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Sept. 27, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:56:02

MOTHER MURDER! Freedomain Call In

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	Good morning, everybody.
	Stéphane, we're on a first-name basis, aren't we?
	Yeah, pretty much sure we are.
	So I hope you guys are doing well.
	I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday, a wonderful weekend.
	And yeah, we were just chatting about Trump's Supreme Court nominee, and I was just mentioning that it's kind of a long game to have all of these sexual assault allegations and other kinds of grueling, drag-men-through-the-mud kind of situations,
	which is that... Basically, it means that Fewer men are going to want to become Supreme Court justices or take that kind of route and it is inevitably going to drift towards getting women into the seat of power as far as that goes,
	right? And you know, while of course women are wonderfully competent and brilliant and there are many fine free market thinkers among women, in general there's a slight to medium tendency for women to be a little bit more sympathetic and a little bit less objective justice oriented.
	And so yeah, part of the long game is to make sure that you're going to end up with a whole bunch of women in power because men can't survive these sexual assault allegations or don't want to put themselves through it.
	And of course, for the men, and I think we've seen this with Kavanaugh, to some degree, is that after they go through that process, they know that that process is always there and always available, and that once you've had that bullet go past your ear and take off an earlobe, so to speak, you know that the reloading and the attack can come Again, at any time, so it conditions kind of what you do going forward.
	And as long as we live in a system where a woman like Christine Blasey Ford can end up making hundreds of thousands of dollars and be then famous and in demand on the speaking circuit and all of that for making these allegations,
	which I certainly did not believe in any way, shape, or form, as long as we have that system, this kind of Brute-force character assassination is going to win the day, and that means, of course, that, unfortunately, it's late Weimar, not early Weimar, and things are going to be settled in rather unpleasant fashions rather than intellectually.
	But that's the world we live in, and we've certainly done our best to prevent it, but that is the slide that is occurring.
	So let us move on.
	To the callers, James, please to tell me who we have up with this morning.
	Well, good morning, and today we have a caller who writes, I'm 19, and for the past few years I've been living in hell because of an abusive relationship with my parents.
	They are extremely violent and have been treating me like complete shit because of my mental illness.
	Almost every day I'm disrespected and made to feel extremely uncomfortable.
	Fights break out every few days, and they make me way more depressed.
	Somehow, I managed to make it, so far.
	The only thing I want right now is to leave and never look back, but I still don't make enough time to get myself a place, and I don't think they'll let me leave on good terms.
	What should I do?
	Wow, I'm so sorry to hear about that.
	Welcome to the show, and what else do I need to know?
	Hello, Stefan. Sorry, I'm a bit nervous.
	No, no problem at all.
	I get that.
	That makes total sense to me.
	But trust me, we're going to get into a productive conversation here and we're going to get you some real help.
	So please just tell me what's the backstory here.
	What's been going on, I guess, from day one?
	Okay, so a few years back, I got diagnosed with OCD. After my parents' divorce.
	And since then, nobody respects me in the family.
	They basically treat me like a retard.
	It's humiliating.
	They get very violent.
	They force me to do things that make me uncomfortable.
	And they just scream at me almost every day.
	Especially my mother.
	She is the most violent one.
	I recently got a job, but it pays too low for me to leave this house, so I'm stuck here, and I also lost all hope.
	Well, don't do that.
	At least, don't do that.
	I mean, I get where you're coming from.
	I really do, and it does feel like sometimes it's a...
	You're born at the bottom of a bottomless well, so to speak, and there's maybe a tiny little print pick Of sunlight so far above that it looks like a star would look to most of us.
	So I really, really understand that.
	It does feel sometimes like there's no way out.
	But there always is. There always is.
	And sometimes it's just a matter of perspective and encouragement.
	So, but not empty, like go for it, you know, like some practical things that, that need to happen.
	So, so tell me a little bit about the violence, because you've been, you talked about like the scream at you, yell at you and so on, which is terribly destructive, of course, but is that the, the extent of the violence?
	Is there physical violence involved as well?
	Yes, there is. When my mom is angry at someone, she just uses me as a punching bag, essentially.
	So she literally closed fists, full on raging bull punching you?
	I think she did that once.
	There was this one time where I was a little late for church, so she was already angry and she used that as an excuse.
	She just came up on my room and started beating me over the head.
	She just punched me in the head repeatedly.
	Wow. Oh my gosh.
	And when you were growing up, what happened when you displeased your parents?
	Usually like a beating with a shoe.
	Right. Pulling my ear until I can't feel it anymore.
	And the beating with the shoe, would that be aimed at your butt or some other place or just random?
	Butt, sometimes legs.
	Okay, alright.
	And how often would you be hit as a child?
	Every time I did something they didn't like.
	They also really...
	How should I say it?
	They... Verbal abuse as a child, too.
	I'm sorry, say again. Who was abused?
	Verbal abuse as a child.
	Yes, verbal abuse. Okay, got it.
	Sorry, go ahead. I was beaten for lying.
	About, like, minor things.
	If I, like, didn't do my homework, I would get beaten.
	Right. If I didn't do well in school.
	And sometimes my dad would get very angry and he would just break stuff around the house.
	That was your dad, he would, like, punch walls, that kind of stuff?
	He broke my glasses and stuff.
	He broke my monitor once.
	I'm very encouraged by something you said, though.
	What? I mean, I'm very unhappy about the things that you're saying about your parents, but I'm very happy about something that you said.
	You said I was hit or beaten For displeasing my parents, rather than for doing something wrong.
	That's a world of difference, and I'm certainly glad that you've seen that kind of clearly, because displeasing people, like being hit for displeasing people, which is most punishment in the world, is because you've displeased someone, not because you've broken any objective moral law.
	My mother always says that you have to do what's right, and it always is what she wants.
	Funny coincidence, that, right?
	Morality is always what pleases me.
	Yeah, that's... Sorry.
	Well, so the violence within your mother is something that needs to come out, and...
	She needs an excuse to come out with, she needs an excuse that justifies her need for violence.
	In other words, she doesn't, she's not in a neutral state.
	You displease her and then she is violent.
	No, she has a desire for violence, a thirst for destruction.
	But in order to protect herself, she needs to justify it in some manner.
	My experience when I was a kid, I don't want to confuse the two of us, right, like they were the same people, but I think these kinds of personality structures are very similar.
	So, I don't know if you ever had this experience that your mom comes home, she's in a bad mood, she's in a bad mood, and she's just stalking around the house looking for something that's wrong, and So that she can vent her bad mood by being destructive or violent or abusive in some manner.
	And it's important to understand the bad mood precedes the beatings.
	The beatings don't come from a neutral place.
	Ah, I'm neutral. You have broken some objective rule.
	I now must regretfully punish you.
	No, no, no. The way it works is...
	It's like you turn the kettle on the stove, you put the kettle on the stove, you turn the kettle on, eventually there's that whistling sound, usually not too eventually, and that's your mother, right?
	The temp is there, and the shrieking, whether it's from the tea kettle or from your mother, is going to happen because of the bad mood or the heat from the stove.
	It's not an objective process.
	It is an inevitable process.
	It's looking for an excuse, if that makes sense.
	Did that happen in your family or was it something different?
	I think all of my family was beaten to varying degrees.
	I remember my mother telling me she was hit with sticks and belts.
	Right. And it always struck me as so strange.
	That people who remember being hit and remember how unbelievably unpleasant it was to be hit, how those people just turned around and hit their kids.
	Also, she was hit by her husband.
	Both of them.
	I mean, boyfriends. She never married.
	Right.
	Out of redlock.
	Out of redlock.
	And also her violence is making my mental condition worse.
	I was getting better from my OCD and now it's going worse than ever.
	Right. Yeah, I mean, I have a general beef with the mental health profession as a whole, which is, to me, the mental health profession, again, lots of exceptions, lots of wonderful individual practitioners and so on.
	But the philosophy of the mental health profession as a whole is to try and get people a lot of times to try to adapt to crazy conditions, to kind of insane conditions.
	And particularly adult children of abusive parents, right?
	The idea is, well, you know, you've got to find some way to live with it.
	You've got to find some way to deal with it.
	You've got to find some way to adapt to it.
	And it's like, no. It's like, you know, if you're a lung doctor saying to someone, well, you know, you're a smoker, so we've got to find some way to manage that and adapt to your smoking and say, no, no, no.
	The whole point was to...
	And there was a time, of course, when doctors didn't really believe that smoking was bad for you and the cigarette companies used to...
	Get doctors to endorse the cigarette smoking and all that.
	Four out of five doctors smoke, I think it was Chesterfield's or something like that.
	There's not this clear delineation of, well, look, you're in an abusive relationship that you never chose.
	You have no moral responsibility to people who abused you as children.
	And probably the very healthiest thing to do would be to get out of that relationship at least for some time period because it's destructive to your mental health.
	And it's funny because they say this a lot of times to people who are in abusive relationships that they chose.
	You know, so if you were a wife and you came to a therapist with Stories of how your husband verbally abuses you and beats you and so on.
	Well, they'd say, well, you've got to get to safety.
	Let me give you the shelter.
	You know, you've got to get to safety.
	This is incredibly destructive and so on, right?
	But a lot of times, it's kind of a taboo within the whole profession.
	If you say, well, my parents are abusive.
	Well, it's a whole different matter.
	It's a whole different matter.
	And this contradiction within the profession, to me, is really bad.
	And in the future, I think it will be looked at as really terrible behavior.
	It will be similar to doctors encouraging smokers to keep smoking.
	Ah, it's not bad for you. It's fine.
	You know, just find some way to work around these symptoms.
	The reasons for that, I mean, it's a topic for another time, but it does seem to be the case.
	I mean, Dr. Phil, to his credit, as I've mentioned before on his website, does say if you have abusive parents, it might be healthy to get them out of your life.
	But it's not the kind of thing that is repeated and, in a sense, kind of drilled into the general population.
	Which I think is a real...
	Well, it's more than a shame.
	I think it's a real betrayal.
