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Feb. 8, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:50:50
"STEF - MY DAD IS DYING, WHAT DO I SAY?" Freedomain Call In
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Hi, everybody. Stefan Molyneux here for 3Domain, here with Sarah, who is going to let us in on her topic, what she wants to chat about.
All right. Hi, Stefan.
I guess I'll start off by reading my email to you.
Hello, Stefan. My name is Sarah, and I'm 33 years old.
I've been listening to your show for over a year now, and Jordan Peterson was my gateway drug into the world of modern philosophy.
I'm writing to you today for advice on a different perspective on a family matter that's plagued me for over 20 years.
I'm an only child.
My father has recently been hospitalized and has had a pulmonary embolism after having major surgery.
I fear the worst is coming and I really, really need your help to reconcile my relationship with my father before it's too late.
My father and I have a strained relationship due to my stepmother.
And I'm trying to reconcile things with him in order to have a loving father-daughter relationship before his time on this earth is up.
My stepmother has always skewed my dad's view of me into thinking the worst and has repeatedly turned him against me.
Up until just recently, I have tried to mend my relationship with her for the sake of my relationship with my dad and to bring a peaceful perspective to our family dynamic.
I was listening to one of your call-ins, and something you said really resonated with me.
Only the person who has wounded you can heal you.
I suffered years of emotional and mental abuse from my stepmother until I moved to a different country, and now I realize I'm not the one who should be apologetic for my actions as a child, which is what they both expect of me.
Since listening to both you and Jordan Peterson, I have learned to respect myself and to stop tucking my tail in between my legs when conflict arises like I used to in the past in order to keep the peace.
My dad keeps asking me to make amends with her, but she refuses to take responsibility for her past actions and they both expect me to comply with their demands.
I feel that now my father is trying to bribe me with his will by saying that she will be the executor of his will and reminding me in almost every text message to bridge the gap between her and I. I have stated that I am willing to work with her to obtain closure on this matter if she is willing to take ownership of her actions, but my dad seems to keep pointing the fault in my direction even though these conflicts happened when I was a child.
I recently expressed to her that she did something wrong and she came back at me with, we have both done wrong to each other in the past.
This was not the response I needed, but it's the one that I expected.
I'm writing to you today for your perspective on this as I wholeheartedly trust your judgment and I just want a relationship with my dad before he crosses over the rainbow bridge.
Please help me to help myself and my family.
That was it. Yeah, that's quite a story.
I am sorry, of course, to hear about your father's medical issues.
That is a heartbreaking thing.
Has he had health problems before?
Is this relatively new? Yeah, he's had a heart attack in the past.
Ever since I left and moved to another country, It's just kind of gone downhill as far as I'm aware.
Right, right. Okay.
And the issues that you most have with your father, just can you give me some more detail of the kind of stuff that you experienced, if you don't mind?
Well, I can kind of give you like an overview of like from like growing up and it'll just be as brief as possible.
It doesn't have to be brief.
This is your life. I got time.
Okay. I got time. Thank you.
So basically, my mom and dad were married and then they separated when I was seven.
And then when they separated, he met my stepmom.
And at first, things were really, really good with her.
With her and you or her and him?
With everything.
But I was only about seven, eight years old.
So it was a bit like, you know, when you're a child, things can be fine and dandy until, you know, kind of shit hits the fan sort of thing.
Yeah. And then my, you know, my earliest memories of my dad have always been like one of the most fond or like not fond, but just a memory that I always have is I would hear him leaving for work at about five in the morning.
And I would get up out of my bed and I would run to the front of the house that overlooked the driveway.
And I would peer through the blinds and I would see him and he would look up at me and he would wave goodbye.
And he wouldn't get home until I was already in bed.
So needless to say, he always put his...
His work before family, and that's one of the reasons why my mom...
Sorry to interrupt you.
It's a male thing.
The idea that he put his work before family, that is family.
Absolutely. Right? I mean, it's the old thing that men serve the family by being away, and women serve the family by being there.
And so, you know, that's a rough life, man.
At 5 o'clock in the morning, it's like...
Unless you're just going to bed after a night at Studio 54, that's a rough time.
To be transitioning at all.
And I'm sure that gave you a sense of security and like he's out there, he's going to work, he's going to make the money.
And so, yeah, I can see that.
But I just, you know, I'm sure you get it, but I just don't want the listeners to get the impression that somehow him going to work is in place of family.
That's, you know, hunting trips and all of that.
That's how men serve the family.
But sorry, go ahead. Oh, no, no, no.
I understand that now.
Like as I've gotten older, I've I've realized that that's what he was doing, is that he was going out and working to be able to provide for my mom and I. And I completely understand that now.
But even on the weekends, it was always work and everything.
And I never got the time to spend with him.
And, like, he never really knew me growing up.
And then when I was a teenager, after my mom and my dad split up, I went to live with my mom because, of course, the courts always let the mother have custody.
And I just, when I was a teenager, I just had a really rocky relationship with my dad because of my stepmom.
And, like, I've...
To me, it always seemed like my stepmom would place him against me on everything.
I would say something, or I would do something, and my stepmom would say, oh, come on, Sarah, that never really happened, and it would have happened.
My dad never questioned her.
He always just took her side.
As an adult's perspective now, I can see why, but it would always get me in trouble, and it always kind of made me drift apart from my father.
And then when I hit about 15 years old, I kind of fell into a downward spiral of drug abuse and things.
Sorry, I'm kind of all over the place here.
Do you want me to...
I have a couple of questions, but I'm happy to wait if you want to finish this part of the story.
I would like to say just one more thing.
When I was very young, when my mom and dad first split up, they started taking me to a child therapist.
And, I mean, one of the reasons is because I... I remember my parents saying that I was never really enthusiastic about anything.
They took me to a child therapist and then they had me on antidepressants from a very young age because I was enthusiastic and I'm not quite sure why.
Sorry, are you not sure why they put you on antidepressants or why you weren't enthusiastic?
No, I know why I wasn't enthusiastic.
It was because I was just a really stoic child.
I'm not sure why they put me on antidepressants.
I don't get it.
It wasn't your parents directly who put you on antidepressants, right?
That would be the psychiatrist? Yeah, yeah.
In my particular view, maybe this fits with your experience, maybe it doesn't, but in my particular view, psychiatrists like putting, well, don't like it, but they're willing to put kids on antidepressants because it's a lot easier than the, you know, complicated and sometimes spiritual nature of talk therapy and exploring family dysfunction and a lot of parents are like, hey, my kid's broken. Something's wrong with her.
Now just give her a pill and fix it.
And we don't want to change her own behavior.
We don't want to change what we do, right?
Just go fix this child. It's the same thing with teachers, right?
It's not that the school is boring.
It's not that the school is geared more towards girls and boys don't have much to do there.
It's just that the boys are broken and fix them with pills.
So I imagine that's...
And what age were you when you were put on this stuff?
Seven. Wow.
Wow. Wow.
And how long were you on for? Oh gosh, I had a really rough time, so I was on and off antidepressants for 20 years, but thankfully now I'm able to take care of myself through meditation and going to the gym.
Yeah, and that's funny, you know, you can't fix diabetes that way.
Well, I don't know. I mean, so yeah, it's just, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I'm not a big fan of that stuff, although of course I'm no doctor or psychiatrist, but I am very sorry about that experience and that, you know, nobody sat there and said, maybe we can work on the environment to sort this out.
No, it's just that, drug the kid.
Drug the kid, that's the problem.
Yeah, pretty much.
Wow, wow. All right, so, yeah, so a question I had, does your stepmom, does she have any kids of her own?
No. Did you, was she, I mean, did she ever have kids with your dad?
No. Hmm. I mean, there is kind of...
I mean, it often is associated with new kids, but it doesn't always have to be.
Like, you know this old fairytale stereotype of the stepmom, right?
Yeah. Well, there's usually...
I mean, I think there's two reasons behind that stereotype.
The first is that it's a splitting mechanism, right?
So, if kids have a mean mom...
They like to retain the idea that there's a good mom somewhere around, but the good mom was replaced by the bad mom, which is why stepmoms show up.
It's not my real mom. My real mom's nice, but this mom is terrible.
Now, if it is the biological mom, that's just a splitting mechanism, right, wherein they divide the mom into the good mom and the bad mom and all that.
But if there is a genuine stepmom in the picture, especially if she has kids, then it's like, well, I don't care about the kids of my husband as much as I care about my own kids or myself or whatever.
And so you are a threat to resource consumption without the loyalty that she have being a biological mother or being more wedded to you that way.
So I was just wondering about the kids there.
It's sort of the same mechanism, although usually a little bit less intense if there aren't other kids involved.
Yeah, yeah.
And how bad was your parents' marriage?
