5322 My Stepmother Made Panty-Soup to Get a Man! Call-In
Freedomain Call-InJust as a recap, my question from a couple of Friday shows ago was about how I can tackle hyper-independence as a woman when it doesn't stem from hatred of men, as I would like to marry and have children, but had concerns that this defense mechanism or strategy would get in the way. I mentioned that I don't think I hate men despite watching my mother get literally kicked out by my father with nothing, because that is what I literally witnessed, not because I have any illusions about the failure of either parents, which is mostly thanks to you and your show.I have no contact with either of my parents now. I'm in therapy for the third and, hopefully, last time over the course of my adult life because I keep finding myself in repetitious cycles which often have echoes of the past and leave me wondering why or how I miss or ignore certain things.It's challenging not to feel deflated at such times because I worry more that I'll become or end up similar to my mother. The best I've been able to come up with my inner Stef is that I have a fear of ending up "under the thumb of immoral people" and having to self-censor like I did through my childhood and much of my adult life simply because I'm not able to provide for myself financially. The solution I thought of from a relationship or spouse standpoint is to find someone who is virtuous, with integrity, loyal, so I won't have to worry about repeating my parents' marriage or living with people whose morals and values don't align with mine.The purpose of my call is mainly to find out if there is an underlying hatred of men that I've missed and should focus my attention on. And if that isn't the case, get any advice from real-life Stef on how I truly break out of the hyper-self-reliant mindset and recognize more quickly when a negative cycle is repeating itself in my life.Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Get access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, and the 22 Part History of Philosophers series!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
And I'm certainly happy to hear if you wanted to read what you sent, if you wanted to just tell me what's going on.
I'm happy either way.
Yeah, you too.
I tweaked what I initially sent a little bit, so I'll read what I've tweaked.
If I do start to ramble on, please do bring me back like you usually do for others.
I will start by saying that I did sense in myself initially as well when I sent the question, and today as I was getting ready, there's a part of me that is really resisting.
Um, and the prevailing thought is you don't air the family's laundry.
So I just wanted to say that at the beginning, just in case I start to fog, but I know you're, you've done lots of these and are quite good at bringing people back.
So I just wanted to give you a heads up.
All right.
I'm all ears.
Okay.
So said, hi, Steph, just as a recap, my question from a couple of Friday shows ago.
was about how I can tackle hyper-independence as a woman when it doesn't stem from hatred of men.
As I would like to marry and have children, but had concerns that this defense mechanism or strategy would get in the way.
I mentioned that I don't think I hate men, despite watching my mother get literally kicked out by my father with nothing.
Because that is what I literally witnessed, not because I have any illusions about the failure of either parents, which is mostly thanks to you and your show.
I have no contact with either of my parents now.
I'm in therapy for the third and hopefully last time over the course of my adult life, because I keep finding myself in repetitious cycles, which often have echoes of the past.
and leave me wondering why or how I miss or ignore certain things.
It's... Sorry.
It's challenging not to feel deflated at such times because I worry more that I'll become or end up similar to my mother.
The best I've been able to come up with my inner Steph is that
I have a fear of ending up quote-unquote under the thumb of immoral people and having to self-censor like I did through my childhood and much of my adult life simply because I'm not able to provide for myself financially.
The solution I thought of from a relationship or spouse standpoint is to find someone who is virtuous
With integrity, loyal, so I won't have to worry about repeating my parents' marriage, or living with people whose morals and values don't align with mine.
The purpose of my call is mainly to find out if there is an underlying hatred of men that I've missed and should focus my attention on, and if that isn't the case, get any advice from real-life Steph on how I truly break out of
The hyper self-reliant mindset and recognize more quickly when a negative cycle is repeating itself in my life.
So that's what I've kind of trimmed it down to.
Right.
Now, I do remember in the original message, I appreciate the honesty.
I remember in the original message, you talked about your immigration experience and early cultural experiences.
I mean, we can pass by those by if you want, or is there a reason you took those out?
Um, no, they're still in.
I just thought we'd, um, talk about it, um, through prompting.
So yeah, thanks for bringing that up.
Um, well, I mean, you don't have to read it.
I mean, you can just tell me about sort of your, uh, early experiences, but it's around the age of 12 or so.
Yeah.
So I was 12 when we moved to where I am.
I guess my accent is probably a dead giveaway.
Um, we moved to live here with my mom from our country of origin, which is in Africa.
And that was following the breakdown of my mother's marriage to my father.
So I moved here with, um, my two siblings at the time I'd given them, um, some fake names.
So we'll call them Ben and Jerry if they come up again.
Right.
And tell me a little bit about what happened with your parents' marriage or a lot, if you like.
Sure, so my memories begin at the age of seven.
My parents both worked, so we're a working-class family in our country of origin, and they owned a business together selling clothes.
My mother travelled around quite a lot doing the procurement, so buying the clothes and the merchandise, and my father stayed back home
to manage the business from that side and he was also in control of the finances.
At some point they began fighting.
My dad would get drunk, would go out and get drunk constantly and he would hit and verbally abuse my mum.
So these are things that I witnessed, not her accounts.
And there were nights where she would come into our room
Because he wouldn't let her sleep in their room, and the next morning I would see that she was beaten and bruised.
In order to raise me and my two siblings at the time, they hired a live-in nanny slash housemaid
And so in addition to being basically an alcoholic and hitting my mum, my dad was having an affair with the housemate as well.
And then the other memory that I have is of him one day literally just throwing her out and calling my uncles, so my mum's brothers, and telling them to come and pick her up
She'd just gone and taken refuge in a flat downstairs, and he said to them that he didn't want her anymore.
And you were around 12 around this time?
No, so this was around seven, when I was seven, so still in my country of origin.
It was at this time when they were preoccupied, obviously, with their marital strife that
We would often get left to go out and play with other kids in the neighborhood or go into other neighbors' flats, and at this time I was groomed and sexually abused by one of the neighbors in the flats.
Oh gosh, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.
And for how long were you molested or sexually abused?
I think it was a couple months.
I don't remember exactly.
I know it was the entire time that we lived there that they were fighting.
So it would have been a couple months until my father kicked my mother out because then he started to struggle financially.
So we had to move.
So I think it stopped then.
Again, you don't have to say anything you're not comfortable with.
I know it's an uncomfortable topic and I apologize for putting it that way, but how far did the sexual abuse go?
I don't know or remember if there was penetration
I just know that now I struggle when I go to hospitals to try and get tests and stuff.
I've been invited for the cervical tests.
Oh, like pap smears and stuff like that, right?
Yeah.
Right, right.
Just terrible.
Just terrible.
And of course, you know, I mean,
You were a vulnerable little girl, and you needed support, and you needed encouragement, and you needed help, and instead you got this jackal, this hyena, preying on the vulnerable.
It's terrible, I'm so sorry.
Yeah, I remember he would send my brothers into his house to distract them, and then he would mess around with me outside.
Oh, outside?
Yeah, in the block of flats.
Yeah, it wasn't outside where everyone could see, but it was in like a, I don't know how to call it, like a stairs area, stairs bit.
Yeah, like a stairwell.
So he would get my brothers to go in and help themselves to his food and stuff.
All right.
Okay, I'm happy to... I have some questions, but it's not hugely relevant to the time frame, so if you want to keep going, I'm happy to hear.
Sure, yeah.
Because I didn't know exactly what was happening at the time, I didn't realize that I was sexually abused until I was about 11.
I was in the sex ed class at school in our country of origin, and that's when I
Put two and two together about what had happened to me.
But I felt too ashamed to say anything to anyone, so I kept it to myself for a very, very long time.
And the shame is to do with why you were picked?
Is the shame to do with, oh, I should have fought back?
Or what was the shame to do with?
Because I never fought back.
Because...
I don't recall resisting.
And when you sort of look back, if you say to yourself, okay, I've got to give myself advice about what to do, what would you say you should have done and what could you have done?
Yell, scream.
But I didn't know that he was doing anything wrong.
No one had ever spoken to me about any of that.
All right, so let's say you had yelled and screamed.
How do you think it would have played out if you had done that as a kid?
I think some people might have come out, but I don't know how they would have reacted.
I'm not sure.
Well, what would be the best case scenario for you that would have come out of this wretched pedophile's assault?
I mean, let's say you had yelled and screamed, what's the good that you would anticipate, or the best that you could anticipate coming out of that?
That you'd get arrested?
I think where I'm from, though, they probably would have beaten him up.
Okay.
So they would have beaten him up, and then what would have happened?
Oh, God.
I would have got... I would have got shamed by my family.
I've brought shame on them.
It wouldn't have been something necessarily outright like that.
It would have been, you should have told us what was happening.
Well, but let's say, I mean, I just want to play out the ideal scenario here as a way of sort of confronting this shame.
So let's say the very first time this creep touched you inappropriately or something like that, the very first time you screamed blue murder and people came running and, and so on.
