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Oct. 24, 2019 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:54:46

"Demon Mother!" Freedomain Call In

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	Hi everybody, I'm here with pseudonym Sally, we will call her, which is, I would just call her Sally, who I guess contacted me, it was today, right?
	Something pretty urgent. Yes, it was today.
	Alright, so, give me the score, tell me the scoop.
	How can I help you? Okay, here's my long email.
	Hello, Stefan. First of all, I want to offer my sincerest gratitude for all of the wisdom you share.
	I've been watching your channel on YouTube pretty much every day for the past few years.
	I'm sorry, pretty much? Pretty much every day?
	Well, I don't want to sound like a super crazy stalker.
	You know, that's not the same as every day.
	That's it. I'm coming over to check.
	Sorry, go ahead. No, but really, it's been almost every single day.
	For the past few years, and I've learned so much and have been able to see things through a new perspective.
	I wanted to reach out to you because I genuinely feel like I need your guidance, not just want, but need.
	There have been so many times when I've contemplated writing to you to ask your advice about the situation with my mother, but I've had so many mixed feelings, not wanting to burden you with my issues, feeling like I should be able to deal with it on my own, feeling embarrassed, etc.
	But now I'm sitting in bed crying my eyes out and feeling like this burden is so heavily weighing on my heart with no one to turn to for the kind of guidance that you can provide, so I decided to finally reach out.
	I know you are so busy and so many people want to speak with you, but I just needed to try because maybe you will see this and want to offer your wisdom.
	This year has had some downs for sure, but there have also been some incredible things as well, like getting married to my boyfriend of 11 years.
	He was nervous to get married because of his family's issues with divorce, but you inspired him, so thank you.
	And getting pregnant the week after we got married.
	I've always wanted to be a mom, Stefan, so this is truly the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
	And I can't wait to be a stay-at-home mommy.
	We have a home and land and we'll raise our babies slash babies in a loving, non-violent, healthy, creative environment.
	My problem is my lack of family support system and an incredibly toxic mother.
	My whole life I knew that my mom was fragile and I tried to always be there for her and tell her she was the best mom ever and she was beautiful.
	She would stand in the mirror with me right there and say how ugly and fat she was while I would tell her that she was not.
	She always It was always very codependent on me and my stepfather, but I thought it was my responsibility to take care of her.
	When I moved out of their house and in with my boyfriend 11 years ago, she was horrible to me and she has gone on a major spiral downward since then.
	I've come to realize just how toxic and manipulative she's always been.
	I'm feeling very depressed today.
	It's been building and building and I've been trying to keep it together and just focus on the positive side of things.
	But today I just can't do it.
	I'm just so sad.
	I don't have a relationship with anyone in my family anymore because I cut off contact with my parents.
	I didn't even think that would be possible until I watched your videos and you gave me permission to stop letting them steal my joy and infect my life.
	My mom is addicted to prescription medications and is a total mess.
	I've tried to help her for years until I realized it's not my responsibility.
	She's also a constant victim of imaginary ailments, codependent, toxic, Emotionally abusive and manipulative.
	I was abused by my biological father before he abandoned me at five years old and I can't even tell my mom about the abuse because she always turns herself into the victim and will make me console her and tell her it's not her fault even though it is partially because she chose such a horrible man to have a child with.
	She's so manipulative that she convinced everyone in my family that I'm a horrible person for not being at her side and not being her emotional tampon and now everyone in my family has negative feelings towards me.
	It's just not fair. I know I'm not a bad person.
	I'm just trying to protect my sanity and happiness by not being around her.
	But other people in my family only see the fake good side she shows them.
	In the short bursts of time, they see her.
	I'm the only one that had to live with her every day and deal with the real her.
	I'm now 15 weeks pregnant with my first baby and so in love with my husband.
	And I want to share my joy with my family, but I can't.
	I think they are also jealous of the lifestyle my husband and I enjoy and can't just be happy for us.
	This is just heartbreaking. I feel like the black sheep of the family because I decided not to take abuse, which is crazy.
	My husband and I had a gorgeous elopement with just us and a violinist, cellist, efficient photographer because we didn't want anyone from our families ruining our day of love.
	But we both talked about wishing that you were there because we love and appreciate you so much and wish you were our dad or uncle.
	It's impossible. It's impossible.
	No, I'm glad that we're speaking.
	And listen, I know it's tough to ask for help, right?
	It's tough to sort of, in a sense, elbow your way to the front of the line, but I got the urgency that was occurring for you, and so I wanted to Make the time.
	So we're chatting kind of late at night, but it's all right.
	You're young. You can handle it. Maybe I can sleep.
	Yes. No, I appreciate you.
	I appreciate this so, so much. Thank you.
	You're welcome. And listen, also, I mean, it's wonderful to hear these very kind words, and I appreciate that.
	I am not immune to praise and goodwill, and it warms my heart, and I really, really appreciate that.
	Thank you. What kind of abuse did you...
	Sorry, go ahead. Oh, I just was saying that I mean all of it so genuinely.
	And my husband said to give you a phone hug from him.
	He just loves you too. He's so, so excited that I'm talking to you.
	Brofist, back to your house. All right.
	What kind of abuse did you suffer from with regards to, was it your stepfather?
	It was my biological father.
	My mom and my biological father, they were never really, they didn't get married.
	They lived together for a while right before I was born and then for like a year or two after I was born.
	And then he moved out and got his own little shack basically.
	And so I would spend part of my time with him and part of my time with my mom and there were always a bunch of people, other people living at our house.
	But when I was with him, he was sexually abusive and neglectful.
	He wouldn't feed me for long I'm incredibly sorry.
	Sexual abuse is a very wide spectrum.
	And again, don't get into any details that you don't want to share.
	That's obviously perfectly up to you.
	I'm just trying to sort of map what your family is covering up here.
	And was it extreme sexual abuse?
	And I hate to say sort of moderate, like there is such a thing, but there are differences of degree.
	He was smart enough to not do anything that was going to leave obvious marks.
	He didn't actually rape me per se, but definitely touching way, way over the line.
	I still have issues with not wanting to take a bath because that was always when it happened.
	It was his way of easing me into it or something.
	It's like you're already naked and he's already supposed to be Taking care of you and it's just like we just take it way too far.
	How long did this go on for?
	Until he left right before my fifth birthday so like I don't know I can remember as far back as about two or three so years a couple years I don't know.
	So how old were you when he moved away?
	It was just before my fifth birthday I remember him giving me Birthday presents right before he left because my birthday was just coming up.
	Biggest birthday present is not having dad around, right?
	Exactly. Well, I mean, it's so incomprehensible to me as a father to a daughter.
	I mean, I just can't fathom the mental processes behind that kind of exploitation and predation and violation.
	You know, I've spent a lifetime studying evil, and I kind of get it, but I kind of don't, if that makes any sense.
	Like, I get it, okay, well, this happened, and then you make these choices, and, you know, slippery slope, and blah, blah, blah.
	But fundamentally, after all my studying, I just, my hands itch for a baseball bat at times.
	I'll just tell you that straight up.
	I'm so sorry. And did you see him again after he moved away much, or how did that play out?
	Never again.
	He, you know, it was always promised to me that he would come and visit.
	He moved out of state a couple of states away.
	So everybody, my mom and people in my family would say, yeah, he's going to come visit.
	He's going to call.
	I remember him calling maybe once or twice.
	He never paid child support.
	He always took jobs under the table so that he wouldn't have to pay child support.
	There were a couple of times where we got a really small check because he had a legitimate job and they found out and took some money from him, but then he would just quit and get something else.
	So I haven't talked to him since, I don't know, it was maybe six or seven.
	Right, okay. And, you know, for those who don't know, and I'm sorry to jump out of this conversation, but just to give the broader perspective, which you know and I know, but a lot of people don't.
	When you have a brutal pedophile somewhere in the family structure, everybody's fucked up.
	Mm-hmm. It's not like you get a bad tooth, right?
	And if you can't fix a tooth, you take the tooth out, right?
	And then you have the rest of your teeth are healthy, we hope, right?
	You can take that out, right? You got a mole, you can get it zapped.
	You get a lump, you can get it taken out.
	But that's not how families work, right?
	That's not how families work.
	In families... Everybody, blesses or rots, everyone else.
	Everything spreads. There's nothing singular.
	It's like that old joke, like, it's not really a joke, but it's observation.
	Where I say, oh, let's have a non-smoking side to the restaurant.
	And that's like having a non-peeing side to the swimming pool.
	And there's no not crazy part of a family when there are crazy people in there.
	For the reason being that, well, what you're facing right now, which is you're struggling and sounds like amazingly successfully to become and stay sane and good and you want to be a great mom and I admire that more than I could ever express, especially given your origins.
	And look at what you're facing just trying to be healthy.
	I mean, the people down in the underworld will drag you down.
	They will spit at you. They will throw up barbed hooks to pull you down.
	They will grapple you. They will threaten to seal you off should you escape.
	I mean, it's a hell of a thing.
	It's easier to get out of quicksand than it is out of this kind of dysfunction.
	Am I on the right track as far as your experience goes?
	Absolutely. I was actually just talking to my husband about this earlier.
	I feel like improving myself has actually isolated me more than I ever realized it would.
	I thought going on a path of self-exploration, self-transformation, learning a lot, reading a lot, doing a lot of work on myself would improve every relationship.
	And I didn't realize that it was going to just Totally end some because people can't handle it.
	They're just crabs in a bucket and they can't handle you being happy and I just I don't understand that because I don't like drama.
	I'm like happy for people when they're doing well.
	I am encouraging of that.
	I want to see people happy and doing well and I don't understand when people just don't like to see me doing well in my life and it's like Because I'm not one of them who most of the women in my family, you know, got knocked up at 14, 15, 16, complain about men, complain about their baby daddy being in prison or this or that.
	And it's like, I actually found a smart, loving, stable man and they just don't like it.
	I just don't understand.
	Okay, so I've got an explanation, but what are we, 12 minutes into the conversation?
	I also have a nag.
	Oh, isn't that nice?
	Not even a quarter hour in from the call of your dreams, and I'm already going to nag you.
	Do you know what I'm going to nag you about?
	No. I'm going to nag you about your use of the word isolated.
	Because you said, I've never felt more isolated or I'm being more isolated than when I began to improve, right?
	Right. Being ostracized by evil is the opposite of being isolated.
	Being accepted by evil is the very definition of isolation.
	You're not being isolated.
	That is, listen, that's a perfectly understandable perspective.
	That's mainstream, and I'm going to say perhaps slightly more susceptible for women than it is for men.