And just please remind me how old you were when they split up.
They split up when I was...
Well, they started sleeping in separate beds when I was about six.
And then they split up when I was seven.
Right. And how bad was it in terms of how they were getting along and stuff?
Well, I never really saw them argue, but I heard them argue.
And it wasn't... It wasn't like yelling and screaming.
It was just, I could tell that their voices were, you know, like as a child, I could tell that something was wrong.
Yeah, the sort of ragged, tense voices were without screaming, right?
Yeah. And did you have a sense that they were heading for a split up?
Did that sort of pass your mind?
No, I didn't really understand.
But then they both sat me down one day and said, listen, we're going to be separated.
And that was it. And how was that for you, that moment?
I was just, I mean, I just said, okay.
And I went to school and I spoke to some of my peers at school and I said, oh, my parents are getting a divorce and That was it.
And I just, I didn't really, it didn't quite, I don't know, it just didn't really bother me then.
Okay. So what that says to me is that you felt helpless in the environment.
Because, you know, if you felt powerful or if you felt like you could have an effect, Then what you would do is you would say, like, no, like, let's figure it out.
Let's work it out. Or what's going on?
I mean, I know you're like seven or whatever, or eight.
So it's not like you would have a big toolbox or anything.
But you would express your preferences, which was, I assume, for your parents to get along and not get divorced, right?
I mean, that would be better and easier and all that.
Like, it sort of reminds me, I very clearly remember the day...
November of 1977.
The day that I was looking out the window of my flat in London, going to Canada.
And we put everything in boxes and everything was packed.
And I just remember sitting there saying, well, I guess we're going to Canada now.
But no sense of like...
Should we go? Should we not go?
I mean, I'd heard about it and all of that and I knew we were going, but I very much felt like a leaf on a stream, you know, like just any way the current flows, any way the wind blows, I can't affect anything.
So you just kind of, you go rubber bones, right?
You just like, okay, well, we're getting divorced.
I can't do anything about it. No one's going to listen to me.
Nobody's going to, you know, I mean...
Take heed of my preferences and my perspectives.
So, okay, I guess.
And so your emotions get disconnected.
Like where we can't affect things, generally our emotions tend to get disconnected.
And so the reason I'm spending a bit more time on this is because of the lack of enthusiasm.
Enthusiasm is power.
Enthusiasm is control. Yeah.
If you don't have any authority, if your will has no rubber meets the road scenario, if you can't affect change in your environment, then you're going to become listless.
You're going to become inert.
Like, I'm a very enthusiastic person now, but I wasn't as a kid.
Why? Well, what's the point?
I mean, I just go from...
I mean, I move from one place to another.
I'm at home and then my mom gets hospitalized and I go to my aunt's place and then I go to boarding school and then the family runs out of money for boarding school.
So then I go to this school and then, oh, now we're going to Canada.
And like, there's no...
Nobody ever asked me. Nobody said, what do you want or what's your preference or anything like that?
So it's...
You know, I mean, even my dad, my dad is a big letter writer.
He used to write me letters like every week.
I could never read them. Because this crazy chicken scratch, like it was really, really, I remember he sent them from Africa.
I still remember to this day, Tweed Vu, second fold, right?
That's Afrikaans, I think, on the envelope.
But I, you know, and I said to my mom, like, can you get dad to write me in, like, letters that I can understand?
Because I just could not puzzle out.
It was like hieroglyphics trying to puzzle out the man's handwriting.
And he was a big letter writer.
He said he collected people like some people collect postage stamps, which I did not find sinister at all.
But even things like, can we get Dad to write me letters that I can actually read?
Nothing changed.
Yeah, yeah. I always wondered about your dad because you never speak of him.
Not quite true. Not quite true.
It's rarely. It's rare, yeah.
It's rare. But I'm just talking about the...
Can you affect change in your environment?
Now, I mean, it's one of the things that as a parent, you know, if you've got a green thumb and you want to make sure that your little fruit trees do well, then you get the stakes.
You can paint that white stuff around them that keeps bugs off and stuff.
Like, you nurture that.
And when it comes... To my parenting, one of the things that I, because I recall and have processed my childhood pretty well, I'm very aware that I want to make sure that my daughter's willpower has traction, right?
And, you know, not so much that she's a bully, which she's not, but I want to make sure that if she doesn't like something or doesn't want to do something, we always sit down and have a discussion.
It's never like, well, just do it.
Never. Never, right?
And that's good.
That's good, I think.
Because enthusiasm, and she's a very enthusiastic person, enthusiasm has to do with control.
And if you don't have control as a kid, you go rubber bones, right?
Yeah. Yeah, that's exactly, I think, what I did was I just, I didn't, I mean, if I didn't have control over something, I didn't feel the need to react either way.
Yeah, why bother? It's just painful.
Yeah, and it was a way for me, like looking back now, I've had a lot of time, obviously, to reflect on this.
It was a way of self-preservation for me to just shut down.
And one of the things that I remember is that when my parents were still together, my dad used to get angry quite a bit when I was little at just like little things here and there.
And I can see now why it was, you know, probably because of stress with work and stress with this marriage.
And I would just...
No. See, I mean, now you're stripping agency from your dad, right?
And I'm aware that the sun we're orbiting in this conversation is for you to find a way to reconcile with your dad to some degree or whatever, however much is possible.
Yeah. But you can't...
I don't think you can blame...
Something like stress as to why...
Look, there's lots of people who have stress in their life.
There's lots of stresses in life.
And there's not a big button that says, I'm now going to be negative or abusive or destructive or negligent because of stress, right?
Yeah. Right? There is...
A willpower. And if you view your father, in a sense, as subject to the whims of fate as you were as a child, the problem is if you don't give him agency, there's nothing to connect with in his hospital bed right now.
Like if he's just, well, there was stress and he's like a pinball, bing, bing, bing.
If there's stress and that's why he did what he did, but then you don't have a relationship with your father who made choices.
You have a relationship with someone who was a dim shadow cast by the statue of stress.
Does that make any sense?
That makes a whole lot of sense.
Well, and you don't want that principle that says human beings react in destructive ways to stress.
That's exactly what I was just going to touch on.
When my father would be upset with me when I was little, I would do this impulsively without even thinking.
I would, at night when I would go to bed, I would sit in my room and I would take my fingernails and I would scratch up and down my legs and just cry.
And I would do that alone.
And that was like, it was a way of me dealing with stress.
Right. This is when I was really, really little.
No, no, but that's close to cutting, right?
In a way, right? So that's not exclusively, though, largely to my knowledge, a female way of dealing with trauma or difficulty is this kind of self-punishment.
Men may do it in ways that are sort of Chad Risky, you know, like Jason Priestley sports car racing kind of stuff.
Or just other kinds of dangerous situations.
But yeah, that is a bit of a uniquely female way, which is to self-attack physically.
Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
I remember it was really strange.
I just thought about that when you said how people deal with stress and things like that.
It's like, oh, when I would be stressed when I was a child...
It was mainly when my dad got angry with me.
I would do that.
Because I remember the only thing I wanted when I was little was for my dad to be proud of me.
And if I ever disappointed him, I'd fly off the hinges, but I would do it by myself.
I would do it at night when there was no one around.
So the desire to please your father in this way...
Where do you think it came from?
I mean, you can say that there's a natural tendency for kids to want that as a whole and all that, but this seems to have been exacerbated or stronger than average in your situation, if I understand it correctly.
Yeah. I always thought that if I made my dad happy, that he would spend more time with me.
And that's kind of how it ties in to where, like, I thought he was, you know, with him, you know, spending however long at work all the time, and then, you know, he wouldn't have time to spend with me.
Isn't that interesting? So for you, it's like, okay, if Dad enjoyed my company more, he wouldn't spend as much time at work.
Yeah. And so if I'm more of a fun kid, but there is really a kind of tail wagging the dog desperation in all of that, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
I'm very sorry that that's a message you got.
Do you know if that came from anyone in particular or was that something that I want to say you came up with by yourself because, I mean, it's environmental, but do you know if anyone told you that or if your dad ever said or if there was any way that you had support for that theory as a whole?
I don't think so.
I think it was just because It was never explained to me as a child.
I think my parents treated me like a child, if you know what I mean.
Growing up, they didn't speak to me like an adult.
They didn't say, well, Dad has to go to work because he needs to do this in order to be able to support us and things like that.
If they would have sat me down and kind of explained...
What was happening? Could they explain that?
In other words, was it explainable?
Or was your dad a workaholic because he didn't like his home life?
I don't know. I think my dad's always been a workaholic, but whether he liked his home life or not, I mean, he was just obsessed with what he did.
I've mentioned this on the show before, but...
There was some rich, famous guy who's like, I'm going to take a trip around the world on a hot air balloon, right?
