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May 10, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:16:55

"My Stepbrother Shot Me - How Do I Move On?" Freedomain Call In

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	Let's dive straight into it.
	What's on your mind?
	So I know you read my original email to you.
	So I just wanted to kind of discuss with you the idea that, you mentioned this a few different times and I've heard different people talk about it, how the whole pick yourself up about your bootstraps and like just work your way through life regardless of where your past has come from, whether whatever struggles have happened or whatnot, whatever it may be.
	Just to keep moving forward, essentially.
	And I just want to understand kind of the idea of where personal responsibility versus just, you know, you've had a bad childhood and it's understandable why you can't move forward from that.
	Like, and let's work through it.
	Maybe visit counseling or whatever, maybe.
	And because I've, I've listened to so many different callers that call you with just very, very bad childhoods and they have, and that's affected their current circumstance in life.
	To the point where they need to re-examine that history and say, this is why, where you are now.
	Now we can look into kind of working forward versus where in my circumstance, I've had a bad childhood and I see myself and I'm like, I see, I see the bad past, but I'm where I am now in a very happy and comfortable place in my life.
	So I understand that's different for every single person.
	And, um, one thing that you've talked about is like, it's hard to compare ourselves to others and, The change we see in ourselves is not always reflected in other people.
	And, um, but yeah, I'm, I'm sorry, my thoughts are kind of like all over the place, but that's... No, no, it's a big topic and your thoughts are not at all, all over the place.
	Uh, do you want to tell me a little bit about your childhood and what you think helped save you from that?
	Yeah.
	So, um, to go over like basically a rundown from kind of where I think things in my childhood really kicked off was, um, I lived on one side of the country, and then we moved later.
	I won't go into geography, because I know you don't want people to talk about that on your show.
	But before I moved to where I currently am now, when I was little, I have two older sisters.
	They're seven years older than me.
	So it's a pretty stark difference.
	And then I have both my parents at the time, obviously.
	And so at the age of four, around that time, I remember Some older boy in my neighborhood, I was over at his house and, um, he was probably, I look back and he's probably like 14 or 15.
	Like he was very much older than me.
	Um, but I was over at his house and he started to want to touch me and he made me touch him.
	I can't remember the fine details about it all, but I just remember as a kid, I was like, I felt uncomfortable about it, but, uh, but he told me, he's like, Oh, we're just having fun.
	We're just playing and blah, blah, blah.
	So I was like, I guess this is what people do.
	I guess this is just normal.
	And so how old were you again?
	At that time, I was about four years old, four or five.
	So I was very, very young.
	So that was like my first ever molestation experience.
	At least that's how I interpreted it as.
	And he was about 14 or 15.
	He was much older than me.
	I think it's not just an interpretation, is it?
	I mean, I think it's a fairly Apt way to put it that it was a molestation experience, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Exactly.
	And so that I think started off a kind of a young sexual curiosity for me.
	And so I remember very shortly after that, I would be on the computer probably about, I think this was around the first time I became exposed to pornography at a very young age.
	I was probably five or six.
	And around that time, that's when I started looking into things like, um, you just look up stupid stuff when you're a kid, like naked girls and this and that and blah, blah, blah.
	And so I started to like feed into that more curiosity in a very young age.
	And at this time, um, this is an important detail, um, is that my mom, she was diagnosed with cancer when I was about two years old, one years old.
	I don't remember how old I was, but it was very shortly after I, My mom was diagnosed with breast cancer.
	It was stage 3.
	She was supposed to pass pretty quickly, but she fought it for a very long time.
	I'll cover that as I kind of go along with the story.
	Then later, I was about 5 years old.
	I was being exposed to pornography very young.
	The whole situation that boy happened.
	And then I know some other situations.
	Sorry, sorry.
	Um, go ahead.
	Sorry.
	It was the boy at four.
	And then afterwards you were looking up pornography, right?
	Exactly.
	Sorry.
	I just want to make sure of that.
	And your mother, um, how long did she survive?
	She survived until I was eight, eight and a half, nine years old, I believe.
	Let me think.
	Um, I think it was nine was the exact age that she passed.
	And, um, At the time, um, we, we moved across the country and, um, she fought it for a very long time and great support from everybody, but she just couldn't hack it after so long.
	And, um, the, the, I remember the day she, the week she died, just the week before or me and my dad, we just got back from a trip.
	Um, went to Disneyland and we got a call from the doctor's office saying, or from the hospital saying my mom's in emergency care because she fell down and hit her head on the corner of bed.
	She was bleeding out everybody and bleeding out everywhere.
	And, um, she had, um, my grandma with her at the time, um, her mom.
	And so they told us we need to come home really quickly.
	We're not sure how long she's going to have left.
	So we came from, from our trip early and we went in the hospital.
	And, um, I remember earlier on, my dad had a conversation with me and my sisters basically telling us at some point, you have to tell your mom that you can, you're going to let her go.
	Like, it's okay for you to move on because she's been struggling for Nearly seven years at this point with it, and she's holding on just for you guys.
	So your mom's suffering.
	You'll have to tell her that she can move on now, that it's okay.
	And so I remember that stuck in my head at this moment.
	We went to the hospital and I told my mom in bed, I was like, mom, I love you, but, um, I can't bear to see you like this anymore.
	It's okay.
	You don't have to hold on for me anymore.
	As a little nine year old, that's a really hard thing to tell your mom.
	But, um, I wanted my mom to move on to much better place.
	And at least in my view.
	And so that was kind of a very traumatic experience.
	She didn't die at that moment.
	She didn't die in the hospital.
	The doctors basically told us that she maybe has a couple days to a week to live and we can take her home now.
	There's really nothing else they can do.
	So we took her home and then just every day got progressively worse.
	One day she couldn't.
	She couldn't move.
	The next day she couldn't talk.
	She could like move her fingers a little bit.
	The next day she couldn't do that at all.
	Then we were feeding her like There's the sponge of water, like just a drip water into her mouth.
	And then eventually she passed and all of my family was around to watch it.
	So that was a very, very, very sad experience, obviously.
	Um, and so that was happening.
	I was about nine years old and, um, but yeah, so, and then the lead up up to that before with going back to like, um, the effects of sexual curiosity and different things like that in that nature, um, years prior, From the moment we moved across the country to the moment she died, different kids in my neighborhood, I don't know how or what kind of led into situations, but, um, older kids, I was always older kids, like probably five, six years older than me at the time.
	Much older.
	I remember one of them, I found them on Facebook a few, like a year ago, two years ago.
	I didn't even realize she was like probably eight, nine years older than me.
	So I have no clue how I ended up with these kids, but there was probably four or five kids in my neighborhood, boys and girls.
	who were all just wanting to, like, just do different sexual acts with me, or make me do things to them.
	And they would just tell me, it's just for fun, it's just we're playing games, like, it's okay.
	So at the time, I was like, I don't really like doing that, but I guess if I want to have fun with you guys, then I guess that's what I need to do.
	But, um, and it was just, it was weird.
	And what sort of age was that for you?
	That was from the age of five to about eight or nine.
	At the age of nine, it was pretty much done at that point, because it led to different things to happen.
	But from the age of five to about eight and a half, nine years old to up to when my mom died, because it kept happening for a little bit before then.
	And then it just kind of cut off after that point because then we started just moving forward with life in different areas.
	And so the situation never arose, I guess, at least in that way.
	So yeah, that happened with a bunch of different people in my neighborhood and it was, I didn't even really analyze that until I was listening to your show maybe two years ago or three years ago, and I was listening to someone with a similar experience to that, and I was like, I didn't even recognize that that was a thing that was going on in my life for so long.
	Well, that would really explain a lot of weird things that have kind of played out in my life since that point.
	Don't obviously talk about anything you're not comfortable with, but I'm just curious what sort of Sexual or molestation play was going on.
	I mean Yeah, so it was it'd be simple things are not simple things.
	It's still gross and disgusting But um, it'd be things like I remember this one time this this girl and her brother she wanted me to come over to with her house to play and She wanted me to kiss her and do all these different things and touch her vagina and lick her vagina and that stuff happened because she told me that this is Really disgusting.
	And she told me that her brother was doing it and that it's fine.
	They don't really mind it.
	And that, and he was telling me, just do it.
	Like it's, you'll have fun.
	It tastes great and all sorts of gross things.
	And so that was probably one of the more traumatic experiences.
	Um, cause at the time I was like, well, I don't really want to do that.
	I just want to, can we do other things?
	And they just kind of kept pushing me to do it.
	And they were again, much older than me, probably eight, nine years older than me.
	So I was like, eventually I just like, okay, I guess I'll do it.
	As long as I don't get in trouble.
	I don't want your parents around.
	I was probably six, seven at the time.
	Um, and then later there was a girl across the street who just always wanted me to be kissing her.
	So nothing like molestation happening that way.
	As I can recall, um, I guess there was a couple of times and she wanted me to touch her butt and her crotch area.
	Um, and the same thing with a neighbor next door.
	Uh, her, she was again, like probably five or six years older than me.
	Similar things happening there, so I really don't know what led in these situations.
	Maybe it was my own fault.
	I really don't remember the exact details of how I... Wait, sorry, where does the your fault at the age of five or six come into this?
	I'm happy to hear the case, but I'm kind of skeptical.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I agree with you there, so I guess it's not my fault.
	I'm just trying to piece together, but yeah.
	Anyways, I apologize.
	Going back to that situation, those, I was put in these situations frequently and, um, I don't, I, again, I don't call the exact situations of how I got into it.
	I just know those things happened.
	It was very disgusting.
	Happened with two older boys.
	They made me kiss them and touch them and all sorts of weird things.
	I don't know what happened.
	I'm not sure if I just had like a target on my head saying, Hey, this kid will do whatever you want.
	I really don't know.
	But it happened with.
	The neighbors in front of me, the neighbors next to me, behind me, up on the street.
	It was just really, really bizarre.
	And I don't really remember any relationship between all the people.
	Like they didn't really hang out, the people across the street didn't hang out, the people in the corner.
	It was just me that was like in the middle connecting everybody together.
	So, but yeah.
	I'm just, it's an appalling story and I'm just, I'm so sorry.
	I like, I'm so sorry that that was, Any part of your childhood.
	And also, of course, I'm incredibly sorry that you seem to be like the nexus, like the vortex of this kind of creepy, nasty, ugly, vicious, exploitive, destructive behavior.
	And, you know, whether it was because you had a sick mom and therefore you were needier or whether, I don't know, you see the target on your head.
	I don't know.
	I mean, the fundamental reason why you were targeted is you didn't tell.
	Yeah.
	I think that's 100% correct.
	And I think at the time, I remember this vividly, is that I was afraid to speak out because I was afraid that I would get in trouble for it.
	So there was, I think what actually ended up having it stop, now this actually perfectly comes back to memory how it all ended, was that one of the times this kid about my age, as a matter of fact, he wanted me to just like, he wanted me to kiss him in his garage.
	And so I felt uncomfortable doing it, but I was like, Okay.
	I guess like we're just having fun or whatever.
	And I was probably eight or nine at the time.
	Like I said, it all stopped around that time.
	And then someone caught us and they told my parents and then my parents like said, you can't hang out with these people anymore.
	They ended it.
	So that's actually how it ended.
	Now it all just came flooding back to me.
	Just me talking through with you.
	That's how it ended.
	Okay.
	So let's just pause there for a sec.
	Cause I mean, that's, I think kind of key.
	So you thought you would get in trouble, but you didn't.
	I did get in trouble.
	I mean, I was grounded, so I couldn't hang out with these people anymore, but that was like a hefty of getting in trouble.
	That was okay, right?
	I mean, it was not like some sort of ideal gang that you loved to death, right?
	I mean, you weren't punished for what was done to you, though, right?
	Is that right?
	No, not for what I was done, no.
	Well, let me think about that first for a second.
	To answer the question of, like, was I, like, Really close to these people.
	I think I felt really close with them because they were the first people I had encounters with when I moved across the country.
	So they're the first people that like introduced to in the neighborhood.
	So I was like, Oh, these are going to be my new friends in my new town I'm living in.
	So this should be nice.
	Like I have people I can talk to.
	And then it slowly just went in different directions with each of these individuals.
	Um, so I felt, I did feel a connection, like friendship with them.
	Uh, obviously it was screwed up and I, I didn't realize that until much later.
	But you weren't punished, right?
	No, not that I can think of.
	I mean, the punishment was just, I just can't hang out with them anymore.
	And I honestly can't remember if it was like, why would you do that?
	Don't be doing those things versus, this is disgusting.
	We're protecting you.
	I really can't remember.
	I just know I couldn't hang out with them anymore.
	Well, were you also concerned that if you were questioned about these activities that it might lead back to your consumption of pornography starting at five?
	That's a good question.
	Holy shit, Steph.
	I think you're actually probably right on that one.
	Because, you know, if you feel compromised in some manner, then it's harder Yeah, that is... To get support from authority figures, right?
	Because you're like, well, they're going to ask, how did you even know about this stuff?
	And where did it come from?
	And oh my gosh, the browser history, whatever, right?
	I mean... Yeah, holy, yep, that nailed it on the head.
	I didn't even think of that until you just brought that up.
	But that, I actually probably remember a conversation in my head about that was like, it would probably segue into other things, like exactly how you just described it.
	Like, how did you find out about this?
	What did you do?
	Like, who's talking to you about this?
	That makes perfect sense in my head.
	So that actually, yeah, I think that's probably the reason why.
	And I was afraid that I would get in trouble, because I love playing video games, so I'd always be on the computer playing video games.
	If I wasn't with friends, I'd be doing that.
	So I probably, I was afraid at the time that they would take that away from me entirely, that I couldn't play my games anymore, or they just, no more computer time, because you're looking at pornography.
	If they had found out about your consumption of pornography, then you would have lost computer access, which was the games too, right?
	Exactly exactly that makes perfect sense to me.
	So that makes total sense So, yeah that that led into The next kind of stage of issues, which I think I feel like they've affected me more than that.
	But again definitely that affected me quite a bit but um, so after my After my dad and my mom after my mom died my dad I Very, very quickly got remarried.
	Like, he was remarried within two weeks.
	Two weeks?
	Yeah.
	I think it was like two or three weeks.
	Tell him he gets some kind of award for fast forward in this life.
	Yeah.
	That's... We've all... Well, that means most likely that he was having an affair while your mom was dying, right?
	To be totally honest with you, I don't know, but I wouldn't put it past him because at one... Two weeks?
	Come on.
	Oh, yeah.
	You gotta have a side piece if you're moving that quick.
	I mean, is that fair to say?
	I would think so.
	I didn't even know this until just a couple weeks ago when my sister told me that at one point, while my dad and my mom were married, my dad brought a woman over for my mom to meet as like, when you die, is this a woman that you'd be okay with?