	Mm-hmm.
	But the only way you could really stay isolated or the only way to really be isolated in this situation is to surrender to the craziness of your family, which would cost you your husband.
	Over time. And then you wouldn't be with your husband, you wouldn't have that great connection.
	Right. And you would be with these people who would secretly glow over the triumph of having destroyed your life, and you would be entirely isolated in that situation.
	That's true. And the reason I'm nagging is because the language we use is incredibly powerful.
	I'm in sort of the phase with my daughter to some degree where I have to patrol the language that is used.
	And I have to patrol it with myself as well.
	When I look at things that are bad, I have to make sure I don't use language that sets it up as...
	Universal catastrophe or something like that.
	So the language we use is very important.
	And this kind of bearing false witness to our circumstances usually has to do with catastrophizing the good.
	And you don't have a choice because you're a human being who lives in reality.
	Of being close to your husband without provoking the evil people in your environment.
	Like, that's just a reality.
	You know, it's like...
	It'd be like you saying, well, I'm in a criminal gang and I want to go to the DA and I want to confess my crimes and help them take down this crime family that's trafficking children.
	But I don't want to upset anyone in the crime family.
	And we're like, well...
	You've got one of those two you can have, but you can't have both, right?
	Right. I feel so isolated now that the crime family's been put in prison.
	Yeah, well, what was the option?
	Continue on being hooked into the crime family?
	Because your family is a crime family, right?
	I mean, you've got your dad's a pedophile and your mom had children with a pedophile, exposed those children to a pedophile.
	Defends the pedophile as of now or at least refuses to hear any criticisms of him.
	It's a crime family, right?
	There's no pedophile, at least who has access to you, without a mom who not only fails to protect you but sends you over, right?
	Right. So it's a crime.
	Just be aware. It's a fucking crime family.
	This is really, really important.
	And I say this not just because I think it's really important, but that was something that I really, really understood.
	That, I mean, even under current laws, my mother was an out-and-out criminal.
	No, just a criminal. I mean, she beat children with an injury with their lives.
	She harmed them and failed to protect them.
	There was inadequate health care.
	I mean, she was a criminal.
	This is criminal behavior, right?
	And your father, without a doubt, a complete and total criminal, Pedophile violations, sexual violations of children and so on.
	And I'm sure that there was much more than just the physical, right?
	Because there's not just the sexual abuse, there's all the bullying that goes along with it that has you keep quiet, right?
	And that's probably one of the reasons why he bugged it off when you got older, so to speak, because you might have been able to tell people, right?
	And he probably got a sense that you were the kind of girl who would have ended up telling someone and he probably didn't feel like getting beaten to death in prison.
	So it's a crime family here.
	It's a crime family.
	And if you want to list off their crimes, I'm certainly happy to hear.
	But that's what I see.
	No, that's definitely true.
	I think I can see that logically, but then there's still part of me, especially since I've gotten pregnant, that is just so sad and so longing for that family.
	And, you know, I have some good friends, but there's just Part of me that's just so sad and like just hoping and hoping for something that's probably never gonna happen.
	Just to have a stable loving family environment.
	What do you want to have happen? Give me give me the ideal.
	Give me like you hang out from here and immediately there's a phone call from mom or or someone and what is it that you most want to hear?
	What do you think would give you the greatest relief or or or healing from your history?
	I think the first thing would be my mom needing to finally take responsibility, finally take ownership.
	Okay, so give me that call.
	Pretend that I am you.
	I'm not young and pretty, but let's pretend that I'm you.
	And I'm picking up the phone.
	What is it? Like, be your mom.
	Tell me what you want to hear from her so that I understand where the hole is.
	Um... There's so much, but basically it would be, I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry that I never took responsibility.
	I'm so sorry that I chose a man to be your father that was not worthy of being your father.
	So sorry that I didn't listen, that I didn't pick up on the gazillion clues that were pointing to you being abused.
	I'm sorry that I wasn't there for you.
	I'm sorry that... Okay, hang on.
	You're kind of reading it off like a shopping list, right?
	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, so try to really connect...
	With the apology that you want.
	Because this is a need you have that is very deep.
	And it's a need we all have. Listen, you know, there's probably a tenth of a tenth of a percent of me even 30 or 40 years later that's still waiting for that call from my mom, right?
	So it's a very, very deep and powerful thing.
	So I know it's kind of weird, but just it's important, I think, to try and connect with what...
	These are the hooks that keep you...
	Need erases boundaries, right?
	Need erases.
	I mean, think of like you're starving to death and someone has left a pie on the windowsill, right?
	Like you go and take the pie, right?
	Who's really going to blame you, right?
	You're starving to death, right?
	Assuming it wasn't your fault.
	You got kidnapped and you just got dumped on a street or something, right?
	So need erases boundaries, right?
	And if you have great needs, you can't have great boundaries.
	Now, great love is boundaries, but great need erases boundaries.
	Does that make sense? It does.
	Right? Because you need too much, right?
	I mean, if you're a drug addict and you need the drug and you don't have any money, you can't have any boundaries with your dealer.
	Whatever he wants you to do, you're going to do, right?
	Because you need the drug, right? So need erases boundaries.
	And so if you're having trouble with boundaries, That's why I want to know what do you need from your mom?
	Really try and put yourself in her shoes and say what you hunger for the most.
	Take your time and breathe slow and just get into it.
	I'm sorry that I made myself your responsibility.
	I'm sorry that I'm so sorry that you felt like you had to take care of me and I wasn't there for you.
	No, it's already caveating, right?
	Because now you're saying, again, I'm sorry to nag, but you said, I'm sorry you felt you had to take care of me, right?
	But you did have to take care of her and she demanded it and if you rejected it, if you refused to take care of her, she would attack you, right?
	Right. So you're already minimizing your own experience and defending your mom in your mom's voice.
	And that's why, I mean, you've got to bypass all of that.
	Imagine there's a part of your mom that has a conscience.
	This is so hard.
	It is hard. Look, it is hard.
	And I apologize for asking.
	I appreciate you working on it.
	But it is hard, right? I'm sorry that I didn't let you just be happy and be a kid and that I didn't give you the environment that you needed to just be a happy kid and to feel safe and loved and like you could just grow and flourish and have your own life and do what makes you happy and I'm sorry that I didn't support your happiness and that When you wanted to do things that weren't things that I liked,
	that I held you back, and that I didn't just let you be yourself, and that I wasn't there to support you, and that I've never been there to support you in the way that you need, but that I pretended to, and that I got everyone to believe that I was the best mom, and that I made you feel like you needed to tell me that when I wasn't, because I wasn't the best mom.
	And I'm sorry I made you lie about that.
	I'm sorry you had to lie to me to keep things afloat, to keep me afloat, to keep the family structure intact.
	I'm sorry that I put that on your shoulders and made your whole life about Telling me the lie that I needed to hear Is there more?
	There's more I don't know. I think that's about...
	No, because, look, a lot of that is, I'm sorry for harming your relationship with other people.
	And I'm sorry for not allowing you to be a child and so on.
	Now, listen, technically, I didn't allow you to be a child either.
	You know, because I wasn't there.
	But she's active in what she does, right?
	Right.
	So what's the apology, not for the things she did to harm your relationship with others or the ways in which she wasn't there for you, but the things she actively did to harm you?
	I'm sorry that I wasn't able to model a strong person.
	No, no. Man, she's strong.
	You've got to hold. This is why you're calling, right?
	The problem with your mom is not that she failed to model a strong person.
	She married a pedophile and offered you up to him.
	That's not failing to model a strong person, right?
	Now when I ask you, because the apologies are a form of implicit criticism, right?
	Is it tough for you or how do you feel when I say...
	What do you want your mom to apologize for?
	I imagine, I could be wrong of course, but I imagine there's some kind of anxiety there, right?
	Because this is a kind of pretty implicit criticism of your mom and you're kind of circling around like, okay, I can chip away at the edges of maybe possibly not positive things about your mom, but I can't go into the black heart of things.
	I don't know, because I feel like those are just my main criticisms and my main...
	Feelings about it. I mean, it can go deeper on those issues, but that is how I'm feeling about it.
	And I don't know, especially when it's like trying to model what I would want to hear from her.
	I just know that it's just not going to happen.
	So it's really hard for me to even put it into words because it's just it's so just not going to happen.
	It's really hard for me to even imagine it.
	Okay, but I would say that if you really accepted that it wasn't going to happen, your family wouldn't have as much of a hold on you.
	If that makes sense.
	Do you know what I mean?
	I know.
	I know.
	Now, the easy connection that we had at the beginning of the chat has evaporated just a smidge, which is fine.
	I mean, that means I think that we're sort of plowing productive earth, so to speak.
	But how are you feeling? Because I don't have any visual cues, a static picture on Skype.
	So how are you feeling about this part of the conversation?
	I'm feeling like I'm just trying to dig deeper into my own mind and heart, trying to find, you know, what more I would really...
	I want her to say, I'm just...
	Because, I mean, I can't obviously speak for you, but I know for my mom, I mean, what I would want from her that she would never provide is just like, I'm sorry that I smashed you up.
	I'm sorry that I was like this maternal mad comet that just impacted into your mind, heart, and soul that scattered you to the full wind so you had to spend 20 fucking years reassembling yourself.
	Right. I'm sorry that I left inappropriate material all over the place.
	I'm sorry that...
	There were gross guys around all the time.
	I'm sorry for telling you about my horrible screwed up dates with all the forced stuff I had to do.
	I'm sorry for burying you under adult dysfunction to the point where you could barely see your hand in front of your face.
	I'm sorry for dropping you into a dungeon of dysfunction and putting triple locks on triple doors so that you had to chew your way out over time.
	I'm sorry for all the time you wasted Trying to get me to be sorry when it was never going to happen.
	Because the part of me that could apologize or understand that anything was wrong was burned out so early in my life.
	I'm like this breaking robot of maternal dysfunction.
	I'm sorry that I was your mother.
	You deserve better.
	I'm sorry that I took an optimistic kid and turned him into a scared and angry status seeker who...
	Couldn't put down any roots.
	Wasn't your fault.
	Wasn't your fault at all.
	Just struggling to survive.
	And I'm sorry that I take no pleasure in the health and help and happiness that you're giving the world.
	Because I had someone who could bring such help in my family and I tried for 15 years to just tear him apart.
	But don't worry, because my allies in the world, the allies of the child abusers in the world, media, academia, a whole bunch of different organizations, they're all continuing my work of trying to tear you apart, because so many people side with abusers.
	That's why abusers get to continue to do what they do.