Right.
Right.
So your parents couldn't have said, well, you should have told us, right?
Because you would do it the first time, right?
Let's again, just want to sort of understand your thinking about this.
And so let's say that people came, of course the man would lie and say, no, oh my gosh, I mean, I'd never do anything like that.
It must be someone else.
She, you know, I just gave her a hug or whatever he would say, right?
But let's say that he wasn't believed and then we'll go with the, we can try the legal route in a sec, but
Let's say that he gets beaten up and all of that, right?
And I assume that the beating would be particularly vicious, right?
So then what would happen?
What would he do then?
I never thought about this, but yeah, he might retaliate against me or my family.
Without a doubt.
Without a doubt.
He might sue your parents for your falsehoods causing people to assault him.
He might sue and say, well, it must be the father or an uncle or a brother, but it wasn't me.
And you know, your daughter lied about me.
You're legally and morally responsible.
I got beaten up.
Here's my hospital bills.
Here's my pain and trauma.
And I won a million dollars.
Or he could have just assaulted one of your brothers or even worse, right?
And so, and you didn't know you were going to move, of course, and so this guy would have been down the hallway plotting his revenge.
For how long, right?
Of course, as a creep, he probably knows other creeps, bunch of criminals, people for hire.
Like, who knows, right?
But it would have put you and your family... I'm sorry, I just occasionally I get this blast back of my own voice.
But anyway, it doesn't matter.
So, yeah, he would have been plotting revenge against you and your family, and who knows, right?
I mean, he could have cut the brakes on your parents' car.
I mean, he could have poisoned something.
Who knows, right?
But it would have been, I think, pretty much a state of perpetual terror waiting for the blowback, if that makes sense?
Yes.
And who would your parents have blamed for all of this, right?
So, let's say you screamed right away.
And this guy gets beaten up, and then he plots his revenge, or bad things start to happen, and there's suspicion but there's no proof.
Your parents would have blamed who for all of the danger and fear and stress in their lives?
They would have blamed me.
Right.
Right.
Right.
And so, how would... I mean, I'm trying to sort of understand the
What would have happened, right?
Because if you feel shame and I should have done something, okay, listen, that's fine.
I mean, it's good to have that kind of question.
What should I have done?
But I'll tell you something about these kinds of guys.
They have an uncanny ability to find the right victims.
I don't know, I have no idea how they do it, of course.
But, I mean, you think of the risk, right?
You think of a risk that some guy is taking, right?
He's groping at you in a stairwell, in a place where he could get beaten half to death.
Or sent to prison, and we all know what happens to pedophiles in prison, right?
They tend not to have a very positive or long prison sentence.
So this guy's risking serious injury or death.
So he's got to be really certain, right?
That you won't scream, that you have no support system, that you won't go for help.
He has to know that, almost for absolute certain, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does.
So, it wasn't for you that you were assaulted.
It was for an accurate reading of the complete lack of support system, and in fact an attack
That if you had been vulnerable and gone for help, that he knew that that was not a possibility for you.
Yeah.
And parents who are struggling, who are fighting, who are drinking, who are overwhelmed, who are in financial trouble and so on, you bring another problem to them and what do they do?
They lash out at you instead.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, what are they going to do?
Take on some dangerous child molester?
No.
They're going to attack the child.
They're going to... whoever's under their control.
So then, instead of having one problem, you would have ten problems.
And I don't mean to diminish by saying what happened to you was a problem.
Instead of having one nightmare, you'd have ten nightmares.
Yeah.
Now...
And of course, let's say that one of your brothers was put in the hospital by one of these guys or one of his friends or one of his creepy pals or whatever, right?
And your parents had the suspicion.
Who would they blame?
Would they blame this guy?
Or who would they blame for the injuries to your brother?
No, they would blame me because I'm the oldest.
I should have known better.
Well, you should have, you know, it would somehow be your fault and
And then you'd have that guilt and all of that, right?
Yeah.
Right.
So let's look at the other route, right?
So let's say the other route is that this happens and you run down to the police station and, or whatever it is, you go and take the legal route, right?
Right.
Well, then there's a trial.
And you have to testify as a child, I assume.
I don't know how it works in every country, of course, but something like that, right?
And let's say that there was proof you have injuries or there's semen or something like that.
You have proof and with your testimony and all of that, after a, I don't know, six to 12 month legal thing, the guy goes to jail.
Well, he's got six to twelve months and a bunch of friends who are probably as creepy, if not even creepier and more dangerous than he is, to do whatever, right?
Yeah.
And even if he's within prison, he's going to have his creepy friends and associates who can come and injure your family or attack you or something like that, right?
Yeah.
And of course, your parents would
I assume have to hire a lawyer to get legal advice on your testimony and this that and the other right and they'd have to put a lot of time effort energy and resources and of course this would be written up in the local newspapers or it would just go through the internet and everybody would know what would happen and what would happen to you at school knowing that this was your experience that this is what you were doing
And how would your parents have handled the legal bills and the time and the risk associated with all of this kind of legal stuff?
Again, I'm not trying to paint too negative a picture.
I'm just trying to play out these scenarios in your mind because I'm curious about the shame.
And shame is so often based on magical thinking.
And listen, this is as true for me as it is for you, as it is for everyone.
I feel ashamed because... and there's some weird magical superhero scenario wherein
Justice is enacted, and vengeance is perfect, and there's never any blowback, and all of that, right?
Yeah.
And, I mean, I don't know, by the by, it's one of the things I loved about The Hobbit, which I read when I was a kid, which is, you know, they kill the dragon, they get the treasure, and then the problems all start, because everyone's fighting over the treasure, right?
Because normally it's like, aha, we've slain the dragon, we have all the treasure!
That's the end of the story, but he went further and said, okay,
Now you've gotten rid of the dragon, now everybody wants a piece of the treasure and there's going to be a fight over that.
There's no end solution to a lot of these things, there's just a balancing of probabilities of problems.
And of course the other thing too is that, let's say this guy went to prison for a couple of years, then he'd come out, right?
Yeah.
And then what?
If he was still living further than
Yeah, we'd get attacked.
Well, it could be.
Again, there's lots of subtle ways that people can try to mess up your life, right?
That are very hard to trace and all of that, right?
And again, as a kid, you know, are you necessarily saying, well, we'll just get video surveillance, right?
So, I'm trying to sort of figure out, is there magical thinking that there was a great solution or a positive solution or a helpful solution to this problem?
And this is why in these areas, right, I mean, it's a mess, right?
I mean, obviously you can't just take a child at face value and throw people in jail based upon a child's say-so, because children can displace, they can misinterpret, they can, you know, their brains are very young, of course, sort of by definition.
So you can't just say, well, the child said so, we're throwing him in prison.
You do need some sort of evidence, some sort of proof, which is hard to come by.
And the issue of blowback, I mean,
I remember when I was trapped in the woods with a friend of mine when I was about 12 and these older guys who were like, I don't know, 17 or 18 were threatening us and hitting us and forcing us to build them fires and, you know, it wasn't anything that got too out of hand, but of course I thought, you know, I could go to the cops and my friend and I could go to the cops and we could talk about these guys and the assault and the, I don't know, unlawful restraint or I don't know whatever it would be, right?
But then I played that out in my head.
And I think this may have happened to you at an unconscious level, but you just sort of play that out in your head.
Okay.
So what's going to happen?
Well, these guys go to my school.
I still have to go to school.
Let's say that the cops sit them down.
Are they going to get charged?
Are they going to go through the whole process?
Well, that whole process is going to take months at least.
And that whole time, you know, they could, uh,
And I remember, I think one of the guys, the older guy was saying, if you run to the cops, you know, they'll just give us a talking to.
We'll find you at school.
Right?
So was there some big magical solution?
Well, I weighed, I don't know, a hundred pounds.
They were 200 pounds, right?
I was 12.
They were 17 or 18, which is about as big a difference as you can get in that age range.
There was really no chance to fight back.
And obviously they'd been able to do this kind of stuff.
And that's the other thing too.
Obviously they'd been able to do this kind of stuff for years before.
They knew the situation way better than I did.
And I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make this about me at all.
I just really want to sort of point out that this shame stuff is false.
I mean, I don't want to get overly technical, but it's, it's absolutely false.
So I'm like, okay, these guys have been violent bullies for years and they, you know, obviously picked on younger kids.
So they knew what they were doing and I didn't.
They knew what they were doing because they'd been doing this for years, assaulting kids, entertaining kids or beating up kids or whatever.
They'd been doing it for years.
And this was the first time anything like this had ever happened to me.
You know, violence outside the family home.
And I'm like, ooh, you know, they've got years and years of experience.
This is my first time.
You know, it's like all the people who were like, well, I'm just gonna outsmart the cops.
It's like, really?
Cops have been doing this for 20 years in the interview situation.
They're trained.
They're experienced.
They know the law.
You don't.
You're not trained.
You have no experience.
