Knowledge Fight Interactive Search Tool

All Episodes

Previous Next

Nov. 22, 2020 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:41:10

"WHY MOM DOESN'T LOVE YOU!" Freedomain Call In

Large

Audio Only |

Scroll

Time	Text
	Okay, so I said, dear Stefan, I want to thank you for all so I said, dear Stefan, I want to thank you for all the work that I've been following you and I've learned a lot and then just I have whatever I'm gonna skip all that.
	So I said that I've been very blessed.
	I'm 23. I'm healthy.
	I'm going to college in the US and I have like family and friends to support me but for a lot of my life I've struggled with a lot of depression and I've had many failures as a result of like bad habits.
	I don't have a lot of motivation and direction and I have a lot of feelings of self-doubt and self-hatred.
	I dropped out of college once and I'm struggling to keep up with my school work now and then I've never really had a job.
	I don't know if I can maintain one and I also feel like I have trouble finding a romantic relationship and I would appreciate your help.
	Yeah, listen, I appreciate the message.
	I mean, that's tough stuff to bring up and to talk about.
	So I appreciate and applaud your courage in this area.
	You know, asking for help is tough.
	It's tough, so good for you.
	And I'm sure we can do something useful.
	There's no magic wand, as you know, but it's a lot better, a lot easier to solve problems when you can get a sense of where they're coming from.
	Now, so you've got self-doubt, and you also put in self-hatred into that.
	And I just want to sort of break that word out so that I know what it is you're talking about, because that's kind of a, that's a pretty powerful phrase.
	So what do you mean by that?
	Yeah, I don't know. I just like, I always put myself down.
	And yeah, I don't know.
	I guess I generally don't really like myself.
	I don't. I don't know.
	I don't think I'm a great person.
	I don't know. You said you had the self-destructive habits.
	Do you want to mention anything about those so I know the area we're working in?
	Yeah, I think I procrastinate a lot.
	I struggle to get my work done.
	I think I'm kind of lazy.
	Sometimes I feel like I waste a lot of my time.
	Sometimes I guess I drink too much, sometimes I have done things that I don't like.
	I don't know. Now, you're very attractive, and I guess one of the things, because I can see the picture, but what about, I don't know, promiscuity's got, I mean, a negative phrase or whatever, but what about sort of, I guess, a sort of random one-night stand, sexual encounters?
	Have you been pursuing that, or I guess in the modern world, has that been pursuing you?
	Yeah, I mean...
	Yeah, I guess most of my sexual encounters have not been great.
	It's usually when I'm really drunk, almost blacked out.
	And it's usually with someone that I don't really like and it's just something that happens and that's how it's mostly been for me.
	So that's obviously not good and it makes me really sad.
	Do you think you've been in any danger in these kinds of encounters?
	It's been a pretty risky thing, getting naked under a guy when you're half drunk and not necessarily able to judge the situation very effectively.
	Have you managed to escape, I guess, the worst aspects of danger in these situations?
	Yes. It's usually with people I know, and it doesn't happen a lot, but that's generally how it's been.
	Like, my sexual encounters, how they've gone.
	But, yeah, it's usually with someone I, like, know.
	And, I mean, there's been moments where, like, sometimes I've been uncomfortable or, like, sometimes I felt like someone's, like, holding me down and, like, just, like, a lot of pressure and stuff.
	But, like, that's, I don't know.
	Wait, so that has happened where you felt some physical pressure or intimidation in these sexual encounters?
	Yeah. Yeah. And how many of these encounters have you had?
	I mean, roughly.
	Four? Yeah.
	Okay. And what's the longest romantic relationship that you've had?
	Probably, I don't even know if it counts because it's like in high school and it was like very like middle school relationship.
	Like we didn't really go out that much.
	We would, like, date for, like, I think it was, like, three months, but, like, we wouldn't have, like, connection, I guess.
	It was just, like, oh, like, we're dating.
	I don't know. And how did that wind down, that three-month-er?
	Like, how did we break up?
	Yeah. Okay, well, he left school.
	He went to boarding school, and then that's, I guess, why we broke up.
	Okay. Yeah.
	And so you drink too much.
	Is it at bars or parties where you end up, I guess not necessarily bars, is it mostly at parties where you end up in these sexual situations where you've had too much to drink?
	Yes. Right.
	So when you go to parties, do you have sort of the intention of getting drunk or do you have the intention of having sex or is it just something that kind of unrolls over the course of the evening?
	I think it's just something that kind of unrolled.
	For a lot of my life I've had really bad social anxiety and sometimes I find it difficult to interact with people and I get really nervous so alcohol is something that kind of helps me.
	So I do drink and I know I'm going to get drunk and it just helps me interact with people and I have fun but sometimes it does get out of hand.
	Yeah. So, I mean, this is something that people don't really recognize as much, I think, as they should.
	And I say this with all deep sympathy for this kind of social anxiety that when you see someone, I guess like this young woman, when you see someone who's drinking excessively, And excessively is, I mean, maybe once a year I'll have more than one drink.
	And usually, I mean, for me, if it's like a hot day, I've been working outside, a light beer goes down.
	Nice, that's about it for me.
	The last time I had two beers in the same...
	Evening was probably about a year or two ago, and I'm in a very cheap drunk that way because alcohol affects me quite strongly, so I don't have much to do with it.
	But when you see someone, particularly a party, who's kind of pounding back the shots or drinking beer after beer or whatever, it's usually because they're suffering from some kind of anxiety or, you know, maybe they're having some sort of mild panic thing or whatever, and they're trying to find a way to keep that anxiety at a bay.
	It's a kind of self-medication for anxiety or depression or whatever it is.
	And so I sympathize with that because you're young – You want to be out there among people.
	You want to get attention.
	You want to have social interactions.
	But if you've got the social anxiety, then it's really going to be kind of obvious the awkwardness unless you become, you know, sort of what the woo girls, you know, the woo, you know, this kind of stuff.
	And the party girl, so to speak, which to me is kind of, it is kind of tragic, right?
	Because if you like this show, doesn't mean you can't go and party, doesn't mean you can't have a couple of drinks, of course, right?
	But you probably are looking for a bit more water in the desert when it comes to social interactions, like, you know, like a decent quality conversation about something reasonably substantive or important.
	And, you know, you're not going to get that at a party with alcohol flowing as a whole, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. How are you feeling with our chat at the moment?
	Good. I don't know.
	I still feel kind of nervous.
	It's not too bad though, right?
	No, it's not bad.
	Right, right. Okay, but I'm on your side and we'll find a way to get to the bottom of this.
	Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say something.
	I just don't know what to say or I don't know What's going to be important or where to take the conversation.
	But I'm going to let you.
	Well, so knowing what to say.
	I know what you mean. I know what you mean about that.
	So knowing what to say.
	Usually is impossible if you're in a push conversation.
	So a push conversation is when the other person is not being very attentive, they're not listening very hard.
	I talked about this with James Dellingpole when I did a speech at the EU in Brussels about cocktail eyes.
	You know, you're trying to talk to someone and they just keep glancing around the room.
	Maybe they're looking for somebody... Better to talk to or maybe they're looking for someone more attractive to talk to or whatever it is, right?
	It's almost impossible to keep people's attention.
	Oh, sorry. It's almost impossible to come up with something to say when you don't feel like you're keeping someone else's attention.
	And so to me, if you're in a situation where you don't know what to say next, I would look and say, okay, do I feel that this person is really listening to me?
	Do I feel that they're interested in what I have to say?
	Because usually not being able to know what to say next comes out of a situation not really being listened to.
	And then it's usually good to just get out of that conversation because if somebody is interacting with you but is kind of looking around or distracted or checking their phone or whatever, it's like, hey, don't do me any favors.
	Feel free to go and spend time with your phone or whoever else you want to talk to at the party.
	But, you know, it's not... I'm not really able to keep your attention.
	So that's just a little trick there in terms of trying to figure out...
	Now, a push conversation is you're trying to push things into the other person.
	A pull conversation is when the other person really is listening.
	And because they really are listening, what you want to say next is easy because they're really listening.
	So I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	Now, when you were a kid...
	Did you feel that same kind of awkwardness or nervousness around social stuff?
	Yes. I don't know exactly when it started, but it's been, yeah, since I was a kid.
	And did your...
	Okay, tell me a little bit about your parents.
	Before I ask specifics, could you give me the broad strokes on your parents?
	Yeah, well, they separated when I was really young.
	I think I was three.
	They would try to be like a family who would come for dinner, but they would always fight.
	I lived with my mom.
	Not to say that she wasn't there, but I feel like I was raised by a lot of helping nannies.
	I had a bunch.
	My dad, I would I'm sorry about that.
	I guess you come from some kind of money.
	You said nannies and so on were involved in your raising.
	That's the problem. They come and go, right?
	They come and go. What's the point of bonding with this revolving door of caregivers?
	Yeah, I mean, that happened, I don't know to what age, but then I did have some people that were really more consistent.
	But yeah, it did happen a lot where they weren't very consistent as I was growing up.
	So what were your parents' major complaints about each other?
	What did they fight about? I don't know.
	I'm not sure. I think my mom just- Oh no, you know.