And I remember someone writing and saying, okay, we get it.
You don't like your wife. Okay, big, big deal, right?
And it's like, yeah, you know this?
A lot of male ambition is driven by unhappiness at home.
Because at work, you're enjoying...
The job, you have effect in the job.
You have positive feedback in the job.
You get things achieved at the job.
You're valued in the job.
Whereas at home, it might just be a crap fest from, you know, dawn till dusk.
So, you know, we naturally gravitate towards our caves of competence and if...
It's one of the challenges with what I do is that my family is so much fun to spend time with, but I also have a responsibility to listeners, to donors, to the world.
I enjoy philosophy. So this job would be a lot easier if I was unhappily married.
Yeah. Because everything's a competition.
Everything competes for our attention, right?
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.
Okay. Okay, so you lived with your mom.
Was your dad nearby after the divorce?
Did you see him much? I know he was working a lot, but how did that go?
So basically, it turned into, after my parents split up, It turned into my dad would have me a week and then my mom would have me a week.
And that went on for a few years.
Wait a minute, but you said...
Sorry. Earlier you said, well, the courts and my mom, right?
Yeah. It was 50-50? No, yeah.
It was 50-50 to begin with.
And then when I was a teen, my...
My mom had me the whole time.
But why? Did she apply for more custody?
Did your dad give it up? I think my dad tried to apply for full custody or at least more custody.
Wait, more than half? Yeah.
And why did he do that?
I don't know, but I'm not sure.
She had some idea in terms of how your home life was, right?
Yeah. Well, my mom did drink when I was little.
I'm not sure if that had anything to do with it.
No, no. There's a transition point here.
Maybe we don't have the answer, but I just really want to clearly ask the question.
So you said in your teens, I assume early teens, like tweens kind of thing?
Your dad went for more custody?
No. Okay, so...
From the age of like seven until about 14, my dad went for, I think he tried to go for more than half custody.
Oh, so for the seven-year period, he was trying to get more custody?
Yeah. Wow.
And then from, I think it was like 15, then my mom had me and that was it.
Okay, so why was your dad trying to get more than 50 custody?
I have no idea. I don't know.
See, now that might be a good question to ask him.
Yeah. Right?
Yeah. Because that does show a kind of devotion, right?
Yeah. It wasn't the whole time, though.
It was right when they first got divorced.
Alright, so I feel I'm chasing a bit of a butterfly here.
Sorry. No, it's fine.
You said from 7 to 14, but now you're saying it was earlier on mostly?
Sorry, let me be a bit more clear.
From 7 to 14, my parents had me each for a week.
Yeah. But I remember that my dad was trying to get more custody...
At the very beginning of that, from when I was seven.
Sorry for being so unclear.
That's fine. Look, this is murky history, and for those who haven't dug into this kind of history, stuff gets pretty freaky, right?
I mean, in terms of trying to figure out the timeline and when and what happened.
I spent a summer in Newfoundland with a colleague of my father's, who was a marine biologist, and I also went to Africa, and I can't remember if it was 15 or 16.
Anyway, so yeah, these things are a little...
They can be a little baffling.
So I have no problem with that.
I just want to make sure that I'm clear.
I need to have the maps before movement, if that makes sense.
Dare I say the maps of meaning before, anyway.
Oh, good. Good reference.
Thank you. So then when you were 15, you went whole hog with your mom.
Is that right? Yeah.
Okay. And do you know why that changed?
Well, there was something in between there.
So when I was 14 years old, so, okay, bit of reference.
My dad and my stepmom met when I was 8 years old, and then they got married when I was 10.
And then I was a bit of a troubled child, but still doing one week on, one week off.
But when I was 14 years old, I don't know what happened, but all of my parents sent me to live with a family friend.
Yeah, they sent me to live with a family friend out in the middle of nowhere and to do homeschooling.
And I did that for, I think, maybe, I don't know, six months or eight months, something.
It wasn't a full year.
But I remember that I did really well there because my friend had a mom and dad that were still together and there was a lot of structure.
They lived on a ranch type of thing.
But I remember thinking when I was there, you know, like, why doesn't any of my parents have time for me type of thing?
Oh, because your friend was homeschooled as well, right?
Yeah, yeah. So parents were spending a lot of time with the child, right?
Yeah, yeah. And it was really nice.
And she had horses and we had to take care of the horses and do stuff around the ranch.
And I did really well there.
And then after that, my mom had full custody of me.
And I rarely saw my dad after that.
Huh. And you don't know why you were sent to this ranch?
I have no idea. Was there a bad explanation given at the time or you don't remember that either?
I think it was like, do you want to go live with your friend?
And I was like, yeah, you know, because what preteen doesn't want to go live with their friend?
Yeah, I get it.
Wow, that's interesting.
Yeah. And the homeschooling thing is interesting because My daughter was talking to some kid we met about homeschooling, and the kid came to me and said, well, why do you want to homeschool?
I'm like, I'd miss her too much during the day.
That was a tough thing for a kid's kind of process, right?
Yeah. Because you know that kind of joke, like it's the most wonderful time of the year, which is when the kid's going back to school.
It's very cruel. It is really cruel.
I don't understand why people are like that.
When I have children, you know, if I can have children, I'm definitely in a home school.
Oh, yeah. I've always hated this, I can't wait for the kids to go back to school.
Well, it's because parents don't have good negotiation skills, so the only way that they can resolve conflicts is to threaten the bond, right?
So as long as the kids feel unwanted, then the kids can't fight back and you can pretend like you've negotiated something.
Absolutely. And I don't understand that, but I... I mean, I've learned so much about parenting from you that, you know, it's like, oh, I'm definitely, you know, going to homeschool my children.
But there's one thing that I did fail to mention, and it was a huge thing, but I seem to have blocked it out of my brain.
So right before I went to go live with my friend, I did try to kill myself.
And I got pulled out of school, out of normal school.
Hello? Sorry. That's fine.
It could be someone's puzzle.
Sorry, it's just a really hard memory.
Of course, of course. Sorry, I block it out.
Don't apologize, honestly.
It's fine. It's fine. No, listen.
This is how we assemble the history.
It's like, oh shit, there's a jigsaw puzzle piece under the couch, right?
Yeah. Sorry.
No, it's fine. Stop apologizing, please.
Okay, so what happened that led to the suicide attempt?
I just didn't...
I just...
I don't know. I felt like a burden.
I really felt like a burden to my family.
Was it a burden to both your parents, do you think?
Oh yeah. It was a burden to...
I felt like a burden to my mom and to my dad and to my stepmom.
Because at this point in time in my life, I felt like my stepmom resented me a lot.
And I felt like my dad also resented me.
And I felt like my mom just...
I felt like no one had time for me.
I felt really alone.
And since I was...
An only child. I don't really have anywhere to talk to.
Well, no, I sympathize with all of that, but don't imagine that all the other siblings out there are doing well.
I mean, at least 50% of sibling relationships are classified as abusive, so it's not like there are all of these great sibling relationships out there that you just weren't a part of, if that makes any sense.
Yeah, yeah. There could have been some.
And I've certainly seen, you know, among the families that I know, I've certainly seen some great sibling stuff, but it's certainly uncommon.
But that having been said, you know, at the time, yeah, you didn't have anyone to talk to, right?
And in my view, suicide occurs when you feel in your bones that the rest of your life is going to be like today.
Yeah, it felt like Groundhog Day all the time, but it was just like I never felt like my parents had any time for me.
So there was a period of time from when I was like 11 until 13, I had to go to something called the Boys and Girls Club and I remember I would be the first child dropped off in the morning and the last child picked up at night and that was it was like that all the time like for for those years and between my my dad my stepmom and my mom I it was like I mean there's three adults there you know and um It's like,
you know, can not one of them spend time with me?
And then after that, then it was just kind of like, I don't even know what happened.
Like, going to school, of course, but like...
I was on antidepressants at the time, and they started putting me on something called Adderall as well.
Yeah, I've heard of that. And...
And I just...
I don't know. I just felt like I was a burden.
Well, if no one takes pleasure in your company when you're a child, it is very, very hard to take pleasure in your own company.
Exactly. I felt like everyone always wanted to be away from me, and I couldn't escape myself because I'm me, and so that was the only way to get away from myself, I guess.
Right, right. And how did you try to kill yourself?
I went into the medicine cabinet at my dad's house, and I went into the medicine cabinet at my mom's house, and I took a ton of their medicine.
Right, right.
And I obviously...
They didn't find me unconscious or anything because I don't even know what I took.
It was probably just a ton of...
I don't know.
It was all prescription drugs because I remember it was in the prescription bottles, but it was probably something along the lines of out-of-date amoxicillin and God knows what else.
After I did it, a few days went by and I was...
It was actually my stepmom that noticed that I was really unwell.
