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July 19, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:57:24

How To Kill Self Hatred - Freedomain Call In

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	Hi, everybody. This is Stefan Molyneux.
	I hope you're doing well. I've not done this before in the entire history of the show, but I'm going to do it today, which is this, to ask you, to beg you on bended knee to listen to this lengthy, admittedly lengthy call-in with a brave young woman with great attentiveness.
	If this is on YouTube, you can leave and come back.
	YouTube should remember where you were.
	You can download it and pause and listen and bookmark on the show at FDRpodcast.com, but I'm really going to ask you to pay attention to this.
	Maybe it's you, maybe it's someone you know who struggles with the truly almost demonic possession of self-hatred and self-contempt of not feeling that you're worthy and deserving of happiness and the good opinion of yourself in this life.
	And this young woman who almost died as a child, I believe, Welcome to my show!
	Pleased and proud of that work, but there are some other people doing similar stuff, but this is really one of a kind.
	This is where the show really shines.
	This is where your support really counts.
	So please listen and share this conversation.
	If you'd like to help me continue this work, please, please, freedomainradio.com forward slash donate.
	I really thank you so much for allowing me to do this kind of work and for your attention.
	Do you want to read the email you sent to me?
	Do you want to just chat about it? What's your preference?
	I mean...
	Sure, I guess I can read it.
	I'm a 23-year-old female, born in...
	My father was largely gone throughout my childhood, except for a three-month period or so when I was around six, where me and my Siblings begged him to be sent away again.
	I have one full sibling and two half-siblings from my mom's side and two from my dad's.
	I've moved about 70 times throughout my life, about the same as I've changed schools.
	Worst sexual experiences I had through my life was when I was around four and I was taken care of by a friend of my mom's who had a husband.
	Who forced me to kiss him, being groved by a fellow classmate when I was nine.
	And then when I was 15, I had another encounter with a social worker who started touching my hands and telling I was beautiful.
	And he started talking about selling sex.
	They are in order of feeling most terrible at first.
	My social life has been solely on the internet from age 12.
	And now I struggle with game addiction.
	But not because I like the game, but because I know how to do it.
	And I don't really know how to do anything else.
	My mind is really easily demotivated.
	I have big dreams of saving the world and being a mother of 10 children.
	Who all share my dream of helping people.
	Like, I've helped my boyfriend to become a person who can better take care of himself, I guess.
	But I'm struggling really hard with childcare and toddlerhood and other things as well.
	But generally, I'm very disappointed in myself.
	I'm not sure how much more you want me to read.
	I don't know.
	Well, I'm sorry about all of this, of course.
	I mean, it's a terrible start as a whole, but what was it?
	You said you begged your dad to be sent away.
	What was that? Oh, yeah, that was...
	I met my father for the first time, I think, when I was around...
	Yeah, around six.
	And I remember hearing his voice from earlier.
	You know, my mom would take me, or not take me, give me a telephone, you know, and I could hear his voice.
	I still remember he had a really beautiful voice.
	And it was kind of a, you know, a mystical being.
	You know, the father.
	Hello? Hello? I'm sorry, we just cut out there for a second.
	You were saying he was kind of a mystical being?
	Yeah, he was kind of a mystical being who I... Yeah, I wasn't really ever sure how to feel about him, but it was kind of a dream, you know, how everyone else had one, but I didn't, I guess.
	So, but yeah, I met him and I remember playing around a little bit, you know, running around, but...
	Generally, he just needed my mother so much that we weren't...
	I guess he stole our mother in the end away from both my sister and I, so we both agreed that we didn't want him there.
	But what behaviors caused that, do you think?
	Oh, I was so small, I don't remember.
	I just remember feeling this...
	I mean, he would...
	Like, I don't remember the bad things that he did.
	My mom would just say that he was very negative.
	You know, I guess a lot of it just went down to talking a lot with...
	You know, with my mom and just spending tons of time.
	And as a child, I guess that was just too much for my sister and I. So, again, I'm sorry I cannot be more specific because I don't remember.
	But I do remember the feeling that I felt, which was very, I guess, jealousy in a way.
	And a feeling of wanting to get power back.
	Have you had anything to do with him since?
	No, no.
	After we sent him away, that was the last time we heard from him, and I think he died three or four years after that.
	And how old were you when you sent him away?
	As I said, it was about three months that we saw him, so from six to six.
	Yeah, so not really you sending him away, because you're only six, right?
	Yeah, I mean...
	I kind of lied and I said that he hit me.
	I said that to my mom because I was really, I guess, desperate.
	Oh, so you really, really wanted to get rid of him so you accused him of hitting you?
	Yes. But you can't remember exactly why you wanted to get rid of him?
	No. Terrible feeling, that's all.
	He never did anything bad.
	Really. Well, he must have done something.
	I mean, for you to lie and say he hit you.
	No. Other than stealing time away from my mom, which I already was really desperate for.
	And why were you so desperate for time with your mom?
	Just because there were so many siblings and kids?
	Yeah, I guess so.
	I mean, we...
	Yeah, around that time, I mean, I had already gone to kindergarten a lot, and I guess it was pretty, you know, the symbol of the parent is quite, I don't know, Most children are pretty desperate for it and will do anything.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. I'm sorry to interrupt.
	How are you feeling in this conversation?
	Because you seem very not here, but here at the same time, if that makes sense.
	I'm asking you for personal experiences and you're telling me archetypes of the parents and stuff like that.
	It seems like you're kind of here but not here.
	This is not a criticism.
	Hang on. I'm not criticizing you.
	I just really want to point that out.
	I'm not, oh, it's bad.
	I don't mean anything like that.
	I just mean that if we're going to have a chance to have this kind of connection and communication, I need...
	150% of you here, if that makes sense, in the conversation.
	Yeah, I mean, I'm glad you tell me.
	I've heard people before tell me that I'm unpersonal when it comes to talking about the past.
	Yeah, there's a lot of pauses, and it's very abstract, and that's hard to connect with.
	And, you know, I mean, I think that the most progress from these kinds of conversations come when we really connect.
	So that's what I sort of wanted to ask, how you're feeling.
	When we're having this conversation, do you feel connected to yourself?
	Do you feel strongly? Do you feel distracted?
	How are you doing? Well, yeah, this is going to be pretty difficult because one of the things that I struggle with is, I guess, coming in contact to which sort of reality I should pursue and And I don't know...
	If there is something...
	Okay, okay, okay.
	See, this is the problem. I'm asking you a question about how you feel, and you're talking about coming in contact with which sort of reality you should pursue, which is about the most opposite of a feeling phrase I've ever heard.
	I guess you get some kind of award for the most opposite of a feeling phrase.
	So how do you feel as we're having this conversation?
	Do you feel good, bad, sad, mad, glad?
	Yeah. Well, right now I feel, I guess, a little bit nervous.
	Okay, so you feel nervous.
	Did you feel nervous from the beginning?
	Yeah. I mean, I've always been a little bit misunderstood, I guess.
	Okay, and listen, I'm trying to not misunderstand you.
	That's why I'm pausing here, right?
	I'm trying to make sure that I don't misunderstand you.
	Yeah, I want you to ask all the questions you need to understand.
	But for example, when it comes to what my father did, I really can't say anything.
	No, no, I get all of that.
	But let me, my experience of this so far, and please understand, this is in no way a criticism.
	It's not meant to be any kind of criticism.
	But I sort of get the experience like I'm talking to someone who's being held hostage, like blink three times if you can give me a feeling, because...
	It's very paused and heavily considered and very abstract.
	And so it feels like I'm not able to talk to you quite just yet, but I'm talking to some part of you that's very much in control or trying to stay in control of the conversation rather than spontaneously talking about thoughts and feelings, if that makes any sense. Yeah.
	Okay, so we need to not do that.
	That's pretty new to me because I have no idea how to get rid of that part.
	If you want to continue asking questions.
	Absolutely. Absolutely. And I say this because I just really want to make sure that we connect in this.
	Because that's one of the challenges that you have, right?
	Because if you can connect with me, if you can connect with yourself, then connect with your future life.
	But it's a little bit lost in space in terms of abstractions and pause.
	It's almost hypnotic. Like I had to really shake my head at the beginning of the conversation and say, no, no, no.
	Stay present. Stay focused.
	Because it's almost like hypnotic.
	Like you're hypnotizing me into not noticing that...
	We're not really talking yet, if that makes sense.
	And you'll hear this when you listen back, and I just don't want that to continue because that's not the same as having an actual conversation.
	It's great. I've been very lost of what to say.
	I actually... I almost wanted to write down so that I wouldn't stutter too much, you know, what I was going to say, because...
	See, this is better already!
	Look at this! No pauses, no...
	It's like you're trying to creep me into a planet or something.
	Yeah. But yeah, it's just a bunch of bullshit.
	Okay, so now hang on.
	Now you don't know what to say next, right?
	No, I don't. Okay, that's fine.
	So the honest thing, this is just, you know, convo, right?
	The honest thing is to say, I don't know what to say next, which is fine.
	It's perfectly valid. Why would you?
	I am used to talking to a random person.
	What do you mean? I'm a random person, just so you know.
	Yeah, I know you're not.
	And thank you for taking this time.
	Oh, my pleasure. I felt a little bit like, I really sent shitty messages.
	You know, the first two emails that I sent, oh good god, they were really embarrassing.
	Like, I didn't even know what I wanted out of it specifically.
	But yeah, if you can help me Because it obviously sounds like you're right.
	There's something which is holding me back from actually connecting with myself.
	Okay, so listen, let's start the actual business at hand.
	So the question is, as far as directness goes, right?
	So communication between two human beings is fundamentally about directness, right?
	Directness, this is what I think, this is what I feel.
	Now, if you have trouble with directness, It's because directness is punished, right?
	So this goes down to the essence of what it is to be a human being.
	So when you're a baby, you're very direct, right?
	You're hungry, you cry.
	You're happy, you laugh, right?
	You're tired, you put your head down, you go to sleep, right?
	You're thirsty, you cry until you get some water, and then you smile.
	And we're all born enormously direct, because if we weren't direct as babies, we would die, right?
	Well, that's pretty interesting.
	I... I've, you know, I'm raising a toddler and from, you know, from a little bit back she started to not want to fall asleep.
	But yeah, I'm just thinking...
	Now, we'll get to the toddler thing, right?
	So probably one of the reasons why this is coming up for you is this, which is you have become...
	It's censored in your life, in yourself, right?
	As you were at the beginning of this conversation.
	And so when you have a baby, you get to see humanity in its raw, unbroken state.
	A baby comes out of the womb, assuming the mother's not been on drugs or fetal alcohol syndrome or something like that.
	The baby comes out of the womb in its raw, essential, elemental human state, which is assertive, I'm vocal and not overly concerned with the feelings of others, which is exactly how the baby should be, right?
	I mean, you're a mom, so, you know, your baby cries, you get up at night, you're tired and all that, but it's better than your baby saying, oh, well, I should let mom sleep and I guess I can make it to the morning without any food, right?
	You don't want your baby to do that because maybe your baby wouldn't make it to the morning without any food, right?
	So you want your baby to wake you up Although it's tiring, I understand all of that.
	I was neck deep in that with my daughter as well.
	But you get to see what it is to be an unspoiled human being, right?
	A natural, raw, honest, vocal, trying to get its needs met human being.
	And then if you compare a baby to yourself, if you've been manipulated or abused or neglected or punished for honesty and so on, it's painful as hell to see the difference between a baby and yourself if you've gone through a difficult childhood because you get to see the gap,
	the distance, the chasm between how the baby is And how you are, right?
	Your baby is very assertive in trying to get...
	Is it a boy or a girl? It's a girl.
	Okay, so your baby is...
	And that's going to be even tougher for you, right?
	Because you also being of the female persuasion, right?
	So the baby, your daughter, she's just real honest and frank and direct about getting her needs met.
	And... You have difficulty expressing yourself when your daughter doesn't, so you get to see the distance, the scar tissue between how your daughter is and how you are.
	Does that make any sense?
	I'm sorry. Please explain further.
	Sure. Okay. How old is your daughter?
	She is one and a half.
	She's one and a half. Okay.
	Is she pretty direct at what she wants?
	Yeah. I would say so, yeah.
	Okay, good. Are you direct at what you want?
	Yeah, some of the time.
	What percentage of the time would you say that you're direct at what you want?
	Well, I'm not very good at saying or acting out when I need to eat.
	What do you mean? You know, actually cooking food when I need it.
	Okay, fine, but what about in your relationships?
	Are you able to clearly express what you want and feel like you have a right to get it?
	Yeah. Okay, because you know you weren't when talking to me a couple minutes ago.
	Yeah, that could be.
	I'm sure I'm a little bit more reserved.
	Yep. Now, has your baby gone through any trauma?
	No. No. Okay, good, good.
	I don't think so. So you are in the present.
	So you've gone through some trauma, right?
	The stuff you were talking about with your dad, with your family, with step-siblings, with three counts of inappropriate sexual contact, like all this kind of stuff, right?
	You've gone through some trauma, right?
	Is that a yes?
	That's what you told me, right? I mean, the thing is, I don't think about it today.
	What do you mean you don't think about it today?
	It's the very first thing you told me about yourself.
	Well, that's the thing.
	I find myself generally uninteresting to talk about.
	Okay. But you understand, hang on, you understand that for me, and again, this is no criticism, I'm just being frank, right?
	What I think is good communication.
	So, the first things that you told me about were the three counts of sexually inappropriate behavior that you had inflicted upon you as a child, right?
	I've listened to your college shows before, and I know that many of them have had terrible experiences, and And I just wanted to let you know that these are my worst and they're not that bad.
	It felt terrible, but more people or more of the people that you talk to have gone through worse.
	And I just wanted to let you know that I'm not a person who has gone through that much terribleness, I guess.