I am a big one for deferring to experience.
And if this guy preyed upon you, it's because he knew that you had no good options.
And this is why when it comes to this kind of childhood sexual assault,
I mean, the key is, of course, prevention, and the best way to have this kind of prevention is to have a good relationship between the children and the parents, and that way he'll go pick on someone else.
Or, you know, hopefully if everyone has good relationships with parents, he won't have anyone to pick on at all.
But as far as the shame goes, I just, I want to take solid aim at this shame.
Because shame is 99 times out of 100.
Certainly if you're a victim, shame is just magical thinking.
That there was some golden scenario that you could have pursued that would have made all the problems go away and fixed everything.
And the fact that you didn't is some negative thing about you.
And it's like, no, no, no.
Where were the good options here?
By the time you're in this guy's sights, it's because there are no good options at all.
There are no good options.
There was nothing that you could do that wasn't a terrible thing that was probably going to make everything worse.
Yeah.
You were going to get blamed, my friend.
You were going to get blamed.
You were going to get shamed.
You were going to get attacked.
And then you were going to get teased at school and mocked.
And your parents would have blamed you for all of the fallout that happens with this.
Prevention is everything in these kinds of situations.
So again, I'm happy to hear maybe there's a scenario.
In which, again, you don't have to get into any details about Africa, but of course in most cultures and countries in Africa, childhood sexual abuse is like... Yeah, so?
It's like what they say about a girl in India that if she gets to the age of 10 with her hymen intact, she clearly doesn't have any male relatives.
Sorry, go ahead.
I was 19 when I told my mother.
Um, what had happened, we were where we are now, um, in this country.
And she basically had that reaction because I told her what had happened off the back of quitting university.
And she basically said, that's something that happens to everyone.
It's not a reason to quit university.
It's not a big deal.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the Richard Dawkins thing.
Now, you don't have to answer anything, of course, but as far as ethnicity goes, are you a white from South Africa?
Are you black from some other country?
Just because I'm trying to look at sort of the cultural references, and again, you don't have to answer anything you don't want to, but it wouldn't be minorly helpful.
No, I'm comfortable answering that.
I'm black from another African country.
Got it, okay.
Yeah, and the reason I'm saying that is, again, in the black culture there is, unfortunately, I mean, even in, I mean, it's absolutely tragic, like even in America, half of black, half of black girls say that by the time they're 18 they were raped as children by a black male in the vicinity.
It's just, it's awful and it's chronic and I just, I'm incredibly sorry for
For the events, but what I don't want you to do is to think that this defines you or reflects upon you in any way.
You were a helpless victim, unprotected, there were no good solutions.
It does not define you, it does not reflect upon you.
It's not some tattoo on your forehead or some scar burned into your flesh that everyone sees forever.
You were preyed upon because you were unprotected.
And of course, when you told your mother when you were 19, you got the answer.
So if you'd have gone to her the first time this happened and said, mom, this guy did this terrible thing, you know what she would have said now, right?
Yeah.
She would have said, it's not a big deal.
It's not worth fighting over.
You know, obviously try and stay away from him.
But yeah, it happens to everyone, right?
Yeah.
And come on, how on earth was your mother?
You're welcome.
How on earth was your mother going to protect you from a dangerous guy?
How on earth was your mother going to protect you from a dangerous guy?
She married your father!
Here's how to have boundaries with dangerous guys.
Here's how to deal with dangerous guys.
Here's how to make sure dangerous guys don't take over your life.
Here's how to protect yourself from dangerous guys.
And you knew that.
I mean, deep down, right?
You would know that.
You're an intelligent young woman, right?
You would have known that deep down.
Like, how on earth is my mother going to protect me from any kind of dangerous guy?
I mean, she literally dated, got engaged to, got married, had kids with a very dangerous guy.
Yeah.
No, thank you.
I've been to therapy twice and this is the third time I'm in therapy and no one's been able to help me unburden myself of that, so thank you so much.
I mean, this is really one of the most tragic things about this kind of childhood, my friend, is that you did the best you could.
You took the best option available.
And that's just awful.
But I hope that that helps.
And listen, your soul, your silver, perfect adamantine, titanium, whatever you want to call it, your soul, your essence, is beyond the reach of evildoers.
Don't let them take you over.
Don't let them possess you.
Don't let them stamp you.
Don't let them define you.
Ever.
Ever!
They're just shitty people doing god-awful evil things to innocent children.
But you don't let evildoers define who you are.
You take pride in surviving.
You hate that it happened.
You recognize it as evil and you recognize yourself as somebody who had to helplessly navigate through a whole series of absolutely shitty choices.
And there were no good choices.
You survived.
I think of it myself, I don't mean to use an overly African analogy here, I'm not trying to pander, but I think of, like, okay, so I think of it with regards to myself, and maybe this is helpful for you too, okay, like I was just a wounded baby zebra, right?
I was a wounded baby zebra, and I got attacked by a lion, right?
Right.
Does that mean that I'm somehow a failure as a zebra, or corrupted as a zebra, or I am...
I have to hate myself now, or I should have done better, I shouldn't have been over near that patch, I shouldn't have gone to that pond to get a drink!
Because that's the lion's- No!
Oh, I'm so stupid!
I can't believe I let that happen to me!
It's just a predator-prey relationship, it doesn't define you.
It doesn't define you.
You... You... Survived.
Survived.
I mean, you outran a lion in a way.
Holy crap!
Medal of Honor time, isn't it?
Not shame!
Shame!
The shame is in the evildoers and those who fail to protect you, not you!
Yeah.
But you think there's something wrong with you because you were targeted.
Nope!
Nothing wrong with you.
Everything was wrong in those who were supposed to protect you, right?
You know that the mother zebra never lets the baby zebra go out on its own, right?
Always keeps herself or they keep the baby zebras in the center of the herd and stuff like that.
So, if the mother zebra is negligent and the baby zebra is isolated for whatever reason, whose fault is it if the baby zebra gets attacked?
It's the parents.
Yeah, it's the tribes!
It's the herds.
The whole purpose of the herd is to protect the baby zebras and to keep the hooves of the adult between the baby zebras and the predators.
And the baby zebra doesn't even know that there are predators.
The way the baby zebras are supposed to discover predators is they see the parents fighting the predators.
Running, like, they kick like crazy, like the lions.
A very big risk for a lion to attack a zebra, because, like, one flying hoof, it breaks the lion's jaw, and then the lion dies of starvation, right?
Can't hunt, can't chew, can't swallow.
So, the baby zebra's not supposed to learn about predators by getting its ass chewed on.
The baby zebra's supposed to learn about predators by running, surrounded by the adults who are protecting her.
So, unfortunately, you were left out in the cold, you were isolated, your parent zebras were fighting and drunk and screaming and beating and all of that, and yeah, the predator was like, oh, here's an unattended zebra?
Fantastic.
But for the zebra to blame itself, again, I don't mean to overly milk the analogy, but my gosh, for the baby zebra to sit there for the rest of its life and say, oh my god, I'm so ashamed!
What are you supposed to do at that age against a predator five times your size?
What's the baby zebra supposed to do?
Yeah, listen, you got bitten.
I get that.
But you got out.
You got away.
You survived.
You should look upon that with pride and be angry at the parents and the community and the society that failed to protect you.
Yeah.
It's their shame.
You understand?
It's their shame.
There's no shame to the baby zebra.
There's no shame to the kids who are victims.
The shame is entirely upon the society as a whole.
And all the people who came before.
You know, most pedophiles have hundreds of victims.
And society, what's happening?
What are they doing about it?
Oh it's illegal but what it's like 2% ever get convicted?
Yeah.
It's not a priority.
So I just I don't want you to be defined by being unprotected.
You had no capacity to handle this situation.
And I'm absolutely, I'm personally entirely positive.
And my positivity doesn't mean that much, obviously, but I'm just telling you, I am personally positive that you, I mean, you were an intelligent kid as well as an intelligent young woman.
You evaluated your options and you very sadly took the best choice available.
I'm sure you tried to avoid the guy, I'm sure you tried to stay with other kids, I'm sure you tried not to be alone.
You only had certain control over that.
But telling violent parents that you're being preyed upon?
I'm gonna run to some other lions to protect me from a lion!
I don't see how that's gonna work.
Yeah.
I appreciate that, Seth.
Thank you so much.
I think I've already got so much from the call already.
Right.
Look, the only effect that this guy has on your mind is your perspective on the situation.
Right?
He's decades in the past.
He's probably dead now.
God, I hope so.
I hope it was painful.
But the only effect that he has on your mind... Listen, that's physiological stuff, like when you get the pap smears and so on, that's physiological stuff the body remembers and so on.
But the only effect he has on your sense of self is your perspective on it.
And if your perspective is, oh, I should have done something... Well, you did do something, you made a choice.
And when you go back and review... Like... I'm...