	So I honestly wouldn't doubt it at this point.
	Because I learned about that, and I was like, that's disgusting.
	I'm not trying to come down hard on the guy.
	No, no, you're fine.
	Because if you've got a wife who's fundamentally dying for seven or eight years, and you have kids, and, I mean, I don't want to be like, well, he broke his vows.
	I mean, I guess he did, right?
	But that's a lot to ask from someone, right?
	To be giving that much emotionally while raising kids.
	Like, I mean, that's...
	A lot to ask for him.
	So I, like, I want to point that out factually, but I also don't want to sit there and, you know, hold Zeus thunderbolts of condemnation at your dad because he may have actually had the permission of, I mean, I guess you did, right?
	He may have had the permission of your mom to say, because basically the question is not so much, is this a good woman for me?
	I would imagine that the question he asked your mom is, will this be an acceptable woman to finish raising your kids?
	Yeah.
	I want to say that's how it was phrased, but I honestly don't know.
	My dad is a very, very selfish individual, and it's actually led to quite a lot of issues down the road, as we'll kind of get into.
	I do have something to say, and I don't want to interrupt your story, but I also don't want to lose it in the sands of time regarding your mom's illness, so I'm happy to say it now, or I can wait, whatever works best for you.
	No, go ahead.
	I don't have any medical authority on this.
	I mean, as you know, I'm a cancer survivor, so I just say that what I have said in the past regarding this, because you say, well, she fought cancer for seven years and then she kind of gave up at the end when we could let her go and so on.
	I don't think any of that is fundamentally true.
	I don't think you fight cancer.
	I don't think it's a willpower thing.
	And the reason I say that is because there's lots of people who die very quickly from cancer who have every intention of fighting it as hard as they can and really want to and have every incentive and motive, but cancer just takes them down in like two months.
	So your mom may have had really good doctors, she may have responded really well to surgery or chemo or radiation, but it's not just, you know, you don't fight cancer.
	I mean, you can fight a mountain lion, you know, that's something external to your body.
	But I'm concerned about this myth or this story that Your mom fought and then, you know, you had to let her go.
	I mean, it's touching, don't get me wrong, and I don't know how much truth there is in it, but I have some skepticism.
	I mean, when I got cancer, I'm like, I'm gonna fight, I'm gonna beat this kind of thing, but there's no fighting.
	You exercise, you eat well, you go to your treatments, and you do it.
	And I've now been clear forever, right?
	So I'm fine, but other people, they could have got what I got, and then, like, three months later, they're just dead.
	And it wasn't like, well, Steph fought and they didn't, you know, that there is just a certain amount of just, it's the luck of the draw.
	I got lucky.
	I mean, which is a hard thing to say when you get a lump carved out of your neck, but I got lucky and your mom got kind of lucky.
	And I'm just a little bit concerned, not so much, I mean, for you as well, but I just, for my audience, you know, audience members who listen to this, of course, have had Parents or grandparents or who have brothers, kids maybe, die of cancer.
	And I don't want them to think, well, they just didn't fight hard enough.
	If only they'd fought harder.
	And I just don't think... Attitude has something to do with health, but it's not just a matter of willpower.
	And I just wanted people to sort of understand that.
	I was lucky, your mom was medium lucky, and other people are just really freaking unlucky.
	And I don't know that willpower is the deciding factor.
	Yeah, I would agree with you there, and the reason I say that is because, that's actually something that's not made a whole lot of sense in my mind, is because like, I come from a very strong religious community, and that's one thing they always say is like, well, God like, helped, and this and that, and blah blah blah, and I'm like, that doesn't make a lot of sense to me, because I'm like, I don't want to believe in a God who picks and chooses who lives and who dies, because that gives him a lot of power that I don't feel comfortable with, because why did my mom eventually die?
	Why didn't she die to begin with?
	Why do some people live and some people don't?
	That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
	My mom is still going strong and your mom ain't.
	I don't like this picky, choosy, live-die stuff and I really don't like the willpower stuff.
	Again, I don't want to say attitude is completely irrelevant and you've got to lie back and see what cancer does to you or some illness.
	I know that this comes from A religious mindset, and it has some value.
	Like, you want to fight, you want to be optimistic, but man, sometimes that beast just claws people down and there's nothing they can do.
	And it's not because, because I just, you know, people are out there like, well, my mom died from breast cancer in three months.
	I guess she didn't fight that hard or she didn't want to.
	Yeah.
	And it's like, no, it's just sometimes your body is able to fight back.
	And sometimes your body ain't.
	And I, you know, sometimes the cancer is really aggressive and sometimes it's really strong and sometimes you don't respond to medication and, you know, it's not just, well, this person clawed their way back out of their coffin and back into life.
	And I don't, I mean, I've got a lot of willpower, but I'm not going to sit there and say, well, the reason I'm cancer free is I just wanted it more.
	I mean, everybody wants it.
	Everybody wants to be cancer free when you're cancer.
	Your mom wanted it.
	I wanted it.
	I happened to make it.
	Your mom didn't.
	And I don't want to throw her under some kind of existential bus of willpower or, you know, she just didn't want it as much as me.
	And now, again, that having been said, you know, if you're really stressed for life and you don't have any support, but you said she got a lot of support, you know, that probably helped.
	But I just, sorry, just wanted to touch on that because that's, I remember wrestling a lot with that and talking about that with people.
	Like I was like, cancer's not going to get me.
	And it didn't.
	I can't own that.
	I mean, I think it helped to be that positive.
	But I can't, you know, and the messages that listeners sent in about, you know, don't die, we need you, you know, we love you, we want your show.
	And it's wonderful and lovely and certainly helped.
	But it's just not willpower.
	I just... Yeah, I would agree with you there.
	I guess, I guess the idea like fighting for me comes more just She just, we just kept trying to find new solutions to deal with what have happened and kind of work through it as best we could.
	Because at the beginning, as I said, she was only given a few months to live and then she, we got the proper treatment.
	I don't remember.
	I think it might've been John Hopkins hospital, but I can't remember the exact one on the East coast.
	So we went to, but it was a very prestigious hospital and she goes, so you got very quickly got treated.
	It's given more time to live.
	And then our next treatment came and then more time and so on and so forth until eventually it was just like, Nothing else could be done at this point so I guess you're definitely right there was like it's not just like a matter of willpower like she just put more effort into it than the next person down the street but But yeah, so I agree with you there.
	That makes sense.
	I mean it also has something to do with maybe intelligence and so on.
	I assume my mom is intelligent because some of the regimens for medication are pretty complicated and you really have to take the pills at the right time and if people forget.
	I mean there's lots of different things that go into it but I just wanted to touch on that because it's a touching story.
	I mean don't get me wrong, you know, like she held on for us and it's like Yeah, but you know, when she was sent home with a week to live, I don't think she could have willed another year.
	Yeah, I agree with you there.
	And yeah, that makes perfect sense to me.
	Okay, so I just want to touch on that.
	And this thing, this, you know, listen, the pornography stuff around childhood, when I was growing up in the 70s, there was like, pornography all over the neighborhood.
	It's before the internet, obviously, long before the internet.
	Pornography all over, and like, You know, call me old-fashioned, but there's pornography that is... normal-ish, you know, like just...
	sexuality and then this pornography that is just creepy af like just nasty nasty mean ugly stuff and you know there was there was the i guess mainstream and then there was like this like i didn't you know people would want to show it like i know i oh my eyes they burn like i don't have anything to do with it and it really was this this hyper sexualization of kids And now it's it's really it's a big deal.
	I don't know.
	Were there a lot of single moms around your neighborhood?
	Um, no, actually, that's it was kind of the opposite.
	I mean, everyone in the neighborhood, except with exception of like, maybe one couple was divorced.
	So there's a very, very high one.
	You said everyone in the neighborhood with the exception of one couple was divorced?
	Do you mean?
	I'm sorry.
	Yeah.
	The opposite, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, the opposite.
	I apologize.
	Yeah, so everyone in the neighborhood was married except for one couple.
	And we didn't really talk to them a whole lot.
	I mean they were just kind of neighbors I'd say hi across the street from but that was about it.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	So it could be that there had been one really nasty babysitter who'd come through the neighborhood who'd kind of planted these ugly seeds.
	It could be that there was one family where there was child sexual abuse and then that's how it spread.
	It is almost like a virus if that makes any sense.
	Yeah, I think I heard about something actually happening with the neighbors behind me who was the first people that exposed me to it where I think something where either one of their relatives or family friends something happened with the daughters where they were
	doing something I really don't know the details but it's probably maybe along the lines what you're talking about but I could see that being a case definitely well and and that's important for for people to remember that and as you point out this was I guess a fairly affluent neighborhood intact families religious and so on and you know even still all of this stuff was happening in basements and garages and so on that as a parent it's really really really important to remember this is
	Lesson that we can get out of some of the tragedies of your childhood which is not turning it Into good but getting the most good out of it.
	It's just it's really really important to remember that There's a lot of child sexual abuse out there and it doesn't take much for it to spill over into your environment, into your household, onto your children.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's like one out of three girls, one out of five boys.
	I remember reading different studies between 40 and 60 percent of black girls are sexually molested by black men before they turn 18.
	I mean it's a big issue in the Hispanic community and it is
	Just out there and it is it's like wildfire I mean it just can go right through a neighborhood and as you can see can can burn people's childhoods to the ground Yeah, exactly exactly and I I don't know the exact but I can see that definitely being the case in my neighborhood specifically how Started with one and then they got some ideas and then something happened with the next I but yeah that makes perfect sense to me entirely But yeah
	And then you end up with this separate world of children and adults.
	And I mean, there's so much that's damaging about it.
	But one of the things that's particularly damaging is you end up leading this double life.
	You know, your dad says, oh, what did you play or what did you do?
	And you just have to make something up because, you know, you know, as you say, you don't want to get your access to porn and video games taken away.
	And so you end up with this false existence and you end up not being able to be honest or direct with your With anyone, right?
	Because you don't talk about this with anyone, and that cult of secrecy is, I think, particularly destructive.
	Yeah, I think you're definitely right, because what had happened at the time, and it wasn't even as hard as a thing with pornography.
	I remember pornography being like, I'd just get curious and be like, ooh, what is this?
	And then, like, it would just, like, little things would just come up.
	It was more like, I really love playing video games.
	Actually, I had a hardcore porn addiction that started A little bit later.
	And that was, I'm still addicted to porn, but I've been clean for quite a while now.
	But it's, it's a bitch.
	When you say hardcore, do you mean in terms of the grip or the content?
	Both.
	So it's, it was like, it happened probably like it started to pick up pretty heavily.
	I think around ninth grade or 10th grade.
	So early high school years.
	Um, that's probably around the time it started picking up and I remember it was just like once, uh, once a week.
	And I was involved with masturbation as well, obviously.
	So it was just once a week and then it turned into like, well, a couple of times a week and then to the point where it just became every day.
	And then it was like six or seven times every day, all the time.
	And I couldn't like function until I had my fix a few times a day.
	Like it just became very gripping and the content thereof was.
	Just hardcore pornography.
	Like when you were talking about like, um, certain pornography that people see, I remember like there were certain, there's certain types of porn out there that I would just, I had to turn my eye to.
	They were just horrible for me.
	And those were always the ones that involved like those bondage situations or women being hit or beaten.
	I could never watch that stuff.
	That made me sick.
	I mean, porn's already sick and disgusting, but I don't know.
	It kind of sounds weird that like an addict has a boundary they don't want to cross.
	And that was kind of like my boundary.
	I was like, I don't want to ever get into that stuff.
	That's just too vile for me.
	I don't like seeing women get hurt or beaten.
	That makes me feel sick.
	So, um, but yeah, so that was really, really hardcore, um, for quite a while, for probably about a year, it was just constantly, and it rewired my brain.
	Like I just, I literally couldn't like think properly.
	Like my brain was just cloudy.
	When you watch porn, any addiction, obviously, but like with porn, like you literally just feel your brain just rewiring itself as you watch it.
	Um, you just get like slight migraines or headaches, at least for me, that's how it felt continuously until I had my fix.
	And then I could like almost feel the chemical imbalances start to take place in my brain as like, it just filled in with all this, um, just ecstasy feelings and whatnot.
	It was just, it's really gross.
	And so that had a hard strain on me for quite a while.
	And then it kind of started to die off.
	Actually, about the same time I started to become friends with my now wife, it started to just like dissipate around that same time.
	We were just friends at the time, but then it started to just – I started hanging out with her more often than it just like it stopped for some reason.
	Like I just – it was still a fight, but it was a fight I felt like really kind of pushing the front lines for.
	And I was like, I don't want to do this anymore.
	I don't – this is such a struggle for me.
	I can't focus and be a normal person.
	So, but anyways, you want to say something?
	Yeah, no, no, I appreciate, appreciate that.
	Now, when you met the woman who became your wife, uh, how long did you, how long were you friends before you started dating?
	We were friends for about six, seven months about that time that we were hanging out almost daily.
	Like she just, we both, we both moved into, The neighborhood about the same time and this is like in my, the summer of my, or the, my junior year, I moved into this, this new neighborhood.
	And then that summer, and then she moved in around the same time.
	And then like, I just met her in my, my local church.
	Cause we just went to the same place.
	And so, um, the first day I met her, I was, I just, I just felt this thing about her.
	She was just, she just felt great.
	And I was like, this, this chick is awesome.
	I'm not sure what it is about her, but.
	She just has a personality I'm drawn to.
	She was very fun, very open, and just made people feel like they're best friends as soon as you met them.
	So I just wanted to talk to her.
	And so we just started being friends.
	I had no feelings for her at the time, like no, at least romantic feelings.
	And she didn't have any feelings for me.
	We were both dating separate people entirely.
	And so it was just very normal that we just kind of hung out and nothing ever happened.
	And so we just hung out frequently, became really, really good friends.
	Um, I was in a very, very toxic relationship with my now ex-girlfriend at the time.
	Um, and that relationship was going on for like three years.
	It was like started in, um, she was like the most bland human being you could possibly meet.
	Like she just, you couldn't speak honestly with her.
	Um, I wanted to have deep conversations.
	I want to talk about real things, but she was just very bland, but she was very good looking.
	So as a teenage boy, I was just, that's all you care about.
	So.
	That's all I was stuck on, and so I just couldn't get over her.
	At one point, she had feelings for me, and so I just kind of gripped onto that, and then we just started dating.
	You have this kind of cliche.
	It's a weird kind of bragging right that women have these days about being a hot mess, you know?
	Like, I'm insane, but I'm so hot that men will still want to date me.
	She's sweet, but she's psycho.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And it's funny because the hot mess is kind of a cliche, but the hot yawn is something that's not quite as talked about.
	And I remember once being in a seminar and kind of walking with this woman who was the prettiest woman by far in this group of, I don't know, like a couple hundred people.
