's happy.
	Olar, don't panic.
	Don't get angry, Olar.
	We're okay.
	We'll get to you.
	I'm not ignoring you.
	Don't worry.
	Can I quickly say something?
	Look, I can't wave a wand and obviously get you to do something in the right way.
	And I'm not perfect with anger, so please understand I'm not floating in the lotus position above a rising sea of tranquility that nothing ever troubles me.
	Because I consider anger to be enormously healthy, incredibly healthy.
	Anger is the immune system.
	The soul.
	You know, if there's some illness invading my body, I want my immune system to kill that fucker, to burn it down, to destroy it, to destroy its offspring, to leave nothing but nuclear shadows against my cell walls.
	And so I want a very angry, proactive, and destructive immune system.
	I just don't want it attacking healthy cells, obviously, right?
	So that's...
	So there's this weird thing, this immunodeficiency of the world, where you're not allowed to get angry.
	Only the masters are allowed to get angry.
	So the masters are allowed to rage, and the masters are allowed to raise their voice, and the masters are allowed to start wars.
	And the masters are encouraged to use force.
	And this is parents or priests or...
	You know, blessed are the peacemakers, says...
	The church, and then you've got psychotic, verbally abusive priests jamming fireballs of punitive hell down the throats of innocent, tender-minded children.
	So, God says...
	The meek shall inherit the earth.
	Oh, by the way, I'm going to blow up half the planet and drown the rest because I'm so fucking meek, right?
	So there's an ethic for slaves and there's an ethic for masters.
	And the ethics for masters is an eye for an eye.
	And the ethic for slaves is turn the other cheek.
	So I think it's important to understand first and foremost that this is not a personal issue.
	This is not a just you and your family and your history issue.
	This is a livestock management issue.
	Right?
	The government must use force.
	Private citizens are never allowed to use force.
	Right?
	I mean, imagine the view from overseas when American foreign policy has killed 15-plus million people since the Second World War, and has recently slaughtered about a million Iraqis and driven another million and a half to burrow into the desert, trying to survive.
	And then everyone's insane because some young black man got shot, whether it was self-defense or not.
	I mean, this is the insanity of how America looks to the rest of the world.
	Because in America, it's only race-baiting self-defense that matters in terms of violence.
	The violence that's done overseas, never talked about, doesn't register, doesn't show up.
	So you're not allowed to get angry because if you get angry, you can't be exploited.
	Anger is our defense against exploitation.
	And it is primarily taught by parents.
	The primary transmission for the neutering of defensive anger is parents.
	If a child has to choose between survival and self-expression, the child will choose survival.
	Of course, right?
	And if there is an emotion that threatens the bond with parents, that emotion will be strangled in the crib.
	It doesn't go anywhere.
	You can't ever kill your emotions, right?
	All you can do is tie them up and then fight with them as they try to break free for the rest of your mortal existence.
	So what's happening to you personally and in your relationship is the effects of a fundamental livestock management technique.
	You are allowed to have emotions which are beneficial to the rulers, right?
	So, for instance, the rulers need you to breed.
	So you're allowed to have romantic feelings.
	In fact, you are continually provoked into having romantic feelings.
	There's a reason why all these romantic comedies are all over the place.
	And we are obsessed with dating.
	Because dating leads to reproduction, which leaves, you know, the farmer likes to play Barry White, Nora Jones, middle-aged porn music for his cows so that they'll make him new cows, right?
	So you're allowed to have sexual desire, you're allowed to have love, you're allowed to have affection and attachment.
	Marriage is portrayed as a beautiful thing so that you'll make some new tax livestock for the masters, right?
	This is So you're allowed to have those feelings.
	You're allowed to be deferential.
	You're allowed to have feelings of humility.
	You're allowed to have patriotism.
	Of course you're allowed to have patriotism, right?
	I mean, patriotism is encouraged.
	But there are massive aspects of our emotional life that are not allowed.
	Not allowed because they are massively inconvenient to the masters.
	And anarchy, voluntarism, a free society, a war-free society, an abuse-free society requires that we unlock the Pandora's box of forbidden emotions because they're forbidden precisely because they don't allow us to question or rebel against this god-awful, sick livestock management system we call a planet.
	And this is why people are always like, why are you talking about self-knowledge?
	Why are you talking about feelings?
	I want philosophy!
	Bullshit!
	It is in the feelings that we are not allowed to possess as livestock that the short circuit and the collapse of the electric fence occurs.
	It's the only way that it can occur.
	People have been thinking about freedom for thousands of years.
	But the masters know better.
	They know that it is not the control of the thoughts that enslaves people.
	It is the rejection of the emotions that flatten out the human hierarchy that controls people.
	It is not the head that enslaves us.
	It's the heart that enslaves us.
	Which is why academics will never lead you to freedom.
	And reading one more Hayek or Rothbard or Rand book will not do anything to achieve freedom, as we've seen, right?
	The book's been out for over 50 years, and the government's approximately 15 times the size it was when it first came out.
	So what you're facing, and I'm not trying to say it doesn't matter, I'm saying it matters even more than you think, because it's less personal than you think.
	The farmer doesn't build the fence around the cows because he hates one particular cow.
	He doesn't even really care that much about the cows.
	As individuals, he doesn't care about them at all.
	He just builds a fence because he wants the meat and the milk that the cows have.
	It's not personal.
	This blind photocopying of an emotional maze that serves the rulers, it's not personal.
	You know, my mother came from Germany.
	And in Germany, children serve the masters.
	Children serve the rulers.
	Children serve the parents.
	It wasn't personal to her that her independence and critical thinking and emotional self-expression was destroyed.
	You know, they have geese on farms.
	They clip their wings, right?
	They take the feathers out.
	So that the geese can't fly away.
	So it's cheaper to own them, right?
	If the geese could fly away, you have to build a whole aviary, right?
	But if you clip their wings and they can't fly, you just need a fence.
	It's cheaper.
	But the guy clipping the wings of the goose is not sitting there saying, oh, I fucking hate this goose.
	Oh, I'm going to take sadistic pleasure out of destroying this goose's capacity to fly.
	No, he's just performing a pretty banal...
	Act of livestock management by destroying its capacity to fly.
	Well, they would hobble their slaves.
	It wasn't personal.
	It's just cheaper.
	They can't run.
	So the fact that all of the emotions that would challenge the human hierarchy have been shredded in you is just an act of livestock management.
	Is it conscious?
	Is it unconscious?
	It doesn't matter.
	It doesn't fundamentally matter.
	The way out, in my opinion, and in my experience, the way out of the conundrum is so, you know, this woman at the grocery store is snarky to you, right? this woman at the grocery store is snarky to you, Right?
	About the divider between the groceries.
	And one way out of it is to understand that you are not responsible for enforcing the vengeance of the world.
	So when people have done great harm to us, one of the desires we have, of course, is to get them.
	Naturally.
	Of course, that's a healthy desire.
	If I'm almost bitten by A rabid animal that I have a desire and a great anger against.
	I have a desire to shoot or cage or get rid of or get rid of that person.
	Sorry, get rid of that animal, right?
	The rabid animal.
	That's healthy.
	That's how you keep yourself safe.
	Now, in situations where it's verbal abuse, emotional abuse, which it sounds like what you experience, You can't get people.
	You can't put them in jail for making fun of you.
	However, it may feel like that's right.
	You can't fundamentally do it, right?
	And so, this small-minded prisoner of the grocery store, you get to take your groceries and go home.
	And where does she stay?
	She stays in the grocery store.
	She stays in the grocery store.
	And you go on to your life and she's stuck there going beep, beep, beep, stuck in a tiny little cattle pen making six bucks an hour.
	That's her life.
	You know, people who are petty or small-minded or insulting or whatever, passive-aggressive, oh, they get what's coming to them.
	They get what's coming to them.
	Oh, I mean, you sound like a delightful young lady, which means that you may not have lived long enough to see the long-term effects of what these people are like.
	But I have.
	And it's universally the same thing.
	I can't think of a single exception.
	People get what's coming to them.
	You don't need to lift a finger.
	I mean, when bad people do bad things, you certainly don't want to cover up their behavior and support them and hang out with people who've done you wrong and who are unrepentant evildoers.
	But in any war between the mountain and the water, you bet on the water if you've got a long enough time frame.
	The water will win, right?
	But all the people who've harmed you, if you don't run around propping them up and giving them time and energy and pretending that they didn't and being nice to them and pretending that nothing bad happened to ease their conscience, if you don't do that, they'll fall.
	You know, I had friends when I was younger who were dominant and snarky and top of the world as teenagers.
	Didn't pursue self-knowledge, didn't go through all the racking insecurity that I went through in confronting my past.
	You know, they just sailed on this high, bitter, acid ship of cynicism.
	Untouched by any of the churning waters of growth and challenge and self-knowledge and emotional connectivity.
	And I envied them at times.
	God, they looked so great.
	Oh, I wished I could just hoist myself, you know, throw my heart overboard and hoist myself to the crow's nest of a bitter viewing of all of mankind's follies and laugh and toast with absinthe all the foolishness of my fellow livestock.
	I never could.
	But I've seen what's happened to them.
	Terrible marriages, inconsistent careers, divorces.
	So all of their lack of humanity and compassion for what I was struggling with and what I had determined I was going to face.
	All of their eye-rolling and their, why are you so stuck in the past, man?
	Look forward.
	Why are you worrying about what happened when you were five, man?
	Forget it.
	Move on.
	Well, I've seen what they move on to, and what they move on to is a slow, deadly, fading cliff dive into absolute nothingness.
	So, it is...
	It is tempting to wish vengeance.
	I've seen what's happened to my family over the years.
	I'm 47 now.
	And...
	I used to envy the Christians who had a God who would punish the evildoers, right?
	God will get them.
	God will get them.
	They'll go to hell.
	Those wrongdoers, those evildoers, they'll go to hell.
	But I don't, I mean, I have something better than God because the punishment that awaits evildoers, we don't have to wait for the wall of death to come down and pray.
	That there's ghastly machinery on the other side to grind the bones of the bad.
	Because if you fail to support evildoers, if you avoid them, if you prevent them from coming into your life, well, you contribute to, through your self-protection, you contribute to their collapse, which is great.
	I want evildoers to fail.
	I want them to be miserable.
	I want them to be full of rage and spite and hatred and venom and contempt.
	I want massive sun-eclipsing trollery from evildoers.
	I want them to spray and vent their poison as far and high and wide as the human landscape can afford.
	Because in that way, they are a massive advertisement for virtue.
	You know, they used to show these pictures of guys smoking through the holes in their throat, saying smoking is very glamorous.
	Well, these people were dying of cancer, and they were using them to show people how bad smoking was.
	And in the same way, I wish to provoke bad behavior among evildoers, not through poking them, but simply through integrity and honesty and the call to virtue.
	I want that, so that everyone can look at these bastards and say, I don't want any of that.
	Ooh, that looks horrible.
	I don't have a sadistic bone in my body.
	I could not manufacture the kind of punishment my mother is going through.
	Which started when I was about 13 and she stopped being able to get out of bed and ended up being institutionalized.
	That happened because she was in her early 40s and was no longer able to cover up her crazy with her beauty.
	My mother is very beautiful.
	When she realized she wasn't able to pull the trick anymore and she wasn't married and she knew she wasn't going to be able to get married and the quality of men that she'd be able to attract was going to decline precipitously as it did.
	Well, she just gave up.
	She stopped trying.
	I mean, she didn't take welfare or anything when I was little.
	She worked.
	Then she just gave up in a big whoosh because she tried to play the beauty hand and it failed.
	And people weren't going to put up with her because she was beautiful because she wasn't that beautiful anymore.
	She was in her 40s and always younger specimens coming out of the machinery.
	So I'm just trying to sort of give you a perspective on your anger that it's perfectly natural that when you live in a livestock world, you would be trained with the productive for the master's habits of livestock, right?
	There's a reason why these are the feelings that aren't allowed and other feelings are allowed.
	You're allowed to mock, you're allowed to laugh, you're allowed to have usually kind of a dark comedy in the world, but you are not allowed to rouse people to revolution and anger is portrayed as crazy.
	But your anger in particular, I would argue, comes from the impossible situation.
	When you're put in an impossible situation, it's like It's like going to a gym and having a personal trainer say, you need to work your tricep and your bicep.
	Opposing upper arm muscles.
	You need to work your tricep and your bicep at the same time, and he's screaming that at you.
	Except, of course, in the family you can't leave.
	So I sympathize.
	I hugely sympathize.
	It's part of a much bigger picture, which is why it's so important to deal with this stuff.
	It helps you personally.
	But it also works towards freeing the world because then you're going to raise kids if you have kids.
	You're going to raise kids who are going to be able to express anger, right?
	Right.
	I hope that gives you some...
	You don't have to get the woman at the grocery store.
	That's pretty much exactly the point.
	I don't want to.
	I don't have feelings of rage.
	I don't want to revenge.
	You're telling me you did something and now you're saying you don't want to.
	I'm sorry, I didn't mean rage, I meant revenge.
	I don't want to revenge.
	I understand intellectually that, for example, with my parents, I have no contact with my parents and I don't have any need to punish them at all.
	But I worked really hard on getting to feel my anger because it was really difficult to get back to feeling angry because I wasn't allowed for so long.
	Wait, sorry, do you feel angry at your parents?
	Yes, massively.
	Okay, but you don't feel any desire to punish them?
	No, I don't think so.
	Like, yeah, but not as in I don't want to act on it.
	I have this feeling of...
	Now we get into the core, right?
	Right, yeah.
	I think they do it themselves.
	No, but why would you say, like, you feel very angry at them, and you say you kind of want to punish them, but you don't want to act on them.