	Now, I don't know if any of that is sort of buried down in my mom's heart and mind.
	I don't really think so.
	It's sort of like if you have an arm removed by some sadistic surgeon, you have a scar, but you don't have an arm anymore.
	And it's the same thing when people are really dysfunctional.
	It's like they have a scar, and the scar is their dysfunction, but the organ is gone, the conscience.
	Like when the conscience gets pulled out of a human being or beat out of a human being or raped out of a human being, traumatized out of a human being, There's a scar called bad behavior, but that doesn't mean that there's a conscience under it, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it does. And I don't know.
	I mean, apparently, you know, if you don't get empathy or a conscience or whatever in the first couple of years of your life, it doesn't really seem to...
	I don't think that it's possible for it to grow later.
	Now, does that mean that your mom is not responsible or my mom is not responsible?
	No, that's still responsible. That's still responsible.
	Because they knew that it was wrong and they knew that your dad didn't touch you inappropriately at the mall or at the police station or in front of a teacher, right?
	Right. So he knew it was wrong, he knew it was bad, and he knew damn well how to not do it because he spent most of his time not doing it.
	He only did it when you were, as you say, vulnerable and exposed and trapped in the bath, right?
	So he knew exactly what not to do.
	And he knew that it was wrong. So that's why he's responsible, right?
	I mean, if there's some crazy guy who grabs your butt during a parent-teacher conference, you can say, okay, well, that's kind of like a weird epilepsy or whatever, and you have some sympathy.
	But he didn't, right? He got away with it, which means he knew that it was wrong and knew exactly how to hide it, right?
	And that is the man that your mom saw fit to reward with sex and children, right?
	Right.
	But I don't feel like she could ever even take me saying that.
	I feel like if I brought that up just like everything else, she'd be like, Oh, I'm sorry I didn't do a good enough job.
	I'm sorry I'm just the worst person.
	All right, I'll tell you what, let's do that one.
	If you being your mom apologizing is tough, let's be your mom defending.
	Oh, my God. All right.
	So give me full-throated Oscar-worthy mom defenses because, you know, we all know these very, very well.
	And it's probably good that I'm in another place physically because, you know, I'm sure your mom would escalate to violence if necessary.
	Okay. So if I were to be you calling up your mom and say, Mom, you know, we really, really have to talk.
	You know, you may be wondering why I haven't seen you much and all of that.
	And it comes down to the fact that you married a pedophile who molested me.
	And my need, which you didn't serve at the time, is for you to damn well acknowledge that now.
	You know, statute of limitations has passed.
	I can't pursue them. I can't throw them in jail.
	But when I was a kid, you were always telling me to take responsibility.
	You punished me for being bad, for doing the wrong thing.
	Well, sending your kid over to the house of the pedophile you married is pretty bad.
	And you really, really need to just acknowledge that that happened and it was wrong.
	Well, gosh, let me get into character here.
	Let's see. I'm sorry that you didn't feel like you could ever tell me that.
	You know, I'm not psychic and I wouldn't have been able to know that unless you told me and I can't believe you waited this long and you've just been harboring all this anger towards me and you didn't even say anything to me about it.
	I mean, what am I supposed to do?
	My life wasn't perfect.
	I tried to do the best that I could with you and I always just did my best and if that's not good enough for you, then I'm sorry.
	You know, I had bad things happen to me and it's the past and we need to get over it.
	And, you know, I'm just, I know, I'm just, I'm such a screwed up mom.
	I just do everything wrong, okay?
	I'm so sorry. I'm just such a broken person.
	And I just can't do anything right, okay?
	I admit it. I just can't do anything right, okay?
	I get it. I get it why you don't want to be in my life.
	How do you think wallowing in self-pity is going to help me at this moment?
	Well, I don't know. You know, it doesn't seem like I can do anything to help you.
	Just, you can't take, you can't appreciate anything I do.
	Well, how about you don't wallow in self-pity? And how about you focus on me?
	Well, maybe just no one is paying attention to me.
	You know, I'm not getting enough love.
	No one even cares when I'm hurting.
	Mom, hang on. This is not about you.
	This is about me.
	So my feelings don't matter to you at all?
	I don't matter to you?
	This is about my feelings and my history and the child molester that you put me in contact with and put me under the power of.
	Well, I didn't know that, obviously.
	I wouldn't just do that.
	And you were made out of love.
	We were in love with each other, and he loves you, and he's always going to love you.
	Wait, wait, wait. Okay, Mom, Mom, you've got to not tell me that the pedophile loves me.
	That you've got to not fucking do right now.
	Well, he did. He loved you, and he took care of you, and I'm sorry that he did things wrong.
	No, Mom, he molested me.
	Okay, well, you should have told me that a long time ago.
	There's nothing I can do about that now.
	Wait, so are you saying that it's my fault that at the age of four, I didn't tell you that I was being molested?
	It wasn't your fault for putting me in the path of a child predator.
	It was my fault because I was four and didn't tell you.
	And you didn't notice anything had changed or that anything was different or that I didn't like having baths or I was afraid to be naked.
	Well, I don't know. You didn't tell me anything.
	You could speak at that time.
	I was four. It's your job to protect me.
	It's not my job to tell you what's going on in that way.
	I'm four. I don't know.
	I don't know. So what is the solution here?
	What would you like me to do?
	How can I fix this now?
	Because it's all in the past and I can't do anything about it now.
	For what? What did I do?
	Now hang on.
	You asked me how you could help me.
	I told you and you immediately stopped doing it or wouldn't do it.
	So don't ask me how you can help me if you're going to reject what I say I need.
	So if you want to help me, which I hope you do because it's your fault and his fault, not mine.
	I was four. So if you want to help me, you need to take some responsibility.
	That you really fucked up in this way.
	Okay, I take responsibility for everything.
	I just did everything wrong.
	It's all my responsibility.
	I'm sorry for everything.
	I just fucked up everything and I'm just a horrible mother and I should have just seen everything and I should have just stopped things I didn't even know were happening, okay?
	Are things better now?
	Okay, so if you think that you did everything wrong, perhaps you can tell me the things that you think you did wrong.
	Well, why don't you tell me? No, no, no.
	You just said you did everything wrong, so you must have some idea of the things that you did that were wrong, and I'd like to hear what those are.
	Oh, I don't know. Just everything.
	I'm sure I just did everything wrong to you.
	You could probably list them off a lot better.
	I don't know. You're harboring all this stuff from the past.
	Oh, so you were fake apologizing?
	If you say so. No, because you said that you were sorry for the things that you did wrong, but then when I asked you what you did wrong, you don't have a clue, so you were just manipulating me.
	You were just fake apologizing.
	Like, you don't actually believe you did anything wrong, and so you were just manipulating me and apologizing to me, pretending to apologize to me, a non-apology, to manipulate me when I'm telling you what I need, right?
	If you say so. So, what you're saying, Mom, if I understand this correctly, is that I should have come to you with my problems.
	At the age of four, when I was being molested by the man you chose to get married to and to give children to and to the man you chose to send me over, I should have come and told you about my problems because you would have been so great and wonderful at dealing with those problems when now, when I'm in my 20s and I'm coming to you with my problems, you're rejecting and manipulating me.
	So you're saying you would have been way better when I was four than when I'm now in my 20s.
	So now you know why I didn't come to you when I was four.
	Because I'm coming to you now in my twenties and you're being really, really manipulative and lying to me.
	So that's why I didn't come to you.
	It's your fault I didn't come to you when I was four.
	Because now I'm coming to you in my twenties.
	You're still not listening and you wouldn't have listened when I was four either.
	It's your fault I didn't talk to you.
	You see how you're behaving now?
	How would it have been any different when I was four?
	Well, I don't know, because you never told me then.
	I'm telling you now, and what are you doing?
	You're manipulating, you're lying, you're rejecting, you're avoiding.
	Why would it have been any different 20 years ago?
	That's why I didn't tell you.
	It's your fault and Dad's fault that I was molested.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	That's what I need from you.
	You can't possibly think it was my fault, right?
	No, it was just all my fault.
	I get it. I need to just take responsibility for everything, okay?
	I understand. It's just all my fault.
	Sorry. But you're not sorry because you don't believe it's your fault.
	You're just saying stuff. Because you don't want to accept responsibility, right?
	I'm just trying to fix this, you know?
	Like, I just want to live in the moment.
	I'm tired of having to relive the past.
	I have my own things to be dealing with.
	I don't really need to be dealing with all this stuff from the past.
	I'm sorry. It's just...
	But mom, here's the thing.
	If you want to live like there's no past, then you're not my fucking mom.
	You understand? Like the only reason we're having this conversation is because we have a past.
	Like if you were just some woman I met at some block party or at the mall, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
	So you can say, I want to erase the past.
	I don't want to talk about the past.
	I want to start completely from scratch as if there's no history.
	Then why would I have anything to do with you if we have no history?
	Now, if we have history, which we do, we should talk about it.
	And if you want to erase history, then you're erasing our entire relationship, which means why on earth would I chat with you?
	You're just some woman who let her kid get molested by a pedophile.
	Okay, well, I guess if you don't like me, and you don't love me, and you can't just accept me for who I am, then you don't need me in your life, and that's fine.
	That's your choice, whatever.
	Wait, you feel that I'm rejecting you when I'm asking you to take responsibility and you refuse to?
	You feel that I'm rejecting you?
	Well, yeah, because you can't just accept me as I am.
	I'm trying. I'm doing everything that I can do.
	I'm doing my best. If accepting someone for who they are is important, Mom, then you should accept me for who I am and that I have these needs for you to take responsibility for what you did.
	Are you rejecting who I am and what I need?
	And then saying, well, it's important to accept people for who they are and what they need?
	So I should respect your need to not talk about this But you don't have to respect my need to talk about it, so this is just a complete one-way street.
	Your needs matter, my needs don't.
	Is that the equation we're working with here?
	Well, I am talking to you about it, and I'm doing the best I can, and if that's not good enough for you, then what do you want me to do?
	This is the best I can do.
	If this isn't good enough, then what else can I do for you?
	You can take responsibility.
	I did. I told you.
	I'm sorry. Okay?
	No, no, no. You said I'm sorry for everything, which erases the specific thing that we're talking about here.
	Okay, so what exactly do you want me to say?
	Why don't you write it out and email it to me and tell me, just write exactly what you want me to say and then I'll say it and then will things be better?
	Can we just move on? So what you're saying is you can't spontaneously imagine what it's like to have empathy for my needs and take responsibility for how you harmed me.
	You have no capacity to do that.
	Well, I guess not because you just keep listing all these things I didn't even know about.