	And I was walking with her and we were chatting.
	We went to have some lunch together.
	I asked her out for lunch.
	We went to have some lunch.
	And the whole time I'm like, Please be interesting.
	Please.
	You're so pretty.
	Please.
	Throw me a bone here.
	Make a joke of some kind.
	Have some knowledge about something or other.
	You know, anything like that.
	And she was just like, oh, you know, the hot yawn.
	You know, it's like, yeah, you're pretty, but whew.
	I mean, the only reason I'd kiss you is just to stop you talking.
	You know, what comes out of your mouth is a slow, steady drip of banal treacle.
	And the hot you on is something that is a little bit underappreciated.
	But that's not usually considered toxic.
	But for you, you used the word toxic, which I think is interesting because boredom is usually not considered toxic.
	Well, see, what happened was that the reason I use the word toxic is because it was a bad relationship for both of us.
	When I first met her, she would lie to her parents all the time.
	Like it was even about like stupid things that I'm like, Why are you lying about that?
	That makes no sense to lie about it.
	Just speak honestly.
	There's no reason for you to lie about who you had lunch with versus who you didn't have lunch with.
	Even simpler things than that.
	It's hard to come up with an exact example.
	It's the people who are so dedicated to lying that they'll never give up a chance to practice.
	Exactly.
	Exactly.
	I tried to like break that out of her as best I could.
	I was like, no, just tell your mom the truth.
	Like there's no reason to lie about it.
	You're not going to get in trouble.
	Like there's nothing for you to hide about this exact situation.
	So just be honest with her.
	And so after a while that kind of like broke out of her, um, and at least from my understanding, she's already be more honest, but, um, it was, that's what kind of like led into this.
	I should have, that's obvious red flags, but teenage boys, I was just teenage boy and I just stuck on this girl cause she was pretty.
	You got dicknapped.
	I mean, it's a common phenomenon.
	Yeah.
	And so it was, and then it just led into just like a very physical relationship, just kissing, touching.
	We never like had sexual intercourse, like penis, vagina, but it was definitely like oral sex.
	That stuff happened definitely.
	And it just It was very, very physical relationship.
	There's no real emotions to it whatsoever.
	I wanted to think there was real emotions.
	That was the imprinting you had from your early molestation experiences, right?
	Yeah.
	That you don't, quote, go all the way, but there's this sexual play, right?
	Yeah.
	Wow.
	I didn't consider that.
	That's, yeah, that's exactly how it would make sense.
	And you also had the imprinting that you use people Not you, right?
	But that one uses people for sexual gratification.
	And you don't really care about the other person's feelings or needs or preferences, right?
	Because you said earlier that the kids would say to you, oh, it's fine, you know, we'll just do this.
	And you were like, well, I don't really want to.
	Can we do something else?
	And they just kept being insistent, right?
	So you would have that imprinting that sexuality is like a feral need that you indulge even at the expense of other people's preferences.
	And again, I'm not accusing you, obviously, of doing anything untoward.
	But this idea that sexuality would be bound up with virtue and love and commitment and family and kids, I mean, that's not anything that you were, I mean, I hate to say the word exposed to because it's got all those connotations, but anything that you experienced when you were very young.
	Yeah, that makes perfect sense to me because the fact that you brought up the word like commitment and it actually has your relationships more than just physical, essentially, That makes perfect sense, because that's how, after my mom died, when my dad got remarried right away, that's exactly how I saw it.
	This is a problem my dad has, and it's actually, it's hurt our relationship quite a bit, and I'm not sure what to do with our relationship at the moment, to be totally honest with you, because of these certain situations that I've come to grips with in my now years.
	But after he got remarried, he just I immediately jumped to this pretty blonde woman that lived next door to us, and like you said... Where did she live next door to you?
	Because I get the feeling that you're surrounded by this moat of creepy, molesty family kids, but not in that circle of hell, right?
	Yeah, so she lived... I didn't even know her, I didn't even know this family lived next door to us, to be totally honest with you, until...
	Until this situation, which I knew everyone else in the neighborhood, the kids behind me, the kids next to me, across the street, on the corner, everywhere, except for this family next door, where I don't know if they suddenly just, like, moved in.
	I really don't remember.
	But they, my dad got remarried to her in a heartbeat, and this was at the time when I needed my dad most, and my sisters were old enough where they moved out of the house at this point.
	So, and my stepmom at the time, she had five kids.
	Four of them ended up living, or three of them, four of them?
	I think three of them, I'm gonna say three.
	Three of them lived with us, and so it was just me, my dad, my stepmom, and her three kids.
	And my stepmom, she just, or my ex-stepmom, she just, she would neglect me, like heavily, heavily.
	I know, I know you kind of talked about this, as this has been a situation for you, as well as you talk about this as like a form of abuse that's not like very well talked about, but she, She neglected me.
	She would lie all the time about everything I would do to my dad to the point, like when I first met her, I called her mom, like, um, just cause I wanted to like accept someone else into my life.
	That's like, is going to replace the role of my, my mother.
	And so nine year old me, I was like, just really open accepting.
	And I wanted to, to, to get to know her better.
	And I was like, hi mom.
	Like, I love you.
	And just, just treat her complete openness and just fondness.
	Um, And now I think about it, I was eight at the time because my dad would lose his job this year during the whole 2008 recession and so this actually was a problem for her.
	So this is exactly what you talked about in the past with women that they just want a man to kind of like take control and just be just kind of, they want resources and that was kind of how she was essentially.
	She just wanted resources.
	That's at least how I see it.
	Well your stepmom was a liar and your first serious girlfriend was also a liar.
	Yeah.
	Yep.
	They, when I think back at it, they had some similarities.
	Definitely.
	That's definitely one of them.
	Just pathological lying consistently.
	And so she was a narcissist.
	She was never in the wrong.
	Um, and so for me, she would just lie about everything I would do.
	And she would tell my dad that, um, he was picking on my son cause she had a little, she had a son that was two years younger than me, three years younger than me.
	And then she had a son that was, um, seven years older than me or six years older than me.
	And then a daughter who was about the same age, six years older than me.
	So, um, and so she would just lie to my dad all the time about every little thing I would do.
	It would just be, she picked on him for this reason.
	She did, he did this to blah, blah, blah.
	And she would just make up these stories.
	And I remember one time, like I called her out on it in front of my dad.
	I was like, that didn't happen.
	Like, what are you talking about?
	And she just, you know, that happened.
	Don't lie to your father.
	And I'd be like, I don't know what to say.
	I've never really come across a situation.
	So I just kind of like zip my lips.
	And I was like, okay.
	Cause I remember the next time she pulled me aside after these conversations, she'd be like, if you tell your dad what happened, um, you're going to be grounded longer.
	If you lie to your dad, you can be grounded.
	And so I just learned to shut up.
	I was like, fine.
	I don't want to be grounded.
	Because once you ground me, she would just ban me to my room.
	And the only time I could come out was for dinner.
	Or she would just leave it in my room or she'd just let me go to the bathroom.
	That was it.
	So I spent quite a long time just in my room or in the bathroom.
	I mean, that's worse than house arrest.
	It's like room arrest, right?
	Yeah.
	And so this is actually where I don't know where my father was.
	And so this is something I genuinely, I know my dad was there because at this time, shortly after my, cause my mom died in April and then they got remarried like in the beginning of May.
	My dad got remarried in the beginning of May, but my dad lost his job in November or October after the whole housing crisis kind of went down.
	And then he lost his job.
	I remember her attitude flipped a switch.
	And she, I remember before she was kind of okay with me.
	And then that happened.
	And she was like, no, I'm not okay with this kid.
	Well, it's a very primitive thing, right?
	And the primitive thing is this, that she's willing to have Not her child in the house, as long as there are enough resources to go around.
	But when your dad loses his job, the resources contract and she's like, Oh, throw this one over the over the edge of the boat, right?
	We're running low in the water.
	Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
	It just, yeah, like she kind of would shoot and that was exactly apparent in her behavior because she would completely obviously, obviously favor her kids over me.
	And she would just do anything to keep me away from them.
	Even though I was trying so hard to be good with them.
	I wanted to be friends with them because I saw them as family.
	I was like, we have a new family.
	But she is the thing.
	And this is where I guess the question with your dad comes in.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	But no, it's not that she's favoring her kids.
	It's that she's doing what most people do.
	They're doing what they can get away with.
	And she knew that she had your dad by the short and curlies, for whatever reason, because Could be sexuality, could be I don't know what, right?
	But the reality is that she knew that she was able to get away with being neglectful of you, or punishing of you, or harmful towards you.
	I mean, what the hell was going on with your dad that you're spending half the year locked in your room?
	Not, like, only being able to go to the... Like, what the hell?
	Yeah, this is I don't know.
	Honestly.
	Um, this is where I sent him my email that like, my dad abandoned me and I use that term.
	And I wanted to like explain it more in detail this this if this came up was just I don't remember if my dad like was like literally not in the house, but I felt like Yeah, well, Because my dad was kept trying to find a job so like he would work random jobs just to do anything to make ends meet.
	So like he worked like a landscaping job.
	He worked just outside of Walmart.
	He started doing real estate.
	What did you say?
	Real estate.
	No, she didn't.
	So because she was she would get four grand a month in life support or life life insurance because her previous husband died.
	So her kids are living in the household.
	Sounds like the kind of character where you say her previous husband died.
	I'm like, really?
	Really?
	Yeah.
	Did he die after eating a meal his wife prepared for him?
	Honestly, this is where my mind goes.
	Probably it's completely unfair, but I'm just like, yeah, it seems like a pretty cold woman.
	Honestly, I mean, that does definitely come to my mind as well for that exact same situation.
	I mean, because then she got remarried and had a kid with him and then divorced him right away and has gotten a bunch of just like... Wait, she had a kid with your dad and then divorced him?
	No, my dad, sorry.
	Before my dad, she got remarried after her original husband died, and then she had a kid with her new husband at that time, and then they divorced soon afterwards, and then she just started getting child support from him.
	So I think that was what she was trying to do.
	with my dad was have a kid.
	They didn't have any kids, luckily.
	Let me tell you, I just took a station break for just a sec here, because this is an important point.
	Women have a lot of wonderful and great virtues, but one thing that men really need to get through their heads is that women are resource maximizers, resource extractors.
	Now, that's perfectly fine, there's nothing wrong with that, I mean, but women In general, and exceptions, but women in general will operate on fairly mammalian principles of resource maximization, resource extraction.
	Now this can be wonderful, like if your woman loves you and is bonded to you and wedded to you and then her maximum resource consumption comes in the form of helping drive your career and having you go out and fight and you know like this behind every great man is a good woman and she's driving him there You know, partly out of love and all of that, but a lot out of resource maximization.
	Men tend to deal a little bit more in terms of just straight-up honor, and that's because we're out there fighting with each other.
	You know, maybe not so much today, but certainly as we evolved.
	And so when women put forward principles in general, it is around resource maximization.
	And I'll give you the perfect example of this, which is if you look at right-wing women Free market women, MAGA women, conservative women, they tend to be physically attractive, and more so than women on the left, the sort of feminists and, you know, the traditional pear-shaped women in comfortable shoes and so on.
	And so that's pretty easy to understand.
	And this is not to say that they don't have great arguments and they're not honorable women, but when you kind of look down at it, The reality that the pretty women can get the highest earning men, right?
	Your daddy's rich, your mama's good looking.
	So the fact that pretty women are into the free market and minimal government is simply because they can get more resources For men in the free market, because of their looks.
	Interesting.
	Whereas if you look at the left-wing women, they're not physically attractive in general, or if they are, they're insane, and therefore no man will stick with them for long and certainly won't marry them.
	And so they say, well, we care about the poor, and we want redistribution, and we care about the children, and we want a big social safety welfare net, and so on.
	It's like, well, it's not complicated.
	They get more resources from the state than they would from a man.
	Exactly.
	And so if you look at that, it's not that hard to figure out.
	The good-looking women want the free market because it will maximize their resource access, and the less attractive women want the government because it will maximize their resource access.
	There's kind of a common thread there, right?
	And so for the most part, and listen, it's not a huge amount more of women than of men, but when men talk about principles, I will listen to them maybe 3% more than when women talk about principles, because in general, when women talk about principles, for reasons I've gone into before, and again, I have no moral issue with this, this is exactly how we survived and flourished as a species, and women have resources, have resource requirements, if they're moms in particular, that men don't, at least not as immediately, so, yeah, so that's interesting.
	So your dad, of course, Married a woman and took on paying to some degree for her three kids, although you say she was getting four grand a month in life insurance, so annuity or something like that, right?
	Quite a bit of cash.
	Yeah, so she was, and the fact that that's basically what, to my understanding, supported us for the most part of that entire experience, was that my dad wasn't holding a job just because He was an architect.
	You're feeding off the dead like cannibals.
	Yeah, so he just couldn't find a job.
	But I know he was... I don't remember him around.
	To my understanding, at least how I remember it, he was just out looking for a job.
	And he had a few jobs for quite a while, and eventually landed something much later, as an architect, because that was his original job, but he couldn't find any architecture jobs.
	Yeah, funny thing about a housing crash when, you know, what was it like?
	In some places 20, 30, 40 percent of the housing stock was empty.
	It was unlived in.
	10 percent, I think, overall.
	And yeah, not a lot of building new houses when people are getting kicked out of their existing ones, right?
	Yeah, exactly.
	And so that led to, obviously, that he couldn't find anything in his master's degree from a prestigious university and still couldn't do anything.
	And I remember him always trying.
	I remember him being like, just lounging around and being lazy.
	But I don't remember him in this time.
	Like, I felt like he abandoned me.
	So that's how my mind interprets it, is just, he abandoned me because my stepmom was always constantly lying about me, getting me in trouble, controlling my every move, my every action.
	And I just could never do anything.
	And I finally was like, red-pilled to it in a way, because one summer, every summer, Every summer I would go down to, well, back to where we came from, on the other side of the continent, the East Coast, and live with my grandparents.
	So every summer I would just go back and visit them.
	I'd spend time with my family back there.
	And so that was like a massive, just great, great escape from just the craziness at my dad's house with my ex-stepmom, just because she'd always be grounding me.
	So one summer I remember, and I think this is when my dad started to wake up as well, is that I had all A's and I had an F in a music class.
	And the F, it was by one point, I had like a 64, I needed a 65 to pass.
	But I had all A's and this one F in this class.
	And so when I got a bad grade, my stepmom, she would ground me and seclude me to my room.
	So this summer, she was fighting with my dad over this.
	And my dad was like, no, I want my son to go visit his grandparents.
	Like, he needs this.
	I want him to go.
	He looks forward to this every year and she's like, no.
	He had a bad grade.
	Do you know why she didn't want you to go?