	But then you say, well, I don't want to punish them.
	Well, I want to be allowed in front of myself, honestly, to feel all the revenge and anger fantasies that I want to.
	But I don't have a need to act on that.
	Like, my dad, when I talked to my dad the last time, he basically broke up contact with me.
	And I feel like, okay, this is his loss.
	He will notice that he will miss me.
	I don't have to do anything.
	I have clarity now.
	I don't need to punish.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Yep.
	I want to have all the rage which I was not allowed to feel and I want to feel this now and be able to be friends with my anger and not be afraid of it.
	But the problem I have still is that it is really fresh or I'm feeling still easily overwhelmed.
	I need a lot of time in a situation to accept and acknowledge that I'm actually angry.
	That sounds a little strange, but I get angry and it takes a while until they're like, oh wow, I'm actually angry.
	And then I need a moment, then I need another moment, and then I'm like, alright, I'm angry and this situation is justified.
	I can be angry, this is good, this is right, but if I don't, if I'm in a situation where I'm not giving this amount of time, or I don't give myself the amount of time, I act quicker than I want to.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, but, and other than telling people to fuck off, what does act quicker than you want to mean?
	Yeah, well, not other than telling people to fuck off.
	I tell people to fuck off, and more unfriendly than I wish I would.
	And it's a recent problem.
	It's not something I'm struggling since a long time with.
	The real problem is in my relationship with that.
	Right.
	So, outside my home, it is something which I notice, and I notice the triggers which really set me off.
	With my partner, it's a more complicated issue because if I'm in a situation in a supermarket, I RTR myself.
	I figure out, okay, this is really interesting.
	This really upset me.
	I wonder why this so upset me and so massively.
	And then I walk around on my way home and I can RTR with myself.
	And that works well.
	And I haven't yet encountered that I repeated the situation.
	So I do think I have the capacity to learn from these experiences.
	At home, RTR is more difficult than RTR with myself.
	Alright, so let's...
	Get him in.
	Yeah, Olar, if we can talk to you for a sec.
	Because, look, one of the things that happens, it happens sometimes with men, it happens a little bit more with women, is it's like the descriptions go round and round really fast to the point where my head is spinning and I don't know which way is up.
	And I was joking about this when I was in Texas at a Bitcoin conference, and a woman was saying, oh, well, that's just welcome to the mind of a woman, right?
	It's like, well, okay, maybe that's true.
	But Olar, how was your experience with anger?
	You mean my own anger?
	Yeah, yeah, let's talk about your anger.
	Well, definitely have it easier to express anger, I think.
	Or at least I do, or I have a history of doing it.
	I think I was an angry kid.
	To me, anger is bad.
	It is something bad.
	It's something that shouldn't be expressed, I think.
	I mean, now I'm talking instinctively what I think and what I feel.
	So anger is bad.
	So if a guy jumps out at you from an alley and wants to fight, you don't want your body to give you adrenaline, right?
	Well, in that case, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	What about if you have a kid and another kid pushes your kid over, you don't want to feel any adrenaline then, right?
	Any fight or flight?
	Any upset or any anger?
	Yes, I suppose.
	I suppose.
	I mean, absolutely, there are scenarios where anger is appropriate.
	Not non-appropriate.
	God, that's such a school mom kind of word, you know?
	Healthy, right?
	Good.
	Healthy, yes.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Okay, so there's some times where anger is healthy.
	So anger is not just bad, right?
	No.
	No.
	Now, if you're doing something that is harmful to another person, then the way that they will detect that harm is usually through anger.
	Right?
	So the unconscious is like 6,000 times faster at processing Certain kinds of complex information than the conscious mind, right?
	So harm to us or things that are negative to our interests are most often detected through anger, not through abstract reasoning or, you know, it has come to my attention that what we're doing may be negative to our long-term interests as a couple or to my long-term interests in health.
	What happens is we feel angry and sometimes we don't even know why.
	And it's through that process of self-knowledge that we figure out what we're really angry about.
	And in my experience, the anger is always justified.
	Right?
	So with regards to what Catherine was saying about the grocery store clerk, I don't want to get back to her, but just to use this as an example...
	She was not angry at the grocery store clerk fundamentally.
	She was angry at her parents.
	And this is what she doesn't know yet.
	Sorry to talk about you, Catherine, like you're not here.
	But I know that.
	That's what I was trying to say.
	I'm misplacing my anger.
	The reason that you're angry at your parents is because that has never happened to me.
	And that's not any type of pride thing for me.
	I'm just sort of pointing that out.
	And I bet you there's lots of people listening to this.
	You've got hundreds of thousands of people who listen to this.
	And it will not have happened to a lot of them either.
	And the reason that it happened to you is that your parents primed you, put you in the position where the woman knew she could say that and get away with it.
	Your parents, in a very real way, caused the behavior of the grocery store clerk towards you.
	It's not just the grocery store clerk acting in isolation.
	Passive-aggressive bullying happens to victims of passive-aggressive bullying.
	It doesn't happen to other people.
	So her unconscious scanned your unconscious and because she's feeling powerless in her life, she decided to screw with you to give herself a feeling of power and sadistic satisfaction by making you upset and provoking anger and helplessness within you.
	But that's because of what happened to you as a child.
	Almost all the abuse that you will suffer as an adult occurs because of the abuse you suffered as a child.
	If you think it's about the grocery store clerk and not your parents, then I would say that you're mistaken.
	But sorry, let's get back to...
	To Olar.
	Okay, so you have a complex relationship to anger, right?
	In that you said it's bad and then, okay, there are times when it's good and so on, right?
	So how was anger expressed or acted out when you were a kid?
	Well, my father would yell and scream and yeah.
	Big, loud guy.
	A big what guy?
	Big, loud guy.
	Oh, loud guy.
	He would break things.
	Yeah, exactly.
	He would break things.
	As in, he would slam his fist into the table and such.
	Over what sort of provocations, do you remember?
	We actually talked about this just a few days ago.
	A particular memory I have about that is when I was seven or so and I had been fighting with my stepmother all day and he came home from work and I had had some kind of Complete anger, outbreak, temper, tantrum.
	And how old were you?
	Sorry, how old were you at this point?
	Seven.
	I was at seven.
	And I had a glue bottle and I had squirted glue over my desk and some on the floor, on the carpet, in some, yeah, in some big fit of rage there.
	And he came home, and when he noticed this, he was really angry when he came into my room, and he screamed, and he banged his fist into one of my favorite toy car, remote-controlled car, so it flew into tiny pieces.
	So he broke your favorite toy?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	What a dick.
	My God.
	Yeah.
	What a pathetic man infant.
	I'm so sorry.
	God, that's horrifying.
	And of course, I'm sorry for Katrin's as well.
	I didn't want to brush past that, but that's horrendous.
	Yes.
	Yes, it was.
	It was terrifying.
	It was.
	I mean, you said stepmother, right?
	Which means, obviously, that...
	I assume your mother did not die of natural causes.
	Your biological mother?
	No, no, no.
	My parents divorced when I was six.
	Wow.
	And then you had a stepmom when you were seven?
	Yeah.
	Holy crap.
	So your dad is really not in any position to lecture anyone on how to deal with emotions, right?
	Because...
	He couldn't maintain a relationship with the mother of his children and then just went and glued onto some new woman like a pathetic water-based dependent life form, right?
	Well...
	I wouldn't really blame him for divorcing my mother because she is even worse.
	Oh no, you can blame him for divorcing your mother because no one put a fucking gun to his head to marry her, right?
	No, no.
	I would rather blame him for marrying her and having a child that was several with her rather than divorcing her.
	But, yeah.
	Yeah.
	Might be helpful to mention your mother's anger.
	Yeah, exactly.
	My mother on the other hand, she would beat me, or spank me, or be physically violent.
	Now, bio-mother or stepmother?
	Yeah, this was my biological mother, the one he divorced.
	And yeah, so there was a lot of anger going around.
	And of course, I was in the middle.
	It's been a war between them ever since, and I was always in between.
	So I definitely have a lot of issues with anger, but in a different way.
	Right.
	So first and foremost, I think cleaning up the terminology is important.
	You can't use the same word for something healthy as something destructive.
	Like, if you're saying rape, you mean rape.
	If you're saying lovemaking, you mean lovemaking, but you don't want to use the same word for both, right?
	True.
	So that's why I would sort of suggest, right, so you said anger is always bad because you assumed that what your parents did was sort of healthy expressions of anger and so on, right?
	Well, now I don't really consider that healthy in any way.
	No, no, but it's important, you know, language is very important to our brain.
	Absolutely.
	And to our unconscious in particular, so you don't want to use the same word for opposite things.
	Yeah.
	Do you have a better...
	You know, you don't want to use the same, you know, for debt and credit, you don't want to use the same word for both, otherwise you're not going to know what the hell's going on in your finances, right?
	Yes, yes, all right, yes.
	And love and hate, you don't want to use the same word for love and hate, because then I'll have no idea what you like or don't like, right?
	Yeah.
	So, you know, maybe use rage for sadistic child abuse and petty explosions of caustic and destructive emotions on helpless, independent children.
	And anger is sort of healthy self-protection, right?
	Yeah, you're right.
	You're right.
	Okay, so is rage...
	So a lot of rage, but no examples of healthy expressions of anger, right?
	But are you saying that rage is the correct terminology for unhealthy anger?
	I'm not sure.
	You see, you know, the sad thing is, we actually don't even have a good word to differentiate the two.
	Yeah.
	Right, so rage is considered to be extreme anger, which is the same as I said earlier, saying that rape is extreme lovemaking.
	Well, it's not, right?
	We don't even have a word to That we can use to differentiate toxic abuse from healthy anger.
	That's how far we are as a species from differentiating these things and through self-knowledge breaking out of the livestock cages.
	I mean, we don't even have, I mean, we can use rage.
	I mean, I could understand an extreme propagation of anger might result in rage, but I mean, that's just, maybe we can say sadistic rage.
	Yeah.
	Or tantrum.
	Tantrum might be a good word for what your dad was doing and what your stepmom was doing.
	But even the language that you use troubled me.
	You said, I've been fighting with my stepmom all day.
	Yeah.
	That's, no, no, no, no.
	Your stepmom is responsible for your relationship.
	So your stepmom had been provoking you all day.
	Right.
	Because that sounds like a sibling.
	But even the siblings, the parents are responsible for the siblings' relationships, right?
	So you just say, well, I've been fighting with my stepmom all day like it's some sort of equal thing.
	No, it's your stepmom's job to make the relationship go harmoniously.
	Not yours when you're seven, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, you're right.
	Right.
	That is so difficult.
	I know for certain that all my parents and step-parents and everything, they were mostly assholes on so many levels.
	But it's so difficult for me to sit here and point my finger and say this or that is bad.
	Because obviously, Sorry, this or that is bad.
	I don't know what you mean by that.
	I mean, the blame...
	Now, see, blame is another one, sorry to be annoying, blame is another one of these words that people use when they're uncomfortable.
	Yes.
	Right, so I would put it this way.
	It's hard for you to accept the fact that your parents or your caregivers were responsible for their actions.
	Mm-hmm.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	Because when we say blame, blame is a negative word, right?
	Yeah.
	Don't play the blame game, you know?
	Exactly.
	Blame is projection.
	Blame is assigning other people responsibility for your own faults.
	I mean, it's...
	But the basic...
	I mean, we just go to philosophy.
	We go to basic science.
	You know, who was in control of your father's body?
	Was it space aliens?
	Was it Beelzebub?
	Was it...
	Yeah, no.
	Right?
	It was him.
	He was in control.
	Of course.
	Now, you could say, well, but he wasn't in control.
	But that's not true.
	He was in control.
	If he drove a car, if he was able to suppress bad behavior in front of other people, then he was in control.
	He was in control of himself, yes.
	Absolutely.
	Right.
	And so he chose to act in these kinds of ways.
	That's correct.
	Like I had a convo with a listener last night who said his mother did these terrible things and then immediately said, well, but she's bipolar.
	And I was like, you what now?
	Right?
	I mean, did she ever scream at him in front in a parent-teacher conference or when there was a cop around or when her mother was around now?
	So, you know, multiple sclerosis, you can't will it in and out of existence, but if people behave better in front of other people, Then it's choice-based, not biology-based, right?
	I can't make myself taller or hairier in front of certain people because that is a truly biological limit and a physical reality, right?
	And just by the by, since I don't know if that's ever going to be published, he was with a woman whose parents treated her terribly.
	And he suggested maybe cutting back contact.
	And she said, no, blood is thicker than water, right?
	To which I said, well, if blood is thicker than water, then her parents should have treated her really well.
	Because blood is thicker than water.
	And therefore, her parents should have treated her better than any other person ever, right?
	My mom was nice to waiters.
	She was nice to policemen.
	She was nice to people when we crossed the border.
	She was nice to these people.
	She treated me and my brother worse.
	Worse than anyone else in her life.
	Worse than her friends, worse than waitstaff, worse than people she passed on the street, worse than grocery store clerks.
	And so I'm like, well, I don't think the blood is thicker than water because that should be demonstrated by parents.
	Treating children better than anyone else in their lives.
	And generally, if there's dysfunction in the family, for reasons of helplessness and dependence, children are treated worse than anyone else.
	So this blood is thicker than water bullshit.
	It's a lie invented by parents to get resources from children they abuse when those children grow up.
	It's like, well, if blood is thicker than water, how come you treated me worse than anyone else?
	I wish you treated me like water, not blood.
	Anyway, so in your experience, right, I mean...
	Rage is vicious, it's sadistic, it's immature, it's contemptible, it's abusive, it's manipulative.