	I didn't even know I was supposed to be apologizing to you for these things.
	And then I can't say the right thing to you.
	I don't know. It's just I don't know what you want me to do.
	I just can't do anything right for you.
	Well, I would like for you to accept responsibility and to apologize for placing me in very dangerous harm's way when I was a little child.
	What was I supposed to do if I didn't know it was harmful?
	I didn't know he was harmful.
	He didn't tell me he was going to do that.
	Are you saying that you knew a man for years and you shared a life, you shared a dinner table, you shared a house, you shared a bed, you made children with him, And you had absolutely no idea that he had any kind of dysfunction or capacity to harm children?
	No, I didn't. So, I don't know.
	I don't know what happened there.
	I don't know if things just changed or what.
	But he just magically became a pedophile?
	Is that what you mean? Maybe, because I didn't know.
	You think I would do that to you?
	I love you. I care about you.
	I would never do that on purpose.
	You think I would actually do that to you?
	Well, you're harming me now.
	How could you think that? But you're harming me now in this conversation.
	So yes, I damn well think you would.
	Because you're placing your illegitimate needs above my legitimate needs.
	So you are harming me by being cold-hearted and dismissive and rejecting of me in the moment.
	So when you say, oh, I love you and I would never dream of harming you, you're harming me and our relationship in this conversation.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	What do you know about dad's childhood?
	I don't know much.
	My mom, I don't think, knows much about...
	Because she's not really told me much.
	Okay, so that's fair. So if, by the way, you're doing a great job.
	So if, so why would you have children with a man you don't know much about his childhood?
	I mean, I would imagine that he himself had been molested as a child because pedophilia tends to run that way, right?
	right?
	So did you have a child with a man and you didn't know anything about his childhood and never bothered to find out if he'd had a good or bad childhood or if he'd been safe or violated or anything like that?
	I mean, it's your job to vet the father of your children, would you say?
	Are we back to me being my mom then?
	Well, you know, I couldn't ask him every question in the world, and some people just aren't open about that stuff, you know?
	Like, not everybody wants to be spilling their dirty laundry for everybody to hear, and, you know, I can't force anybody to do anything.
	Mom, mom, you gotta stop that, okay?
	This, like, ridiculous thing where spilling their laundry for everyone to hear, for Christ's sake.
	We're talking about the man you chose to have children with.
	That's not a case of spilling the laundry for...
	I mean, nobody's asking him to hire a fucking skywriter and put it between two clouds.
	This is his wife.
	This is not for everyone to hear.
	This is his wife.
	And it is your job to vet who you have children with.
	It's his job to vet who he has children with as well.
	So if you didn't know, that does not excuse your responsibility.
	It is your job to know.
	It is your job to know.
	And if you didn't know the difference in your child before and after the molestation started, that's also your job.
	It is your job.
	It's your job to vet him.
	It's your job to know when your child is not safe.
	It is your job to ask how my experience was with being with my father.
	It is your job to keep me safe.
	150%. It's not the neighbor's job.
	It's not an airline pilot's job.
	It's not some guy in Guatemala's job.
	It's your job. And it was dad's job.
	But dad failed at it.
	But I'm not talking to him right now.
	I'm talking to you. It is your job.
	And you failed. And that is the foundational truth of our relationship.
	It's not the only truth of our relationship.
	We have a long history as well.
	And there are positive things as well.
	But if we can't talk about this, or if you won't accept any responsibility for this, we have a big problem.
	This is a lot.
	Yeah, we can stop now.
	Oh, you're good, man.
	You're good. That was like screen punch worthy.
	Oh, God, that woman.
	She makes you work in a half, right?
	Oh, my gosh. It's just mind bending talking to her.
	How did you feel? God, that was great.
	In a terrifying way.
	I can feel Meryl Streep.
	It's good as Roman Polanski.
	How did you feel playing that?
	What was your emotional experience?
	I felt like I just needed to tap into everything.
	Just me being a victim about everything.
	How can I twist this into...
	Okay, well, I'm so sorry.
	I'm just the worst person.
	Trying to elicit empathy or compassion or, you know, just always flipping things.
	Like, how can I flip this?
	Because that's just what she's...
	Well, it's a very aggressive thing to do as well.
	Yeah, yeah. Did you feel that aggression?
	Like, I got a real, fuck you, kid, for bringing this up.
	I'll make you pay. Yep, yep.
	It's a real aggression in that, right?
	Because I always felt like it was my job to make her...
	Feel better, to make her feel better about herself, to make her happy.
	It was like just always my job to regulate her emotions or to make things better in every sense.
	And if I ever brought anything up that wasn't just improving a situation or was uncomfortable at all, you know, I'm just cast to the side or I'm made to feel like I should have never opened my mouth or like I'm a burden.
	So Yeah.
	So, yeah, I mean, and these kinds of conversations, I mean, I've had these kinds of conversations with members of my own family in the past, a family of origin, and the general purpose, the purpose is, you know, it'd be great if we could talk about it, but it never happens, right? What you do is you chip away at the excuses until you get to the rage.
	And that's kind of where we stopped.
	Because your mom's defense was, well, I didn't know.
	And that's not a defense.
	It's your job to know.
	It's like saying, well, I drove drunk.
	It's like, you are responsible.
	You know, I got into an airplane and I just flew it.
	Even though I don't know how to fly an airplane, we crashed.
	It's not my fault. I did the very best I could.
	It's like, no, you didn't.
	Because you got into an airplane without learning how to fly an airplane.
	And when you were a kid, there were tons of parenting books around, and there was a very deep knowledge of the effects of childhood and on adulthood, and there are self-help sections that go through bookstores like they're bigger than anything else in the world.
	There's Dr. Phil, there's Oprah, there's like, everybody knows this shit, right?
	And my mom watched every episode of Oprah, and even doctors would ask me because I had some health issues from very, very early on.
	Like, I stopped eating and For months at a time, when I was three years old, I lost a bunch of weight and all I could say was that it hurt my chest, my throat, and my parents took me to specialists and nobody could figure it out.
	And then later, I was reading symptoms of childhood sexual abuse because I was curious if I had had any of those and if my mom had just ignored them.
	And all of the medical issues that I had were things that are pretty much pointing to that.
	And I've had I've had several doctors in my life throughout my childhood ask me and my mom, has she been sexually abused?
	It's like they could pick up on it.
	My mom would always just be like, no, she didn't ask me.
	Wait, the doctors would say that to your mom?
	Yes. Holy shit.
	Well, that didn't really come up in the role play, but of course I wouldn't know that.
	And do you know why or do you have any theories as to why you stopped eating?
	I know it was because of the sexual abuse, but what were you trying to achieve, do you think, when you didn't eat?
	I don't know. I think there's obviously lots of ways to analyze it but I think it was just my way of screaming out like I wasn't able to fully vocalize what was happening and or maybe just wanting to disappear you know just want to disappear into nothingness and just get out of it like Maybe if I don't even sustain myself, I don't even have to go through any of this anymore.
	There definitely is the self-erasure aspect of things, which is terrifying in and of itself.
	But I think there's another aspect that may be even deeper, which is you didn't want to end up naked in the bathroom.
	Right.
	If you eat, you've got to go to the bathroom, right?
	Right. And you were naked in the bathroom when you were sexually abused, right?
	Right. So, screw eating, man.
	That just leads to the lion's den.
	And he would also reward me with sweet things, because he wouldn't ever feed me anything, any real meals or anything, but there was a convenience store that was a couple blocks away, and Occasionally, we would walk over there and get one of those little hostess cakes or something.
	That was like my reward.
	So screwed up.
	Right, right, right.
	Yeah, so she had doctors when you were a child asking if you'd been sexually abused.
	Many, like, you know, doctors that never talked to each other throughout my whole life, into my teenage years.
	Well, how long did it take, or I assume it has, but how long did it take for the eating disorder to resolve?
	It lasted a few months, and then I started gradually eating again, but I've had issues with eating.
	My whole life had major digestive problems and some major health problems.
	That also leads to...
	I believe my mom had...
	At least some slight Munchausen by proxy going on.
	And now she's just doing that with herself, with making up ailments, because she would always love the attention that I got from going to the doctor.
	And she would not feed me anything healthy.
	We would eat all this fast food, and I was getting all these issues.
	And there was mold growing in our bathroom, mushrooms growing out of our shower walls.
	I had asthma. She wouldn't clean it up.
	She had me around smokers.
	And then she was just taking me to the doctor constantly and having me pumped full of all these drugs.
	Like, oh, he's so sweet.
	He loves you like a daughter.
	It's like, He's my doctor.
	Stop making this weird. Well, you know, stop making this weird with crazy people is...
	Stop weather.
	Yeah. Stop gravity.
	Right. Wow. And this hypochondria and Munchausen by proxy is quite common among these heavily neurotic people, particularly women.
	Women have these weird relationships with doctors.
	Like neurotic women have really, really weird relationships with doctors.
	It's like a love-hate thing.
	Because they're begging for the attention that they feel they deserve.
	But if the doctor expresses even the slightest doubt about the authenticity of some of the ailments...
	Yep. Smoke.
	Smoke and crater where the doctor used to be, right?
	Exactly. Then it's just the switch to the next doctor.
	Yeah, yeah. If he's lucky, yeah.
	Right. So how does this radiate out into the family?
	Give me a wee sketch of the family tree insofar as it still brushes up against your sanity sanctuary.
	Well, um...
	Through my mom, I have a half-sister.
	She's 12 years older than me, so she has a different father.
	Her father was physically abusive, and my mom loves to go over the story of how she escaped him in the middle of the night and packed up her things and took my sister and saved my sister.
	It's like, why was she even with him?
	But anyway, so I have that sister, but we're not close because she's still really wrapped up in My mom's lies and just on my mom's side.
	She's still dependent on my mom, even though she's...
	Do you mean financially?
	Yeah. Even though she's too old to be.
	But she is.
	And so I don't have a relationship with her.
	I have several brothers and sisters on my biological dad's side, but I haven't seen any of them since he left.
	Oh, he left with them? Is that right?
	Yeah, they were back in the state that he moved to, so I don't know if he went to be with them or if he just abandoned them too or what happened with that.
	Well, he might have gathered them together to molest for years, right?
	Exactly. Yeah, I have a sister who's just a couple years older than me and I've always wondered and I've looked them up on the internet and I just can't find them.
	I'm so curious, you know, if they're still in his life or You can't find them on the internet?
	No, I really, I've looked and there's some people because I haven't seen them.
	So it's like I can go by hair color.
	They have pretty common names.
