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May 2, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:31:12
"MOM ACCUSED DAD OF MOLESTING US!" Freedomain Call In
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Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain here with Alex, who has quite a tale to tell.
Alex, if you want to take it away.
Thank you, Stefan.
So, I had an interesting beginning in life.
From about four years old, I was led to believe that I and my younger sister had been molested by my father.
Sort of through the course of my life, I sort of I'd come to the conclusion that there was a misunderstanding born out of emotions that occur during divorce, which is obviously a really terrible thing to go through.
My mother had always maintained that she thought that the abuse was, that it happened, or at least it was a strong possibility.
And this has meant that, you know, I've really not had a great relationship with my father for many years of my life.
Anyway, he wasn't allowed to be unsupervised around us when we were kids following the allegations, and he disappeared and sort of wandered in and out of our lives.
You know, I've struggled a lot with mental health, substance abuse, and, you know, issues with, you know, forming relationships.
Not to say that I don't have relationships or, you know, Love or that sort of thing.
It's just that they're constant things that do come up.
I'm grateful that I have a relationship with my father now and I've built some connection, which is just great.
But I found out recently that my mother completely fabricated the abuse allegations to expedite a divorce and gain custody rights.
And yeah, feeling pretty betrayed.
I mean, I'm I'm allowed to be angry and certainly I'm willing to forgive her whether or not she ever admits it to my face.
But you know, it was so long ago and I'm just wrestling with whether or not to confront it, include her in a healing process and risk hurting her and the whole family or maybe just let the past rest and pursue my own closure on my own with a professional Other external help.
Thank you.
I am incredibly sorry to hear about all of this.
As you can imagine, and of course I'm sure you've done the research, sexual abuse allegations in divorce proceedings are so common they have their own acronym.
S.A.I.D.
Sexual Abuse in Divorce.
And it is unfortunately One of the ways in which women can, as you say, expedite divorce, get custody of the children, and, you know, stick it to the husband, who then has to sit there and worry or wonder or be terrified if he's going to get investigated and possibly end up in jail.
And of course, if someone ends up in jail as a pedophile, given how many criminals in jail were abused as children a lot in that way as well, well, it's kind of like a death sentence in many ways, right?
Yeah, that would seem to be the case.
So let's start with just some of the more recent stuff.
And I really, really commend you for talking about this.
This is a topic that is very hard for society as a whole because we very much care, of course, about the sexual abuse of children and that caring of children who are sexual abuse and concern for their well-being and just anger at the abusers can sometimes be manipulated by unscrupulous people in horribly evil ways.
So, how did you find out That your mother fabricated, as you say, these stories.
Well, I'm going to call this person an auntie.
It's somebody close.
She's not actually a blood relative, but she's close to both parties.
Like a godmother kind of thing?
Yeah, I guess you could say she looks out for a lot of people.
She didn't realize or didn't know that it was all made up.
So, you know, it was a revelation for her, as much as anything, but we talked at length about the whole thing, because, you know, I talk to her and things bother me, so, you know, this came to light and I, yeah, I couldn't quite...
I believe that that was the missing piece in the puzzle.
That's a good backstory, but it doesn't really answer the question.
How do you know at this point that it was fabricated?
Well, she said that this auntie said that my mother had told my father shortly before our second marriage This was probably back in the late nineties and I was never told that by her, that she fabricated it.
So according to the aunt, your mother confessed to your father?
Yeah.
Yeah.
And is your father, I mean, have you talked to your father about this at all?
Well, he's always maintained his innocence and I believe him now.
But he never said categorically to me that she made it up.
Those are words he never said.
So whether or not he was trying to tell me that in a different way, or he was afraid of maybe my reaction, my relationship with my mother being damaged, I don't know, but he obviously... That's a pretty big guy to protect your opinion of your mother after she'd accused him of this horrible crime.
Yeah, I don't know, Stephan.
So you haven't talked to him about what you found out from the aunt recently?
No, and I'm a sort of... I don't... I'm worried about his searing up the past again with him, because, you know... But it's not if he knows, right?
Yeah, no, no, that's right.
I mean, if your mother did confess to him, then... I mean, I'm not saying it's completely easy for him, but it's not a revelation, right?
Yeah, correct, yeah.
And, in fact, it could be a relief, right?
I mean, if he knows that you know that it was fabricated, that's going to be, I think, quite a relief for him.
Yep.
That's a conversation I need to have.
In what context did it come up from the aunt, just out of curiosity?
Well, I'd had a bit of a kind of breakdown moment when I went to see my parents recently, and my stepfather and my mum, I should say.
Um, and I was just sort of talking about her.
I just don't know, you know, what really happened back then.
And, you know, I don't think my father was guilty.
And, um, she's like, hang on, you know, there's a piece of a piece missing here.
Um, and that's how we, we got to that.
Um, And she explained it.
Do you know how long she's known?
I guess since the 90s?
Yeah, yeah, I guess.
That's quite a long time, really.
Yep.
That she hadn't told you this.
Yep.
Do you know if she thought you knew already, or?
I think that it was, yeah, she assumed that I knew.
She was surprised, I think I mentioned before, she was just surprised I didn't know.
Okay, sorry.
I missed that.
No, that's fine.
It's a bit of a tangled mess.
Now, how old were you, Alex, when your parents divorced?
Four or five.
Yeah, four and a half, five.
Just before I started school, which is five in New Zealand.
Older or younger sibling that you had?
She's younger.
I'm the oldest child.
So, four or five, and she's younger, and your mother accused your father of molesting you both, is that right?
Yeah.
Do you know... Sorry, go ahead.
The story that I was told was that I'd said something to my grandfather that sounded a bit like it could be something concerning.
And, you know, through various role play and what sort of thing like that, she had come to the conclusion that I'd, and probably my sister had been molested.
But it never went to any criminal proceedings.
It was, you know, it went as far as the family court and a claim was made, but there was no, there was no Protective instinct from her.
That's the thing.
I would have thought if you think your child is being sexually abused that you would do everything you can to prevent the abuser from coming anywhere.
Well, of course, unless you knew it was false and you were just using it for leverage.
And I would assume, I don't know how the family court system works in this area, but I think it's fairly safe to assume maybe you know better.
That if an allegation like this is made, it does have to be investigated because it's allegations of criminal behavior.
So I suppose that the investigation occurred, maybe without your participation and not enough of substance was found to go further.
I think that is exactly what happened.
Wow.
Wow.
That is, that is, I mean, that's straight up terrifying.
Now, do you know the circumstances under which your parents divorced if there was a particular inciting incident or was it just a general decay of relationship or an affair?
Do you know?
So far as I know, I think it was just degrading in a relationship.
They were very young.
They weren't right for each other.
other and yeah, I mean, I don't remember their relationship very much at all.
But has your father or your mother ever talked about the reasons behind the divorce?
Well, I certainly heard a lot of negative things about my dad, about how he's selfish and stuff.
But I couldn't put my finger on what the underlying reasons are for the breakup of the relationship.
So your mother, who fabricated allegations of sexual abuse, referred to your father as selfish?
Yeah.
Well, that's interesting.
I mean, horrifying, of course.
But interesting.
All right.
So then she got custody of you and your sister, right?
Yeah.
And then what?
She got married again.
How pretty was she when she was younger?
Yeah, she's very pretty.