	Come on. You were there, right?
	You know, I mean, you may not know the big psychological stuff that's going on, but like on the surface, was it like you work too much, you're an egg, like was it that kind of, we don't have, like what was, what was at least the surface stuff that they were fighting about?
	I think my mom just like wanted like more attention from him and I guess my dad was like a little bit more distant and I don't know.
	Now, so sometimes this dynamic works this way, that the woman likes...
	Did your dad make most of the money in the family?
	Yeah, my mom didn't really work.
	Okay. Yeah, so this is the challenge, right?
	This is the big tension between men and women a lot of times, right?
	Which is that the woman wants the man to make money, but the woman also wants the man to be emotionally present and available to her.
	And for the most part, you kind of got to pick one.
	I mean, you kind of got to pick one because if you want a guy who's really sensitive and emotionally open and available and so on, then he's not going to be out there slugging it out in the blood and guts arena of the marketplace to go and get more cheese or get more.
	You know, he's he's if you want a guy who's really, really sensitive to animals, he's not going to be able to strangle a deer and bring it home for dinner, if that makes sense.
	And so a lot of times the women are like, well, I want the tough guy alpha who's kind of cold and goes out there and dominates the world.
	But I also want when he comes home, someone who's really sensitive and sits and talks and chats for hours about thoughts and feelings.
	And, you know, you're going to kind of have to pick one, right?
	And for men, what they want is they want, you know, a sexy, hot woman.
	But at the same time, they also want...
	a calm down-to-earth patient nurturer for their children and it's not like these again it's not impossible for these things to coexist But it's not really the case for the most part.
	That if you're going to, you know, the hot mess versus the earthy plain girl who's actually a good mom and companion and wife.
	So we kind of got these opposites going on.
	And it just strikes me that, I mean, did your mom like the money?
	Or was she willing to say, look, I would rather have less money And more time with you?
	Or did she kind of ask the impossible, which is go out there, be a tough moneymaker, and then come home and be a sensitive, feelings-based guy?
	Not yet. She liked the money, and I think a lot of times she'd complain that she isn't getting enough or stuff like that.
	Oh, so go make more money and then be really, really sensitive and aware of my feelings.
	Yeah. Because making money, to some degree, you have to have empathy for your clients, but you have to have, not necessarily hostility, but you've got to have coldness to your competitors, right?
	So, like, I mean, when I do these shows, I have to have empathy, and I want to have empathy for you, and I kind of have to put aside that if we do a really great show, people are going to listen to this rather than some other person out there, and that other person is going to be unhappy, particularly if they can't Compete, right?
	Like, I mean, if you're a model and you go for a bikini shoot or something, then the other girls who don't get the bikini shoot are going to be sad.
	But you kind of have to put that aside and say, well, I want to win.
	And winning, you know, or an athlete, an athlete who wins a race has to be aware that the other athletes don't want him to win the race.
	They want to win the race. And he has to put that aside.
	Maybe he feels even hostility towards them.
	But in order to win, he has to be the opposite of empathetic to other people's needs.
	Who he's competing with, right?
	And so that's kind of tough when you say, okay, go out there and make money by being the opposite of empathetic to everyone who competes with you, but then come home and flip this magic switch where you become totally empathetic to me.
	And it's like, this is an impossible standard for most men to achieve, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Do you know what caused the divorce itself?
	Have you had any conversations with them since about that?
	Well, it's kind of difficult to talk to my dad.
	I feel like he doesn't really open up about this.
	My mom just complains that they like, I don't know, I guess that they would just like fight a lot.
	And I think throughout the years, because I don't know exactly how the relationship worked out.
	I feel like in some periods they were together and some other ones they were, but I was never aware of what was really going on.
	Now, I think after me and my brother, we went to college, now they've completely stopped talking and I think they finally finalized the divorce, but I don't know.
	Wait, they finalized the divorce, what, 15 years after?
	Yeah. I guess they weren't in much of a hurry to marry anyone else.
	Yeah, no, I never heard of them dating anyone else or anything.
	I know my dad is seeing someone now, but he's never spoken to me about it, like my mom told me.
	Yeah, so I don't know.
	Right, so you didn't have, at least with your parents, you didn't have any healthy relationship modeling when you were growing up, right?
	I guess not, no.
	Wait, hang on. Don't rubber bones on me, young lady.
	What do you mean you guess not?
	If there is one, I want to hear about it.
	If there's not, then we need to be clear about that.
	Yeah, no. No, so what about aunts, uncles, extended family, friends, friends, parents?
	I mean, was there anyone out there where you're like, okay, yeah, that's a good relationship.
	I'd be happy if I had that.
	Not really. Really, there's no one that I can think of, and I think a lot of...
	Oh, I think you'd remember. Yeah.
	I think you'd remember. It's kind of like, you know, my daughter loves snakes.
	If she ever found a two-headed snake and someone asked her 10 years from now, she wouldn't say, yeah, maybe, I think I'd...
	No, she'd be like, oh yeah, I remember that.
	Like, that's really evident, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So then deep down in your heart, what is the value and purpose of a romantic relationship?
	Well, what is, I think just like forming a connection, being able to like communicate and love each other and like be a family and grow together. being able to like communicate and love each other and I don't know, I guess.
	Okay, so the purpose of this companionship and growing a family and communication, that's sort of, deep down in your heart, that's the value, but that's very abstract in a way because you haven't actually seen it in your life, if I understand this correctly.
	Yeah. Right.
	So it's kind of like you're reading off a list.
	Yeah, it's like what I hear from what you say or what people say, like, oh, like, you know, I don't know.
	Right, right. Because if that's the value of a romantic relationship, I mean, you know that you're doing the opposite of what you would need to do to achieve that, right?
	And getting drunk and hooking up and like that kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah. So when you look in the mirror and you look inside your heart, What value would you bring to a man?
	And please understand, I'm not saying you don't bring any value.
	Because when I say, what value do you bring?
	I don't mean it that way.
	I mean that in your own self-assessment, what value...
	Like, why would a man pick you over, you know, other women?
	And what value would you bring to the table, so to speak?
	I have no idea.
	I don't know. Okay, so that's a challenge, right?
	And if you don't know, then as a young woman, you know what men want, so I'm not telling you anything you don't know.
	So then if you don't know what you bring to a relationship in terms of virtues or values or personality or whatever it is, then what you bring to the table, frankly, is your butt, right?
	I mean, it's sex. And that's kind of humiliating because that can get you attention, but at the expense of your personality, right?
	Yeah. Right.
	So then the sexual aspect of your interaction with men becomes more a form of almost desperation or attention-begging rather than...
	Being able to pick and choose a man because you're in high demand because of virtues, because of your personality.
	Does that make sense? I'm sorry, I'm not explaining it too well, but I hope that makes sense.
	No, I understand that, yes. Okay.
	All right, so that's first and foremost, right?
	So first and foremost, it's called a gap analysis, right?
	Which is, okay, so where do you want to be and where are you?
	Are you heading in the right direction?
	And I think the answer to that is no.
	If this is your approach to getting male attention is, you know, being the party girl who might sleep with him, so to speak, right?
	That's not going to get you what you want, right?
	So my question is, where did you get this opportunity?
	This concept or this idea of the woman bringing looks to the table in order to gain male attention.
	Is it from your mom, do you think? I mean, was she very pretty?
	I'm sorry? Yeah, I mean, yeah, when you said that, I thought probably my mom.
	Okay, then here's the part where I'll shut up and I'm listening very intently.
	You can't see me, but I am. And tell me a little bit about how you think that played out or what happened with your mom.
	Um... I don't know.
	Sometimes I feel like I'm not going to explain myself right, so I don't know how to go about it.
	You can take a couple of runs at it.
	It's not an audition. We've got time.
	Well, no. My mom, I guess she's really pretty, and I'm sure that had to do with my parents being in a relationship.
	I mean, I guess I don't know that much, but yeah.
	I mean, other than that, I don't...
	Not insulting my mom.
	She's a good woman, but I don't know what else could have attracted my dad.
	Listen, you can be frank.
	You can be frank. You're anonymous here, so you can be frank.
	And look, having a realistic assessment of your parents...
	I was raised, I don't know if you're raised Christian, I imagine probably, right?
	But I was raised Christian and I was raised with honor thy mother and thy father.
	But honor thy mother and thy father means have an honest evaluation of their strengths and weaknesses.
	Because it doesn't honor people to just praise them without...
	We used to call it blowing smoke up someone's ass.
	It's a form of manipulation to praise people without objective assessment.
	So honor, what is honor?
	Honor is the truth.
	To honor your parents is to tell the truth to them and about them.
	Because the other commandment, thou shalt not bear false witness, has got to tie in there somewhere, right?
	So I don't think the commandment is, do not bear false witness, but lie about your parents.
	It's not a valid, you can't unravel that, right?
	So to me, honor...
	When you say, I'm going to honor my promise, I'm going to honor my word, I'm going to honor my deal, I'm going to honor my bargain, I'm going to honor this coupon, it means that you're going to...
	Tell the truth and provide value.
	And so to me, honor, I'm sure your mom has strengths.