	So they might be them.
	I don't really know. They might have married and new name and all that.
	Exactly, exactly. I was going to say, it's a bit sinister if they had unusual names and you can't find them.
	That's a check dad's backyard kind of thing, right?
	Super common names, blonde hair, blue eyes, just average looking.
	So I don't know.
	And then I have lots of aunts and uncles and cousins.
	And I was fairly close to my stepdad's family because my mom got with him when I was five, right after my dad left.
	She started dating, I guess you could say, my stepdad.
	And so his family is actually pretty cool.
	I think they probably can see through...
	Wait, sorry, this is not the stepdad that your mom fled from?
	This is the stepdad that she's been with since I was five, so that was my biological dad.
	No, sorry. I'm sorry.
	I missed something here. I just want to make sure I've got the mental map.
	You have a half-sister, and your mom fled her father, but that's not your stepdad?
	No, because she's 12 years older than me, so that was...
	Quite a while before me.
	Oh, before even your dad was in the picture.
	Yeah. Okay, sorry, sorry.
	Okay, so the guy she's been with since you were five, you say his family's pretty cool.
	Yeah, they are.
	And I think, sometimes-- Come on.
	And listen, I hate to sort of rain fire on this chain or this bond or whatever, and...
	I'm just bouncing in here from Canada, so I could be entirely wrong.
	But if his family's so cool, why has he been with your crazy mom for 20 years?
	I know. It's true.
	The only reason I say that is I feel like sometimes they can see through my mom's bullshit, and I don't feel like my...
	My biological family ever sees through it.
	So that's the only reason I really say that.
	Okay, so give me an example, if you don't mind, of...
	I'm happy to be schooled, happy to be corrected, but the jigsaw puzzle does not fit together for me as yet, but maybe the pieces just need to be turned a bit.
	Or maybe it just need to be poked in the eye.
	But give me an example of where your stepdad's family has seen through your mom's bullshit or come to your rescue or something like that.
	They've definitely never come to my rescue.
	It's, I guess, just more of like a feeling.
	They're more conservative, which is great because I definitely identify as more conservative.
	My mom is very, very liberal.
	That's another sticking point in our relationship.
	She can't stand my husband because he's conservative and supports Trump and my family hates it.
	And hates Trump, of course, right?
	Hates Trump. My stepdad has actually told me not to talk to my mom about politics because she can't handle it and just leave the conversation alone.
	He's the gatekeeper of what we can't talk about, apparently.
	So your nice stepdad is censoring you because he's deferring to your mom's craziness?
	Yep. He has to protect her.
	Okay, so tell me more about this wonderful family?
	Oh, this cool family you said, sorry.
	There have been several times when we've been over at my stepdad's mom's house and we're having a really nice sit-down Christmas dinner and my mom is just slurring her words and can't keep her shit together because she's on three,
	four different prescription medications and I can just see the look in his mom's face like what is going on and she can see through it but if that happens and we're with My biological family, it's like no one pays attention.
	It's just, she's a saint, she's the sweetest person ever.
	They just let it go.
	And so, it's just refreshing to see in someone else's face that they see it too, and that I'm not crazy.
	That's some pretty thin gruel to march on.
	Yeah, that's about all I have.
	No, listen, I mean, you can make a lot of meal out of a little food when you're in this kind of situation.
	So I'm not, you know, I respect and I understand where you're coming from.
	I'm just, you know, from the outside, the best is you get a couple of knowing glances when your mom is acting up.
	That's it? Yep.
	Right. And you don't have to give me the details, of course, right?
	But your mom's medication, is it like medical or is it mental or what?
	It's mostly medical for things that are not real.
	So, you know, she'll just make things up and, you know, oh, I have this pain in my neck.
	Oh, I have this disc problem.
	Oh, you know, I have all of a sudden ringing in my ears.
	Just constantly coming up with some new thing.
	And I don't know.
	I think she has tried some antidepressants and stuff too, but mostly...
	Pain relievers, muscle relaxants, definitely Xanax and anti-anxiety pills.
	Do you think she's addicted, like she's been taking these for a long time?
	Oh yeah, highly, highly.
	She even was sharing them with my sister on our last little family vacation when my husband came with at the beginning of our relationship.
	My sister was passed out when I went to go pick up my husband from the airport.
	We were in Hawaii and came back with him.
	She was totally passed out on drugs that my mom had given her.
	Wait, your mom is to some degree dosing your sister with prescription meds she's not had a doctor's visit for?
	Crime family! Crime family.
	Crime family. Yeah.
	Does your dad know about this?
	Your stepdad? Oh, yeah.
	And what does your stepdad do about your mother illegally handing out prescription drugs to people?
	Totally just complicit.
	Just goes along with it.
	Goes and makes money. She doesn't work.
	She doesn't do anything. She barely leaves the house because she says she can't drive.
	She can't move her neck enough to look behind her and she's anxious to drive.
	She literally does nothing.
	She never leaves the house.
	The last thing I heard that they did together was went to some cat convention.
	I swear to God. Some what convention?
	A cat convention.
	A convention of people who love cats.
	Oh, well, you know, at least it's not a furry convention.
	It's a step up for some, I suppose.
	Right. Right.
	So, why is his family not intervening?
	I don't know. If they see the score?
	I don't know. I think part of it is they don't want to cause ripples.
	Part of it is my mom is so good at putting on this air of just being this super sweet Just like the best mom because they only see her for a short amount of time and they don't see who she is when she takes that mask off.
	Like she's like a saccharine sweet, you know, she's like overly sweet with some people, just so fake, like aspartame, like toxically sweet.
	Yeah.
	Yeah. Or, you know, I've said this before, like, my mom would be, like, screaming, like, purple-faced at me about some stupid, crazy thing she was on about, and then the phone would ring.
	And she'd think it would be some guy she wanted to date or her boyfriend de jure or whatever, right?
	And she'd go from like, wah, wah, wah, to like, hi.
	Right. Like that, you know?
	Like there's no transition.
	It's like, whiplash, man.
	Because you think they're so enraged that they've lost control of themselves.
	They haven't lost control of themselves at all.
	Right. Because the phone rings or there's a knock at the door and they're like, hi, can I help you?
	Yeah. Immediately.
	Like, they're not out of control at all.
	They're just indulging themselves in rage or manipulation or abuse.
	They can turn on a dime.
	They just don't have the incentive. See, my mom could switch on the be nice to strangers, to waiters.
	I remember we were dining in some crappy restaurant at the Dom Mills Mall, and she liked her fish and chips, and she had them bring the...
	So she had to bring the cook out, who was just some 20-year-old guy in a fry cook outfit.
	And she's like, oh, this is wonderful fish.
	You are a master. And it's like, it had probably just tumbled out of the freezer like 12 minutes before.
	So she could be like wonderfully complimentary and just so nice and all of that.
	You know, if it was some cook who made her some cheesy fish or some guy she might want to date or whoever, somebody she wanted something from, man, she could be sweet as sugar, man.
	But, you know, me, you know, far like different lines, lineage of her genealogy and, you know, her son, and nah, fuck that, man.
	I just beat him up and scream at him and like...
	I wasn't... And it's weird, too, because when you see your parents be nice to other people and brutal towards you, it's part of the humiliation, right?
	Part of the humiliation for me was my mom showing she could turn on a dime and be nice anytime she wanted.
	She just wasn't doing it to me.
	That's just another way to make you feel bad, right?
	Yep. And it's a funny thing, too.
	Sorry to wedge this in.
	I think it's related.
	But, you know, there's all this crap floating on the net about Turkey and Syria.
	I bet you knew I wasn't going to say that next time.
	Turkey and Syria. Because people are like, oh, we've got to go help the Kurds.
	There are noble people. They're fighting up against this, that, and the other.
	It's like, bullshit, everyone.
	Bullshit. If you're a victim of child abuse, you know damn well your neighbors don't give a shit about you.
	Your extended family doesn't give a shit about you.
	People you tell as an adult rarely give a shit about you.
	So people in your own society, kids in your own society, being abused in the moment, people don't give a shit about it.
	Right. For certain that people almost never give a shit about child abuse in their own community, next door, in their kids' classrooms.
	You know, everybody knows at least one kid in the class, you know.
	You know. You know that they're kind of hunched over, staring at the sidewalk.
	Their clothes are kind of ratty.
	They might smell a little...
	They're kind of jumpy or eager to please.
	They have that smile that's all in the mouth and nothing in the eyes.
	I mean, everybody knows these kids.
	And nobody wants to know.
	Nobody asks. Now, you could say, well, what can you do?
	They're a kid and you can't get control of them and so on.
	You can't get them out. But, okay, how about when they become adults and talk about their child abuse?
	What then? People just put you down, right?
	They just insult you.
	Like, you know, I was on Twitter.
	I talked about this the other day.
	I was on Twitter. I'm talking about my mom because it was relevant.
	I was talking about it with regards to the Joker movie, right?
	And people are all like, oh, yeah, oh, fine, Norman Bates, you know, like, all right.
	All right. So that's fine.
	I mean, you can do all of that.
	I mean, it's a long time ago and it doesn't, you know, it's about as much trouble to me as a windy day.
	But then don't try and talk to me about how much you care about the fucking Kurds.
	That's all. You've got someone who speaks the same language, in the same culture, maybe the same race, talking about brutal abuse he suffered as a child, and you're calling him a psycho killer.
	Okay, fine. You can do that.
	I mean, again, I hate to say it doesn't bother me, but it really doesn't bother me.
	It's kind of expected now, right?
	That's fine. You can do that.
	But then don't talk to me about how you got to go help.
	We got to go help the Kurds!
	You know, the migrants need to play.
	Come on. Fuck off.
	You don't give a shit about this stuff.
	You're all just programmed lefty bots.
	Anyway, so with regards to the reasons I'm asking for the family tree or the mental map is this, is who's worth hanging out with?
	That's what I'm still trying to figure out, is if there is anybody, and also how to approach it.
	I mean, do I go to them and say, you know, my mom has been lying.
	Let me tell you the truth.
	Because I feel like that's the first thing that I have to say.
	Otherwise, there's going to be like, I don't agree with the fact that you're not having contact with your mom.
	You should be there for her. She's so amazing.
	I feel like I have to start out by saying, She's lying.
	But then I also still feel guilt, which I probably shouldn't feel about, you know, saying negative things about my mom, even if they're true.
	Okay, so if you had $50,000 and there was someone taking odds on how that conversation would go, double or nothing, man, double or nothing, each conversation, You've got $50,000, which, you know, you could get a pretty nice car, you could do up your kid's room, you could put a wing on the house, I don't know, whatever, right?