	Three counts of sexual violation, lying about your father hitting you to get him out of the house?
	Come on. Yeah, I regret doing that.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Let's say that you found out, heaven forbid, God forbid, that your daughter had experienced or will experience at some point inappropriate sexual touching.
	Would you consider that bad?
	Yes. Okay, so why is it bad if it happens to your daughter, but not so bad if it happens to you?
	Well, except for the one at four years, I don't think I'll...
	I mean, I don't remember.
	But the other two I told my mom.
	You know, you just completely avoided my point, right?
	Sorry, please say it again.
	Why is it bad if it happens to your daughter, but not so bad if it happens to you?
	It isn't, but I...
	Why is your daughter worthy of protection?
	And why do your daughter's feelings matter regarding these violations and yours not so much?
	Why are you less important than your daughter?
	Well, people are worth different to different people.
	Okay, why are you worth less than your daughter?
	I don't...
	You're not.
	You're not. You know that.
	You're not worth less than your daughter.
	And if it happens to your daughter, which I'm sure it won't, that's terrible.
	And it's bloody terrible that it happened to you, my dear.
	It doesn't mean that you're doomed forever and it doesn't mean you can't ever be happy and it doesn't mean any of that.
	But it was bloody bad, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	I know that I... I'm sorry.
	Don't apologize. No, don't apologize.
	I knew this was in you from the beginning.
	You understand that great abstractions almost always mask deep passions.
	You feel very strongly about this, and you should.
	It was a violation.
	A series of violations, and I'm incredibly sorry.
	And the fact that you had to lie about your father hitting you to get him out of the house is terrible.
	Maybe. Maybe.
	Okay, so tell me what you're feeling.
	What's going on? Well, all I can think about right now is that the problems that I'm facing today, maybe they all come down and, you know, why do I... Why do I go through so much self-hatred?
	You know, that...
	All these things, you know, the demotivation that I go through, that I mainly came to you for.
	Right. You know, maybe that does stem from the past.
	It does. And that I... It does.
	Just a spoiler, it does.
	It does. It does.
	You told me you're not even worth cooking for.
	Right? Right. You're worth a good meal.
	You're worth cooking for.
	You are.
	You're worth cooking for. You're worth being taken care of.
	You're worth being protected. You're worth being secure.
	You're worth being loved.
	There's so many times I thought myself that I'm not.
	But how do I know that that's not just me wanting to be lazy?
	I mean, that's just more and more source for me to hate myself.
	No, no, no. Come on. You've got to snap out of the abuse and you've got to snap into the animal kingdom.
	All right? No, I'm telling you this.
	I'm telling you this right now.
	Have you ever watched nature documentaries?
	Yes. You know, because they make you fall in love with the animals and then they say, but mankind is killing them, right?
	But what is it that you always see is you see this incredible amount in many animals of preening and self-care, right?
	You see the birds ruffling up their feathers and checking for ticks.
	You see the monkeys pulling the lice and Whatever off each other's backs.
	You see the otters grooming themselves.
	You see cats licking themselves.
	See, self-care is foundational to the animal kingdom.
	Yeah. And some very bad stuff has to happen to a mammal like you and I in order to split us off from self-care, right?
	Yeah. I mean, self-care is kind of what animals do a lot of the time, right?
	Including, you think of the little lion cubs that are rolling around and playing with each other and so are the hyena cubs and all that.
	That's a kind of self-care, right?
	Playing, rehearsing, practicing for hunting and all that kind of stuff.
	Self-care is a very, very big deal in the animal kingdom.
	And in order to interfere with that basic instinct that we have for self-care, some very bad stuff has to go down.
	It's kind of silly because all this time, I've I've always thought of myself as being good at self-care.
	Well, listen, I've seen your picture.
	You're a very attractive young woman, and so you present well, right?
	I mean, you take care of your appearance and so on, but that's not what I'm talking about.
	Well, you're right in a way, because the things that I used to do, I used to work out a lot.
	I used to... I mean, food has never been really good for me because I'm gluten and lactose intolerant, or I have celiac, so I'm not really gluten intolerant.
	Food has always been a problem for me, and many times eating is like eating cardboard.
	Oh, yeah, the food is not that tasty, right?
	Yeah, but...
	But there's things that you could do, like if somebody paid you a million dollars to create a delicious meal given your dietary limitations, you could do it, right?
	Yeah. But it's, you know, you're not worth it, right?
	Yeah, that's the thing.
	Apparently. Right.
	How am I going to solve that?
	Oh, yeah, we'll fix it.
	Don't worry. Don't worry.
	You're in good hands. You're in good hands.
	We'll fix it. No problem.
	No problem. All right.
	So then, the question becomes, who interfered with your basic desire for self-care and self-respect?
	Because it's natural.
	It's natural for human beings to have self-regard.
	Well, um...
	I mean, school doesn't really...
	I don't know.
	No, school is bad.
	I understand that. School is bad.
	I'm just thinking where I was most of the time.
	It was just... Um, being in front of the computer?
	School? Okay, no, let's, again, so school, but school is a constant, right?
	So if you have outside the bell curve of a lack of self-regard, everyone goes to school, right?
	So it's got to be something, I mean, school doesn't help, don't get me wrong, and it's bad as a whole, but let's go back to the computer.
	Okay, so when did you first start spending a lot of time in front of the computer or a tablet?
	Um, it was...
	I think it really...
	Yeah, it must have been around...
	No?
	When was that?
	12 years ago?
	How old was I then?
	11. So, yeah, since I was 11...
	Right. So, when people spend a lot of time in front of a computer, it tells me one thing and one thing only.
	That nobody is coming into the room and saying, Andrea, I miss you.
	I miss spending time with you.
	I miss the pleasure of your company.
	You know, like if my daughter was like all day on the tablet or all day on a computer, well, it wouldn't happen, right?
	Because I'd sit down and say, hey...
	Hello. Other human beings, other carbon-based life forms in the vicinity, maybe you could drop that.
	We could go do something fun because I miss the pleasure of your company, which I can't enjoy when you're in front of a computer, right?
	So when you are abandoned to the giant robot eye, it's because no one misses you.
	Right? Yeah.
	No one misses you.
	Now, how is it possible to enjoy your own company when your mother doesn't?
	Well, my mama's had to work.
	Why did she have to work?
	Because she had four kids.
	And she had a lot of debt.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	So she got married to your dad, right?
	Yes. And your dad died when you were 9 or 10, right?
	Was it? She had 6 and he died a couple of years later.
	Yes, yes. Okay, so your dad died when he was 9 or 10.
	Now, your parents are not stupid people, right?
	No.
	Okay.
	So, given that your parents are not stupid people, one of the things that you do when Well, you do it when you get married, and you do it in particular when you have children, is you take out the biggest conceivable life insurance policy that you can imagine, right?
	And why do you do that?
	Kids are forever.
	Well, because, yeah, because if you get hit by a bus, you need your family to be able to continue without dying in debt, right?
	Was your father a poor man?
	He could say so.
	I don't know very much about him, but...
	He was not poor enough that he couldn't afford even a life insurance plan, right?
	As far as I know, he contributed with nothing.
	Oh, so your mother married a guy who didn't take out a life insurance plan, and she didn't take out a life insurance plan for him, and he did not provide any child support or any alimony or leave any savings or provide any resources to his children, right? As far as I know.
	Which is a contemptible, pathetic excuse for a father, if you don't mind me saying so.
	You know, you're a father, you have a responsibility to provide for your damn children.
	And if your mother married a guy who didn't even bother to provide for his children, I don't know what that says about her, but I gotta tell you, there are some words floating around in my brain that are not very complimentary.
	I wouldn't have existed if she hadn't chosen him.
	I understand that, but that's an existential question that has nothing to do with your emotional experience.
	Because you do exist.
	And that means that as a conscious, critical, thinking human being, you have an absolute right to question the morality of your origins.
	Now saying, listen, I understand that.
	You know, if the Germans hadn't been bombed in the Second World War, then my mother would never have fled.
	She wouldn't have met my father.
	So I guess that means World War II is okay, because I'm...
	You understand, that's not our experience when we're children.
	We don't compare ourselves to the existential possibility of not existing.
	If our parents have been more functional, that's not how we process things emotionally.
	So that's another, it's a good trick to try and get me into an abstract discussion, but that's not where our heart is, right?
	Why did she marry him? But that's just dreaming for something else.
	No, you're trying to find a way to be grateful to your parents and saying, well, they were messed up, but at least I exist.
	That's a huge insult to them and to you.
	So, why did your mother marry your father?
	And why did she choose to give him...
	Was it two kids? Yes.
	Okay, so why did she marry this guy who was such a terrible father that you lied to get him out of the house?
	He didn't provide for his children.
	There was no life insurance policy that you know of, which meant your mother was a slave to debt and spending and work and therefore couldn't be around to raise you.
	Why did she marry...
	Such a ridiculous excuse for a father.
	Because you see, it's either her fault or it's your fault.
	And I'm sick and tired of it being your fault because it's not.
	So this is why we criticize our parents if they did wrong.
	Because someone's got to take the rap because we're human beings and that's what we do.
	We assign blame and responsibility all the time, always, no matter what.
	We assign blame and responsibility all the time, always, no matter what.
	That's something that happens that is automatic for us.
	So kids invent invisible friends so that when they steal the candy bar, they say, oh no, it was my invisible friend who did it.
	If blacks underperform whites, oh, it's white racism.
	We always are trying to assign cause and responsibility.
	So some Islamist blows up We say, oh, it's because we're not spending enough money on the Islamic community or they're alienated.
	We're always trying to find responsibility and blame.
	And we can say, well, I don't want to do that.
	It's like, okay, well, you can try not breathing.
	It's going to have the same effect.
	If you're breathing, you're assigning responsibility.
	So the reason that I talk to people about the mistakes of their parents is because I'm telling you, this log has to land somewhere.
	The log of responsibility has to land somewhere.
	And the only way to have it not land on your parents is to have it land on you.
	And you called me saying, basically, I want to get myself out from under this log that is trapping me.
	This log of isolation, this log of lack of ambition, of insecurity, of lack of self-regard, you said earlier, self-hatred.
	And I want to get that log off you too!
	But we can't make the log go away.
	So it's got to land somewhere.
	And call me crazy, but I'm pretty sure the parents are more responsible than a six-year-old.
	So we get that log off you, it's got to land on someone.
	Because someone is responsible.
	It wasn't you as a child.
	Any more than your daughter is responsible for your choices.
	Right? She's not.
	And neither were you.
	The log has to land somewhere.
	And that's why I'm saying, why did she marry him?
	Why do you think?
	Well, I remember she said that when she was living in the U.S. I remember she said that when she was living in the uh, He was a...
	God, what are they called?
	They are people who go around in houses and take care of different, you know, plumbing issues.
	I don't know. Oh, the handyman?
	Yeah, handyman.
	Yeah, yeah. He was a handyman, and he was going to go fix something in my mom's apartment.
	And when she opened the door, he said...
	Hello, we've met before.
	Or something. Wait, that was his big pickup line that caused you to come into existence?
	Hi, I do believe we've met before.
	Maybe not in this life, but in some other life.
	We were grand lovers by the banks of the Egyptian river, the Nile.
	You and I, Cleopatra...
	Okay, never mind, I'm going on. And then he leaned over and his plumber's crack.
	Anyway, okay. Okay, so he had this line that we've met before.
	I don't know. I heard that he was very romantic.
	Yeah, he's a good-looking guy, right?
	Listen, you didn't get your looks from nowhere, so he's...
	I got my looks from my father's, as far as I know.
	Okay, so he's...
	I mean, and I hate to say this sounds kind of gross, but this is like the beginning of a porn movie, you know?
	I ordered the handyman, and he came over wearing nothing but a tool belt.
	You know, like, I mean...
	Okay, so did she just let her hormones run away with her, or what's the story?
	I guess so.
	I think...
	Because the handyman who believes in reincarnation does not strike me as an ideal place to plant your eggs.
	Well, he had a lot of dreams for the future of humanity, I guess.
	What? But first, I must fix the toilet.
	I... He had a very difficult childhood.
	Ah, so now you're moving the log from him to his parents.
	Good! Excellent! At least we're moving the log somewhere, right?
	Well... I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay.
	Well, I'm happy he's my father.
	I'm happy I'm alive.
	So I just can't feel that much, you know.
	Oh, damn.
	I mean, in a way, I can see how you're right.
	I'm dealing with so much self-hatred.
	Maybe it's because I don't blame anyone else.
	Yep. That is exactly why.
	That is exactly why.
	Somebody has to have the log land on them.
	It's not fair that it's you.
	You're a young woman who had a difficult, difficult childhood, which was not your fault.
	To say, ah, well, but my parents, they themselves had difficult childhoods.
	And their parents are like, okay, then we go back to the first single-celled organism that banged another single-celled organism and produced a multi-celled organism.
	It's like, okay, well, maybe they're responsible.
	It's like, nope. No, the adults are responsible.
	The adults are responsible. Someone has to be responsible, but how are they going to help me with this?
	My father is dead.
	His family has said that they want nothing to do with us.
	His children, my half-brothers, have said they want nothing to do with us.
	So they're all a bunch of assholes.
	I guess. No, aren't they?
	I mean, I would love to talk to them, but...
	Why? I guess so.
	Why would you want to talk to people who don't want to have anything to do with you?
	I don't know. For something that wasn't your fault.
	I believe the power of words can change a lot.
	And unfortunately, I didn't have a mind which could process that sort of, I don't know, verbality.
	Okay, now you're back to maximum abstractions.
	You're trying to distract me from the emotional core.
	Well, I really do mean it.
	I do believe that I could talk to them.
	Oh, so you can talk cold-hearted people into loving you.