Well, they take what you want and pay for it, as the old saying goes, right?
She married this guy and she had another kid, my half-brother's lovely boy, and he's training to be a healthcare professional.
He's a good boy.
So the stepdad, how old were you when she married the stepdad, your stepdad?
How old was I?
I was six or seven.
Right.
Seven maybe, six, seven.
So this guy married a single mom who herself claimed to have married a pedophile.
Yeah, it lasted a couple of years and that was it.
Oh, so your stepdad only lasted a couple of years?
Yeah, and then she married a third time and that was the third time lucky for her.
For us, actually, because that man was a godsend.
He still is.
You mean he was the good guy?
The third guy.
He's amazing.
Does he know about any of this?
Yeah.
I mean, I'm not sure if he knows about what I just recently found out no but he knows he knows that that your mom made the claim against your dad that he was a child molester yeah and he knew that and knows that and he's like yeah sign me up um yep I guess Wait, what do you mean you guess?
Well, she kept it from him, right?
Yes, Stefan.
No, he knows.
He knows, okay.
So he got involved with a single mom who'd been married twice before, once to a man she claimed was a pedophile.
Yes.
But he's a great guy?
What, the guy he married the third time?
She married the third time?
Yeah, he has been a wonderful father for three of us.
For whatever reasons, for getting involved with my mum, he's taking care of her and taking care of us.
So, I mean, I can't... Yeah, I wouldn't want to be too harsh on that guy.
I'm sorry, what is his motive for all of this, right?
Because taking on two other... He never had a child with your mum, right?
No.
So, I mean, he's like, cucktastic fantastic as far as he's taking care of and pouring resources into two other men's children, right?
Yeah.
What's in it for him?
What's his motive, do you think?
It's very anti-biological, right?
I mean, we're kind of programmed to pour resources into our own children.
Now, maybe he couldn't have kids or who knows, right?
I mean, maybe you know, but it's very, like, I'm just curious.
It's not like your mom was his paragon of virtue.
It wasn't like they were his kids.
In fact, you know, you inherit.
If he believed her story about your dad being a pedophile or a child molester, I don't know what the right.
If he believed that story, then he's inheriting.
Also, two kids have been sexually abused, which is going to be quite a challenge.
And you say you had these mental health issues and addiction issues and so on.
Yeah.
So he's taking on a very heavy burden.
Hmm.
Why?
It's not like your mom was such a great, virtuous, wonderful superhero of a woman, right?
So he's taken on, I guess, who he would assume is some pretty damaged kids with abuse, sexual abuse allegations floating around.
A woman who's already been divorced twice, taken on two other men's kids.
Why?
What's in it for him?
There may be a fantastic reason, I'm just, that's my first question.
Well, the only thing that I can really think of, Stefan, He's quite a deeply religious person and he didn't have kids with anybody else.
They couldn't have children by the time they got together because she, for health reasons, couldn't have them anymore.
I think he felt it was his calling from God to to be a father that we didn't have.
But he's Christian, right?
Yeah, yeah.
So, isn't she kind of a fallen woman?
I guess he's... How does this fit into the whole religious beliefs?
I mean, you know, I'm not saying she's necessarily Merrily Magdalene, but she ain't the Virgin.
No, but I would say he's more of the I don't know what to say.
The cuddly, nice version of a Christian as opposed to the more virulent The judgmental sort of stream.
Yeah, well, it could also be a question of turn the other cheek, honey.
No, and the reason that I'm asking you this is because whoever we praise or whoever we defend, we become.
Right?
So that's why, like, my concern would be that if by having this guy as a template who sacrificed everything to take care of a woman's needs, That if you think, well that's wonderful, that's great, that's fantastic, then my concern is that you're going to be exploited by women in your life.
Right?
So that's my question, what's in it for him?
And that question isn't important to him because he's already made his choice with his life.
The question is important for you because you need to get into the damn habit, excuse me bluntness, excuse me bluntness, but you need to get into the habit of saying, what's in it for me?
Because there are lots of people out there with huge bottomless needs, particularly single moms, right?
Huge bottomless needs.
Their kids need braces.
Their water heater isn't working.
They've got a flat tire.
Their car needs repairs.
Their washing machine is not working.
They just need, need, need, need, need.
These black holes of resource requirements.
And for a man, we are kind of programmed to take care of women's needs, both biologically and often if we're raised without a father, that's kind of all we're allowed to do.
And you kind of got to get into the habit of saying, okay, what's in this for me?
How does this benefit me?
And I get how it benefits her.
To have some guy come in, I assume he paid a bunch of bills and gave a bunch of structure and, okay, it's clear for her and the benefit is to you, right?
You say he was a good stepdad and all that.
But my question is, which is an important question everyone needs to ask in this conversation in your own life regarding everyone that you praise, what was in it for him?
Now that's important.
And if it's like, well, God's duty, blah, blah, blah, eh, you know, yeah, maybe.
Maybe.
But it's probably not that.
That's probably a surface justification for something much deeper.
Perhaps he needed something to give him purpose and validation in life, possibly.
But then why wouldn't he just have his own family?
You can have purpose and validation by finding a woman and having your own family rather than raising other men's kids.
Right.
Or he could pick a less damaged family.
And please, I don't want to say you're like damaged goods or anything like that, but, you know, I assume a bunch of boyfriends, two husbands, allegations of sexual abuse, you know, that's a clusterfrack of an intergalactic mess, right?
So if he wanted purpose and so on, he could have had his own family.
If he couldn't have kids, he could have adopted or he could have found a less damaged family to intervene in.
And I guess that's my question.
Yeah.
Um, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to be completely honest with you here.
Um, and so I, I, I genuinely do not know the answer to that question.
How physically attractive is he?
Oh, when he was younger, I mean, he was, he, he very good on stage, uh, shall we say?
Um, He was talented, and I think that's part of his attraction.
I don't know, but you've gone off into lingo that I can't follow.
What do you mean, good on stage?
He's very talented in what he does, and that makes him perhaps seem more attractive than... even though he's, you know, averagely attractive.
I guess he's...
His ability to do what he does, which is music.
So he's average attractiveness maybe a 5 or a 6 out of 10.
And back in the day, what was your mom?
Solid 9 probably.
Right.
Well, there you go.
Right?
Your mom gets subtracted three points for three kids, she gets subtracted one point for every marriage, and so they end up in about the same place, right?
That's one way of looking at it, yeah.
No, listen, sexual attraction and pair bonding, there's a certain amount of calculus involved that is, well, genetic and evolutionarily speaking and so on, right?
Okay.
Yeah.
So with regards to your mother, she's never confessed to you, right?
Do you know if she's ever talked about it with your sibling?
No, I don't know.
I'll re-answer that question.
No, she hasn't talked about it.
And I've spoken to my sister about this recently and said that... I've disclosed all of this to my sister and she's always been A lot more staunchly defending of, you know, staunchly on the side of my father.
And that's been a source of conflict between her and I. And I was sort of trying to bridge that gap and sort of explain that I didn't know exactly what had happened.
Because you said that you didn't believe, you thought your father was innocent, but you say your sister's more on the side of your dad, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, I had a feeling like he, like those things weren't true, you know, as time went on.
And as I sort of figured out, why didn't she throw a brick wall between us and him if she really thought it happened, basically.
So your sister's always been pro-dad and has believed in his innocence?