	To just punish me?
	That's how I see it.
	No.
	Now the reason she didn't want you to go is because you might have told what was going on in the household.
	Ah.
	Right?
	Yeah.
	No, forget the punishment.
	No, because she had a good relationship with your grandparents, so she was afraid that you would go to your grandparents, and your grandparents would say, how's life?
	How are things?
	How's the new stepmom?
	What's going on?
	What's new?
	How's she treating you?
	And, you know, they eventually might get it out of you, and then who do they call?
	They would call either her or my dad, definitely.
	Well, they'd call your dad, I'd assume, right?
	Yeah.
	And then they'd say to your dad, listen, do you know what's happening to your son?
	I mean, he's been half locked in his room like some animal.
	And that is basically exactly what happened.
	So that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	So that's, that's why she didn't want you to go.
	It's nothing to do with punishment.
	No, no, it's nothing to do with punishment.
	It's just this strategic move.
	Yeah.
	It's like something you pointed out to me.
	I'm not sure.
	I can't remember if you made the comparison to your mom or someone else's, but, um, you've always said that like, um, the woman, she wasn't, um, how, how you word it.
	You, she said that she was not crazy because, Being crazy, she would act the same in front of other people.
	Yeah, but also, people who are strategic aren't crazy.
	Like, one of the saddest summers I ever had was when I was 12, and my mother went to Germany, and my brother went elsewhere, and I was stuck with a friend of mine's grandparents, who I didn't know, for like a couple of months in the summer, and I mean, it was terrible.
	I mean, it was boring.
	The grandmother was ill, and I couldn't make any noise, and they didn't have any time for me, and I was just kind of
	lurking around in this apartment and you know I went to the library all the time I did a huge amount of reading but it was a very and you know I remember walking down the street with this guy this grandfather of some friend of mine and you know we had so little to say that I saw across the street the word donut you know it's spelled d-o-u-g-h-n-u-t but this was of course you know d-o-n-u-t right and I said oh
	It's interesting that, you know, they, I guess to make the letters bigger on the sign, they take out half the letters or maybe their clientele doesn't know how to spell donut or something like that.
	It's just, this is how sad it was trying to make a conversation with this guy.
	Now, of course, looking back on it 40 years later, I mean, the poor guy was, his wife was dying and he was, I don't know why on earth they took me in.
	I mean, I didn't know them from Adam and I never saw them again.
	But, uh, I'm talking to him about this donut sign.
	He just looks at me like, like I'm speaking Klingon and he says, you want a donut?
	Like, no, I don't want a donut.
	I just, I don't know what to say to you.
	Yeah.
	You're like, that just went completely over his head.
	Yeah.
	I mean, it was a very odd summer, but of course the reason my, my brother was sent to relatives and the reason of course that I wasn't sent to relatives is we might talk about what was going on in the household, which is why we had to be separated.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And I think that's exactly what happened with me.
	And this is kind of when I think it just the exposure started to occur.
	And at first, my dad was like, resistant to it.
	I think he wanted to think that that's not how it was to begin with.
	Did you end up going to your grandparents?
	Yes, so exactly.
	So what happened is that I went to my grandparents.
	Eventually, my dad convinced her because her plan, and this is eventually what happened when I got back was that her plan was that for the entire summer, because I failed my music class, is that she would lock me in my room, and I had to basically study Bach and Mozart and Beethoven exclusively for the entire summer in my room.
	And that was her plan.
	And so it was carried out later when I got back from my summer vacation.
	How old were you at this time?
	I think I was 11 at this point.
	11 or 12.
	So why on earth would you, I mean, at the age of 11, you're, well, the adults in your life, your dad and your stepmom, should be tracking your progress, they should be asking you how things are going, they should be talking to your teachers, and your teacher would come along and say, hey, he's having real trouble in this music class, and it'd be, okay, well, let's figure out what we can do.
	Like, it's not, it's not, you don't own that F at the age of 11.
	Yeah, I don't I don't remember that ever.
	No, of course it didn't happen, right?
	So yeah, so yeah, I mean this idea that well you you just you got this F at the age of 11 in complete isolation from any parental or adult input and therefore you must be punished.
	I mean that's psychotic when it comes to just basic responsibility.
	I didn't I didn't even think about that until you just pointed it out, but that would I don't know why that didn't register obviously just Stupid parenting all around.
	No, it's not stupid parenting.
	It's abusive parenting And she also may have been showing like one one kid is sometimes picked out can be a biological kid But in your case it was not so one kid is is singled out like the Cinderella story, right?
	You've got the two girls and then you've got Cinderella and Cinderella is kneeling in the dirty ashes and scrubbing crap and bringing People's underwear out and in the back 40 or whatever.
	And the reason why one child is picked out and abused is to keep the other kids in line, right?
	I mean, like, why are some people banned from social media?
	Well, so everyone else is like, oh, I better not talk about it, right?
	I mean, it's a warning to everyone else.
	So she was probably also using you as a proxy whip over her own children, which is like, hey, this is what I'm capable of.
	So you better stay in line, kids.
	Interesting.
	I didn't view it that way because she treated her kids like they were gods, like they could do no wrong.
	She loved them.
	They were just perfect angels.
	Like even they would, um, I remember her older son, this is actually probably when my pornography addiction actually really started her older son.
	He brought me to his room and he made me watch just like lesbian porn and his on his, um, uh, PlayStation or his X-Box or something with him.
	And so I just kept watching it with me.
	And then he got me in trouble for watching porn.
	Um, and I was trying to tell them like, Hey, this happened.
	Like he was the one.
	To expose me to it and she just wouldn't have it.
	She's like, nope, my, my son is perfect.
	He would never do such a thing.
	And so I was like, are you kidding me?
	Like we were bonding over something obviously disgusting, but the first time I felt like you were, this was her older son.
	He was seven years older than me.
	So the first time I feel like you're trying to like reach out to me, obviously it's something gross, but you go and stab me in the back for something you did.
	And then just things like that.
	They were just, they would, they would act very much like her.
	Very, very manipulative, very gross to me.
	Like her youngest son, who was a couple years younger than me, he would just, anything, over any stupid little thing you could think of, he would just start crying and blame it on me and be like, he did this thing to me, he did this thing to me, how dare he?
	And then she would just come to his aid and be like, oh no, like, how dare you do this to my son?
	And just, just find more reasons to just abuse me.
	And they were just going along with it.
	I was the bad guy and I was trying so hard to, This is like an outtake from a Christmas story.
	do you guys hate me so much i don't know what i did to deserve this treatment from you guys but it just it was just like that from the very beginning one time her older son he put a an airsoft gun point blank in my eye and shot me in the eyeball and i was literally blind for quite a while yeah i'm not even joking um he had an airsoft gun this is like an outtake from a christmas story he shot you in the eye with an air gun yeah with point blank Like I'm not, I'm not exaggerating.
	You were bloody lucky.
	I mean, I hate to say lucky, but you know, I remember it perfectly is that I was shot and I was like, I started crying.
	I was like, frick.
	And I couldn't see anything.
	I was like, I'm literally blind.
	I'm like, I'm going to be blind.
	And he's like, don't tell my mom.
	Don't tell my mom.
	Don't tell my mom.
	Like I didn't do anything.
	This is, this is your fault.
	And he started explaining how it was my fault.
	And I was like, dude, you were holding the gun.
	You shot me point blank in the eye.
	How's this my fault?
	And he's like, don't you say anything, like it's your fault.
	And so I just kept rubbing my eye and just like, I was just sitting in the corner, just shutting up because I just learned to shut my mouth.
	And I was like, can't speak out.
	Don't say anything.
	It'll just make it worse.
	I'll get more trouble.
	So I just, I just kept rubbing my eye until eventually the BB fell out of my eye.
	And I was like, oh, I can see again.
	It was a very, it was a moment of relief.
	Like the shot in your eye?
	Yeah.
	Cause it was a BB gun.
	Um, and so the, the BB from the BB gun got and lodged into my eye, like the back of my eye.
	And so there's just... So you couldn't even say, like, get me to a hospital or... Wow.
	No.
	I mean, it was because that would get him in trouble.
	And so I didn't want to... And how old were you then?
	I was about the same age, like 10, 11, 12 range.
	Yeah.
	So basically, I mean, you could have been shot and blinded.
	And this is the... I mean, this is a war zone, right?
	Like you're in a war zone.
	Like, no kidding.
	Like, this is how you're going to experience it physiologically, right?
	Like, you're in a war zone.
	Like, there's IEDs around, you can get shot and blinded.
	Like, that's where you are.
	Yeah.
	And that's, that's exactly how I, I didn't even, this, this, the weird part is that at the time, I don't know if I, I guess I was just heavily manipulated to think I was in the wrong.
	So at the time I remember thinking like, I must have just done something, it was my fault.
	No, no, no.
	Okay, you need to have more respect for yourself.
	Which is, you weren't manipulated into thinking that you were wrong.
	You had to think that you were wrong, otherwise worse things would have happened.
	Yeah, duh.
	I mean, and it's easier to internalize those lies than it is to know that you're Being wronged and not in the wrong, and constantly have to reaffirm that.
	Like, don't insult your younger self by, oh, you're so easy to manipulate, you just listened and believed all this stuff.
	No, no, no, you believe what you have to say, you say what you say in order to survive.
	And again, as a kid, it's easier to internalize those beliefs because it provides a more seamless Bulletproof armor to try and evade the next piece of insane half-sibling or Step-sibling shrapnel that's coming your way.
	So no, no, no, you didn't believe any of that stuff, but you had to believe it.
	Otherwise Punishments might have escalated to the point where you could have been permanently injured or even killed That makes perfect sense and Thinking back that's probably exactly how I felt looking back at now that's definitely how I would interpret it as just now that you say it that way is that Obviously.
	Because the situation is that if I didn't feed their lies, if I tried to expose the truth in any way...
	I'd be more grounded.
	I'd just be more in trouble.
	I'd be locked in my room longer.
	Look, if that's someone out of the house who's willing to shoot you in the eyeball, and then the first thing he thinks about is how to protect his own ass rather than get you to a frickin' hospital.
	So you're in a wounding-slash-mortal situation.
	Again, it's a war zone.
	And what you're searching around for is anyone Who has any sympathy whatsoever.
	I mean, that's what we're all scanning for.
	If we're being abused as kids, we're all scanning, trying to figure out if there's any biped in the vicinity who might have the tiniest shred.
	of sympathy for our situation.
	And, well, you know, we didn't really come up completely blank.
	This is why, you know, I've said this before, this is why when society says, oh, we care about the children, we gotta get the children educated, we gotta give money for the kids.
	No, we don't care about kids.
	We don't care about kids.
	Who stood up for you?
	Who stood up for me?
	No one cared about kids.
	This is why it's all just a bunch of garbage.
	Now, of course, you should care about kids.
	But of course you've seen how the media has treated me sometimes when they realize that they do actually care about the adult victims of child abuse.
	So no, I mean, people don't care about it.
	It's all just mammalian posturing and it's all just a load of bullshit.
	So when society, oh, we care about the kids, like, yeah, you don't, you don't care about the kids at all.
	I mean, nobody stood up for you, right?
	No one.
	And that was, that was the craziest part about it is because it was just, I just felt completely alone and isolated.
	Well, you were.
	More than a feeling, as the song goes.
	Yeah.
	You were.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I remember looking back, and I see myself in these pictures, and I'd just be in a background in the corner, and so... But this is why you were picked on, because you had no allies.
	Yeah, I was completely alone, I'm bullied, no one stood up for me, I couldn't stand for myself.
	And we can't even handle what the freakin' wildebeest do.
	Like, if you've ever seen these nature documentaries, you know, there's, they always have some hyenas on the African Serengeti or something like that, and like, hyenas, they're looking for the old, the sick, The wounded, and in particular, the children, right?
	And then there's this little wobbly-legged wildebeest or springbok or whatever the hell it is, and it's kind of wobbling around like you're trying to walk on straws or something, and then the hyenas circle it and they get closer, and what do they do?
	They circle it, they run with it, the mom is kicking away the hyenas!
	They're protecting their young!
	This is what happens in a sane, mammalian, normal environment.
	God, if we could just get to the level of the frickin' wildebeests, we'd have a paradise, you know?
	Look, they're guarding.
	Look, she's kicking.
	She's not just saying, oh, look, there's a more attractive wildebeest over there.
	I'm gonna kick this kid to the hyenas and go run like a wildebeest, right?
	I mean, she's guarding.
	She's willing to risk her life Willing to risk her life, this wildebeest, to guard the young!
	To protect the young from the hyenas!
	And all we do is invite the hyenas in, tie up our kids, cover them in marinade, and throw them down the freakin' stairs.
	Dinner time, hyenas!
	It's like we've lost any... Like, if we could just ascend to the basic mammalian, we'd have far better society.
	But we look at our young and we're like, yeah, well, you know...
	They'd be good collateral so that we can pay off the boomers.
	You know, we'll just hawk them in debt and we'll let our hot new wives abuse them and we won't raise a stink and we won't raise a fuss.
	It's like, just watch a nature documentary.
	Just see how the zebras protect their young.
	Can we do what the zebra does?
	Can we do what a wildebeest does?
	Can we do what a ferret does?
	Anything!
	Anything!
	You know, you see these little otters, they're licking their babies and floating along in the wide Sargasso Sea and protecting them from... When did we just lose what it is to even be a mammal and care about our young?
	It's insane!
	We act like the new male lion acts when he comes along and, like, there's a family there and the last male lion got killed.
	He's like, I'm gonna kill all the babies so I don't raise anyone who's not my own.
	It's like, that's where we are.
	And it's really sad.
	And the mom, the male, female mom of the lion is like, yeah, you can kill him because then we'll have sex.
	That's mammalian too, but I just, I'm thinking of the wildebeest thing.
	Anyway, go on.
	No, that was, that's a perfect point because that's, That's how I, when I look back at it now, I realize that's why my dad, if he even, if he realized in the beginning why he just was like trying to think it was not the way that I, that I saw it, was just, and she, and he was, she was lying to him all the time, like in front of my face, and so she would just tell me, just lie to your dad, or, she wouldn't even say that, just like, you did this wrong thing, and if you don't tell your dad exactly what I, this is, then you're gonna be grounded longer.
	No, and that's because your dad, um, Didn't trust you, right?
	Didn't listen to you.
	My daughter comes to me and says something.
	I'm like, I believe her.
	Now, it doesn't mean that she's never going to lie.
	I mean, I understand all of that.
	I'm not naive that way, but I also trust that I'm going to know when something's askew and we're going to work at it until we get to the facts.
	But she did what she could get away with.
	That your dad wasn't going to cause any trouble.
	Now, my guess is your dad is a very vain individual.
	Can you define that?
	I just want to understand a clear definition.
	Yeah, that's fair.