	Your mom has weaknesses. My mom has strengths.
	She has some weaknesses, to put it mildly.
	So the honor part, it's not disrespectful to tell the truth about your parents.
	And my mom certainly wanted me to tell the truth.
	Now, she wasn't always that keen when I would tell the truth about her, but nonetheless, that commandment is there.
	So I just want to point that out.
	This isn't about throwing your mom under the bus, but Okay, so, I mean, it's kind of funny what you said, right?
	Which is funny, not funny, which is, you know, my mom's a good woman, but I have no idea why a man would choose her other than looks.
	I'm paraphrasing a little, but she's got good cheekbones.
	Her virtue is her clear skin or whatever, right?
	Yeah. No, I mean, I guess I don't really know how she was back then.
	I think just like when I was growing up, just her relationship with my dad and she was like, I think kind of like mental health issues as well.
	So I feel like that.
	Oh, she had mental health issues.
	Yeah, like I think she just had like depression and she just didn't really know how to deal with that.
	Now you're kind of tossing this thing into the conversation like it ain't no thing.
	Oh, yeah, well, you know, the mental health issues, my mom and the depression, because, you know, this is what you're struggling with, too, to some degree, right?
	Yeah. But you're tossing it in like, well, you know, she liked to wear beige, and she wore big hats sometimes, and, oh, yeah, the depression thing, too.
	So I think you kind of threw this in because you wanted to tell the truth, but you also kind of threw it in like, but don't pay attention to it too much.
	Not a criticism. I'm just telling you sort of what I think about that because you kind of tossed it in like, okay, well, because, you know, to me it would be like, oh, yeah, well, my mom, to be, you know, she really does have these mental health issues and it's have a big impact.
	But you're like, well, there was a depression, but let's keep moving.
	Yeah. Yeah, okay.
	So how did you, when did you first notice that your mom had this issue, the depression and so on?
	Well, I guess I just, like, wasn't aware of it when I was, like, younger, but just, like, I guess growing up, I, like, I knew she, like, we would sometimes talk, and I know she would, like, get sad, and I know she was, like, trying to go to therapists, and she's been on, like, medication and all of that, so.
	And I guess she, like, also, like, I see, like, kind of what I see in me, she didn't, like, really have motivation to, like, do anything and, you know, all of that, so.
	Would it be fair to say that your mom coasted on her looks when she was younger to some degree?
	I don't know. I guess a little bit maybe.
	Well, didn't she get a big income and a successful husband to a large degree based upon her looks?
	Yeah, but I suppose she did marry kind of late.
	Before she did work and she did, I don't know.
	What age range was she in when she got married?
	I think she was like Early, no, I mean, late 20s, like early 30s.
	Right, okay, okay. Do you know anything about her dating history prior to your dad?
	Not really, no.
	I think you should ask.
	I think she, because what you're trying to do is you're trying to figure out who your mom was at your age.
	Yeah. Right, that's really, really important to know because kind of deep down, you know, you know, like if you're a good chef, And somebody says, here, taste this sauce, you pretty much know what went into it, right?
	And it's the same thing, like when we see our parents in sort of middle age or older ages and so on, deep down we kind of know what they were like when they were our age.
	But it's nice to get more sort of clarity and confirmation or to figure out if we can get the truth.
	So my guess is with your mom.
	This is my guess. I'm probably wrong, but I'm going to tell you my guess anyway, right?
	So my guess is something like this.
	She's very attractive, kept herself slender and healthy and all of that, and was out there Looking for a guy who could make a lot of money, right?
	Because, you know, it's the old song, right?
	Your daddy's rich, your mama's good looking, right?
	That's kind of the way, that's the trade, right?
	That the man brings home the resources and the woman provides physical beauty, which is a sign of good genes, good fertility and all that, that, right?
	So she was like dating around when she was younger and probably maybe a couple of bad boys, maybe a couple of good looking guys who weren't successful.
	But then when she gets into her late twenties, early thirties, she's like, oh man, I'm getting older.
	I'm getting crow's feet.
	I'm starting to not be able to attract the highest quality men.
	So now I have to go and find a high-value alpha male to settle down with and have kids with.
	That's my guess.
	And this almost never works, just so you know.
	This almost never works. And for reasons I'll get into in a sec.
	But again, if you don't really know her early dating history, how does that sit with you in terms of the possibility?
	Yeah, I mean, that sounds like it could be possible, yeah.
	Right. So the reason it doesn't work is that any time we choose someone for reasons other than virtue, it doesn't work.
	Now, it may last, but it doesn't work.
	So if your dad chose your mom for her looks, then she's going to resent him.
	If your mom chose your dad because of his money, he's going to resent her.
	Yeah. Because we all want to be chosen for ourselves.
	But it's almost impossible.
	It's the cleavage question, right, to put it sort of coarsely.
	Like a woman goes out, she wants attention, so she can just wear...
	A low-cut top, right?
	And what is it that the line from Erin Brockovich did?
	They're called boobs, right? And so this is the kind of great temptation that if a woman dresses up to look sexy, she's going to get a lot of attention, but the attention is for her boobs, not for her.
	Yeah. And that's kind of humiliating.
	You know, it's the old thing, like a woman, this is paradox, right?
	This is an old cliche in comedy, like the woman wears a really low-cut top, and then she says to the guy, hey, hey, my eyes are up here.
	You know, it's like, well, if you want me to look into your eyes, why are you wearing a low-cut top?
	You know what men are like. I mean, it's crazy, right?
	And so if she, and so that's one reason, it's that you're being chosen for something other than who you are, and that's It causes or creates resentment.
	The other thing, of course, is that if she's gone through a bunch of boyfriends, and I'm not trying to say anything about the number, right?
	It may be low.
	But if she's gone through a bunch of boyfriends, then the breakups have happened.
	By the time she's in her late 20s and early 30s, she might have had five or ten boyfriends, relationships of six months to a year, 18 months or whatever it is.
	And so it's kind of like Velcro that kind of pulls, it doesn't stick together anymore after a while, or like scotch tape, you know, you keep sticking and unsticking scotch tape, eventually you just get a strip of plastic that doesn't stick to anything.
	And that's kind of, for women in particular, that's the way it rolls, that she attaches to men, it breaks up, it breaks her heart, she gets a little scar tissue, she loses the bonding capacity, and then by the time she gets into her early 30s, she doesn't have much capacity to pair bond anymore, and she's chosen for something other than who she is.
	As an individual.
	And also, of course, the other reason it doesn't last is that if he's very successful and she doesn't turn out to be a great catch in terms of personality, then the odds are he'll just trade her in for a younger model later on, right?
	So she can't even pair bond based on that.
	And that's very stressful.
	When you're with someone and The disaster at the end of the relationship is kind of baked into the very beginning and it's just a matter of time.
	That's really stressful.
	Like if you're pair bonded with someone and you just know, like my wife and I, we're pair bonded.
	We're going to stay together forever.
	So it's pretty relaxing. But if you kind of know that it's not going to last and you chose each other for the wrong reasons, then sometimes the waiting gets so stressful that people just pick fights to have it over, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. Mm-hmm.
	And how long were they married before?
	You see you were three, right? How long were they married?
	Just like a couple years, I guess.
	Because I think they had me pretty soon after they got married, so maybe like a year more, maybe like four years.
	Right. Well, it's another thing, too, that if your mom was looking for resources, then getting married isn't enough.
	She also wants to have a kid, right?
	Because then if there's a divorce, she gets...
	I mean, did she get alimony, child support, that kind of stuff?
	Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
	So that's not good.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Now, why... If she was a stay-at-home mom, did she go back to work after the divorce?
	Is that right? No. No?
	No. She always said my dad wouldn't...
	I don't know if it's an excuse, but she would just be like, oh, your dad doesn't want me to work.
	And maybe he didn't.
	Well, but she didn't respect his wishes enough.
	I mean, did she divorce him?
	I don't know how it went.
	I feel like it would come more from my dad, honestly.
	Again, that's another thing, I think, to ask.
	So, did she get the house?
	Yeah. Not bad for a couple of years.
	She got a house and then she got, what, 15 years of income from your dad?
	Yeah, I mean, he's still supporting her.
	Oh, my God. Yeah.
	Oh, man, that's costly.
	Probably dropped a million bucks or more into this whole situation, plus the value of the house, right?
	Mil five, mil two mil, something like that?
	Yeah, I don't know. Let's say it's $2 million and they were married for four years.
	That's half a million dollars a year.
	It's a pretty high damn income.
	Oh, man. Okay, so she's staying home.
	She doesn't work. She's got the house.
	What the hell was she hiring nannies for?
	Was she too busy?
	I don't... That's the thing.
	Like, I don't know. Yeah, you do.
	Yeah, you do. Don't play dumb with me.
	Of course you do. Why did she hire nannies?
	Why? Because...
	She probably, I don't know, maybe she did.
	I think she was just dealing with things, so she didn't feel like she could be there for us all the time.
	And I think it's just also something where I'm from, and a lot of people have nannies and help around the house and stuff like that, so it's kind of normal as well.
	Well, I mean, that's not much of an answer.
	She was dealing with things and other people were doing it.