	But of course, as I'm working on my book, Peaceful Parenting, if we can imagine what a society would look like if it dedicated itself to the welfare of children rather than the protection of corrupt adults, it'd be a whole different matter.
	And part of me thinks, well, it's kind of a...
	If you have adults whose parents are abusive and they stay in that relationship...
	Then the therapy is going to go on for longer, right?
	It may never end because the environment is not changing.
	And I don't know, is it a ka-ching situation?
	I don't know. That seems kind of really bad.
	So I don't sort of go there the whole way, but I certainly do have some suspicion.
	So I just wanted to mention that at the outset, it was something I was mulling over in sort of preparation for this call.
	Why would you say to people who were the victims of abuse in relationships that they voluntarily chose that the first thing they have to do is get out and get safe?
	But if you are talking to an adult who's being abused in a relationship he or she never chose, why is it usually the case that that person will be told, often, not always, to find a way to accommodate themselves within that situation, to find a way to accommodate themselves within that situation, and it will simply just be managing symptoms rather than dealing with root causes.
	So anyway, just kind of wanted to mention that as my humble outside amateur opinion.
	I mean, it's true.
	My therapist said to mediate her situation, not to leave.
	Oh, really? Okay, so I guess we have a bit more of a concrete example straight out of this, right?
	Right. And I'm like, no thanks, I want to leave.
	Right. So tell me a little bit about the OCD, the obsessive-compulsive disorder, I'm sure everyone knows that.
	Yes. But, yeah, tell me a little bit about the OCD thing, what the story was with that.
	It started with washing my hands, like, a few times, and just kept going until I was disgusted of things.
	I took long baths.
	Then I started getting better, but then my mom started getting worse, and I got way worse.
	And now it got to a point where I can't talk about it with her, or I get, like, her violent screaming at me.
	She just screams when I'm honest with her.
	So I just gave up on talking.
	I'm like, I'm just gonna shut up.
	And it's really distressing to me not having anyone to talk to.
	Yeah, no, I get that. So tell me a lot, if you can, about the emotions involved with the OCD. So you said it started with hand washing, which, you know, it's funny because the OCD hand washers are the ones most likely to flourish in an epidemic, but that's, you know, sort of a side-by-side thing.
	So you started washing, you were washing your hands, as we all do, of course, and then what was the feelings associated with that?
	I just felt like I had to do more.
	I had to do a specific amount of times or I just don't feel comfortable.
	So was it that you had an existing discomfort that was alleviated by washing your hands or did washing your hands introduce a new comfort that you didn't experience before?
	It was a discomfort.
	So you had an existing discomfort, and then when you'd wash your hands, it would go away, but then it would come back, and then you'd wash your hands, it would go away.
	Is that kind of how it worked?
	Yes. Right.
	Right. Do you remember what was going on in your life when this first began to arise?
	How long ago did it start?
	About a time when...
	A few years after my parents' divorce...
	It was a very violent endeavor.
	Want me to tell about it?
	I'm so sorry. Did you say your first divorce?
	No, my parents' divorce.
	Your parents' first divorce. Your parents got divorced.
	Okay, yeah, I would like to hear all about it, if you don't mind.
	It's not like a formal divorce.
	They went married, but, you know, they left each other's house.
	We can call it divorce. It's fine.
	I guess it's a separation. So, what happened was that he was very violent one day.
	And he was beating my mother in the bed while I was with her.
	And then he pulled out a pair of scissors and started threatening us to stay in the room.
	And then he stayed in the room next.
	And then I got the idea to leave.
	So I just took off my shoes, went just with socks and went to the police, called it and left.
	With our things after we got the police in.
	Wow. And so was he threatening to stab you both?
	I think he was threatening just to stab me.
	Just to stab you? Now, what was your involvement?
	I mean, he was beating on your mom, right?
	So what was his beef with you, so to speak?
	I don't know. He was just angry.
	Did you confront him?
	Did you come between the beast and his prey, so to speak?
	I did that as an award.
	Wow. Wow.
	So, you basically were in the presence of a hyper-violent man with a deadly weapon who was threatening to kill you.
	Yes. It happened with my mom, too.
	Yeah, I'm a bit more concerned with you than your mom, if you don't mind me saying so, because your mom has beaten up on kids.
	So, frankly, to hell with her as far as I'm concerned.
	But I'm much more concerned with you at the moment.
	And also, of course, your mom chose to have this man.
	No, I didn't mean that.
	I meant that she also threatened me with a weapon.
	Oh, so not in the same situation, in a different situation?
	Yes. Okay, well, to hell with her even more.
	Tell me about that situation. Once she was fighting with me, she was like cooking food and she was holding a knife and she pointed at me.
	It was pretty scary.
	And what was the circumstances and what did she say?
	I don't remember.
	I forget a lot of stuff because it was a bit traumatic.
	That's a really powerful and terrifying image to me, in particular that your mother is cooking and at the same time pointing a deadly weapon at you.
	And it's the same implement that she could use to make your food or end your life, you know, to feed you, to sustain you, or to end your life completely.
	Yes. Talk about the deadly breast, right?
	Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
	I also went out of the house the day she punched me in the head.
	I was scared.
	I went out to my uncle.
	I didn't want to come back.
	But they forced me to go back.
	What was their reasoning behind that?
	I don't know. They were really friendly to my mom, so they'd do whatever she wants.
	Right. Okay.
	Right. Now, how old were you when these incidents, the one in particular, with your mom and the knife and your dad and the scissors?
	Dad and the scissors was like 12 and 11.
	And your mom? Mom and knife was like 17, 18.
	Wow. Now, the whole time that all of this was occurring, I mean, you're in a society, right?
	You're in a society that's got priests and teachers and relatives and friends and friends' parents.
	You must have come into contact with hundreds and hundreds of people who would have every reason, or at least several good reasons, to suspect or believe or accept that you were being abused to the point of death threats.
	It is important.
	I went a lot to church and my mother threatened me to not tell anything to them.
	She always threatened me before I go to church.
	And what would she say? She just said to not tell them anything that I would get taken away to a government institution or something.
	Or that they would not believe me, which is worse.
	And did anyone ever notice anything?
	No. And I was too scared to tell anyone.
	If they don't believe me and tell her, what the fuck happens to me?
	I die! Well, that is a very fair analysis and a very reasonable analysis of the situation.
	That if you try to get help, and it's true in abusive relationships from what I've read, that when you try to get help, that's the time when you're in the most danger.
	When the woman leaves the abusive man, that's when she's most likely to get killed.
	And so, yeah, if you try to get help...
	And you don't get whisked to a better place and never have any contact with your deadly bomb again, if that doesn't happen and the odds of that happening, I don't know who wants to take that chance, right?
	I was even scared to talk to you in the case you would discover.
	I've been delaying this for like four months to contact you guys because I was so scared.
	I understand. I understand.
	How old were you with the handwashing started, the OCD, as you say?
	I was about 13.
	And this was during the time of your parents' separation?
	A little bit after.
	And when your mom was home and your dad was home, did you feel safer than when you were just home with your mom alone, or was it about the same or worse?
	I never felt safe out of my parents.
	Right. But sometimes they can cancel each other out.
	In other words, if your mom's in a bad mood, maybe she'll go pick on your dad rather than you.
	She usually picks on me.
	I'm sorry? She picks on the most vulnerable, so that's me.
	So if your dad was home, it wouldn't matter.
	She'd still go for you, right? Yes.
	And my dad would just...
	He doesn't take her shit.
	He just beats her up.
	Huh. Well, it's not really an option for you.
	Now, if you were, because at some point, you know, you're a teenage boy, at some point, well, you were, now you're a man, but at some point you get bigger than your mom.
	And I think she's scared of me now, a little bit.
	Right, well, you got a lot of pent-up anger, right?
	Yes. And has that changed anything in the dynamic?
	I scream back a lot.
	Yeah. But mostly I'm trying to de-escalate because she once said she was willing to escalate to death.
	What did she say in particular?
	She said if I defend myself, I better make sure she doesn't get up.
	Oh, so if you fight back, you have to kill her.
	Yes. Otherwise she will get you at some point, right?
	No, she will kill me, I think.
	Yeah, I mean, that's what she's saying, right?
	Yes. If you put me down and I get back up, you're dead.
	Yes. It's kind of terrifying.
	I think I'm going to take the kinder out of there and say it's completely terrifying.
	Yes. It's horrible.
	And horrifying, because of course then, if you're in a situation of escalation to murder...
	God help you in the court system, right?
	Yes. Oh no, it was self-defense!
	Ah no, but your dad might betray you, right?
	He might say, oh no, no, he was always trouble and she was always peaceful and there's no witnesses and that's it, right?
	Your life is over. So basically, either I die, I kill her and I lose my life to prison, or I get beaten to disabled.
	So I can't win.
	Right. I just have to be compliant as best as I can and try not to cry near her because that also makes her violent.
	Oh, so if you are emotional or you're vulnerable then she gets violent, right?
	Yes. Yeah, it's a very common pattern, unfortunately, among abusers, that if you show unhappiness or sadness or vulnerability, it provokes their conscience and they attack you, right?
	I usually cry at my job.
	Right. And I try to hide it as well, because I don't want them telling her.
	Right. Right.
	Now, let's go back to this OCD. You said you started taking baths.
	It got better and then it got worse.
	And what was the story with that?
	I was getting better because there was no major conflict with my mother.
	She was still a piece of shit, but I did manage sometimes when she wasn't at home.
	I was a little bit happier.
	I washed myself a little less.
	But then she got retired from her job, and then it all fell apart.
	Oh, so she then was sitting at home.
	Does she drink? Does she have anything that provokes or, I guess, disinhibits her from violence?
	Makes her more likely to be violent?
	She smokes and drinks, but she drinks very little, so it's more herself, really.
	Right, okay, okay.
	And where is the compulsion at the moment?
	How is it? Oh, it's fucking horrible.
	You want to see my hands?
	No, that's fine.
	I'm going to assume that they're red and raw.
	They're red, dry, and they rip a lot.
	Right. And when were you diagnosed?
	What age? Like 14.
	Right. And is it worse now than it was when you were diagnosed?