	You could put it, buy bitcoins, put it into savings, whatever.
	$50,000, a lot of money, right?
	And someone would have come up to you and say, okay, if this conversation goes well, I'm doubling your money.
	But if it goes badly, you get nothing.
	Like, you've got to give me the $50,000.
	Would you take that bet? I might with one of my cousins and with my aunt, my mom's sister.
	Besides them... You might or you would?
	Oh, gosh. I would say I would with my aunt and I might with my cousin.
	So let's say this is your aunt on...
	Which aunt? Where are we talking here?
	It's my mom's sister.
	She's a couple years older than my mom.
	Your mom's sister.
	Wow. That's...
	If you could back off on the mic a bit, I feel like you're running up a hill or something.
	I'm sorry. Sorry.
	So, your mom's sister.
	Okay, that's interesting. And what makes you think that your mom's sister would be receptive to such a conversation?
	She hasn't really been in contact with my mom for many, many years.
	And they've never really been close.
	When I was younger, she would sometimes take me for the weekend and I would hang out her house and I used to love it.
	I thought she was so much fun and just very, very different from my mom.
	So she's not in the family system?
	No. Okay, well that's, you know, that's certainly a possibility.
	Then I wouldn't make those odds then.
	Because the problem is, of course, if you talk to somebody who's in the family system, you may get them to agree with you in the moment, but they're not going to take your side publicly because then the whole family is going to turn on them like a bunch of jackals on a wounded zebra pup.
	Foal. Do you know what I mean?
	Yeah. So if somebody's out of the family system already, in other words, if they've, quote, defooded, which is like divorce but family of origin, if they've defooded, Then they don't have the conformity guards all around them, right?
	Right. So yeah, that seems like a reasonable possibility.
	And if you have good memories of her from your childhood, sounds pretty cool, right?
	Maybe this could be a good aunt for babysitting or having a relationship with your child-to-be, right?
	And when did you last speak with her?
	Years and years ago, probably...
	13 years ago, 14 years ago.
	Whoa, time stretch. Why so long?
	I'm not sure what happened exactly, but once I started getting into...
	Did she get kicked out of the family for questioning your mom?
	Pretty much. She actually, for a while, was saying that she wanted to write a book about how my family actually was, and everybody just...
	Couldn't handle it. They thought that she might expose things, and she just kind of drifted away.
	I mean, can you imagine? You abuse a child, and then he grows up to be a world-famous podcaster who's not afraid to talk about his history.
	Whoa! Bad call, man!
	Which is why people have to put me back in the box.
	They don't want me encouraging other people to talk about child abuse, otherwise the abusers will not be happy.
	Oh, that's such a shame that the abusers won't be happy, don't you think?
	So, okay, so she wanted to tell the truth in a public forum about family dysfunction, right?
	So they kicked her off the island, right?
	Pretty much. And that was when I was a teenager, and I was just, I wasn't as interested in going to her house as often.
	I just wanted to hang out with my friends, and so I just kind of drifted out of her life, too.
	And you'd have no framework for being able to place the value in that kind of decision at that age, for sure.
	Okay, no, it makes perfect sense to me.
	And have you tried looking her up?
	I have, and she lives about an hour and a half from where I used to live.
	I moved about a 16-hour drive away from where I was, so she lives in a familiar location.
	So you could conceivably have at least some kind of relationship with her, right?
	Yeah. Okay. That's interesting.
	Yeah, that would be cool.
	Hopefully she's retained her...
	Did she ever write the book?
	I don't think so, but you never know.
	And, um, you said a cousin or two?
	Yep. I have a cousin who is, um, let's see, it's my mom's brother's daughter and he died of alcoholism about 15 years ago.
	He was homeless for a while and he died of alcoholism and I feel like she's pretty compassionate to some of the dysfunction in our family so she might get it.
	Is she in the family structure?
	Yes and no. I feel like she's a little bit more removed than a lot of people, but still enough in it that I'm unsure how it would go.
	Okay. Yeah, all right.
	Because if you confide with someone who's in the family structure, they might go spill the beans in ways that rouse the whole family against you.
	Exactly. Do you know what this woman said about grandma?
	Whatever it is, right? Mm-hmm.
	And then you're in a shitstorm of biblical proportions, right?
	Then, like, the whole weight of outraged, inquisition-style family protects the abusers.
	Hellstorm comes down upon your forehead, right?
	Right. And, you know, that can be a clarifying event.
	It really can be a clarifying event, but it's not the recommended exit strategy, I would say.
	Alright? So, what's keeping you around?
	I guess just wanting to still have some sort of a family.
	I feel guilty not having grandparents for my baby.
	I just, I feel like I should try and make things work so that she has an extended family.
	And I've heard from people that, you know, every kid should have a grandparent, even if they're not perfect, and you should forgive.
	And I just, I don't know.
	And who's saying that?
	Just... People that I've talked to, acquaintances that I've kind of gotten.
	Listen, you've got to stop doing that shit.
	I'm sorry, man. You've got to stop springing this stuff on the normies.
	They'll just poison you. I don't mean to, oh, I'm not going to isolate you or anything.
	I want to protect you, right?
	I mean, talk about it with me, sure.
	Talk about it with close friends, absolutely.
	Find an aunt, find a cousin, go for it.
	Talk about it with your husband, beautiful.
	But you can't spring family separation on the normies.
	They're just going to infect you with cling to the crime family at all costs or will ostracize you.
	Right. It's a landmine, right?
	You see, you understand. You have not become normal.
	You've become a superhero.
	Those of us who fight and overcome child abuse, we don't just become normal.
	It's not like a guy loses use of his legs, right?
	And he's in a wheelchair, and then he works for years to get out of the wheelchair.
	Oh, look, he can walk again.
	Well, he's back to normal. That's not us.
	We're supermen. We're superwomen.
	Bullets bounce off our chest.
	Faster than a speeding locomotive.
	Fly around the world. Turn back time.
	Rescue Marco Kidder.
	Who knows, right? You have super power.
	You're not. You're from Krypton.
	Sorry, there's all these geeky references, but you're not.
	Oof, I've overcome child abuse.
	I guess I'm normal now.
	Nope. That's not how it works.
	You're a superhero. That's where the ideas of superheroes come from.
	Look at the origin story of all superheroes.
	Childhood trauma. Childhood trauma.
	Right? Superman's entire planet explodes.
	Parents get killed. All society gets killed.
	Bruce Wayne watches his parents get gunned down.
	I don't really know many superheroes, but those I do know...
	Big childhood trauma. Oh, isn't there a bad thing with Spider-Man too?
	His father dies.
	Anyway. And Superman, his father, his Earth father dies, has a heart attack, right?
	So the origin of superpowers is child abuse.
	It's kind of a weird homage that we pay to those who've survived and flourished in the face of child abuse as we create superheroes to distract ourselves from the real superheroes of those who have surmounted and found love despite trauma or because of trauma, perhaps.
	I don't know. One of the things I can thank my mother for is I don't think I'd be really as good a parent if she wasn't as bad a parent.
	One thing I can thank my father for is I wouldn't be devoted a father if my husband...
	Let me start that shit again.
	One thing I can thank my father for is that I would not be nearly as devoted a husband and father if my father hadn't left the family when I was a baby.
	And so you can't...
	You can't sit down there and say, well...
	As Superman, I'm just going to arm wrestle with a normal person.
	Like, you're just going to twist their arm off, man.
	Right? Yeah.
	It's more just been in passing.
	Somebody will say, oh, you know, your mom must be so excited to hear that you're pregnant.
	And instead of lying, because I don't want to lie, I'll say, oh, you know, I'm not really speaking with my mom right now.
	She doesn't know. And then they'll get into it.
	Well, of course you have to tell her.
	Why wouldn't you tell her?
	And I just... Well, okay, okay.
	So you don't want to lie, right?
	Right. First of all, there's nothing wrong with a little white lie.
	There's nothing wrong with it.
	Because the problem is, if you don't do the little white lie, you either have to go the whole hog or you have to tell a much bigger lie.
	Right. Right?
	Mm-hmm. Because...
	If you say, oh, I don't really speak to my mom, oh, why not, right?
	Well, you know, my dad was a pedophile and she sent me over.
	Hmm. Are you going to do that?
	No. No, right?
	So, and you can tell the truth without telling the truth.
	I know this sounds all kinds of manipulative, but this is the world we live in, right?
	This is the world we live in. So you can say, my mom is excited that I'm pregnant.
	It's true. Does she know you're pregnant?
	She knows you're pregnant, right? No.
	Unless somebody has told her.
	Somebody might have told her.
	I'm sure somebody knows. Somebody's told her.
	It's like, yeah, she is.
	I'm sure, yeah. Yeah, she is.
	But she lives a long way away.
	And you just change the subject, right?
	So she probably is excited.
	Whether excited good or bad is not specified.
	And she does live a long way away.
	And you can just change the subject, right?
	And if people want to drag it back to your mom, just say, I don't really feel like chatting about that.
	Let's chat about something else. Which is a true statement.
	Because the truth is, you don't want to unpack your heart's most wounded chambers to total strangers and have them take their slow dump of conformity in your chambers, right?
	Right. So that's true.
	This is boundaries, right?
	I don't want to talk about it.
	You know, and you can do it in a very nice way.
	I don't want to talk about it. You know, let's talk about what color I want to paint my babies from because I've really been thinking about that, right?
	And, you know, it's like you just throw a piece of meat to the side of the guard dog and off they go!
	Right? But no, you can't be provoking normie strikes from the average person.
	That's going to be... It's going to mess you up, right?
	It has messed you up, right?
	Yes. Yes, yes.
	Because then I start feeling guilty and questioning and doubting.
	Of course you do. Yeah, of course you do. Because we're tribal.
	And going against tribal norms feels like a kind of suicide.
	Yeah. And it usually was, you know, in the past, right?
	Right. So that's really important.
	And it is tough.
	I mean, it's a real navigation.
	It's a real navigation, right?
	If I meet a normie and they're like, hey, what do you do?
	It's like, oh, I do some media on the internet and people are already asleep, right?
	It's true. It's absolutely true.
	But, you know, I don't really want to get into it.
	And it's not because I'm very proud of everything that I do, but I just don't want to get into it.
	Right. What do you do?
	I do some web programming.
	It's kind of true. Did some on the website, right?
	In the past. So, yeah.
	It's true. I'm not lying.
	It's not a court of law.
	The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, right?
	The truth is something that intimacy and the truth, this is boundaries, right?
	It's something that people earn.