	I don't know. Maybe if I could show them what I could give them.
	No, no, no, no. Okay, so you're saying that you can talk people into loving you, right?
	Listen, I'm not mocking you.
	I'm not mocking you. This is very serious.
	I mean, this is what you believe.
	I mean, what is love?
	No, no, no. Okay, don't distract me again.
	Okay. No, no, no, no.
	Hang on, hang on. No, no, no.
	Okay, here's my question.
	Here's my question. Are you ready?
	Are you sitting down? It's a big question.
	If you can talk people into loving you, why can't you talk yourself into loving you?
	In order to answer that question, I need to say that...
	Why can't you use the magic words that make people love you and use them on yourself?
	I believe that love is...
	The sharing of knowledge, the sharing of time and wanting to share that knowledge.
	And.
	Why can't you said you said that you experience.
	Aspects of self-hatred, right?
	Yeah, I do.
	So if the words are so powerful, why can't you take the words, apply them to yourself so that you love yourself?
	Because I see what everyone else does.
	What's that? Well, everything that goes on in the news, the things people find important, designer clothes, cars.
	No, no, no, no. We're not talking about the news or Twitter or designer clothes or cars.
	No, no. We're talking about you.
	If you believe that words have the power to create love, why haven't you used those words to create a solid and enduring love of yourself?
	Within your own mind and heart.
	Because I cannot find proof.
	Proof of what? Proof that I am good.
	That I am worthy.
	Okay. What proof do you have that your father's family are good and worthy?
	Nothing. Right.
	But they are, I mean, genetically close to me.
	Well, that's a terrifying thought.
	I'm sorry, that is a terrifying thought.
	Right? Okay, let me ask you this.
	So, did your father's family have anything to do with you?
	Before or after your father died when you were young?
	Never. Never, okay.
	They simply said when we were born, my sister and I, that they never wanted to hear from us again.
	Right. Right.
	Now, who's responsible for that?
	I guess my father.
	Right?
	Who else?
	Well, Mother Hicken.
	Right. And who else?
	The one who said they didn't want anything to do with us?
	Yeah, yeah. The people themselves, right?
	Do you know who's not responsible at all?
	I mean...
	Who's not... Is this a simple question?
	Who is not responsible at all?
	I mean, I'm not...
	Who is not? Give me her name.
	Who is not responsible for this at all?
	That is correct. Gets out from under the log, which falls on A, her father, B, her mother, C, her father's family.
	It all lands on them, and nothing lands on you.
	Nothing, nothing, nothing lands on you.
	Now, you can take it if you want.
	You can throw yourself in front of these terrible people and you can say, I will take the log for you all!
	But what happens? They don't become better.
	You just end up hating yourself.
	And they get away with it.
	You ever watch shows where the police are on the hunt for a criminal?
	Right? Don't you like it when they catch the criminal?
	Well, I usually start thinking, is it truly the criminal?
	Right, I get it. Everyone gets forgiveness except you, right?
	That's a natural defense mechanism.
	But, you know, how great a story would it be if Sherlock Holmes finally confronts Moriarty and Sherlock Holmes shoots himself?
	That would be like the worst thing.
	That's worse than killing Eve, which is pretty bad, right?
	Well, he has a purpose, I feel like.
	Many days, I don't have any purpose.
	No, I get that. I get that.
	Well, listen, if you can't even feed yourself decent food, of course you can't feed yourself decent ambition.
	We'll get to that. We'll get to that.
	But first, we're just trying to get the log off your legs here, right?
	Because you're heroically taking the bullet for everyone, thinking that somehow that's going to bring love to you, when it doesn't.
	It just means that you're taking the bullet so bad people get away with being bad.
	You're not adding to the virtue of the world.
	All this time, I've felt that I'm so full of hope.
	If I throw away that hope, hope that things will get better, that people are good, that this world can become a better place.
	Okay, wait, wait, hang on.
	Why are you confusing the assholes of your father's family for the world as a whole?
	Well, I mean, society and the world is an extension of the family, no?
	Yeah, but not... I mean, that's like saying, well, there's the Manson family, and that's the family, and that's the world.
	It's like, come on. That's going to ridiculous lengths to keep the log on you, right?
	So basically, just focus on the family that I can create.
	Oh, now you want to bypass the emotions by leaping to the answer.
	Good, good, good.
	That's good. That's progress. Let's go back.
	Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
	All right. All right.
	I'm sorry. No, no.
	Don't apologize. Listen, do you know how much easier this is to the first five minutes of our conversation?
	It's just massively better.
	And look, you're not stumbling.
	You're not tweaking. I had no idea what I was saying.
	Yeah, I know. Neither did I, and neither will anyone else.
	I understand all that. It's perfectly fine.
	Perfectly fine. Perfectly fine.
	But it's not tough now, right?
	In fact, we're speaking over each other because we're both eager to say what we want to say, right?
	Yes. It's good.
	That's good. All right.
	So, how do children survive...
	Contempt or indifference or neglect.
	How do they... I mean, listen, I was there too.
	You shut in? Okay, so how do we survive it?
	So when we are put down, ignored, treated with contempt, when people are indifferent, people don't have any time for us...
	Find something else?
	No. No.
	What we do is we say they're right.
	It's not that my mom is cold-hearted.
	It's that I am not interesting.
	It's not that my mom hates me.
	It's that I am hateful.
	Right? So, as a child, imagine being on a hike with your mom in the deep woods.
	If your mom dies, you die, right?
	Because you can't make it back. You're a little kid.
	You're like five or whatever, right?
	So, if your mom dies, you die.
	So, you will do anything to save your mom.
	Because if your mom dies, you die, so you might as well, you know, even if something puts you at 90% risk, but it saves your mom, you'll take it.
	Because if your mom dies, you're 100% dead, right?
	So kids internalize negative judgments from their parents in order to avoid the catastrophic rejection of abandonment.
	My mother was very clear about the things I could not talk about with her.
	Very clear. I could not give her 1% of 1% of responsibility for her life.
	And if I tried to give her 1% of 1% of responsibility for her life, she would physically attack me.
	She would call the police on me.
	She made it very clear that if I tried to do that, that she would no longer be my mother.
	So what am I going to do? Am I going to keep pushing for that?
	Well, of course not. Because, you know why?
	Because I'd like to survive, thank you very much.
	So with my mother, I'm like, okay.
	Now, when I got older and I was independent and I was making my own money, that was different.
	But when I was a kid, I'm like, okay.
	Here's the giant encyclopedic list of topics I cannot talk about with my mother because she will...
	Threaten violence, enact violence, or abandonment, right?
	When I displeased my mother, I was sent to go and live with relatives sometimes for months at a time.
	So she was like, hey, man, you talk about any of the topics that are verboten, right?
	Forbidden. Yeah.
	And I'll throw you out with the trash.
	So now I can say, listen, my mother is insane and vain and violent and so on, right?
	Or I can say, it's disrespectful to talk about these topics with her.
	Right? So I can say, it's my fault.
	I'm doing something wrong.
	I'm being bad. Now, children, almost all children, will do that.
	So if you are being ignored...
	Because your mother fell for some guy with a tool belt and theories of interdimensional love attraction and ended up with two kids and no means of provision?
	That's on her. And that's like a morality lesson which says, don't have kids with guys who won't provide.
	I just don't do it. Just don't do it, right?
	So she doesn't need to work, right? Now, the fact that she had to work doesn't mean she can't spend time with you, doesn't mean that she can't tell you that you're interesting, right?
	So you, because your mom's not spending time with you, can either say, my mom is a bad mom, she doesn't seem to enjoy being a mom, she doesn't enjoy my company, so why on earth did she have children?
	Or why on earth doesn't she, having had children, decide to be a halfway decent mom?
	Let me ask you this. Did you ever see your mom pick up a book on parenting?
	Yeah. Or I didn't see.
	But she did read a lot.
	Of books when...
	Oh, come on!
	What are you doing to me here?
	You're jerking me around like a fishing lion.
	I'm sorry. Did you see her read a book on parenting?
	Not that I can remember.
	Okay. So don't tell me yes and then no, but she read books, right?
	So that's even worse, right?
	When she got her first set of children, she did, I think.
	You think? Yeah, she told me she didn't, so I wasn't alive then, so I didn't see that.
	Okay, so you never saw your mother read a book on parenting, right?
	Although she did read lots of other books, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so is she responsible for not reading a book on parenting when she was in fact a parent?
	Um... I think she did read some parenting books.
	No, no, no, no. You said she did.
	I don't remember seeing that, but I don't look at what sort of books.
	It was just not something that we focused on, what books we read.
	So I can tell you that she didn't, or if she did, she didn't do it.
	Anything that the book suggested, right?
	There's no book on parenting that says, you know what's really important is to make sure a computer raises your child and you spend almost no time with her.
	You understand, no book on parenting would say that, right?
	So, your mother was profoundly irresponsible...
	I mean, I bet you if she'd bought a budgerigar, a budgie like a little bird in a cage, if she'd bought a budgie, I can guarantee you she'd at least read the freaking instructions that came with the bird, right?
	Did you say bird?
	Yeah, like a budgie. Like a parakeet or a budgie.
	Okay, yes. Did you guys have pets growing up?
	Yes. Okay, what kind of pets?
	Dogs. Okay.
	Did she take the dogs for walks?
	Yes. Ah!
	So she spent time with the dogs, right?
	So she knows it's important to spend time with the dogs.
	Did she spend time with you after the age of 11 or 12 a lot?
	No. It's funny you should mention, we went on dog walks.
	That was usually the extent of...
	Right. So she's just kind of throwing you into the dog pack, right?
	Let's go for a walk, right? Yeah.
	Okay. Okay.
	So she knew how to take care of her dogs because I assume that she'd read books or had experience or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	So she took better care of her dogs than her kids.
	Yeah. And I'm telling you...
	Well, dogs were very important to her.
	Right. That's a horrible thing to hear.
	The dogs were very important to her, but you were not as much anyway, right?
	And that's a form of cruelty, you understand, as well, because she's sitting there saying, Oh, listen, I know how to take care of things, man.
	man i'm really good at taking care of these dogs i'm sorry do not apologize Do not apologize.
	It would be a terrible thing to apologize for feeling deeply about having been harmed.
	Do not apologize.
	Just understand, your tears are not inconvenient to me.
	They don't upset me.
	They don't make me angry. Because I'm not guilty in anything that I'm doing.
	With you, right? It just feels like I'm trying to get everyone to pity me.
	Oh, I see.
	So when you say, I hate myself, and then you cry because you're hurt, then it suddenly transmits into you're manipulating people into pitying you.
	I guarantee you, people who are listening to this in the future will feel great sympathy for you, as they should.
	Now, there might be a few jerks who don't, but that's just because they have a bad conscience and you are awakening their bad conscience in them, which is not your fault and it's their business, not yours.
	So, if your mother is not taking interest in you, it's either because your mother is narcissistic and selfish and cold-blooded and mean and distracted or whatever, right?
	And not doing the most foundational job of parenting, which is to show attention.
	I mean, okay, food, shelter, fine.
	After that, attention.
	Because a child is a prisoner.
	I mean, I don't mean that even figured.
	A child is a prisoner of the house.
	The child didn't choose to be there, and the child cannot leave.
	So a child is a prisoner.
	As I said before in the show, I don't have any obligation to feed some random guy in India, but if I lock a guy in my basement, I have an obligation to feed him because I've cut off every other opportunity he has to get food, right?
	I don't feed a guy in India who starves to death.
	Nobody charges me with murder, but if I kidnap a guy, lock him in my basement and starve him to death, well then it's me.
	It's on me, right? And so when you have children, you owe them attention.
	Like you owe a guy you've locked in the basement food and water.
	Because the consequences of not giving the child attention is exactly what you're experiencing, right?
	Which is you've been starved.
	For attention, positive regard, and people enjoying your company, right?
	Because then what happens is, and I'm not saying this is the case with you, but it is the case with a lot of young women.
	What happens is, young women, when they get into their teenage years, their mid to late teens, well, then they can get attention, right?
	And how do they get that attention?
	You know as well as I do.
	Makeup and curves. Yeah, makeup and curves, right?
	So what did you do?
	You went to the gym. Make up and curves.
	Yeah, make up and curves, right?
	So suddenly you go from famine to feast, right?
	Your mom's not paying attention to you.
	Your dad didn't pay attention to you.
	Your dad's family said they never wanted to see you again.
	So you're hungry and you're hungry and you're hungry for attention.
	And then nature in her infinite wisdom gives you curves and gives boys hormones.
	And you're like, damn!
	Now I can get some attention!
	But it only makes it worse.
	Because it's still not about you, it's about your curves, right?
	It's like you go into the doctor with a big cut on your left arm and he sews up your right arm.
	Right remedy, wrong wound.
	Not a wound, right? And that's the temptation, right?
	I don't know if you remember, but I wrote that thing in the email where, you know, from the age of 12, I didn't really have any friendships or courtships, you know. Like, in real life, you know.
	It was just on the...
	It was World of Warcraft.
	Right. Right.
	Yeah, it was really stupid.
	No, it's not stupid at all.
	It's perfectly natural.
	It's perfectly natural to do that.
	It's perfectly natural and it's inevitable, which is why boys and girls who grew up without people who pay attention to them, when sexuality hits, it generally doesn't go very well, right?
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Because it's very painful to not have attention paid to you because of your family, so you'll do almost anything to get attention.
	And, you know, I'm not putting you in this category, obviously, but this is where people like strippers come from, right?
	Oh, look, someone's paying attention to me.
	Oh, look, I exist for someone.
	Yeah. Right.
	Yeah, yeah. So who is responsible for your isolation as a teenager?
	Well, my whole family.
	Yeah. Well, I would say siblings probably wrestling with their own stuff, right?