	Yes. Okay.
	Are there any particular circumstances that make you more likely to wash your hands or wash your body?
	Or is it kind of a constant thing all day?
	It's when my mom's around.
	When my mom's around, I'm always cleaning myself.
	I chill a little bit when I'm outside.
	Like work or something and you're more safe, right?
	Yes, like work is shitty, but it's 10 times better than staying at home.
	Yeah, yeah, I know. Let's show it's a huge improvement in these kinds of situations.
	I know that fairly well.
	All right. When you were growing up, my friend, did you have anything in the household?
	I mean, usually do, and usually it's with regards to the mother.
	Did you have anything in your household that was related to dirt and cleaning?
	Like, was this a thing of your mom's, like everything's got to be clean, or she would get mad at you for things being dirty or messy or anything like that?
	My dad was a very disgusting person, so I think that might have influenced it.
	And how would that play out with your mom and dad?
	What do you mean? So, if your dad was, like, disgusting, you mean, like, he would, what, fart a lot?
	He would, like, leave a mess?
	He would, like... He would have, like, 20 piss bottles behind his computer.
	Sorry, 20 what? Piss bottles.
	Oh. Piss bottles?
	Yes. Okay. What the what?
	You've got to break this down for me.
	I don't know what the hell... I mean, I know what that means, but what's the story?
	He just didn't want to go to the washroom?
	He was too lazy to get up?
	He was diabetic. He was diabetic.
	So he peed a lot more than normal people.
	Yes, but that doesn't mean that he has to pee in a jar or a bottle, right?
	He is also lazy and very lazy.
	All he did was sit on his computer, masturbate and piss on bottles.
	Oh my god. Yes, that's right, Free Domain listeners.
	This wonderful, video game addicted, diabetic, violent, beating, pissing in bottles guy gets to get married and have children, so what's your damn excuse?
	Holy crap. I don't think he played video games, but...
	Alright, porn addicted, peeing in a bottle guy.
	Okay, he did watch porn.
	Oh my god.
	Now, the pornography that he would watch, was this something like...
	I mean, I hate to say, did he have the decency to put headphones on or was this something you saw or heard?
	I saw it.
	So he wouldn't even close the door?
	No. Sometimes he would invite me to watch it.
	Ah, what?
	Yes. How old were you when this would happen?
	Like, seven. So he would invite you to come in and watch pornography when you were seven?
	Yes. Oh my god.
	I'm so sorry.
	Oh my god. Oh my god, I'm so sorry.
	Oh, that's so unbelievably horrible.
	And of course, what are you going to do?
	Say no? I sometimes say no because my mother said not to watch it.
	Right. Oh my god.
	She said I would become a midget if I watched it.
	That she would what?
	I would become a midget.
	Oh, midget. Oh, okay.
	Some sort of gypsy voodoo curse.
	All right. Do you have any suspicion that your father was sexually abused as a child?
	I don't know.
	His father died when he was young.
	Though he might have abused his siblings because he was like their dad for a while.
	Yeah, yeah. But I can't confirm.
	Do you have any brothers or sisters?
	I have only stepbrothers and sisters.
	Oh, from the new marriage after your parents separated when you were 13?
	Yes. Oh, the new get-together.
	Yeah, okay. Yeah.
	And does your mother assault them too?
	No, she isn't around them.
	My dad married another woman.
	My mother hasn't married yet.
	Ah, I see. But she has...
	A contender for marriage already.
	And luckily, I'm old, so I can't get molested by him.
	But you didn't have any molestation when you were a kid, right?
	I mean, almost.
	I mean, there's some shady stuff.
	Yeah. You want me to tell it?
	If you want to tell it, I'm certainly happy to hear, or if you think it would be helpful.
	Okay, okay. So...
	When I was like five or six years old, I used to sleep with my parents a lot because I was scared of the dark, right?
	Yeah. So I always slept on their bed.
	So this one day, they pushed me to the side of the bed and they had sex with me in the bed.
	And awake, obviously, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, awake. They had anal.
	Okay, so how would you know that?
	I mean, my dad was behind her, I think.
	Like a spooning thing?
	Yes. Right.
	Okay. I could hear everything.
	And of course, as a kid, you think it's pain, right?
	I didn't know what to think.
	I was just uncomfortable.
	Yeah, no, I can get that.
	I remember this very vividly.
	Do you know, so your parents only had you, and do you know what the circumstances was around your mom getting pregnant?
	Was this something they were trying to do?
	Was it accidental? I was planned.
	You were planned, right?
	Outside of marriage, I was planned.
	Right. Oh, man.
	Listen, I just want to zoom out for a second and just say this is an incredibly heartbreaking story.
	And I'm so incredibly sorry that this has been your experience so far in life.
	I mean, oh, man.
	Just another day in hell.
	Just another day in hell.
	Yeah, that's right. That's right.
	I mean, it's kind of a bargain that I imagined, and I put this in one of my novels, oh, like 30 years ago, which is the existence question, right?
	The existence question. So if you were floating above the world Before you were born, and you got to see the highlights of your life up to the age of 18, and then not knowing what would happen afterwards, would you choose to be born? I don't think so.
	Yeah. I don't know how I'm still alive, frankly.
	Philosophy! Yes, it was a part of it.
	Your show really helped me with that stuff.
	Helped me see that it was a brighter future.
	I could be a good parent and break the cycle.
	Right. Right.
	That's my only object right now.
	Yeah, for sure. I mean, if...
	Because I had that thought, very vivid thought, that if I said, okay, I could look at my life up to the age of 15...
	Would I choose to be born?
	I'd be like, nope, thanks, I'll take the non-existence because the being born is not good.
	Can we re-roll, please?
	Yeah, yeah, that's right. Can I spin the wheel one more time and get perhaps not, you know, Satan's born for parents?
	That would be excellent. But yeah, and the reason I bring that up is it's important to know that For those of us, and I, you know, you had it worse than me, so I... No, no, I don't think I had...
	No, you did.
	You did. You did.
	Did the charge beat you to near death?
	Yes. Well, I don't know about to near death, but she was beating my head against a metal door, and I just went limp before I went unconscious, but certainly...
	You know, once you get that your mother's willing to kill you if you disobey her, that kind of changes things, right?
	You can never be yourself.
	You can never be yourself around those people again because all you're doing is playing defense.
	All you're doing is trying not to get killed.
	You know, it's like if you imagine if I was, I don't know, like in the deep woods doing some podcast or doing some live stream or some show like this.
	I'm in the deep woods. And suddenly I notice a giant fucking bear is stalking me.
	Do you think that's going to alter the show just a little?
	Just a little, right?
	I mean, now it's going to be like, oh God, here's my GPS coordinates, send someone, right?
	And climb a tree or, I don't know, bears can climb trees too.
	Maybe it's wolves, right? Wolves can't climb trees.
	But yeah, so for people who You know, it's sort of like if you imagine like you're safely and legally talking on the phone in the car and you're just having a pleasant chit-chat about nothing in particular and then somebody starts ramming your car.
	Yeah! Going to alter the conversation just a little bit and then imagine that goes on for 20 fucking years, right?
	Yes. You can't be yourself.
	All you're doing is trying not to die.
	Today's to-do list.
	Don't die.
	And don't murder.
	Or don't commit homicide in self-defense.
	That's my two checklists.
	And it's kind of hard to have any other checklists when you've got those two things.
	Don't kill. Don't die.
	If I can achieve that by tonight, it's been a great day.
	There's also the homeless option, too.
	There is the homeless option.
	Yes, there is.
	Yes, there is. In which case, you get to open yourself up to even more abuse in this wonderful game of spin the wheel to hell.
	Right, right.
	Have you dated at all?
	No, I have nothing, social skills.
	No, no, good, because...
	I was invited to an RG once.
	Really? Yes.
	That was not the next sentence I was expecting from you, but that's why these shows remain so engaging.
	Go on. I declined it, of course, because I'm not crazy.
	But one of my friends invited me to her orgy, and I kind of joked out a little bit and fucked off.
	Wow. Well, there's a lady with a future.
	Yes. The future of antibiotics and infertility.
	Wow. I think she was making like a checklist of everyone in school.
	She wanted me in it.
	Wow. Well, good for you.
	I mean, listen, I'm sorry that you haven't dated because, you know, I get as important to a young man as it is to all of us, but...
	Unfortunately, given your home situation, the odds of you getting a quality woman, unfortunately, not because you're not a great guy.
	Listen, you're on this call. You've navigated this hellstorm of a family and you're in one piece and you have not committed any crimes and you've not become an addict and you've not...
	You know, killed yourself.
	I mean, you've done incredibly well.
	So you're a high-quality guy, but of course, unfortunately, due to the circumstances, the odds of getting a high-quality woman in this situation are low, right?
	For no fault of your own, just this is your environment, right?
	She's going to look at this environment and say, hmm, great guy?
	Ah, no thanks. The people I meet are surprised I am not a crackhead.
	Right, right. Well, again, I mean, your personal qualities of character, plus philosophy, plus, you know, I'm sure a bunch of other things, they really...
	You know, all we need to do to survive is to know that we're not alone.
	Yes. Because it's like that mark of Cain on the forehead, right?
	The mark of, I guess, uncleanliness and so on, right?
	Because when you're in...
	When you're born into a shitstorm...
	You go out into the world, you still kind of stink, right?
	I know I'm going to provoke you to wash yourself or something, right?
	But I think this is part of what's happening, is that you're born and you develop these god-awful survival skills, necessary, essential, but god-forsaken survival skills, and then you go out into the world and the normies are like, whoa! Survivor!
	Now, what they should do, of course, is they should surround you and hug you and wish you well and praise you for everything you had to go through, but they don't do that.
	Generally, what they do is they recoil from you like you're holding some giant venomous snake called history, and they try to avoid you and isolate you like you're some dangerous animal that needs to be penned in.
	Prisoner. It does not give us a great relationship to society as a whole.
	And that's where, of course, criminality comes from.
	That's something we didn't say, which is, you know, great job for not becoming a criminal.
	Thanks. There's also another issue.