	You owe them nothing when it comes to honesty and self-revelation.
	You don't owe people anything.
	It's called privacy.
	That's true. And it is awkward.
	I get that. It is awkward.
	I understand that.
	I really do. But it's better to be assertive and you don't want to talk about your mom with strangers, right?
	You don't. No, I don't.
	Of course you don't. Because it's really fucking depressing watching person after person take the side of the abuser, right?
	Yes. It's like, yay world!
	I'm so happy to be a part of you!
	I remember when I thought I could get away from crazy people by getting out of my house.
	I remember that. Oh, I remember the optimism of those days.
	Well, it was delightful.
	Ah, realism.
	It's like a sandblast to the eyeballs.
	But you don't want to talk about this stuff, and you don't have to, right?
	Hey, I appreciate that thought.
	So yeah, I mean, you have to practice this.
	Like, honestly, roleplay is...
	Roleplay is highly recommended for husbands and wives, right?
	But roleplay is, you know, roleplay with your husband.
	Come up with 10 or 20 different ways to defuse people asking about your mom.
	And just, you know, it's like learning a phrase.
	A friend of mine knows...
	I actually just reconnected with him.
	My college roommate, he knows in 17 languages the phrase...
	I will have a beer, my friend will pay.
	So just learn those 17, like learn 20 or 10 or whatever, and just practice it until it becomes like second nature so that you can brush off those topics, right?
	And most people will get deep down that you don't really want to talk about those things, and a few people will be jerks about it, but the good news is if someone's a jerk to you, you can be a jerk back.
	Treat people the nicest you can.
	The first time you meet them after that, treat them as they treat you.
	And if somebody isn't going to respect your boundaries, you don't have to be nice to them.
	Right. Somebody's like, no, tell me about your mom.
	Nope. I know it's uncomfortable sometimes, but no, they don't.
	You know, you can't wear your heart on your sleeve.
	The world is full of carrion crows that will peck it to pieces, right?
	Yep. So, yeah, you gotta stay off the normie moving sidewalk to self-doubt and, you know, collapse of resolve, right?
	Yes, we do.
	And your husband can help you with that and you can help your husband with that too because he's going to get the same kinds of questions and all of that.
	He does, especially because his mom is not talking to him, hasn't talked to him in over a year.
	So he has his own problems with his mom too.
	Well, at least he's not going to wonder about it then with regards to you, right?
	No, and listen, I mean, this is, it gets easier, you know, things are easier when they're not about you.
	And so, for yourself, you can say, okay, well, even if I woke up tomorrow and really wanted to hang with my family of origin, it'd be like, well, is that good for my family?
	Is that good for my daughter, for me to get dissociated from hanging out with these people again?
	Well, no. So it's like, okay, well, temptation over, right?
	It's sort of like if you're out with your kids at dinner and you've got to drive them back, right?
	And somebody says, would you like a big honking glass of wine?
	And you say, well, no, because I've got to drive a car.
	And you would say that whether you had your kids or not, I assume it's 5% easier with kids, right?
	So it's about what's best for your child to be.
	Is it best for your child to be for you to be consumed thoughts of managing crazy people in your family who've done you harm and will continue to do so and have them side with abusers and attack you and cause all that kind of drama?
	Well, no. In fact, I don't even imagine it's really good for you to be in stressful situations while you're pregnant.
	Right. So you've got another life growing in you that's going to get up and fail a driver's license one day.
	And that's your focus.
	Because the good news about being a parent is it's really not about you anymore.
	And so people are like, oh, I want it to be about me.
	It's like, no, it's such a relief because so many decisions get made for you.
	Should I talk about race and IQ on my show?
	It's like, well, I don't want my daughter being called a racist for things that aren't her fault.
	Okay, I will. You know what I mean?
	Like, it just gets easier. It just gets easier.
	Should I try to work to create a society where women are held as accountable as men?
	Well, sure! Because I'm trying to teach my daughter accountability and I don't want the adult world teaching her the exact opposite.
	That would kind of suck, right?
	So it just becomes easier.
	And so with regards to your family of origin...
	What's best for your child to be?
	Now, you can say, well, what would be best for my child to be would be for me to have an entirely different family.
	Sure. But that's like me saying, well, I need to lose weight, but the best thing for me to do is move to Mars because I'll weigh less there.
	You know, that's not really a very realistic option, right?
	So what's best for your child is that you are emotionally present and available as a mother.
	And that ain't gonna happen if you're out there wrestling crazy people.
	So how do you handle that with your daughter?
	How would you recommend handling that when my baby gets old enough to start wondering why they don't have grandparents around?
	And how much do you tell them?
	How much, you know...
	How honest can you be with them?
	I don't want to overload her with this junk, but I also don't want to totally shield her from things.
	You say, I mean, you don't give children empirical examples that are larger or broader than the moral principles they already understand, right?
	So you can say to your kid, well, you know how we don't hit in the family, right?
	And say, yes, we don't hit, right? And say, well, it's bad to hit people, right?
	And it's particularly bad to hit children because they can't escape, right?
	I mean, if I go to work and punch a boss, the boss can fire me.
	Right? Or if the boss punches me, I can quit or report him to his boss and get him fired away.
	Right? So we have choices, but kids have no choices.
	So hitting children is the worst thing of all.
	And your child will probably agree with that.
	A, because it's true, and B, because they're a child.
	And C, because you don't hit them.
	And so then you could say, well, would you have a friend in your life who hit you?
	And what would they say? No, of course not, right?
	And you say, would you respect me if I had someone in my life who hit me as a child and didn't apologize?
	And they would say, well, no.
	And then I would say, do you think that someone's more likely to do it again if they don't even apologize?
	Because apology is kind of a promise to not do it again, right?
	So if someone doesn't apologize...
	Then they're really likely to do it again.
	So if somebody has hit a child and hasn't apologized for it, and in fact even defends it and calls it a good thing, they're not safe to have around children.
	So unfortunately, grandma, granddad, whoever, chose to hit me as a child.
	I have absolutely rejected that as a horrible and wrong thing to do.
	I try to talk about it with them and get them to understand that it was wrong and apologize and promise not to do it to any children in the future, but they wouldn't do that.
	And my first job is to keep you safe.
	And I just can't have people around Who hit children?
	I just can't. I mean, that would be incredibly...
	It would be like me buying you a tiger instead of a cat, right?
	That would just be terrible parenting.
	So, yeah, I'm sad about it.
	I did my very best.
	But my first job is to keep you safe.
	And if people are committed to hitting children, won't apologize for it, and won't promise to not do it again, it's out of my hands.
	Because protection of you is my job.
	Does that make sense? It does.
	Definitely does. I just still feel...
	I mean, that's not a bad thing for kids to hear.
	Yeah. That's a good thing for kids to hear.
	Don't you think? Because so many people say, oh, well, don't hit other children and then they're, quote, best pals with their parents who hit them.
	Right. Come on.
	All kids are looking for is a little integrity, right?
	Yeah, I feel like kids can always see through things.
	Yeah, they can. I just, I don't know.
	As much as I want my baby to have an extended family and to have a grandmother, I just think it would do her way more harm to have my mom as her grandmother.
	Well, and the harm would be to her, to her view of you, and to you being triggered and traumatized by your mother, and your child would then see that bad people rule the room.
	Right. Bad people.
	people, you do not, you do not want to teach your children that might makes right.
	And also, it's, if you say, well, my mom treated me really badly, but I'm going to have her around even though she's never apologized or acknowledged it, then, but I'm going to have her around even though she's
	You're saying to your child that you can treat family members like crap and they have no choice about whether to see you, and then when they get grumble-brained as a teenager, they're going to take it out on you, because you have to be there no matter what, the same way you're letting your mom be there no matter what.
	Right.
	They don't have to treat you well.
	And if you get the ethics of it, which I know you do, I mean, it's just sometimes we all need to hear from other people, right?
	But if you get the ethics of it, then the decision becomes emotionally hard, but the resolution is relatively easy, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it does.
	Because there's still part of me that's sad about it.
	But feel that sadness.
	Don't try and escape that sadness into the fantasy land of infinite reform of totally broken people.
	Right. I mean, so much of dysfunction in life is the avoidance of legitimate suffering, right?
	I mean, you suffered as a child.
	You really did, and I'm incredibly sorry for all of that.
	I mean, that's terrible, what happened to you as a child.
	And we talked about the most egregious aspect of it, the sexual abuse, but just having a mom like that, having an extended family like that, and seeing your stepdad appease and cower before her craziness, I mean, this is all just...
	Terrible beyond words.
	And that you're changing that, that you have good relationship with your husband, that you are going to be a loving mom, that you are committed to being connected to and protecting your child.
	It's a miracle. I mean, that's a diminishment of your will and your commitment to it, but...
	It's miraculous, I should say, how much focus you have on bettering your world, and thus the world, right?
	I mean, we can't do much about the price of tea in China, but we sure as hell can act morally in our own lives, right?
	And you're doing that. And when you get that, this is how the world does improve, and there's no other way.
	You can look back with not regret, but relief.
	You could have spent another 30 years wallowing in this shit sandwich of the crime family.
	Right. I think of all the happiness I've had not having to deal with my mom.
	It's a mountain. It's a mountain.
	And not one of these cheap-ass Everest mountains.
	I'm talking about these full-on Hawaii mountains that go from the bottom of the sea to the top of the sky.
	I mean, that's the joy.
	How many thousands of hours of not having to deal with insane, crazy people I can't change.
	Not having to rub my face in the cheese grater of willful evil with no control.
	You can't control these people.
	You can't manage them.
	You can't do anything with them.
	It's like that old War Games logo or slogan.
	A funny game, the only way to win is not to play.
	Right. That's exactly why I tried, or not tried, got myself out of it because I realized there really wasn't much else to do.
	It's like, it was just, if I stayed in it, I just had to deal with them and then do things to soothe myself after and try and let go of anger, frustration or whatever I would feel after interacting with these people.
	But it was just so exhausting having to just keep doing that.
	And certainly at this point, at this point, trying to fix your mom is like trying to talk her into being five again or trying to talk her into being taller or trying to talk her into changing her eye color.
	I mean, she's fixed. There's no changing.
	It's something that I learned about while researching.
	I kind of had an instinct for it, but I learned about it when I was researching the destruction of America's mental health care system.
	Which is, for a lot of crazy people, the first thing that goes is their capacity to become sane again.
	Their capacity even to feel that anything is wrong or even to have a sense that anything is wrong.
	Because, you know, you look at people like your mom or I look at people like my mom and you say, like, how on earth have you not course-corrected at this point?