	Yeah, I mean, she probably didn't feel like...
	I don't know.
	I mean, she's like distracted and she...
	Distracted by what?
	Probably with the relationship with my dad.
	I think that affected her for a long time.
	Yeah, it affected her emotionally and maybe that's why she wasn't there for us all the time.
	You are such a nice young lady.
	You really are. And that's going to be the doom of you.
	So just, you know, just for this conversation, I'm going to give you a pause.
	Please, please don't be a nice young lady for the next hour.
	I'm begging you. Just please don't be a nice, because you've got to get to the truth, right?
	I mean, I don't know what to say, like, because I've been listening to you for a long time, and I, like, there was a point where I was, like, really angry at my mom and my dad, and I would be...
	Really mad, but I think we've kind of moved past that till now.
	I don't know. I don't want to be...
	Okay, but if you've moved past that, why are you still depressed and unmotivated?
	I don't know, because I don't like myself.
	Okay, so let me ask you this then.
	How did you move past it, or how did you resolve your anger at your mother?
	I've just tried to have a lot of conversations with her over the years, and I see her trying to get better.
	She's seeked out help, and she is in a better place now than before.
	I see her trying to improve, and she has apologized for maybe not being there all the time and all of that.
	Let's go back to when you were a child, because this adults Maturity and understanding and sympathy and so on.
	Again, it's very nice.
	I appreciate it. I'm not saying it doesn't have any place in a relationship, but let's go back to when you were a kid.
	Because that's where this stuff gets set up, right?
	In your personality. So, give me a typical day with you and your mom.
	Sorry, do you have any siblings? I have a brother.
	Same parents? Yes.
	Okay. So, he's younger?
	Younger, yeah. So he's the one who broke up the marriage.
	I should be talking to him. So give me a sort of a typical day when you're young with regards to your mom and the nannies and how much time you might spend with her.
	I don't think I have a good memory of like when I was a kid like I don't have like like I don't know what I can say, like, I don't have a lot of memory about that.
	Okay, so, sorry, let me interrupt then.
	So, on any given day, let's say it's a weekend, right?
	Let's say it's a weekend, and you're 12 years old, or 10 years old, how much, sorry?
	Yeah, no, I mean, I'm thinking about, like, I can tell you that there's, like, times I remember, like, waiting for her, like, at home, and I was just my brother, and then my nannies were there, and then It was like late at night.
	This is kind of what I'm remembering.
	Sorry, your nanny's brother?
	No, me and my brother were just there and then my nannies were there and I was like waiting for my mom to come home and then like it was like really late and she just like kind of wouldn't show up.
	I don't know where she was.
	I don't know. So she was out while you guys were kind of little, right?
	Preteen. Yeah. And where was she?
	I don't know. What?
	You said you've had lots of chats with your mom.
	Yeah. Did you not tell her about all the times you had to wait and ask her where she'd been?
	I don't know.
	She kind of says, oh, like, I remember being there.
	But she does like, yeah.
	Hmm. I don't know.
	She's right. I don't have a lot of memories from when I was a kid, and maybe I'm just misremembering some stuff.
	No, no, but the memories come from the bonding, right?
	When you live in this fog of detachment, of dissociation, it's hard to remember anything.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Give me some highlights of the one-on-one time you had with your mom when you were growing up.
	What did you guys do that was just you and her?
	Um, I don't know.
	Um, I don't know.
	I can't think of something.
	Now, that's kind of tragic, right?
	Yeah. In fact, it's horrifyingly tragic that you can't remember a time where you did something with your mom.
	I mean, yeah, I don't know why.
	I thought of like... Shopping, maybe, but that sounds really stupid.
	Or, like, watching a movie.
	Yeah, but where it's you and her talking.
	Yeah. Eye contact, curiosity, back and forth, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	Yeah.
	Can't remember one?
	No.
	I don't know.
	Because you're kind of at war with yourself here, because part of you wants to deliver something to save your mom's reputation, but you can't, right?
	Think of one. Yeah, I can't think of one.
	Right. Okay, so, my friend.
	What does a child think of herself when she can't rouse her mother's interest in her?
	When she's not interesting to her own mother?
	She probably feels bad.
	I obviously...
	Don't laugh. Don't laugh.
	Don't invite... You know, you've heard these shows before and you probably said, well, I'm not going to laugh when something painful comes up.
	Don't laugh. Don't laugh.
	What does a little girl think if her mom is interested in everything but her?
	Yeah, I mean, I felt bad.
	Felt probably like I wasn't enough.
	And that... I was probably like, sometimes I also feel like I was kind of a disturbance in their relationship a little bit.
	Sometimes what she said, she's like, oh, I couldn't work also because I had you and your dad wouldn't let me.
	And sometimes I felt like, oh, I did kind of put that on me that maybe I was causing some sort of, I don't know, trouble.
	I don't know. Well, I mean, I think the reason why your mom didn't work is she was getting paid not to.
	It's not that complicated.
	I mean, I don't know how this all works, but I imagine that if she had some kind of big income, your dad could file for reduced alimony and child support because she's making money.
	But she blamed you to some degree for her not working?
	Yeah. While she'd hired an Annie?
	I'm working hard to not dislike this woman.
	I really am.
	I'm looking for the plus here.
	I'm striving hard and failing.
	Yeah. Because your mother is the spiritual nutrition that you need to grow up happy.
	And your father too, but let's talk about your mother, right?
	Would your mother have primary custody, is that right?
	Yeah. How often did you see your dad?
	I would see him often, and I have more memories of him.
	I remember him, when I would stay with him, he would read me stories to bed, and I remember him playing sports with me and all of that.
	So I have more memories with him, even though I didn't live with him.
	I'm certainly glad that you have that, for sure.
	So, tell me some positive things about your mother.
	I just want to try and balance things out as best I can, because it doesn't work very well if I just dislike someone.
	So, yeah, give me a balance.
	I mean, if there isn't anything that pops in your mind, that's fine, but just, you know, help me flesh this out a little.
	Yeah. I don't know why it's difficult for me to come up with something.
	Like, I mean, she's, I think she's like, I don't know, now she like tries and she's like nice.
	She like tries to be there for me.
	No, no, when you were a kid. When you were a kid. When I was a kid, I don't, I don't know.
	I gotta tell you, man, if someone ever asked my daughter, you know, give me something positive about your dad, if there's that 10-second pause, that's it for me in terms of, that's rough, man.
	I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.
	You should have a mountain of memories of chats and fun and one-on-one time and eye contact and being listened to and being respected and loved and nurtured and cared for.
	I mean, you should have a million of these things.
	And you got like a desert, like a dusty, empty cellar of broken boxes, you know?
	Man, I'm so sorry.
	So, when children feel rejected by their parents, and indifference from the parent is often worse even than being attacked.
	Because, and this is why a lot of kids will provoke Anger in the parents rather than be indifferent.
	Because if you provoke anger in your parents, at least you have the value of having them discharge their anger at you and vent their frustrations.
	You at least have some value to your parents.
	But if they're completely indifferent to you, we have annihilation panic.
	Because throughout most of human evolution, if the parents were completely indifferent to a child, If there was never enough food to go around for everyone, then that child would often starve to death or be abandoned or be left or just not be protected when a predator came or not be snatched up if the warlords were coming or whatever, right?
	So if our parents are indifferent to us, it's so toxic that it's kind of hard to picture.
	And she owed you that.
	She owed you that attention.
	It's not optional. You know, I didn't know you when you were a kid.
	I didn't owe you any attention.
	You didn't know I existed.
	I didn't know you exist. But it's different if you're the mom, obviously.
	You bring a child into this world.
	You owe that child time and care and attention in the same way that you owe the child food and health care and shelter and a reasonable education.
	You know, like you owe that to the child.
	Yeah. So what the hell did your mother tell herself That she was somehow justified in bringing two innocent children into this world, not working things out with their dad to the point where he's not around, at least in the house.
	And then, after bringing these two innocent and dependent children into the house and trapping them in her house, as children are trapped in their parents' houses, and then ignoring them, what did she tell herself about That.
	Hey, you know what? Instead of asking you about her, let me just ask her directly, if you don't mind pretending to be your mom for a few minutes.
	Oh, I don't know if I can do that.
	Give it a try. You might be surprised.
	Give it a try. All right? Because, you know, you said you had some conversations with your mom, right?
	So, if I'm you and your mom, and I say, Mom, I know we've talked about the childhood stuff before, but stuff's been kind of coming up for me lately that is not good.
	I'm not trying to dunk on you, but it's just stuff that's troubling me.
	Like, you know, I thought the other day, and I thought, is there a sort of single memory that I have of you and I having...
	Fun, chatting, just like not watching a movie or going shopping, but just you and I time, right?
	And yeah, I came up a complete blank.
	And I do remember with my brother, waiting and waiting and waiting, sometimes really late into the night, about, for you, and I don't know where you were or what you were doing, but I'm sort of thinking like I don't, I can't remember a time where you took real pleasure in my company when I was a child.
	And I don't, I don't know what to do with that.
	So why did you hire nannies?
	Why were you gone all the time?
	Like what was going on?
	Um, she'd probably just say that like she remembers being there.