	Uh-huh. My mother told me she had herpes.
	Uh-huh. And she...
	You know HSV-1?
	I'm sorry, say again? HSV-1.
	HSV-1? Yes, you know that one?
	I don't. It's the common variety that, like, half the people in the world have it.
	Yeah. And she never told me before, and now I'm really more disgusted of her, and she is more violent because of it.
	So she has, I don't know much about herpes, but she has a very common form of herpes, is that right?
	Yes, 50% of the world has it.
	And in what circumstances would your mother see fit to tell you this?
	Because I was researching something related and she just measured it out of nowhere.
	Right. How is this transmitted sexually?
	Is that right? No.
	Like saliva contact, anything like that.
	Really? Half the population has herpes?
	Yes. It's a different kind of herpes, not the genital one.
	No, no, I get it. I get it. Okay.
	All right. So, I mean, that's not quite as horrifying as what I first thought of when you said herpes, right?
	Yes, yes. It's the lesser herpes, but still shit.
	Right. You'll get more likely to have Alzheimer's at old age.
	Huh. Excellent.
	It's likely one of the people you're close to already has it too, because it's so cold.
	Oh, so you might have it too, right?
	Yes, I might have it too, and that terrifies me a little bit.
	Right. And, I mean, I assume you can go get tested for it, right?
	Yes, I'm afraid to do it.
	Right, right. Right.
	Yeah, so, I mean, it's funny, too, because, like, for those people who've not grown up in a situation of extreme child abuse or child abuse as a whole, avoiding knowledge is incomprehensible to people, right?
	But it's like, in a sense, it's less stressful to not know, right?
	Yes. Yeah, I get it.
	There's only so many balls you can keep in the air, right?
	If you add one more, the whole thing comes down, right?
	My thing is already coming down.
	I'm focusing my mind on a lot of things, and it's a bit hell for me.
	What happens, or what was the relationship?
	I heard you, we'll get back to that in a sec, but I just need to circle back for a moment.
	Yes. What was the story...
	Or your mother's relationship to your father's filth?
	And by filth, I don't just mean the pee bottles, but the pornography, you know, just the general blech of the guy, right?
	Like, what was your mother's relationship to that filth?
	She just accepted it.
	She accepted everything he did.
	Well, she maybe accepted it, or she just didn't want to get beaten up, right?
	Yes. No, she said she actually accepted it because she loved him.
	Oh, God.
	Lovely relationship. She loved the guy who was introducing porn to his seven-year-old son.
	Yes. And what was your relationship to your father's filth?
	Quite horrified of it.
	Yeah, tell me a bit more about that.
	How old were you when you saw the pee bottles?
	Just forever. He's like four, six, around that age.
	When his diabetes got worse, Did he manage his diabetes alright?
	He got his insulin and checkups and all that?
	No, he didn't do nothing.
	So how the hell is he still alive?
	Well, he should be going down soon because he's still not treating it.
	He's going blind and his legs are stopping to work.
	And he got remarried?
	Yes. Jesus, how desperate is that woman?
	To his high school sweetheart.
	Yeah. So half-blind, legs failing, porn addicted.
	Is he overweight? Of course, right?
	No, he's overweight because he has genetic diabetes, so...
	Oh, okay, so it's type 1, right?
	Yes. Yeah, yeah, okay.
	Wow. So he's basically a skeleton.
	Oh my gosh. Yeah, I met a guy the other day, and he was a tall guy.
	And I'm like, dude, what do you weigh, a buck thirty?
	He's like, no, I weigh a hundred pounds.
	Like, what's the story with that?
	He's like, oh, it's medical, right? Because he's got gluten intolerance.
	So you can't eat anything gluten-related.
	So I think celiac disease, anyway, poor guy, right?
	I mean, different with your dad, right?
	Because, you know, gross guy. But...
	He does it to himself.
	Yeah, I mean, it's all manageable, right?
	This all could be something where it's dealt with.
	And also, of course, your mother didn't say to him, as wives will often do to husbands, you know, go get that checked out.
	You know, go get yourself sorted out, right?
	Go see a damn doctor, you pig-headed idiot, right?
	My mother was kind of a doctor.
	She did everything that could help my dad in the hospital.
	Right. But he never got treated.
	Wow. So there's a big old death wish right there, right?
	Yes. Yeah, it is important to confront the nihilistic side, the can't win, don't try side, the Homer Simpson side, the Nietzschean side, the, you know, just that fade out, don't want to play side, right?
	Yes. Because, I mean, you have that too, right?
	I reject nihilism.
	I think it's a hard way to live.
	No, but you do, if I understand this, and obviously your experience matters a lot more than what I heard, or at least what I've understood, but you do have a certain amount of how is this going to get better going on in your head, right?
	Yes. Yeah, that's sort of more what I meant.
	Sorry, I shouldn't have referred to it by the N-word.
	Yeah, the N-word. Right, right.
	Okay. Okay, okay, okay.
	So obviously your mother's not going to change, right?
	No, I've tried so much to change her, it's impossible.
	I've tried like 20 times speaking to her, it's just a different way to get beaten.
	Yeah. No, and of course trying to help her, you know, you hear these stories of, you know, man dives in to save, drowning boy, man drowns.
	And going in to save these kinds of horrible people is very dangerous, right?
	As you point out, right? Because the only way that she's going to be saved is if she somehow connects with her conscience.
	But if she connects with her conscience, she becomes incredibly violent, right?
	Yes. And also I try to apply some of your ethics with her.
	So one day I went like, do you remember when your husband beat you?
	It was like, how do you think I feel?
	And she just felt threatened and got violent with me.
	Right. I tried to show her that what she did was also grand, but she can't see herself as the aggressor or she just gets more aggressive.
	Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's an important formulation to remember that morality fundamentally is memory.
	And if people claim not to remember things that they did that were wrong, it's because they want to repeat them.
	Because if they actually remember, then they will feel bad.
	Like if your mom remembers being beaten by her parents, by her husband, and then she puts you in her position when she was beating you, then that circuit completes and she gains some shred of empathy.
	But because she wants to continue doing the violence, she will reject the memory.
	And if people reject memory, they reject morality.
	Universality is across the world, but also through time.
	Universally preferable behavior is deep into history, into memory.
	And empathy is putting yourself in somebody else's shoes, remembering some time in the past, as you were trying to do with your mom, remembering some time in the past when that happened to you, right?
	Like beatings or whatever, right?
	Yes. And so if, I mean, I remember this with my mother talking to her about the violence that she committed, that she simply wouldn't remember it.
	She simply wouldn't, like it never happened, you know, I remember it differently, kind of all neutral stuff, right?
	And I was real clear, I was real clear, okay, so that just means that she's never going to give it up, because if she can't connect with the past, if she has no memory, she can't have any morality.
	Mine connects with the past.
	She just ignores my point.
	She was taking it as a threat.
	Yeah. Well, she would experience that.
	Like the devil within her would experience that as a threat.
	Yes. You see these movies where the priest is trying to get the devil out of the girl or the woman or whatever.
	The devil views the priest as an enemy and spits and howls and bites and scratches and all of that.
	And that's a powerful but true analogy for trying to de-evil the human being, that the evil within the human being wants to live, wants to flourish.
	It's got its own... Psychological genetic makeup and it wants to maintain itself and reproduce.
	And that's why it traumatizes others.
	Like, you know, pedophilia to me is like a mental...
	You can look at it as a mental animal with its own genetics that it reproduces itself by inflicting sexual activity on innocent children and thus infecting them with the potential for the same behavior.
	It's like this monster meme that reproduces its behavior physically in order to reproduce itself quasi-genetically.
	It's the same thing with child abuse and a lot of these kinds of things.
	We're usually, I mean, most people are just non-entities in the grip of an ideology that is seeking to reproduce itself.
	They are blank slate hosts for whatever virulence is passing through them to replicate.
	And you can look at this, of course, something like communism.
	Communism is a virus that is in the process of replicating itself using Unthinking people as its springboard to spread.
	And everybody's, of course...
	That's why I said, you know, like I said this back in March, I think, or February.
	I was in February. I said communism is the real virus.
	Coronavirus is just how it spreads.
	Communism is the real virus.
	Socialism is the real virus.
	National socialism was too, but we're kind of inoculated against that, so that's not such a big issue, but...
	Yeah, your mother is an empty vessel through which evil seeks to replicate itself through you, but you're resisting like hell, which is, you know, more power to you and more heroism to you.
	This should be the biggest medal in the world.
	But instead, you're often treated as a leper.
	Yes. And the last few months have been, like, the worst ever.
	I wasn't even able to get out of bed because I was so depressed.
	I just slept like 20 hours in a row.
	No stop. But what's happened with your job, Enriquez?
	Did you just get the job after that?
	Yeah, after that.
	And do you know what got you back out?
	Oh, what put you into bed and then what got you back out?
	I just felt like I had to get out no matter what.
	I just started handing out my resume everywhere and somehow I got accepted after a few months.
	Right. And I assume the job, while you say it's crappy, right?
	The job is helping to some degree, right?
	Yeah, it's helping to not stay in-house, at least.
	Well, and it's a sort of fundamental test of functionality, right?
	Which is, hey, I can get and keep a job, right?
	And good for you. Yes, I'm having trouble keeping it.
	Right. Because the staff at my work see my hands and they go like, you have to go to the doctor.
	And I go to the doctor.
	And it has happened like four times already and I think they don't like it.
	Right. So, I mean, that's something that has to be dealt with.
	So, why? I'm not even going to say why do you think because you know deep down why do you wash your hands so much?
	What are you trying to clean? I usually try to clean everything that's related to my mother.
	Right. Now, your mother, though, wasn't filthy in the same way that your father was, if I understand this correctly.
	She's pretty filthy as well, but not to that degree.
	So what's she got that you would put in the filthy category?
	She got a disease that I don't want to catch.
	Oh, yeah. I guess that's important, right?
	And she doesn't want to talk about the disease, and she just screams at me and I bring it up.
	It would help a lot to my condition if she just talked about it, but she just beats me instead.