Yeah.
And if you told your sister what your auntie told you?
Yeah.
No, I've disclosed this to her.
And what are her thoughts?
Well, her immediate thing was, you know, why dig all this stuff up, you know?
Because it's not in the past, that's why!
Yeah, that's right.
It's not in the past.
Everybody's been telling me, you know what's really frustrating, Stefan?
Everyone's been telling me, including Auntie X... Ancient history, man!
Don't let sleeping dogs lie!
Don't go dig up the hat, right?
They're saying, you know, don't...
You know, I'm saying to them, look, I'm feeling really angry and I'm raw and I'm dealing with some big emotions here.
This is, this is news to me.
I'm feeling all this stuff and to like, you know, maybe you'd want to reconsider bringing it up.
You know, it's, maybe it's not worth stirring the hornet's nest.
You sure want to go, go and dig it all up again.
And, and, and I, you know, my immediate response is hell yeah.
I want to, I want to bury this hatchet and I want to heal and I want to give people the opportunity to But you can't be a family because you were told for decades that your dad sexually molested you.
There's no undoing that, right?
You can't go back and be four or five years old again and not go through this.
No, I've lost that time and I have to accept that.
That's gone.
I've got to grieve that in my own time.
There's the rest of my life and the rest of my father's life And I need to make the most of that because, yeah, shit, there's so much stuff we could still do in 15 or 20 years.
So this means that people are more scared of your mom than of you?
It's not a moral position, right?
They're just scared that your mom's gonna go apeshit, right? - I think they're maybe a little bit scared of me too, in a way, because-- - No, if they were scared of you, then they would be appeasing you.
What they're trying to get you to do is to shut the hell up.
And I don't know if the phrase hornet's nest was used by other people or it's just your characterization of their speech, but the hornet's nest is your mom, not you.
You're right.
I've said this before, but most people in a conflict will size up the most dangerous person and appease them and attempt to suppress the most moral and reasonable person.
Because they don't have much to fear from the moral and reasonable person, but the unreasonable crazy person with aggression and temper and so on, they fear that person.
And so they'll come up with all this bullshit moralizing, let sleeping dogs lie, let bygones be bygones, it's all in the past, you know, move on, grow up.
But it's nothing to do with any of that shit.
Because society doesn't run like that.
Good lord, I mean, you know, given your neck of the woods, right?
People are still talking about what happened to the aborigines.
People are still talking about slavery.
People are still talking about, like, all stuff.
They're still talking about the Crusades.
They're still talking about the Spanish Inquisition, for God's sake.
Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, some of these things.
So the idea that we just have this, well, it's just this belief in society that, you know, you just, you let the past be in the past, you let bygones be bygones, you let sleeping dogs lie, that's not how society operates.
At all.
And nobody pushes back, you know, like if you're some activist who's talking about reparations for slavery, I mean, would these people sit there and painfully and patiently lecture that black activist to let bygones be bygones, let sleeping dogs lie, it's all in the past and move on and right?
They wouldn't.
Because that guy, man or woman, might be someone who could get them in trouble, right?
Calling them racist or something like that.
So, society doesn't work on this general principle of let bygones be bygones at all.
I mean, they're talking about, I think it was in Notre Dame, the cathedral that, oddly enough, burnt down recently.
They're talking about incorporating some aspects of the rebuilding to apologize for some of the indigenous population of Algeria that was killed a long time ago.
And no one's saying, oh, bygones be bygones.
That's not how society works.
Yeah.
Right, so this idea that we have this general principle called let bygones be bygones, it's not true.
Let bygones be bygones refers to good, decent, moral people who are bringing up legitimate grievances that might piss off people who are more unstable and dangerous.
Then it's all, oh, let bygones be bygones, it would be immature for you to bring this up, it's all in the past, that's just made up bullshit.
to shut you up.
It's nothing to do with the principles that anybody lives by.
I mean, there's arguments for those principles, but until they're applied universally, I just shine the light on them as the manipulative frack-wittery that they are.
Yeah, I guess people will try to manipulate and pacify the most reasonable people, even if the most reasonable people in this instance are actually very angry and resentful about what happened.
And legitimately so.
Your mother destroyed your family.
Your mother destroyed your relationship with your father, and in many ways, I'm sure, your mother kind of destroyed your dad.
Oh yeah, there's no question about that.
I mean, that's an unbearable thing to live with, that false accusation.
Yeah, I wish I could Take it away from... I can't.
But yeah, I feel... I feel absolutely... I feel somehow responsible.
It's really odd, Stefan.
I feel like I'm responsible.
And... I'm not responsible for anything that happened when I was four or five or whatever.
But I feel guilty because I didn't clue on, like my sister.
And I wonder if maybe in some way I was invested in victimhood.
I don't know.
I'm just trying to think about how I was so blind.
You've got to pull back on the objective empirical judgments.
Because you did not have Any proof until your aunt spoke, right?
Yeah.
Or at least evidence, let's say.
I don't know what proof you can constitute in this situation, but if you're... I mean, to me, if your mom confessed to you... I'm just going to assume that your mom did confess to your aunt.
I mean, I don't know, right?
But I'm just going to assume that she did.
In which case, that's a confession and that's considered to be proof as far as I understand it.
Once you confess to a crime, Yeah, well, there's not a trial, right?
Because there's nothing to establish, right?
You have to plead not guilty, right?
In order for there to be a trial.
So, okay, we have a confession and we have proof.
But until you had that, what do you suppose?
I mean, you were four years old.
Yeah.
And your sister could have been wrong.
So the fact that your sister turned out to be right and you withheld judgment until you had the facts and now you have the facts, you're going to move forward in some manner.
Isn't that somewhat fair to the situation?
You know, from a logical standpoint, you're absolutely correct.
And yet I have the feeling still.
The feeling that you're responsible?
Yeah, I can't reconcile it, Stefan.
It's something that... Oh no, it's easy to reconcile.
And I don't mean emotionally easy, I mean just logically easy.
It's easy to reconcile.
Which is that the reason that you continue to doubt at some level your father's innocence is to serve your mother.
Because if you had been convinced of your father's innocence in some manner prior, does your mother want to be confronted on this?
I don't think so.
You don't think so?
What do you mean you don't think so?
Do you think there's any doubt?
I mean, did your mother want to be confronted on her committing a crime?
And destroying a family and destroying a man and destroying your relationship with your father based upon a disgusting lie that could have got him killed?
That she's a criminal and somebody who could have potentially put events in motion that caused the death of your father and the father of her children and her ex-husband?
No.
You think there's any doubt as to whether she may or may not want to be confronted on this?
Of course she doesn't want to be confronted.
I appreciate that you are a tentative, fair and just soul, but we can take that too far, right?
She desperately does not want to be confronted on this, otherwise she already would have confessed to you.
Yeah.
I can see how this pattern of behavior has affected me in Numerous ways.
OK, and we'll get to that.
We'll get to that.
But the real question that's going on is what your unconscious says confronting your mother.
How is that going to affect her?
Because I think that's your primary concern emotionally, and that's why you're a little lost at sea.
So tell me, you roleplay, we don't have to roleplay, but roleplay this out sort of if you can.
How do you think that conversation is going to go with your mom?
what would you say to her?