Half a decade older than when this happened to you as a kid, and I'm not the dumbest guy on the planet, and I can't think of anything better you could have done.
Yeah.
You actually took the least shame route possible.
Because, again, if you'd done and he'd retaliated against your family, or you, or
Something like that, then you would have felt even worse, even more shame.
Not only is there the shame of being abused, but then what the abuser or one of his creepy friends did to my family, my brother, my mother, my father.
Right?
I mean, these are the kind of people, honestly, like they'll set fire to the apartment building.
And then you sit there wondering, oh my gosh, eight people roasted to death and was that me?
And oh gosh, you know, and that's just a hole with no bottom then there, right?
Yeah.
And a guy who's a child molester who's facing prison will absolutely go to murder.
Right?
Yeah.
Because he's facing, probably getting murdered in prison, right?
Yeah, he's got little to lose.
Yeah, he's got little to lose.
And if, whoops, an accident happens to the kid who's the only witness, who's the only testifier, right?
Whoops, something happens to that kid!
An evil adult is far better versed at doing evil than a little kid is at fighting it.
I mean, it's like going up against a tennis pro when it's your first time holding the racket and saying, I'm so ashamed I lost!
You gotta drop that weight, you gotta drop that load, you don't let the evildoer define you.
Or, what is it, damaged goods, is that the phrase?
Yeah.
That he damaged you in some permanent way.
No.
You were in a terrible situation caused entirely by your family, your environment, the culture, legal system.
And this guy obviously had gone through probably a hundred victims before you.
None of which had resulted in him going to prison or being beaten up or being killed or something like that.
Right?
So he's got, he's done this a hundred times before and he's an adult and you're a little kid.
That's the first time this happening.
My gosh.
How could you win?
He knows who to choose.
He wasn't choosing you as an individual.
Because, oh, why did he target me?
What did I do?
No, he didn't target you.
He targeted the absence of your parents.
He didn't target you.
He targeted that you were unprotected.
That's like the baby zebra who's all alone, looks up, wait, where's the herd gone?
And then it gets jumped on by the lions.
It's like, oh, the lion chose me.
There's something wrong with me.
No!
The lion chose the absence of the herd.
The absence of the protectors.
It doesn't have anything... It's not personal to you.
Oh, I hate that baby zebra.
Man, I'm going to wait till that baby zebra... No!
It's like, oh, there's a baby zebra with no parents around.
Right?
It's not personal to you.
I mean, they'll maybe say, or maybe you think, or whatever.
Like, my mum didn't hit me because she didn't like me.
It wasn't personal.
Do you think that if she'd had some other kids, she'd have been a great mum?
No!
It's anybody with a pulse in the vicinity who can't get away.
Yeah.
So, I'm sorry to be spending so long on this.
Hopefully it's helpful, but I just really, really want you to grind this deep into your heart of hearts.
No, yeah.
I think you might have just saved me.
I'm still obviously going to keep going to therapy, but I think you've saved me some sessions.
Good, good.
Okay, so thank you so much.
And I don't want to overly pause on your kidhood, but yeah, I mean, it's really shitty that you were unprotected, that the herd left you alone and in the company of predators and so on, but it wasn't personal to you and it sure as hell does not.
Define you at all, other than as a heroic survivor.
You.
I mean, if you get separated in a war from your parents and you make it through enemy lines and so on and, you know, maybe you fall and scrape your knee or bang your elbow or get a terrible bruise on your head or something like that, you wouldn't sit there and say, oh, I'm so ashamed.
No, you...
You made it through enemy lines and came out in one piece.
You didn't get killed by the pedophile.
You didn't end up in some incredibly dangerous situation of infinite blowback.
You chose probably the path of minimum shame.
Shame.
Yeah.
All who are unprotected as children get preyed on.
All who are unprotected as children get preyed on.
Those guys in the woods when I was 12?
Do you think it's an accident that both myself and my friend had no fathers?
That we were both the children of single mothers?
And while I was not an only child, my brother was gone for years at this point in my life.
Do you think that those young men in the forest
Do you think they thought for a moment we had protectors, that we had older males who would fight for us?
No, because then they wouldn't have approached you.
Yeah, or they would have, you know, they would have the body language, the this, that, the other, right?
Yeah.
The nervousness in our eyes, the uncertainty, the tentativeness, the whatever, right?
They knew, they knew exactly.
Ah, here's two, here's two little boys.
Without any protectors.
And, you know, you go to moms and say, I was bullied and they just freak out, right?
Don't really do much useful stuff as a whole.
So, yeah, it wasn't personal to me.
The reason that I was bullied on that day was because my father left.
We can't do much from Africa.
Hey, my father was in Africa at that time.
Isn't that a kind of weird coincidence, right?
Yeah.
So, yeah, it wasn't personal.
Oh, there's something wrong with these kids.
There's something wrong with me.
Why did they pick me?
Well, they picked me and my friend because we were effectively single sons of single mothers.
There's no protection, right?
Oh, but I should have and I should have.
It's like, no, no, no.
If there was any possibility of me doing anything better, I wouldn't have been targeted.
If there was any possibility of you doing anything better, you wouldn't have been targeted.
It's on your family, not on you.
Yeah.
All right.
So, hopefully that helps a little.
I just really wanted to make sure that the shame stuff is like, be gone!
Shame!
We need some sort of ritual, some sort of burning thing.
Yeah, I think it's worked.
I feel much lighter now and much less resistance, actually, from when I started off at the beginning.
Good.
Well, you know, it's funny because shame is kind of like a fungus.
And look, there are times when shame is appropriate and we've done something wrong, but it certainly shouldn't be long lasting.
Because for me, if I feel ashamed of something, okay, I'll either go and apologize or I'll just let it go.
I don't know, I just say, oh, let it go, like it's easy.
But if you leave shame unattended, like shame is there to make you do something.
I'm ashamed of what I did, so I'm gonna go and apologize, right?
And if I go and apologize, then I have to, okay, well, the shame did what?
I'm supposed to do, so you've got to move on.
But if there's nothing I can do about it, and of course there's nothing you can do about what happened to you decades ago, then shame, it can easily become this kind of self-perpetuating fungus, like sort of black mold in the walls, and it's like, okay, this is just, like, nothing I can do, right?
It's nothing I can do.
Shame needs to be evicted.
If it can't be acted upon, it just becomes toxic.
So, okay.
All right, so, did you want to talk about how things went for you as
A teenager, I know we kind of skipped from early, I guess, 10 to 12 to, you mentioned at 19 you talked to your mother, but do you want to talk about your teenage years at all?
Yeah, so, as I said, we lived with my dad and stepmother.
After my mother was kicked out, she got sent abroad by her family, and we reunited with her when I was 12.
And because I'd got into this pseudo-mother type relationship,
Living with our stepmother, because she was pretty much a stereotypical stepmother.
She was violent and physically... Sorry, she was emotionally and physically abusive.
And so I always wanted to come and live with my mother, and that dream came true, but my bubble burst as soon as, you know, I got to... I think I instinctually just knew, oh,
No, she's a single mother in a foreign country with no support system.
So I'm not going to get to return to being a child again.
I'm just forever going to be a pseudo mother with all these responsibilities.
Oh dear.
Oh dear.
I'm afraid the mother halo just got unpacked and I just have to put on my sunglasses and squint.
I came to my mother, who was a noble, struggling single mother, and she did bad things, but she had no support system, and she was vulnerable, and it was in a new country, and trying to adapt, right?
Oh my gosh, did the excuses come out when mom came around!
Yeah.
Yeah, I viewed her as a victim for a very, very long time.
Well, you portrayed her that way in this conversation, and I just wanted to point that out.
Maybe if you've moved past that, but that's how you presented her.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So, was that the requirement to be in your mother's shoes, that you just had to portray her as a victim?
Yeah, that's what she wanted, and we fought a lot over my entire teenage years.
It was the main reason I couldn't wait to leave home as soon as I could when I was 18.
And what was her victim story?
I don't get a strong sense of your mother yet, so would you just pretend like I was on the phone with her and she was telling me her tale of woe and victimhood?
What would she say?
Yeah, so your father
Um, broke our vows.
He broke our marriage vows.
Um, and his family, I went to them for help and you know, they never tried to help.
They were always against me.
Um, especially, um, my brother, my uncle's wife.
So she, she even threw our bed out and did some black magic stuff on it.
I'm sorry, I didn't want to just blow past the voodoo bedspread scenario.
So what was that?
So at the family home in the village where the tribe is from, my dad's brother, so my uncle, his wife apparently, took the bed out and
So my mum and dad's bed after they'd just been married, they had a section on that family plot and she took the bed out and I'm not sure exactly what she did this because this is my mother's story.
But from their perspective, the marriage bed is not meant to be touched by outsiders.
And that the fact that it was touched and I guess desecrated in a way was like a curse on the marriage from the beginning.
Oh, so the reason there was a voodoo curse on the marriage because somebody else touched the marriage bed?