	And what do you want her to talk about?
	This is the herpes, right? So what do you want her to talk about?
	Like, just, like, wash your hands.
	Don't cough on things.
	Simple stuff.
	She just doesn't do it.
	Right. She refuses.
	She hates giving anything to me.
	Well, except herpes.
	Yeah. Right.
	Right, so you're constantly concerned that you are In proximity to a disease that has pretty, I guess, negative outcomes in terms of Alzheimer's down the road and all that, right?
	Yes. Right.
	Right. I'm sorry if I've missed the timeline, but what was the relationship between you learning that your mother had herpes and your handwashing?
	My handwashing started way before that.
	Okay, so I'm sure it's escalated from there, but then there's another cause that we need to figure out, right?
	Yes. And it happened around the time of your parents' separation, right?
	Yes. A little bit later, like a year.
	And do you remember if there was anything in particular that may have occurred that started that, or was it just you just woke up one day, you washed your hands, you felt better?
	It was, I think, my grandma.
	Ah, we haven't met this lovely lady.
	Please introduce us. Oh, she...
	She's quite nasty.
	Is this on your mom's side?
	Yes. Oh, I have no doubt she is a piece of work, but go on.
	She... First, she kept her dirty panties in the shower.
	She kept dirty panties in the shower, so you got to see grandmother's dirty panties in the shower.
	Yes, with the skid marks and everything.
	Like period juice and all this kind of stuff?
	Yes, right next to me was a shark.
	Holy shark attack, granny panties, Batman.
	Oh my god. Okay, go on.
	I'm glad I didn't eat too much before the show.
	I saw grandpa naked too, but...
	Also, she didn't wash dishes properly, so there would be pieces of rotten food on my dishes.
	And everything smelled.
	Yeah. They also shat themselves sometimes.
	You mean just from age, or did they have some other ailment?
	Age. Jesus.
	Oh my God.
	Wow.
	So, I mean, you literally were surrounded by shit and blood, right?
	Yeah. And did you have to shower in this hellscape of body fluids?
	Yes, right next to the panties.
	Oh my God.
	Wash my hair. What is wrong with these people?
	I want to know. There's some stuff where it's like, well, you know, this is just how I was raised.
	There's no sane world in which...
	I mean, they're Christians, right?
	I mean, in name only?
	Cleanliness is next to godliness.
	I don't think that's in the Bible, but I sure know my aunt said that a lot.
	And nobody says anything about, you know, maybe you should clean out the blood-stained granny panties before Junior has a shower.
	Yes, she cleans them in the shower, but she doesn't clean them properly, so they just stay there like all dirty and disgusting.
	Oh, and then you're in the shower.
	I'm sure she doesn't rinse and clean the shower after she cleans her granny panties, so then you're standing in that awful...
	Yes. You throw it in the ocean, you get a great white shark swimming by.
	There's a cockroach infestation in that house.
	And the previous house I was in, there was a rat infestation.
	Oh my god. You know, we really do get great reception from hell.
	Not many people know that. Because that's probably where you're calling from, at least in the past, right?
	Yes. Dear God. I'm still there.
	The cockroach infestation is horrifying.
	And I had that a number of times in apartments when I was growing up.
	And it's horrible.
	It's horrible. And I sort of hate to say it, but the causality to me was fairly clear that...
	With a lot of immigrants, particularly from, I think, Pakistan or India and so on, they just may have certain different habits, they may have certain different kinds of foods that attract the bugs or whatever, but it certainly did seem to increase.
	I don't remember that from my early childhood, but I certainly do remember that later on when there was a lot of immigration.
	And again, I'm not saying that's proven or causal, but that certainly was my experience.
	And I remember being, I remember this really vividly, being in an apartment in Canada In my early teens, oh man, it was a constant problem trying to get food.
	Trying to get food was a constant problem because it just wasn't enough or it was kind of like...
	I remember I had a girl over for lunch from school as a girlfriend and I grabbed a sandwich from the fridge.
	I gave her like the good food because you always give the good food to your guests like what was left.
	I grabbed a sandwich from the fridge and And we were chatting away.
	I mean, it was a very early, mostly platonic, quote, girlfriend-boyfriend thing.
	Like, we held hands. I think we barely even kissed or anything like that.
	And, you know, I take a bite into this sandwich and realize that it's a little rotten inside, right?
	But I can't sit there and say, oh, there's food in my fridge which is rotten.
	And so, you know, I put it down.
	She's like, well, aren't you hungry? It's lunch.
	So, of course, you know, I take little nibbles from this thing, and then after the date, I make myself throw up because I'm like, oh, man, this is, like, bad, right?
	And it wasn't even so much like, you know, I had a job, right?
	So I had to work.
	I couldn't be sick. I needed money.
	And, yeah, it's...
	And I remember, anyway, so I was in the kitchen in this place, and I was...
	Cooking up something. I think I was frying some spam or something like that.
	And cockroaches were running around inside the clock, like inside the stove.
	You know, there's glass over the clock, or plastic, I guess, over the clock.
	And there was a cockroach or two running around inside.
	And I just remember being really physically repulsed by that.
	That there were cockroaches inside the cooking appliance.
	Cockroaches were like my alarm clock because they would crawl on me when I sleep when I wake up.
	And it's not even like they're so tough to deal with, you know?
	I mean, get the fumigators in and keep your counters clean and all of that.
	I mean, I never had a problem when I lived in apartments on my own because you just keep yourself clean, keep your place clean.
	But of course, it's filthy.
	It's just an invitation for this biblical curse, right?
	Yes. The rats were worse, though.
	That I believe, because the cockroaches usually can't do you much harm, but the rats can be bitey, right?
	Yes, but it was like mice, I think.
	Oh, mice. Okay. And what was the story with the mice?
	Oh, you know, mice are on the apartment, on the curtains, on the bed.
	Well, then, yeah, good luck trying to get sleep if you think something's going to walk over your legs, right?
	Yes. Right.
	Right. Now, this does happen occasionally.
	I've got a friend of mine who lives in the country, and it does happen occasionally that a mouse would get in or whatever, but it's not the same as this, which is like a real infestation, right?
	Yes, there was rats multiple times, but then it ended, so it wasn't that big of a deal.
	I think a mama rat gave birth in that.
	Uh, yeah. Or maybe it was just too dirty for the rats or the mice to move on.
	Like, hey man, we got some standards.
	No, and a friend of mine, um, once, uh, I remember this many years ago, he had squirrels in the walls and that was, you could hear them sort of scampering back and forth and, uh, it was, uh, it was very, very odd, very odd situation.
	But again, that's not necessarily a hygiene thing.
	That's just an old house kind of thing.
	But yeah, okay, okay.
	All right, all right, all right. So what is your ideal?
	What do you want that you think would turn your life around the best or the most?
	I think just having my own place.
	Basically, I mean, it would be a start.
	I would be able to breathe, live my life, not having to fear the fucking shitty person in my house.
	Right. Right.
	And the danger that, you know, what if you lose your temper?
	Yes. What if I slip up some information that I need to know?
	Right. Or what if your mother decides that her final revenge upon you is going to be a murder charge or something like that, right?
	You're going to provoke you. If she doesn't want to live anymore, she might as well take you down with her, right?
	Yes. And your job that you have is not going to give you enough of that, right?
	Yes. I get paid a dollar an hour.
	Huh. That seems...
	Well, I mean, I guess you're not in North America here, right?
	So don't tell me where you are, but yeah, yeah.
	And so I guess my question is, listen, so just for those who don't know, right?
	So there's times where there's lots of really good abstract things that I can talk about and do and connections I can make and all that kind of stuff, right?
	But there's other times where more practical and immediate help is required.
	So here's my question, which is how much money do you need to move out?
	I think around $2 an hour.
	No, no. How much money do you need in the bank at the moment to move out?
	I mean, to move out, I would need around $2,000.
	$2,000 U.S. dollars?
	No, $2,000.
	Okay, and what is that in U.S. dollars?
	That's like $400.
	Oh shit, I'll give you that.
	I'll give you that. Oh, absolutely.
	My God, I thought it was going to be more.
	Oh, yeah, easy.
	Easy peasy. That's not even a tough call.
	What? Oh, yeah, easy.
	I'll give you more than that. Are you kidding me?
	I'll give you more than that so you can, I don't know, get a nice couch or something.
	I mean, I was thinking about, like, basic appliances, you know, like one mouth stove and a bed row.
	Yeah, I mean, if it's an empty apartment, you can't just sleep on the floor, right?
	I mean, I get that that's better, but it's not as good as it should be, right?
	Now, I will say this.
	I will say this. Listen, I mean, we've just met, so obviously I'm assuming this is not a scam, like some big elaborate backstory scam to get some money out of me.
	I'm going to assume that because, you know, again, no disrespect to you, but we just met.
	I mean, I didn't expect anyone to give me money.
	No, no, that's fine. Listen, I'm sorry.
	I'm not trying to insult you, right?
	I'm just stepping you through my sort of line of thinking.
	Now, I have helped out listeners in the past, and some of it people know about, like I offer to pay for therapy, and I do, and some people don't even know about it.
	For the most part, it's worked out pretty well.
	A few people have not wisely used the money.
	But I have a good feeling about you.
	And I have, obviously, a great deal of sympathy for you.
	So, let's...
	Yeah, there's a practical matter of, let's just get you some cash.
	Because here's the thing. If this helps you with your OCD, I don't know if it will or not.
	not, I'm certainly no expert, but if this helps you, good.
	If it gets you away from, you know, herpes witch, great.
	Maybe this will help you get a better job, maybe this will help you get more sustaining, but oh, hell yeah, let's get you out.
	There's also the problem Let's say I get the money to leave, right?
	I might still not have enough to keep myself, so I need to get a better job as well.
	Sure, yeah, but it's tough to get a better job when you're depressed, unhappy, compulsively, washing yourself and so on, right?
	I already have ideas for it.
	I am trying to register for Uber Eats so I can deliver the bike.
	So maybe I can survive with that.
	Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've saved a little bit of money already.
	Right. Yeah, I've saved about a hundred dollars.