	And you have a hard time accepting the biological reality that the only person perched on top of your caregiver's spines were their own brains and themselves.
	And of course, they got angry at you because when you were five or six or seven, or they...
	Inacted spiteful rage against you when you were five or six or seven because they said, look, you're responsible for what you do, right?
	Yeah.
	Right?
	I mean, your dad didn't come in and say, oh, you poured glue.
	I was on your bed or something.
	You poured glue on your desk.
	Well, you know, it's just your arm that did it.
	It's not you.
	And I understand that you had provocations and I'm the one who brought the stepmom into your life.
	And, you know, you have had just gone through a divorce.
	It's a tough time adjusting.
	I can understand.
	Let's sit down and talk about it.
	and have a hug, sit down with the stepmom, figure out how you guys can get along more harmoniously.
	No, this titan of philosophy and wisdom and benevolence thought, I know what a great thing to do is.
	I'm going to break my son's favorite toy.
	Yeah, that's...
	Like, what a cosmic asshole.
	Now, you can say, well, he wasn't in control.
	And biologically, he was, right?
	I mean, if he's having an epileptic attack, yeah, I get he's not in control.
	If he's in a coma, yeah.
	And he pees himself, yes, he's not in control.
	Even if he's sleeping and pees, if he's sleepwalking, I may be, right?
	But he was in control.
	And the easiest way to figure that out is, did he use the ethic of responsibility against his children?
	Live by the sword, fucking die by the sword.
	If you assign moral responsibility for your children, you assign a thousand times more for yourself as an adult.
	You cannot say, well, I'm 35 and I'm not responsible for my actions, but I'm going to attack my son and assign him full moral responsibility because he's seven and I fucking raised him.
	Right?
	I mean, that's literally the actions of an insane human being.
	Yes, yes.
	But they're responsible for their insanity because it's a self-serving insanity, right?
	Yes, absolutely.
	So what you're saying is you have trouble accepting the immorality and sadism of your caregivers.
	Yes.
	Which I can completely understand, of course.
	We're programmed to ignore that stuff because these people have our fucking food, right?
	Yeah.
	You know, you don't call the only prison guard who brings you your food an asshole.
	I mean, unless you want to die, right?
	And that's the impossible situation.
	The impossible situation is, I don't like these people, but I have to conform to their expectations and desires.
	I mean, at the age of four, I literally packed up food and tried to run away from home at two o'clock in the morning.
	That's how much I disliked being in.
	I was willing to take my chances in a big unknown world with street lamps and no traffic just to get out of that hellhole.
	Oh, wow.
	That is horrible.
	Yeah.
	I mean, that's how much I reacted against, I mean, the vicious evil of my mother.
	Mm-hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	Now, I was caught and I could have been killed when I was caught because she beat my head against a door.
	I'm not trying to turn this about me, but I'm just saying that there is a huge reaction.
	I mean, the emotions that must have been churning through your young and sturdy chest when your pitiful excuse for a father smashed up your favorite toy.
	I mean, the amount of anger and contempt.
	God, there's such eye-rolling disgust when we realize that our parents are incompetent children.
	Yeah.
	Like that this is just some toddler in a giant body randomly pushing and pulling levers.
	That's the truth.
	Yeah, I mean, it's a horrifying and terrifying thing to experience as a child that the people who are in charge of your life are crazy and evil.
	Mm-hmm.
	And that's, I mean, I don't think I would, I mean, if I'd really truly accepted all of that, like I had to just comply because I realized that my mother would be willing to kill me rather than have me leave, right?
	And then you comply.
	You've Stockholm Syndrome.
	You have to.
	You have to try and bond with evil if your parents are that way inclined.
	You have to bond with it to survive.
	Because they can abandon you.
	They can stop feeding you.
	They can...
	Hurt you, they can lose their temper and injure you physically even by accident, right?
	Happens every day.
	Every day children get killed by their parents.
	Yeah.
	Every single day.
	Yes.
	Yes, absolutely.
	It's a survival thing.
	So the fact that it's hard for you to accept the evil of your caregivers, of course.
	But to understand that is key, right?
	It's not that you just have some weird emotional difficulty.
	You have to bond with your caregivers, of course, right?
	Yes, yes.
	But that doesn't mean that you're not angry at them, and legitimately and healthily angry.
	I'll just give you an example, right, again, because I want to make it sort of a wider context so that you can see that this is part of a human struggle for freedom, not just a personal struggle for self-expression.
	I mean, the two are, I think, fundamentally the same thing, but I don't know where you guys are from, but in all countries around the world, children are born in horrendous debt because their asshole fucking elders have spent and bribed The planet into oblivion, right?
	So in America, children are born $700,000 in debt.
	Every single child is born $700,000 in debt.
	Are the young people angry about this?
	No.
	No.
	No, they're really not.
	They're really not.
	Yeah, no, they're not unaware.
	Everybody knows about the national debt.
	Everybody knows about the national debt.
	They're not unaware about it at all.
	They're not sitting down with their parents and saying, are you fucking kidding me?
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	You clusterfuck assholes have dug me $700,000 in debt?
	You want me to salute this fucking flag?
	Are you kidding me?
	You might as well stuff this flag with dollar bills, jam it down my throat, and watch me choke to death.
	On my own failed economic expectations.
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	You had me sign...
	Sorry, you had me recite the Pledge of Allegiance to a government that has sold me off before I was even born to the tune of nearly three quarters of a million dollars?
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	You put me in a goddamn school to be trained By the same group that used me as meat-based livestock collateral to grab money from foreign bankers to bribe you with?
	You handed me over to these assholes?
	Are you fucking kidding me?
	How a bill becomes a law?
	It's a dollar bill.
	And it's not a law.
	It's an opinion with a gun.
	Like, where is the outrage?
	I could do that speech all day, but I wouldn't.
	Because where is the outrage of the young people about the system that miseducates them, drops them in debt, drugs their classmates, sinks them, like you get $700 billion for banks, and how much money to forgive student debt?
	None.
	In fact, you can't even get rid of student debt through bankruptcy.
	Where is the outrage of the young?
	It's non-existent, right?
	So your guy's lack of anger is part of a general social problem or a social solution to the problem of exploitation.
	Those you exploit cannot get angry.
	Those you exploit cannot get angry.
	And your parents were exploiting you, and that's why you were not allowed to get angry.
	And your society exploits you, which is why you're not allowed to get angry.
	And the schools exploit you, That's why you're not allowed to get angry.
	And the church exploits you.
	That's why you're not allowed to get angry.
	Yeah.
	That is true.
	Now, your connection with each other is dependent upon anger.
	Because, you see, with anger comes trust.
	You can't trust each other if you don't have the capacity to be angry with each other.
	Because otherwise, how do you know it's not stifled compliance that is your supposed compatibility, right?
	Right?
	My wife and I have the capacity to be angry with each other and to express that anger with each other.
	So when she's not expressing anger at me, I know things are fine.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	Yes, of course.
	Yes, of course it does.
	Um...
	There's something about this conversation that is bothering you, and I'm trying to figure out what it is.
	You sound kind of like, yeah, yeah, fine, fine, right?
	So either I'm not connecting with something that's important to you, or I'm connecting with something that bothers you.
	It's a little bit of both.
	Yes, I do agree.
	I do agree.
	But we're kind of getting closer to the core problem here between us, in this expression of anger and dealing with it.
	And yeah, I always have such a difficult time summing it up.
	But...
	When Katrin is angry, or sad, or basically any kind of...
	has this negative emotion, she's generally really good with Presenting them in an R2R way, kind of objectively and not acting out,
	not screaming, not doing these things, but merely stating, like, okay, I am really angry now or I'm sad or whatever.
	And it may be about me.
	Wait, I'm sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	Yeah?
	So would you say that she was acting in a different manner in the call with me than she does with you?
	Because, you know, all due respect to you both, I find you people impossible to connect with emotionally.
	It's not a criticism.
	It's just an observation.
	It may be my fault.
	I don't know.
	Right?
	But if you say, well, she's really great at RTR, I'm going to assume then that she does something really different with you than she's doing with me.
	Again, it's not a criticism or a negative thing to say.
	I'm just going to point that out.
	You're the guys with the problem, I'm the only person with the emotion.
	Yeah, I think we haven't really touched the core of the real issue yet.
	No, no, we.
	No.
	Look, I mean, I'm trying to navigate with no stars and no compass.
	I see.
	Because I'm sort of saying a whole bunch of stuff, looking for some sort of emotional connection or reaction.
	Then I'll know what's important.
	Yes.
	That's all right.
	But I have no idea what you guys are feeling.
	I'm getting a lot of dry, abstract, blah, blah, blah, right?
	A lot of confusing misstatements and a lot of, well, I think that's interesting, but here's my perspective.
	And then a lot of stuff that I don't know what the hell you're talking about.
	Mm-hmm.
	Alright.
	So I can't get to what's important if you're not opening your hearts, right?
	Maybe I should be more assertive here and maybe I should state more.
	Alright.
	I think the problem could be summarized with that I have a lot of difficulty accepting criticism.
	Or any kind of a negative emotion.
	And I take that on my own shoulders.
	This sorrow or whatever it may be.
	And somehow this translates to me as I'm a bad person or Okay, I'm sorry.
	I just, I can't stand any more descriptions.
	Right?
	I need a connection.
	Look, I mean, there are people who really want to work hard on the show and really work to connect with their feelings with me.
	And I'm not saying you have to cry or scream or, you know, kiss the microphone or anything like that.
	I'm not talking about anything that.
	I just, I can't take any more captions.
	I can't take any more abstract descriptions of things.
	Like, either we're going to have an emotional connection in the conversation or we're not.
	Yeah.
	And I'm not, again, it's not a criticism or anything like that.
	I'm just telling you, I can't pretend to have a conversation when you're describing yourself like you're a piece of 14th century Chinese art.
	How do I go about to do this?
	Could you help me help?
	Do you want me to explain the situation?
	I don't know.
	No, no explanations!
	No explanations!
	I cannot tell how you feel like that.
	I mean, I... I can't tell how either of you feel.
	I have no idea what this conversation means to you.
	Now, it's tough.
	We don't have eye contact and all that, so we have to work a little bit harder, right?
	Yes, yes, yes.
	Just tell me what you're feeling.
	Don't describe it.
	Just tell me what you're feeling in simple terms.
	You mean...
	Like right now?
	Right now?
	Yeah, right now.
	That's called connection in the moment.
	How you felt yesterday?
	How you feel now?
	Okay, to be honest, right now I do feel a little bit criticized and feel a little bit unfairly treated, I think, which is actually common.
	Unfairly treated is not an emotion.
	Do you feel angry at me?
	It's fine if you do.
	Maybe a little, maybe a little, maybe a little.
	Okay, okay, so go ahead with that.
	All right.
	I'll take that over what came before, absolutely.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	I also would like to get to the core...
	No, no, no.
	Tell me about your...
	If you feel anger, then tell me about that, right?
	Because that's a feeling we can connect on.
	Okay.
	How do I say it?
	I feel I wasn't really given a lot of chances to...
	To connect or to show my emotions or be really involved in the conversation.
	Sorry, how do I give you permission to show your emotions?
	I mean, we've been talking for, what, an hour and a quarter?
	Yeah.
	I've asked a lot of questions.
	I've had a couple of speeches, just trying to find some place to connect.
	How is it that I have not given you the opportunity or the space or the permission to express your emotions?
	I think I'm afraid to bump in and interrupt and I think there's a lot of rhetorical questions.
	I've been mostly listening.
	Well, no, you and I have been talking for 20-25 minutes, right?
	Yeah.
	And it's not like I've said, don't talk, right?
	And it's not like you've expressed some feelings and I said, I don't want to hear those feelings.
	No, that's true.
	That's true.
	I don't know.
	I feel like, I don't know.
	I was trying to do the right thing.
	I mean, I was trying to listen and to pick up on something.
	And I mean, sometimes I'm not really sure where you're going.
	But I'm thinking that's going to connect to the end.
	In the end.
	Okay, so you were trying to do the right thing.
	And what is the right thing in this conversation with me?
	I'm not trying to be rhetorical.
	I really want to know what is the right thing for you.
	To listen and to learn something?
	I'm calling for advice.
	I'm calling for advice.
	that's what I'm doing.
	So you want to just listen, right?
	No, well, I don't want to listen.
	I want to talk also, of course.
	I want you to understand.
	I mean, I want you to understand my point of view or my problem.
	And then I would like to hear your words on it.
	But your problem is an emotional problem, right?
	Yes, it is.
	And can I understand your emotional problem if you don't give me any emotions?
	Hmm...
	I don't know.
	I mean, my emotional problem is not really with you.
	It's within the relationship.
	I don't know.
	No, no, no.
	No, this is important because this is your relationship that I'm talking about here.
	This is not your relationship with me.
	This is your relationship with Katrin that I'm talking about.
	So, can you get to the heart of an emotional problem if you don't give me any emotional content?
	I don't mean descriptions.
	Like, you wouldn't want an actor up there at the funeral of his beloved mother, an actor, crying, and then the director comes in and says, no, no, no, no, no.
	Don't have the emotion.
	Describe the emotion with no emotion.
	And then the actor's up there saying, okay, I think I got it.
	I'm sad that my mother died.
	I feel overwhelming grief.
	And I don't know how I'm going to get out of bed in the morning.
	Ooh, an eclair.
	I think I'll have that too.
	Yeah.
	That would not be good acting, right?
	No.
	No, of course not.
	No.
	Okay, so if you're having an emotional problem, then a way to connect is not intellectually, not through descriptions, not through language, but through emotion, right?
	Yes.