Yeah, so that spread into, as well, the stepmum, because my dad's alcoholism basically died down as soon as my mum was out of the house.
She was saying something about my stepmum, you know, boiling her underwear in my dad's soup to make him more attracted to her.
I'm sorry to be so Anglo-Saxon.
What's with the boy in the underwear?
Could you step me through that a little?
I don't know either, Stan.
Really?
I'm actually kind of glad that you don't know.
Actually, I was afraid that you would know, and then some voodoo would land on me.
These are the stories I've just been subjected to my whole life.
Yeah, but it's a strong belief back in our country of origin.
Yeah, I don't know.
She got herbs from a witch doctor or something and boiled her underwear in my dad's soup and it made him drunk and crazy when he was around my mum.
And when my mum finally got out the house, he calmed down.
So that's why my mum believes that- I'm sorry, I don't mean to get all Gordon Ramsay on you, but are you kidding me?
Are you saying that your mother wore underwear and then boiled it in your father's soup?
No, my stepmother.
Oh, your stepmother.
It doesn't really matter who it is in particular.
So the theory is that you wear underwear.
I guess it soaks up some of your female essence and maybe even a handful of yeast.
And then when you're making a man's soup, you put your underwear in the soup.
Apparently.
All right.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Okay.
I also wanted to point out that the, your father stuff is always kind of funny, right?
I mean, my mom used to do that same kind of stuff.
Your father, like it's somehow my choice, like I'm associated with him, it's my choice.
It's like, no, no, no, your husband, not my father, your husband, mom.
I used to say that to her.
It's not my, don't talk about my father.
First of all, he's not my father because he's in Africa and fatherhood is not something who's a sperm donor, right?
But no, your husband, and I used to push profanity.
No, don't talk about my father, it's your husband.
Oh, fine!
You know, it's just this kind of thing.
You're responsible for my husband.
It's like your father.
I don't know.
It just seems like a very common trick for single moms.
Yeah.
Yeah, she did it all the way to, I guess, when I finally stopped talking to them earlier this year.
So, yeah, it was all throughout.
That's what she's always said.
You know, are you like this because of your father?
Is this your father's stubbornness manifesting itself?
I'm sure that she could fight stubbornness with maybe some sort of bra quiche as opposed to underwear soup.
Some sort of food combined with some sort of personal item care wear or something like that.
Maybe mascara, taco or something like that.
Alright, so what happened then in your sort of mid to late teens with your family and dating and things like that?
So I tried to sneak around when I was
I think 15 or 16.
So first I was asked out by a boy who lived next door, but I broke up with him after a month because I felt guilty about lying to my mother.
And then a boy at school asked me out and I
Was using my siblings as cover.
So basically like we're going to the cinema.
So I'm taking my siblings to the cinema.
So my siblings were basically kind of like chaperones on the date.
And yeah, but again, after a month I broke that off because I just couldn't handle the emotions and having to go around her back and lie about what I was doing.
And what was your concern with your mother?
What was your fear?
What would your mother do if she found out?
So there's like a joke in African families about, you know, when you're not an adult, they say, just focus on your studies, especially if you're a girl, don't date anyone because it will distract you.
It will ruin your future.
You know, you could end up having sex and get pregnant.
And then almost as soon as you enter university, they're like, are you dating anyone?
When are you getting married?
That sort of thing.
Like as if it's meant to happen overnight.
So my worry was obviously we'd get, we already... I'm a little, I guess maybe there's a logic here that I'm somewhat not familiar with, but, um,
Is it around the fertility and the pregnancy?
Because your mother seemed very blasé about you being sexually assaulted as a child.
So the idea that you... I have to hide dating as a teenager when your mother's like, yeah, kids get raped, whatever, who cares, no biggie, right?
So I'm sort of trying to follow why there'd be this giant paranoia about you dating when you getting sexually assaulted as a kid was apparently no biggie.
I guess it was so drummed into me, but it was probably mostly like a power or control thing.
That's the best I've been able to come up with.
I don't think it's just because of how illogical it is to jump from, you know, I'm pre-18, I'm not 18 yet, so I'm not allowed to date.
But as soon as I'm at university, oh, you should be meeting your partner here and getting ready to get married.
I just couldn't ever understand that logic.
Right.
Okay.
And did your mother date again?
Did she get remarried or have longer relationships?
Yeah.
So, um, well, again, this was all when I was 15.
Um, she got engaged and, um, she had no boundaries the entirety of my teenage years.
Um, so I, this is how I know a lot of things like about the underwear stories and stuff.
Um, so she confessed that.
She'd had a miscarriage because they were trying to have a baby, her and her fiance.
I didn't particularly like him.
No particular reason, like he hadn't done anything wrong.
It was just at this point, my instincts were just my instincts.
And yeah, so I begged her not to have a child and we got into a fight because
I'm too young to be talking to adults the way I was.
I don't know anything.
But you're old enough to hear about your father's miscarriage with her boyfriend.
OK.
Yeah.
Yeah.
She would also lament about how she was torn away from her last born.
So this is my brother, Jerry, at the time, because he was still a toddler when she left.
And was your mother working at this point, or how was she getting by?
So yeah, she did between two to three jobs at a time.
And that, I guess, calmed down whenever she had someone to give her money.
So, I think when she was dating this guy, the fiancé, she was down to maybe two or one job.
Because he was helping, he moved in with us, he was staying with us.
And yeah, so we got into that fight because I was begging her not to have another child, because I also knew if that relationship didn't last, which I had a strong suspicion that it wouldn't, I would be responsible for helping her to raise that child, or looking after that child.
Right.
Sorry, go ahead.
So my brother,
Tom, so again not his real name, so our youngest sibling was born when I was 17 and my mother had broken up with his father at this point when he was born.
They broke up when she was four months pregnant because they got into a fight on the street and he hit her in public.
So she hadn't learned a damn thing from being beaten up by your dad?
No, not a single thing.
So she likes violent guys, right?
She's attracted to violent guys?
Yeah.
Right.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah, not quite the victim she portrays, I suppose.
No, no, definitely not.
So, at 17, I was in college, so I think that's the equivalent.
I'm so sorry, sorry.
How old were you when your mother was pregnant?
Um, 16.
So she broke up with the guy and she had the baby, I assume?
Yes.
Okay.
So she had the baby.
I mean, is he paying child support or how did she survive with the baby?
It's kind of tough to have two or three jobs when you have a baby.
Um, so yeah, she was working.
Um, I think she took on another job, so she was working two, three jobs again.
So I was obviously helping looking after my siblings still.
Um, they got into an agreement, I guess she didn't want to take him to court for child support, but yeah, they agreed to share custody and he would provide whatever he could, whenever he could.
And.
Oh, so she handed over a baby to a guy who beat her up in public.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think from the age of about three, he would go back and forth between the homes.
Okay.
All right.
OK, so 17 or so, 18, you head to college, is that right?
So I head to university at 18.
Oh, I forgot to say that at this time, obviously, because she's low on money because she's now got a new baby and the dad's not around and he's not providing consistent money, which that's her choice because she didn't take him to court.
I remember she brought a random stranger, a man, home and she said he's promised to give her 15k and while we were in the living room the guy kept looking at me and so she noticed this and pulled me aside and said just smile and flirt and he'll give us money.
Oh no!
Please don't tell me your mom was trafficking you for 15k?
Yeah.
Oh my God!
Oh, Gabriel, blow the trumpets!
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
And this is like a horrible, horrible trope with regards to some single mothers, right?
That just, yeah, if you want my kid, yeah, just, just pay me the money.
I'll look the other way.
Yeah.
Oh God.
So I said no.
How old were you then?
Um, 17.
So this is just before I went to university.
I went off to university before I went off to university.
So the idea was that the creep gives your mom $15,000 and then, what, he gets to date you?
That's the exchange?
Um, no, she just said to me that if you just smile and be friendly and flirt, he's gonna give me $15,000.
Well, no, guys don't give $15,000 for a smile and a flirt.
Yeah, that's what she said to me.
Right.
So this was just step by step, right?
Selling you off.
Yeah.
Gosh.
Well, I, and now here's something you should be enormously proud of, right?
You certainly said no to that shit, right?
Yeah.
So, um, I couldn't leave the room because if I threw a strop, um, I'd get punished for it later, especially if he ended up not giving her anything.
Sorry, just for those who don't know, through a strop is getting very angry or it's kind of like almost petty, like having a temper tantrum or something like that?
Yeah.
Okay.
So you left that situation and then did you go away for uni?
No, so with this situation, with that guy, I just sat in the living room and just put on what I call the RBF.
I think you might know the term, the resting bitch face.
Yes, I had to do that all the time when I used to go to the gym just so I wouldn't get swarmed.
No, I'm kidding.
Yeah, I've heard of it, and I've been on the receiving end of that from time to time, and it's quite a chilly blast to the nads.