	Right. Right.
	No, no, listen, I mean, that's, to me, that's a very easy call.
	I mean, let's get you out.
	And also there's the other problem.
	How the fuck do I get out?
	Go on. She goes after me, what do I do?
	What do you mean if she goes after you?
	What do you mean? I mean, I'm scared she just figures out when I leave and goes and kills me.
	Well, I can't do much about that other than to say you might be actually kind of shocked how little she cares about you.
	And also, I have to buy everything I have now, right?
	What do you mean? Like clothing and stuff?
	Well, you have clothes, right? Is she going to prevent you from taking clothes?
	Probably. What I would suggest is there are lots of websites and guides and books and you name it, and it's more for spouses.
	So, I'm sorry to put you in that category, but it's like, okay, how do you get out of an abusive relationship?
	Right? I mean, that's a big question, right?
	How do you get out of an abusive relationship?
	Now, there are lots of psychologists who've written about this, psychiatrists, social workers, and so on, who've written about all this kind of stuff.
	What do you need to do? What do you need to prepare?
	When should you do it? And I'm going to just throw you over to those people, because this is not an area I have much expertise in.
	I mean, I've heard this, you know, you get yourself ready, you get your money ready, you leave in the middle of the night, blah, blah, blah, right?
	But of course, these people are usually going to shelters.
	It's women, right? They go to shelters and And the shelters will protect them from that.
	But I'm going to...
	And okay, you know, you do have a therapist and the therapist may have some sort of thoughts or ideas because I don't know where you are in the world and what's available to you.
	Sorry, go ahead. Oh, okay.
	Yeah, so I don't know what is available to you, and so I would definitely start looking into the websites where you can, or the books where you can get a plan for extracting yourself from an abusive relationship.
	I think living at a time like right now would be good because sometimes she just goes to visit her mom and she leaves house for one or two days.
	I think that would be the best time to leave.
	Yeah, again, I can't advise you on that, but it certainly doesn't seem like the worst idea in the world.
	But yeah, there's ways that you can...
	And listen, you may be really surprised.
	That she's out of sight, out of mind kind of person.
	I mean, usually when I do something to respect her power like that, she turns very aggressive.
	Yeah, but here's the thing.
	There's something in crime called aging out.
	It's a very sort of interesting phenomenon.
	So the mother of the future is very different from the mother of the past, right?
	Because your primary memories of your mother is when she was at the height of her powers.
	And in crime, a lot of times, this happens with serial killers, this happens with rapists, this happens with violent criminals of all stripes.
	I don't know how much it happens with white-collar criminals like the fraudsters and so on, but...
	What they do is, it's called aging out, and it means that they just kind of lose steam.
	And, you know, most violent crime is committed by young men.
	Because of rampant anti-male sexism, according to the leftist, but no, that's never talked about.
	But so your mother, and the same thing was true with my mother as well.
	So, you know, my first impressions of my mother were when she was in her 30s.
	And, you know, kind of in her prime, right, in terms of energy and muscle fiber and athleticism and bone density.
	And, like, she was kind of in her prime.
	And then... As I got older, you know, my mother...
	She kind of aged out a crime.
	She aged out of the violence that she was committing.
	Plus, she got into some really life-threatening situations as a result of friends with dangerous boyfriends.
	And so she...
	I mean, I think she got older and more tired and more worn out.
	And... She also got really scared by being a potential victim in deadly situations.
	And she just kind of aged out of crime.
	Now, she was still manipulative as hell and lied all the time and so on, but she wasn't a violent person anymore.
	And so when I... I guess it's been probably about a quarter century since I last clapped eyes on her.
	And, you know, I mean, it's not like I'm reading about her committing crimes in the newspaper or anything like that, so...
	You know, there's an aging out, and so you may be surprised.
	I mean, certainly for me, after I bugged out, after I got out of Dodge, There was a certain amount of, you know, calls here and there and all that, but they were all kind of rambling and incoherent, and even those have kind of faded away.
	And I'm pretty sure she's still alive, because I'm sure I would have heard otherwise.
	But she kind of just...
	It's the same thing with borderline personality disorders, that they mellow out a little bit, as some of them do, at least from what I've read.
	They kind of mellow out over time, and they're just less volatile, because...
	I mean, you're a young man, and you've got your life ahead of you, and I'm sure it's going to be a great life, and you're going to have all of the pride of heroically surviving a deadly situation.
	But, you know, I mean, certainly for me, I understand this more viscerally now.
	Like, life just kind of wears you out.
	I mean, it doesn't mean if you're more active, it kind of wears you out in some ways faster, right?
	But your mother...
	It's getting older. And she's just not going to have the same kind of energy that she used to have.
	She's not going to have the same kind of volatility that she used to have.
	And she, unfortunately, I don't want to say this like it sounds bad against you, but in your presence, she is provoked.
	I don't mean you provoke her, of course, or anything like that.
	I know, I know.
	But in your presence, she is provoked.
	And that probably was more exciting for her when she was younger, and now it's probably just exhausting.
	So she may look upon your departure with some form of relief as well.
	Yeah, that's an interesting thought.
	You know, like if you're an alcoholic and the bar downstairs closes doors, maybe that's for the best, right?
	And if she's a rageaholic or whatever, and she can't control herself around you because she's done you so much wrong, and you're constantly stimulating her conscience, which stimulates and provokes her rage, I don't know.
	Again, I can't predict anything, obviously.
	I don't know enough about the situation, and there's always a certain amount of who knows, right?
	But it may be the case that she's kind of aged out of crime.
	You know what I'm also scared of?
	Yeah. No, I mean, no, I don't.
	Go ahead. Okay.
	Remember that guy, that autistic guy you talked to in your show?
	There's been a few. I mean, the one that his mother kept him as a prisoner.
	Yes. Because with the courts and stuff.
	Yeah. I'm scared that something like that happens to me because of my illness.
	Right, right.
	Right. And, you know, maybe kick in a little bit extra so you can consult with a lawyer who maybe would be able to put your mind at ease around that kind of stuff.
	Yeah. I was also scared that if I took something like my clothes, she would claim theft or something.
	I don't know. I think she would get very petty and very aggressive if I left.
	Yeah, well, you certainly know her better than I do, obviously, so...
	Maybe...
	I don't know.
	It's kind of tough to...
	It would be kind of tough to claim theft if you leave with the clothes that you wear.
	Yes. I mean, like when I interacted with her, when something got to a virtual like this, like leaving, it's like spinning a wheel.
	There's no way I can know what she's going to do.
	She could just go like, oh, it's fine.
	Or she goes like, oh, she could stab me.
	Right, right.
	And now, sorry, do you think that...
	It's interesting, right?
	So, if you have a conversation with her, you know, something like, Mom, it's been great.
	No, I'm kidding. If you say, Mom, you know, I'm...
	I'm going to be turning 20 soon.
	I, you know, feel it's kind of time for me to spread my wings, get out into the world, fend for myself, and, you know, appreciate all that you've done.
	And I just wanted to let you know that I'm looking for a place and I am going to I'm going to be moving out.
	And that's a way of giving her time to adjust.
	And the other thing, too, is if you act...
	Here's some funny thing about some people, right?
	If you act in a guilty fashion, they will assume you've done something wrong.
	So if you kind of vanish in the middle of the night...
	Again, I don't know your mom, so I'm just spinning possibilities here, right?
	So if you kind of vanish in the middle of the night, she might be like, ah, he's doing something wrong.
	And they don't think for themselves.
	They just judge based on your actions.
	Mm-hmm. Because it's a little different from leaving a spouse, because with a spouse, you're supposed to stay together forever, right?
	But, you know, kids are supposed to grow up and leave the house, right?
	Yes. I mean, it's part of the natural order of things, right?
	Yes. So this can't be like any...
	It's not like leaving a spouse, obviously, right?
	So maybe that's part of the...
	What's she going to do?
	Is she going to say, no, you have to stay here forever?
	I mean, that's just kind of weird, right?
	She might just attack me.
	You mean if you say you want to leave?
	Yes. It's clearly possible that she will do that.
	She attacks me randomly if I do something she doesn't like.
	So it's very possible she attacks me or she attacks me too much and I have to defend myself, which then turns into maybe murder or worse.
	Right, right. Right, and again, I'm only giving out certain possibilities.
	I have no idea how you should deal with this, but I would certainly bring it up with your therapist, and I would read books about the safest and best ways to get out of destructive relationships.
	The gym is suggesting cops, but I don't know if cops would believe me, and if they wouldn't, and if they speak to her, I'm triple-fucked.
	Well, you know, there's an...
	I don't know how it is where you're from, but I've certainly heard stories about...
	There's a bit of an unholy relationship between cops and women.
	Right? Because, you know, cops, a lot of them get into the profession, and, you know, a lot of times, quite rightly, and under good motivations to, like, protect the innocent and defend the meek and all of that.
	And, of course, a lot of times they are getting legitimate calls from women who are being beaten or something like that, and...
	So there's something about being a police officer that exposes you a lot to women in peril and summons the white knight.
	And there's nothing particularly wrong with that, except that's kind of like an open fissure that unscrupulous women can reach in and manipulate or use that white knighting that the cops have to wreak vengeance against innocent men,
	often. With my mother, it's always a dice roll.
	The other option or possibility that just popped into my head is to have someone over when you move out of your mom's home so that there's a witness, right?
	Or just record everything if that's legal and have that as a defense.
	I wouldn't try to leave it her in the house.
	Right. It seems a little bit too risky, you know?
	Well, I don't know because, again, I'm very much bouncing in from the outside.
	But I would certainly, yeah, definitely it's good to have a plan.
	It's good to talk to professionals and it's good to deal with the experts in this situation because that's not really something I can advise you on other than to say it seems like it's a pretty toxic situation.
	And in my experience, getting out of those toxic situations is mostly an upside.
	All right, so plans.
	Plans. Plans, brother.
	So what you need to do is, well, we'll talk offline.
	We'll sort of get this sorted out about how to get you the money.
	But yeah, for heaven's sakes, I think this is a pretty terrible situation.