	Yeah, exactly. I give people a pretty much get-out-of-jail-free card until they're in their mid-to-late teens.
	Because, you know, I mean, they're kids, right?
	Yeah. But what happens is, if people aren't paying attention to you, like your mother, let's say, and you have a stepfather, right?
	No. I'm sorry, didn't you have stepbrothers?
	Oh, I thought you said stepfather.
	Sorry. Yes, I did have stepbrothers on my father's side.
	Oh, your mother did not remarry, is that right?
	After my father, no.
	And your father's Children, they were from before he married your mother, is that right?
	Yes. Oh, so she married a handyman with intergalactic past-life dating philosophies who also had a broken family in his history.
	Yeah. Oh my gosh.
	How pretty was this guy?
	Yeah. Right.
	Did she ever express to you any regret for the man she chose to be the father of her children?
	I mean, I feel like we've talked about it a lot, but I've told her basically that I'm glad that I was born.
	So, I guess not, because that would be kind of saying I'm sorry for you existing.
	So, I can't imagine...
	No, listen, she can say, I wish I had chosen a better father and still be enormously happy that you exist.
	It sounds like a paradox, but it's really not.
	Or, she could have said, I wish I had helped him become a better father, or I wish I had insisted that he be a better father, or whatever it is, right?
	I wish I had pursued him more to be a better father.
	Do you know what he died of?
	It's difficult to say.
	He had a lot of...
	He was a Vietnam vet, so he had a lot of, you know...
	Mental and physical problems.
	Yes, he had a lot of pills.
	What is the story with your mom?
	Like, why would you choose this guy?
	And don't get me wrong, some vets are absolutely wonderful people and, you know, salt of the earth and would stand up to a hurricane to protect their families.
	But, you know, given this wreckage of a human being, questions can be asked, right?
	Well... Oh, it's so...
	I don't know, maybe...
	She was one of those people who wanted to feel like she could heal someone.
	I don't know.
	Oh, she could heal someone? I don't know.
	Oh, like you felt you could do with your father's family and your magic words, right?
	Could be, yeah.
	Okay, so she thought maybe she could heal someone, right?
	How long did they go out with?
	Do you know how long they went out before you were born?
	I don't know. Half a year?
	Or... She...
	Yeah...
	She met him during...
	I think it was a vacation of sorts, so...
	I guess they must have hit it off pretty soon.
	Actually. Right.
	I'm not sure, though.
	Now, given that the father was absent, she had even more of a responsibility to spend time with you, right?
	To make you feel worthwhile and interesting and all that, right?
	Yeah. I mean, listen, I have an intact family with my wife, and I adore my daughter's company.
	Like, she is great fun.
	And, you know, anytime I'm going out to do chores and so on, I'm like...
	Come with me. We'll have fun.
	We'll play hide-and-go-seek at Best Buy.
	Whatever it's going to be. Come along.
	I mean, she is a real joy and a real treasure to spend time with, right?
	Yeah. I mean, children should feel that, right?
	That they're interesting to their parents.
	That their parents want to know what they think and feel.
	That they're enjoyable, good company, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, I don't think I ever felt I was that.
	Right, right.
	And that's a great treasure that was withheld from you.
	Because I will tell you this, Andrea, I'm chatting with you for an hour here.
	You're a really good company.
	No, you really are a good company.
	I mean, you are thoughtful, you are sensitive.
	You are curious. You are strong.
	You have insight.
	You have really good company.
	And I think it's terrible how much your mom missed out on.
	And I understand why you would say to yourself, something must be wrong with me that my mother does not find me interesting.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I mean, look, nobody found me interesting when I was growing up.
	And I always thought that I was.
	I always thought that I was interesting. And, you know, if I'm perfectly frank, which I always try to be, part of this entire show was, hey, I wonder if I'm interesting.
	I'm going to put that to the test, right?
	Turns out I kind of am.
	Which meant my mom missed out, right?
	My dad missed out. You know, it's a shame for them.
	I'm a loyal person.
	I'm a good person. I'm a trustworthy person.
	I'm intellectually fertile and very funny.
	Like the other night, I was playing Dungeons& Dragons.
	With my daughter and a friend of hers.
	I was the dungeon master.
	And I pretended to be a guy down by the docks with an outrageous Scottish accent.
	And I made up jokes about everyone in their lives.
	And for like 20 minutes, we were laughing so hard that tears were coming out of our eyes.
	Like, that's...
	You know, I could just do that.
	That's fun. And...
	You are a very interesting person, and the fact that your mother was not interested in you is her fault and not yours.
	And she missed out, and I'm incredibly sorry that she did not give you the sense of importance about who you are.
	And I bet it wasn't just indifference.
	Self-hatred almost always comes from the same-sex parent.
	Self-hatred, almost always, in my view, comes from the same-sex parents.
	The only thing that had me survive was that at least it was a different-sex parent who hated me.
	It wasn't me, I understand.
	I know she didn't hate me. She hated her life.
	She hated her choices, but she couldn't take any responsibility, so she had to project, right?
	So did you ever, and I'm perfectly happy to be absolutely wrong about this, but did she ever, your mother, express any hatred towards you?
	I don't feel like it.
	What about the food, in terms of your mother providing food for you?
	I, uh...
	I told her that I didn't want her to cook for me.
	Was that because of the digestive issues or something else?
	Yeah, it happened somewhere.
	After I found out that I had been, you know, gluten and lactose intolerant.
	Which was after age 9.
	So, after that...
	How did you find that out? Just, like, reactions to food?
	Yeah, because I was having trouble with school a lot.
	I wasn't having energy.
	I wasn't, you know...
	I didn't want to attend.
	I was always nauseous.
	I thought it was normal to fart every three seconds.
	And... And so yeah, I stayed home from school a lot.
	And I also didn't gain weight.
	I think I was 35, no 33 kilos at 130.
	65 centimeters, I think.
	Yikes. At some point.
	Did your mother take you to the doctor or did you get allergy tests?
	Yes. They took us to the doctor eventually.
	Wait, who said they? Well, I was thinking...
	I think it was suggested by the school.
	So, yeah. I guess they, the school...
	The school had to phone your mom and say, it's wasting away.
	Would you mind taking her to the doctor?
	What? That sounds bad, but...
	You think? I mean...
	The school had to phone your mother and say, hey, we noticed that your daughter is kind of a walking skeleton.
	You feel like maybe taking her to the doctor?
	I mean, I think I remember we had some tests before, but those were for, like, worms and stuff.
	But... Okay, do you want to do this rescue operation?
	Do we have to do this again?
	Like, do you want to start defending your mom at this point?
	Because this is pretty appalling. That's dangerous, right?
	Yeah. Lack of nutrition at that, particularly on the onset of puberty, I mean, that's dangerous.
	Yeah. I mean, should that have been, like, the job one?
	You're always tired.
	You're gassy. You're not digesting.
	Your stomach's upset. You're nauseous.
	You've got no energy.
	Like, isn't that just like, okay, sorry, I got a call in sick.
	For a week at work, or I've got to say I can't come in because we've got to go until we find the answer to this.
	I mean... Yeah.
	Yeah, I think...
	No, no.
	I never received that sort of time as far as I can remember.
	I just remembered that before I... Before I played on a computer, I played on PlayStation.
	And that was probably from age seven, I think.
	And pretty much my whole school attendance has been very bad.
	Wait, so you...
	Okay, so like of a month, how many days would you not go to school?
	I don't know.
	Probably... 50% maybe.
	Okay. Did your mother know that you weren't going to school?
	Of course she did, because the school would tell her, right?
	Yes. Alright, so what did your mother do?
	Well, she would let me stay home.
	She would let you stay home 50% of the time.
	Why? That's a generous number, yes.
	Why? I don't know.
	I mean, she had to work.
	That's the thing. She had to work.
	So what? I don't understand.
	So she has to work, so now she has zero fucking parental responsibilities at all?
	Well, it's the way society's built, right?
	No. People need to work.
	Did she work eight hours a day?
	More. Ten hours a day?
	No. She worked a lot.
	I don't know the specific numbers.
	It was usually leave in the morning, come back in the very late evening.
	Wait, she would leave in the morning and she would come back at what time?
	I don't remember.
	Between 7 and 10?
	All right. And how do you know she was working all that time?
	She was. How do you know?
	No, but listen, when you're little, she could have been socializing.
	She could have gone to a bar.
	She could have gone out for dinner. She could have gone...
	I don't know. I'm just asking.
	Maybe there's good reason, right? Well, if I am to trust her word, that is what she was doing.
	So that's all the proof I have.
	I don't know. Okay, okay. Now, hang on, hang on.
	Yeah. What was...
	Like, where did you live?
	Was it a condo, a flat?
	Was it an apartment? It was always...
	Pretty much a flat, but...
	Like an apartment in, you know...
	And did you have a car?
	Yes. Okay.
	And did you go on vacations?
	No. And was she poor?
	I would say...
	I mean...
	She had a lot of debt.
	And why did she have so much debt?
	Because she...
	I think when I was young, she started...
	What's it called?
	A nurse? It's like a...
	Like a nurse or a nurse's aide?
	I think...
	Okay, so she went to school for some quasi-professional gig, right?
	Yeah, and that cost a lot.
	And then? Equals debt?
	No, no, but you're supposed to work at the job to pay off the debt, right?
	Yes. And is that what she did with her life?
	Like she was that thing, like the nurse or nurse's aide or whatever?
	Yes, not aide.
	I think it was a, you know, I don't know what they're called in English.
	Okay, but like a nurse, right?
	Yeah. All right.
	Yeah, it says nurse, yeah.
	Okay, so she was a nurse, alright.
	I think, yeah. And she had, she was raising just you and a sibling, right?
	And for a time, two others, yeah.
	And that was the children from your father's first marriage?
	No, my mother's first marriage.
	Oh, your mother had two kids as well from an earlier marriage.
	Yes. Yes. And what happened to the father of those children?
	She met my father during a vacation.
	Oh, when she was married?
	Divorced, yes.
	So she met your father while she was already married to her first husband, and then she left her first husband for your father?
	Yes.
	And what do you think of that?
	Again, with this existential caveat that you wouldn't exist and blah, blah, blah.
	I decided from a very young age that I would never do that.
	Because why? Because it's painful as fuck.
	Yeah, it's a terrible thing to do, right?
	It's... It's...
	Yeah. And what happened to her first husband?
	I assume he survived and all that, right?
	Yeah, he ended up taking care of us a little bit.
	But the older we got, the more he would slip up with quite angry statements.
	You mean that he resented feeding the four kids?
	That he would be angry at my Mother and speak.
	And what would he say about your mother?
	Well, I didn't remember.
	I mean, he would say what she did.
	And then she met that fucker.
	Yeah, it was mostly about my dad.
	You can understand that if he's paying for the children, Of the asshole his wife left him for?
	Yes. That's not a great thing for a man to be doing, right?
	No. Like, oh, you left me for the hot handyman who died on you, and his family wants to have nothing to do with you, and he's such a terrible dad that your kid lied to get him out of the house.
	Make your bed and lie in it, honey.
	You left me for this guy.
	Good luck. Yeah, I can understand.
	Yeah. It's absolutely...
	Now, when your mother was home, I assume that she...
	If she did those kinds of shifts, like, the reason I'm asking about these shifts, right, is that I'm no expert, and obviously where you are, who knows, right?
	But as far as I know, like, if some guy said to me, well, I was a trucker and I worked 80 hours a week, I'd say, no, you didn't, because it's not legal, right?
	Mm-hmm. So there usually is limits on the amount of time that you could spend making life and death decisions in a hospital, right?
	I mean, outside of that crazy system where apprentice doctors just work crazy hours, right?
	Mm-hmm. I don't know if you can work 70 hours a week as a nurse or anything.
	I don't know, right? Maybe you can, maybe you can't.
	But it seems unlikely because there may be liability issues if you're tired, right?
	Yeah. So...
	When your mother had her days off, right?
	If she's working, let's say that she's working from 9 in the morning until you said she'd come home at 10, so maybe 8 at night, right?
	So it's 11 hours, right?
	Which means in 4 days she's working 44 hours.
	And again, I don't know what the rules are.
	Let's say she works 5 days, 55 hours, right?
	Then she's got 2 days off, right?
	She would usually clean...
	And go out with the dogs.
	So she had children at home, she worked a lot, and then she'd go out with the dogs.
	Yeah, and we would talk a little bit.
	Right. Right. Do you remember a lot of times or any time where she would go out one-on-one with you and ask you how you're doing and what's going on?
	Yeah, I think it happened a few times.
	A few times in your childhood?
	Yes. When does childhood end?
	Well, you know, legally at 18.
	Okay. Yeah.
	So a couple of times in 18 years, you had some time with your mom, one-on-one.
	Yes, the ones I can remember.
	Oh, you'd remember. Because it would be unusual, right?
	And it would be something you wanted, right?
	Like, I mean, you lied your dad out of the house because you wanted more time with your mom.
	So any time you get with your mom, you're going to remember, right?
	Yeah. So...
	Why did it take the school calling for you to get the medical care you desperately needed?
	She's a nurse!
	Come on. That's incredible.
	It'd be like me saying, oh yeah, no, my dad was a dentist, but my teeth were terrible.
	She had no excuse.
	She could have taken you to work.
	Oh yeah, that happened quite a few times.
	No, no, but in terms of getting the healthcare you needed, she worked in a hospital!
	I think she worked with old people.
	Okay, are you really going to quibble with me on this?
	Sorry. Thank you.
	She worked in healthcare.
	You think she can't get you to a doctor?
	What was going on with that?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, you do. Do I? Yeah, you do.
	You absolutely do.
	And you already used the phrase earlier called self-hatred.
	Well, at some point, my mom asked me not to get depressed, so I told her, just give me a computer and I'll be fine.