Hey, listen, Listen, I've been thinking about stuff in the past, and I was wondering if there's any possibility that elements of the story that I was told as a kid were fabricated. - Well, now, sorry and I was wondering if there's any possibility that elements of the story that I was told as a kid Well, now, sorry to interrupt you, but you're already not telling the truth.
Yeah, you're right.
I'm shelling myself short here, aren't I?
Well, you have proof.
Yeah.
So, there's any possibility, right?
So, I mean, I'm not telling you how to do this or whether you should do it.
I'm just curious how it will play out.
Because in your unconscious, this conversation has already been played out about 10,000 times, right?
So, okay.
So, if you were just being forget consequences and just thou shalt not bear false witness, ruthlessly honest, what would you say?
I know you lied.
And I'm angry.
And I'm going to have to come to terms with that in my own time.
I love you.
And I will forgive you.
Okay, now we're back to bullshit again.
Sorry, man.
Tell me, and I'm happy to hear the case, but you know my definition of love is our involuntary response to virtue if you're virtuous.
This was a monstrously evil action that your mother took, which she has evaded and lied about through omission, continuously, for well over two decades, right?
Yeah.
So, destroyed family, destroyed your relationship with your father, almost destroyed him, could have got him killed, committed criminal actions, false allegations of crimes, are themselves crimes as far as I understand it, and she's gotten away with it and lied about it for over 20 years.
Where is the I love you coming out of that?
it.
I mean, maybe you do, maybe at some point, but I don't know about right now.
What do you love about her?
Well, that's an interesting one, Stephan, because I think things that I like and love about her are tied in with the way she acted and treated me after the After my dad left and disappeared.
I was treated a bit like a golden child, a bit of a, you know, a bit more, maybe I was treated a little bit... Dude, I'm sorry to keep interrupting you.
Your dad did not leave and disappear.
Yeah.
Your dad was driven away by the allegations of hideous criminality on the part of your mother.
He didn't just leave and vanish.
Yeah.
Right?
His relationship with you was murdered.
I don't know why I'm trying to be so diplomatic here.
Because you're scared of your mom.
Listen, we all are.
I understand.
I'm scared of your mom.
I don't even know her.
Come on.
I mean, you're not a coward.
She's just scary.
No.
Anyone who's willing to do that to a man she said she loved at some point, anybody who's willing to pull that pin on that grenade is terrifying.
And then lie about it for 20 years?
That is a terrifying human being.
Come on, what do you mean?
Why are you trying to be so diplomatic?
Because she's terrifying.
That's what she did to your dad.
What might she do to you?
She told me that I scared her sometimes.
Yeah, well, that's projection and that's just a way to get you focused on you being scary rather than her being terrifying.
Yeah.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And what kind of human being thinks of lying like this, actually lies like this, never corrects the record and continues to sail on for 20 years without, as far as I can tell, any shred of a conscience bothering her?
No setting the record straight.
No confession.
No, I can't sleep at night.
No, Lady Macbeth, my hands will never be clean.
I mean, has she shown any evidence of a bad conscience since?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
How's that been showing up?
She hasn't exactly had a best of time angel health wise.
she's not I think yeah I think well she when we were kids we sometimes she she she would go away for a bit and we would go to the foster home for a little bit and And I think that she was having a breakdown because of the guilt of what she'd done.
That is my, my guess now.
That's what really happened.
And it could be at this point that she didn't confess because she herself could have been charged with a crime, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.
So at some point, again, I'm no lawyer, but at some point I assume the statute of, it's not like murder, right?
So the statute of limitations runs out and then she can confess without fear of being subjected to what she was certainly willing to subject your father to, which was jail time.
Yeah.
Or whatever, right?
Yeah.
But she never did.
Now, what's her story, Alex, what's her story as to why she has mental health problems?
She mentioned that she was abused as a child. - Sure.
In what way?
That something, that she was interfered with And some, you know, sexually, when she was very young.
Oh, she was molested as a child?
Yeah.
I only heard her mention it a couple of times, but, um, I think she has had longstanding issues with anxiety and, um, and issues around, uh, shall we say, um, reality.
Uh, like just, and she's convincing herself of, of things to be, True when they're not true.
So she knows exactly how terrible sexual abuse is because it happened to her according to what she said, right?
Yeah.
So then to make that accusation, she knows exactly what she's doing.
Yeah, she has a track record of embellishing the truth.
You mean like?
My sister and I talked about this.
So she's in and out of mental health facilities?
No, no, no.
She's some.
No, but she was.
I thought you, unless I misunderstood what you were saying that she would go away sometimes.
I don't know.
I don't know the details of that.
I don't know exactly what, but I know that we were put in foster care for a bit.
So whatever was going down was serious enough that she needed to, you know, to not, she couldn't, Mum at that time.
Sorry, did you have no extended family around?
Why would you end up in foster care?
Great question, Stefan.
I don't know where the hell my family were at that point, but I do recall her saying something like she wasn't on good terms with her parents at that particular point in time.
Well, can I give you a hypothesis?
Sure.
Hit me.
Sure.
The reason why, my friend, you were thrown into foster care rather than sent to family is that I bet some family members knew that she'd lied and she was afraid that they would tell you.
That's a distinct possibility.
It's better to dump you with strangers who know nothing than family who might know something.
Possibly.
Yeah.
Well, and also her extended family would have had to have let you go into foster care, right?
Rather than say, listen, you know, we're not getting along, but the kids are not going into foster care when they've got family above ground, right?
Yeah.
I don't understand why I was put in foster care.
And my sister and I were separated too.
We weren't allowed to be together.
We were put in different places.
Hmm.
This is all too familiar.
All too familiar.
So, how often did that happen to you?
I know it's tough thinking back.
Twice, I think, yeah.
Do you know how long for?
I don't think it was for very long, Stefan.
I think it was maybe for a week or a couple of days.
Once was like a week, once was a couple of days.
It wasn't a huge amount of time.
I don't know exactly, but I don't think it was, you know, long term.
It was a short period.
Now tell me a little bit about when your substance abuse or addiction issues began to arrive and take over.
I've never done any serious drugs or anything like that.
It's just drink.
Drink can be a pretty serious drug.
Yeah, I'm not going to downplay it.
People drive drunk, they get liver damage, they get into fights, terrible things can happen with drink.
I've messed up a lot in my life because I didn't know when to stop.
When did you start drinking?
I had a Shandy when I was like eight.
But I mean, when it started to come... That's beer and ginger ale.
Do I remember that right?
Beer and lemonade in this instance.
It's actually pretty good, to be honest with you.
Yes, it's... Shandy with a little lime cordial is a pretty good thing when you've been gardening in the hot sun.
But anyway, not when you're eight.
Not when you're eight.
All right.
Yeah.
Anyway, it was just like a little thing.
It was in front of family and everything like that.
But here's where things got out of hand.
Like, so I went for the first time, left home, and I just started to notice that I tended to be the one that would and I just started to notice that I tended to be the one that would take things Okay, but why?
What were you feeling that had you drink more?
Alright, I'll try to not bullshit you like I had been the rest of the time.
That would be excellent.
That would save us a huge amount of time.
Yeah, I'm trying my best to not do that.
You have a tendency, as you know, to slide into softened language and vague phrases and vaguely positive diplomatic shit, right?
So just, you know, lay it on me.
All right, so I'm deeply in pain and alcohol numbs that.
Did you have social anxiety with people or was that not a factor?