	So he likes looking good rather than being good.
	He likes being high status.
	He likes being thought of as important or, you know, it's the high status thing.
	He aims at that.
	Because the fundamental question is why on earth would you burn your relationship with your son in order to appease some woman?
	I can answer that one.
	So this is a problem my dad has still is that in our religious community one of the things that's like kind of taught is that you don't have sex before you're married like under no circumstance and so my dad's kind of workaround was that I'll just get married really quickly and then we can have all the sex we want and because my dad at the time he wasn't getting any sex from my mom because You could hurt my mom if you tried to do anything with her because she was so weak at the time.
	So I think my dad, the reason, and this goes to show because even later he got remarried again and again.
	He's been married three times.
	The same thing in the same thing with me for all these women.
	Um, but before my dad specifically, I think he just, he's addicted to sex with these women and his workaround of like, well, I'm not sinning quote unquote is to just get married because now it's, It's okay.
	It's ordained of God.
	God said it's okay for me to have sex as long as I'm married, which is, you're completely missing the point of what is being taught, you idiot.
	Like, God is not saying just to get married to have sex.
	I mean, that's obviously wrong.
	And so that's not what's being told.
	And so he just, he's trying to justify his actions.
	That fits completely into the vanity thing for me.
	And I'm not trying to sort of jam your dad into my hypothesis.
	So tell me where I go astray.
	But, It wasn't that he had any moral objection to having sex outside of marriage.
	He just didn't want to be known as a guy who had sex out of marriage.
	And of course, if he had sex outside of marriage, then the woman would have power over him and might threaten the status within the community.
	Because if your dad was so interested in virtue and honor and being good, well, Jesus says, whatever you do to the least of you, i.e.
	the children, you also do unto me.
	And if your dad was very keen on virtue and morals and ethics, then he would have stood up for his son, and he would have listened to you, and he would have figured out what was going on in his family, because of course the good Lord also says to the man, be the leader in the family, right?
	Exactly, and I think that actually fits perfectly.
	So he just wanted the perception of not sinning.
	He didn't care about actually sinning.
	Yeah, and I think he wanted I mean, and she was a really pretty woman.
	So he wanted to the kind of the idea of like, Oh, exactly.
	I'm like, well, look how pretty she is.
	And I get the prettiest woman in the neighborhood after coming from a decrepit dying woman.
	Like it, it just definitely, I could definitely see that.
	And so, um, anyway, so like to kind of segue back of just, I got back, the summer vacation occurred.
	Um, I eventually got back and, um, I told my grandparents what had been going on and I was like, Um, mom, cause I called her mom at the time, I was like, mom, she's doing all these things.
	And I feel, um, like I had not sure what I'm doing wrong.
	Like, I feel like, um, I'm, I just felt like, uh, like it was still my fault.
	Like I couldn't, I didn't know what I was doing wrong, but I was like, can you guys help me?
	And they're like, this is disgusting.
	Like, this is not right.
	Don't call her mom.
	She does not deserve that title in the slightest.
	She's not a mother in any way.
	And so my, my good, my cousin, um, who kind of helped really red pill me in a really strong way.
	She's.
	She's like, I just consider like one of my sisters, like she, we're just really close.
	She really helped kind of like nail into my head.
	Like she is, this woman is disgusting.
	She's this blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And really like, I like opened my eyes.
	I was like, Holy crap, you are right.
	This whole, this makes perfect sense.
	Now my grandparents are telling me the exact same things.
	And so my whole mom's side of the family, cause that's who I was staying with was like, um, they started talking to my dad and like, do you realize what's happening to your son at home?
	And they still, my dad was like, I've had, No idea.
	Like he hasn't told me anything and blah, blah, blah, blah, which is true because I couldn't tell my dad.
	Interesting.
	Oh, well, you know, he immediately throws you under the bus, which is what he did with his wife, right?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	He didn't tell me.
	It's like, no, no, no, no.
	It's your job to know these things, Dad.
	Yeah.
	I didn't know is not an excuse.
	When you're a father, you know, it's sort of like if you're a security guard, you're supposed to do your rounds.
	And yeah, say, well, you know, they say, Hey, man, while you were asleep at the front desk, someone broke in and stole everything from the back office.
	And you use the security guard, don't get to say, Hey, I didn't know.
	They didn't come and tell me that was stealing.
	Not my fault.
	It's like, that was your job.
	You have one job, which is to make sure stuff doesn't get stolen.
	You fell asleep at the desk, people stole stuff, so shut up with the I didn't know stuff.
	Yes, I think that this actually goes into something more.
	He brought her in.
	He brought her into your life.
	So he is the gatekeeper.
	Right?
	He brought her into your life.
	I mean, he obviously did with your mom as well, but that's, you know, you... It's one thing to have a child with someone.
	It's another thing...
	To bring a new parent or a new adult into that child's life.
	So he had triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple responsibility, which is he brought her into your house and then he abandoned you to her abuse.
	So this idea, well, you know, the only problem was my son didn't tell me and it's like, oh, frack off.
	That's just garbage.
	It's such garbage.
	Yeah.
	He should have taken responsibility at the least.
	There should have been, I don't know, a little bit of a vetting process for this woman, but he got married immediately.
	Sorry, this is the same thing that the stepbrother did.
	Shot you in the eye.
	Things I never thought I'd say in this show.
	He shot you in the eye, and then the first thing is he's covering his own ass and blaming you.
	And your dad gets informed of his child being abused, and what does he do?
	Covers his own ass and blames you.
	Hmm.
	I didn't even realize that until you just pointed that out to me.
	Interesting.
	But yeah, so that, that's kind of what had occurred over that summer.
	And, um, I came back, my dad started to at least be open to the idea that she was lying.
	Um, and so then as time progresses and months progress, it was the same stuff, just getting grounded, couldn't do anything, couldn't hang out with friends, um, being very secluded, isolated in my own room.
	Um, then my dad started to notice like little things because I remember one time it was the, this was the moment that like kind of clicked in my dad's head.
	I think he just, at some point he was just like, uh, like, I'm realizing my son and his situation.
	Obviously don't, it's not accepting because, um, he completely disregarded everything that's been happening for the last two years at that point.
	So again, ridiculous.
	But, um, at this time there's one day when, um, I was, I was allowed to go to a friend's house.
	And so this is an awesome time for me because the friends I had, all the people that had like abused me and whatnot, they'd all moved out of their houses.
	Like they just, They all moved away or I didn't talk to them anymore.
	Like they were just gone at this point.
	Um, so they weren't even a factor in my life at this, at this time.
	Um, and so I had only like maybe one or two friends and we weren't very close just because I was always grounded.
	I can never hang out with anybody.
	But the one time I could go to a friend's house, I, I rode my bike and, um, I was riding my bike down the hill of where our house is.
	And I was part of the hills.
	Like eventually you have to go up the hill to get onto the other end of it.
	And there's another road.
	Well, my stepmom was coming up the road as I was going over the other road.
	So it's kind of hard to explain, but point is I was nowhere near her and I got to the top of the hill and I was like waving to her, like saying like, hi, like I'm going to a friend's house and nowhere near her.
	And she got home.
	I got home.
	Um, or about 20 minutes later, I got a call or my friend's parents got a call saying I was like 12 at the time, 11 at the time, my friend's parents got a call saying, Hey, you go home.
	Um, your stepmom wants you home.
	So I was like, okay.
	I'm probably in trouble, I don't know what for, but I'm going home.
	So she's there, I get in the house, she's just yelling at me, and her kids, or her daughter's standing there with her, like, crossing her arms, and like, oh my word, I can't believe you did this, and blah blah blah.
	I'm like, what did I do?
	And so, at this point, because of the summer experience, I was kind of fed up with their nonsense at this point, because my cousin told me, she's like, just do what you want to do anyways.
	Like, just go have fun with your friends, leave the house, Do the things you want to do because it's not gonna make any difference in her head.
	She's just gonna ground you anyways.
	So I was like, oh, that makes perfect sense.
	So at this point I started to like speak out more against them.
	I was like, what'd I do?
	Like explain to me in detail what I did.
	And so she dragged me outside.
	She's like, come with me.
	And so she walks me down to the street and she's like, see these tire tracks?
	This is for me slamming the brakes because I almost hit you with my car.
	I'm like, what?
	I was like blown away.
	I was like, There is, I was nowhere near your vehicle and this occurred and she's like, well, when your dad gets home, he's going to find out and you're going to be in big trouble.
	La la la la.
	And I was like, there's no way this was not a thing that occurred.
	And so my dad eventually came home and she was like, your son.
	Did this, and I almost killed him in my car.
	I'm like, I was nowhere near her vehicle.
	Nowhere near it.
	I was on top of the hill, waving to her.
	This is how I know I was nowhere near it.
	I wasn't close.
	She thought, what did she think?
	I mean, if she almost hits you in the car, how on earth is that your... I mean, what did she say you did?
	Because her perspective, what she said, this is again, not what happened.
	She said that when I was coming down the street on my bike, um, I didn't look both ways before crossing the street and I just rode right in front of her car and almost got hit.
	She had to slam her brakes, according to her.
	She had to slam her brakes and I almost was hit and I just kept going.
	And then I didn't say anything.
	Like I didn't come back and apologize, nothing.
	So I was like, that was not, that didn't happen.
	I was good, probably 200 feet away from you, a hundred feet.
	I was nowhere near you on the other side of the street waving to you at the top of the road.
	And you just went into the house.
	You didn't slam any brakes.
	There was no brake slamming.
	And so was there with my dad marks on the road?
	No, there was none.
	So this is the part where my dad like I don't know if it just clicked in his head.
	He's like, you are lying because we went down to the road.
	And she's like, this is and my dad is like, was it here?
	Was it here?
	Was it here?
	She's like, I don't know where it was.
	It was somewhere right over here.
	I don't know where it was.
	Yeah, right.
	Because, you know, near accidents never get burned into your brain or anything.
	Exactly.
	And it would have been a very apparent.
	I'm like, you apparently slammed your brakes There's no tire marks anywhere.
	My dad's like, there's nothing here.
	My son didn't do anything wrong.
	And so then my, they got into a huge fight.
	Um, she left with her kids and, um, this led them to later.
	This was basically the moment where my dad was like, this woman's crazy.
	Or at least she, I know she's lying to me.
	And this relationship is very bad.
	She's not crazy.
	She's getting you back for talking to your grandparents.
	Exactly.
	And that was kind of her.
	Way of trying to kind of chain me back and kind of bring me under control as to just find more things and it didn't work for her.
	And so well, also there was the you and your father were getting closer together because he was beginning to monitor her behavior.
	So she was trying to break that wedge as well.
	And, you know, playing the victim like she almost got hurt, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, that's chilling.
	Again, when you get this amoral resource acquisition, power-seeking control stuff, when you let go of virtue and ethics and standards, I mean, you're in incredibly traumatic and dangerous territory because normally The mammals of the same species stick together and protect each other, but human beings have this almost unique capacity.
	I mean there's a couple of places in the animal kingdom where this happens, but human beings have this unique capacity to prey on other human beings.
	You know, human beings and ants are the only creatures that wage war on each other, and The greatest predators that are out there are, without a doubt, human beings.
	I mean, particularly when they have political power, but when they have parental or authority power as well.
	That's the predation.
	You know, people will think we live in this predator-free society because we have cities and shit.
	It's like, no.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	We do not live in a predator-free society.
	Wherever there are other human beings around, there are potential predators.
	And you knew this from being very early on when you were sexually preyed upon.
	That you hit it right on the head like you usually do, but that is essentially what had occurred with this woman.
	It eventually ended not too long after that.
	I can't remember the exact time frame.
	Nothing of great importance happened between that time.
	She was in and out of the house.
	She was eventually gone.
	I had some – I was starting to hang out with some good friends at school and we would just go and ride our bikes everywhere all the time.
	So I was never – I tried to get away from the house as much as possible.
	Ah, the great roving bike riding gangs of the used children.
	No, it's – I mean this is what I did.
	I remember sitting out back of the mall.
	That mall's no longer there.
	I remember sitting out back of the mall, probably for an hour, with my friends, trying to come up with a cool name for our bike gang.
	You know, like a cool name.
	That's exactly what we did.
	Something that was cool enough that we would feel dangerous, but not so dangerous that we'd be attacked by some other bike gang.
	Something like that, you know?
	Yeah, something to send a message, but not like a message of threat.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	A message of cool, but not a message of provocation.
	You know, on social media these days.
	But no, and we used to go to the woods, we'd, you know, we'd pool or literally pool our nickels and dimes and we'd get a, like a tin of beans and I would get a pot, we'd go and light a fire in the woods and we'd cook some beans and like old timey style, you know, like we were rustling the cattle.
	And yeah, you've got a big problem because you don't have any money and you can't be at home.
	And so you turn into this weird underage nomadic gypsy.
	I built tree houses just so I'd have a place to go and read where I wasn't at home.
	And there's constantly, you know, the search, search for water.
	It was not inconsiderable, right?
	Because I remember I used to, my friends and I, you know, with the sort of gang of the abused kids, we would, we found a spring in the woods, like we would drink from it.
	I'm not sure that it was all great.
	I mean, it was like Flint water effluent or something like that.
	But you have a problem because where do you, like you're thirsty and you can only get chased out of the mall because You know, it's the old thing, they're not there to shop, they're not there to work, they're just there.
	And you've got to always find some place where you can go.
	And my friends weren't that into reading, so the library was kind of out, plus you can't really socialize there, so we would just go to the woods.
	We'd go to the woods, we'd roam around, and, you know, it's just anything but home.
	Anywhere but home.
	A-B-H.
	Anywhere but home.
	And it's one thing if you've got a lot of money, then you can do stuff.
	But if you've got no money, and you can't go home, You're a rambling kid.
	You're just a rambling, rambling kid, and everything you do has to do with finding things to do with no money when you're not home.
	And I remember a friend of mine, the guy who died later in the motorcycle accident, I remember us being in front of that mall, probably 10.30 at night, playing frisbee.
	Because he didn't want to go home.
	I didn't want to go home.
	I remember the cops coming over, like, what are you doing?
	Playing frisbee.
	Officer, why?
	It's fun?
	You know, what are you going to say?
	What are you going to say?
	Yeah, you can't say that you're an abused child, because that's... No, no, my mom called the cops on me once.
	Because, you know, like you, I bow down to the great estrogen monster until I hit puberty, and then testosterone
	Demands that I stop doing that, you know, like, uh, you know when when you get bigger and so on so I started fighting back not physically only once did I do that but just yeah, I went from like the golden child to the demon child in my mom's eyes because I started fighting back and when you know, that's dangerous for the abusive parent though, because if you've got one golden kid and then that kid turns on you
	It's like, there's this documentary on Oasis where the band members, the founding band members, I think, they keep, like, everyone keeps leaving the band.