	Um, she like doesn't see it that way.
	And, um, I don't know.
	She'd probably blame my dad somehow.
	Okay, so just say what she would say.
	You can do it. I don't know.
	She'd be like, oh, I remember being there.
	I don't really know what you're talking about.
	And then she would apologize.
	She's like, oh, I'm sorry if I wasn't.
	Yeah. Well, okay, so then I would say, as you, so mom, that's kind of annoying, to be perfectly honest.
	So the first thing you do is you tell me that I'm wrong.
	The second thing you do is you blame dad.
	And then the third thing you do is apologize for something that you consider I just made up or completely wrong about.
	You know, I am your daughter, mom, and I have a distinct lack of memories of us having positive interactions when I was a child.
	Now, if you just say, oh, daughter, you're wrong, that's not good.
	You understand, as my mother, as somebody who claims to care about me and all that, why aren't you asking me any questions?
	Why are you just giving me a blanket statement that I'm wrong and then going off on some crap about dad?
	And what would she say?
	I think...
	I don't know, honestly.
	Okay, so that's important, right?
	So that means that the conversations that you've had with your mom may not have gone to the core or the depth of the issue?
	Yeah. And the second thing is that you spend so little time with your mom that it's tough for you to roleplay.
	I don't know if you've listened to these other shows before, but this is kind of a regular thing where I'll sort of pretend to be the theater.
	I don't know if it's like me.
	I'm sorry? Yeah, I feel like, yeah, no, never mind.
	I don't know what I'm saying. No, so I think you got it, but I think it was tough for you to inhabit your mother's responses to that because you're very distant from her.
	Mm-hmm. Right? So it's almost like role-playing a stranger in a way, right?
	Mm-hmm. Yeah.
	So if you don't, in and of yourself, bring value to your mother when you're growing up, it's kind of hard to imagine how you bring value to others.
	In other words, if my own mother wasn't interested in me, how could anyone be interested in me?
	Mm-hmm.
	Now, of course, when you were a kid, you didn't have, you know, youth and looks and attractiveness with which to gain attention in the world, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	But then, you know, as a young woman, and this happens to attractive young men as well, you get handed this superpower, so to speak, right?
	And as a result of that, you can go out and get attention, right?
	But it doesn't solve the problem, right?
	Why do you think that is? Why do you think it doesn't solve the problem of feeling uninteresting?
	Feeling because I don't feel good about myself.
	I don't know what values I have.
	I don't know why anyone would be interested in me.
	Well, you know that they would be interested in you for looks and youth and attractiveness and all of that.
	But that gives you contempt, right?
	Because the man kind of has to lie to you.
	If you don't like yourself, it's inconceivable that someone else is going to like you.
	So if a man shows interest in you, he's not going to sit there and say, well, I don't really care about your personality, but you're pretty.
	I mean, he's gonna say, I like you, you're wonderful, you're special, but you know he's just kind of lying about all of that, because you don't believe that, right?
	Yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, because that's happened a lot, and I think it really makes me distrust men, and I think that's why it's also hard for me to date and open up, because I don't really trust men.
	Well, you mistrust men, and for good reason.
	There is no greater contempt in the world than an unhappy pretty girl towards men.
	Because the men all just want to leap over the unhappiness and just, you know, grab you or whatever, right?
	But they can't say that honestly.
	They've got to make up all this stuff about how wonderful you are, but you don't agree with or feel yourself, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, that's rough, man.
	And I'm sorry that men do that.
	I really am. I understand.
	I was a young man as well, but I'm sorry that they do, because somebody who cares about you...
	Should know this about you and talk to you about this, right?
	Mm-hmm. Right. So, yeah, you've got to call the married guy, right?
	It's totally fine. It's totally fair.
	Okay. So, if your mother is not interested in you, there's two possibilities.
	Only two. Two sides of one coin.
	It never lands on the edge.
	Okay. Two possibilities.
	The first possibility is that your mother has great capacity to be interested and bond with people, particularly children, but that for some mysterious x-factor reason, you are as dull as dishwater, you are as boring as watching paint dry, all the clichés you can think of.
	So your mother has a great capacity For being interested in people and engaging with people, and she's got great empathy and curiosity and a great capacity for love, but you are just about as interesting as a lamppost, right?
	That's one possibility, right?
	Do you know what the other possibility is?
	That it has to do more with her than with me.
	Again, I'm going to ask you not to be so nice.
	I don't know what you want me to say.
	Well, I also can't have you go rubber bones on me, right?
	So I'll give you sort of an example of what I mean.
	So the other example is that you are a very interesting and fascinating person, but your mother is shallow and selfish and narcissistic and only seeks her own immediate pleasure and was out there getting male attention rather than spending time with her children because she's a horrible person as far as mothering goes.
	Um... Yeah.
	I think she was, yeah.
	Okay. Another way of putting it is that she had children in order to get money, not because she had any interest in children.
	In other words, you were kind of like grappling hooks that a bank robber uses to get into the bank.
	You were the way to pick the safe.
	And once she got the money from your dad, why on earth would she have anything to do with her kids?
	I mean, she'll keep them in the house because that's required to get the money.
	But why on earth? I feel like she did want to be a mother.
	She just like, I guess, didn't know how and just didn't really try, I guess.
	Okay, so she wanted to be a mother.
	She didn't know how and she didn't try and she didn't do the behaviors that would be even the basic necessity of being a mother, right?
	So again, you're very nice, right?
	You're very nice. And it's costly.
	The reason I'm encouraging you to not be so nice is I think the niceness is costing you a lot.
	It's costing you direction.
	It's costing you motivation. It's costing you self-esteem.
	The more you defend your mother, the more you label yourself as uninteresting and empty.
	I find it kind of weird that I'm defending her so much because I did feel a lot of anger towards her for a long time and I would kind of be mean about it, but I don't know.
	Now I feel like I need to defend her and I feel like I thought that I've moved past it, so now I don't know.
	Well, I can tell you why you're defending her.
	Because in me, you have an ally.
	Right? So a lot of times with teenagers, like you're mad at your mom and you get angry and you yell and you throw things and you stay out late and you date the wrong people and you dabble in drugs and do all the things that just annoy the hell out of your mother.
	And you do all of these things because you don't have an ally.
	So you can attack your mother, in a sense, and it doesn't solve the problem, of course, because what you're doing is you're making your own behavior bad in order to get back at your mother whose behavior was bad, which is sort of like saying, well, my mom punches herself in the face, so I'm going to punch myself in the face to get back to her.
	It's like, how not to get back at her?
	Reproducing the behaviors is not getting back at her.
	But what's happening now is somebody outside of your family, outside of your consciousness, me, Is, I think, telling some rather brutally frank truths about your mom.
	And now, because I'm an outsider, it's like family solidarity, rush to defend mom, right?
	It's fine for you to do it.
	But if somebody else does it, that's bad, right?
	Yeah, I guess that makes sense.
	So what if the price of your happiness is a just and fair assessment of your mother?
	And I say that not because I'm providing that, but because I think you're providing that deep down.
	So what if deep down you have a fair amount of hostility towards your mother, but because you're suppressing that, You're suppressing your own capacity for direction and happiness.
	Because, you know, emotions is one big giant switch.
	It's one big giant switch. I don't know if you've ever been in the basement of a house where there's, you know, the electrical panel, and the electrical panel has these little labels, you know, this is the upper bedroom, this is the bathroom, this is whatever, right?
	Mm-hmm. But then there's also one big giant master switch to turn all the power on and off, right?
	So we think that the emotional apparatus that we have is kind of like the right-hand panel where you can switch things on and off.
	And it's like, okay, well, I'll just not switch.
	I'll just switch off my hostility towards my mom, but everything else will stay on.
	It's like, nope, that's not how it works.
	The way it works is there's one big switch.
	Mm-hmm. That's kind of like a dial, right?
	Or another way of putting it is you say, I've got a throbbing pain in my hand.
	I'm going to take a painkiller, but I only want the painkiller to affect my hand.
	But that's not how painkillers work.
	They generally numb your pain as a whole, right?
	Mm-hmm. So...
	If this is, I think it's true, but it's a valid way of looking at things, then the reason you feel empty and listless and depressed and without motivation is because to shield your mother, to protect your mother, or rather, to act in a way that does not cause your mother too much upset, you have shut down your own emotional apparatus, and that's why you don't feel much.
	And that's why you doubt the value that you can bring, and that's why you act in ways that further reinforce your lack of value, if that makes sense.
	Yeah. I just thought I'd kind of move past all the anger I had towards her, but I don't know.
	Yeah.
	How did you move past the anger?
	Just by, I guess just like I said, just by talking to her and like, I think she's doing better now and she's trying.
	And I like kind of understand, like, I just think her, the issue she was dealing with affected the way she like was with me.
	But like, I don't want to help her.
	But you're saying she's helpless?
	Sorry, but you're saying that she's helpless to change when she was younger.
	She was helpless to change because she was, quote, dealing with issues, right?
	Yeah. But you understand what a prison that puts you in.
	Because if she only gets...
	What is she in her late 40s now?
	Early 50s? Yeah.
	Okay. So at your age...