Yes, yes.
I was diagnosed with ADHD or so.
We can talk about that.
I know you have some opinions on that, but yeah, so there were certainly, certainly having anxiety and issues with emotional regulation.
Tell me what you mean by that.
You mean just being in control of your own emotions?
Yeah.
It's been an issue with employers occasionally.
Like losing your temper or that kind of stuff?
Yeah.
Not, you know, physical acts of violence or anything like, just kind of displays of emotion that aren't appropriate.
Right.
Yeah.
And I know that.
I mean, I'm not going to be like, oh, victim, I can't do anything about it.
But it's just, you know, yep, that's been a problem.
And trying to work on that.
I think I just heard your mom there for a sec, but we'll come back to that.
All right.
Keep going.
Keep going.
So you were drinking, and when did you start drinking to excess?
What age?
Shit.
I mean, pretty much as soon as I moved out of home.
I mean, if I had money to drink, I would drink.
And it's become more of a problem as I've gotten older, Stefan.
As I got to my 30s and, you know, started to sort of feel like my life wasn't perhaps going to be all that I'd wanted it to be, I sort of...
Didn't sort of, no, I self-medicated with alcohol to numb them.
Were you getting that sort of anxiety, panic of time's ticking away and I'm running out of... Also, yes, and also too, I was self-sabotaging my career.
I limited my opportunities because I wasn't as well as I should have been.
To take advantage of... I had a golden window, an opportunity when I was studying overseas, doing a masters, and I had an opportunity to really make something of myself and I kind of blew it.
Well, I didn't kind of blow it, I fucking blew it.
What happened?
I put too much value on what others think of me, Stefan, and I got into some Into a difficult social situation where I thought people didn't like me and I drank too much and said some stupid stuff.
I got socially isolated in my peer group.
Instead of concentrating on my studies, I took it quite hard and I ended up spiraling and there were a couple of suicide attempts.
I ended up sectioned for a week in a hospital.
What did you say?
Oh, I just said, fuck, you know, F you to someone.
Sorry, I shouldn't swear.
Oh, it's fine, it's fine.
The least issue with anything that you're saying is a couple of swearing words, so go ahead.
Okay, so, yeah, I said something to somebody who actually I respect very much, but I was not in a sound state of mind that I thought that they were trying to, you know, to make life difficult for me.
But it's just, you know, it was just, I took, you know, so I had too much to drink at that particular juncture.
And I took that falling out socially hard.
And you couldn't fix it, right?
Like you couldn't say, listen man, the demon drink had a hold of me.
I'm gonna quit.
I'm never gonna drink again.
I owe you a thousand apologies, whatever.
Like you couldn't, you just kind of, did you just kind of blur out of the whole situation and just kind of hide from it?
Yeah, a bit.
And then I just ended as spiraled and yeah, there was self-harm, suicide attempts and Then I ended up having to come back home.
Okay, there's two things I want to say about this.
The first is, how the hell were you supposed to negotiate in society when the first negotiation, quote negotiation, that you'd really been exposed to was your mother accusing your father falsely of molesting you and your sister?
How the fuck is that a negotiation?
It's not a negotiation, right?
That's an airstrike on everything.
And I assume that your mother's habits of negotiation didn't radically alter after that.
She didn't become wonderful at negotiating and teaching you how to negotiate and navigate tricky social situations, right?
How does she negotiate in the divorce?
Sexual abuse allegations.
That's not a negotiation.
And you know that's what she's capable of.
So how the hell are you supposed to negotiate with your mom?
How's anyone supposed to negotiate with your mom?
That's why they're trying to tell you to shut the hell up.
So how... If I'm dropped in Japan, I'm not gonna do very well.
I don't speak Japanese!
You weren't raised with the capacity to negotiate or thread your way through difficult social situations, right?
But you're in the social situations and you're in complicated situations because you're intelligent and well-spoken and erudite and you're doing a master's, right?
So you're way above your pay grade in terms of social and professional situations, but you're operating with the social skills of your average IQ 58 pygmy.
Not through any fault of your own, but just how you're raised.
Yeah, that sounds like me to a T. So, have some... Like, if I'm dropped in Japan and I'm having trouble negotiating with the non-English-speaking locals, I don't call myself dumb, right?
Damn, I should be able to speak Japanese.
Did you ever learn Japanese?
No.
Were you ever punished for even thinking about learning Japanese?
Yes.
Well, of course you didn't end up learning Japanese because you got to survive as a kid.
And not only were you not taught how to negotiate, Alex, you were also punished for trying to negotiate.
I bet.
Because that's what bullies do.
And calling your mom a bully is kind of an insult to your average bully because they don't really try and get people killed, which is what could have happened to your dad.
So I hope that you understand this is not some personal failing.
You're not desperately flawed in some existential manner.
You don't self-sabotage.
You're just in Japan and you don't speak Japanese.
So.
That's one of two things I want to say.
The second thing is that it is not at all too late for you.
It is not at all too late for you.
You're calling into this show, you're listening to this show, you're curious about self-knowledge, you're thinking about bringing a radioactive kryptonite truth right to the heart or heartlessness of your family.
It is far from too late for you to have the life that you want.
I really want you to net that into your very bones.
That, from my perspective, and I've been doing this for quite a long time, and I've talked to people with whom it's like, yeah, well, good luck.
But you're not one of those people, in my opinion.
It's not too late for you at all.
If it was, you wouldn't be calling, right?
So, I don't want you to give yourself that curse.
Because that curse is not coming from you, which is why I said earlier, I just heard your mom.
Your mom wants you to think that it's too late for you so that you're focused on despair and depression and anxiety and you're drunk so you don't confront her.
That's your mother.
It's too late!
Drink!
Be drunk!
Be in despair, be in depression, be anything but in front of me telling me the goddamn truth.
Far from too late for you.
All right.
Yeah.
All right.
How's your drinking at the moment?
I don't mean during this call necessarily, although it could be.
But how's your drinking at the moment?
I'm taking a break.
For how long?
It's been less than a couple of days, but I noticed myself sliding back.
down and decided that, you know, so I started reaching out and one of my friends just got put in a, you know, just had some serious issues around alcohol and I've resolved to not touch it while that person is undergoing treatment and just see, you know, if that can start to help me to... But you're taking a break like you're going to come back to it?
Or is that an easier way for you to quit?
Just say, oh, I'm taking a break.
Sort of one day at a time kind of thing.
Yeah, like a mental trick.
All right, got it.
Sorry, just by the by, I don't know if this works with drinking, but I wanted to put out a recommendation for hypnosis, which is actually pretty good.
I've tried it myself and hypnosis can be pretty cool.
I don't know if it works for drinking.
I think it works for smoking, for weight loss, for other things, but it's just something to mull over and look into.
But anyway, let's just...
Move on that's just my own personal experience that it can actually be quite quite helpful and quite quick in terms of changing behavior, but we'll look into that all right, so you're taking a break and Let's forget about your mom for a sec.
What is it that you want out of your life at the moment that you're not getting?
The first thing that comes to mind is financial security.
Well, yeah, not drinking will help because people forget how expensive alcoholism is.
Yeah.
So, readdress my health mentally and physically.
Fix my finances and build a business.
Start an empire.
Be in control of my own destiny.
Right.
I wasn't meant to be an employee.
I know that.