	Because not having the emotional openness indicates that you don't trust me.
	Because you're taking safety in descriptions, in abstractions.
	And that's why we're not connecting to anything that's working for you.
	Mm-hmm.
	But should I just...
	Should I describe the issue with more pathos?
	Pathos?
	Okay.
	I don't know, like...
	I don't know...
	I mean, I have a problem with emotions.
	That is absolutely true.
	And to be fair, I've been extremely nervous to call in here.
	And you're doing great.
	You're doing really well.
	Look, if we weren't talking about this, we wouldn't be solving the problem.
	So this is, you know, you said you wanted to get to the heart of the problem.
	Well, here we are.
	So this is great.
	This is what the call is for.
	Okay.
	Okay, so this is not a deviation.
	This is not a problem.
	This is good, I think.
	Okay.
	Alright.
	Okay.
	So, why are you so guarded?
	And it's not a criticism.
	It's not a criticism.
	I know it's going to feel that way.
	But it's not a criticism.
	I'm a...
	You're very guarded.
	Yes, I am.
	Yes, I am.
	I mean, I am afraid of being hurt and I'm afraid of exposing myself and...
	Being hurt, of course.
	Great.
	Great.
	Now, good.
	Okay.
	So, what is your worst case scenario?
	If you open your heart to me, what dickish thing might I do to your open and vulnerable heart?
	I don't know.
	Maybe you won't do so much, but I don't know.
	No, no.
	You're talking to me.
	I take this personally.
	If you're not opening up to me, it means that you are concerned that I'm going to do something bad.
	Harmful?
	Hurtful?
	Yeah, maybe.
	I don't know.
	No, no, no.
	Look, everything is personal, right?
	If I'm selling you something on eBay and you won't buy from me because you don't trust me, then you don't trust me.
	You say, well, I don't trust humanity in the abstract.
	It's like, no, it's me that you don't trust.
	Yes, also.
	I mean, and the rest of the internet.
	Yes, okay.
	But you're an anonymous person, right?
	Nobody knows who the hell you are, right?
	So my question is, what is the worst case scenario?
	You guys are struggling, right?
	You guys are struggling with each other.
	And you're also missing the meat of life without the emotions, right?
	Like every day that goes past where you're not able to express and feel and connect.
	But we do.
	Is a day tossed in the ash can of history.
	Which you don't get to go back and live again more richly, right?
	No.
	But we do.
	I mean, we have particularly there's been a lot of emotions around here.
	And that's kind of what we're calling.
	Oh, so you just don't have emotions with me?
	I don't know.
	I think maybe we didn't really get to the really emotional part.
	Maybe I... Look, that's your choice, though.
	I'm giving you the responsibility.
	Okay.
	Right?
	So, when we're talking about this kind of stuff, you can open your heart to me, or you cannot open your heart to me.
	You don't have to do either.
	But if you don't open your heart to me, I'm going to point it out.
	All right.
	That's fair enough.
	Fair enough.
	And if you don't want to open your heart to me, that's completely fine.
	It's your choice.
	I would like it.
	But I'm not going to pretend to have a conversation about emotions where there are no emotions, right?
	Yeah.
	Because it's going to be dissatisfying as it is.
	I mean, it's not satisfying.
	This conversation can't be hugely satisfying for you guys, right?
	Maybe not so much yet, no.
	Yeah.
	No, it's okay.
	It can't be.
	It can't be.
	Because we're not connecting, right?
	Okay.
	Okay.
	And if you don't want to open your heart, that's completely fine.
	It really is.
	And it's not a bad thing.
	It's a choice.
	It's a decision.
	It is your choice and your decision, right?
	Because, you know, we assigned your father responsibility.
	We assigned your mother and your stepmother and Katrin's mother and father responsibility, which means you get that too, right?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	But that means you have responsibility, and you both have responsibility in a call where you talked about RTR. And this is why I interrupted this, because you said Boketran is really good at RTR. Yeah.
	Now, I wrote the book.
	I don't quite agree.
	Now, you can say, well, I don't believe the guy who wrote the RTR book that she's not good at RTR, at least not good in this situation, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Yeah.
	Because there was, and you'll hear this, or rather you won't hear it when you listen back to this conversation, that there is not emotions.
	There's a lot of baffling descriptions.
	There's a lot of contradictions.
	There's a lot of abstractions.
	There's a lot of shuffling words around.
	But as far as a connection, a vulnerability, an openness...
	You guys haven't told me once how you're feeling in this conversation.
	And then you say, well, she's really good at RTR. Okay.
	All right.
	Maybe...
	Well, as I actually...
	I'm telling you how I'm feeling, right?
	As I did write in the introduction, the mail...
	I actually mentioned that I do have some trouble understanding RTR, so that might very well be a valid point you have there.
	To me, RTR seems like a tool to resolve conflicts somehow.
	I know this is not really it, but yeah.
	That's a tool to resolve conflicts.
	No, RTR is honesty and vulnerability.
	RTR is, here's how I feel in the moment, without blame, without attack.
	Have I blamed or attacked you guys for this conversation?
	No.
	I'm telling you I'm frustrated.
	I'm telling you I'm feeling a lack of connection.
	I'm telling you I don't feel we can solve this.
	I don't think, right?
	I see.
	It's an emotional problem without any emotion.
	We're talking about an emotional problem without any emotional content.
	It's like going to the doctor and saying, doctor, I hurt.
	And then the doctor presses everywhere in your body and you never tell them where it hurts.
	Yeah.
	How can he help?
	Yeah.
	He can't help, right?
	Yes.
	That's right, right.
	So you guys are coming to me and saying, our relationship is hurting.
	And I'm giving you context, I'm giving you some descriptions, I'm giving you some thoughts, I'm asking some questions.
	And you're never giving me any emotional response.
	And so, can't get anywhere.
	And it's not a criticism.
	It's not a criticism at all.
	It's an observation.
	Okay.
	I see.
	But this is actually good.
	This is a good, accidentally really good example because...
	Oh, you guys are provoking.
	You were basically asking me, do you miss us?
	In the conversation.
	Do you miss us?
	You withheld yourself to find out if I would notice that you were withholding yourself.
	Yeah.
	And whether I would...
	Be honest about whether...
	Do you even know that we're not here?
	Yeah, maybe.
	I don't know.
	I suppose I was expecting you to check in.
	Yeah.
	That's a good point.
	Maybe, yeah.
	It's a good point.
	It's a good point.
	You see, there's not a debate.
	No, no, no.
	You're right.
	I mean...
	But to get two steps back here, because you just said, like, okay, this is not a criticism, you said.
	And this is exactly like the discussions we often have here, where she would say something and I would experience it as criticism, although she says this is not criticism.
	And to be fair, I feel completely criticized.
	I know you say this is not criticism, but I can't help feeling really criticized.
	You feel really criticized?
	Yes.
	My goodness!
	I mean, my goodness!
	Wait, wait, wait, wait!
	Wait a second here!
	What do you mean you feel criticized?
	I mean, you're asking me about emotional issues and you're refusing to open your heart and trust me, which is an incredible criticism of me, right?
	Which is why I said, what's the terrible thing I'm going to do if you open your heart?
	Which you didn't answer, right?
	No, you can't really do a lot of things.
	I mean, you could shame me.
	I think that's the...
	But there's some negative...
	You're shielding yourself because you're expecting some negative response from me in our conversation, right?
	Yes, I suppose.
	Right, so you're acting as if I'm dangerous, as if I'm the same as your parents.
	And you feel insulted?
	You're putting me in the category of people who've abused children and reacting to me and dealing with me in the same way as you did with people who hurt you, beat you, smashed up your toys.
	And you feel criticized?
	My head is spinning here.
	I don't know...
	No!
	Should I not feel offended that you're using the same emotional tools you developed with abusers in your conversation with me?
	Are we still on?
	Hello?
	Alright, I think we dropped and returned.
	Yeah, alright, alright.
	Yeah, we're connected.
	Okay.
	Yeah, so I'm just...
	I feel a bit angry that you were...
	And this is, again, anger...
	My anger doesn't mean that you're bad or wrong or anything like that.
	Yeah, but this is...
	Right?
	But I'm telling you that when you say to me, I'm shielding...
	When you say, well, I'm shielding myself from you in the same way, basically, that I shielded myself from abusers.
	And I feel criticized when you say that.
	I'm just giving you my feedback.
	That if you're shielding yourself from me, if you're hoarding your heart and closing yourself off with me, then you're treating me as if I'm a potential abuser.
	Which is like asking a woman out on a date and being pepper sprayed.
	Yeah.
	But can I help?
	I mean, I can't help being cautious.
	I mean...
	I am terribly afraid of being hurt.
	Were you conscious that you...
	No, no, this is fine.
	You don't understand, my friend.
	Were you conscious that you were cautious?
	I don't know.
	I wasn't really...
	Because look, if you're saying I can't help being cautious, then RTR, honesty in a relationship, will tell you to say, Steph...
	I know we called you about an emotional issue.
	I'm feeling really cautious about this relationship or about this conversation.
	I'm feeling...
	I don't know what to say next.
	I feel really anxious.
	My chest is tight.
	I feel like I want to not be in the conversation.
	I feel like...
	Right?
	You would tell me all of those things.
	But instead, I got long, windy descriptions of things that I don't know what the hell you were talking about.
	And that's what I mean.
	The RTR is don't take refuge in descriptions or abstractions.
	Tell me that you don't want to talk about your feelings.
	That is an honest expression.
	I want to talk about my feelings.
	I want to.
	I do want to talk about my feelings.
	I just felt I didn't have the opportunity to really.
	It's the...
	Oh man, you're good.
	So now it's my fault that you didn't talk about your feelings.
	No, it's not.
	No, it's not.
	I should somehow provide for you the opportunity, roll out the red carpet and so on, and the fact that I'm asking you questions and listening to your responses means that somehow I'm still not providing you the opportunity to talk about your feelings.
	No.
	So you've got to own that you didn't talk about your feelings.
	I'm giving you the glorious gift of self-ownership, just as I gave it to your father, who's in charge of your brainstem.
	You are.
	If you had started talking about your feelings, I wouldn't have said, don't interrupt me.
	I wouldn't have said, no, I'm speechifying.
	You decided not to talk about your feelings, if that was indeed a decision, right?
	And again, I'm simply pointing out a fact.
	But don't tell me that it's because I somehow engineered the conversation that it was impossible for you to talk about your feelings.
	Come on.
	You own yourself, right?
	Yes, I could have butted in.
	And this is one of the few places where you can talk about your feelings, and I welcome it.
	All right, all right.
	All right.
	But, okay, so how about feelings then?
	I mean, accidentally...
	No, now see, and now ownership is saying you're not accepting what I'm saying.
	And I'm just going to keep interrupting you, and I apologize for that.
	But...
	When you blamed me for something that was actually your fault, the next thing to say is I'm sorry for doing that, right?
	Because it's not fair, right?
	It's not fair to say it's my fault that you didn't talk about your feelings.
	No, it's not.
	No, it's not.
	So I'm sorry about that.
	I appreciate that.
	Okay, so what were you going to say?
	Yeah, about feelings.
	And we accidentally kind of stepped towards the core issue here about criticism.
	And I would like to learn how to think, or why do I think this?
	I mean, I have really difficulty...
	Why do you think what?
	Sorry?
	Why do you think why?
	Why do I feel ashamed?
	Or why do I feel that it's my fault that I should do different?
	What do you mean it's your fault?
	I don't know one thing you've taken responsibility for in this call yet.
	I don't see an excess of self-blame here.
	Well, when you say...
	I don't remember exactly what you said before, but you said you don't want to criticize me, but basically I didn't talk about my feelings or I didn't connect.
	It's not criticism if it's true.
	Okay.
	Like in the way that you mean, like attack or whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Like if I'm saying I'm frustrated...
	Because we're not having an emotional connection.
	And you're not talking about your feelings.
	That's a fact, right?
	You weren't talking about your feelings.
	You were hiding.
	You said, I'm hiding my feelings, right?
	Yeah.
	And then you said, basically, that it was my fault that that was occurring.
	So tell me, where is this excess of self-criticism that you keep talking about?
	I'm open to it.
	I really am.
	Maybe I'm missing something here.
	And if people in the chatroom have seen it, I don't know where the excess of self-criticism is that you keep talking about.
	I don't think it's shown up in this conversation.
	Well, again, it might be related to me not being completely open with my feelings.
	What do you mean?
	Hang on, hang on.
	You see, you are a manipulation machine.
	My god, man.
	I gotta watch everything you're saying.
	I mean, we need a judge.
	Point of order, judge!
	Equivocation, right?
	All right, all right.
	No, let me say completely.
	I don't even know what completely open with your feelings.
	What is that, like a heart monitor?
	I don't know what that is.
	A real, like is that a lie detector with every biometric known to man?
	I don't know what that even is.
	Me being in your brain?
	A mind mental?
	No, not really.
	No, not really.
	I didn't say completely open, but you're hedging, right?
	So you're manipulating.
	Yeah.
	I wouldn't go as far as saying manipulating.
	I thought...
	Sure, no, no, you were.
	You were, because you were now holding a...
	I said you're not open with your feelings.
	And now you're saying I'm not completely open with my feelings, right?
	Well, I disagreed a little bit there.
	I mean, I was...
	Once we started talking about it, I... I thought at least I said I was feeling...
	What did I say?
	I was slightly angry.
	So at least I mentioned it when I was questioned.
	But yeah, of course, I do not blurt out my...
	Blurt out is another manipulation, right?
	Is it?
	Because it's a negative phrase.