I hadn't eaten, and I kept vomiting, and I couldn't hold down any water.
This was a few days.
She sent me back to my mom's house, and then my mom had the bright idea of taking to the doctor.
The doctors took my blood, and I didn't say anything.
I didn't tell anyone what I did at all, not even my friends.
But then my doctors took my blood, and they said, That my kidneys were failing or, I don't know, my kidney levels were up really high.
So then I had to go into the children's hospital and ICU for a few, like for like a week or something.
And I remember I was in the hospital and my dad came to visit and he came in and started yelling at me saying, did you take peyote?
Did you take peyote? And I was just like...
No, I don't even know what that is.
And they never found out.
I never told any of them what I did.
Oh, so do your parents, you don't know to this day?
Do you think that you tried to kill yourself?
No. Right.
Okay, so was it shortly after this that you went to the ranch?
Yeah. Yeah. I see.
So they may have said, okay, well, something's not right, right?
Yeah, yeah. And I think they probably thought that I was doing drugs or something.
And in reality, I was just on antidepressants and Adderall.
And so they sent me to this ranch.
And when did you start doing the drugs that you mentioned a little while ago?
Um... I started when I was, gosh, really young, 15, after I left the ranch and I started to make my mom.
Why did you leave the ranch?
Well, my mom moved from the city that we were in and she moved to another city and I went with her.
That doesn't exactly answer the question.
I'm sorry, can you repeat? Sorry, I thought you said, like, one of those...
No, so, I mean, your mom could have moved from one city to the other, or you could have stayed at the ranch, right?
Feasibly, right? Yeah, yeah, but I don't know, like, the logistics of it, if it was, you know...
I'm not sure.
I think it was just...
I think it was getting too difficult for the family that had me.
Why was it getting difficult for them?
Well, I mean, they had to, like, room and board another child and they already had two of their own.
Are you still in contact with that family at all?
No. I wish I was.
Yeah, I might be able to find them.
I mean, these are just interesting questions to ask and, you know, you never know what happens to people when that knowledge is going to vanish.
They get sick or they get hit by a bus or something, so...
That could be helpful.
Okay, so you ended up moving back.
Now, then you said, if I remember rightly, you said you stayed 100% with your mom, and did you not see your dad much at all?
Hardly. Right before I started living with my mom, really important bit of information here.
Right before I started living with my mom full-time, I was at my dad's house, and I remember this so vividly.
I was sitting in my room And I was painting one of those, you know those bamboo sticks that are used to hold up plants?
Yes. Yeah, I was painting one of those little designs on it.
And I was sitting on my floor, and I remember my stepmom coming into my room, and...
Completely unprovoked, she started talking to me about my mother.
And I don't know how this came about at all.
It could have been like an altercation between her and my mom that I didn't hear.
But she came in and I remember her saying that my mom was basically like, she's not a good person.
And that she's, you know, she's leeching off with my dad and this and that.
And then she said, you're going to grow up to just be just like your mother.
And I remember looking up at her and I said, I don't give two shits for what you have to say about my mom.
And she ripped the bamboo stick out of my hand and whacked me with it, and she told me to get the hell outside.
And I tried to go out through the garage door, and she said, no, go out through the front door.
So I go out through the front door, and I just go to walk away, and she grabbed me.
And... And she grabbed me really hard, and I tried to push her off me, and I just said, let me go.
And then she grabbed me harder, so my hand ended up on her throat, and I just pushed her away, and I ran.
We lived in a really rural area, but I ran as far as I could, and I found a house that had just been vacated.
And there was like a landline telephone in the house and I don't I don't know if you remember this but like a long time ago when you moved if you had a landline and you wanted it to forward it to your new house you could do that by leaving the phone hooked up and so that this this family had left the phone hooked up in their house and they like no one was in their house there was nothing in there and I somehow got inside and And I used the landline to call my mom.
And I told my mom what happened.
And she's like, well, I can't come get you.
You're going to just have to go back to your dad's house.
And I was like, I can't go back to my dad's house.
My stepmom's there and I can't do it.
And she's like, well, I'm out with my friends.
I've had a drink. I can't drive.
You're just going to have to go back and I'll come and pick you up.
Tomorrow. And so I was trying to remember my friends' telephone numbers to see if their parents could come and pick me up.
And I called a few and no one could come and get me.
And then I called my mom back and she said, you know, I've spoken to your dad.
You just have to go back there.
And so I waited until nightfall.
And then I finally called my dad, like my dad's house.
And he goes, where are you?
You need to come back here.
And I was like, I'm not coming back there until my stepmom's gone.
And he said, well, she's gone.
She's gone to her mom's house because you really upset her.
So I went back to my dad's.
And I got in and I said, I don't want to talk about it.
And he's like, what did you do to her?
You know, what happened?
What did you say? Like, obviously, my stepmom had said, you know, like, oh, Sarah did this, Sarah did that.
And I just told my dad, just drop me off at my mom's house.
And he goes, I'll take you there in the morning.
And my dad took me to my mom's house.
And then I... Didn't hear from him until after I was 16.
And he told me, he called me one day and he said, listen, I've been going to see a therapist and I would like for you to come to a therapy session with me in order to solve this.
And I said, okay. And he said, my stepmom will pick you up.
And I was like, no.
And he said, it's just going to be like a taxi ride.
She's not going to say anything to you.
And I said, okay, if that's what you promised.
And he swore up and down, that's all it would be.
And I remember this vividly.
I lived in This is when I still lived in America and I lived in a place where it didn't rain very often and I remember this vividly.
My stepmom came to pick me up and it started raining and I got inside of the car and she immediately started driving and when she started driving she started just yelling at me and I just didn't say anything.
I didn't say anything and she kept Yelling at me and yelling at me and yelling at me and I just sat there quietly and then she pulled up to the freeway entrance and and she said you never respected me or your father and I jumped out of the car when it was still moving and I ran across and It must have been about like six lanes of an intersection.
And I ran into a building.
And then I asked someone in the building if I could use their phone.
And I had someone come and pick me up.
And then my dad didn't speak to me for like another, I don't know, it felt like an eternity.
But it must have been another few months for him to not speak to me.
And that's when I started using drugs.
So, what do you think the hold was that your stepmom had over your dad?
Like, for him to choose her over you, so to speak?
She... I don't really know, but...
I don't really know, but she always would say...
Oh, Sarah, that's not how it happened.
Ha ha. Oh, don't be silly.
That's not true.
And she would blatantly say that I'm lying without saying that I'm lying whenever I would bring something up.
Or the gaslighting, like you misremembered or whatever, right?
Yeah, yeah. And it felt like...
I don't want to say it felt because it kind of diminishes the whole point of it.
But it was like...
It was like I had no say because I was a child.
But the problem that I'm having now is because they never gave me agency as a child.
They never respected me as a child.
They want me to apologize for everything that I did when I was a child when they made me that way.
Wait, who wants you to apologize?
Like now? Yeah, my dad is asking me to apologize to my stepmom now for everything that I did as a child.
That's what I mean.
And he's saying, well, you better make amends with her quick because she's the executor of the will.
And it's almost like he's bribing me and it's so cold.
It's probably more of a blackmail than a bribe, but okay.
I mean, in terms of like, yeah.
Because, yeah, yeah. I mean, a bribe is usually just to do some kind of favor as opposed to, you know, compromise your entire history.
That comes more out of the threat matrix as far as I'm concerned.
Okay, so that's kind of new, and that to me shades things quite a bit, right?
Because the idea that you now have to apologize to your stepmom Or you might be cut out of the will.
I mean, I'm no lawyer, but as far as I understand it, your dad can write you into the will and to hell with your stepmom, right?
Yeah, but that's not the point of this.
The point of this is that there's something that you said in one of your call-in shows, and you said, only the person that wounded you can heal you.
Well, if healing is possible.
Yeah, healing is possible, but I need her to take responsibility of her actions.
And I don't know how to help them understand that my actions as a child was when I was a child.
I mean, I wasn't a perfect kid.
Do you think they don't understand that deep down?
I absolutely know that they don't understand that.
What do you mean? I mean, you know them better than I do, so I apologize for sounding incredulous, but are you sure that they don't know that a child has less responsibility than an adult and that the environment of the child has a lot to do with how the child turns out and that parents shape the environment of the child to a significant degree?
Well, parents shape the environment of the child almost 100%, right?
You say, oh, it's a school. Yeah, well, the parents choose to put the kid in school or whatever, right?
Funny you should say that.
My stepmom was a teacher.
Oh, wait.
I failed to mention something really important.
My stepmom and my dad, they are boomers.
I'm going to try not to get dragged into the stereotype because I think everyone knows about my sort of thoughts about the boomers.
Oh, I know.