I know the feeling.
Yeah.
Right.
Anything else?
And yeah, I want to tell my mother that I know the truth.
Anything else?
I feel like there's something very obvious here that I've overlooked.
Everything that you're talking about, Alex, is solitary.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
Which is fine.
I mean, if it's conscious, you know, that's fine.
If you're like, yeah, I don't want any friendships.
I don't want any love relationships.
I don't want to get married.
I don't want to have kids.
I don't want a girlfriend.
That's fine.
I think we're social animals and all of that, but it seems like that wasn't even on the table as something like, well, I know what I don't want is whatever, whatever, right?
Yeah, I think I'm kind of avoiding being vulnerable.
I just put up these walls and I actually have been in a relationship I was in a relationship for seven years and I've been in another relationship that I'm currently in for five and a half years.
And we talk about kids and the future and everything.
But she's not part of any of your plans that may involve having an empire?
Absolutely.
I guess my main worry at the moment is how am I going to afford to look after these kids.
I desperately want to give my children the stable and happy and loving childhood that I didn't get, particularly in those earlier years.
And you think working as an entrepreneur is going to do that for them?
Sorry, daddy's got another business trip.
Sorry, daddy's got an angry customer in Taiwan.
Sorry, stock market's opening in Peking.
Yeah, that's... I mean, that's not quite my line of work, but... I know, I'm just whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I... Look... My partner is a very...
nurturing and kind person who is also very intelligent, very sexy.
And how old is she?
Just give me the age range, I don't need her actual age.
She's a bit younger than me, she's five years younger than me.
So late 20s?
Yeah, yeah.
Does she want kids?
Yes.
Well, how big is your anyway?
I mean, if you're still a ways away from having kids because you want to go from a situation of financial insecurity to financial security, which is, you know, not a snap your fingers kind of situation for the most part, how is her life plan involving your life plan or what's the relationship between the two?
We're both trying to maximise our incomes as much as possible to lay the foundation for a future.
When does she want to have kids by?
Well, we, yeah, probably we want to, yeah, she said sort of early thirties, late sort of mid thirties.
No, no, don't wait that long, man.
By the time she's 30, 90% of her eggs are already dead.
Yeah.
Yeah, you don't want to get into the 30s like trying to start a fire in a wet windstorm with a Bic lighter and a prayer trying to make a family.
And what if you want a bunch of kids, right?
I mean, I'm just saying that, you know, maybe we'll start in our early 30s is... I mean, it's certainly possible.
Yeah, it's possible.
But I would aim for something a little sooner, just biologically.
You'll have more energy, and she'll be more fertile, and if you want more kids, you have that option.
But if you start in your early 30s, let's say it can take you a year to get pregnant at that year, and you're sort of early to mid 30s, and then maybe you want to wait for another one, and it's like, I don't know, it's just, you're really starting to ride the statistics at that point.
It's, yeah, it's something that we are worried about.
Right, good, good.
Now that is something to be worried about.
And your sperm quality is going to decline a little bit.
So I just wanted to point that out.
Okay, so you do want to get married and have kids?
Yes.
And why are you not married yet?
I mean, if you don't believe in the institution or whatever, that's, you know, whatever.
I mean, I'm just curious.
We're.
I think there's a lot of financial expectation about having a wedding and things that.
You know, we could just go ahead and get the piece of paper signed, you know, tomorrow, wouldn't It wouldn't be a big deal.
It wouldn't make any difference to our relationship, really.
If there's no particular reason, I'm just curious if there's anything overriding.
It's really just down to, once we're engaged, the expectation from family about having a big expensive party.
Oh, I wouldn't necessarily worry about family expectations after you drop the truth bomb on old mummy dearest.
I think that might clear that deck fairly quickly.
So, we'll get back to that.
Now, what does she think you should do with the info that you've got about your dad and your mom and the lies?
I definitely think she's in favor of making the most of the time I have with my dad.
No, no, no, that's not what I asked.
What does she think you should do with the information your auntie told you?
I mean, as far as confronting your mom goes.
She thinks I should talk to my mom.
Okay, good, good, good.
Well, tell her I agree with her.
Yeah.
All right.
What do you think, what do you think, what do you think it's cost you over the years, this lie of your mother's?
Okay, well, obviously the A relationship with my father through my formative years, which would have been kind of nice.
It's cost me the ability to communicate to the world my worth.
I think I'm someone who has a lot to offer and I sell myself short.
People underestimate me.
People tend to Yeah, I discount what I say.
I'm a three-legged chair when it comes to that social negotiation territory.
So that's cost me socially, that's cost me financially, cost me in terms of satisfaction.
Yeah, I've still managed to have good friends and have relationships with The fairest ex.
But it's cost me my health.
It's... Your sobriety, perhaps?
Yeah, I mean, there's a point at which, you know, you still have to take responsibility for your own reactions to The cards you've been given, and I chose to go down that road, and it's up to me to fix that.
So I take that firmly in responsibility.
I don't take what happened to me in responsibility.
That's not my fault, but how I choose to deal with it is completely my own responsibility.
And that lie hasn't cost me that.
It hasn't cost me the ability to see that I have the power, at least in my hands, to do something about it.
Unfortunately, sometimes that voice doesn't win, and the voice that says, you know, go back to your comfort blanket.
- Okay, so I mean, this is what I really want you to get out of this, and I appreciate you sharing all of that, but here's what I want you to get.
Your mother would rather destroy people than negotiate or potentially admit fault, right?
She was willing to destroy your father in the divorce, right?
And I want you to understand that this is what you're up against.
This is a personality structure that you're up against.
Which is, my guess, is that your mother would rather destroy you than have you confront her.
Because she showed that she was willing to destroy your father almost 30 years ago, right?
So it's like, I mean, I hope that you, and I hope you will take my advice and not attempt to talk to your mother without a strong therapist in your corner.
That's my very strong suggestion.
And if you need money to do that, and you say you're financially, things are a little tight at the moment, if you need money to do that, Let me know and I will be happy to pay for it.
But I would strongly suggest this because there's something that my therapist said once about my mother that she has an unlived life of a murderer.
Somebody who's willing to accuse someone she claimed to love of a crime that could get them thrown in prison and killed is a psychologically extremely dangerous person.
And she's got all of these bombs in your brain, right?
I mean, she raised you, right?
And you were her golden child.
You were the one she flattered the most, right?
And that's because she would imagine that you're the one who would be most willing to confront her, which your sister hasn't done, to my knowledge, even though your sister believes your father or believed your father more than you did until you got proof, right?
Yeah.
In terms of you said that you were sectioned, that you were suicidal and so on, well, I would imagine that when you yelled abuse in your job at the party, at the person you respected, when you said the F.U.
and all of that, that You were self-sabotaging because if you become successful, that's going to go against the grain of something your mother has laid down, some train tracks your mother has laid down in your head.
Yeah.
Does she believe or has she communicated to you that she is certain you can be a great success or has it been something else?
When I picked up momentum, she...
She was very, she's been very supportive of my aspirations.
But there was a time where she was encouraging me to, you know, to sort of just sort of settle down and, you know.
Not be too ambitious, not rise too high.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's right.
That's right.
And she kept saying, you know, that you just got to get a job, you know, that sort of thing like that.
Lay low, right?