	She had no capacity to improve because she was, quote, dealing with issues, right?
	Now, are you currently dealing with issues?
	Yeah. Yeah. What does that mean about you?
	Yeah, but I guess I'm kind of stuck to like that.
	If you give her the excuse of not needing to improve because she's dealing with issues, then you dealing with issues means you don't get to improve.
	Because if you improve, if you've solved this, if you've fixed this, Then your mother could have at the same time and then she becomes morally responsible for her deficiencies as a parent and as a wife and as a whatever, right?
	So if you understand, if you improve, if you shake this off, if you shake off the depression, if you find a motivation, if you get over this negative self-view, this lack of self-esteem, the self-hatred as you talked about, if you deal with that, Then your mom could have and therefore should have at your age, not her age.
	Yeah. So your mother does not want you to improve.
	See what I mean? Because if you...
	She says, oh, well, I was dealing so much, I didn't really have a choice, I couldn't be better, blah, blah, blah, right?
	But if you improve at your age, oh, man, what a ton of bricks for your mom.
	She loses that excuse.
	The excuse that she gave you and you're now giving to me.
	Yeah. Do you see what I mean?
	I mean, I don't want to continue defending her, but I do think she wants the best for me and she's trying to help me now.
	But I understand where that's coming from and what you mean.
	But yeah. Now, I'm still waiting for you to kind of show up in the conversation because I'm getting a lot of propaganda about your mom.
	Okay. Now, if I wanted to talk to your mom, I'd call your mom.
	Okay, so I don't want to talk to your mom.
	I want to talk to you. All right, so, you know, you can, if you want, shrug off the conversation by just giving me these mealy-mouthed defenses of your mom, if you want.
	I mean, that's fine. And then it'll be instructive to other people about what it's like to not be listened to.
	Yeah. Right?
	So you can do that. This is kind of a unique opportunity, right?
	I get a lot of requests for calls.
	And I'm not trying to be mean to you or anything like that.
	I'm just trying to motivate you to dig into the conversation.
	I get a lot of requests for calls.
	I thought this one was interesting in particular because the listlessness for young women is quite common and the desire to gain attention through looks is also very common.
	But I want this conversation to have as much value for you as it does for other people.
	And so far, it's mostly going to have value for other people about the price of defending the undefendable.
	So I'm still kind of...
	And I can tell this in your voice.
	I can't see you, but I can tell this in your voice that you're not quite here yet.
	You're kind of in a deep orbit.
	You're in the vicinity. You are philosophy adjacent.
	You're on the room.
	You're on the floor. You're in the building, but you're not in the room.
	Yeah, I don't know. I think sometimes I just have difficulty opening up and talking about myself, so I am having difficulty with that conversation now, and I was afraid that this would happen, but yeah, I guess that's just how it's going.
	I don't know what to do.
	I don't know how to fix that.
	Well, you sound very tense and what they used to say in theatre school, kind of in your head, right?
	So, you know, a couple of deep breaths.
	If you can find a place where you can physically relax...
	Because when we are not ourselves, usually that comes with a certain amount of physical tension.
	So I don't know if you're in a place where you can sit or take a couple of deep breaths or just, you know, just try to relax.
	I'm not here to do anything negative to you.
	I'm not here to cause you problems or harm you in any way, shape or form.
	But unfortunately, the mom inside you does not want us to chat.
	It's going to be costly to her, right?
	Yeah. Does that make sense?
	Mm-hmm. Right. Mm-hmm.
	Yeah. So I'm trying to reach around the original boob to find you, if that makes any sense.
	Because listen, you have an absolute right.
	You have an absolute right to be angry at how you were treated as a child.
	Mm-hmm. Your mother owed you.
	And the fact that your mother is improving...
	See, it's a funny thing, right? The fact that your mother is improving now...
	It doesn't make you feel better deep down.
	It makes you feel worse. Do you know why?
	Because you could have done it before.
	That's right. My mom at least has had the good grace to not fix anything.
	I mean, she's worse now than when I was a kid.
	So that actually gives me some comfort.
	Because if she's worse now than when I was a kid, it means I had absolutely no chance to help her.
	Yeah. But now that you're older, now she's like, oh, you know, I'm doing better, I'm improving.
	Okay, so if she could do that, why on earth didn't she do that when it would have done you some real good?
	Now it actually makes it worse.
	Yeah. You know, I've used this analogy before, but if you haven't heard it or people haven't heard it, like let's say you and I are wandering in the desert, we're half dead of thirst.
	And then what happens is someone comes along and they just save us at the end and we were almost dead from thirst and then I turn around and I pull out this big jug of water from my back pocket or this big bottle of water from my back pocket and I say, hey, you want some water?
	What would you say? Yeah.
	What else would you say?
	That Sorry.
	Why did it take so long?
	I don't know. You're such a nice young lady.
	It's not helping you.
	Wouldn't you say, you unbelievable asshole.
	You staggeringly intergalactic douchebag.
	You had water this whole goddamn time.
	We almost died of thirst and now someone else is coming to offer me water.
	You're just like, hey, here's some water.
	And then you thumbed me in the head with your elbow.
	I mean, I probably would have a different reaction.
	I'm not always nice.
	But yeah, I don't know.
	Because here's the thing.
	You can't be intimate with someone if you can't get angry at them.
	Yeah. That's really, really important.
	And this doesn't mean go scream at people and claim you love them.
	I don't mean that. But if you can't get angry with someone, because we all do get angry.
	And we all make mistakes and we all inadvertently hurt each other from time to time.
	And if you don't have the capacity or you cannot express anger at someone, you're saying that you fear their rejection.
	That you fear that they will simply...
	Dump you. Like your earliest memory was of your mom, whether it came from your dad or came from your mom, it doesn't matter fundamentally because your dad left.
	That's why I asked if your mom kept the house, right?
	So your mom kept the house, your dad was booted out of the house.
	Your dad displeased your mom and she just kicked him to the curb, right?
	How does that make you feel as a child if you think of displeasing your mother?
	Yep. I guess it scares me, but I feel like I did fight a lot with my mom growing up.
	We would fight a lot.
	But probably not about the roots.
	You might fight about the length of your dress or the curfew or how much time you spend on the computer, but not about the basics, not about the truth.
	That's all cover fights.
	It's not the real thing.
	It's like nagging as opposed to actually dealing with issues.
	Yeah, I agree with that.
	You know, like the way it works in some marriages is the woman stops having sex with the man, so the man stops doing chores, so they start nagging about chores and all of that, as opposed to the real issue.
	Yeah. Right. So, and here's the funny thing, right?
	Here's the funny thing. Is that your desire not to displease your mother in this way is much, much stronger than your willingness to displease me.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Yeah. Tell me what I mean, just to make sure we're on the same page.
	And it's not a criticism.
	I'm not mad, right? I'm just pointing this out, right?
	Yeah. No, but me defending my mother is kind of not...
	It's kind of...
	Why can't I speak?
	Sorry. It's not allowing us to have a very productive conversation, I guess, and it's kind of making it difficult for you.
	Well, it is productive.
	The conversation is productive for me no matter what, right?
	So it's not...
	I hear what you're saying, but it can be a little frustrating when...
	is withholding to the point because you know the reason why you're kind of being your mom here because i'm expressing needs and preferences here the way that you did when you were a child right you know please don't laugh and and show up more emotionally be more connected can we role play and so i'm kind of behaving as you did as a child asking for things and who are you behaving as my mom yeah
	which is you will not give me what you think i need or what you think i want you But you also won't say no.
	You won't say, no, you crazy canuck, I'm hanging up, right?
	So you're in the conversation in a sense, but you're not in the conversation in a sense.
	So I have really been role-playing with your mom the whole time, if that makes any sense.
	It's kind of the way it's played out, right?
	Yeah, I guess now that you're saying that, those are kind of the conversations that I've had with my mom, and maybe that's why I feel like I've talked to her, but I probably haven't really gone into the issues that I probably should bring up with her.
	Very neutrally put.
	Okay, so let's say you become a mom, you meet the guy of your dreams, you become a mom.
	Yeah. And your child is asking for attention.
	Yeah. What's going to happen?
	I want to be a mom really bad and I want to be there for my kids and that's, I feel like, I think I would be there.
	Just sometimes it scares me because right now I deal with, like, sometimes I'm fine, like, but sometimes I get really depressed and really, I spiral into, like, self-hatred and, like, I'm really mean.
	So, like, if I become a mom and that happens to me and I'm not able to deal with Things that, like, scares me.
	But I do want to be a mom, and if I am, I want to be there for my kids.
	And, you know, I think about, like, playing with them and, like, all the things we're going to do together, all of that.
	But it's just kind of scary.
	Okay, so there was a little bit in there, and I appreciate that honesty, obviously.
	There was a little bit in there where you got a little choked up.
	Did you feel it? Yeah.
	Yeah. Okay, so tell me a little bit about what was going on for you when you fear not being able to be there for your kids.
	Tell me what that fear is. Yeah, I just thought they would feel, I guess, kind of like how I felt and that like if I'm not there for them or I'm just not going to properly be able to take care of them and I just don't want them to, I want them to have a mother who's going to be there and be able to take care of them and Yeah, and all of that.