	Blurting out is like an involuntary verbal ejaculation, so to speak, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, if you were to say, I wasn't being honest in the conversation, or I wasn't being as honest as I could be, or I wasn't being as open as I could be, or I wasn't being as vulnerable as I could be, and then I blamed you, Steph, for my lack of openness...
	And now I keep trying to redefine it to make myself look less bad, and Steph, unfortunately, that has the aspect of trying to make you look worse.
	From a guy who's trying to help me, who has some expertise in the field, I'm arguing and disagreeing, right?
	All right.
	Right, I mean, I think, and that doesn't mean I'm right or anything like that, right?
	But that to me would be, you know, more honest than this fencing we've got going on, right?
	All right.
	All right.
	Yeah.
	Isn't it impolite to interrupt or if you're in the middle of something and I... No, it's maybe not impolite.
	I don't know.
	It's your call.
	Go ahead, Mike.
	Oh, it's your call, Ola.
	I mean, if Steph's saying something that you're not finding useful, I'm pretty sure he wants that feedback.
	You know, it's your call.
	You know, I may have given a couple of minutes speech here and there to try and connect with something and try and place something in context, but you have plenty of time to talk.
	Like, just saying that I didn't want to interrupt when we're in the middle of a conversation is also insulting to me, right?
	Because it's saying that I wasn't interested in your feedback, I was only using you as a platform to speech, if I, right?
	That I wouldn't have welcomed your input, right?
	That I was narcissistically preening my own verbal abilities at the expense of connecting with you, right?
	No, not really.
	But I didn't know.
	I mean, what you said, yeah, maybe.
	I didn't know if you were using my conversation as a, I mean, it is a It's a public stream and I don't know exactly when you talk about things which is related but is useful for the general public.
	Oh, come on, come on, come on.
	Look, we either have to speak honestly with each other or move on to the next caller.
	I mean, if you say, Steph, I couldn't tell you what I was feeling because I didn't want to interrupt you when we were talking for half an hour.
	What does that say about my openness to you in the conversation?
	What does that say about my capacity to listen?
	Yeah, of course, it says that it's not so good.
	It's terrible.
	Yeah, it's not really a compliment.
	That's true.
	No, it's an insult.
	Yes.
	See, again, you're hedging.
	Not really a compliment.
	This is what I mean.
	It is an insult.
	All right.
	All right.
	I'm sorry.
	No, no.
	Not all right like I've cornered you or you're pacifying me.
	If I'm in a half-hour conversation with someone, and I say repeatedly that they're not opening up emotionally, and they say, well, I didn't want to interrupt you.
	You didn't give me a chance to.
	That is an insult.
	We have to be honest about that.
	Okay.
	And then you keep playing the victim and saying, well, I'm so self-critical.
	But all you've done...
	For the last 15 minutes is insult me in one form or another.
	And I'm not taking it personally.
	Because I know that this is your dad and this is your history and this is your survival strategy, right?
	So I'm not like that bastard.
	You know, he's saying all these terrible things to me and I can't believe it.
	And I'm not taking it personally, right?
	All right.
	Because I know it's not about me.
	I'm not even in the conversation that you're having.
	Because I know that I've done nothing to earn the insults.
	I know that this is probably one of the few conversations where people, where someone is going to care enough about you to point out things that may be of real help.
	And if you want to know the entire purpose, and sorry we haven't forgot about you, Katrin, either, but if you want to know the entire purpose of the call, I will tell you.
	If you like.
	Just so you understand how it is valuable, though you may not know that right now.
	All right.
	Yes, please.
	So, because your capacity for honesty remains limited, and again, that's good, that's good news, because if you guys were perfectly honest and really open and vulnerable and connected, and you were still having big problems in your relationship, that would be really bad, right?
	Because that would mean the relationship would be doomed, right?
	So the fact that You're not very honest and then when there's confrontation you turn to manipulation and insult is good news because it means then when you deal with that you can be much more connected with each other.
	But what you wanted from this conversation, I would argue, I can't prove it, it's not a syllogism, but I would argue that what you wanted from this conversation was a demonstration of healthy anger.
	And so you provoked and provoked until I got angry.
	And then you got to see healthy, non-destructive anger and assertiveness demonstrated where somebody could stand up for his needs and request needs from others without becoming abusive, without becoming hostile, without becoming destructive.
	And you could see that in the moment.
	And then you tried to provoke further anger by being insulting.
	Again, unconscious.
	I'm not saying you mean people or anything like that.
	By being insulting and so on.
	And then I pointed out that it was insulting and I was assertive about it being insulting without getting angry, without counterattacking, without escalating, without insulting back, without trying to get you, right?
	So what you needed to see And I got this halfway through the call.
	What you needed to see was not an abstract description of that, but a live demonstration.
	In hindsight, maybe.
	Maybe that's useful.
	It was definitely not what we had in mind when we first called.
	And how's Katrin doing?
	Um...
	I'm more confused than anything else.
	Go on.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm confused.
	I don't know.
	Do you share my...
	I also feel really confused.
	I don't know.
	I'm afraid right now.
	Go on.
	Afraid of what?
	Sorry?
	Afraid of what, do you think?
	I don't know.
	I noticed that I have a really, really majorly fast heartbeat and I noticed that I'm distracting myself.
	Yeah, confusion is a defense, right?
	Yes, I know that, but I cannot tell you right now.
	I'm just trying to feel inside myself so I can give you feedback what goes on right now.
	I don't know the answer right now.
	I also feel I'm getting sad.
	But I'm confusing myself.
	I bounce from one point to the other.
	I bounce from one part of the conversation to another.
	So I'm distracting myself from being sad and...
	Let me see.
	And I'm terribly afraid.
	Right.
	But...
	I assume the fear is because of the presence of anger, at least from my side, and the sadness may be because I didn't leave the room but stayed in the conversation.
	But, sorry, but what?
	So...
	But what?
	The fear may be...
	Sorry, I didn't understand what you said.
	Yeah, so the fear may be because, you know, your father would get angry and his anger would be destructive, and I got angry...
	I don't think my anger was destructive.
	And also your father would leave the room, but I stayed in the conversation while being angry and did not become destructive, right?
	So you're sad, because if I can be angry and stay in the conversation, and I think that it was good that I did, I hope it was good.
	It makes complete sense, rationally, what you're saying.
	It doesn't resonate emotionally with me?
	Yes, but what does resonate emotionally with you at the moment?
	That's the challenge, right?
	Alright.
	Right, I mean, if...
	And I'm certainly happy to hear alternative theories, right?
	But you had an example of anger being destructive, and I think here is an example of anger being useful.
	You don't think I understand that anger is useful?
	Is that right?
	Well, I just don't know if you've seen it modeled.
	Well, I mean, I guess, of course.
	I mean...
	At least from you in the shows?
	Right.
	Well, if it's alright with you guys, I would say listen to the call.
	I think there's a lot to...
	To get out of it.
	And try and listen in a sort of physically relaxed, like sit on the couch, turn down the lights, and try and work at physical relaxation while listening to the call, because I'm certainly glad you guys called in, and I hugely appreciate you staying with a challenging conversation.
	I really do.
	And none of this is to indicate that I'm right about anything.
	But I hope that I noticed that you weren't there, at least present to me, Emotionally are connected.
	And I sort of tried to point it out.
	And then we hit sort of a secondary line of defenses, which was evasion and insults.
	And then confusion is the third line of defense and so on.
	And I think that's enough of a journey to go for today.
	But I really, really appreciate it.
	The call in.
	I hugely do.
	I mean, it's very tough, you know, for people who are like, oh, you should do this or you should do that.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	You know, try calling in with a real personal challenge and see what happens.
	It is very, very hard to have these kinds of conversations.
	And I really do appreciate you guys talking about this stuff.
	All right.
	Thanks for...
	Thanks for taking the time.
	Yes, thanks for taking the time.
	You're very welcome.
	Mike, who do we have next?
	Next up is Alex.
	Alex wrote in and said, But in the third world countries and developing countries, that logic just doesn't fly.
	The caller was sold that his father was exploited, in some sense, by the women in his family, but that's just not how people think.
	Not how people who live in those circumstances see things.
	Go ahead, Alex.
	Hi, Steph.
	Hi, Michael.
	Hi, go ahead.
	I just thought...
	So, hang on.
	So, you're saying that you know how all the people in the third world think?
	Well, I have experience in the third world, and I was able to, I felt, relate to him better than you could.
	And without listening to his entire conversation, you immediately thought that it was his mother...
	Who was wearing pants in the family who was pushing him out to work.
	But we don't really know if it was maybe his father who took the initiative and decided to abandon his dream of becoming whatever to actually support his family and say— No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
	The guy was 18 years old.
	His mother, I assume, was 40 or 50, right?
	So if he's doing something that is destructive to his dreams, then it's her job to say, no, no, no, no, no.
	You don't give up on your dreams to give me money.
	I'll go get a job.
	Yes.
	I mean, that sounds really nice.
	Oh, come on.
	Don't patronize me, man.
	Don't pull that.
	That sounds really nice.
	Is that not a valid and fair point to make?
	It is here.
	For the circumstances here.
	No, no.
	You're talking about this guy's situation.
	Yes.
	He was from Morocco.
	I thought he was from Brazil.
	I thought it was Morocco.
	Regardless.
	Because he talked about, when did I visit Morocco, things were different.
	I can't remember.
	Anyway.
	Okay, let's say Brazil.
	It doesn't matter, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	But is it not true that if my child, at the tender age of 18, when a child is 18, they are still 7 years away from brain maturity.
	They still have an immature brain.
	Whereas a woman of 50 has a fully mature brain and all the wisdom and life experience of being a parent and being married and living for 50 years.
	So if my child is going to do something self-destructive for that child, And I, as the parent, am perfectly willing for my child to do that when it benefits me and costs my child?
	Come on.
	How can you say that's alright?
	It's not alright, but we don't know how self-destructive it was for him.
	We know also that people change their goals and their dreams all the time.
	I only know one person.
	Who in high school or elementary school knew he wanted to be a jet pilot and lo and behold today, 30 years later, he is a jet pilot.
	What are you talking about?
	I don't understand.
	The guy said that the grandfather's pension ran out and his father had to go and work to give money to his mother and his sister.
	And he had to give up his dreams and go become a petrochemical engineer because his mother needed money.
	The family needed money.
	The mother needed money.
	Well, do we know that the mother has pushed him out?
	I didn't gather that from the call, that the mother said, you've got to go out and get money to me.
	But no, see, you're not listening.
	We're either going to have a conversation or you're just going to repeat the same points as if I haven't talked.
	The mother should have told him, even if he had that urge, first of all, that urge would come from cultural norms around male disposability.
	So he wouldn't just have that feeling out of nowhere.
	Secondly, the mother should tell him, no, pursue your dreams, I'll get a job.
	If she can find a job, and if you put yourself in the In the mentality of the third world, where jobs are few and far between, who is likely to get a job?
	Bottom line is they need money.
	And assuming that his mother had best intentions, she would probably...
	I'm sorry, why would I assume the mother had best intentions?
	Why would you not?
	Are you assuming I had best intentions?
	I do.
	I do assume that you have best intentions, yeah.
	Doesn't sound like it.
	Mike, would you like to read the question again?
	I can do that.
	I listened to the estrogen-based parasite show and think the logic Stefan applied with the caller has no bearing on his situation.
	Stefan's thinking is not flawed in all circumstances, especially regarding North American experience, but in third world countries and developing countries, that logic just doesn't fly.
	The caller was sold that his father was exploited, in quotes, in a sense, by the woman and his family, but that's just not how people who live in those circumstances see things.
	Nothing about best intentions for me.
	Just because I disagree with you on the approach doesn't mean that I don't believe that you had best intentions.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So we have to be explicit about best intentions for women, but we don't have to ever talk about it with men unless we're called to them.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So you're saying that the mother could not have gotten a job?
	Because he didn't say she spent six months looking for a job, right?
	He didn't.
	He's 18.
	Yeah, he didn't say that.
	Now, if I said, well, wait a second, why did you have to go to work?
	And he said, well, she spent six months trying to find a job and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	Okay, well, that's a little different, right?
	But he didn't say that at all.
	He didn't provide enough information, I think, and he wasn't quizzed enough to kind of get that information out of him.
	But I just felt that Even though he agreed, at the end of the call, he seemed to have agreed and he was content that your answer was satisfactory, but I just felt that it wasn't exactly on the target.
	Perhaps I'm wrong, but I just didn't.
	You said you didn't listen to the whole call?
	I did.
	Oh, you did?
	Okay.
	Now, do you agree that the caller found it very useful and helpful and called it life-changing?
	Yes, I agree with that.
	Okay, so he's incorrect in that?
	He could be...
	You know, sometimes we grab onto things that at the time seem plausible, but obviously he didn't describe his mother enough, for me at least.
	Okay, so if I understand this correctly, the fact that she might have gotten, tried to get a job, but didn't, and that was never talked about is one possibility for which there's no evidence and for which the man could easily have corrected me on.
	Right?
	Yes.
	So you're holding, you're hanging your hat on that, and then you're saying that although the caller found it accurate, true, and life-changing, he's not correct about that either.
	And you say that my thinking is somehow empirical, like anti-empirical and flawed?
	The evidence is that there was, come on, you and I both know there was no search for a job for six months.
	Give me a break.
	And look, we'll contact the guy if you like.
	We'll contact the guy and confirm it, but I guarantee you.
	I guarantee you that there's no looking for a job for six months.
	And then you're saying that the guy...
	Like, I'm talking to a guy...
	I don't know if Brazil is even considered the third world, but let's say...
	I'm calling...
	To a guy from Brazil.
	We have a long conversation.