Yeah, but then, of course, when I started doing well, I mean, it's not like... I think that her and my stepfather just thought at the time it was the best thing to prevent me from going under and ending up on social welfare, which wouldn't be good for anybody.
And I had worked plenty of jobs, but when I started doing well with my chosen area, yeah, she was supportive of that.
Now imagine that your mother is listening into this conversation as we're having it.
Yeah.
What would she say?
I think she'd feel um she'd feel ha ha unduly and harshly criticised I would imagine.
She'd be quite defensive and probably quite visibly upset.
it.
And what'd you say?
I can't imagine the words.
I can just see the face.
She'd be tearful.
So she'd make it about her rather than you and your history.
How could you do this to me?
Something like that.
How could you spread all this stuff?
Why would you bring this all up now?
Or something like that.
So she would play the victim after accusing your father of sexual abuse.
Possibility.
Maybe.
I imagine it in my brain.
That's how that would go down.
So here's my case for talking to your mom.
Yeah.
You are in possession of one hell of a secret.
One hell of a secret.
Yeah.
Secrets are bad for you.
Keeping secrets means that you have to keep a significant portion of yourself from other people.
You have to hide, you have to lie, you're always nervous about particular topics coming up.
And the reason why you have to stay small, the reason why your mother doesn't want you to be too successful, is because as you become more successful you have to open yourself up more and more to people.
You have to have more and more relationships.
You have to have more and more business dinners.
You have to go golfing.
You have to play squash.
You have to play cards.
You have to have nightcaps.
There's a whole social part of business.
Maybe it's not anything to do with nightcaps.
It could be any number of things.
But you, I mean I know this because I've been an entrepreneur, like you have to have Connection with people.
How do you inspire people who work for you?
Well, you have to be emotionally available.
You have to be vulnerable.
You have to... Yeah.
Right?
Now, if you go down that path where you start opening yourself up more and more to other people, what's going to happen?
It's going to become harder and harder to keep that secret.
You know, you just said about availability and it's an issue in my relationship with my partner.
Yes, I know.
It's an issue in our relationship for the last hour or two.
Yeah.
I go and I distract myself with Anything but, you know, just sitting in the quiet.
I know, I know, I know all of that.
I know that you've been spacing out in this conversation.
I know that sometimes you have the emotional connection as if you're reading a Recipe written a thousand years ago in Vulcan.
So I get all of that.
But that's not sustainable if you become a parent, which is why she hasn't been encouraging you, I assume, to have kids.
And that's not possible if you become an entrepreneur.
If you're an employee, you can be as emotionally distant as you want.
It doesn't really matter.
But if you want to be a leader, you can't be emotionally unavailable and be a successful leader.
You just can't be.
Yeah, understood.
And so, your ambitions are thwarted by your mother's need for you to keep the secret.
Not your need.
You have no pleasure in this secret.
You have no benefit to the secret.
The keeping of the secret is all to do with your mother's needs and your mother's preferences.
Right?
Yeah.
So, you are in possession of a secret and you are also in possession of an answer.
Of an answer.
See, My mother is old.
My mother will go to her grave and I will never know her secret.
I will never know.
She will take that secret with her to the grave and it will vanish in the sands in time and general sedimentary layer blowover of history.
I will never know.
Something happened to my mother, probably in the war.
that so completely destabilized her personality that she was never able again to find footing.
I don't know what that is.
I've had some hints.
Not as many hints as your mother has given you, but I've had some hints.
But I will never know.
I will never know.
And it may even be the case that she doesn't know anymore.
Because we get so tangled up with justifications when we do great wrong that we begin to falsify our own history to the point where you can't write a biography just Lord of the Rings with more vivid details.
And I wouldn't be surprised if she's fortified around in her mind and encapsulated that particular deed.
And obfuscated it with lots of half-truths.
No, she's got a whole other story.
If your life goes to hell in a handbasket, then you need an answer.
You need an explanation.
Now the explanation can either be I did bad things and then you say, well, why did I do bad things?
And you can go to your history and go to your choices and take ownership and all this kind of stuff.
I've done bad things in my life and you have a choice.
Or what you can do is you can say, That something else happened other than my history.
Something else happened other than my trauma.
And I won't get into my mother's whole parallel story, but she has a whole story that has nothing to do with her history as a child, nothing to do with her history as a youth, nothing to do with the war.
It's all a completely different parallel universe as to why she ended up the way she ended up.
And she's got this whole, it's a really complicated and detailed narrative and Her entire little apartment is full of these post-it notes and truly beautiful mind Russell Crowe drawings and I'm sure pins with wool threads joining things together.
And she has this whole story as to why her life ended up the way it ended up.
Now, it's not the true story.
But I will never know that true story.
I will never know that true story.
There's no opportunity to recover it now.
I don't think.
And when she's dead, then obviously there will never be any chance to recover it because whoever egregiously, I believe, harmed her as a child would be long dead by now anyway because they would be an adult when she was a child in the Second World War during a time of mass chaos and mass abuse and mass raping.
I mean, the Russian army going into Germany was about as brutal as you can imagine.
And given how many people the Russians lost in the Second World War, it's not justified, but it's not beyond comprehension either.
And my mother was very attractive and I'm sure a pretty girl.
I don't know.
I can hypothesize and I'll never know.
She'll go to her grave not knowing the secret and I will also go to my grave not knowing the secret.
Now if I did know the secret, it would help.
It would help, right?
Why do you think?
Why would it help?
Because it provides an opportunity to, well at least from my perspective, to be set free from the bondage of the secret.
Yeah, and I would have some understanding as to what happened to me.
Yeah.
If there was a domino... Now, it doesn't answer the moral questions fundamentally, because if someone harmed my mother as a child, which I'm sure they did, and egregiously and brutally too, I imagine, then, you know, well, okay, so I was harmed because she was harmed, but then who harmed him?
And, like, you can go back and back forever, right?
Until you are shaking your moral finger at some fucking multi-celled organism in a primordial soup three billion years ago.
But it would be an answer as to what might have motivated the evils that I suffered, right?
Would it give me sympathy for my mother?
To some degree it would.
Would it excuse her behavior?
No.
No, because I just did this call yesterday.
You can't gain any more moral responsibility than you're willing to give to your parents.
So, you have...
One answer and God bless the auntie, right?
You have one answer as to what the hell happened in your childhood and why things went so desperately wrong.
You have an answer which is your mother lied in a criminal manner and destroyed your family, murdered your relationship with your father and half destroyed him as well.
Now why she did that?
Maybe you can get an answer out of it.
I doubt it.
Because she's probably going to be a whole lot more busy defending, justifying, fogging, gaslighting her actions rather than telling you what the hell caused them.
People are doing that for her already.
I'm sorry?
People are doing that for her already.
Yeah, that's right.
Her agents are doing that already, right?
And the female in-group preference is probably going to be pretty strong, which is why your sister is a pleasant exception to that often ironclad rule.
She's great.
Sorry?
She's great.
She's an entrepreneur as well.
So, you have the opportunity to go spelunking and get some bodies up to the surface where they can be buried properly.
You know, our histories die in these fucking unmarked caverns where they get slowly covered up in bat guano and carp piss and they rot and they shift and their eyes glow and they're never free and they're never buried and we can drag them to the surface, see them in the light and bury them properly and say a prayer or two.
and walk from the graveyard of her history with some knowledge of why the crimes happened.