	Your mom asked you not to get depressed?
	What do you mean? I mean, I know what the words mean, but what the hell is the context for that?
	No, it was just my...
	My sister was having some trouble, and...
	We've...
	Both have been having a lot of trouble, I guess.
	No, as a kid though, how old were you?
	You said you were 11 when you got your computer?
	Yeah. Because 7 to 10 were the PlayStation years, right?
	And then you got a computer with World of Warcraft when you were 11, right?
	Yes. Man, that digital crack has been around for a long time, hasn't it?
	Yes, it has. Pixel junk.
	Yeah, okay. Okay, so why was your mom saying don't get depressed?
	Were you getting depressed? I assume you were, right?
	Well, there was lots of instant gratification from the game that I could get to just distract myself from, you know, actually... You know, wanting to desperately solve a problem within the family.
	Okay. Were you depressed?
	Why did your mother say don't get depressed?
	I don't know the definition of depression.
	I mean, I was working out.
	I had hopes of getting out of that house.
	Wait, what age? I was working out.
	Yeah. Yeah, pretty much since...
	I mean... From 11 to about 14, I guess it was just being inside.
	Okay, sorry. We're getting lost here.
	Okay, we're getting lost. So, you got your computer when you were 11, and you said to your mom, if you don't want me to be depressed, get me a computer, right?
	Well, during that...
	11 to 14, problems with food.
	Getting food into...
	You know, the routines.
	So I was still gaining weight and I was still nauseous.
	I was dealing with healing from gluten damage, you know.
	Okay, so hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I'm losing the timeline here.
	Okay. What age were you when you got diagnosed with the gluten intolerance and the celiac?
	About nine. Okay.
	So then you're saying...
	It takes a while. No, I get it.
	But by the age of 14...
	Okay, so you get diagnosed at the age of nine or something like that, right?
	So what happens...
	Hang on. So what happens with your diet, right?
	Because now it's like, okay, I can't eat this stuff.
	So are you still having problems with your diet into your early teens?
	Yes. Why?
	Why? Why?
	I hated the food.
	No, because your mom didn't make the right food.
	Yeah, she's always made food which has been right for her.
	And that's been like tofu and greens and I've never really liked it.
	So, from about that age, I told her not to cook for me anymore and that I would cook for myself.
	Wait, what age? What age? 10, 11.
	Okay, so at the age of 10, your mother, knowing that you have a serious illness or ailment, is not cooking in a way that deals with the problem.
	Well, I think she was mostly gluten-free as well and lactose-free, but it's just that I didn't want to eat it.
	Well, yeah, I understand that.
	So she has to adjust her cooking until she finds something that you would like.
	Yeah, that didn't happen.
	I simply told her not to.
	So that's called hatred.
	Oh. Yeah, that's called hatred.
	From my part or?
	No, no, no, from her part. It's inconvenient for me to cook you food that might keep you alive and prevent further damage to your digestive system, right?
	Yeah, well, she's had a messed up digestive system as well.
	I'm not interested in excuses to her.
	Okay. In fact, well, that makes it even worse, right?
	Because then she knows how difficult it is, right?
	So then you say to her at the age of 10, no, I'll cook for myself.
	Right? Now, that's a warning to any parent to say, hey, I'm not doing the right thing here.
	Something's going wrong here. My 10-year-old should not be responsible for cooking complicated meals to deal with a serious medical issue.
	Let's say you were diabetic.
	Are you supposed to brew up your own goddamn insulin, too?
	Yeah, well, that's the way it's been.
	Right. Now, maybe that's just supremely narcissistic selfishness.
	I don't know. But she puts you in danger, right?
	She's a nurse, so she knows human health, right?
	And it's a school that has to say to her, get your kid to a doctor.
	She's real thin and she's tired.
	She lets you stay home half the time from school.
	This is abysmal parenting.
	Well, I'm glad she let me say I'm from school.
	It was painful as hell to be in school.
	Well, that's a binary proposition in a multivariate universe.
	Yeah. There's other options.
	Like get you the medical help you need.
	And then cook so you eat.
	Yeah. Yeah. So you were an inconvenience to your mother, right?
	I suppose. Well, no, listen, don't let me tell you your experience.
	Tell me if I'm wrong. Well, I certainly felt like I had to be just in my room, and that's where I'm going to be, you know.
	Right. You were a prisoner of narcissism.
	I'm just using that term colloquially, but you are a prisoner of selfishness.
	I cannot impose.
	I cannot be troubled. I cannot be bothered.
	My mother is so stressed.
	She's so busy. Her life's hanging by a thread.
	She's got so much debt. I cannot impose any more problems on my mother.
	You understand a fucking ghost would get more attention in that kind of household.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	My mom was constantly putting out the information that one more thing and she was going to snap.
	Thank you.
	So my mom, she'd turn on the light.
	Occasionally, you know, these were crappy old 70s lights produced in socialist Britain.
	So occasionally the light would just bang and then it would go out, right?
	And my mom would literally completely fall apart.
	She'd scream, oh, nothing ever works in this life.
	And it would just be like, she'd be like, she'd spraying out these giant warning signs of like, don't stress me!
	Yeah, I don't remember ever feeling like that with my mom.
	I mean, there was definitely...
	Don't stress me.
	But that was more because I wouldn't get a reaction anyway.
	What do you mean? I think I understand what you mean.
	I just want to be clear. Yeah.
	Like, if I would say something.
	I don't know. It just...
	I wouldn't get anything back.
	I don't know. You mean you'd complain or you'd be unhappy or you'd have a problem and your mama would just shrug?
	What do you mean? It doesn't feel right when I say that.
	That's why I'm holding back.
	I'm happy to be patient until I understand.
	Again, I don't want to impose.
	I want to genuinely find out what your experience was.
	Yeah. Was it like a thousand yard stare?
	Or like, I'll get to it and she never would?
	Or what? I mean, very blank answers.
	Oh, that's too bad kind of thing?
	Or, oh, that's tough? Basically.
	But I don't know.
	It must have been...
	I just learned not to complain too much.
	I guess. Right.
	Now, that's interesting, the word complain, right?
	Because generally, complain, well, it has the implication that it's not a real issue, right?
	Yeah. But you had real issues.
	I mean, you had real healthcare issues.
	Yeah, that's true.
	Yeah, you had absent father issues.
	You had a mom who was working all the time issues.
	You had 50% absenteeism from school issues.
	You had video game addiction issues.
	You had depression, perhaps.
	Like, you had some real, real issues.
	This isn't someone who's saying, like, oh, I feel kind of unmotivated for no particular reason or whatever.
	I have somebody who's pretending to have a bad back so they don't have to help you move, right?
	That was the real stuff. This was life-threatening stuff.
	You weren't getting enough nutrition to the point where you couldn't even go to school.
	You were starving in your own skin and getting physical damage from celiac.
	This could have gone, I don't know, full Crohn's?
	I don't know, right? I mean, who knows, right?
	Yeah.
	You were not getting even minimum standards of care from your mother.
	And it was dangerous as hell.
	Yeah, I remember my mom did tell me that it was a dangerous period and it was really good that we sorted it out.
	Well, but she didn't really, because you ended up having to cook for yourself at the age of 10.
	Well, I asked her to...
	Well, of course you did, because she wasn't feeding you food that you could eat.
	Or would. Which is kind of the same thing, right?
	You know, technically you can eat maggots, right?
	If somebody puts a bowl of maggots in front of you, they might as well have put an empty bowl there, right?
	Yeah, I don't think I could eat that unless I... No, but you understand, right?
	Yeah, I know. Theoretically, it could be safe to drink out of the toilet, but it's a hard part, right?
	Yeah. So, let me ask you this.
	Let's suppose that your daughter complains of being gassy and feeling nauseous and uncomfortable digestion, At some point in the future.
	How long would you take to deal with it?
	As I feel, immediately I would use Google and go through everything.
	I already do.
	Well, start page, but yeah, I know what you mean.
	But you would not let the sun set before dealing with that as an issue, right?
	No. And yours went on for year after year after year to one degree or another, right?
	Yeah. So your mother was, in my view, this is just my amateur opinion, criminally negligent.
	You know, you starve a dog, you can go to jail for animal cruelty, right?
	But you don't provide fit food for your child.
	That is criminal negligence in my opinion.
	And don't you dare take that log on yourself.
	I'm going to go off.
	I don't know. Yeah, you do.
	I don't know how else to do it.
	Are you a good mom? I want to be a good mom.
	What's wrong with your motherhood?
	Or your mothering? Do you mean the way I... No, the way you are.
	So your daughter is 18 months, right?
	Yes. Okay, so how would you like to improve your mothering if you could?
	I mean, I think about her all the time.
	And the more I listen...
	I need to take care of myself better so I have the energy to keep up.
	Right. That's good. What else?
	Do you hit her? No.
	Good. Do you scream at her?
	It's... It's happened a few times.
	No, not it's happened.
	Don't overbones me.
	You made that choice, right?
	It didn't just happen.
	You screamed at her, right?
	A couple of times, right? I mean, when she does something that can be dangerous.
	No, that's on you. That's not on her.
	It's your job to keep her safe.
	It's not her job to stay safe.
	She's 18 months old.
	Okay. What's she done that's dangerous?
	Well, she almost ate a poisonous plant once.
	And why does she have access to a poisonous plant?
	Why is a poisonous plant where she can reach it?
	We were outside and we were taking a walk.
	Okay. But that's not her fault, right?
	Yeah, we were eating at the moment.
	But why is she eating plants?
	No, she wasn't eating them.
	She was about to. I just wanted to make sure that she understood.
	Okay, but...
	Okay, that's not the end of the world.
	I understand. But you would...
	Don't take her places where she could eat poisonous plants.
	That's all. Yeah.
	Until she's older, right? Come on.
	Yeah, it was just in a place where there was no...
	Yeah, look, it's not the end of the world.
	This is not going to scar your daughter permanently.
	But you're committed to not yelling, right?
	Yeah. Okay, so you're committed to not yelling.
	You don't hear. You panicked one time.
	You yelled at her. Listen, that's fine.
	That's not the end of the world. So you're a good mom, right?
	I hope so, yeah.
	Sounds like it. I can't get my mind off of her.
	Well, of course you can't, because children are death magnets at that age.
	You can't take your eyes off them for a moment.
	We're not parents. We're stalkers.
	Stalking our children all the time.
	My daughter is 10, and it's only beginning to go down a little bit now.
	Yeah. Welcome to the next eight and a half years where you're obsessing about your children.
	I remember a mom I read about years ago.
	She said, it's kind of like a dimmer switch.
	You can turn it down, but you can't turn it off.
	And has she got a good dad?
	Yeah. I believe so.
	Okay. So you're way ahead of your mom, right?
	I mean, I'm the youngest.
	I don't know how she was when...
	Yeah, you do. We were toddlers.
	Yeah, you do. Yeah, you do. Because she was the same.
	Because most people don't change.
	Most people... And in fact, most people who are dysfunctional are more dysfunctional when they're young than when they're older.
	I mean, outside of stuff like schizophrenia or whatever.
	But I mean, in terms of things like borderline or...
	Like, they mellow out when they get older.
	But they're really crazy when they're younger.
	And then they mellow out when they get older.
	Occasionally, it goes the other way.
	I mean, my mom was more sane when she was younger.
	And then less sane later.
	But... But she also, I mean, I think part of the reason my mom went more crazy is because I wouldn't let her beat me anymore, right?
	Once I got big enough, I'm like, you know, you do that again and you're going through the window.
	And so then her bullying collapsed inwards and she attacked herself.
	And, you know, again, I'm not putting you in that category anywhere within a million miles of all of that.
	But, yeah, your mom was not a saint when she was younger and then a sinner when she got older.
	It's just life.
	That's the way she was.
	So if you were parenting like your mom parented, how would you feel?
	If you were to say to your daughter mommy's got to go for 10 hours a day But here's a stranger in a tablet.
	What would you think?
	No, I wouldn't feel good.
	Right. So the better you parent, the more you're going to be conflicted internally, right?
	This is the price you pay for improving intergenerationally, right?
	So the better you parent, the more angry your inner mom is going to get.
	Yeah. And that's what I mean when I say the log has to land somewhere.
	And this is the battle, right?
	The battle is I want to do better than my mom.
	And then your mom, whether internally or externally, whether consciously or unconsciously, is like, well, I'm going to sabotage that now, aren't I? I'm going to tear you apart if you try and do better than me, because if you do better than me, I feel bad.
	And because I'm selfish, I don't want to feel bad, and I'd rather you feel bad than me.
	I... I can't remember ever wanting to feel that way.
	Good. That's why you're able to improve.
	So you have an inner mom who's angry and feels implicitly criticized because you're a good mom.
	And you're angry at your mother because as you become...
	Listen, is it really that hard to be a good parent?
	I mean, compared to like climbing Mount Everest.
	Well, I think a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	But I mean, is it like climbing Mount Everest or learning how to speak Mandarin fluently?
	I mean, is it really that hard?
	Well, when I go into my modes of self, you know, I don't know what to call it.
	When you dissociate or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Like the inner mom takes over or whatever, right?
	Yeah. Like, whenever my daughter comes up to me and she's happy, I can never be unhappy.
	Right. But, you know, the moments when she's, you know, she was sick recently and she was just crying and crying and crying and I couldn't help crying myself.
	And it's just, you know, how are you supposed to be a good, comforting mother when you get no energy yourself?
	You know, you haven't eaten yourself, you haven't Drank properly.
	I don't know. You don't even take care of yourself anymore.
	Right. Hips are falling together when you lie down.
	It's just because you don't work out anymore.
	You know, it's just you lose joints, you know, because you don't work out enough.
	Oh, right. You know, just everything is uncomfortable and twitching.
	Yeah, but that lack of self-care comes directly out of your mom.