	And I would really, I mean, if I were in your shoes, I would really mull over What I'm trying to clean off myself.
	And your father's filth, your mother's filth, that's not on you.
	That's not under your skin.
	That's not embedded in your cuticles.
	That's not... Sorry, I'm going to say all this stuff.
	It's going to make you want to wash your hands. But it's not.
	It's in your mind. Now, that doesn't mean that it's inconsequential or that it's made up.
	But it is in your mind.
	And... Washing yourself, to me, like the OCD washing, to me, that is a redirect from your parents.
	To have you self-abuse rather than identify the real abusers is the goal of most abusers, right?
	This is why, I don't think I've released this call yet, except to donors, but yeah, I had a woman who carved her mother's most critical phrase into her actual leg with a knife.
	So what abusers want you to do is to internalize the abuse to self-abuse so that that way they get off the hook.
	And it's sort of like in the movie Silence of the Lambs where Hannibal Lecturer talks one of his cellmates into killing himself because he can't actually go and kill the guy so he just talks the guy into killing himself so he can enjoy the murder because he's a crazy guy.
	And So, in my view, again, amateur, humble, outside opinion, but in my view, you compulsively washing yourself is something your parents want you to do so that you don't focus on the wrongs that they have done unto you.
	I mean, the fact that they beat me for doing it, it might be, like...
	No, but that's reinforcing it though, right?
	Because it's a stress management, right?
	It's self-soothing. It's a stress management, self-medication.
	And so, if it's a stress management, self-medication situation, then beating you is just going to make it worse, right?
	Yes. It's like they're beating the behavior into you, not out of you.
	Yes. And I'm not saying it's a conscious plan or conscious process, but I certainly do believe that that's the case.
	I just feel agony when I don't wash my hands after touching something she coughed down or touched.
	Well, yes, and that certainly has exacerbated it, but as you pointed out, it started more than half a decade before, right?
	Yes, but she really made it worse.
	Right, right. And so, certainly if there's, and you have just and reasonable environmental concerns with your mother's herpes, so I can certainly understand how, or I would certainly believe how getting out and, you know, cleaning your place and not being in that environment, if you're in a new place, would be helpful.
	So, yeah, again, there's some stuff that's internal, like some stuff like confronting within yourself and understanding the truth and all of that, and then there's some just very practical steps.
	Uh-huh. I know stuff I managed to overcome, but the component...
	Yeah, yeah.
	My show now is basically disgusted with myself.
	Now I'm disgusted with her.
	Right, right. And the fact not only that she told you this, but the fact that she's not performing the kinds of basic sanitary actions that would keep you safer.
	She could have killed...
	Oh, she's had it that long? Yes, she could have killed me when I was an infant because if a newborn child gets it...
	Wow, okay. All right, so listen, let me just sum things up a little bit here, and I just wanted to sort of get this on the record.
	First of all, you should be enormously, incredibly, deeply, and majestically proud of your capacity to flourish under incredibly adverse and destructive circumstances that would have That would fail 99 out of 100 people, and you should be incredibly proud of everything that you have managed to survive, and the fact that you've kept your sanity, you're not addicted, you're not violent yourself, you've not committed any crimes, you're not abused by other people.
	I'm kind of addicted. Well, I don't know about the OCD thing, maybe that's kind of addiction.
	I guess that's true, yeah, maybe, maybe.
	No, no, no, I am overeating.
	Ah, ah, okay, okay, okay.
	Alright. Okay, but that's, you know, that's survivable.
	It's not like you're a crack addict, right?
	That's something you can manage.
	That's something you can deal with. And so, yeah, you should be enormously proud.
	And I hope that you would consider that.
	That you were born into a war zone as a baby, and you found a way to navigate and survive it that shows incredible strength of character, inner resourcefulness, creativity.
	And I admire you enormously.
	I admire you enormously for what you've been able to achieve.
	Man, I've never heard something like this.
	And you also, you've never ended up at the orgy.
	You haven't got a crazy girl pregnant and tied yourself into baby jail for 20 years.
	You have not racked up massive gambling debts to criminals.
	I admire you intensely.
	I admire you very, very deeply and respect you enormously.
	And I hope that gives you some perspective on what you've gone through and what you've survived.
	And a lot of things that I've done recently was because of you, that you helped me with your show.
	I'm very glad to hear that.
	But even listening to the show and incorporating or absorbing some of the arguments and ideas, I admire you for that too!
	You are further ahead than I was at your age.
	You have outstripped me, if that helps.
	And you will be a formidable force in the world.
	For good. And evil beings will quake as you approach.
	And you will have your revenge upon the wrongdoers by creating a better world for the innocent.
	There is so much to look forward to.
	Everything that you have trained, you can turn into a strength.
	Everything that you have survived, you can turn into a weapon either of self-protection or of opposition to evildoers.
	And you will be a powerful force in the world for good, no matter what you do.
	Even if you don't do anything publicly, but it's just what you do in your own life.
	You will be a great father.
	You will be a great husband. And you have so much to look forward to.
	And I'll tell you something else. Something else is kind of interesting.
	So, when I was young, I was talking with an older guy.
	And he said, he was in his late 40s, early 50s.
	And he said, yeah, you're 40, so your teeth go haywire and your parents get sick.
	I remember that, which is one of the reasons I've really worked hard to practice really good Oral hygiene over the years.
	I remember that, right? So, listen.
	You had a terrible start to everything.
	And I really, really sympathize with that.
	But here's the upside that is probably going to escape you at the moment because you're so young.
	But I'll tell you this. You know, I just turned 54 two days ago.
	So, freedomain.com forward slash donate.
	If you'd like to send me a little something-something, that would be great.
	Not you. Not you. I'll be sending you a little something-something.
	But... I have friends, of course, in my age group whose parents are beginning to seriously decline, and it is a huge time sink.
	But here's the thing. They like their parents.
	They love their parents, and so they want to help.
	They want to take care of their parents.
	And, you know, for some of them, it's been going on for five years or more, and it's not going to end anytime soon.
	Now, can you just stop banging?
	If you don't mind, there's a lot of sound in the background.
	So, there is a...
	The first 20 years, yeah, they suck, man.
	They really suck. But I'll tell you this.
	When your mother gets older, you know, your mother who threatened to end your life, when she gets older, you owe her jack shit.
	You owe her precisely nothing.
	And so, my mother, yeah, she's been declining for 20 years.
	And you know, what I haven't had to do for 20 years is deal with any of it.
	Now, the cost to me for the first 15 years, well, that was all in the past.
	That's all long ago.
	I'm 30 years outside of that shit heap.
	But the benefit that I have now is that I don't have to deal with any of this stuff.
	Now, it's not a good bargain.
	I would much rather be dealing with elderly parents that I loved.
	I would much rather be available to them and help them and support them.
	I would much rather that be occurring.
	But that's not up to me, right?
	That was up to my parents, right?
	So, yeah, my father declined, got ill, and died, right?
	And I didn't have anything to do with it.
	And my mother has been declining for many years, and I don't have anything to do with it.
	And I'm sorry that I don't have anything to do with it, and as I said, I would rather I did have, I was involved, but that's not up to me.
	So, yeah, the first, this is something to look forward to in a way.
	It is, like, it can't all be bad, right?
	Life doesn't work that way. It can't all be bad.
	And all of the things that you've suffered strengthen you if you get out of the environment.
	And what you have to look forward to in a way is not having to spend 10 years of your life managing and wiping the butt of a declining parent or two.
	And that gives you a certain amount of freedom in your 50s that other people won't have.
	And it's not like, yay, that's a big payoff, or yay, it's a good thing.
	But it is a benefit.
	Because, I mean, how much some of my friends are suffering because their parents are declining is prodigious, and it is painful to watch, and I support as best I can.
	And I gotta think, people who were listening to this You know, if you're dealing with parents who are declining because you love them and you're seeing them suffer and you're seeing them age out and you're seeing them decline, it's very painful and I'm really, really sorry for that.
	I don't experience that.
	And yeah, maybe there's people out there who, when they're going through this wracking agony of watching parents decline, they'll look at me and say, I can't envy that guy because he doesn't have to deal with it.
	It's not all downside.
	And I know this is going to sound weird to people, and it may sound callous to people, or cold.
	I'm not a cold person.
	I care enormously for people.
	It's just that anybody who tells me that I need to enormously care for people who have killed me as a child, all I can tell you is, too bad, not going to happen, and screw you for even suggesting it.
	I agree. So there's an upside.
	You get a clear path in late middle age that other people aren't going to get.
	Now, I know that that doesn't mean much to you at the moment, and I get that, but I'm telling you, at this point in life, it is a huge, huge benefit because you become parents to your parents.
	You know the way you take care of babies and toddlers and so on, but you kind of have to do that when your parents age out of life.
	And, you know, we have enough medical resources and nutrition and all of that, and people are kind of healthy if they're in the higher IQ band as a whole.
	And so, you know, people's parents, they are declining slowly.
	And, yeah, I've got friends who've got the aforementioned Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and so on.
	I mean, there's a movie which you should check out.
	called Thrive2 and the website is thriveon.com and in it the narrator talks about how his own father dealt with Parkinson's disease for 27 years.
	27 years!
	And he loved his father.
	And this was incredibly painful for him to go through.
	And my heart goes out to him 27 years.
	And of course, you don't even know it's 27.
	You have no idea really how long it's going to be.
	But that's a brutal situation to be in.
	And I don't wish ill upon my mother.
	I didn't wish ill upon my father.
	I hope that my father found some sort of relief from the things that plagued him in his later years.
	I do. I hope that my mother is finding, I doubt it, because I know how conscience works.
	And if they had found some relief, it would have become, it would have come out of apologizing and accepting responsibility and lifting a burden off me that I had to shovel off myself with mountains of therapy and self-knowledge.
	They would have taken that burden away from me, but they didn't take that burden away from me.
	They never took responsibility for what they did and what they didn't do.
	And they never will.
	I mean, my father, obviously, because he's dead and my mother because she's too old.
	I wish, I hope that they do or did find some peace later on in their life.