But that's, I mean, just to give you a bit more of a more rounded understanding of the Type of, like, mind thought that they have, you know?
Right. Okay, so, yeah, I don't believe that they...
I don't... I mean, unless they're really mentally compromised, there's...
I mean, what sane person says that the child is primarily responsible?
Now, they may say, oh, yes, but when you were a teenager, different matter, blah, blah, blah, right?
They didn't even have anything to do with my teenage years.
I ran away.
My mom left America...
And she sent me back to live with my dad.
And I was there for three days and I ran away.
And I never went back.
Right. Right.
Okay. How have things been with your dad as an adult?
Well... After I quit using drugs...
Like, I made somewhat of an amends with him and, like, tried to make a bit more, like, you know, be in his life a bit more.
But I remember one time, like, I, like, she just, like, my stepmom has always just stood in the way of me trying to I spent time with my dad.
I remember I was 22 years old and I had ran away when I was 17.
And in America, you have to stay with your parents until you're 18.
I ran away when I was 17 and I never ever asked for...
Even when I started talking to my dad again, I never asked for money, never asked for help, nothing.
And I remember I was 22 years old, and I'd been living on my own this whole time.
And I had this boyfriend, and he was just a piece of work.
And he used to abuse me and stuff.
And then finally, basically the straw that broke the camel's back type of situation...
And I packed up all of my belongings into my pickup truck, and I was living out of my truck.
And I didn't tell my parents about him or what happened or anything like that.
I came to them one day, you know, and I asked my dad, I said, I said, hey, do you think it'd be okay if I rented a room and I'll pay rent, I'll go grocery shopping, I'll cook for you guys, I'll pick up your medication, I'll do stuff around the house, I'll help you out.
And my stepmom turns and looks at me and she says, are you kidding?
When I was your age, I had a house by now.
What kind of 22-year-old still lives with their parents So I continued to live out of my truck and continued to shower at the gym and go to work until I could get my own place.
Right. After getting out of a really abusive relationship.
So there was that.
Wow. And that was the thing that I specified in the email that I told her exactly what happened and I said your words really hurt me and they've stuck with me and they've made me be so so hard on myself because of those words like I own my own business now in another country that I didn't grow up in and I mean I started my whole life over and I'm I still don't feel that I'm doing well enough for myself Because of her words,
because of the way that she treated me in that instant.
And I told her that recently, actually the other day, when she called to tell me about my dad being in the hospital and having pulmonary embolism.
And her response was, well, we've both done things to each other in the past that have hurt each other.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mistakes were made.
Who's going to differentiate, right, between the parent and the child?
Right. Right.
Yeah. So let me ask you this.
this so if you were hearing this these terrible tales i mean massive sympathy if you were hearing these terrible tales from somebody else what odds and you had to bet on whether reconciliation was possible how much money would you bet and what do you think the odds would be between the father Between, yeah, the father and you, or the father and the daughter.
I don't know, maybe 50-50.
And what would be the evidence that you would say it's 50-50?
Benefit of the doubt and willingness to, you know, to reconcile.
Okay, so what evidence is there that the father is willing to reconcile?
Well, as far as I've told you, not much, but I haven't told you.
Not much is pretty loosey-goosey.
Give me specifics, if you don't mind, right?
What specific evidence is there that the father is willing to take ownership, take responsibility, apologize, and actually reconcile?
I'm not sure.
No, you are. You are sure.
Based upon what you've told me, and you said there's more, and I'm happy to hear more, but based upon what you've told me, what evidence is there that the father is willing to reconcile?
Or do what is necessary for reconciliation to occur?
Well, the fact that the father is in the hospital after almost dying twice...
There might be some possibility.
No, that's circumstantial.
I mean, evidence that is based upon the father's will or decision.
Has the father shown any inclination or thawing of the heart that would lead one to believe that reconciliation, earned reconciliation might be on the table?
It's hard for me to say because, I mean, my dad's been in contact with me through these few weeks that he has been in the hospital and just been constantly telling me how much he misses me, how much he loves me, how proud he is of me.
He's telling me all the things that I wish I would have heard growing up.
But he's doing it now.
He's doing it now, yeah.
Which, you know, I mean, that can happen, right?
That somebody can have a change of heart later on in life and can realize that he made mistakes and so on.
So he's telling you that he's proud of you and, you know, that's all nice to hear.
Is there anything...
Sorry, I should put this.
Is there anything that he said that he's proud of you of that has changed on your side of things?
In other words, you know, you cured Kansas and I was proud, if that makes any sense, right?
He just keeps telling me that he's proud of the woman that I've become.
Some of his messages have said, you know, I know that, you know, I wasn't the best parent and this and that and, you know, But he's happy that I've been able to make something out of myself after going through all of the trauma that I've been through in my life.
And he's really happy to see me all grown up and doing really well for myself and everything.
He's saying all the things that I wish that he would have said to me growing up.
Right, right. Okay. Now.
So, what's interesting to me about that is that he knows what you want, and he's known for a long time, right?
Yeah. Like, I assume you haven't given him a list of things that you want him to say.
No. Right? So, he's known, I assume, now that he's saying what you...
So, he's known what you've wanted for a long time, right?
And he's withheld it from you, right?
I think it's fair to say, for a long time.
And now he's giving it to you.
So, I mean, it's good that you're hearing this, but if he's always known what you've wanted, but he's withheld it, that makes me a little concerned, if that makes sense.
Yeah, but he's saying this through text message, obviously, without my stepmom being able to read it.
Right. Right.
Right. And what else would you say in this scenario about...
What evidence there might be for a capacity to reconcile.
I don't know.
Tell me your ideal reconciliation scenario.
My ideal reconciliation scenario would be both my father and my stepmom telling me that their actions towards me weren't ideal and that they're sorry that they didn't put more effort into actually raising me And that,
you know, I just want them to take responsibility for their actions.
Like, if they were to just say, like, look, I'm sorry for, you know, not being there when you needed me the most.
I'm sorry for not being able to, you know, be as a loving parent for you to speak to, you know, about, like, wanting to kill yourself or...
Anything like that, I'm sorry for thinking that drugs would help you when you're seven years old.
I'm sorry that I hit you with a bamboo stick and threw you outside.
I'm sorry for not speaking to you on your 16th birthday.
I'm sorry for yelling at you and saying that you've never respected me.
I'm sorry for yelling at you on my dad's side.
I would want them to say that you sorry for yelling at me when I was younger.
Because that really, as you know, yelling at your child really puts a barrier between them.
And that would be the ideal scenario.
And for them to acknowledge that my actions as a child were exactly a reaction from them.
From the way that they treated me.
Right. Okay.
Okay. That's all I want.
I don't want anything of his will.
I just want him to know who I am and I want them to know what they did.
Right. So tell me what you're feeling now about this.
Because I can't see you. I can hear it in your voice.
You feel very strongly about this, right?
Sorry. No, no, please don't apologize for feeling strongly.
It'd be crazy if you didn't, right?
Yeah. I'm just...
I'm feeling really scared.
I feel...
worried and anxious.
And I feel these things because I... I feel these things because I don't feel any hope that it would happen.
But there's also, like, one tiny sliver of me that has a wish, you know, that has, like, a Jiminy Cricket...
a conscience that knows that it could be possible...
If I just said and did the right things to them for them to understand.
Right. Who have you harmed in your life, do you think?
Um... I've harmed, like, I hurt an ex-boyfriend of mine.
I've hurt a friend before.
Right. We all have, so, I mean, this is not like, ooh, you know, bad you.
You, I mean, we all have, right?
Yeah.
I know I've harmed myself a lot.
No, but others, others, right?
Now, when you hurt others, how do you feel?
Oh God, I feel awful.
Right. I'm sure you do.
Because you have a...
Conscience.
That's right. I have a Jiminy Cricket.
You have a Jiminy Cricket. You have a conscience, right?
Yeah. Right.
Do you think people without a conscience can grow one?
Are we speaking just in general?
Yeah, in general. Okay.
Because I'm thinking like on a psychology level here.
No, that's fine.
Or you could say more personally, have you ever known someone without a conscience to grow on?
I've never known anybody without a conscience.
I don't think. I'm not sure about that.
Well, the stepmom?
Well, and your father married her, right?
And supported her and stayed with her for his, you know, significant portions of his adult life, right?
Yeah. So, what evidence do you have that your stepmom has a conscience?
And again, I'm not trying to, like, leading, oh, there's no evidence.
Like, I'm genuinely curious what evidence you have that your stepmom has a conscience.
I don't.
I mean, she likes animals and like...
Hitler liked animals, right?
I mean, that could be camouflage, right?
And also, she might like animals because they don't challenge her morally.
I mean, she was a school teacher, but kids don't challenge her morally.
She has authority, right?