	So that lack of self-care, in my view, is when your mom's taken over in your head.
	And you've got to fight that.
	You've got to fight that. Listen, your inner mom was there to help and protect you by alerting you to the dysfunctions in your mom so that things wouldn't escalate.
	So your inner mom is your friend.
	It's your helper. It's your protector.
	But the difference is that you have to tell your inner mom, no, no, no, no, no, we've grown up now.
	No, we're now a mom.
	We're not a kid anymore. Like, you need to adjust.
	You need to grow. You need to help me out because my mom isn't in the house anymore.
	Right? So if you fall into a lion cage, you want to be hypervigilant and get out as quickly as possible, right?
	But you don't want to get that feeling when you're at a restaurant for dinner because there aren't any lions around.
	At least you hope not, right?
	So when the danger is past...
	The sentry needs to put down as weapons, right?
	Otherwise, it's not helpful.
	And so we're kind of not designed for the kind of lives that we have now.
	So if you grew up in a dysfunctional tribe in history, and all the tribes were dysfunctional, I talked about this in my Australia trip, so when you grew up in a dysfunctional tribe, you never grew up.
	You never got to leave it, right?
	So your mom would always be around, and the tribe would always be around, and the standards and the dysfunction and the mess would always be around.
	Now, like for probably the first time in human history, we have a chance to escape the dysfunction of our tribe.
	But our inner alter egos, they don't really know that that's the case yet, that we can get free because they were never designed for this kind of mobility and option and choice and freedom.
	Because the only people who left the tribe were the dead or the ostracized in the past.
	So you couldn't ever escape this dysfunction.
	So the inner alter egos that we internalize from our parents They're not designed to fall away like the rocket stage or whatever it is, right?
	They're designed to stay with us our whole lives because we couldn't change our tribes.
	But now we can change our tribes.
	And we have to really remind our inner alter egos that, no, no, mom's not living with us, right?
	I'm not in that environment anymore.
	So, you know, thank you for your service.
	I hugely appreciate it.
	You kept me alive.
	Thank you, thank you, thank you.
	But, you know, the hypervigilance thing is draining us now.
	It saved us in the past, and I thank you for that, but it's costing us now.
	Because if I'm hypervigilant, I can't be as connected with my daughter, and I want to be connected with my daughter, so you're going to have to lay down your arms, and we're going to have to find something else for you to do.
	Like maybe you can jump up when mom comes over, but other times not so much, right?
	Because you don't have a mom who's in control of your health that you need to guard against or protect yourself from or you're free.
	But, you know, like your father, a Vietnam vet, probably didn't figure out that he was free.
	Because in history, our fights tended to be savage but short.
	Human beings are not designed for years of combat.
	Right? Which is why you'd either win the battle, which would take a day or two, Or you die.
	But we weren't designed to sit in a rice paddy for three years being shot at.
	Like, that's not what human beings are designed for.
	It's just why war is such hell these days.
	Because it's not what our whole system...
	It's like running from a bear for three years straight.
	I mean, it's not what we're designed for.
	You either run and get away or you get eaten.
	But it doesn't just go on and on and on, right?
	And so... The self-hatred is a way of protecting your mother and protecting your bond with your mother, but it's time to shift that lock onto her.
	She was responsible for the dysfunctions that you experienced as a child.
	She was also, to some degree, although the primary responsibility is the men who were sexually untoward towards you as a child, but she has some causality in it, in that if you'd had a father around and you had a strong relationship and you were protected, And you were connected.
	These guys wouldn't have preyed upon you.
	Because you'd have gone to your mom and dad.
	You said, oh my god, this guy did this.
	They'd have called the police and he would have gone to jail, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I think the one at nine years old was kind of unavoidable.
	That was kind of completely out of nowhere from another student.
	So... You still call the cops, don't you?
	I told my mom not to.
	Why? She said that we should.
	Yeah, but so you were nine.
	Why on earth would you listen to a nine-year-old about what should be done legally?
	That's the adult's decision.
	And you call the cops so that the family can be investigated and find out where the hell this student got this behavior from.
	It's doubtless that the student was being molested and the source needs to be found and dealt with, right?
	Yeah, it probably should.
	So I hope you're not blaming yourself for that because you could say as a nine-year-old, oh, I don't want to cause any trouble and I don't want problems at school.
	It's like, I'm sorry about that, but, you know, we got lots of considerations in your social life.
	Yeah, I remember feeling incredibly embarrassed and it was just this disgusting feeling.
	And what did he do?
	I can't recall if you don't...
	No, he was just touching me down there.
	He went under the table and went...
	Just forcibly trying to touch me down there.
	Right. So, I mean, your mom should have gone directly to the cops, right?
	And the cop should have interviewed that kid and said, where did you learn this behavior?
	And he would have said, oh, Uncle so-and-so, or my dad, or my mom, or whatever, and he would deal with that, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that should have happened.
	That should have happened, but your mom didn't do it.
	Did not protect you. And did not protect other children from him.
	I mean, who knows what the hell else he did, or has done since, right?
	Yeah.
	So, the lack of self-care, the self-hatred, in my view, comes directly from your childhood.
	And it was not your fault.
	It was a necessary adaptation to an incredibly difficult environment, a dangerous environment, with starvation and sexual predation and a lack of care.
	And don't take any of it on as you.
	You're not responsible for it.
	You did not choose where you were going to be born.
	You are not responsible for the personality of your mother, however much she might have made you want to feel that way.
	You're not responsible.
	You're not responsible for your parents' moral choices.
	You're responsible for your choices as an adult.
	But your parents are perfectly capable of being assholes Without you causing it at all.
	And you just kind of have to navigate and survive that situation.
	But you're not in it anymore.
	You're home from the war.
	So relax and enjoy your liberty.
	And don't let the shadows of last night's sunset blind you to the glory of your current sunrise where you have a good relationship with your daughter, you have a good father for your child, you're a good mother.
	You've earned it.
	Remember you said, I don't know if I've earned good self-regard?
	Now we've had this conversation, what do you think?
	I, uh...
	Well...
	I... I still feel like there's...
	There's many things I don't understand.
	That's not an answer.
	By a reasonable standard of morality, have you earned some positive self-regard?
	I... I...
	I don't know.
	Okay, that's an honest answer.
	So by what standard of morality have you fallen short?
	In other words, what behavior that you're capable of would you have to have changed to have any chance at self-regard, at positive self-regard?
	One that can inspire others.
	One that can inspire others.
	I'm not sure what you mean by that.
	It's not enough to have chosen a good father, despite the fact that your mother chose two terrible fathers.
	It's not enough that you're a good mother though your mother was a bad mother.
	It's not enough that you've got a good relationship with your daughter.
	It's not enough that you don't hit.
	It's not enough that you don't yell.
	It's not enough that you are constantly thinking about your daughter where your mother seems to have spared very little thought for her own children.
	So none of that is enough for you to have positive self-regard and now you've got to be what?
	Anthony Robbins or like you've got to be globally inspiring?
	Just tell me by what reasonable standard at your age, which is young, you have not earned positive self-regard.
	I'm just, by what standard are you measuring yourself?
	I don't know.
	I've been very friendless.
	Forget all of that.
	That's not a moral issue, right?
	So you don't know by what standard you are withholding from yourself positive regard, right?
	No, this is good.
	No, this is huge progress, right?
	Listen, let's suppose that I say, hey, send me 500 bucks, I'll send you an iPad, right?
	And you say, send me the iPad first, right?
	I don't send you the iPad, and then somebody says, well, why didn't you send Steph the 500 bucks?
	What would you say? Because he didn't send me the iPad, right?
	Hang on, hang on. Because he didn't send me the iPad, right?
	So you would know by what standard you were withholding the $500 from me because I didn't send you the iPad, right?
	But if you don't know why you haven't paid me, that's progress.
	It means that maybe I should get paid.
	So if you don't know why you're withholding positive self-regard from yourself, that's progress.
	Because it at least opens up the possibility that you might be withholding positive self-regard from yourself unjustly.
	In other words, to be an honorable man, to be an honorable woman, you pay the debts you owe, right?
	And if you have earned positive self-regard and you don't pay it, that's a dishonorable action.
	If you withhold positive self-regard from yourself when you have in fact earned it, you're stealing from yourself.
	You're ripping yourself off. It's unjust.
	It's like if somebody does send you the iPad, you have to send them the $500, right?
	Otherwise, you're stealing $500.
	And if you have earned positive self-regard, you don't pay yourself, you're a thief.
	And that's why I'm asking, by what standard would you be withholding positive self-regard?
	And you don't know. Which means you may be stealing from yourself.
	You may be a thief of self-respect that you have damn well earned.
	And by that I mean your mother in your head is withholding this from you because if you give yourself positive self-regard you will end up disliking her for a time.
	Because if you say me being a good mother means that I can love myself and should love myself then I cannot love my mother who was a bad mother.
	Because we cannot love a thing and it's opposite at the same time.
	That's like saying my favorite food and a food I hate the most are equally tasty to me.
	It's a logical kind of...
	You cannot love yourself for being a good mother and love your mother for being a bad mother at the same time.
	And that's what's tearing you up.
	If you love yourself for being a good mother, you cannot simultaneously love your mother for being a bad mother.
	We cannot split ourselves to that degree.
	Do you guys see what I mean?
	And your mother does not want you to love yourself for being a good mother, because then you will dislike her for being a bad mother, at least for a time.
	And she does not want that feeling because it is very inconvenient to her and it goes against her selfish and narcissistic self-regard.
	Because if she had really processed what she had done to you or not done for you, she would be on her knees in your driveway facing the gravel begging your forgiveness.
	She doesn't want to do that.
	So you better not, in her mind, like being a good mother.
	Because she knows where that's going to lead in your regard for her.
	And I'm saying, be fair.
	Be just. Be honest.
	Don't steal from people. And don't steal earned self-respect from yourself.
	In order to pay...
	For the selfishness of a bad mother and a bad person.
	Do not steal from the honorable in order to subsidize the cruel, the selfish, the vindictive, the dishonorable.
	Do not steal from the good to subsidize the bad, and do not steal from your own good mothering and the respect it should engender within you in order to pay the bottomless selfish debt of your mother's emotional greed for the unearned.
	pay yourself you've bloody well earned it and your daughter deserves a mother who loves herself Even if you don't want to do it just for yourself, do it for your daughter, because she needs to see that virtue is its own reward.
	You don't want her to get the impression that good people still hate themselves.
	What possible sales job is that going to do for virtue for her, right?
	A healthy person you see, my daughter, wakes up in the morning and punches themselves in the face.
	For not being perfect, whatever that means.
	You don't want that message to go to your daughter, right?
	You want to say to your daughter, I think, yeah.
	Mom was raised by a very cruel mom who was criminally negligent.
	I barely survived.
	I made it through. I'm damn proud.
	And I'm a good mom. And you can thump your own chest if you want a little too.
	Sorry, you were going to say? No, I was just going to say that I will prove in any way that she is worthy.
	No! You are worthy!
	I don't know. No one will.
	You are worthy.
	You can't prove that she's worthy if you don't accept that you're worthy.
	I only know what I see through my eyes.
	I know that...
	How do you know they're your eyes?
	How do they know your eyes?
	We're full of other people.
	To me... We are a walking graveyard and mausoleum.
	We've got wax figurines jangling in our insides like wind chimes every time we move.
	We're full of people. You think your father's dead?
	He's not. He's in you.
	Everyone we've ever met is alive within us.
	We are a multitude.
	It takes a village.
	We are a village, right?
	So how do you know that they're all your eyes?
	You grew up with a woman looking at you with, I think, coldness and contempt and withholding what you justly deserved.
	Mother's love, care, attention, medical care, food.
	So how do you know when you're withholding things from yourself that it's just your eyes?
	Oh, it's just you.
	How do you know that?
	You think my mom doesn't want me to scream at my daughter?
	Of course she does.
	Because if I, with my childhood, can never scream at my daughter, what does that say about my mom?
	It means she made a choice.
	And a lot of bad choices.
	If I make better choices, think my mom's happy with that in my head?
	Of course not. But fuck the past.
	Fuck the people who made bad decisions.
	Fuck them. They made their shitty decisions.
	Let them live with them. It doesn't mean I or you have to look at ourselves that way.
	So my mom screamed in the middle of the night when I was five years old, I fucking hate these kids.
	Well, that's her mess.
	It's not about me. I was a great kid.
	I'm a great adult. The fact that she was screaming, I mean, do you think it has anything to do with me?
	me.
	I was five years old.
	She didn't hate me.
	Did that really happen?
	Yeah. Oh, God.
	My mother expressed visceral hatred for me.
	Directly, openly. Like a sandblast furnace to my face.
	You think that had anything to do with me?
	It didn't have anything to do with me.
	I was a nice kid.
	I was a funny kid. I was a great kid.
	It didn't have anything to do with me.
	And your mother's indifference to you?
	And your mother's lack of care for you?
	It didn't have anything to do with you.
	My mother wasn't hitting me.
	I didn't even exist to her as a person see that's how you get the log after log It can't fall on you when you're a child because you weren't even there for your mother.
	You were just something to be managed.
	Just some two-legged thing to be placated, managed, and fed, and ignored.
	You weren't there.
	It's not hard for me to escape my childhood.
	I was never even there for my mom.
	Because if I was there, she couldn't have done what she did to me.
	I wasn't even there, like I said earlier, like a ghost.
	I wasn't even there like a ghost was there, because if people would notice a ghost, they'd run from a ghost, they'd get a priest in, they'd whatever, right?
	They'd write short, creepy pastors on the internet about their ghost.
	We weren't even ghosts.
	We just, we weren't there.
	there.
	So why, you know, why would you take the bad opinion of someone who didn't even notice you?
	you?