	So how is that going to play out?
	What do you think is going to happen? Your child wants to spend time with you and you feel too depressed or self-hating or anxious.
	You can't concentrate.
	You get impatient. What's that going to be like for your child?
	Not good. Well, come on.
	Yeah, no, it's going to be...
	Yeah, they're...
	It's going to be bad. They're going to feel really bad, probably.
	Yeah. Okay, so let's roleplay you, not your mom.
	Okay? Okay.
	I am now your future child.
	Okay. Mom, I don't feel like we...
	We're not playing together.
	You seem very distracted. You're kind of short-tempered.
	And it really makes me sad.
	What's going on? I am really sorry.
	I just haven't been feeling great and I don't want to make up excuses and I want to be with you and play with you and do everything.
	But you're not. You're saying that you want to, but you're not.
	I don't know what it means when you say you want to do something, but you're not.
	If you want to do it, why wouldn't you do it?
	I probably would just say that I will, and I would do it, and then, I don't know.
	No, but Mom, if I have to sit there and say to you, please do it, and then you do it for a little while, like, why wouldn't you do it if you want to do it?
	Why are you ignoring me? Why are you avoiding me?
	You say, oh, well, if you corner me, I'll play with you.
	That's not what I want. I don't know, because I... I'm being selfish and I am letting like all of my anxieties and all of my issues and I'm not being able to be with you and I mean I don't know what to say like I would just I feel like there's nothing really I could say.
	I just would have to do it.
	But mom, if you say I'm being selfish, then what you're saying is it's your selfish pleasure to not spend time with me.
	That's terrible. It is.
	Why would you want to give me the impression that I'm not worth spending time with?
	And why wouldn't you bring this up rather than waiting for your kid to do it?
	I don't understand any of this.
	And what's so bad in your life that you can't play, you can't be with us?
	I... I don't know.
	There's no excuse for that.
	I don't want excuses.
	I'm not trying to make you feel...
	I don't know.
	I can't follow. I can't understand.
	You had kids. Why would you have kids and ignore kids?
	I don't understand. Do you not like us?
	What is it?
	Are we boring? Should I do something different?
	What? Should we do more, I don't know, adult?
	I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
	What's wrong with me?
	Nothing. It's got to be something.
	Because you had kids. It's like getting a dog and then being annoyed that there's a dog at home all the time.
	Are you going to give us up for adoption?
	No. So you're going to keep us, but keep ignoring us?
	No. Well, what then?
	I'm not going to ignore you anymore.
	Do you know how to not ignore us?
	Because if you know how, why have you been doing it?
	Um.
	I don't know.
	I don't know what to say.
	How much sadness is there back there, mom?
	This is not what you wanted when you became a mother, is it?
	No.
	It's not.
	What was it like for you when you were growing up?
	Is it the same? Yeah.
	Yes.
	Tell me.
	Yeah, Yeah, I just had a difficult time being close with my mom and I felt like I wasn't enough and that she didn't really like I just had a difficult time being close with my mom I'm so sorry, mom.
	I'm so sorry for that.
	Thank you.
	I don't know.
	So that's grandma.
	Grandma's kind of running things.
	And I can't be with you because you weren't with her.
	Mm-hmm. Yeah.
	What are we gonna do, Mom?
	Um... I'm gonna be different.
	I don't know.
	How?
	Just by spending time with you and showing you that I love you and just being there for you.
	I don't know. How are you going to show me?
	Because I don't feel that at the moment.
	I'm not trying to be mean, Mom.
	I'm really not. I just, I got to be honest.
	Like, I don't feel that at the moment.
	I feel like I'm kind of an annoyance or an interruption or there's something better out there for you or you're distracted or there are other people more interesting.
	I just feel like, I feel like a, you know, like in books, they got that little footnote.
	I feel like a footnote, like in tiny little print, tiny little font.
	How are we going to fix this? We're going to spend time together.
	We're going to do things.
	I'm going to teach you things.
	We're going to have fun together and play.
	And yeah, I'm going to be there.
	What do you want to do the most with us?
	I want to know you well and talk to you guys.
	And I don't know. - I mean, I don't think you know, mom, just how much I worship you, how much I need you, how much you mean to me.
	You are the world to me.
	You are everything. I... I don't know if you know how much you're needed.
	You're like air.
	Yeah. Um...
	I... I don't know what to say.
	I... I don't want you to regret anything.
	I don't want you to look back and say, I should have done more or said more or spent more time.
	Yeah. Because, you know, if you become a mom and you don't spend time with your kids, you're not much of anything, right?
	Because it's not like you can go be some adventurer, some Lara Croft mountain climber, because you're around your kids.
	And I just, I'm scared that you're going to resent us.
	Or maybe you already do. I don't know.
	But you're going to sit there and say, well, I didn't get done what I wanted to do in my life because of you kids.
	And it's like, but you're also not doing much mothering either.
	It's like there's a nothingness there.
	I don't think I would feel that way.
	Like, I don't. Because I really do want to be a mother.
	But your mom said something about that once.
	Yeah. That she couldn't do stuff because she was a mom, because her kids were in the way.
	You might. And listen, if you don't want us, give us up.
	Because this is the worst, right?
	Yeah. You know, like if you don't want the dog, you can't just keep the dog in the basement and not feed the dog.
	You've got to give the dog up. No, I... And if it's too hard, if it's too painful or not interesting, maybe you don't like being a mom.
	Maybe it's not what you thought it was going to be.
	Because it's kind of choking the life out of us.
	I don't want that and I'm sorry and I want you and I will do everything that I can to be there.
	And yeah.
	So what's the plan?
	What's going to change? What's going to happen?
	Practical. Because I tell you, if you make this promise and it doesn't happen, that's it, man.
	We're done. Because I got my heart right open here like I'm on an operating table here.
	So I need to know that this isn't just something you're saying.
	I need to know what's going to change, what's going to actually happen.
	Um... We're gonna...
	I mean, just, like, coming up with, like, things to do with my kids and just, like, playing with them and teaching them and, like, I don't know, I used to, like, playing sports with my dad or, like, play soccer or, like, read them a book.
	I don't know. I want to spend time with them and Have conversations with them and just be there when they're not feeling good and just help them grow and teach them things.
	I don't know. I don't know what I would say.
	I don't know. Now you're in the conversation, right?
	It's hard to enjoy your own company if your parents, and particularly in your case, your mother, it's hard to enjoy your own company if your mother doesn't enjoy your company.
	And enjoying your children's company is the most fundamental aspect of parenthood.
	Just about everything else is optional.
	Yeah. But enjoying your children's company, you can't reject your children because they're half you and you formed them and you raised them.
	And your own mother, my friend, had a choice every moment of every day.
	And every parent needs to be aware of this, right?
	Every parent needs to be aware of this.
	Your mother had a choice every moment of every day to connect with her children or not.
	And now that she's improving, she had that choice.
	See, she's improving now when she's had many more decades of bad habits.
	It's like saying it's easier to quit drinking after 30 years than it is to quit drinking after five years.
	You've had 25 more years of bad habits, right?
	So your mother did make that choice to harm her children.
	By ignoring them.
	It's just about the most harmful thing a parent can do.
	Outside of sort of criminal actions.
	Yeah. That is deeply painful.
	And it's deeply unjust.
	It's deeply unfair. And it's deeply false.
	Listen, you and I have been chatting for an hour and a half.
	You are a very, very interesting person, my friend.
	Thanks. You have a huge amount to bring to the world, to people, to conversations.
	You have a very big heart.
	You're very nice, which, you know, has its pluses, not always, but it has its real pluses.
	Yeah. And your mother was wrong.
	Yeah. Your mother missed out.
	You understand? Yeah.
	It's your mother's issue.
	It's nothing to do with how interesting you are.
	In fact, I'll tell you this.
	The fact that you're capable of having this kind of conversation and role play in such a powerful way is probably one of the main reasons why you were rejected by your mother.
	Your depth and your passion and your compassion is probably extraordinarily painful and alarming to her.
	Because it highlights what she lacks.
	I feel like it's weird to hear you say that because for me, in this conversation, I just felt like I was really not doing a good job.
	I don't know. I mean, I'm having a difficult time speaking, so I probably...
	Not in the roleplay you didn't, and that was really intense, right?
	Yeah. No, see, listen, you've been perfect in this conversation, just so you know.
	You have been absolutely perfect because you have been completely...
	You didn't fake provide me what I wanted, right?
	You were very authentic in this conversation, and you gave me everything that I needed to work with By being very honest in how you responded.
	You didn't do anything wrong.
	This was a perfect conversation.
	Because you didn't fake anything.
	Yeah. And that capacity to be authentic.
	And you also found out that you could not give someone What, in this case, he wants, and it's totally fine.
	Yeah. Do you see what I mean?
	Yes. Yeah, I mean, I feel like that's something I always know, but it's...
	I don't know, I guess in the moment, I just don't...
	It's just difficult for me to say no, and I don't want to...
	I guess that's me being nice and not wanting to hurt anyone or say anything.
	Right. And this is not uncommon among women in particular, right?
	Which is the desire to not displease others to the point where there's a self-erasure, right?