Exactly. So, the question then would be, so what evidence do you have that your stepmom feels bad about things, gets upset about hurting people, it bothers her, she feels she, you know, has to make amends, make things better, like, what evidence do you have about, you know, the typical things that you'd have with a conscience?
Well, I think...
Something happened with her and her mother.
I think they had an argument about something and then her and her mom didn't speak.
And then right after that, her mom passed away.
And she felt bad about that.
No, but that's her needs, right?
That's her needs. She didn't get the closure.
I mean, for other people, right? Have you ever...
I've seen her or heard her talk about, you know, I did this thing that hurt someone.
I really, really feel bad.
You know, I really want to make it better and sort it out and, you know, help the other person feel better and all that stuff.
I don't remember her saying anything like that.
Right. And certainly with regards to you, is there any evidence that she has even felt bad about the way she's treated you over the years?
No. Right. Okay.
Do you think it's possible for somebody with a conscience to be in a long-term marriage or romantic relationship with somebody who doesn't have a conscience?
That's a tough question.
Yeah. Because I know my dad has a conscience because he's told me that he feels bad.
About some of the things that's happened to me, some of the things that he's done to me.
But did he say that before he got sick?
Yeah, yeah. Okay.
Good. And what was the circumstances that caused or provoked that conversation?
I think the first time he spoke to me after I ran away from home and After like I got my life together and I got clean from drugs and got a job and got a place of my own.
So after you got to shore he kind of gave you a life raft?
Pretty much. Yeah.
When You wanted to come and stay with your dad and your stepmom after you left the abusive relationship with the boyfriend and your stepmom basically said no.
Did your father fight for you at all, do you know?
No. Why do you think that was?
I don't know. I have no idea.
What would you theorize?
Because she, I don't know, she runs the ship, I guess.
Yeah, he's scared of her, right? Yeah.
Right. Why do you think he stayed with her?
Because he didn't want another failed marriage.
Well, as far as wanting another failed marriage or failed relationship, failed relationship, right?
I mean, that would be you, right?
His relationship with you. Yeah.
if he didn't want a failed relationship, then why would he marry this kind of woman?
Like knowing it's permanent forever kind of thing.
I don't know.
He didn't want to feel relationship with her, but I mean, I don't know.
In my mid-twenties, I remember I tried to kill myself again by means of something a bit more violent, and I ended up in the hospital, and he didn't even come see me.
What happened that was more violent with your suicide?
I took a lot of really strong...
I drank copious amounts of alcohol and I took a lot of benzodiazepines and sliced my wrists.
Wow. And what provoked that?
Was that the boyfriend? No, no.
I was living on my own at the time and I had just gotten fired from a job and I called my dad because I wanted advice And I wanted a perspective as to why I was fired.
And he yelled at me.
And so I called my boyfriend at the time and I told him what happened and I asked him for a perspective on why I was fired and he yelled at me.
That's when I did that, but the boyfriend at the time actually had a key to my apartment, and he found me unconscious on the floor, covered in blood and piss.
And he called my dad when it happened, told him I was in the hospital, and that was it.
Sorry, I just got a little confused between your dad and your boyfriend.
That was the result of your dad yelling at you?
It was a conglomeration of things, really.
I was on antidepressants at the time that were making me suicidal.
I'd just gotten fired from a job.
My boyfriend at the time wasn't letting me see any friends or anything.
Like my dad yelling at me, my boyfriend yelling at me and like it was just a whole bunch of things just came piling down and I just, I didn't want to deal with it anymore.
Right. So there's great danger when people abuse you, right?
In that you could internalize it and you can become suicidal or at least that's the case in the past, right?
Yeah. Right. So this is, you know, this is my concern about trying to achieve Some sort of closure with your dad, right?
Which is that if you end up being manipulated or bullied or controlled or abused further, right?
That this could put you into this kind of spiral, right?
This is risky. This is like an extreme sport, so to speak, right?
Yeah. That voice got very small.
What do you mean? What happened when I said that?
No, you're right. But, I mean, I would never...
I'm a bit...
I'd like to think I'm a bit wiser now, and, you know, I wouldn't do something like that again.
All right. Now, you said...
You've said a couple of times something that I... You say that I had said, and, you know, people have done 4,500 shows, right?
So I don't know the context or whatever, but you've said something like around...
That I've said that only the people who hurt you can heal you?
Yeah. If that makes sense?
Yeah. Now, what does that mean to you?
Let's say I said that.
Let's say that it applies to the situation, right?
What does that mean to you?
That means that in order to be healed, I need closure from my dad.
So your dad is in control of your healing?
And my stepmom, yeah.
Right. Now, I... Whatever I said that you got...
Yeah. That is not what I meant.
I mean, do you think that my mom is in control of whether I'm a healthy person or a healed person or not?
No, absolutely not.
Right. She hurt me, right?
Is my dad in control of whether I'm a healthy person or not?
No. No. No, he's not.
So... Again, I don't want to try and parse what I may have said or under what context or whatever, but I'll tell you this.
You should in no way, shape, or form ever put your mental health in the hands of abusive people.
Ever. It should never be that you are reliant for healing upon the whims of And positive responses of people who have in the past proven themselves to be destructive, neglectful, abusive, manipulative, you name it, right?
Because you lose control, right?
I mean, if my mental health and peace of mind and stability was dependent upon my mom growing a conscience, I have no control over my life or my thoughts.
Does that make sense? That makes a lot of sense, yeah.
So, you know, whatever I did say, I just really want to be clear that I do not want you or anyone who listens to this to get out of what I said.
That your happiness and closure and peace of mind is dependent upon people growing a conscience.
Yeah. I understand what you mean entirely.
I think one of the problems is that like...
I'm encased in other people's perceptions of me a lot of the times.
When people think negatively of me, especially people that I love, I tend to internalize that.
Sure. We all do.
That's the price of love.
right that the price of love is it really matters what people think of you which is why i i urge people to be as stingy as humanly possible with the word love right you you've you've heard me a million times on these shows right say somebody says but i love my mom i say yeah and then you ask what morals and values do they have yeah so because when you say you love someone you give them carte blanche to your self-esteem to your heart to your sense of identity to your happiness to your stability, right?
Love is like a key to the city of who you are.
Yeah. So, do you love your stepmother?
No. Do you love your mother?
Yeah. Do you love your father?
Yeah. And what virtues...
And I'm not talking about stuff that happened over the last year or two, right?
But what virtues... As a child, because they're your parents, right?
So their primary relationship with you would be as parents to your childhood.
What virtues did they display when you were a child that would cause the involuntary response called love?
Well, my...
My father was...
He did try to help me with homework when I was little.
And... So, like, the effort that he put in towards that I would consider a virtue.
The virtue of making the sacrifice of spending time with his family in order to take care of them.
I would consider that a virtue.
Sorry, the virtue of not spending time with his family?
You said to spend time with his family in order to take care of them.
And I remember the 5 a.m.
thing that he left. Yeah, like working, like sacrificing today in order to build a better future type of thing.
Oh, so he worked and he paid bills and so on, right?
Yeah, in order to keep a roof over our head and stuff.
Yeah. But then he got divorced from your mom, which kind of put waste to that to some degree, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So what else?
When I would ask my dad for advice, this is in later years, so in my 20s, whenever this is in later years, so in my 20s, whenever I would ask my dad for advice, he would give me as thorough and thought out advice as possible.
And he would really give me his time that way in order to help me and help me outweigh situations.
So as an adult, he gave you good advice?
Yeah. And did you listen to his good advice?
Absolutely. And how did he have the authority to give you good advice given the woman he married?
Well, two, I guess, right?
I mean, one relationship failed catastrophically in terms of a divorce and another one failed catastrophically in that there wasn't a divorce.
Yeah. Yeah.
That is true.
And there's one thing, that bit of advice that always resonated with me Which is why I've never been married and which is why I don't have children.
He always told me, never depend on a man.
So that was one of the shittiest bits of advice ever.
That's terrible advice, right? It really is.
Especially to a young woman.
So I worked my ass off.
Yeah, women get a lot of that garbage these days.
You know, they really do.
I really wish that my dad would have urged me more to find a nice young man and You know, get married at a good age and actually be able to have kids rather than, you know, being a 33-year-old woman with a really good aspiring business, no children, and endometriosis. Right.
Sorry about that, by the way.
That's rough. That's really rough.
It's all right. Okay, so I guess then there's just one question I have, which is, if your father gave you good advice and you listened to his good advice, why was your life such a mess in your 20s?
Well, I always asked him for advice about work because that is what I knew that he did best.
Okay, okay. So it was work advice, obviously not dating or life or love or children or marriage or family advice.
Okay, okay. Not real world advice because he's not common sense type of guy.
He's work ethic type of guy.