So, okay, so yeah, you were basically saying, this ain't happening, you pimp creep.
Yeah, so she didn't yell at me after he left, so I assumed she got something.
I don't know if it was the 15k or not.
I never asked.
And then, yeah, at 18, I went off to university.
I thought I'd feel relieved, but it was more sad because I hadn't chosen the course.
I didn't want to go to university.
The only reason university was a thought in my mind was that was my escape, my way to escape from the house and depending on her.
Right.
And then.
Plus you don't want to wake up in some windowless van on the way to Tijuana because someone gave your mom 20K.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, yeah, I was just really tired and I wanted a break and I thought uni, going to uni would be it, but it proved to be more stressful as well in that because of our immigration situation at the time.
I still couldn't afford to apply for enough financial support so they only provided I guess the tuition and the maintenance for the university accommodation but everything else I still had to depend on my mum for.
It never occurred to me that I could get a part-time job so I still can't remember maybe if the immigration situation would have put a hole in that as well but
I ended up just falling into a deep depression.
And that was when I first sought counselling.
And I just talked and it wasn't very helpful.
And one day, my brother Ben, so he was dating at this time, he came to visit me at university with his girlfriend and she'd been raised in this religion.
And they talked to me about it and it sounded really interesting.
So I listened and I went, oh this sounds so different to all the churches that we were forced to go to.
And after they left, I went online, I looked up their organisation, I filled in a form and requested a couple of people from that religion to come and visit me at university.
They came and talked to me and
I didn't realise at this point, obviously, I was being love-bombed the more I was exposed to that organisation.
But that is how I ended up quitting university and joining a cult.
I didn't know it was a cult at the time.
Gosh, we did kind of shift from religion to cult, right?
Yeah.
Alright, yeah, we don't have to get into any details.
So, what were you taking in university?
I went to do biomedical science.
Oh, wow.
OK.
And you're saying that that wasn't a particular interest of yours?
No, so my parents had dreams.
Well, not just my parents, the whole family, extended family, because everyone gets a say in your life.
They had dreams.
So I was supposed to become a doctor.
Ben, my brother after me, was supposed to become a pilot.
And Jerry was supposed to become an architect.
Right.
Those are the dreams.
So it's that again, African family is, I think they say, lawyer, engineer or doctor or family disappointment.
Those are your options.
Right.
Yeah.
A little bit of an Asian thing going on there.
Right.
Yeah.
No, I remember, I remember some years ago I talked to a young black man who wanted to pursue medicine.
But he was so eloquent that his community was like, no, no, no, you have to go into politics and get goodies for the community!
Like, okay, excellent.
Excellent.
All right.
Okay, so did you leave university before your first year?
Or before the end of it?
No, I finished my first year.
I left before the end of my second year, so I was 19 at the time.
And how were you doing?
And depression can make it pretty hard to study and retain.
How were you doing in the coursework as a whole?
Not very well.
So I think I just ended up, there was one exam that I, that's still particularly vivid in my mind.
I just had a full on panic attack and I froze and I ran out.
Oh, you ran out of the exam?
And was this your first panic attack or had you had them before?
No, that was my first panic attack.
Yeah, I made a new friend with horror.
Right.
Yeah, that's that's always exciting, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, so.
Yeah, I think I got I didn't completely fail, so I think I got mostly C's, so I was just passing, I just managed to pass and get the credits.
But barely.
So then you left and then you were you full time with this religion?
Is that is that how it went?
In a sense, yeah.
So I tried to find a job, which wasn't easy, not having qualifications and never having worked in my life.
So.
And at this point as well, just to say that our immigration status was constantly shifting and we were on our way to getting
Permanent resident, so I could get a job, but it just took longer than I thought to get it, so I think it took me about two years.
But the cult was quite supportive, so I moved in with an older lady who was in that congregation, in the local congregation there.
She had some spare rooms, she owned a house, and so everything was subsidized, rent, bills.
Yeah, so I mostly only had to pay a little bit, including for my food.
For the most part, people were quite helpful in knowing my story and the circumstances.
Did you have to recruit or did you do things in return for this support from this organisation?
Yes, so it's probably who you are thinking of.
They go knocking on people's doors on the weekends or during the week.
Um, that's what I dedicated my life to.
Well, my early twenties to pretty much.
Okay.
And then what happened?
Um, so at, I think I was 24, so I was still in the cult at 24 and I was on reasonably amicable
terms with my mum so we would talk I just knew that we couldn't be in each other's vicinity for more than three days without yeah stuff going really bad so I tried to always keep it short and she suggested that we should go back at this point now we had got our immigration sorted so she suggested we should go back and visit the family back in our country of origin.
I was nervous about it but
I was also curious.
I wanted to go back.
It'd been, I think, about 10 years at this point.
So it was me, Jerry, Tom and my mother that flew back to visit.
They were obviously not happy and had continuously been trying to get me out of the cult and back to university to finish my studies.
And I'd arranged to obviously
still be connected to the congregation that was there in our country of origin.
So I'd had the congregation here, liaised with the congregation there.
So I was going, which made my mother's brother, who's the family patriarch, very, very angry.
And so everyone was pretty much constantly on my case while we were there about it.
And one day I remember coming from a meeting and he wasn't
He wasn't there for, I was expecting a lecture or something and he wasn't there.
And I asked my aunts where he was and they said he's gone to the country club.
And I thought nothing of it, but yeah, he returned pretty drunk, yelling out my name, asking for me to come out of my room.
And I did.
And yeah, he just launched into me and he was spitting on me, yelling at me about my life choices.
And I just remember all my aunts, because their room door was open, they just sat there, didn't say anything.
And it was my brother Jerry who had to come out of his room to basically separate my uncle from me and try and basically mediate the whole situation.
And then they turned on him as well, started complaining because he was, I think, 21 at the time and they
I have this thing about, you know, young people just can't talk a certain way or have certain conversations with older people.
So yeah, so yeah, Gerry also became persona non grata in a way.
And yeah, I couldn't wait to leave.
We left and I came back and I was, it felt like I'd overcome something huge and everyone in the congregation was, you know, congratulating me because, yeah, I survived.
But then there was a lot of things that were happening within my friend group and it just started to make me realise that I was an occult, start to see things for what they were.
And that then triggered another bout of depression.
And then I think I attempted suicide at this point when I was 26.
And all they had to say to me for the most part was pray about it.
When I said I was considering going to counselling again to get therapy, they said, you know, just be mindful.
You know, they would never tell you outright, don't do this, don't do that.
It was, but it was always like strongly hinted in a way that you shouldn't do certain things.
So they would, you know, when I suggested that I wanted to go to therapy because I was feeling really, really on the verge of doing something stupid.
Yeah, they were like,
Pray about it.
You know, you just have to pray harder.
Be careful of secular advice because they could lead you away from the truth.
So I tried to take some strong painkillers that I was using at the time for really bad periods.
I tried to overdose on them and I didn't die as I'd hoped.
So I woke up the next day with a really bad stomach ache and
Just throwing up a lot.
But I also had this almost conviction that it was a sign that I had to just get out, do something about it.
So at this time as well, I was kind of easing my way out because I couldn't just leave because I was worried that given everything had been subsidised for me up to that point, it was not
immediately possible for me to get my own place.
I had to save up so I, you know, got a full-time job, made an excuse about why I couldn't fully give more time to the organisation.
So I got a full-time job and I was saving up.
My main worry was if I just left having to end up moving back with my mum and I didn't want to do that.
So after my failed suicide attempt I immediately called
The NHS helpline and they put me in touch with the counsellor.
So I did cognitive behavioural therapy for about a year and that was really helpful.
So I'm missing something.
So my siblings as well were quite supportive during this time.
So this was actually the point at which my brother Jerry introduced me to you and your show.
Because I was struggling to read, which was a hobby of mine.
So he introduced me to audiobooks and podcasts and then my brother Ben suggested I get off the pill as well and antidepressants because he'd done sports science at college and suspected that obviously they were not helping me at all in terms of my mood and said just join the gym, stop taking those things and get on some supplements instead.
So I did a combination of all those things and
Yeah, I started to feel better, but people in the cult were not really happy.
So that's also another thing that I realized that they weren't after my best interests.
Yeah, it's nothing more revealing sometimes than getting happy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I mentioned what I was trying to do to Ben.
He got married at this point and was living outside the city.
And I mentioned it to him that I was worried about
Having to move back in with my mum and they had a spare bedroom where they were living.
So they said, you can come and live with us while you keep saving.
We won't charge you any rent and bills.
You just have to pay your own food.
And then once you've got enough money for a deposit, you can move out.
And that's what I did.
So I moved in with Ben and his wife for about nine months.
I moved out, you know, I saved everything I could and
I wanted to move out as soon as possible.
And I managed to do that in nine months while I was living with them.
So I got my own place for the first time at 27.
While living with them, I realised obviously that everything wasn't as peachy as it seemed on their end either.