And the reason we need to know why the crimes happened is so we don't have the fear that we'll repeat them.
Yeah, absolutely.
So, with regards to your mother, you know the truth and the truth shall Set you free.
Your life is on hold.
And your life is on hold because progress is going to run you into the secret.
You're constantly bobbing below this secret.
You know, like some, I don't know, some Cessna that's only rated to fly at 5 to 5,000 feet.
You try and go any higher and it's not designed.
It can't get the purchase on the air so it bumps back down.
You're stuck.
You can't land because you're not grounded.
You can't fly any higher.
You're just bumping on this ceiling of the secret, right?
Of the silence.
Yeah.
Everyone can only get so close.
You can only become so successful.
You can only make so much money.
You can only have so much effect.
You can only be so important because bumping up against the secret.
You rip this secret open.
The moon's the limit.
Jupiter is the limit.
Right?
Once you are free of the secret, once you have taken the ceiling off the design, You will be amazed at how high and how far you can go.
There will be no limit, because you'll be competing with very few people.
Most people, you see, are sealing so heavily by secrets and lies and conformity to the irrational, narcissistic, sometimes criminal needs and preferences of other people.
What my mother did to us was criminal.
I don't just mean morally, legally criminal.
And people get mad at me for talking about this stuff.
It's like, it wasn't my fucking fault.
It wasn't my fault.
I'm not taking the shame for trying to survive a violent, dangerous, explosive woman who slept with a knife under her pillow.
Which is a very clear signal as to the danger you might be in.
So, I'm not taking ownership of that.
That wasn't my doing.
In fact, society as a whole should look in the mirror and feel really shitty that I had to suffer like that year after year after year with no one doing a goddamn thing about it.
I'm not taking any shame.
Now, when you don't take the shame, other people get really pissed.
When you put the moral blame where it actually exists, which is my mother, my extended family, my father, the teachers, my friends' parents, everybody who lived in these paper-thin walled apartment buildings who knew what the hell was going on, the police who came by who blamed me, oh, it's a generation gap!
It's like, nope!
She's really violent and dangerous.
You see the divot in the wall where she threw a plate and a knife?
You can die in those situations.
I was caged in a feral zoo.
Everybody throwing popcorn and laughing while I struggled to survive.
These claws.
I'm taking none of it.
Society should hang its head in shame.
I survived.
I'm not taking a single moral stain from that bullshit at all.
In fact, that's heroic for me to have survived and become the man that I am.
And I will share every single shred of wisdom, hard-earned, bitter, blood-soaked, marrow-extracted wisdom that I got along the way that helped me get to where I am now.
Positive force in the world.
Someone who stands up for children.
Somebody who constantly counsels for peaceful parenting.
A great father, a great husband, great philosopher.
I will take that with pride.
Because I take none of the stain of what happened to me as a child.
That stain is with society.
And if society doesn't like it, too fucking bad.
Maybe you should have acted a little better.
Or at least not quite as bad.
So, you have this incredible opportunity to get the secret that sets your potential free.
And when you climb above that 5,000 feet or that 5 feet it sometimes feels like, when the air is not so rare but rather invigorating and intoxicating up there, you'll look around and you'll say, holy shit!
How many people are up here and can stay up here?
Very, very few.
Most of them try and get up, and they do what you did in the past, they crash and burn.
They self-sabotage, as you say, which is not self-sabotage, it's sabotage from the abusers.
It's sabotage, it's not self-sabotage at all.
You didn't just wake up in the morning, Fight Club style, and say, hey, you know what would be great?
Ah, you know, I don't have any bruises on my face, I don't have a split lip, and I don't have a broken tooth, so I'm just gonna smash my head into the sink until I pass out, because that's just fun for me.
You don't wake up and do that!
Yeah.
You don't!
It's sabotage from the people who demand that you keep their secrets.
And are willing to sabotage you, as your mother was willing to sabotage your father, rather than have you speak the truth.
Speak the truth and shame the devil.
Speak the truth though the skies fall.
Do you realize how rare it is going to be for you when you break that ceiling?
Up into the clear air with the great view and the stars above you even at noon.
The mountaintops peeking up through the clouds.
There'll be almost nobody else up there.
What competition will you have?
That's why I say you break through the ceiling of lies and control.
I'd say the sky's the limit, but that's an insult to the limit.
There is no practical limit to what you can achieve.
When you confront evildoers and stand in the truth.
You want to succeed.
You want to achieve.
You confront those who did you wrong.
You give them the opportunity for apologies.
You give them the opportunity for restitution.
You give the opportunity for honor.
And you see what happens.
You know, where I came from, I was supposed to stay small my whole life.
Because I was supposed to stay laid and down with all of these shitty, abusive, nasty, gross, disgusting, vile secrets of maltreatment.
I was just supposed to carry, that was going to be my fucking burden from here until the grave.
I was just supposed to carry.
You know, like Atlas with the world, like... Yeah.
Jesus with the sins, right?
Not that I'm putting myself in those categories, but I was just supposed to, like everybody just laid down all this shit of abuse and horrible things I've never even talked about, right?
And I was just supposed to carry all that shit.
That was my burden.
I was a scapegoat and I was just supposed to carry all that shit, stay small, be a failure.
See, because if I'm a failure, everyone can just blame me and say, well, he had so much potential, but he was just such a failure.
He squandered it.
He never grew up.
He was never wise.
He was never mature.
You know, I guess he was just broken from the beginning, and they can keep me small, and they can keep me petty, and they can keep me shallow, and they can keep me resentful, and they can keep me distracted, and they can keep me self-blaming.
And that way, I can never wake the fuck up, shake my head, look down, and say, why am I carrying this shit after all?
Why am I carrying this shit?
Why am I carrying this shit?
It's not mine.
I didn't make it.
I didn't do wrong.
I didn't abuse children.
Never have.
Why am I carrying all this shit?
And then you just drop it.
And when you drop it, you grow.
And that growth is terrifying to the people who wronged you.
Which is why you have to stay small and burdened so that you don't grow Gain courage.
Gain allies.
Gain perspective.
Gain truth.
Gain virtue.
And tell them just what the fuck they did.
With no guilt.
With no sense of shame.
Yep.
And with no burden.
Who could you be, Alex, if you didn't have to carry anybody's shit?
Someone I could really respect.
Then drop it.
Go tell the truth.
All right.
all I'm gonna go do that.
Will you talk to a therapist?
Do you have money?
Do you need money for that?
I wanted to say before I kind of Dropped my mouth when you made such a generous offer.
I'm not kidding.
I've done it before.
I'll do it again.
If you need it, absolutely.
Thank you so, so much for the offer.
I will see if I can find my own ways, but if I'm really stuck... Don't wait too long, man.
Do it this week.
If you need it, just let me know, alright?
All right, thank you.
I will do this without any hesitation and with great pleasure, all right?
Really, from the bottom of my heart, thank you very much for that.
That's very kind.
You're very welcome.
Will you keep me posted?
I certainly will.
Thank you, man.
Great call.
I appreciate you listening to my speeches.
I hope that they're helpful and thank you so much for bringing this topic up.
We have some things in common.
We certainly do.
And more than just us, my friend.
More than just us.
All right.
Keep me posted.
Let me know whatever resources you need.
I'm overjoyed to help.
And thanks again so much.
All right.
Thank you.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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