	He says it's had a huge impact and has been a life-changing conversation.
	And then you're saying that I don't address people's concerns from the third world.
	I think I'll actually just go with the caller's experience rather than your interpretation and say that he's wrong because you have no evidence that I was wrong.
	Well, that's true.
	I mean, ultimately, that bottom line, that's true.
	You know, he agreed with you at the end of the call, but I just felt, I mean, perhaps wrongfully so, I just felt that you jumped on...
	No, no, no.
	The way you introduced yourself to me was not, I have a feeling, but, Steph, you are wrong.
	And now you're going with, well, okay, I've been proven wrong, or at least I have no evidence for my assertion staff that you're wrong, but I had a feeling.
	But I'm not going to do a bait-and-switch.
	You don't get to come on this show and tell me that I'm wrong, empirically and factually, and incorrect.
	And then, when I disprove your assertion, go back to a feeling that you had.
	Well, I, you know, it's, I just, I guess I just felt that it didn't connect.
	No, no, no, I don't care about your feelings.
	No.
	No, I'm sorry.
	You come on with a factual correction, an empirical, logical, rational, philosophical correction, you don't get to switch to feelings.
	Alex, the email wasn't...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, Alex, the email wasn't, I listened to the estrogen-based parasite show and it made me feel really uncomfortable.
	I felt X, Y, and Z. I'd like to come on and talk about it.
	It wasn't...
	Now, what you can do if you want to earn talking about feelings, you can say to me, Steph, I was wrong in saying that you were wrong.
	I was incorrect.
	It was rude of me to publicly call you out for being incorrect when it turns out I have no proof behind my assertions.
	I'm very sorry.
	That was wrong of me.
	You can say that, but don't start switching to feelings without acknowledging that you treated me unjustly by saying that I was wrong while having no evidence.
	Well, I guess I suppose I would agree with that.
	I mean, I didn't formulate that particular question, but I went...
	You what?
	You didn't formulate that question?
	I don't know what that means.
	Well, that's okay.
	Let's not worry about that.
	No, no.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm not worrying about it.
	I just don't know what that means.
	The person that formulated the question, and I just kind of approved it.
	Wait, so which woman was it that formulated the question?
	Which woman?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Well, my question to you, my question for the show wasn't saying that you were wrong, outright calling you wrong or anything like that.
	It's just that my feeling was that you jumped the gun.
	And the question for the show that Michael read up to you...
	Wait, no, no.
	Who formulated the question?
	Michael.
	Michael, your producer.
	Oh.
	That's Michael's question?
	Yes.
	Let me pull up your exact email right now.
	All right, so let's get to the bottom of this.
	Alright.
	The email was...
	I don't have any particular questions for Stefan, but I think the logic he applied to that one caller from Brazil has no bearing on the situation.
	Stefan's thinking is not flawed in all circumstances, especially in North American experience.
	I agree that there are many people who exploit their quote-unquote neighborhood man for their own purposes.
	But in the third world countries and developing countries, that logic doesn't fly.
	The caller was sold that his father was exploited, in a sense, by the women in his family, but that's not just how people who live in those circumstances see things.
	I don't know how exciting that topic will be for the show, but if you think a discussion about it is worthwhile, I will do it.
	I responded back and said, I normally read introductions to the callers, and I made a brief summary of what you wrote.
	Is this okay?
	And then that was the summary that you responded, and you said that was fine.
	Please don't...
	Stefan, don't take this as a personal insult to you or calling it wrong.
	I just felt that...
	You're just being dishonest.
	Me?
	Yes.
	Well...
	You said it wasn't your formulation of the question, but it was a summary of your argument which you agreed with.
	Well, I didn't call you wrong, but I just felt that...
	Okay, we're not having any truth in here.
	Mike, can we move on to the next caller?
	Yes, we can.
	Thank you very much for your call.
	That was very instructive.
	Alright, up next today is Jesse.
	Jesse writes in and says, my question is in relation to anger.
	Interesting show topic.
	Ooh!
	Goddammit, there's a theme here.
	The anger that I exhibit that stems from my broken home as a childhood combined with my time in the military and how I can better control myself around my wife and kids.
	Specifically, how do I deal with my wife's own anger issues without inflaming the situation instead of resolving it?
	Go ahead, Jesse.
	Good morning, Stefan.
	Good morning.
	How are you doing, Jesse?
	Good.
	Good to talk to you again.
	First of all, I'd just like to say, no thanks for your service.
	I know you always get thanks for your service.
	I would just like to say as an anarchist, no thanks for your service for me.
	I'm with you.
	I'm actually with you on that one.
	I believe you are.
	I actually use the thanks for your service as a segue to kind of enlighten people in the reality of My service for the corporatocracy than any freedom that they may enjoy.
	Yeah, so good for you for doing that.
	I just wanted to be clear on that.
	So what did you do in the military, if you don't mind me asking?
	I was in the infantry with the 82nd.
	Ooh, man, so you were like bayonet distance, right?
	Yep.
	I'm sorry about that.
	Holy shit.
	Yeah, well...
	Holy shit.
	I don't know.
	Sometimes I think, looking back at my life, it was maybe a A more peaceful time in some respects.
	Oh, you mean since what you got back?
	No, I mean just dealing with stuff in my childhood and things like that.
	I don't know.
	Basically, my parents divorced when I was very young.
	I want to say five years.
	But I don't really remember and they don't really talk about it.
	So I've repeatedly asked them over the years separately, you know, why did you guys get divorced?
	And, you know, my mom blames my dad's drinking and my dad blames my mom's lack of respect for his desire to work and provide for the family.
	But there, I mean, there's, you know, there's never any agreeance on that.
	And I've just kind of Left it as it is.
	My dad got involved with somebody fairly quickly after the separation, similar to the first caller there.
	She was a perfect example of a tyrant.
	She was a Her household was very super structured, so when my mom was in an abusive relationship and I ended up moving in with my dad and her, she, recognizing that I came from a broken home, immediately clamped down on me and did everything she could, despite the fact that her kids, she had a son and a daughter that were around my age.
	We got along great.
	We had a great time together.
	We always had a lot of fun.
	There was rarely any kind of Discord between the children.
	But she was afraid that my upbringing would somehow, you know, soil their perfection or whatever.
	And so she would always, you know, after she saw that I was kind of failing in school, she would isolate me to my bedroom.
	She would make me sit down and do entire chapters of my textbooks to try and catch up.
	And very emotionally abusive to me.
	And my dad was basically passive the entire time.
	To the point where if we would drive together in his truck to go somewhere together, just the two of us, I could open up to him and we could talk and he would agree with me and he would apologize and we'd have that great connection and I really looked forward to those times.
	But as soon as we got back home, it was as if that never even happened.
	And he was drinking the whole time, and he had a lot of anger issues.
	Last time we talked, I told you he would make me go toe-to-toe with him, where we'd basically stand toe-to-toe, and he'd dare me to hit him.
	And I never did.
	Wait, this was a more recent thing, right?
	Your father daring you to hit him?
	This was when I was a kid.
	This was when I was 12 or 13 years old.
	He would dare you to hit him.
	Under what possible circumstance could that occur?
	He was wasted most of the time.
	His life was basically get up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, go to work, come home at 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, cook dinner, drink, and go to bed.
	That was pretty much my experience with him.
	Yeah, so you hitting him might have been an improvement on his day, right?
	We would have given him something to...
	Get his blood going a little or something.
	So at some point...
	So wait, your stepmom was concerned that you might be toxic to her family.
	Yeah.
	But marrying an alcoholic abuser was somehow going to be fucking great for her children, right?
	Yeah, well, he was putting her through college, so, you know...
	Oh, estrogen-based parasite time.
	I got it.
	Okay, so yeah, he was a drunken ATM who might beat her children, but at least she got some cash for her hoo-hoo.
	Okay, got it.
	All right.
	I'm sorry that that was your introduction to anything to do with women, but all right.
	Well, fortunately, for some time before that, I was living with my mom, and despite the fact that she was a recovering alcoholic and dealing with those issues, she actually did I did a reasonably good job under the circumstances as far as making sure I was fed and clothed and housed and all that.
	At some point, the stepmother decided that I was too much.
	She enrolled me in counseling.
	Many of the sessions I found out later on There would be times when my therapist and my stepmother and dad would meet without me and talk about things, which I can get back to that later.
	Basically, she brought stories that I would write completely conscious of their fantasy nature and would basically dress it up like I was delusional.
	And that I believed that what I was writing was real.
	And I ended up getting institutionalized because of that.
	And she worked...
	She was an in-home health nurse and she worked in the company where I was seeking therapy.
	Or not seeking, but receiving therapy.
	So...
	Her words kind of, I guess, held somewhat of a bit of clout.
	And again...
	My dad was just kind of there.
	He didn't really, I guess, have anything to say about it one way or the other.
	While the therapy was going on, there would be a lot of talking between the adults, and I would kind of pick up buzzwords or whatever, and then I'd go to my school library and look it up, and I started reading up on psychology and different things, and I ended up reading Michael Crichton's Terminal Man.
	And just to be fun, just because I thought it'd be funny, I guess, because I was a kid, I ended up telling my therapist that I was hearing voices and exhibiting the signs of the schizophrenic that was the main character in that book.
	So I got institutionalized.
	I was 13 at this time.
	Well, I was institutionalized and When they determined to do that, I broke down and I told them that I completely made everything up, but it was too late.
	So I guess somebody who was actually crazy, I guess, would say that.
	So I ended up spending, I don't know exactly how much time, I want to say like six weeks.
	It was something beyond the typical stay at this particular place.
	While I was there, I was on...
	A cocktail of medications.
	They had me, um, they would give us Thorazine if we, you know, got out of line or whatever.
	Um, and I was on Depakote, Novene, Welbutrin.
	And these are all first gen, you know, this is when Welbutrin first came out.
	So it was, uh, but there is a, uh, probably two or three by the time I left the hospital.
	Um, That I was on outpatient.
	So I couldn't go outside because if I was in the sun too long, you know, I'd melt or whatever.
	And so my childhood was pretty restrictive after that.
	And I was in a kind of a halfway home, not a home, but like a place to go to school instead of going to school.
	And then eventually I got released back in the general population of the public school system.
	And then shortly thereafter, my stepmother said that she didn't feel safe with me in the house.
	So the state came and put me in what they called a host home program where I basically stayed with like a foster family until the state could determine whether or not I was eligible to go to a A state home or whatever.
	Some point after that, my mom realized this whole time that I was in the home, my stepmother's kids and her and my dad would tell my mom that I just wasn't available anytime she'd call to talk to me.
	So she had no idea what was going on.
	But once she called the school and spoke to my guidance counselor, he told her what was going on and she started driving from Maine where she was living to New Jersey where I was living.
	To try and fight for custody.
	And she had to go through all these different things where she had to demonstrate that she was seeking therapy and that she was still going to AA and that she wasn't drinking and all this other stuff.
	And about four months later, she finally convinced them to give her custody of me.
	And I started staying with her Until she started getting all stressed out.
	I was not an easy kid by any stretch of the imagination to deal with, as you can imagine.
	Hey, hey, hey, hey.
	No, come on, come on.
	Oh, you're right, you're right, you're right.
	Come on.
	Don't give me that.
	You know better than that, right?
	So she started putting me in these kind of temporary shelters, and I bounced around between two or three of those while she was trying to procure funds to...
	Pay for tuition to send me to a state school there, like a residential school.
	And that never happened.
	In the beginning, we were staying with my sister on a Navy base, and then we ended up getting Section 8 housing somewhere for a while.
	Wait, so your dad was military too?
	No, my sister.
	My sister was in the Navy at that time.
	Yeah, so you all went, had this horrible childhood in my military, right?
	Did you ever meet anyone in the military who came from even a remotely normal background?
	No.
	No, I don't really remember anybody.
	But, I mean, we had some very...
	I mean, they say wounded warriors like it's the missing leg.
	Right.
	It's like, no, they have to be wounded to become warriors, right?
	Well, I mean, and that was the weird thing.
	So, I was 17 when I joined the Army.
	And, because I had, you know, I had...
	I'd ended up going to Job Corps for a while.
	I don't know if you know what that is.
	It's kind of a live-in vocational program.
	And I ended up getting kicked out for hacking, computer hacking.
	And just by the by, right?
	So the people always say, well, what are you going to do with really dysfunctional people?
	In a free society.
	Well, you know, you had a horribly dysfunctional history, a relentlessly abusive history, and you were well-armed, right?
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	That's what I mean when I say like...
	What are we going to do with crazy people?
	And I'm not saying you're crazy, but I mean, what are we going to do with dysfunctional people in a free society?
	It's like, well, why don't we not give them nukes?
	Let's start with that.
	Let's not give them the ability to counterfeit as much money as they want.
	Let's not give them bunker buster bombs and infinite access to destructive weapons.
	You know, that's just my particular approach.
	But please, go on.
	So basically, once I got My stint at the Job Corps ended.
	I ran away with my girlfriend that I met there.
	We lived in Boston for a while and then moved out to Missouri to be with her uncle where I worked for a company he owned.
	It was a trucking company and I was basically on the warehouse just kind of loading and unloading 18 wheelers all day.
	And he was former special operations so he And I was older than his son, so he had a hard-on for, you know, what you really need to do is you need to go join the military and get your shit together.
	And this was before 9-11 happened.
	And then somewhere in between there, I broke up with her, moved back to Maine, but not back with my mom.
	I ended up moving in with a friend, and I was just kind of doing my own thing.
	I was selling credit cards over the phone.
	And then 9-11 happened, and I pretty much...
	You know how that goes.
	That wrote my ticket for my getaway plan.