	Thank you.
	But it's not going to come from me faking reality.
	It's not going to come from me pretending things didn't happen that did happen or pretending that things did happen that didn't happen.
	I think it's important not to be angry about it.
	Just kind of forget it a little bit.
	I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying.
	There will be a phase, probably when you get released from this prison, there will be a phase of anger.
	And I would suggest that you don't, you know, whatever feelings come up in you, you have to accept them.
	Well, you don't have to, but you should, because they're important.
	Because, listen, here's the great danger.
	The great danger is that you're going to get out of your vile situation at the moment, but you're going to be so used to dealing with that battle that someone else is going to creep their way into your life to replace your mom.
	So what you need to do, since you couldn't protect yourself against your mom when you were growing up, your anger had to be suppressed.
	And then your anger is going to have to come out in order to protect you, not from your mother in the past, but from anyone else in the future who would be like your mom or like your dad or like your shitty relatives who didn't help you.
	That's your danger, right? So you're going to need to get angry to have protection against people like that in the future, because they're going to smell that history in you and work to try and exploit it.
	It's a sad thing, but true. But I will say this.
	Chronic anger is insecurity about the dominance of conscience.
	The dominance of conscience.
	So, they say that there are people who are born without a conscience.
	They say that there are people who, you know, maybe trauma strips them of conscience.
	They have no empathy and so on.
	I can't speak to the science behind it, but I can sure as hell speak from considerable personal experience that this is simply false.
	Your audience is a bit weird.
	Oh, is it? Okay, I'll try moving.
	Let me know if that gets any better.
	It's better, but...
	Yeah, so, conscience is omnipresent and omnipotent.
	I've not known anyone who's done wrong who's gotten away with it.
	I don't know anyone who's done wrong who's gotten away with it.
	The punishments are unbelievably severe and brutal.
	Suicidality, mental illness, depression, anxiety, lack of functioning, paranoia.
	You know, my mother sleeps with a knife under her pillow.
	Because she believes that people are out to get her.
	A big-ass bread knife.
	And that's been her life.
	Well, I mean, maybe she doesn't anymore.
	I don't know. I haven't talked to her in over 20 years.
	But that was where she was.
	It's a tortuous existence.
	It's a tortured existence.
	It's a miserable existence. It's a horrifying existence.
	So, I mean, be at peace in that the operations of conscience...
	We'll punish people worse than anything you can think of.
	That's not a punishment I would have invented for my mom is to live in that kind of fear and terror and horror and all of that, right?
	I'm not a particularly vengeful person.
	I don't mind a little bit here and there.
	You know, the fact that, you know, the company that Spotify, right, that took over Joe Rogan's show, that they're now, there's boycotts and the people are threatening to quit if the shows aren't censored and they want editorial control and so on.
	It's like, yeah, okay, you take your money and then pay.
	Nothing's for free in this world, right?
	And... But I'm not...
	I wouldn't have said that, well, the punishment for what my mother did to me as a child should be, you know, that she constantly feels that people are about to break into her little apartment and kill her.
	And so she sleeps with a knife under her pillow, right?
	That's not... I wouldn't say that's a just punishment.
	But it's not up to me. Because conscience is independent of consciousness.
	And conscience is independent of lying to yourself.
	We record everything, whether we like it or not.
	And everything that we've done for good and for ill is recorded in the book of us.
	And the book of us is larger than us.
	We're just a part of it.
	And the operations...
	Of conscience are independent of people's particular willpower.
	You can lie to yourself as your mother does and she doesn't remember.
	It doesn't matter. In fact, that just makes it worse.
	It's like with you, with your overeating, right?
	Like you can say, well, I don't want my overeating to have negative effects upon me.
	I don't want to gain weight. I don't want to do this.
	It doesn't matter. Your body will record what you put into it and your conscience will record everything you do.
	And this is why, you know, when there's religious beliefs that God is always watching and God records and St.
	Peter writes down and there's a book of your life, well, that's true.
	It's true in the existence of the conscience, which used to be a big thing when I was growing up.
	Jiminy Cricket, the little cricket, obviously cricket.
	I'm your conscience. I'm your conscience.
	Well, that's real.
	And conscience used to be a very big deal, and now everybody believes they can just wish away their conscience, or they can just will away their conscience.
	Or if they lie to themselves, like you eat a cheesecake, and then you say to yourself in the mirror ten times, I didn't eat a cheesecake, that suddenly your body exists as if you never ate the cheesecake.
	But it doesn't matter what you say in the mirror, and it doesn't matter what you tell yourself.
	The conscience records everything.
	And your mother will get away with nothing.
	And your father will get away with nothing.
	I mean, I think he's already suffering his punishment.
	Right. Because he is going blind.
	He is almost disabled.
	Yeah, or you could say that his blindness of spirit is manifesting itself in blindness of vision.
	Yes. And they don't suffer.
	Oh, they don't experience any particular kind of joy or contentment or peace of mind.
	Because once you set yourself at war with your conscience, it's a war of attrition because your conscience is bigger than you and larger than you.
	Your conscience is part of the general.
	Like, you don't have your liver.
	You don't have your lungs.
	You don't have your tongue or your eyes.
	They're human as a whole.
	We share them all. You're not responsible for your liver.
	You're only alive because of your liver, which you don't even know how it works.
	Most of us, right? Yes.
	And it's the same thing with the conscience.
	The conscience is not subject to your whims.
	The conscience is not subject to your control.
	The conscience, if you lie to yourself, the conscience just laughs at you and says, okay, We'll just extend your sentence if you lie to yourself.
	Maybe you can gain release from the prison of the conscience, you know, like when someone is up for parole.
	They go for the parole board, and what does the parole board want to see?
	They want to see contrition. They want to see remorse.
	They want to see understanding of what they did that was wrong, what was immoral, what was destructive, what was harmful.
	It's why there are victim impact statements at sentencing to see that If the criminal gives a shit about the people he's harmed.
	And every day, every moment, if you've done wrong to people, every day you could be up for parole.
	Every day. Every moment of every day.
	You can pick up the phone. You can Skype.
	And you can say to the people that you've wronged, I'm sorry.
	I really did you harm.
	It wasn't your fault.
	It was my choice.
	I did wrong. I expect nothing.
	And I'm sorry. That is available to everyone all the time, day and night.
	There's not a person that you've wronged that would not be happy should you call at three o'clock in the morning to receive that message.
	It gives sweet relief to the people who've been wronged.
	Now, that possibility of apology...
	When I was younger, I used to wait for that a little bit.
	The people who'd wronged me, the phone would ring.
	I'm like, oh, maybe, maybe.
	Nope. And the longer you avoid those apologies, the less likely you are to ever make them.
	Because your position hardens like a cyst, like a scar.
	And every day, if you've done wrong, you could be up for parole.
	You could be free of your prison, the prison that you have created.
	You could be free.
	I think there is something important to mention.
	A while ago, she tried to apologize to me, but it was a pretty fake apology.
	Yeah, so that's probably the apology where she wants something in return.
	I'm going to apologize so I feel better.
	But that's not how apologies work.
	Apologies make you feel a lot worse in the short run.
	And she said she was going to be violent.
	I think she was trying to protect herself because I was bigger.
	Right. Right.
	Now you have the gun.
	I'm sorry I ever pointed the gun at you.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she still threatens me.
	Apologize. We meant nothing.
	Yeah, so that's, yeah, that is terrible.
	And that's even worse, because that means that she knows she should apologize, and she knows how to, she just won't do it for the right reason.
	She will do it only as a form of self-protection, not contrition for how she behaves.
	So, if somebody locks themselves in a prison, in a place you can't get to, and they have a key, they have a key!
	All the time they have a key.
	They can unlock that prison anytime they want.
	But you don't know where that prison is.
	What can you do? You can't do anything.
	Because it's up to them. They can unlock that prison.
	They can walk out anytime they want.
	And if they choose not to, that's on them.
	That's not on you. There's nothing you can do about it.
	Nothing that you can do about it other than walk away and say, well, if they choose to lock themselves in a prison and I can't get them out...
	Then, I guess at some point they might choose not to lock themselves in a prison, but I can't do anything about that because I don't have the key.
	You don't have the key. See, people think, oh, well, if I forgive my parents, it'll get them out of their prison.
	No, it won't. You don't have the key.
	The key, the lock, the prison, only unlocks from the inside.
	And only they have the key.
	And you can say, hey, I think it'd be good if you apologized.
	Hey, you did me wrong.
	And you can initiate those conversations, but you can't unlock them.
	You can't get them out. There's no Shawshank Redemption jailbreak through the Rita Hayworth poster that you can affect.
	It's up to them. And...
	Most times, 99 times out of 100, they just grow to love their prison.
	They view it as a paradise, and they will fight anyone who tries to even talk them into leaving.
	And then, well, that's what they call a life sentence, right?
	And that's probably where people are.
	All right. Listen, I'm going to close it here, other than, again, to remind you how much I admire you, what a great, great person you are.
	We will sort it out to get you the money, and I really appreciate your trust in this call.
	I know it's a hell of a difficult thing to talk about, and I really, really...
	Do you honor the conversation?
	I mean, I was putting it off for months, so it was pretty difficult to come here and speak.
	But how was it after we started chatting?
	It was not so bad, right? Yes, yes.
	I felt so much more comfortable.
	I thought you were going to think it was not that bad, like everyone does.
	Because I told this before to people, and I said, oh, she's justified.
	She works a lot.
	She was a beaut.
	She works a lot. Yeah, yeah.
	And that's, you know, everybody who works a lot, they get to beat up kids.
	Absolutely. Oh, my God.
	Okay. All right.
	Well, listen, obviously, we will keep in touch.
	We will get you the resources you need.
	Talk to your therapist. Look up the experts on the best and safest way to get out of abusive relationships.
	And we'll talk again soon, all right?
	Take care, man. Thank you.
	Thank you so much.
	Bye-bye. Well, thank you so much for enjoying this latest Free Domain show on philosophy.
	And I'm going to be frank and ask you for your help, your support, your encouragement, and your resources.
	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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