	Yeah. Yeah. And listen, that's part of your big-heartedness.
	That's part of your compassion and your sensitivity.
	So I'm not saying that's bad.
	That's good. It's a good thing to have if you're around the right people.
	Yeah. Right?
	Yes. But if you're around people who will use your desire to not upset them at your expense, in other words, if your mother...
	I mean, my suggestion, my strong suggestion is talk with your mom.
	Find out the facts. Now, she may, of course, be wonderful.
	I don't know. My guess is that she's going to be a lot of resistance, that the defenses that you were putting up with me were a way of having me understand your mom so I could be on your side properly, right?
	So my guess is that she's going to give you a lot of gaslighting, a lot of avoidance, a lot of false apologies, and then you've got to grit your teeth and stay in that conversation.
	You've got to find out if you can connect with your mother when you're upset with her.
	Because if you can't connect with people when you're upset with them, you can't connect with them at all because everything else just becomes fear and compliance and there's no authenticity there, right?
	Which is why it was great that you didn't give me what I wanted, right?
	Because we still connected, right?
	Yeah. Yeah, no, I definitely need to speak with her and not let her.
	Sometimes I guess when she comes up with excuses or she tells me, I kind of just let it go.
	I'm like, oh, okay, but I guess I just need to push through that.
	Yeah, so if you bring up something with your mom and she just tells you that you're wrong, that's very disrespectful to you.
	You might be wrong, but you can't just tell people that they're wrong.
	I mean, if you are wrong about something, she needs to go through a full conversation with you so that you understand it of your own accord.
	And then you need to have another conversation about why you thought something was false.
	Sorry, why you thought something was true when it was in fact false, right?
	It's a big, long conversation.
	I mean, just brushing people off.
	Oh, you're wrong. I was there. What are you talking about?
	Oh, whatever. I mean, I'm caricaturing a little here, but that's kind of the essence of what you gave me as your mom when I was roleplaying you.
	Yeah, I mean, I feel like she doesn't straight up say that I'm wrong.
	She just says, oh, I remember it being this way.
	Right, and then the point is saying, mom, we're talking about me and my perceptions, your perceptions.
	Like the fact that I'm telling you what I think or what I genuinely experienced and then you immediately flip to your experience is not good.
	Right, because she needs, even if she remembers it differently, the important thing is what you remember.
	Yeah. Right?
	If my daughter says, you did this or that wrong, my job is to figure out why she thinks that.
	If it's true, if it's not true why she remembers that, what happened, and there's an incredible conversation to be had about that.
	If I just say to her, no, you're wrong, or I remember it differently, that's it, game over, like, that's nothing.
	And that's defensive, right?
	And that comes at her expense.
	Because if your mother tells you that you're wrong about some of the most important things in your childhood...
	She's calling you kind of crazy.
	That's very damaging.
	If people have a perception, if they're close to you and they have a perception, just dismissing them is incredibly destructive.
	You've got to find out why they think it, what they think.
	And also, it's having some humility.
	That if your mom says, well, I remember it differently...
	She could be the one who's wrong.
	And she's the one who's shutting.
	And the first person to shut down the conversation is almost always the guilty party, right?
	The person who persists in curiosity is usually the innocent party.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	I guess I just always doubt myself.
	So I think, oh, maybe I'm...
	I'm like misremembering or I... No, okay.
	Look, you have to...
	No, hang on, hang on. I'm sorry to be annoying.
	You have to change the language about yourself.
	It's not that you just wake up and decide to doubt yourself.
	Doubting yourself is the price of these conversations with your mother.
	She wants you to doubt yourself so she doesn't feel bad about what she didn't do.
	It's not you just, oh, I just doubt myself like you're in some isolation chamber just coming up with negative things about yourself.
	I got that in the role play with your mom, that the price of contact with your mother is you have to conform to what she says and thinks.
	Yeah. And you don't want to go and experience that rejection again, which you experienced as a child.
	But the difference is now you're an adult.
	Right? If you continue to avoid the rejection as if you were still a child, then you can't grow up to full adulthood.
	You know, so my mother had great rage and anger towards me.
	When I was a child, which was very dangerous for me physically, and then when I was an adult and I began to say things which, I don't just mean fights, like stupid yelly fights or whatever, but when I would say things from a reasonable and calm perspective that I knew she might dislike, and then she would get really angry at me, it's like, okay, I can just go home.
	I couldn't when I was a kid, because you were in charge of the household.
	So it's going back and re-experiencing the things you experienced as a child, but with the full independence and authority of adulthood.
	You can handle a rejection from your mother now.
	You can persist in asking her questions.
	Which you couldn't persist in asking.
	Like, I wouldn't say things to provoke my mother when I was a child because it could be very dangerous.
	Now, I wasn't saying things to provoke my mother, but when I would have an honest, like she would constantly talk about these crappy court cases she was involved in and how she was going to get all this money from me to make up for everything.
	And this was just constant.
	And I just said to her, listen, I sympathize with the court cases, but, you know, we just never talk about anything else.
	I'd just like us to have some other things to talk about from time to time.
	Because it's not that enjoyable for me to only talk about the court cases, right?
	Now, that's a reasonable thing to say.
	I wasn't being mean to her.
	I was kind of half, I mean, I was saying I accept what you're saying, and I wasn't saying never talk about it.
	I was just expressing a preference for some flexibility and for me to have a slight say in what we talked about.
	That's all I was expressing, right?
	When I was in my, I don't know, late 20s or whatever, right?
	Mid to late 20s. And she went completely nuts.
	Like literally throwing cushions around the place, screaming at the top of her lungs, right?
	Now as a kid, that would have been like incredibly dangerous for me, but I was a big strapping young man and she's, you know, maybe a hundred pounds dripping wet, right?
	So as an adult, she could get all kinds of enraged at me.
	And it wasn't like it didn't make me nervous.
	I mean, I had enough history that it was still scary, but it wasn't dangerous to me anymore.
	Yeah. Right?
	So with your mother saying something that she might dislike, she's going to threaten you consciously or unconsciously.
	She's going to threaten you with abandonment.
	She's going to threaten you with rejection.
	She's going to withdraw. She's going to say, well, I guess we'll just have to talk about this another time.
	Click. Or I don't like what you're talking to me.
	Call me when you feel better. Click.
	Or she's going to re-enact the rejection bullshit from the past.
	Right? In order to get you back in line, to get you back under control, to get you back to doubting yourself rather than honoring your own experiences.
	And honoring your own experiences doesn't mean that you're automatically right, but it just means, look, I'm not going to lie about my own history.
	I'm not saying my whole history is perfectly accurate and I got everything right, but I'm not going to just say that I'm wrong.
	I'm going to honor my own experience.
	Yeah. And then your mom's going to threaten rejection.
	But you have the power now.
	You have the power now.
	If my mom wants to yell at me and throw cushions around the room, I can just not see her.
	I didn't have that choice when I was a kid because you've got to go home somewhere, right?
	You've got to go home sometime. Yeah.
	So you can handle the rejection from your mother as an adult.
	And I think it's kind of essential that you do that so that you have some chance of a relationship with her.
	Because if all you do is conform with her because you're afraid she's going to reject you or get mad at you or withdraw, you don't have any...
	Relationship with her. It's just compliance and fear and self-eration.
	Just be honest. This is what I remember.
	If you remember it differently, let's focus on my memories.
	Let's make it about me. You need to ask me, you might need to coach it.
	You need to ask me questions about what I remember.
	But you're wrong. It's like, no, no, but we don't know that yet.
	I could be right, I could be wrong, but let's at least talk about what I remember.
	And then you start talking about all the times you were waiting and the nannies, right?
	And she's going to freak out about that conversation.
	And all of this progress that you've been talking about with me probably will vanish like that.
	Now, that doesn't mean the end of the relationship, but it means the beginning of the possibility of an actual connection.
	And if you want a connection with your kids, you can't accept anything less elsewhere in your life.
	Yeah. No, I'm going to talk to her.
	Okay. Will you keep me posted about how it's going?
	Yes. Will you promise me not to feel like a failure in this conversation?
	Because you really weren't, and you'll hear that when you listen back.
	I don't know. Promise me that you'll at least consider the possibility that you did everything just right to get what you needed out of this conversation.
	Yeah. Yeah.
	Yeah. How do you feel now?
	You sound a little down, to be honest.
	Yeah. I don't know.
	I feel fine. I just feel like, yeah, I... I don't know.
	Why is this so difficult?
	I don't know why I have such trouble expressing myself sometimes.
	Yeah. No, I just, yeah, I feel like I didn't do a great job in this conversation.
	And, yeah, I just feel bad about that.
	Well, I wouldn't. I would reserve judgment until you listen to it back.
	Okay. Because it's kind of tough right in the middle of it.
	But to me, it was perfect.
	I have no complaints whatsoever.
	And I'm really glad you did everything you did.
	Okay, thank you. All right.
	Keep me posted, all right? All right.
	Thank you so much. Thanks so much. Take care. 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.
	To help out the show, to give me the resources that I need to bring more and better philosophy to an increasingly desperate world.
	So thank you so much for your support, my friends.

▲