	Like, we must be the worst human beings on the planet because everyone leaves this band even though we're basically printing money.
	And so if the golden kid turns on the abusive parent, then the abusive parent at some, you know, it's like after someone gets married three times and it goes to hell, it's like, maybe it's me.
	And so, yeah, so she called the cops and the cops came over and I remember they gave me a big lecture about there being a generation gap.
	Is a generation gap.
	That's the issue here.
	It's like, no, she's crazy and she's evil and she's violent.
	That might be the issue.
	But you know, they just, why did they lecture me?
	Because I'm a kid.
	I'm 12 years old.
	Or maybe I was 13.
	So I can't do anything.
	I can't lodge a complaint.
	I can't complain about them.
	And people size up my mom and like, well, she's crazy.
	She could be really aggressive.
	She could be really mean.
	So she could make my life difficult as a cop.
	So I'm just going to lecture the kid.
	And then walk off like I've just saved a family.
	Again, it's just, I can't make their life difficult.
	I can't lodge a complaint.
	I can't fixate on them.
	I can't stalk them or whatever, you know?
	So they're like, eh, you know, we'll lecture the kid and we'll move on.
	And that's society.
	This is like, that's society.
	Everybody's just trying to figure out how to get the least amount of trouble and the most amount of resources.
	And then they strut around like they're big moral agents.
	I mean, this is the ridiculous, buffoonery and kabuki theater of moral posturing called society, but anyway, so I know about that sort of Can't go home Biking yeah biking is great.
	I piece together bikes from like you find I couldn't afford any piece together bikes You just find in the garbage, you know, you're seven different color bike and all of that and you just roam around you just go Well, that was fun, too because like if you found those like broken down pieces and you made it into something useful You're like, oh that was cool.
	I'm now riding around the thing I built, so it's like, it makes it a little more fun and interesting.
	Because I remember like times, like, I'd look forward to when my tire broke just so, or popped.
	That way you could just go back and get a new tire or try to find one and then just try to put something together.
	Oh, yeah, abuse and recycling go hand in hand.
	This is one of the reasons.
	Yeah, see the recycling bin, I'm like, yeah, I remember that.
	Yes, exactly.
	So that's what we did.
	We just rode around.
	I remember there's a little, it was like a Sonic or something.
	It was just a little restaurant where you just go and like order some food.
	So like every, we pull all of our little pennies together and we would just go and grab some food and just eat there.
	And it was like so cool because you're like, yeah, we're riding our bikes and we don't have cars.
	So we just feel cool and just riding our bikes around and just getting food at some place a few miles away.
	Just little things like that.
	So that was kind of, that was a great escape.
	I remember the fish and chip shop where for 10 cents you could get the leftover batter.
	And I look back at that now and it's like, are you kidding me?
	I basically was eating a face full of grease and ketchup.
	So gross.
	It's great to be 13 with the arteries of like a 49 year old alcoholic.
	Where you're just eating and you just feel your arteries getting clogged as you just spoonful it.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Like my arteries are slowly turning into pipe cleaners.
	But at least I'm not hungry.
	No, it's like when I would go to the science center as a kid with the school groups and so on.
	You're supposed to bring money for lunch.
	I never had any money.
	So what would you do?
	You'd get your crackers and ketchup.
	Because those were the things that you would get.
	Because, you know, the crackers were out there.
	You didn't have to pay for them because it was for the people who had soup.
	Crackers and ketchup.
	That would be the poor kid's lunch.
	Mm hmm.
	For for me, I remember because we didn't have much money, I felt cool when I would eat like, this sounds gross, but we had like, a big bag of frozen french fries.
	And so we couldn't afford like, popsicles.
	So I eat those I pretended they were popsicles.
	I was like, These are delicious.
	They're just disgusting frozen french fries.
	My mother used to get this weird, I don't know, it was like some half chemical blueberry syrup or something like that and she'd mix it with water and it would turn like Star Wars green, you know, like that weird milk that Luke drinks at the beginning of the first Star Wars.
	And, you know, my friends, they made jokes about it.
	Like, let's go to Steph's place for a vat of funny green stuff.
	You know, like just this weird space alien urine that would be a substitute for something to drink.
	Because the water wasn't that great.
	It was kind of rusty.
	But you mix in the weird blueberry goo and you can kind of jam it down the old gullet.
	That's disgusting.
	You know, and you look back and you're like, my God, I mean, at least when you're homeless you can go to a shelter and get some decent water.
	Yeah, I mean, it's so weird because, like, at the time, now that I think back, it's just, it's so funny.
	You just, like, you just find all those little things to just make your, like, your pour, and you just try to find anything to, to kind of fill the idea that you're, you have more than what you have.
	Like, for me, it was, like, popsicles.
	Like, I thought only rich kids could afford popsicles.
	Like, that's crazy.
	Like, you guys have these chocolate popsicles and, like, the mousse, like, those are my favorite, like, chocolate mousse popsicles or whatever they were.
	Um, or otter pops.
	Those are big thing.
	And I was like, how can you guys afford this stuff?
	This is so awesome.
	And so I just, my version was French fries, frozen French fries, or just like plain ice.
	I just, I have very fond fondness for plain ice and I just eat that.
	Wretched.
	It's just, it's just weird, funny times.
	Oh yeah, and just food.
	If you had leftovers, sometimes it was kind of a race.
	Like, I think I can eat this.
	I can scrape that funny colored stuff off the edge and I can give it a shot.
	I know hunger is bad for me, and this probably isn't quite as bad for me, and yeah, this coming home and just trying to find something to eat, I mean, that was harsh.
	I mean, that was harsh.
	And heaven forbid, heaven forbid some kid wants to come over to your house for lunch.
	Yes.
	Oh, man.
	I remember that was never a thing in my house.
	We really had to make some excuses for that.
	Yeah.
	Oh, my mom didn't do groceries this morning.
	Yeah, for me it was always I just told them like, Oh, my house is way too dirty.
	Like we can't go over my house.
	And so I just say I live in a filth dump rather than have people come over and realize that the place is kind of clean.
	It's just empty of food.
	Yes, because the outside is nice.
	And so it looks pretty on the outside, but the inside is horrible.
	Kind of like a it's kind of like what was actually going on in the actual house.
	But um, but yeah, so that that was always my excuse.
	I remember.
	Also, my escape was, um, I would I would go out and lay on the backyard, because we had a backyard, and I would just go out and lay outside.
	And a lot of the planes, they would just fly overhead.
	And so I'd always just, I'd lay in the backyard, just looking up at the sky, just imagining myself in those planes, because I fell in love with planes as a kid.
	So that's actually what I'm going into.
	Wherever they're going, I want to go there.
	Exactly.
	Anywhere they could land is an improvement.
	That's exactly, that was exactly how I felt about it.
	I was like, I don't care where those planes are going.
	I just want to be on them.
	And so I remember, Um, we had, when we had internet at the time, cause we had, didn't have internet for like four years, but when I had it at the time, um, we had it for a little bit.
	Yes, exactly.
	I remember I go to the, even like there's a library and there was like a flight tracker and you can just like track the flights and see where they're all coming from.
	I was like, this is awesome.
	Like I, I can't imagine being on that one or this one.
	And wow, they're coming from Hawaii.
	They're coming from China.
	And I was just like, it's just those little things.
	It was like, I felt like an escape.
	And then I just go back inside and just feel depressed.
	My mom would go trying to find guys, right?
	This is back when you could... There was no, like, what do you do on the internet now in terms of finding guys, but she used to take ads out in, like, crappy newspapers.
	And she'd go meet these guys, she'd leave me with a couple of bucks, like, not enough.
	And some people would go for a week or two.
	And so I'd Spend the money on food and then I'd literally have like sometimes a week where I had no food and no money.
	And you got to be kind of creative.
	I mean, and I do remember like you hang out at friends places.
	Like, and you kind of had to be pushy, you know?
	That's the reason I ended up kind of wide-shouldered and pushy.
	Because you kind of have to, like, your friends, you know, like, you call them up to, hey man, want to hang out?
	And he's like, no.
	Oh, come on, man.
	It'll be fun.
	We'll do X, Y, and Z, right?
	And I'll, you know, we'll do what you want to do, you know?
	Because it's like, yeah, I want to hang out, but I'm hungry.
	And you go over... That is so funny that you say that.
	You hang out, and you hang out, and you...
	You can't say, I'm hungry and I need to eat, right?
	You can't say that.
	You've got some pride, right?
	But at the same time, you're hungry and you need to eat.
	I shouldn't laugh because it's a terrible situation, but you basically have to hope that they're like, you just kind of hang around and you just don't leave.
	And eventually, you know, people are like, hey, you want to stay for dinner?
	And I'm like, I could do that.
	Holy crap.
	Yeah, that was like almost word for word how I felt in those situations was just, When someone would offer me dinner, I was like, oh my goodness, I felt just ecstatic.
	I felt like I was going to a nice restaurant.
	It didn't even matter what it was.
	It was a nice home-cooked meal by a loving family of some kind.
	I felt like, this is awesome, this is great.
	At the time, I remember...
	Yeah.
	I snuck food.
	Like, like, uh, honestly, I would like, I would, I hate to say it, you know, cause they were generous people, but I was hungry.
	And, uh, I would like take a bowl.
	I would take a can of soup or something like on occasion.
	Cause I'm like, I don't know when I'm going to be back here for food.
	And I got no money.
	Yeah.
	You know, I had jobs, but, uh, you know, this is back in the day.
	It would take a while to get paid.
	You had to cash.
	There'd be two days delay on your, your check.
	And I mean, it was, that was harsh.
	For me, I felt too bad.
	I couldn't take the food.
	I would feel like I just felt too bad.
	And so I kind of like figure out a way to nicely ask them if I could take some.
	I'm like... Yeah, see now, parents, that's a clue.
	If there's a kid hanging around who's also asking for extra food, the ladder may not be overly full where that kid is.
	And that was the situation at home for me.
	I remember at the time, because we have a really strong religious community, the churches, Let's refer to it as a bishop's storehouse where they just have a bunch of food and they would give it out.
	I remember for like two years, three years, we were just living exclusively on just church welfare.
	We never took actual welfare from the government, but it was church goods, but it was very scarce.
	I think my dad, I've never asked him about it, but I don't think he felt comfortable asking for It doesn't help with the old status thing.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And that fits perfectly with what you were saying earlier.
	So he would just never... He would get one big batch of just a ton of stuff and then months would go by and we'd just kind of have to eat as much as that we could until he eventually, eventually recovered and got a job.
	Recovered, I mean, not like recovered from anything, but it's just like recovered.
	No, but if he was married to your stepmom and she was getting four grand a month, that's fairly good coin, right?
	Yeah, that's, that's where... I hate to sort of compare poverty stories, but there weren't no four grand a month coming into my household.
	No, this was, that whole, that situation occurred after they were gone.
	So... After your stepmom was gone.
	Yes.
	So I would enjoy hanging out with my friends.
	We'd have great times.
	And then it was like... But didn't he pursue her for alimony?
	I'm sure he could have, since she made most of the money coming into the household.
	No, my dad's kind of a cuck like he just kind of bends over backwards and just does whatever the women want and they hit this Like that's that's his attitude.
	Well, that's gives up basically because you're addicted to status You don't have any you can't have any you can have standards so you can be you can go for status So you can have standards you can't do both yeah, and that was that's that's how he was it was just he didn't want to I don't think he wanted to have people think that there was a worse situation than there was.
	So he just didn't want to even consider the options.
	And I don't know if this happened to you because you're still a young man and all that.
	But for me, because I went through a lot of times where I had to really pack on the calories to, you know, where's the next meal coming from, right?
	Because it's like, it's fine.
	It's good to have a good meal one night.
	But, you know, there's breakfast, lunch the next day.
	I'm reselling water, by the way. - Yeah, so you kind of have to do this thing where You pack on the calories because you're not sure.
	So you're like a bear going into hibernation.
	You just pack on the old calories.
	And I had to really watch that when I got older and had enough to eat that I just had to really talk myself out of that habit.
	Like, I don't eat much during the day, but come nighttime, I have to really restrain myself from just eating more.
	That's so funny.
	Because it's just an old habit that I had from when I was hungry that you just, you pack, I mean, you're basically a mammalian and stuff.
	You pack on the calories because who knows where the hell your next meal is coming from.
	That's so interesting because, um, and I was just filling up water.
	I didn't want to think I was like peeing or something, but I was, um, but that was exactly how it was because after my dad got a job, I put on a lot of weight and, um, I didn't realize that until I looked back at pictures of myself.
	Cause I was like, it was like seventh grade at the time or eighth grade.
	Um, and my dad finally landed an architecture job where he was making like pretty, pretty decent money.
	I could maybe like 60,000 a year, much more than basically nothing.
	So that was, that was awesome.
	It was ecstatic.
	So we got to eat and so we would go out to eat pretty frequently just because it's just me and my dad living at home at this time.
	So just I spent a lot of time with my dad for that next period of my life.
	And so we just we'd always be doing stuff together.
	We'd always be watching like Star Trek at home and we'd get like pizza or something and just come home and just watch TV shows and whatnot.
	So it's not really quality time.
	Yeah.
	Not like I don't remember really doing Really anything awesome.
	Like, um, it was, that was pretty much like you just said, it wasn't like quality time, but it was, it was just time where we just kind of just hung out, watched some movies and ate food.
	Um, I know my, my dad would always have like religious arguments because like, I'm Christian, but he is like firm in his beliefs about like evolution, not being a thing and how there's no way.
	We've formed from all these different things, blah blah blah.
	Those are the big issues with your dad, is whether evolution is true or not.
	You've worked through everything else, but that's now the number one issue, is evolution.
	Yeah, these bigger problems are what I'm trying to work through right now.
	I can see the evolution of avoidance occurring in your relationship.
	Very, yep.
	For me, right now, I've been trying to work through this.
	It's been a long chat, and I've really enjoyed it.
	So great.
	But let's spend the last little bit talking about how things are with your dad at the moment.
	Okay.
	I'll briefly wrap it up with stories leading to now.
	So my dad, a few years later, he got remarried to a woman who, same situation, she treated me the exact same way that my last stepmom did.
	And he got married to her, I'm assuming just out of sex.
	He just wanted more sex from this woman.
	Cause that's how it felt.
	Cause she would treat me horribly.
	She hit me a few times.
	Um, nothing crazy.
	She just, she would hit me.
	She slapped me.
	Cops had to be called a couple of times.
	Um, and it wasn't like persistent and didn't happen every day, but it did happen probably like three or four times.
	Um, and that they were together for about two years, three years until I was 16.
	They got divorced and then my dad wasn't married until about a year and a half, two years ago, year and a half ago.