So Ben and his wife were addicted to marijuana, to weed at the time.
He was quote-unquote self-employed, but I later found out that he wasn't making his money legally.
He wasn't selling drugs or anything.
He just was committing fraud, basically.
So I moved out and slowly, slowly things started to improve for me.
I managed to get a corporate job.
I'm still renting because I've
Never really wanted to buy my own place yet, but not because I can't afford it.
Well, probably now I can't.
Sorry, I think I'm fogging a bit.
I'm living on my own.
I have, I guess, a strong bond with Ben and his wife.
You know, I see my siblings from time to time.
They come and visit.
They can stay with me.
I have a corporate job.
I'm paying all my bills.
I'm happy.
I got a car and everything.
And then I think last year I start to have clashes with Ben just over noticing certain contradictions in his beliefs and
Values.
So as I said, I've been listening to your show on and off.
So it was on and off back then, but it increased significantly this year.
So I became a subscriber properly this year and that was after Jerry came to visit and he was the first person that spoke to me.
So honestly, without any, how should I say,
I didn't feel there was selfish intent in his request for me to consider.
Yeah, no manipulation, no agenda, all that kind of stuff.
Yeah.
Um, everyone else who talked to me about this topic of the fact that I, I made this vow to myself that I didn't want to get married and have children, always had some intention, usually family members.
Um, and after my experience with family, I just, yeah, I didn't want it.
Jerry obviously came and spoke to me in earnest and I took it to heart and I was very keen to get to the bottom of it and figure things out before it was too late with eggs and whatnot.
So yeah, I subscribed to your show and I binged as much as I could on philosophy and I ended up figuring out that the reason
So even though I knew that in part it was a way to almost punish my parents by not making them grandkids, that didn't make me want to get married and have kids.
So I thought that's not deep enough.
I need to dig deeper.
I was still searching for a therapist that I could trust at this point.
So I was obviously mostly relying on your shows and the call-ins and then I
Figured out after countless conversations with Ben and pushing back on contradictions and having conversations about our childhood where he would defend our parents and say that I'm just being a victim.
I realised that
I basically back-engineered the process, in a way, I think, so I asked myself, well, what happens if I meet a quality mate, so a bit like you do on the show, what happens if you meet a quality mate who's virtuous?
Well, they're going to come and have a look at my family, and I'm still in touch with them, and what are they going to say?
Well, and also more importantly, what are they going to feel about their children being raised under the influence of
You know, people like Underwear Boiler Lady.
Yeah, well, Underwear Boiler Lady died many, many years ago.
Ah, OK.
Which was another thing I got into a fight with my mum about because I don't know why, but I cried.
Maybe it's just the first time that someone I actually knew and spent time with had passed away.
But she got jealous of it.
And yeah, she went to me for it.
She got jealous of what?
My stepmother.
So that's the one who boiled the underwear and she passed away some years ago.
No, I get that.
But what was your mother jealous of?
Because I was crying for my stepmother.
Oh, I see.
Okay.
Got it.
All right.
So you had the revelation about sort of quality guy and your family and all that kind of stuff and your siblings maybe.
Uh, and what happened then?
Yeah.
So I realized that
I would be put in a tough position because the sibling that he would fight the most was the one who I considered the closest to me, which was Ben.
So he would, well, not fight, obviously, but get into disagreements with, and he was quite... brusque is the word I would say.
And now, sorry, was Ben the pot smoking fraud guy?
Yeah, so he'd quit smoking weed at this point, but he'd got into things like Red Pill.
He's... yeah.
He's always very... What about the criminal fraud stuff?
Alright, so he's got what we call the gift of the gab, so he was able to talk the taxman into
Some kind of deal, so he's paying everything back slowly, I believe.
Well, but that's the taxes, but what about the people he defrauded?
Oh no, so he didn't defraud actual people, it was the actual... Oh, he didn't pay taxes, is that right?
So I think that what he did was claim back more than he was...
He claimed back too much, basically.
So he managed to somehow figure out a way to get the tax people to give him more rebates than he was due, and they caught on to it.
Okay, got it, got it.
Alright.
And so, when did you get the revelation about sort of family of origin and effects on dating and so on?
I think this year, I'd say.
Like, quite fully understood it.
Okay.
And this has not... I'm sorry, I know we last talked about you sort of dating with the two boys that you broke off after a month.
In your teens, what's happened since?
Nothing.
I knew that I didn't want to get married or have kids, but I'm also not the type to go and sleep around.
I guess I'm...
Beliefs are very much conservative in that way.
So, yeah, I was kind of a nun without actually being in a nunnery.
Right.
OK.
OK.
And you're in your thirties now, is that right?
My early thirties.
Early thirties.
OK.
Got it.
Got it.
And other than the two boys when you were in your teens, you haven't had a relationship, is that right?
No.
OK.
Got it.
Right.
And is there anything else that you wanted to mention before we move to the next part?
I don't know if it's relevant, but I'm talking to someone right now in the community.
I guess we are kind of dating, but yeah, it's long distance.
So yeah, I don't know if that's relevant or not.
I mean, I think it's a good thing, I suppose.
As far as you've solved the, you know, I want to punish my parents by not giving them grandkids and, you know, issues with the family of origin and dating and so on to try and find a quality guy.
Is there anything else that you think of as a barrier to you sort of moving forward or settling down, getting married, having kids and so on?
Yeah, so my concern is having children
Or getting married and, I guess, realizing maybe I just wanted to work all my life.
I don't know.
Well, now that's our first serious Vogue bang.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I've spent so much time, I guess, just satisfying everyone else's needs and stuff.
And, um,
Now that I've obviously realised that I made that decision because I didn't want to face the reality of my family, and that I actually do want to have my own family, my concerns are releasing myself from this overly self-reliant version of myself.
So, tell me what you mean about serving everyone else's needs?
So, it was a family
Where I just spent most of my time, if I truly expressed myself, my thoughts and my feelings, I was punished in some way, shape or form.
If I didn't express my thoughts and feelings because I didn't want to get into confrontations or arguments, I was punished in some way, shape or form.
Okay, so it's really more self-erasing than serving other people's needs.
Like, when I think of serving other people's needs, it's like, you know, my father wants this, so I went over and did it.
My mother wants that, so I went over and, you know, weeded her garden or whatever, right?
But it's more around the price of being in a, quote, relationship with your family of origin, particularly your parents it seems, is that you just have to falsify or negate your thoughts and feelings, is that right?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, got it.
And the status, you said, I think you said that you stopped talking to your parents, did I get that right?
Yeah, yeah, I stopped talking to my father much earlier because, yeah, I just got the impression that he had this expectation that we were always meant to make the effort into keeping in touch.
And then, yeah, with my mother, that blew up along with
my contact with Ben because they're expecting their first child and, yeah, they were talking about things like it's alright to hit your children, children need to learn discipline.
They convinced Tom, Tom who, you know, only four years ago was crying to me about his parents abusing him and we, you know, threatened to call social services on them and Ben was gonna go, you know, fight with
Tom's dad, if he didn't stop, but Tom was out here defending, being hit and yeah, I just, I had enough.
Well, I assume that he's simply pussy whipped, right?
I mean, wouldn't it be the case that that's what his wife wants and he's just going along with it?
Sorry, who's that?
Well, you said that one of your brothers sort of changed his mind on discipline or hitting.
No, oh right, so that's my youngest brother who's still at home.
Yeah, so I suppose for him it's that fear of standing up for them as well while he's still under their roof.
He can't really, he's not even an adult yet, so.
Right, okay, okay.
Oh yeah, yeah, okay, got it.
Right, all right.
So,
What would you say is the core sentence in your mind that is preventing you from getting married, being happy about it, trusting the process, becoming a mom, being happy about it, trusting yourself in that process?
What do you think is the big sentence in your mind that's sort of spinning around that's in the way of that?
What if
I decide wrong.
What if I end up like my mum?
What if I have to leave my kids behind as well?
Yeah.
Okay.
So, that's a question, but usually a question is something we want to explore.
A statement is where we stop exploring.
You know, when you say, I wonder what the answer is, you go and look it up.
If you're like, well, I already know the answer, then that has more impact on our lives, because we're not in a state of curiosity.
So, I assume that there's some statement in your mind, not a what if, but it is, or it will be.
Oh, right.
I'm not sure.
What is the relationship that you've had that you would characterize as containing the maximum amount of trust?
I don't think I've ever given anyone 100% trust.
All right.
I'm not sure what a hundred percent trust is.
What number have we gotten to?
I say the royal we third person.
What number have you gotten to in terms of trust?
What percentage?
So Jerry's in my high nineties.
Um, my sibling, the one who listens to your show.
Okay.
So if you trust him, have you asked him whether he thinks you will end up like your mom?
Yeah, we talk about these things a lot.
And what does he say?
Um, yeah, he doesn't think I will.