	How on earth have you not course corrected at this point?
	Like, you know, you see these guys who are like 500 pounds, like at some point after you're buying your sixth pair of trousers, because you can't fit into them like it.
	But for some people, like what goes or what is just the capacity to notice that anything's wrong.
	And you know, they just externalize everything like your mom was trying to do, right?
	Just minimize, externalize, or take on so much quote blame that it becomes a parody and insulting.
	So you can't fix her.
	You can't fix her.
	I was just thinking about this the other day.
	Like, I mean, I spent so much thousands of hours when I was younger trying to fix family and friends.
	And I know I can, because it's what I do now.
	It doesn't come out of nowhere.
	And it all failed.
	All of it failed. Couldn't get people to go to therapy, even after I went to therapy.
	Couldn't get people to pursue self-knowledge.
	Couldn't get people to acknowledge dysfunction in their life.
	Just couldn't. And I watched friend after friend just spiral into disaster.
	No marriage, no kids, workaholic.
	Bad marriage, spousal abuse, ends up in jail.
	No life, no career, addiction to video games.
	It's just terrible.
	One guy I knew used to go to karaoke.
	He just put down his microphone in the middle of a song and he said, I've been pretending to my wife.
	I've been married. For months.
	Sorry, I've been pretending to my wife I've been employed for months.
	Oh my gosh. Had a long conversation, said, you know, man, therapy is the way to go, man.
	If you're at the point where you're pretending to go to work for months because you can't tell your wife you got fired, I mean, that's bad.
	Nope, didn't go to therapy.
	You know, couldn't fix anyone.
	And I'm glad to have this kind of forum and, you know, help people in this.
	I'm not fixing you, I understand. Just, you know, perspective and help and that kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah. But you can't.
	You can't fix people.
	You know, if they come to you for help and they really, you know, they really want to and they're whatever, right, and they respect you and, right, then maybe, right?
	But you can't fix your mom.
	I mean, she married a pedophile.
	She's a drug addict. She's enabled by everyone in her life.
	She's got 40 plus years of rank immorality under her belt.
	And she doesn't have a clue that anything's wrong.
	There's no possibility, like 0% possibility, that you can fix her.
	0%. I'm telling you that straight up.
	0%. It's actually a relief to hear.
	It is. No, listen, you've got to get that.
	Just knead that deep into your bones like you're making the deepest dish chocolate chip cookie cake that you could imagine.
	Listen, I've become a very prominent helping people guy for 15 years now.
	Do you think any of my friends, dozens and dozens of friends from my youth, have contacted me to say, wow, you really got something going on there?
	Nope. Probably not.
	You know, not one of them has said, you know, you're actually pretty good at helping people.
	I wish I'd listened.
	Nope! He's a Nazi!
	Right? Do you understand? Like, it's...
	You cannot...
	My default position is I can't help anyone.
	People like you and the other callers and wonderful exceptions to the rule.
	Fantastic. Fantastic. Like, you know, every now and then you're out at night and you're looking at the stars and you get this real blazing comet.
	Oh, a meteor just, you know, beautiful.
	But you don't sit out there all night waiting for that to happen.
	You'll go blind in a week, right?
	You cannot. Maybe if people are in an extremity, they respect you and They know something's wrong, and they're willing to listen, right? And look at what you emailed me today, right?
	Kind of desperate, right? And I respect that.
	That's a very powerful thing to do.
	To be in need is a very powerful thing if you're not around manipulators.
	Otherwise, it's something that's going to get you wrecked, right?
	But think of, has your mom ever contacted you in the way that you contacted me today?
	No. And it's never going to happen.
	She does not have that part of her brain anymore.
	The passage to self-justification and self-delusion is usually almost always a one-way street.
	You know, you can't rewind menopause, you can't rewind puberty, and you can't rewind delusion.
	And you have to understand the gap between you and her because you look at her like I look at my mom's life and I say, oh my god, that's so terrible I would do anything to change it.
	But that's mistaking my mom for myself.
	We're two very, very different people.
	Almost opposites in a way that's not entirely incomprehensible to understand, right?
	But I look at my mom's life and say, oh my god, what a nightmare.
	What a nightmare. Yeah.
	I use my mom as an example for myself a lot of times on exactly what I don't want to be.
	Exactly, right? But don't put yourself in your mother's shoes, because she's like a different species.
	People who have conscience, self-awareness, ethics, morality, empathy, and the people who don't, It's predator and prey.
	It is a different species.
	I know not biologically, but, you know, in terms of like how relationships work in society, you know, the criminal and the victim are like a different species.
	They're predator and prey. Biologically speaking, I get genetically blah, blah, blah.
	But in terms of the biological relationships, predator and prey.
	And if the prey empathizes with the predator, they just offer up their neck and die.
	You can't do it. It's incredibly self-destructive to empathize with evil people because they don't empathize with you and they sure as hell don't empathize with themselves.
	They're just machines of immediate gratification.
	It is a massive act of self-preservation to avoid mistaking evil people for yourself.
	They are not just different, they're opposite.
	You cannot fix them because they think you're broken.
	You understand? If I have a disease and I go to a doctor who has a pill and I believe and accept that the pill will cure me, I will take the pill.
	If I'm perfectly healthy and someone jumps me in an alley and tries to stuff something down my throat, what am I going to do?
	Fight back? Fight for my life?
	To the point of death, point of killing someone if I have to, right?
	I don't know, but that's the poison they're going to put in my mouth, probably, right?
	So you understand, you're not a doctor with a pill to your mother.
	you're a criminal with poison and she will fight to death Yes.
	She will fight to the death to avoid you.
	Helping her. And if you understand that, then you understand what the guilt is there for.
	The guilt is there to keep you in the orbit of your mother.
	It's her mechanism. It's not what your child needs.
	It's not what your husband needs. And it sure as hell is not what you need.
	What you need is the honest to God understanding and acceptance.
	That your mom has been exposed to all the self-help material that she ever needs, more than almost anyone in history has ever had the chance to consume.
	And it has no connection to her.
	It's true. And I've sent her so many things.
	I've bought her so many books.
	She came to my house and saw my Vitamix and we eat super healthy.
	And she's like, oh, only if I had a Vitamix I could be so much healthier.
	I bought her a Vitamix for Christmas.
	And then it's, oh, I have ringing in my ears and it just hurts so much to run the Vitamix.
	It's just so loud. And I'm like, well, why don't you go in another room and have my stepdad make a smoothie or something?
	I know he would do it. She's like, oh, I don't want inconvenience.
	It's always some excuse.
	Like, well, I'm sorry I wasted $400 on a freaking blender for you.
	Jeez. Yeah. Yeah.
	Could have thought of the educational son for your kid, right?
	Yeah. No, this is not...
	It's... My mother and I are not the same species.
	I mean, I don't want to speak for you.
	You know your mother better from what I've heard.
	Can you imagine how you'd feel if you found out?
	I'm not saying that this will ever happen, but let's say you have a daughter, and then you found out that someone touched her inappropriately.
	Would you bury it and then deny it in 20 years' time?
	I would kill the person.
	Of course you would. And you would notice.
	And you would care. And you would leave no stone unturned to keep your child safe.
	Whereas your mother buried it and denies it 20 years later.
	It's not the same species.
	You can't empathize with evil people.
	That's the only hold they have over you.
	Unless it's a gun directly, which your mom doesn't have, right?
	Self-preservation is key.
	Self-preservation is key, and building a safe environment for your child is key, and your husband, and yourself.
	She's even done things to try and break things up with my husband and I because he's the strongest thing keeping us apart because he's so rational and so strong, and he's so different from the Men in my family.
	And so she just makes up lies.
	Like she told me that he told her that he was going to move his mom here so that she could be in my life because I need strong female role models and she wasn't a strong enough role model for me.
	It's like nothing my husband would ever say to me.
	She's just... Oh, listen, you've got to...
	I mean, you're trying to feed her medicine and she's pumping poison into your veins.
	Yeah. Like this is...
	This is not a 411 call, this is a 911 call, right?
	Yep. This is why you feel desperate, because she's a predator, man.
	She will wreck your life if she can.
	And take great pleasure in doing so.
	Yeah. The last time I was in the hospital, because I have asthma and sometimes it gets really bad, and I was in the hospital for a while and my mom found out and she wouldn't stop nagging me On the phone saying that I should have let her know and I should know how it makes her feel when I don't let her know these things that are happening to me.
	And she's sitting there worrying and it's all my fault that she's worrying.
	Meanwhile, I'm in the hospital not able to breathe.
	Yeah, no, she's in the role play, right?
	She makes it all about her. So some people are born into the mafia, you know, those poor, more dominated Sicilians and so on, right?
	Some people are born into the mafia.
	You're born into the mafia, which is ma.
	It's true. And then she found out what room I was in, so she wouldn't stop calling the hospital room I was in.
	And my nurse, I talked with her for a little bit about it, and she's like, I'm unplugging this phone.
	She literally unplugged my phone from the wall to protect me from my mom.
	She's like, your mom is crazy.
	I'm not letting her do this.
	See, now you're telling me this because you want to convince me, right?
	Yeah. Just another example.
	Hang on, hang on. You're telling me this story because you want to convince me, right?
	I was convinced almost two hours ago.
	You need to start listening to the nurse and stop trying to convince me.
	You need to accept this.
	It's a painful thing to accept.
	But I can't see any possibility of safety or security around this family structure.
	And the good news is, it's not about you anymore.
	It's about what's best for your kid. Right.
	All right. Does this help in terms of perspective?
	It definitely helped.
	Good. Yeah.
	Thank you so much.
	And I am sorry. I am sorry that this is the decision that you are faced with.
	It's a brutal thing to be faced with, but that which does not kill us.
	Yeah, you might be interested to see what happens to your medical issues when this gets more resolved in your mind.
	And you'll let me know, right, what goes on going forward?
	Yes, I will. All right, all right.
	I'll let you know. It was a useful convo?
	Do you always want to check in at the end?
	Yeah, it was so useful.
	It just brought a lot of clarity.
	I just needed to hear it from you.
	I listen to a lot of calls where I'll hear a little bit and I'm like, it's kind of the situation I'm going to.
	Oh, you listen back to this roleplay.
	You listen back to this roleplay and you see how deeply the structure is embedded and you'll see.
	Well, listen, thanks for the call.
	Thanks for your openness.
	Always a great pleasure and honor and I'm glad it was helpful to you and I will unbendedly beg you to let me know what happens and send me some baby pictures.
	I will. Thank you so much, Safan.
	All my best to you and your husband.
	Take care. 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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