	Went to the recruiting station.
	I always had a proclivity for computers, so I tried to get in as a signal intelligence person, which I blew my ASVAB out of the water so I could do whatever I wanted.
	And...
	I failed the...
	It was like a D-Lab test where they test to see your ability to learn new languages or whatever.
	And I didn't have time to finish it.
	So they said I couldn't do signal intelligence.
	So then I was like, well, what can get me on a plane tomorrow?
	And obviously, you know.
	And my dad was infantry with the 101st.
	And there's conflicting stories about whether or not he actually went to Vietnam or not.
	But at the time, I was still pretty much...
	Probably more in my dad's corner than my mom because at the time I was kind of resentful of my mom because I felt...
	I didn't have any compassion for her diminished mental state.
	And I kind of criticized her for living on the system and for going to the food bank when she had a job because I didn't understand where we were at socioeconomically.
	But I, so anyway, I joined the army, got in the infantry, um, They were kind of fast-tracking everybody, obviously, so by the time I got through infantry and airborne school, I went to the ranger indoctrination program, which, yes, that's actually what they called it at the time.
	There's truth in advertising sometimes, right?
	Right.
	So I did the ranger thing for a while, and then The Special Forces recruiters came up and tried to recruit a bunch of us out of Rangers to go to the SF program because I needed to fill those numbers up.
	What's SF? Special Forces.
	Oh yeah, sorry.
	Okay, got it.
	And I ended up getting hurt in training there, so then I just got bumped to the 82nd where the unit I got attached to just got a warning order to go to Afghanistan, and because of the Special Weapons training I had, Through the Special Warfare School, I automatically got bumped up to Team Leader and basically spent as much time as I possibly could being deployed from there on out.
	Right.
	So I bounced around between Afghanistan, Iraq and Africa for the better part of a decade.
	Came to New Orleans where I live now.
	During Katrina to help out and always said I'd come back once I got out, which I got out of the army because they told me that they had a civilian psychologist that was evaluating everybody and they said that they didn't feel that I could conduct myself anymore because I was doing my job.
	They wanted me to write a desk or whatever, and I told them basically where they could stick it.
	Evidently, they didn't like that, so they let me go.
	Since then, I've lived in New Orleans for about five years now.
	I met my wife.
	It'll be five years in October.
	We've been married for three years next month.
	We have twin boys now.
	There'll be two next month.
	So now I'm just trying to...
	And she comes from a less broken...
	Her parents are still married, but they're extremely verbally and emotionally abusive and manipulative.
	So that's her background.
	And combined with mine, it's kind of a...
	We're perfect in a thousand different ways.
	And in many ways, she is everything I probably would have been if I didn't join the military.
	And I really, really love that about our relationship.
	But there's times where, you know, she talks to me condescendingly or she gets angry very quickly, which is how her parents talk, you know, Their go-to tone is yell or sarcasm or whatever.
	So she has a tendency to get angry very easily, and it affects me because I'm sensitive emotionally, especially to being yelled at or being condescended to or whatever.
	And then we just end up going back and forth and kind of feeding on one another.
	I've been recently trying to deal with my drinking issue, which I had been three months sober last time we talked, and I've backslidden since then.
	In fact, I almost drank myself to death yesterday.
	Or the day before yesterday.
	What do you mean?
	Well, my mom was here.
	My mom and stepdad came down here to visit, to see the kids.
	And her and my mom, it's pretty much cats in a bag every time they get together.
	So, um...
	Okay.
	And, uh...
	My wife and I went out to dinner, and I had two, you know, large things of sake and a beer, and then came home and drank a bottle of wine, and...
	Yeah.
	Was...
	And then what happened?
	Well, I was pretty much incapacitated for the next several hours, you know...
	Most of that next day, most of yesterday.
	And do you think that you were in danger of alcohol poisoning?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, definitely.
	You're kind of chuckling, Jesse.
	I just want to point that out.
	No, I know.
	I mean, you're the father of two children, right?
	And they might have woken up to you being dead, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So, that's...
	That's the long story short, and that's where I'm coming to you.
	Right.
	Is your wife's parents around a lot?
	No, they don't like me.
	So, when we first got together and decided we were going to move in together, they actually took her car and shut her phone off.
	So, I... You know, she made the decision to be with me, regardless of that.
	But as a result of that, her mom is extremely resentful of me and her father basically just does like my dad did and lets her mom do whatever she wants.
	And requests that we do everything to make it easier for him by acquiescing to whatever it is that her mom wants.
	So...
	Basically, any plans that are made have to go through her, and if I'm involved, then she's not going to want to be involved.
	They don't come over, really, to see the kids.
	So, no, they're pretty disassociative, I guess.
	And I don't think, and my wife has said that It's specifically because of me that I'm just kind of the vehicle that they're using to run her over with.
	But, I mean, it makes it very difficult for her because, well, for both of us, because then neither one of us really have anyone to go to when the fighting happens or whatever.
	Which usually ends up in our fights diffusing into half apologies or just unresolved issues that we just pretend got resolved or whatever until the next fight.
	Okay, so let's start with the immediate stuff, man.
	And of course, the degree to which the psychiatric community is complicit with abusive parents in drugging non-compliant children Is a war crime across the generations, and there will be a fucking Nuremberg at some point in the future for these unbelievably evil psychiatric monsters who has,
	as they have generally done throughout history, conspired with the ruling classes to squelch dissent among the young through drugs.
	And the only improvement is that it used to be through things like Lobotomies and ice baths and torture and all that sort of shit.
	And now they've gone full intergenerational biochemical warfare on the young.
	You were protesting child abuse.
	You were fighting ridiculous levels of abuse within the home.
	And you were drugged.
	This is Soviet-style dissident crushing.
	And it's one of the reasons why young people don't rebel that much.
	And this is why, as predation against the young has increased, so has the lie of mental illness increased.
	And it is generally non-compliance, a failure to comply with extreme abuse that gets you drugged.
	So I'm incredibly sorry that you got caught up in that.
	The sociopathic evil machinery of drugging children, you needed help, right?
	Yeah.
	You needed sympathy, you needed empathy, and instead you got biochemically nuked, right?
	Yeah, one of the therapists I ended up seeing when I got into my mom's custody, you know, was going through the litany of treatments and different things I was on, and By his estimation, I was on enough drugs to bring down a small male gorilla.
	No, I don't doubt it.
	Yeah.
	I don't doubt it.
	And he actually helped me once I started.
	And he was like a therapist, not a psychiatrist or a psychologist.
	Yeah, therapists I have a lot more forgiveness for.
	Right.
	And he was...
	I mean, he was really...
	Oh, sorry.
	Go ahead.
	No, go ahead.
	He was really into, like, real...
	Like, real therapy, where we would sit down and he identified me as an intelligent kid and we'd play, you know, um...
	What's that game that Russell Crowe played in Beautiful Minds?
	I can't remember.
	Go.
	That's what we called it, Go.
	But anyway, um...
	I mean, he really engaged me and really explored me mentally.
	You know, um...
	And it was quite a difference.
	Um...
	But he actually worked with that hospital, or the place that referred me to the hospital, and got all the transcripts of all the counseling sessions that my dad and my stepmom had with and without me, which is how I found out about the ones that didn't involve me.
	And, I mean, it was literally black and white.
	You could see on the page her book.
	You know, her injecting these little crumbs of, this kid's crazy, and all the conversations.
	And, I mean, she had an agenda.
	Clearly, she had an agenda to get me out of the home from the beginning.
	Yeah.
	No, it's not uncommon in a sort of ape-like way, right, for the new mom or the new dad.
	Right, right.
	To want to get rid of the prior offspring, right?
	And a way to do it that's free...
	Right?
	Getting committed, right?
	Anger issues from all of that is...
	It's really...
	I've been eating up everything that you've put out.
	I've been listening to the parenting material.
	Now, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I want to make sure we get time value for the call.
	So, I mean, how blunt do you want me to be?
	Uh...
	Be as open to me as I've been with you.
	Okay.
	So, I'm going to break a rule of mine.
	I'm going to break a rule of mine because I try never to tell people what to do.
	In particular, people who've had experience in the military because it's not like you've had any shortage of orders, right?
	Sure.
	Now, the reason that I'm going to break my rule is Is that you are in imminent danger.
	And your children are in imminent danger.
	Okay, so I'm going to break my own rule, but it's for a good reason.
	So I hope that...
	And you can, of course, reject any and all of what I have to say.
	Are you ready?
	Let me sit.
	Yeah, you have a sit.
	Go ahead.
	You cannot be spending time with abusers.
	You drank because, was it your wife was fighting with your mom?
	Is that right?
	Yeah, sorry, my mic was muted.
	No problem.
	Yeah, I mean, just...
	No, just yes or no, right?
	Your wife was fighting with your mom and you almost drank yourself to death.
	Yes.
	You cannot expose yourself to that conflict.
	It will kill you.
	Look, you and I know that the rate of military suicides is staggering, post-military suicides.
	For those who don't know, Mike, you want to drop in and drop some number bombs on people?
	Yeah, I was just looking into this information yesterday.
	I found an article that had some stuff in it, and there are 22 veteran suicides each day.
	That works out to 154 each week, 667 each month.
	It's estimated there'll be over 8,000 within this calendar year.
	Much worse than combat deaths, right?
	Yeah, I actually lost three times as many of my former brothers-in-arms from suicide than from combat last year.
	Right.
	So I don't have the luxury of giving advice.
	I am going to give absolutely unenforceable orders.
	Alright?
	Sure.
	You had a terrible childhood.
	This is one of the worst childhoods I've ever heard of.
	And I've heard of some doozies.
	Alright?
	I mean, you were chemically raped, abandoned, confined, abused, incarcerated, demonized, rejected, scorned, Labeled which is a very powerful thing to occur for a child and There's almost nothing bad that could have happened to you that didn't happen to you and It is a completely heartbreaking story one that is tragically common among the military the
	ruling classes use broken and smashed up childhoods as weaponized instruments of domination around the world and And this is why the government has no incentive to end child abuse.
	Because the government needs abuse victims as enforcers.
	So, like with the first callers, your incredibly heartbreaking and tragic story is part of a larger picture of livestock management.
	Brutalize the children and you can murder foreigners.
	And this is why we will never have peace while we have a state.
	The state cannot survive without enforcers, and enforcers cannot be created without abuse.
	The state is a shadow cast by child abuse.
	The people who really serve the state are abusive parents.
	Everything else is just profit from their immorality.
	The real rulers, Are the abusive parents.
	The political rulers merely exploit their products.
	Does this make any sense to you?
	Absolutely.
	The toxicity of your childhood is so great that I believe all repeated exposures to it is life-threatening to you.
	Thank you.
	Let me say that again.
	Your early childhood was so toxic and abused that I believe that all exposure to perpetrators is dangerous to your very life.
	I do not believe that you can survive by having the perpetrators of your child abuse around you for the foreseeable future.
	It is literally a matter of survival for you and can you imagine what it will do to your children if they wake up to find daddy's cold body in the living room.
	A little bit of alcohol poisoning, vomit dribbling out of his mouth and his cold eyes staring to the black infinity which preceded our existence.
	That is a way to get another generation of soldiers growing up.
	You don't want that for them, right?
	No, absolutely not.
	You don't want to breed another generation of killbots, right?
	Nope.
	When your abusers are around you, you cannot be emotionally available to your children.
	It's too triggering.
	It's like saying that I can love my child like I'm a shark attack victim that barely survived shark attacks and I can be a great and loving parent to my child while sitting buck naked covered in marinade in a shark tank.
	I can't, right?
	No.
	When your trauma is reactivated, you are unavailable to your children.
	You are unavailable to your wife.
	And you were almost unavailable to the next goddamn morning, right?
	Yep, you're right.
	You cannot be around people who perpetrated, participated, or stood by your child abuse as a child.
	Look, I'm glad your mom fought for some custody for you.
	That's great.
	But you still ended up back in the machine, right?
	Right.
	You need calm.
	You need non-combat, non-conflict, non-fighting.
	Right?
	I would, if I were in your shoes, first of all, give yourself a giant fucking bear hug for surviving what you survived.
	I mean, holy shit.
	You literally have balls of diamond slash titanium But if your wife's parents are verbally abusive, keep them out of your house.
	Your mom was around, married your father, participated to some degree, fought for you to some degree, but you still ended up in the army.
	Cut-off time.
	Survival time.
	If you were a single man, you'd have...
	Or if you weren't engaged in willfully self-destructive...
	slash suicidal actions, then you could have time, right?
	That's what I say to everyone else, right?
	Take time, go to a therapist, work it out.
	But this is triage.
	This is an emergency, right?
	We've been talking about going to see somebody for a while now.
	And that's great.
	But until all of that stuff is resolved, then I think you should.
	I think it would be great.
	Make sure it's somebody who's got some experience with these issues, particularly military or somebody who's got Some understanding of the evils of what is called the mental health system, which is like calling the Holocaust the Jewish hotel system.
	That's kind of what I've been dealing with.
	There's, I mean, there's a couple people...
	No, no, I'm sorry, but I really want to get...
	I'm sorry, I'll shut up in a second.
	I just really want to get this across so there's no doubt, at least about my advice or perspective.
	You cannot have these people in your life right now until you have some stability through therapy.
	And that is probably going to be years.
	Look, why do soldiers kill themselves?
	I'm not a soldier.
	Right?
	So this is with all of the privileged and pampered bullshit of a white middle class guy.
	So you can throw it all out with the baby's bath water if you want.
	But I believe why do soldiers kill themselves?
	Trauma escalates until it's visible, and if the only thing that makes trauma visible is a corpse with a hole in its head, then that's what trauma will do.