	He got remarried to another woman, who I'm at this point, I was out of the house.
	Like I was just cuz I got married at 18.
	Go ahead.
	Was that fourth?
	Fourth?
	Three marriages or four marriages?
	After my mom, he's been married three times.
	So four marriages total.
	Yeah, and so he's very big on evolution.
	But the until death do us part part is not What God has joined together, let no man tear asunder.
	He's not so keen on that stuff.
	Yeah, he's big on the... And this is the crazy part, is that he even lies to himself about it, is that he's like, I've been praying about it, and even God has told me not to go through with this marriage, and that I should never have gotten married to her, and God has said not to, and I've been talking to our bishop, and he said not to, and then everyone's been telling me not to, but I just, I can't help it.
	I want to be with her so bad.
	Even your God that you claim to be praying to is telling you not to pursue anything with this woman who has openly stated that she hates me, she hates my sister, she wants nothing to do with our lives whatsoever, but you want her in the house.
	I don't go to my dad's house anymore.
	He drops off mail at my house, and that's about the extent of it.
	Wait, so his new wife doesn't want you in the house?
	No, not at all.
	Why?
	What's her cover story?
	This is, this is where it's just really, really bizarre.
	And she's this way with literally everybody.
	I think she's definitely just typical.
	She just wants someone to just pay for her garbage.
	She doesn't want anything to disrupt her income levels with, because now my dad, um, and so she just doesn't want anything to disrupt that kind of idea.
	She has a few kids.
	So my dad's taking care of all that stuff.
	Wait, how old are your kids?
	Just give me age ranges.
	I don't need specifics.
	Um, from teenage, like from probably like six, 15 to 23, 24.
	So maybe, uh, maybe she wants to keep you and your dad separate for concerns of inheritance in the long run.
	Maybe.
	I really, she's illegal.
	So that's one massive factor.
	What?
	Yeah, she's an illegal immigrant.
	Well, which is to say she's not an immigrant.
	Yes.
	She's an illegal alien?
	From where?
	Yes.
	From Mexico.
	From Mexico.
	Yeah.
	So she currently, I'm sure that part of this marriage, she is getting some kind of, you get to stay here in the United States for longer periods of time.
	A green card or something?
	I'm not sure.
	I don't know what the exact law is.
	Oh yeah, no, the green card stuff is very much artificial sexual market value, right?
	I don't have much to offer a woman, but maybe I can give her access to the resources and treasure and freedoms built up by our ancestors.
	Yeah.
	Exactly.
	And so this has actually led to a lot of... recently, because, um... Oh wait, she's enforcing a border at her house!
	Against you!
	I didn't even, like... I didn't even think of that.
	Well you see, this is my property!
	"This is my space, this is my domain, and you can't come in," says the illegal alien.
	Oh my god.
	That is so...
	And we have tried so hard to, like me and my sisters, we've tried to be close with her.
	My sister... Oh no, you've got to stop.
	No, you've got to stop.
	You've got to stop.
	Oh yeah, we've stopped now.
	If you didn't learn from the first step mom, like, come on, you've got to stop.
	Yeah, we've tried nothing for a year, but in the beginning we did try because we thought maybe there's a change, maybe there'd be something different.
	Of course not.
	So we've all given up.
	And so I've given up on my dad in that regard.
	So I'm trying to teach my dad, treat him right now as very businesslike.
	He's choosing the Mexican over his children.
	Yes.
	There's no real relationship.
	And when I try to talk to him about it, he quickly just shuts off the conversation.
	He doesn't want to keep talking about it.
	He's like, OK, yeah, thank you.
	So he's a sex addict, I would imagine.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	But again, his workaround is just to get married.
	And that's why he gets married so many times.
	Just stupid.
	But yes, definitely, definitely a sex addict.
	That's what we've come to the conclusions with.
	I mean, you know how people choose drink over their family.
	He's just choosing these terrible women over his children.
	I don't... Yes, even when the abuse is obvious and he just He wants to disregard it because he just wants to get more of it.
	Did he ever apologize to you for the first stepmom and keeping you in your room?
	Did he ever realize that she'd been lying the whole time and just like, I'm so sorry I didn't believe you, I put you through years of hell?
	Yeah, he has.
	My dad has a lot of flaws, but that's one thing I was appreciative of, but I'm not sure if it means a whole lot because he's still doing the same thing now.
	Well, that's the thing, right?
	So it's one thing to apologize, but if an apology doesn't come With a change in behavior, the apology is just more manipulation, right?
	His actions are speaking louder than his words.
	He apologizes to me.
	He's done it a few times where he just feels so sorry.
	He's crying.
	He's like, I'm so sorry this happened.
	Addicts do that too, right?
	I feel so bad.
	Yeah.
	That's what he's done.
	And it quickly dissolves into self-pity.
	Yes.
	And this is something that has driven me crazy.
	So, um, this is what maybe I was trying to find a way to maybe get some advice from you from.
	So yeah, let's make sure we get, get what you need out of the convo, but go ahead.
	Oh, I'm already getting a whole lot.
	So I appreciate you just even talking to me.
	Oh, my pleasure, man.
	It's my pleasure.
	Steph, you've, I'm not joking.
	I'm sorry.
	I emailed you so many times, but I was like, if I get to talk to Steph, it's going to be amazing.
	Listen, I appreciate the persistence.
	So I do, I say that to other people do it too, but go ahead.
	Okay.
	Awesome.
	But, um, what I was saying is that, um, So after, when I turned 18 years old, my, cause my mom, she had set up like a life insurance account.
	So after my dad, um, after my mom, after I turned 18, I was, I got a fairly large amount of cash from my, from my mom.
	So the first thing my dad wanted, he's like, um, he's like, you've gotten this money.
	I demand $10,000.
	He's like, he told me that straight up.
	He's like, um, he's like, this is my money.
	He's like, I've, I've raised you my entire life.
	I want $10,000.
	He's like, I'm not asking for it nicely.
	He's like, I feel like I deserve this for taking care of you my entire life.
	So at the time, in my religious community, one thing that a lot of men do in my faith is that they go on missions.
	So they go and they just preach the church and whatnot for a period of time.
	And so that's what I was planning on doing.
	And so I was like, at the time, my dad kind of manipulated me into thinking like, oh yeah, my dad has taken care of me.
	He's done so many good things.
	No, no, what you do is you say, Dad, I'm going to have to pray on that.
	Yes.
	And I should have, but I did not.
	You don't want to see the side of your dad that comes out when you don't pay him off, right?
	Yes, exactly.
	Cause that's, that's one thing my dad always did is he'd always yell and scream at us and make us feel even worse and manipulate us.
	He did this, he does it so well.
	And he's always, always the victim.
	He's always, and I didn't even realize like he's a master manipulator.
	He does it with everybody.
	So this is where, The distinction between my stepmom and my dad is that my stepmom, she did it knowing what she's doing.
	My dad doesn't.
	It's just a personality for him.
	Like he just, he gets money out of people and manipulates people in such a way that you just feel so bad or you feel like, Oh, I could just do so much better for you.
	He did to my grandparents when my mom was dying, he would get money out of them and they'd pay up pretty, pretty easily, um, to him, not even to my mom, but they did it to my mom, obviously, but he would just get money out of people.
	My uncles, Me after I turned 18.
	He just, he just does it so well.
	Um, there's a lot to learn from it, but, um, so anyways, eventually I turned 18, I got my money, I paid him.
	I put a bunch of money into investments cause I wanted to be smart with my money.
	And then I was planning on leaving.
	And so this is actually where my wife comes into the picture.
	At this time, me and her, we were dating.
	So, um, after this is going way back to the earlier conversation, I apologize for, it just required a lot of story, but, um, After me and my ex-girlfriend at the time, once we broke up, a couple months later, I was like, I have this girl I've been friends with for so long.
	We're such great friends.
	She's literally everything I've ever wanted in a person.
	She talks deeply with me.
	She holds my same political values.
	My values is how we want to see life, how we want to raise kids.
	She just shares all this stuff with me.
	We've just talked about it naturally, not even as romantically as anything.
	And I was like, you're everything I've ever wanted.
	Like you're perfect for me.
	And she felt the same way.
	And so we started dating.
	Don't you love that moment when you're like, I'm finally with someone where no upgrade is possible.
	Yes.
	And that was, that was exactly how it was with her is that I could just be real with her.
	I could talk about, I could talk about you.
	I remember her showing some videos of you.
	Um, I can't remember the exact ones cause it was over two years ago, three years ago at this point.
	And I was like, This guy, he just, he makes so much sense.
	Like, taxation is theft.
	Like, it's so obvious.
	How do people not realize this stuff?
	That it's just volunteerism and just teaching all these principles.
	And it just, like, it just makes perfect sense.
	And I show her other people that I also, it's like, these people just make so much sense.
	Like, and she was just like, that, she just, she just fell in line with it perfectly.
	Even before even showing her that stuff, I had her take just like a political test online and she came out like a constitutional conservative.
	So I was like, huh, I'm on at least the right track.
	Boom!
	So I was like, this is perfect.
	I could talk deeply with her.
	I could tell her about my childhood and my mom.
	And she was just sympathetic and empathetic.
	She would cry with me when I was crying.
	She just, she's just literally everything.
	And so, um, this is, I'm sorry we're talking so much, but, um, we were dating for all of senior year.
	Um, I broke up my girlfriend.
	We started dating cause I was like, you're perfect for me.
	We're perfect for each other.
	And she felt the exact same way.
	And we just started dating.
	And so it was just very natural.
	It was not it was never a time when I was like, oh I just have to be around her like in a in a bad way It was always just very natural and it felt good.
	Just felt peaceful Because of the stark difference between my ex toxic relationship and her was that I just I just felt so peaceful around her and I could just we talk and be normal and it was just it was so nice and so With her was just a very quick and I just like the for me.
	I always say like, um, I Like you eventually all the hormones wear off and you're just left with somebody you're like do I actually love this person?
	And for her it was just it was obvious like I was just My hormones and my teenage hormones were wearing off and I was like we're not designed to be with people of opposing values I mean if you think about our tribal evolution everybody around had the same values So our sexual attraction is always designed to be erected, so to speak, on top of the same values or very similar values.
	And so this idea that all this diversity stuff and people now have wildly different values, this is not how we evolved.
	And our sexual bonding mechanism is designed on the assumption that we share values.
	And so this is why I keep saying to people, you know, people are going to laugh and say, what do you mean?
	You had to have an online political test?
	It's like, yes!
	Because the online political test used to be, well, we're in the same village of a hundred people and we all go to the same church and we all have the same values.
	That's how we evolved.
	Exactly.
	That's why when people are like, oh, I'm dating them and they really like Lord of the Rings and I like Lord of the Rings, I'm like, that's nice, but that's not going to drive you through the storm.
	Like when the storm hits your boat, you need something to really hold you and like batten down the hatches with you.
	And it's not going to be Well, we really like the same books and... You know this from your mom, right?
	You got to think, how is this person going to be if I get really sick?
	Because you know what?
	One day you will.
	One day you'll get really sick.
	Yeah.
	Verily unto death perhaps.
	And how's that person going to be?
	Are they going to be like, well, this is a hassle.
	This is boring.
	Yes.
	And so those, those, those shallow, you, we just like the same things.
	That's so dumb.
	And media has just lied to us and told us that that's what we need to strive for.
	And obviously that's why, Partially, definitely why divorce rates are so high, is that you look for shallow, shallow things and you just fall for sex.
	You fall for looks, where it's the deep things.
	He's cute and funny!
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, and my wife's drop-dead gorgeous, so that's not a problem.
	I assume your dad was a good-looking, may still be a good-looking guy too, right?
	Yeah.
	Good-looking stuff, like being good-looking can very, very easily lead you down that path of status and no principles.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And that's, that's where my dad is.
	And I'm in a, we're going to come up on our two year anniversary here and only a couple of weeks actually on the, just a couple of weeks from now.
	So that's awesome.
	And it's because we got married the day after we graduated high school.
	We just, we eloped.
	We got engaged during high school and her family, her parents lost their minds.
	They kicked her out of the house.
	They took all of her stuff away, took her phone away, took her car away.
	They threw all of her clothes out of the house and said, get out of here.
	We don't.
	And they just didn't want anything to do with her.
	And so we're like, I feel she should call him next, but all right, go on.
	Yeah.
	She wanted to say hi because she couldn't be here for it.
	Um, but she wanted to say hi.
	She wants to just tell stuff.
	I said, hi.
	But, um, but yeah, so she was thrown out of the house.
	And so, um, we were just like, well, fuck you guys.
	We're going to do what we want.
	Like, we're not getting any help from anybody.
	You're, Obviously not willing to do anything with you.
	We were trying to be rational with you.
	We pulled them aside and we're like, so we want to get married.
	Um, and four months from now, we've been dating for over a year at this point.
	We're like, I want to get married four months from now.
	This is the situation.
	And they just sat there quietly, listened to us.
	And then they were just, they just let it all out there.
	Her dad was just yelling and screaming.
	Her mom was just, her mom's a master manipulator.
	She reminds me exactly like my step mom's exactly to the T.
	It's crazy, they're divorced.
	So her parents are divorced.
	But her mom is just very, very manipulative.
	Her dad, me and him, we have a great relationship now.
	So me and her dad are very fine now.
	I love him.
	We get along, we talk all the time.
	He's a great, great guy.
	He apologizes for all the stuff that he put us through in the very beginning, but he's always there and he's helping us, he's supporting us, supporting me.
	It means a lot to me because I consider him more of a dad than my own dad.
	He's a great guy.
	Just in the beginning, it was just, Blow up, yelling, screaming, get out of the house, throwing all the crap out of the house.
	We're on our own.
	So she had to live with her, her friends cause we were still in high school.
	Um, my dad didn't want her to move in just cause we were still, still in high school.
	And so, um, but whatever.
	And so he, she just lived with one of her friends for the next few weeks.
	And then we're like, let's just, let's go, let's do this thing.
	Let's just get married right now.
	Like we have really nothing else holding us back.
	They wanted us to like wait like two years and have like... Sorry, I mean, I hate to sort of interrupt you, but I do want to make sure we get to the things with your dad and congratulations on your marriage.
	Sounds wonderful.
	And yes, congratulations on your anniversary, but let's make sure we get to your dad.
	Definitely.
	Okay.
	So we, we got married.
	Everything's great.
	And so great.
	Now where things are with me and my father, I am just, I'm not sure what to do with him because me and my sisters and our family, we have sat him down.
	We've tried to talk him logically through it and even illogically through it, just trying to make like emotional appeals to try to make anything make sense for him of just, you're not doing your, you're choosing these women consistently over your kids.
	This is happening, blah, blah, blah.
	And he just doesn't want to hear it.
	And I've tried to talk to him cause I tried to tell him like, dad, you took that money from me at a time when I needed it most.