Okay, okay. So he paid the bills, he helped you with homework and he gave you some good business advice.
And what else? When I was really little and I would have bad days, this is when I was doing the week-on-week-off thing.
This is before, like, I think it was before he met my stepmom.
He would make my lunch every day and he would write a little note in there on, like, one of those sticky notes and tell me, Don't have a bad day.
You have to think positively and keep your head high and make sure you do this assignment and this and that.
He would do things like that to try and brighten my day.
That's a really fond memory.
I consider that a virtue because it made me feel a lot less alone.
Right. Right.
Now, if you stack those positives, I'm not going to disagree that they're positives, if you stack those positives up against the negatives, do you end up with a net positive or a net negative?
Definitely a net negative, I guess.
You guess? Yeah.
Well, you're going to need to do more than guess, right, for this conversation, right?
Because this is kind of a decisive conversation, right?
So if you fog out too much, you won't get much out of it, right?
Yeah.
So if you were to hear this from someone else, would you say that that's enough to generate love?
love gosh it's hard it's really hard to say because I want to say yes that's enough to generate love because a daughter always needs a dad ah
Yeah, but you're in your 30s, right?
Yeah. I mean, you're never going to get the dad you needed when you were a child, right?
Yeah. I mean, it's sad, but it's true, right?
I'm never going to be mothered as a child the way that I should have been mothered.
I'm never going to have a father. Like, I'm never going to have a father.
Let's say that my father turns into a wonderful guy, calls me tomorrow, and so on.
It's like, yeah, but I'm almost 53 years old.
Yeah, I know. It's great.
I mean, hey, I'll come change your diapers, son.
It's like, you're either way too late or hopefully way too early for that duty, right?
But you're never going to have the dad that you needed when you were growing up because you're an adult now.
And that's part of the mourning, right?
And one of the ways that we try to avoid that kind of mourning, the sadness, the grief, is we pretend that we can somehow get it fixed later or now.
Or if he turns into a great guy now, that's going to make your childhood better.
But it's not. It's not.
Yeah. It's not.
It's not. I know.
The problem is that we always think we have time.
Well, no, but see, it doesn't matter.
If your dad recovers tomorrow and lives for another 30 years and turns into a great guy, you still will never have had the father you needed when you were a child because you're not a child anymore.
Yeah, I know. Like that grieving process...
You know, my concern is that you're holding on for a better dad as a way of avoiding that it's never going to happen at the time you needed it.
Yeah. You know, it's the old thing like if you were malnourished as a child, then getting more food later doesn't help.
In fact, it makes it worse. Yeah, it doesn't cancel it out.
It doesn't, you know, I could have been six inches taller, you know.
Or like what Tom Woods said about his weight gain, you know, because he felt a little short.
He's like, well, I'll just eat and I'll get bigger.
It's like, but he just got wider, right?
Yeah. By the way, people should listen to Tom Woods.
I just want to put that pitch in there.
But no, this is the core, right?
So if you're trying to avoid the grieving of like, you know, it's never going to happen.
I'm never going to be One year, two years, five years, ten years, fifteen years.
I'm never going to be that child, that teenager, and get what I need.
Never going to happen. And you are never going to get the father that you needed.
No matter what happens, right?
And if you are trying to find a way to avoid that, then you're just giving your dad power at the moment.
And this is my concern, is that your dad knows what you need.
That's why I mentioned that earlier, that he knows what you need.
He knows that you hunger for his approval and his right.
And listen, it's not that uncommon.
My mom would say repeatedly...
That she admired me enormously because I basically raised myself.
She used to say repeatedly, you did it all by yourself.
You did it by yourself. My mom used to say that to me too.
Your mom? Yeah.
Right. Right.
And unfortunately, that's just my mom's way of avoiding the damage she did.
I didn't do it by myself.
I did it in the face of vicious and violent abuse.
It was not an isolated incident, me raising myself.
I wasn't alone in the woods, right?
That would have been better.
I wouldn't be trapped with a violent woman, right?
That sounded like nervous laughter, Stefan.
I'm sorry? I said that sounded like nervous laughter.
Yeah, I would thoroughly accept that.
Thank you for pointing that out. But hey, I'm sorry about what your mom did to you.
I appreciate that, and it's fair to point out.
So the parents who are mean or vicious or neglectful, they will often, you know, oh, I admire what you did all by yourself.
It's like, no. I mean, if I'm walking along carrying a donkey on my back, like Life of Brian style, and people say, you know, you're a good walker.
You're just walking all by yourself.
It's like, no, I do actually have a donkey on my back.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
So, for me, the question is, okay, so I just talk about myself, right?
Because I don't want to tell you your experience with your dad.
But for me... It's like, okay, what do I need from my mom?
Well, primarily what I need from my mother was for her to have been a good mother when I was young.
But once I became an adult, that need passed away.
Yeah. Right? Rationally.
I mean, she couldn't... There's no time machine and there's no way to go back and fix what was broken early.
And so then the question is, okay, well, what do I need from my mom as an adult?
But once you accept that...
If you've reached adulthood with abusive or neglectful or dysfunctional parenting, then what do you need from your parents as an adult?
Well, the answer for me was, well, not much.
Yeah. Not much?
Yeah. You know, it's like what they say about banks, right?
Like, when you're drowning at sea, they ignore you.
When you make it to shore, they bury you in life jackets, right?
Absolutely. So, once you make it to adulthood, so that's one phase of things, right?
Once you make it to adulthood.
Now, for me, knowing, you know, my mom got older and all of that, and I tried giving her money, and I tried being supportive that way, and, you know, I gave her, Lord knows how much money, a lot, right?
Just went into masses and lawsuits that never went anywhere and stuff.
I was actually fueling her Cruelty to the world.
So then the phase comes along when my mom gets old and needy, right?
Now, when my mom gets old and needy, she needs things from me.
Now, if my mom starts apologizing for things that she did when she was younger, when she needs things from me, I took that actually, that was nasty.
It was a nasty thing to do because it proved to me that she knew what I needed all along.
Yeah, so she would apologize to you in order to get something?
Yeah, for sure. So there's two phases, right?
Can you fix it when the child is a child?
Great. If you can't fix it when a child is a child, then they become an adult.
It's like, okay, well, what do I need you for?
What do I need you for?
I don't need you to change my diapers.
I don't need you to pay my bills.
I don't need you to teach me the ways of the world.
Whatever, right? Because, you know, you have no credibility.
So then, when parents get old, they need things, right?
They need things for me. And there's, I mean, the two things that they need are material and psychological, right?
So the thing that they need from you materially is they need you to come and help them out and maybe wipe their butts and pay their bills and, you know, all of the stuff that comes from taking care of aging relatives and frail and like all that kind of stuff, right?
So they need the material stuff.
Now, the material stuff they can conceivably get from other people or the government or private people if they have money like nurses' aides or whatever, right?
So that's... That's what they need materially.
But, you see, when they start looking at that big black doorway of death, right, the conveyor belt is pushing them closer, then they start to feel bad, right?
They start to feel bad.
And then what they do is they will start to say the things that are designed for you to make them feel better.
Right? So, when they realize their own mortality, that's when they will come back to you to apologize?
No, I don't think it's to apologize.
Or to kind of like say the things that you always wanted to hear?
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, so that they draw you back into their orbit and they gain control over you by giving you something that you've always wanted.
Another kind of drug.
Dear God. You know what?
I'm not saying it's conscious. No, this makes so much more sense.
Tell me what's connecting for you, tell me.
That's exactly what's happening.
Like... I thought, you know, my dad felt like he's facing his own mortality and stuff.
And I've been, you know, calling the hospital every day.
And it's costing me, I mean, a lot of money that I don't really have at the moment to call overseas.
And I've been calling to make sure that he's okay.
And like, I've been talking to my stepmom and You know, trying to like, you know, ha-ha and he-he about this and that small talk type of bullshit to like, you know, make sure that he's okay and doing all of this.
And he's texting me saying, saying, oh, I wish my Sarah Barrow was here to give me a hug.
And, and like, and, and, you know, like, I'm really proud of you.
And I love you so much.
And You know, like, it's so amazing to see that young woman that you've become and this and that.
It's the left palm, yeah.
Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I feel overwhelmed because I'm like, oh my god, you know, my dad's saying all of these things.
He's saying, you know, the one thing that I've, you know, worked myself and my ass for my whole adult life is for him to be proud of me.
I've done all of this.
I've moved to a different country.
I've built up my business.
I've done everything that I possibly could for him to just say that he's proud of me.
And he's doing that now.
But it's now that he needs something.
Yeah, exactly. He's given me enough rope to hang myself with.
No, no, no. Let's not use those analogies if you don't mind.
Sorry. That's all right.
Don't make me goosed with this kind of stuff.