	Trauma needs to be seen, and then it dissolves into sadness and connection.
	If people deny trauma, if people evade trauma, Trauma will escalate into self-abuse and abuse of others, and if the only place that trauma can find itself visible is in a gravestone marker, then that's where trauma will find itself visible.
	So, the fact that you got into the military was the result of child abuse and was the result of everyone encouraging you to get into the military, which is why at the very beginning of the call I said, no thanks for your service.
	People get into the military because they were abused, and then they return from the military with additional trauma to people who say, good for you for being traumatized, and view them as blank-faced, camouflaged heroes with no history and just an excess of moral courage and fortitude.
	Which is really like saying those brave, noble, heroic, heroin addicts.
	They come back with the trauma of the childhood, which manifested itself in the trauma of war and of murder.
	They come back to a society that ignores the child abuse and praises them for their bloodlust that resulted from the child abuse.
	And they return to the family that did not...
	I mean, Jesus Christ, if my daughter wanted to join the military, I would literally chain myself to her.
	I would stand in front of the jeep.
	I would...
	Lie down in front of the airplane.
	I would do whatever it took to keep her out.
	But I bet your parents were...
	Your society was pretty fine with you going in, am I right?
	Yeah, my mom had to sign the papers.
	Your mom had to sign the papers?
	Right, because I was 17.
	Right, the mom had to sign the papers to get you in, and this same goddamn human being...
	Is now floating around your house?
	She signed the papers to put you into the murder mill?
	Committing you to an institution that in some ways was even worse than the one that incarcerated you as a teenager?
	And now she's floating around your fucking dinner table?
	Really?
	No wonder oblivion can seem preferable.
	She signed you Into this decade-long murder fest, right?
	Good for you, son.
	Go!
	Get your head together.
	And who was the asshole guy who was doing that?
	I can't remember.
	Join the military, get your head together?
	What was that?
	Hang on, sorry.
	That was my girlfriend at the time's uncle.
	Girlfriend's uncle, right.
	Yeah, get your head together by exploding others' heads.
	So, your mom, does she have any regrets about signing you into the military for a war that had nothing to do with 9-11?
	Actually, we don't even talk about it.
	Right.
	Well, you kind of do talk about it with alcohol, right?
	Mom, you almost killed me once.
	Maybe you can kill me again.
	The trauma will escalate until it is visible.
	Jesus Christ, we've got a million dead Iraqis and we're still not thinking about the childhood that produced these people.
	Fifteen million killed by US foreign policy since the Second World War, mostly coming from the South where child abuse is much more prevalent.
	And we're still not thinking about better childhoods.
	We're still not asking the questions of how these people are produced.
	How many bodies will it take until we start to examine childhood?
	How many swords need to rain from the sky and impale helpless souls to the ground before we start looking at the furnace of their birth?
	I hope it's not an infinity.
	Dear God, can we be a species that learns from wisdom and philosophy rather than from almost being drowned in blood?
	Lots of people can teach you to swim.
	Hey, go teach to swim.
	Sign up to swim.
	You don't have to wait until you're almost drowning in blood and then struggle to learn to swim.
	Your death will teach the world nothing.
	Your life will teach your children everything.
	Letting a woman who signed you up for the military around your children is suicidal because it will provoke the kind of behavior that happened a few days ago, right?
	Yeah.
	Not all parents want their children to live.
	Not all parents want their children to flourish, but all parents who do wrong want to get off the hook.
	The single biggest decision of your adult life was going into the military.
	Your mother had to sign the papers.
	You never even talk about it.
	Well, it's not you who doesn't want to talk about it, but that which is essential, which we don't talk about, we act out.
	Right?
	And that One way ticket out of the hellhole of history called the bottle is too tempting, right?
	And you don't know whether that is going to be the one next step that stops your breathing.
	So, I really want to be clear that it is a potentially fatal decision to have either your parents or your wife's parents around For the foreseeable future.
	Because you need to find a way to live without triggers for a while, right?
	Seriously, you know it's Russian roulette, right?
	Every time you're around triggers, you're spinning that chamber and pulling the trigger, right?
	You've got to stop playing Russian roulette.
	You've got to stop being around triggers.
	Anything That contributed to you being in the military, anything or anyone who contributed to the ninth layer of hell called the childhood that you had, anything is putting a bullet in the chamber and spinning it, putting it to your head and pulling the trigger.
	And sooner or later, you know what's going to happen.
	It's just a matter of statistics, right?
	Yeah.
	Self-protection is the key.
	Sorry, you were going to say?
	Oh, I don't even remember what I was going to say now.
	Well, tell me what you think or feel about what I'm saying.
	No, I mean, you're 100% correct.
	You know, my biggest struggle I've been having recently...
	Trying to find a therapist, somebody to talk to.
	A lot of them around here, they're either through a church or they're coming at it from a spiritual perspective.
	But certainly nobody with the military experience.
	I tried to appeal to the VA and sign up for that.
	And they actually wrote me back and said I made too much money, so I'm not actually eligible somehow for the VA.
	Because I have a job, I guess.
	So...
	Well, no, and this is why I'm giving you advice that you can act on.
	Right?
	You finding a good therapist?
	I don't know.
	Maybe you can find someone online.
	Maybe there's people who've had military experience who've had good therapists that you can talk to.
	If it's Skype, if it's remote, I don't think that that's necessarily a barrier to great therapy.
	It's better to have a great therapist through Skype than a shitty one in the room, right?
	But this is why I don't want to give you advice that you can't act on directly.
	This is why I'm trying to give you things to do that are actionable right now.
	I get what you're saying.
	Now that I think about it, from the perspective that you talked about it, I don't think it'll be as hard of a conversation as I previously thought it would be.
	Which conversation?
	The conversation I'm going to have to have with my mom, letting her know what happened and that it has to stop.
	Yeah, I mean, look, you don't have to have a big confrontational conversation.
	You could just say, Mom, I'm taking a break from all my historical relationships to try and get my head sorted out, and I'm going to be seeking therapy, and I'll certainly be happy to get back in touch when I'm in a more stable place, but history is not serving my future, and I need to take a break.
	I mean, and that may all be true.
	I mean, who knows, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	It doesn't have to be a big confrontation, because you know what?
	You confront right now, and you're going to be in danger of hitting the bottle again.
	I'm talking about a cool-the-jet scenario, right?
	I mean, if I'm saying don't get triggered by history, you attempting to express needs and frustrations with your mom or your dad or your stepmom or the guy who delivered your fucking papers when you were four years old is going to trigger you again.
	You know, I would take, just ease out, you know, and say, look, I just, I find that when I'm in contact with historical people or people from my history, it tends to trigger me and it's a huge problem because your responsibility is not to your mom, not your stepmom, not your dad.
	Your responsibility now is to your two precious boys.
	Anything which endangers your relationship, let alone your damn survival, to those two twin boys, it's off the boat.
	Right?
	It's not optional.
	Anything which is going to threaten your relationship or your survival for and with those two boys and your wife.
	I mean, I want to mention that as well, right?
	But she's an adult.
	They're not.
	She chose you.
	They didn't.
	And they sure as shit didn't choose your mom who signed you up for the military.
	And they sure as shit didn't choose their grandparents.
	So you have to make that choice for them.
	You have to keep them safe.
	You have to keep yourself safe.
	It's time for primal, base of the brain, lizard, gorilla, family, offspring, protection instincts, baby.
	You draw a fucking moat around your family.
	No one who has harmed me gets in, motherfuckers.
	You harmed me in the past?
	And you ain't spent years apologizing, getting therapy and fixing it up, none shall pass.
	No historical demons come into this cathedral of peace.
	You don't earn your way in, you don't get in.
	You don't work like a son of a bitch to grow peace in your heart and leave the weapons of history behind.
	You don't break the habits that produced a decade of warmongering in me.
	You don't renounce the demons of histories and dissociation.
	You don't get in, motherfuckers.
	This here, my wife, my children, this here is my fortress of peace in a raging world.
	And none pass without the right words, without the right feelings, without the right thoughts, without a rejection of violence.
	You protect your family from all who've shown to be harmful to children, and you know who the fuck those people are, right?
	Absolutely.
	You don't have the right to expose your children to those Who've abused children?
	Of course you don't.
	Society will tell you that you do.
	You have a responsibility, but she's your mother.
	They're grandparents.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, let's send a couple of more altar boys to that pedophile priest.
	Because, you know, he's in big with God, man.
	He's a priest, so send him some more fucking victims.
	No!
	You protect your children.
	Which means protecting yourself.
	Which means not being around people who fucked you up in the past.
	Keep yourself safe from all evildoers.
	Keep your children away from all evildoers.
	Because that is the best way for them to remain safe from all evildoers in the future.
	There's this weird belief.
	Like if you gotta expose your children to dysfunctional people, send them to school.
	They're gonna run into bullies as adults.
	They need to know how to handle them.
	Come on.
	How mad is that?
	Hey, if I don't want my daughter to have a relationship with anyone who speaks Mandarin and only speaks Mandarin, what do I do?
	I don't teach her Mandarin.
	She ain't gonna have a relationship with people who only speak Mandarin if I don't teach her Mandarin.
	She's going to have nothing to do with them, nothing in common with them.
	And she'll very, very clearly get that they don't speak her language.
	And that there is no way to speak their language.
	I was at a play center with her the other day.
	She wanted me to tell you this story.
	So I was at a play center with her the other day.
	And there was this girl.
	Who was yelling into the slide as she was going down.
	Bah!
	Really loud, startling.
	Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you.
	And she said to the girl, I don't like that.
	Stop doing that.
	The girl did it again.
	I wasn't there.
	Her mother was there.
	My wife sat down, talked with the girl, said, please don't do that.
	She doesn't like it.
	The girl kept doing it.
	Moved to another area.
	Girl was interfering.
	Obviously, obviously, highly dysfunctional family.
	My daughter has been talking about it for like two weeks.
	That girl and...
	Not baffled.
	She was like, well, that girl wasn't nice at all.
	I wish you didn't listen at all.
	I would never be her friend.
	I think I'd stay away from her, right?
	Well, that's what happens when you don't let dysfunctional people around your children.
	They see them immediately.
	And they avoid them instinctively.
	So, the moat The fiery moat of blue-flamed virtue that I'm suggesting you ring your heart and your family with will ensure that your children will grow up having nothing to do with people who put their kids in brain-rotting drug farms rather than admit that they've got some problems with their parenting.
	Or kids who say, yeah, sounds great.
	Signed up for the Motor Squad.
	Let me sign for you because you're too young.
	What a great plan.
	That's the best way to turn the crap of your history into the gold of the future.
	Right?
	To recoil against all who did harm for children in your history is the best way of ensuring that your beautiful sons will grow up as good people who will contribute mightily to the virtue of this world.
	But get these people out of your life, man.
	It is literally a matter of life and death, and it certainly is essential for your children's respect.
	I mean, you're probably going to tell them, don't hang with bullies, don't hang with mean people.
	Well, give them that example, right?
	- No, you make perfect sense.
	You know, it's actually, I weirdly feel more encouraged now that I guess I see it more simply, more objectively for what it actually is instead of feeling guilt or feeling, you know,
	the pressures of maintaining that relationship.
	Because you're right.
	I mean, my family is more important than any of that.
	Yes, and you know what you said about your relationship with the military?
	You know, they said you were not suited for whatever, whatever, go write a desk, and you told them, basically, go fuck yourself, right?
	Exactly what I told them.
	Well, I mean, was that worse than what your parents did to you?
	No.
	No, so you said to the army, go fuck yourself, right?
	What else can you say to your parents?
	Did a hell of a lot more harm to you than that guy, right?
	Yeah.
	You all had your chance.
	You were born with a beautiful son.
	You fucked him up.
	You threw him into mental health prisons.
	You allowed him to be drugged.
	You signed up for him to go in the army.
	And you want to be around my fucking kids?
	Are you kidding me?
	You might as well come in here with a big vial of cholera and break it in my living room.
	You people are poison, and I have a responsibility for the health of my children.
	Well, I really appreciate it, Stefan.
	As usual, you're more than helpful.
	Michael, I hope you get this produced quickly, because I want to share it with my wife at length.
	As soon as I can.
	I'll get it out to you.
	Well, and I hope that you'll drop us a line and let us know how it's going.
	And look, if you are a good therapist and you think you can help this guy, you know, operations at freedomainradio.com, you know, we'll introduce you and we'll try and get this guy the resources that he needs.
	And, you know, look, I mean, if you have any financial issues, I would be certainly happy to pay for the therapy.
	I mean, it's that important, obviously, to me.
	And I know you said, oh, the VA says you're making, I know it's expensive with two kids.
	I mean, I know it's expensive with one, with two.
	I can't imagine, right?
	But if you have any financial issues, if there's anything, I don't care.
	If the therapist is $250 an hour, let us know.
	If it's too much for you, I will pay for it.
	I will be happy to pay for it with joy and pleasure and satisfaction.
	So get the help that you need, and whatever happens, we're going to get you that help, all right?
	I appreciate that.
	Thank you very much.
	You're welcome.
	Keep us posted, Ben.
	Now that's heroic, right?
	That's what you need medals for.
	So, thanks everyone so much, of course, for participating in this, the greatest conversation in the world.
	I'm telling you, I'm telling you, that is the case.
	And...
	You should support the show.
	I'm not going to even end this with a donation pitch because that was such serious stuff.
	But the show is helping a huge number of people.
	Thanks to all the callers.
	Thanks to Mike.
	I'm sorry to the callers we didn't get to.
	And I will speak to you Wednesday night for the next installment of Let's Bring the Truth to the Brain and Heart.

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