	Why would you take the bad opinion of someone who doesn't even know you?
	My mother knows less about me than people who read my Twitter feed.
	Why would you care about the opinion of someone who ignored you?
	I understand as a kid, right, you had to fake it, but I mean, you're not a kid anymore.
	And you don't even have a mother.
	You have a grandmother, so to speak.
	What's your relationship like with her now?
	Well...
	Um...
	I would say...
	I don't even know.
	Go talk to her in my suggestion.
	My suggestion is go talk to her.
	She got a legacy of self-hatred.
	A lot of it has to do with her parenting.
	In fact, 100% of it, the parents are 100% responsible for the environment of the child.
	So, go talk to her.
	If you like, if it's safe, right?
	I mean, if you think it would be helpful, I think it would be.
	Just go talk to her and say, look, I'm wrestling with all this stuff.
	I got these issues, these problems I got.
	We all have like 10,000 questions about our childhoods and our upbringings.
	We have so many questions. And our parents owe us a response.
	They owe us answers.
	And what would happen if you went to talk to her about these things?
	I don't know.
	Yes, you do. You got rubber bones, me young lady.
	Yes, you do.
	Because there's a reason you're talking to me and not to her.
	her.
	I mean, I know what would happen.
	You'd be inconvenient again.
	Okay.
	And if there's one thing we know, it's how the dear lady handles inconvenience.
	Deny fog, counterattack.
	In fact, she'd probably be like you were in the first five minutes of our conversation.
	It's something to think about.
	You know, whether you do it or not, I mean, I always recommend it if it's safe, but it's something to think about.
	There's nothing more liberating than talking to a dysfunctional parent with the freedom and certainty of adulthood.
	Get to see how they are when they don't have power over you.
	And how are you feeling now?
	I...
	I...
	I don't feel very...
	well.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Why's that, do you think? I don't know.
	I'm more and more unsure of myself.
	I... I... I... I...
	I... I... I... I... I... I... I...
	Well, we have been talking for a long time.
	I guess the first thing I want to make sure is that you're not feeling anything sort of dangerous to yourself or destabilized in any sort of fundamental way.
	way.
	I just wanted to double check on that.
	And it's always tough because we don't have video, so I kind of have to tea leaf read from breathing sound sometimes.
	So, But is that right?
	You feel, I mean, certainly you feel discombobulated, I suppose, or confused, but you don't feel dangerous to yourself or anything like that?
	No. And is your boyfriend, husband, father of your children, is he home?
	Yes, he just brought me tea.
	Oh, good. Well, say hi to him for me.
	So good. You have someone there you can chat with or anything like that.
	Because I know we've been talking for a long time and this can be tiring stuff.
	Is there something that you wanted to mention that's at the top of your mind?
	I know that...
	I mean, I told you before in the start of the conversation that I wanted to write down something specific which would be important for me to say.
	If... For this conversation and, you know, what I wanted to say there was basically that I really don't find myself that interesting and that's the reason that my first two emails, but at the same time that the way I work today is just that I want to work for hope and for,
	I don't know, you know, I'm treating my daughter well because I want her to treat others well when she grows up.
	And, you know, I do everything for a reason and I keep looking for them and it feels like no one in the entire world cares about that anymore.
	Nobody cares about making the world a better place, even if it's just being kind to the person that you brought onto this planet.
	And, you know, when you were talking, you made me realize that maybe the reason I don't trust myself is because of You know, my mother, you know, the way I was treated when I was young, but how is that going to practically help me today?
	You mean having that knowledge?
	Yes. What should I do about it?
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	But what if you genuinely believed that you were interesting?
	I do believe I have a lot to come with, that I am interesting, but it feels like it's not interesting to anyone else.
	Okay, what's your theory about why I do what I do?
	Why am I on the phone with you for like two and a half hours?
	Sweating bullets and working my mojo, whatever it is that I do, right?
	What's your theory as to why I have the ability and the desire to do this?
	The reason I wanted to talk to you is because I think, I believe you see it the same way I do, that you want to make this world a better place and you have a wonderful daughter and you have a wonderful wife and, you know, because your family unit is already complete, you can start expanding that and Well, no, I was doing this before I was a father.
	I started this in 2005.
	I didn't become a father until 2008.
	Yeah? Yeah.
	I guess some...
	Yeah, I didn't mean that that was the reason, but...
	No, I'm just nagging you on the timeline.
	That's no biggie.
	No biggie. Yeah. Well, I just...
	I just feel like I have so much to give when it comes to...
	Like I said before in my messaging that I've made my...
	I've improved the life of my boyfriend and that sounds really high of myself, but you know, I come with different perspectives.
	Listen, by God, I hope you improved his life.
	Why on earth would he be with you if you didn't?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Like, I want to grow with him.
	You know, I chose him and None of us were perfect when we got together.
	In fact, I'm still struggling with so much.
	I feel demotivated so often.
	Oh, I'm so angry just thinking about it.
	But that's not going to change.
	Like, I mean, there's no magical plateau.
	So I push hard and I expand what it is that I do.
	And then, oh, oh, oh, look at that.
	I've just been lied about again.
	Someone just said something false about me again.
	And, oh, I've been pushed down on YouTube and no longer showing up in recommendations.
	So, listen, there's no magical place other than the grave where you're like, well, I'm all done and there's no more struggles and there's no more challenges.
	That's life. Yeah, but I silence myself so often in all the situations where I could have gotten friends.
	I end up, like with you when we started, I just build up this pathetic box and I end up charming nobody.
	Why did you use the word pathetic?
	Why did you use the term pathetic?
	That's very disrespectful to yourself.
	It is. Would you like it if someone called your daughter pathetic?
	Never. Right.
	Why are you calling yourself that?
	Be careful of the language you use.
	You think you have to be careful about the food you put into your body?
	Be extremely careful about the language you use about yourself.
	Do not use language against yourself that you wouldn't use against others.
	You are a young woman who...
	I feel like I deserve it from...
	I get it.
	I get it. I get it.
	What should I do?
	I get it. First of all, you are being a good mother, which is a hell of an action.
	You have the love of a good man, you say, which I believe that's a hell of a good action.
	I believe you have great gifts to bring to the world, but you're not ready yet.
	And listen, I already started doing this stuff when I was in my, what, late 30s?
	You got some time!
	You got some time, right?
	There's a hurry of youth, which I understand.
	But you have to...
	I think you are withholding the self-respect that you've earned.
	As I said before, I think you're doing that to appease your mom.
	I think you've earned it.
	And I think you're giving yourself a mirage.
	Out there in the future, I will do something where I will finally be able to earn my self-respect.
	But if you're not paying yourself now, you sure as hell ain't going to pay yourself in the future either.
	Like, one of the most stupidest things is that I want to help the world through getting good children who can then help.
	Like, you know, if my daughter gets a boyfriend when she gets older, you know, or friends even, you know, she can help them the way I helped him, you know, because I show her how to help.
	But that's like, I don't know, maybe 16 years or more, and it's just...
	I'm so impatient.
	No, but there's something you can do right now that's much more powerful than what your daughter can do in 16 years.
	I have no idea what that is.
	Well, you've been really expert at not listening to me then.
	Oh, I don't.
	I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
	Except not really.
	No, because what have I been insisting that you do with regards to yourself?
	your honorable behaviors in the present?
	Like, I struggle with this...
	Everyone says I'm doing a good job, but I just...
	I just feel like I could do so much better.
	That's the thing. I... Compared to what?
	Compared to who? That's a good question.
	It really is. You know, I'm really short relative to a giraffe.
	I'm totally short.
	You know, I'm going to die very young relative to a tortoise.
	Compared to who? That's the thing.
	I think really hard.
	I'm a mega deep thinker.
	I just... I just think I lack a platform where I dare to say things and have...
	You know, like the thing you just said about the tortoise and the giraffe, it just makes me think about all sorts of different perspectives.
	Okay, put a break on this thought and let me just ask you one last question, okay?
	What was the thing you said...
	about your father and his ambitions?
	Um, I never heard any of them myself.
	He had big dreams for the world!
	Yeah. You understand?
	Yeah. Why are you trying to live out your father's fantasies?
	Don't you see where that led him?
	Well, I... I've been at it before I knew it.
	My mom told me later.
	You've been at it before you knew it?
	Yes, I've been at it.
	Could you be more obscure?
	What does that mean?
	I've been up before I was down, yet sideways remains a conundrum.
	Thank you.
	Very clear.
	My mom says there's a lot of things, or my mom has been saying that things or my mom has been saying that things are very similar between us.
	Between you and your dad? What?
	Between you and your father? Yes.
	Why on earth has she been telling you that?
	You had very little influence from your father.
	Yes. Oh, I know why.
	I know why. I know why.
	Oh, she's good.
	Oh, I wish she was on this call.
	Oh, she's so good.
	She's so good.
	Do you know why she's comparing you to your father?
	No. Do you know why she's identifying you with your father?
	so that you don't see the scar tissue she inflicted on you.
	Because who had more influence over you?
	Your father was only around for a short amount of time, you got him out of the house, and he died.
	Your mother, well, almost a quarter century, right?
	Well, I never saw it as something negative.
	Okay, let me ask you this then.
	Has she talked about any of the personality traits in you that she may have some agency with?
	I bet she hasn't.
	Yeah, I just can't remember specifically what that was.
	No, no, of course she hasn't. No, she's noticing that you're waking up to some dysfunction in the family and she's like, it's dad!
	It's your dad! You're like him!
	It's nothing to do with me!
	It's your dad! He's the one!
	No, no, she's already getting a scapegoat ready.
	ready so setting up a full guy right that way if you have issues with yourself you can say well i am a lot like my dad and you skate right over your mom right right She's good. Oh, she's good.
	Oh, man. You've got a world-class manipulator there.
	Because if she's going to talk about parental influences, she should be talking about herself, right?
	Because she's by far... The greater parental influence.
	But if she's talking about your dad, well, he's dead.
	He can't defend himself. And that way you get distracted by thinking about you and your dad rather than focusing on the real issue, which is you and your mom.
	I mean, I agree that there are some, maybe some things that I should focus on more, but I have been thinking a lot of other theories, which I Okay, no, no, abstracting.
	You're abstracting again. Every time I get close to your mom and responsibility, you get all interstellar on me.
	Well, what would you like me to do?
	Oh, now you're getting rubber bones.
	No, listen, just look at it logically, which I'm not saying you're not, but logically, if your mother had, as a topic of conversation, parental influence, why would she be talking about your dad exclusively?
	She's not. She has mentioned herself.
	Because earlier you said you couldn't remember a time when she had done that.
	Yes, I could remember.
	I just couldn't remember specifically what that was.
	All right. Has she mentioned anything negative that she did, which she has apologized for, that is still a source of difficulty for you?
	No. No.
	Okay. I don't think so.
	You would remember that. Okay.
	So this is what I mean in terms of compared yourself to, right?
	The one thing which she compared me was with my dad, which was the only thing which was negative was self-hatred and self-pity.
	So she says that your self-hatred and your self-pity come from your dad.
	Yes. Okay.
	Do I need to say it? Well...
	First of all, there's no dad without your mom because she chose him, right?
	So even if what she said was 100% true, she's still got huge agency in it.
	Right, so...
	And how could self-hatred come from your dad who had very little influence over you compared to your mom?
	Yeah, she does.
	She does.
	She knows where it really came from.
	But she's throwing you off the scent.
	There are some theories about genetic...
	I don't remember what the word is.
	No, I get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Personality is affected by genetics.
	I understand all of that.
	I don't know that there's a personality trait called self-hatred, though.
	You know, there's no...
	The big five personality traits, not one of them is called self-hatred.
	You know, that's like saying that my stab wound is genetic.
	Yeah. The first place you would obviously look, rationally, would be your relationship with your mother, right?
	Logically, because she had the most influence over you, plus she's the same sex parent, right?
	It's not the only place you would look, but it would be the first place and most influential place that you would look, right?
	Is your relationship with your mom.
	Your dad is long dead and he had little influence over you as a child, right?
	Yeah.
	But as far as I know, she's not as...
	She doesn't hate herself.
	Well, of course not!
	Because she's got you to carry that burden.
	Hey, strangely enough, when you throw yourself in front of somebody and take their bullet, they don't get shot.
	Or rather, when they hold them up in front of you, as your mom is doing.
	Right? But here's the interesting thing.
	Once you stop hating yourself unjustly, I mean, I'm just telling you straight up, man.
	You stop hating yourself, your mom's going to have a very tough time, which is why she'd rather you carry this burden than she does.
	It's part of her selfishness.
	So, I mean, if you talk to her about it, again, assuming it's all safe, right?
	if you go and talk to her about it, you may find that as your burden lightens, hers gets heavier.
	But I don't think that you have any reason to hate yourself at all.
	I think it's unfair.
	It's unjust. And I, you know, I don't like to stay silent in the face of injustice.
	No. If I was on the phone with your mother and your mother said that she hates her daughter for being inconvenient, I'd say, well, that's unjust.
	It's unfair. You chose to become a mob.
	You roll the dice. So your daughter had digestive problems.
	So do you. Right?
	You can't hate your child for having digestive problems.
	problems, that's mental, right?
	And so if I would say very sternly to your mother, it's really wrong to dislike your daughter for X, Y, or Z, I will also say to her daughter, it's really wrong to dislike I will also say to her daughter, it's really wrong to dislike yourself for X, Y,
	So...
	So, my suggestion is, I mean, this is a lot, right?
	You're a young lady, a fine young lady, you are interesting, you are worthy of self-respect, you are worthy of love.
	I'm very sorry for this rather disastrous array of dysfunctions that you suffered under as a child.
	Terrible, terrible stuff.
	I think you've done magnificently with the cards that you've been handed.
	And I would like to free you of this log, but I understand that you're ambivalent about this log.