I can assure you that I don't sound mind now.
Okay. All right.
So the clue for me here is the will, is the money.
Yeah. Right. Because he needs something from you and what's he doing?
He's dangling money. So, how is this not just manipulation?
How does this not just undo all of the praise and the, I love you and I'm so proud of you and fine young woman and all that, right?
Yeah. If he wanted to make sure you got money, then he'd spend a little bit less time on the phone with you and his wife and a little bit more time on the phone with his lawyer.
Right? Because he can draft it such that you get whatever portion he thinks you deserve.
And right now, what he's doing is he's passing control from himself to his wife over you.
Oh, she's the executor of the will!
Right? Yeah.
So now... The worst thing, if I understand your story, and correct me if I'm astray, but the worst thing just about that happened to you was being under the control of your stepmom.
So what is your father doing?
He's setting things up so that your worst fucking nightmare re-emerges from the fucking swamp.
Which is now, you are dependent upon the kindness of your stepmom.
Just as it was all those years ago.
Yeah, and you know what he keeps saying to me is that he's like, oh, you need to make amends with her.
You know, she's getting old now.
Like, some of her family don't even talk to her because of, apparently, like, you know, because she is the way that she is.
Sorry to interrupt you. She wants someone who she has control over.
And so she is making sure that that someone is you.
And that's coming through your dad.
Yeah, my dad keeps saying that, like, you know, oh, she's in her old age.
She's realizing that she doesn't have anybody to, you know, take care of her.
And she's really worried about what's going to happen to her when I go.
Yeah, yeah. No, I get all of that.
She's someone who likes to bully and she needs someone.
Who's going to bully you? So you need someone to bully.
And that someone is you.
And your father is setting all that up for her.
And you know what?
Like, I'm so stupid.
I'm so stupid.
No, no, no, no. No, no, no.
Won't hear it. Won't hear it.
No, won't hear it.
You're not stupid. I told them to move here.
I said, why don't you guys move here so I can take care of you?
I live in a country that my dad was born in and my dad moved to America and he's still there and I'm in the country that he was born in and I'm like, why don't you guys move here?
We can I can take care of you guys.
And like, that's what I mean.
That's how I feel stupid in saying that now.
Well, and come on.
I mean, you are considering marriage at some point to kids, hopefully sooner rather than later, given the TikTok.
But, you know, you have two mentally cruel, dependent people around you.
What guy is going to want to do that?
I do have a boyfriend.
Oh, good. Okay. We do plan on getting married, so...
Okay, well, you know, it's time to pull the trigger on that shit.
You're in your 30s, in my humble opinion, right?
But it's going to be really tough on your marriage if you have two people who abused you in the past who I think are kind of manipulating you in the present.
You know, there's a too-late aspect to life, in my opinion.
There's a too-late aspect to life.
To life, right? You know, it's too late to apologize when you've already had the affair.
It's too late to apologize for stealing the money when you've spent it all and refused to pay it back.
And the question is, when is it too late for parents?
Well, your suffering should have been clues enough that they were bad parents.
You're suffering your self-destructive aspects, the abusive relationship that you were in or more than one suicide attempts, right?
That should have been enough for them to say, holy shit, we put a hell of a burden on this kid.
We've really done something wrong.
Let's get ourselves into therapy, right?
Yeah. Which they didn't do.
No. And now they're dangling in a tortuous way the thing that they know you most need or want because they want something from you.
Well, what that means is that they've always known that's what you've wanted, but they withheld it because it served their own selfish interests, and now they're providing it to you because it serves their own selfish interests.
Yeah. And now you're going to take care of them when they didn't take care of you?
No. No.
Well, I would certainly mull it over.
I would, you know, I mean, I don't tell people what to do, but I would certainly mull it over.
And I'm enormously suspicious of these turnabouts when you need something.
Well, like you said, I'm never going to get the dad back that I needed when I was younger.
So what's the point? You've seen this a million times in movies.
This is a dramatic example.
But you've seen this a million times in movies where the bad guy has the gun, right?
And he's like all kinds of dancing and pointing it and he's all in control and power and this, that and the other, right?
And then the good guy grabs the gun.
And the bad guy's all like, hey, you know, let's work it out.
Let's be reasonable. Let's negotiate, right?
Nothing's changed other than the gun has switched hands.
And nothing's changed here except they don't have the power to compel you to do what they want.
So now they have to entice and manipulate.
Yeah. Yeah.
So, Stefan, my question is how do I get over it?
Get over what? Like, I still want to keep my dad in my life because...
No, no, no, no, no, no, come on.
No. You have to be accurate about what it is that you're doing and what it is that you want.
You want to avoid grieving.
I want to... I'm sorry, that cut out for a second.
You want to avoid grieving. Grieving, okay.
There's an old saying which says, all mental dysfunction is the result of the avoidance of legitimate suffering.
Right. Right. Your father has not grown a conscience.
Your stepmother has not grown a conscience.
Empathy is something that develops between 12 and 16 months of life, and it's like the language window.
If it doesn't ever happen then, it's, to my knowledge, functionally impossible.
Oh, they got hit by lightning or took a hammer blow to the head, a singer of Oasis style or whatever, right?
Maybe that changes something, but they're not.
They're not different now.
Than they were when you were 5 or 3 or 10 or 15 or 20 or 25 or 30.
They're the same people. Why?
How do we know that? Because they haven't done the self-work necessary to change.
All that's changed is that they're now, instead of being in a position of having power over you, they need things from you, so they're just changing their strategies.
That's all. But nothing fundamentally has changed.
So I think that you're still looking for closure to your childhood that is based upon something that they can do.
So, in a kind of way, you're manipulating each other, right?
Because you want them to provide you something, and they want you to provide them something.
In other words, both sides of the relationship are contingent upon the provision of something.
For them, they want you to provide resources to take care of them.
And for you, you want them to provide you some way to avoid grieving what you lost as a child.
Which, when I talked about it, right, you kind of burst into tears, right?
Because that really connected when I said, you're never going to get the dad that you needed.
It's true. It's true.
It's true. Well, no one ever put it to me that way, and it kind of just made sense, and that's why I cried.
Right, right. So, don't manipulate them, in my humble opinion, right?
Which is, don't have them around in order to avoid the suffering of your childhood and grieving it and moving on and all that, right?
Right. Yeah.
See, if you stop manipulating them, then they don't really have...
Like, manipulation is something that...
It almost always has to be two-way to last.
Right? I don't think that either of you particularly like each other, or any of you in this sad story particularly like each other, but you need things from each other.
And that's... I don't think that's a good...
I don't think that's a good foundation for interaction.
So, I have a question.
Alright, we've got to make it quick because I have the next appointment, but please go ahead.
No, alright. One last thing, Stefan.
So, in order to give myself closure, this is something that I can do.
If I could write out literally everything that they did wrong and just have that as a letter to them, even if I don't send it, Would that be a good idea?
Well, I think that's a fine thing to do, and I think it's a useful thing.
Personal histories, I think, are very useful to process.
But, you know, my only reminder would be that it's, you know, it's unfixable.
I know it's unfixable.
You know, the losses that we experience as childhood, this is another cliche you see in these medical dramas six million times, right, where the patient is flatlined.
And the doctor is still trying to do the heart compressions and still trying to do the paddles and the defibrillator.
And at some point, the nurse has to put her hand on his forearm and say, he's gone.
I'm calling it. No!
Don't call it! I'm calling it!
And this is what it's like with childhood, except we're trying to do it with skeletons.
Yeah, you're right. So, you know, write all the stuff...
And it can't be fixed. And it can't be fixed.
Now, it doesn't mean you can't be happy at all, right?
I mean, once we accept it can't be fixed, right?
Once we accept the patience is dead, we can go do something else, right?
We can let go and, you know, live our lives.
Yes, that's right. All right.
All right. Will you let me know how it goes?
Yeah, do you want me to email you or Skype you?
Yeah, yeah, just send me a message on Skype.
And also, how was the conversation for you?
It was really good. I've been so excited to speak to you.
But one thing I have to point out to you, Stefan, don't laugh when you speak about your mother because that's only going to hurt you.
Don't do that. And one more thing, you did mention in one of your calls You said that Wales was in England, and Wales is not in England.
You know, that's absolutely correct.
I also, since we're doing corrections, I also talked about Barry Goldwater being from California.
Barry Goldwater, his son is from California, who was also a politician, but he himself is from Arizona.
So yes, that is entirely correct.
And I do remember the Wales in England.
Wales, of course, in Great Britain, but not in England.
Yeah, thank you very much. I appreciate that feedback.
Alright, keep me posted and thanks again for the call.
It was really, really good. Thank you, Stefan.
You're amazing. Appreciate it.
Take care. You too.
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