	And you had no regard.
	And I still bring it up to him and he still feels like, He deserved it and he's the one, which, whatever, maybe, I don't know.
	You're my dad, just take care of me.
	No, you can't charge your children for raising them.
	This is such an obvious thing.
	Can you imagine asking your wife to pay you to marry her?
	This is even worse.
	Infinitely worse.
	You can't charge your children for raising them.
	I don't know what to say.
	That's, that's exactly what I've felt about it.
	And so for now, I'm just, I still hold on more.
	Okay.
	So let me, let me tell you, okay, hang on, hang on.
	So let me, let me sort of give you the low down on this.
	Now, I mean, I got a whole book, Real Time Relationships, but it sounds like you've been really talking with your dad and trying to get things across and so on.
	I will tell you the four letter word that you know with your wife.
	This is the four letter word that clarifies relationships.
	The word is lazy.
	In other words, stop working so freaking hard.
	Stop peddling for four people.
	Stop doing all the work.
	Be lazy.
	See, I mean, you were raised to try and navigate these relationships.
	You were raised without people investing in protecting you.
	You were raised having to do all the work, having to figure things out.
	You were raised being a victim.
	Now, being a victim means that it's good.
	It gives you a great work ethic.
	Which, I bet you're a very hard worker in your career.
	I bet you're a very hard worker as a whole.
	So being raised with no support and being preyed upon and being exploited and being abused makes you a very hard worker.
	And that's great in some ways.
	I'm a very hard worker too.
	Like I just wrote the other day, like over 4,500 shows.
	Yeah, it's been some work.
	But the reality is it's fine in your career to be a hard worker.
	Do not be a hard worker in your relationships.
	Because you know there's this lie that people say, oh relationships, there's so much work.
	It's like they're really not.
	They're not supposed to be.
	Relationships are supposed to be where you fall to a comfortable place and get recharged.
	You can't have a second job called a relationship if you have a primary job called a career.
	You'll burn out.
	Now, it's very hard for people who have the workaholism that comes out of abuse.
	Because, you know, when you're abused, you've got to just, like, you've got to work like crazy just to be normal.
	And you have to backfill so much other crazy.
	Like, why am I so rational?
	Because I grew up facing the face-shredding gale of an incredibly intrusive woman's insanity.
	Like, my mother was not neglectful.
	Oh God, I wish she had been compared to what she was.
	She was constantly cornering me and trying to vomit her craziness down my gullet.
	You know, like you see these egrets or these birds, like they cough up the food down.
	It was like that, except I was even more trapped than a bird in a nest.
	And my mother was vomiting her craziness into me.
	So she'd sit there and tell me all about her dating life and all about what this guy said.
	And she would share entirely inappropriate details about her history, which I don't even want to get into now because I don't like doing a show when I hurl up in my mouth a little bit.
	But so I spent my entire life as a child fighting back against an insanity that was trying to infect me.
	And my mother has loguria or, you know, just compulsive talking, won't shut up.
	And just I'd sit there cornered in my room where she'd just talk and talk and talk and talk.
	And all the stuff was nuts.
	And I was either going to get plowed under by that or I was going to fight the hell back against it.
	And so people don't know what that kind of training does to someone, that involuntary training.
	It's like if you swim against the current, your whole swimming career, then you're going to win the race when you're swimming in a pool.
	You're just going to win the race.
	I mean, so I just, my intellect and my rationality has been so sharpened by horrifying hyena claws of adversity for the first 15, 16 years of my life.
	And even then afterwards, until I stopped seeing my mom completely, So I fight the irrationality of the world because I'm well trained for it.
	I was born and bred for it.
	You know, like Jackie Chan and the circus?
	I'm just born and bred for that stuff.
	And that's why when people kind of come in and try and tangle with me and it's like, you know, it's cute, but you don't have the experience.
	You don't know.
	You haven't been trained literally since birth for this stuff.
	And so I work hard in the world and I work hard to bring reason, evidence and philosophy to the world.
	And I've thought to myself, is this a Simon the Boxer kind of thing?
	And it's like, no, if I am the strongest swimmer and someone's drowning out there, I got to go save them.
	I mean, that's like, I mean, you could say, well, I'm not going to do it to the point where I drown, right?
	But I mean, I can do it and there's not a lot of other people stepping up and so it's the way that I turn the evils of my childhood into the good of the world and smart people sensitive people understand that and get it and the reason I'm saying all of this is that I couldn't do what I do if I also had to work really hard at my personal relationships.
	I don't.
	I don't work at my personal relationships.
	I don't work hard.
	That doesn't mean I don't have conversations with people if I think things are going astray or adrift, but we have reasonable conversations about stuff and it's fine.
	Right?
	So just be lazy.
	It's the hardest thing for you to do.
	You know, it's the hardest thing for you to do because it's like saying to somebody walking through the African jungle when there are like panthers and crap about, just saying, don't be alert.
	You know?
	Hey, you know what'd be great?
	It'd be great if you walked through that jungle with headphones on and people are like, are you insane?
	But you're not in the jungle anymore.
	You're in a relationship with your wife, which is great.
	So just be lazy.
	Be lazy.
	Stop working so hard in every aspect of your life.
	It's not good for you.
	It's going to burn you out.
	And you're going to have less Fewer resources available for the important good work that you need to do in the world.
	It could be personal in terms of being a good father, a good husband.
	It could be more societal.
	It could be whatever.
	So with regards to your dad, be lazy.
	See what he's bringing to the table.
	Because it's kind of like this.
	Do you ever play tennis?
	I've never played tennis.
	Only a couple times.
	When I was a kid I played a lot of tennis and my mom's sometimes kind of manic and we used to get up real early in the morning like five o'clock in the morning and we used to go and climb literally climb over the high netting or the high fences around the tennis court because we couldn't afford to pay for the tennis so we'd get up real early And we'd go and play an hour and a half of tennis and then I'd go to school.
	And it just struck me too that I was also into a lot of sports because I didn't want to go home, but that made My calendary requirements go up and I was hungry.
	Anyway!
	Same.
	So yeah, so we used to... So occasionally I've been waiting to play tennis and I haven't played much tennis lately but I played a lot in my youth and what you do if you wanted to is you'd hit the ball kind of high and you'd run to the other side and see if you could hit it back.
	So you see if you could keep a game going with yourself, right?
	You're basically playing both sides.
	You can do the same thing if you want with table tennis if you've got enough clearance overhead, right?
	So, you hit the ball high, you run around the tennis court, you hit it back, and it's, you know, it's not super great, but it's kind of a fun way to kill time while you're waiting if someone's showing up late or if you've shown up early or something like that.
	Now, the reason I'm saying that is because you don't want that to be your relationship with someone where you're doing the work of two, right?
	So, you can hit the ball over and see what comes back.
	It means you place a call or you have a conversation, you say, this is my issue, maybe a conversation about it, and then you see what the other person comes back with.
	Okay.
	So stop working both sides of the net.
	Hit the ball over and see if anything comes back.
	Be honest.
	Speak to people.
	But don't work both sides of it.
	That's the kind of workaholism that... I mean, it's not that way with your wife, right?
	I mean, you enjoy her company.
	You don't sit there and say, wow, I've really got to fix this, or there's always this problem, or crisis, or disaster, or massive mismatch of values, or whatever, right?
	It's like, that's not how it is with your wife, right?
	That's why you married her, right?
	Exactly.
	So, in a way, your relationship with your wife is lazy.
	And it should be, because life is going to be hard enough that you shouldn't also be facing another nth front battle at home with your wife.
	So with your dad, you know, my deep suspicion, could be wrong, I hope I'm wrong, but my deep suspicion is you don't show up for him emotionally at all, he doesn't care about you.
	I mean, that's all the evidence that I've heard.
	He didn't care about you enough to figure out what the hell you were doing on a computer at the age of five.
	He didn't care about you enough to notice when you first got molested.
	I mean, your parents' job is to notice.
	Right?
	It shouldn't wait until you're caught, right?
	He didn't notice that you were being abused by your first stepmom.
	He didn't ask you whether you liked her enough for her to be the stepmom.
	He didn't ask you about the second or the third stepmom.
	He's choosing these women over you.
	Like, what evidence do you have that he gives a shit about you at all?
	Exactly.
	And so stop doing all the work.
	He's the father.
	He should be doing it.
	If there's any work to be done, he should be doing it.
	So if he's addicted to status, if he's addicted to sexuality, if he's addicted to terrible women who put out for him, that's wretched.
	And that's a sin.
	It's a great sin.
	It's a grave sin.
	There should be no loyalty greater than your loyalty to your children.
	Because they're the people who are in your life who never chose to be.
	Right?
	You didn't choose him as a dad.
	And so you should always have the greatest loyalty to your children because they're the only people in your life not there voluntarily.
	I mean, even your parents are in your life and they chose to have children, but the children make no choices whatsoever.
	They have the least choice in their entire world and therefore they should be treated with the most kindness, the most compassion and the most loyalty.
	I mean, I will always choose my daughter over anyone, anyone, because she never chose to be made.
	She never chose to be born.
	She certainly didn't choose me as a father.
	So my loyalty is to her.
	So be lazy.
	Just stop working so hard.
	What happens if you don't call your dad for a bit?
	What happens if he has to take the initiative?
	He has to figure things out.
	Give him the room and the scope to have a relationship with you.
	Now when you were a kid you didn't want to take that risk because it could have just snapped the entire illusion of a bond, right?
	But you're an adult now, you've got a wife, you're gonna have your own family I assume at some point relatively soon and just be lazy.
	Stop working both sides of the net.
	See what other people are bringing to the table.
	Because you're not trained that way but your future is in that direction.
	Because you cannot have continual sprinting like you just never get tired and have infinite resources.
	You're gonna have your battles in your life as you know.
	You need people who are easy in their relationships.
	Who are positive in their relationships.
	Where you don't keep having to work crazy amounts of concentration and hours just to keep things going.
	Like don't have relationships in your life where you have to spend hours complaining or trying to analyze or figure them out with other people.
	Like don't bother!
	Life is short.
	Our resources are precious.
	Save them for people who care about you.
	Honor those who care about you with genuine and deep reciprocity.
	But yeah, my rule is if I spend more than an hour a week complaining about a relationship, it rapidly moves to the not-so-much pile.
	Interesting.
	Because I mean, how much time do you spend talking about your dad with your wife?
	How much time do you spend talking about him with me?
	And again, I'm not complaining about that.
	That's why we had the conversation.
	But it's not just the time that you spend, it's the time that it interferes with and eclipses the other relationships.
	Like bad relationships are like the moon in front of the sun.
	They darken everything around you.
	And you want your children, when they grow up, or as they grow up, you want your children to reject bad people and cleave their hearts to good people.
	So see what other people are bringing to the table.
	Be lazy.
	Let them, let your dad do the work.
	It's his job, for one thing, and if he doesn't want that job, stop trying to draft him, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
	And see how you feel when you're not pouring all the resources in and running both sides of the net.
	How do you feel?
	Do you miss it?
	I do.
	Do you enjoy having other things to talk about?
	I bet you will.
	I feel a great relief, that's for sure, just not having to Just as like just constantly working at something that I don't feel like it's changing.
	Yeah.
	Is that my effort being put in?
	Yeah, no, no.
	I mean, especially now you're an adult and you're married.
	You're gonna be a father.
	I mean just... Yeah, you don't have... You know, it's one thing when you're a kid because you're stuck there and you got to find some way to make it work.
	And if that means you pedal like crazy while other people laze around and get pulled along, okay.
	But now you're an adult and you've got your own family, your own house, your own life.
	It is a repetition of childhood to think that somehow you must make things with your dad work.
	You don't have to make things with your dad work.
	You have to make things with your wife work, but you chose wisely, so that's going to happen anyway, without work.
	So no, that would be my suggestion.
	You know, it sounds like you put a lot of effort into talking to him about history, about the past and all that.
	And now, cool your jets, enjoy your relationship with your wife, and see how you feel when you're not running both sides of the net.
	Yeah, I think that is definitely the course of action I'm definitely going to be going towards.
	Because again, as we've talked about, I think me just Doing all I can.
	I've worked the court the best I can.
	Now the ball's in his court.
	It's like, are you going to play?
	Are you going to do anything?
	That old book, like, maybe he's just not that into you.
	Like, why doesn't he call?
	Why doesn't he return?
	Like, why does... Maybe he's just not that into you.
	You know, it's the same thing with your dad.
	You know, maybe... That sucks to think about.
	It's terrible.
	Like, don't get me wrong.
	It's wrong.
	But you need to feel how wrong it is so that you can do a lot different, which I'm sure you will.
	But no, it's like, I try not to stalk people.
	You know, like, let's make this work, let's make this, we gotta fix this, we gotta, we gotta make this work, this gotta, right?
	You know, I mean, I, I'm not, I'm just, I'm just not gonna stalk people, I'm gonna, you know, if they wanna hang out with me, that's great, you know, and if I enjoy it, wonderful, then it's a done deal, right?
	But no, I'm not gonna chase people down, and I'm not going to, um, try and fix everything, even if they're inert, so like, no, no, no, no, life's, life's too short, and energy is, is too precious.
	Of course, you have You have more things going on, especially that's what I realized as an adult is just that, Mike, as a kid, you have, even if like, even in my, when I was poor, it's like, at least I didn't, I wasn't constantly working somewhere.
	I wasn't paying for bills and all this other stuff until I was obviously into my teenage years and I could get a job.
	But it's like, now I'm just constantly, me and my wife were always working.
	I'm always going to school because we're both going to college and then I'm going to be a pilot.
	So I'm just, I'm going to be gone quite frequently for that.
	In the future.
	So it's just it's a constant, constant battle as an adult.
	And my time is much better spent with my wife focusing on our relationship.
	We have a not to like brag or anything, but we have a really, really great relationship.
	We can speak honestly, openly with each other.
	Our insecurities are our problems and logically to not just like emotionally about problems that are going on.
	We just sit each other down and just talk through it.
	We have arguments.
	We have disagreements.
	Everyone does.
	But, like you said, it's a lazy relationship in that regard.
	Yeah, there's tons of work out there outside the household.
	In the household, it should be fun and lazy and easy.
	Yeah.
	Alright.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	Has it been a good conversation for you?
	Helpful you for?
	This has been an incredible conversation, Stefan.
	Again, I'm beyond ecstatic and grateful that you took my call.
	And you're taking so much time out of your day to speak to me.
	It's not out of my day.
	This is my day.
	I appreciate your persistence and I hope that you let me know how it goes.
	And I really appreciate your honesty and frankness in this call.
	It's a great gift to the world.
	Will do.
	Thank you so much, Steph.
	Thanks, man.
	Take care.
	You too.
	Bye-bye. - Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest free domain show on philosophy.
	And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
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