	Some people are like, freedom!
	Run for the exit, right?
	And you're like, yeah, well, but...
	But that just could be a function of time.
	Just sort of mull this stuff over. You listen to this conversation again.
	I think I'm always a big fan of therapy.
	You can talk to your boyfriend and see if you guys can swing that.
	If you don't have any money, just let me know.
	I'll send you some and you can use it for therapy.
	But that would be my suggestion.
	I think you have a great, incredible life ahead of you.
	And I think that you will achieve the power and the influence that you want in life.
	I think that you will be a positive force in the world.
	A very positive force in the world.
	But I think this is a...
	Probably a little bit of a shock.
	The stuff that I'm talking about, is it a bit of a shock?
	It was with the...
	The root of myself.
	Right. Your daughter doesn't hate herself, does she?
	I don't think so.
	No, I think you'd know.
	I think you'd know, right?
	We're not born that way. We're not born that way.
	Yeah. It's something that's done to us.
	And I hate to be picking on the moms.
	If it was your dad who raised you, I'd pick it on the dad, but it's the way the data shakes out, right?
	First place to look. Well, that's most of what it is that I wanted to say.
	I certainly wanted to check in and see how you're doing at the wind down of this lengthy but great conversation.
	How are you? Yeah.
	There's still a lot that I feel like I needed to say, but So, slight wrench here.
	We're going to... We finished the conversation while we were having the conversation, but then you had some thoughts that you wanted to add afterwards, and, of course, I wanted to accommodate that.
	So, you have written something which was, I guess, relevant to the conversation that we had, which is, I think, how we're going to close it off, at least for the moment.
	Is that right? Oh, yes.
	All right. Go ahead.
	Yeah. So, yeah, we talked...
	The other day, and when you asked the question, how has this call affected you?
	How are you feeling right now?
	I kept answering the same thing.
	There's more I want to say.
	And we even ended up ending the conversation abruptly because I was falling apart, like, on the inside.
	I was having a complete...
	Yeah, and I ended up crying a good while all night.
	As we started, you told me I was trying to stay in control.
	And holy shit, I was.
	I let go of that.
	But unfortunately, the longer the conversation was going on, I was building up again.
	Well, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but it's a funny thing that we, I mean, just to be fair, we didn't end it too abruptly, but there was a bit of a wrangle.
	The issue for me, yeah, it was a long call.
	And one of the reasons why is after we've had sort of the big revelation or two, I'm looking for the connection that helps to end the call, right?
	Not because I want to end the call, but, you know, I have other things to do.
	And this was like circling with no place to land because I'm looking for the connection and I'm looking for the, you know, the ah moment.
	Like, ah, I got it.
	I feel better and so on, which was tough to find, right?
	Which is why the conversation went on for a while.
	But that was where you were, right?
	Yeah, yeah. Like, I had to rewatch all this in order to actually land instead of circling around.
	But yeah. You want to go on with the stuff that you had noted down?
	Yes. But yeah, I was building it up again and I don't know if you could notice I started, you know, I wanted to say a lot of abstract bullshit again.
	And I knew that you didn't want to, you know, hear that.
	But, you know, all that you said was Revolutionary for me to hear.
	I still remember I was very silly in the start and I said something along the lines of which reality I want to pursue and every other abstract wanna be in control comment.
	But I realized that they stem from a childhood where everyone I ever spoke to taught me to think about every other perspective, every other person's perspective, everything.
	It was never about me.
	And you kept bringing me back to myself, forcibly, and it was really, really...
	Like, I told you I don't like talking about myself, but it's like...
	I don't know, it was...
	I've never had that happen.
	Right. And I broke.
	I really...
	it was really tough after that.
	But, but yeah, and I, I mustered up every last of my energy to run away.
	And, I can't express enough how much I've needed someone to bring me back.
	Yeah, it's funny because when I didn't...
	Yeah, because, I mean, the early part of the conversation was like a Hallmark card from Join Me on Dissociation Planet and not talk to the real you, right?
	And it's funny because when our defenses...
	I mean, you said forcibly, which is kind of how it feels to the defenses.
	I'd probably say assertively, but it's because I want to talk to the real you that I have to kind of brush past the defenses.
	But for the defenses, it's like danger, danger, danger, you know, because when the defenses are there for a reason, they're not made up.
	It's not paranoia. The defenses are there for a reason.
	So if I just kind of walk through them like I'm going through a spider web, then it's very alarming to have someone go through the defenses, but not with the purpose of attack, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. I mean, it really did feel like an attack, but it wasn't.
	It made me better.
	I'm doing the opposite.
	The defenses are there to prevent you from being hurt.
	But what happens is, if the defenses stay in the absence of danger, they then prevent you from being healed through connection.
	And so walking through the defenses is saying, look, you're not in a dangerous place.
	I'm not going to attack you.
	I'm doing this out of concern and care and thoughtfulness and love for the human connection that can happen.
	And so it's a way of saying the defenses are not appropriate to me because I'm not a person who's going to attack you.
	But the defenses is like, it's tough, right?
	It's really tough when that happens.
	Yes. And not...
	It's difficult to trust people as well.
	Like today, you don't know who it's okay to truly look at yourself, dare to give up those defenses and show who you are and dare to hear what another person thinks.
	Well, especially if you are very intelligent and verbally fluid, then you can create a real dazzling firework of distraction.
	You know, this choosing which reality you want to pursue and inhabit and stuff.
	And that's like, for a lot of people, that's like, whoa, man, that's totally deep and that's dazzling.
	And that's kind of what it's for.
	And all of my listeners, I assume, and you're certainly no exception, are very intelligent and very verbally fluent and so on.
	And so it's very easy to create...
	That magicians show that provides the lack of connection to people.
	Yeah. You know, Stefan, I've always been a very verbally fluent person, but when I started talking to you, you just slip, slip, slip.
	And I was like, in the end, I didn't know what I had anymore.
	Right. But that's fine.
	I feel like it made me look at me.
	You know, not all the things that...
	Connects around just...
	just me and why...
	why I have dealt with so much...
	so much self...
	I don't know what else to call it but hate.
	And... but as I said also, I sent you a message saying that...
	was it a self-judgment that I used...
	I find it very important and an important feature of me, but it's gone too far and I've forgotten.
	Well, I guess I never really learned how to balance.
	Well, see, now we're back into balancing and abstractions, and to me, the etiology is fine.
	To me, the etiology is very simple, and I'll just be as blunt as I would like to be, which is this, that for you to demand another person's attention, let me just say your mom, right?
	For you to demand your mother's attention and say, look, you're not paying attention.
	I'm just sitting in my room playing World of Warcraft.
	I'm just sitting at home playing PlayStation.
	I need...
	Your attention. I need your attention.
	For you to demand that of your mother would have caused a massive explosion in the family structure.
	Because it would be to demand something of your mother that at the point of life that she was at, she might have just been fundamentally unable to give and unable to admit that she couldn't give it, right?
	And so if you're going to sit there and say to your mother, I demand...
	I demand connection and I demand interaction and real conversation.
	Well, if she's really selfish, she can't provide that and neither can she admit that she can't provide that.
	So what do you have to do?
	Well, you have to shut down your request for connection.
	You have to kill your request for connection because you're asking something that is going to cause probably a huge amount of aggression or abandonment or whatever from your mother.
	So how do you shut down your thirst for connection?
	I mean, children yearn and thirst for connection, right?
	They wake up in the morning, the first thing they do is cry for their parents.
	They want to be played with all day.
	They thirst and yearn for that connection.
	So if your mother can't provide it and won't admit that she can't provide it and that it's a problem that needs to be fixed, then you have to shut down You're reaching out for your mother because that's going to cause huge problems in your family, in your life.
	It may provoke abandonment or violence or who knows what, right?
	So you have to shut down your thirst for connection.
	But it's innate to you to want to connect with people.
	So how do you shut down your thirst for connection?
	Well, you say that you're bad.
	You just judge yourself as bad and unworthy and uninteresting and too demanding and selfish.
	Like, you internalize basically all of your mother's dysfunctions so that you can throttle your thirst for connection.
	And that helps you not provoke your mother when you're young, but it really hinders and hampers your chance for connection when you get older.
	Yeah, but luckily for me, I always...
	I feel like I knew what I wanted, and I did end up creating a relationship with my boyfriend, which has been We've been growing together these past few years.
	Your strategy was fantastic.
	You did everything just right.
	You kept the fire alive during a terrible storm that lasted for 20 years.
	You kept the fire alive and you retained your ability to connect.
	You did it all just right.
	That's why I say you should be enormously proud of yourself.
	We're surviving that kind of environment.
	I mean, like, what a... If there were medals, you'd be, like, falling over with being weighed down with medals.
	So that's sort of what...
	And that's why, to me, the self-hatred is like you have to pay yourself the justice of self-regard, of good self-regard, because what an acrobatic act it was to go through that kind of childhood and retain your capacity to bond and love and connect.
	And, I mean, that's an incredible thing to do.
	You also wanted to clarify something about when your daughter was on the hike and was going to eat the poisonous plant?
	Yes. I've never really been yelled at when I was little, so I've always...
	I don't know the difference between raising your voice and screaming.
	I've never been through...
	When you said, I listened to it again, and, you know, the part where your mother screamed, what was it, I hate these fucking kids?
	Yeah, I hate these fucking kids.
	Yeah. I've never been told that.
	I've never heard that in, like, in my life.
	Right. And I haven't done that to my daughter before.
	No, no. I never imagined for a moment that you did, just so you know.
	When she was up, we were eating out in the not field, it's a mountain trail upwards.
	It's basically nature.
	We can't really cut down every poisonous plant in nature.
	It was a good rock to sit on and You know, we were feeding her, but then she looked away for a second, or we looked away for a second, not she.
	And then, you know, two seconds later, she has it in her hand, and, you know, she's ripped it off, and she's trying to eat it.
	And then, you know, I got...
	I went completely, oh, God!
	Oh, yeah, no, that's perfectly fine.
	I did go, like...
	You know, I... I don't want to say I screamed, but, you know, I did raise my voice and...
	Yeah, you said her name and...
	I said, no, you know.
	It was louder than that.
	And listen, in that situation, I have no problem with what you did.
	Like, just so you know. Because in that situation, it's like, well, I don't want to traumatize my child.
	It's like, yeah, but she eats that.
	She gets really sick, right? So, no, that's, you know.
	And here's the thing.
	So, here's the rule that I have, which is, if I explain the circumstances...
	To my daughter, when she gets older, will she be happy with what I did, right?
	So when your daughter gets older, I'm sure you will tell her the story of when she almost ate the poisonous plant and you raised your voice at her, right?
	So if your daughter, when she gets, I don't know, let's say she's 10 or 12 or whenever you tell her the story, right?
	And you tell her the circumstances.
	And if she says, I'm very glad you raised your voice at me, then it's fine.
	Right?
	So it's the same thing.
	Like, I mean, the old example of your kid's about to run out into traffic, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	You don't just take off.
	Yeah.
	And you grab your – of course, let's say – I mean, obviously, you're supposed to prevent that kind of situation.
	But let's say just for whatever reason, it's going to happen, right?
	Yeah.
	Or it is happening.
	Now, if you then grab your child and yank your child backwards, your child is going to be startled and upset and so on, right?
	But if you like, then let's say your child is 15 and this story comes up and you say, oh, yes, that time when you were four, you were about to run into traffic and I grabbed you by the shirt and I yanked you backwards and you fell on your butt and you cried.
	Now, if the child says, I'm really glad that you prevented me from running into traffic, then it's fine.
	Right.
	So now when, but if you think about some of the things that happened to you or some of the things that happened to me, As an adult, I'm still not good.
	I'm still not – I'm not thankful.
	I'm not happy that my mother did what she did in some situations.
	The same thing with you, I'm sure.
	And so that's – you know, if you have a question as to whether it's okay to do what you're doing as a parent, then just imagine asking your child – or imagine if you heard this story from your parents.
	Like if my mom had said to me, oh, you were about to run into traffic and I grabbed you and pulled you back and you fell on your butt and you cried, I would be like, well – I'm very glad that I'm not a stain on the road, you know?
	I'm glad that I didn't have to get buried pet cemetery style or something, right?
	I'm glad that you did what you did.
	And so for your daughter, if you say, and I'm sure you tell her the story, get older, right?
	Oh, yeah. She'll be like, yeah, of course, right?
	I wouldn't want to get sick.
	I wouldn't want to go through that experience or have my life endangered.
	So I'm glad that you raised your voice.
	Then it's perfectly fine to do what you do.
	If the child in the future will be pleased and happy and relieved that you did what you did, then it's fine.
	Yes. Yeah, that's an excellent way to ground it.
	Good. Okay, so we've got all that cleared up, and I, again, wanted to thank you for – I mean, you really hung in there, and it shows great strength of character to stay with the emotions and stay with the person, right?
	Because sometimes when we get very emotional, it eclipses the other person, like they cease to exist, and we only focus on our own feelings.
	But you stayed with your feelings and with the conversation, which is a really great thing to do and, again, shows, I think, just how – Invent, if you were, as a child to maintain that capacity.
	So, you know, I was very, as I said, very, very honored to be part of that conversation with you.
	Yeah. Thank you.
	Thank you so much for giving me.
	Sorry, go ahead. Thank you very much for giving me this insight and this time as well.
	It is my pleasure, and I hope, of course, as always, that you will let me know how things are going moving forward, and give your daughter a kiss on the cheek for me.
	Yes. I give her money.
	Thanks, Abil. Have a great day.
	Yeah. Thank you so much.
	Goodbye. 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.
	Please like, subscribe, and share, and all of that good stuff to get philosophy out into the world.
	And also, equally importantly, go to freedomain.com forward slash donate.
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	So thank you so much for your support, my friends.

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