He's constantly commending me for things that I do that are more self-aware than she does.
Sorry to interrupt.
So if, was it Jerry or Ben?
Sorry.
Yeah, Jerry.
Jerry, yeah.
So if Jerry says, don't worry sis, you're not going to end up like mom.
But you still think you might?
Then you don't trust him.
So trust is when you don't have to check, right?
Right?
Trust is when you don't have to check.
Like if you've got someone watching your back, right?
You've got foes ahead of you and foes behind you and you're standing back to back with someone.
And you say, is the back clear?
If they say yes, would you feel the need to turn around and check?
No.
I think you would!
I think you... If I trusted them, really.
Yeah, no, yeah, so if you trusted them, right, no, but would you, at the moment, if you're like, you and I, not you and I, but you were back-to-back with someone facing danger, and you say, is the back clear?
And they say yes, would you feel the urge to check?
Yeah, yeah, um, yeah, I would.
Right.
So...
Trust is when you offload monitoring, surveillance, risk for danger.
Trust is when you get eyes in the back of your head that you trust, right?
So there's this usual thing around, I don't know, husbands and wives, right?
And the husband is doing the dishes, right?
And what does the wife feel the urge to do?
When he's stacking the dishes, what does she feel the urge to do?
To do it herself.
Well, she feels the urge to check.
Has he done it?
Has he done a good job?
Has he done it properly?
I mean, you could say the opposite thing, like the wife is changing the oil of the car and the husband wants to go out and make sure it's going okay or whatever, right?
Yeah.
So trust is when
You truly believe that what someone else is saying is the truth and it doesn't need to be checked?
I mean, you work a corporate job, right?
How valuable are people whose work you never have to check?
Very valuable.
They're massively valuable!
Yeah.
In fact, anybody whose work you have to check, in my view, just shouldn't be in the workforce.
They should be doing something else, maybe raising kids or whatever.
Because if you have to double check someone's work, it's easier to do it yourself.
So, if you were in the 90 plus percentage with your brother, with Jerry,
Well...
Right.
So, when did he say, or for how long has he said, don't worry sis, you're not going to turn into your mum?
I mean, he's not said those exact words to me.
You know, he commended me, for example, when I didn't immediately yell at Tom over the summer about something that
He'd done which in the past I probably would have in my mind.
I'm sorry, we need to back up because I thought and I'm sure it was just my misinterpretation.
I thought or my understanding was that you had talked to him about your fears of turning into your mom and he'd said that that's not going to happen.
Is it the case that you haven't mentioned to him directly these fears about turning into your mom?
Yeah, I've not said those exact words.
Okay, now let's not start nitpicking about it.
I'm not saying the exact words, because of course I couldn't reproduce how you would say it.
And this is not a criticism, I'm just curious.
If this is, you think, the biggest barrier to you settling down and being a wife and a mom, is fear of turning into your mother, why would you think that you hadn't brought it up with your 90 plus trust relationship with Gerry?
Oh no, I have.
I've brought it up and we've talked about it.
Okay, so I'm a little confused here.
So, you have brought up your worst fear about settling down with Jerry, and he's told you that you don't need to worry about it, it's not going to happen?
He's not said that I don't need to worry about it.
He's basically said, these are the steps you can take, these are the things you can do to avoid it.
And do you believe the steps that he says you can do to avoid it?
Do you believe that he's right about those steps?
Yes, but I don't believe I perhaps could implement them well enough to fully avoid it.
Well, does he know that he's giving you steps that you don't think you can follow?
No.
So, what is his, like, I mean, to take a silly example, if you said to me, Steph, you can get everything your heart desires, you just need to be 40 again and regrow your hair, right?
Would that be something that I could achieve?
No.
Well, no.
So, if somebody's giving me a task that I don't believe is possible,
Then how well does he know you if he's giving you a task that you don't think is possible and you haven't said to him, I don't know if I can do that.
I'm not sure that that's possible.
I mean, have you replied to him?
And again, this is not a right or wrong thing.
I'm just curious about the conversation.
Have you replied to him that you don't believe that you can necessarily achieve his goals or his steps about not turning into a monk?
So it's not that he's giving me things to do that are impossible.
So, like, he'll send me, for example, an episode of a show or a call-in and we'll talk about it and how that relates to our lives, my mum, and, you know, what lessons I could take from it.
I just don't necessarily, I guess, even when I listen,
I think it might just be a lack of trust in myself.
And what do you not trust in yourself?
So let's say, let's say that you get married and your husband does something that's annoying to you.
What is your worst case scenario?
How you would handle that?
Like my mom would.
Okay.
And how did your mom handle it when your dad did something she didn't like?
Basically keep talking about it.
I'm not sure what you mean, nagging, or what do you mean?
Yeah, so, you know, like, she used, like, to poke at people, so, you know, you should have done this, this wouldn't have happened if you'd done that.
Okay, so you're aware that that's a habit that your mother has that is not good, right?
Yes.
Okay.
Now, do you feel concerned that you will simply lose control over your mouth and be disembodied, like you'll be looking at yourself from the ceiling and watching this maternal puppet say these things?
Or do you think that you would be able to stop yourself from doing that?
I know I would be able to stop myself.
I've done it many, many times already.
Okay, so you have a track record of not doing what your mother does.
Yes.
And you've done it successfully, I would assume, countless times, right?
Hey, you may have even done it over the course of this conversation, I don't know, right?
But you've done it successfully a large number of times, right?
Yeah, no, that's what Jerry's constantly reminding me of.
I've done it, yeah.
Okay, so the belief is not empirical, because you've successfully resisted the temptation to do as your mother does many times, right?
Yes.
So, what do you think would happen, or what do you think would change, that you would lose this ability that you've demonstrated for many years?
I realize how irrational this is, but my husband or partner were to change.
And I know that doesn't happen overnight.
I don't care about rational or irrational, I'm just curious what you're thinking.
What do you mean he would change?
Like if I chose someone and I found out they were violent.
Because, yeah, I guess I've also seen people lie and pretend and... Oh, yeah, but that's just a maternal curse, right?
I mean, sorry to be so blunt.
Maybe that's a little... you've listened for a while.
No, please, please go on.
Please go on, I don't know what you mean.
Yeah, so your mother, what do women who choose violent men, what do they always say when somebody tries to hand them responsibility?
Oh, I didn't know that he was violent.
There was no way to know!
He was so nice!
He was so peaceful!
He was so lovely!
And then, after years and years of him being nice and peaceful and wonderful and lovely, he just changed!
He was possessed!
Right?
And you know that's a total lie, right?
I do.
Because my mother was warned by even her brothers about my father.
Yeah, so your brother said, this is a violent guy.
We know violent guys.
We're guys.
Maybe we can assess this better than you.
He's a violent guy.
He's a violent guy.
I'm sure he was violent before they got married.
I'm sure he drank excessively before they got married.
I'm sure he was verbally abusive before they got married.
So she had every single possible sign that she was marrying a violent guy.
She was warned.
She had direct experience.
No question, right?
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Right.
Now later, of course, she plays dumb, right?
Because she doesn't want to take ownership, she doesn't want to take responsibility, right?
So...
I mean, it's just a kind of funny thing, just by the by, sort of the male perspective of all of this is just kind of tragically funny, right?
Which is, well, we have absolutely no idea of the true nature of guys who are super violent and destructive and alcoholics, but man, should we ever be allowed to vote for political candidates?
It's like, wait a minute, you can't even tell who's violent and evil and destructive when they're right in front of you and you date them for years, but some guy on TV you can judge?
No, I think that women can judge, right?
It's just kind of funny.
Women, I mean, they really claim to be completely brain dead when it comes to evaluating character.
But that's just a defense, right?
So your mother has this magical cloak which she throws over her accountability called, well, I knew him for years, there was absolutely no way to know, which is a total lie.
But if you believe that lie, then you believe that an angel can successfully mask the inner devil for years and then it just comes out, you know?
Right.
So that's what I mean, like it's just a maternal curse.
Your mother's excuse has become some sort of empirical fact for you.
Your mother lying about knowing ahead of time how violent and destructive your father was, and decided to marry him and give him children, you know, the greatest gift and so on, right?
And so, yeah, your mother saying, there was no way for me to know, is putting a curse on you.
Which is, you can't ever trust a man.
You can't ever trust a man.
I don't know how that's possible to do, even knowing everything that I know.
Is it just brainwashing, then, from just constantly having to listen to that over and over again?
Oh no, no, it's not brainwashing, my gosh!
If there's one thing I would say to you, it's please dial up the self-respect!
It's not brainwashing at all!
I mean, if you're locked in some North Korean prison,
And you have to praise the Supreme Leader in order to get your slice of bread to survive.
You go and praise the Supreme Leader, right?
Right.
And you say, well, I was brainwashed.
It's like, no, you weren't.
That was the price of survival.
Right?
The price of survival, with regards to your mother, was to nod and go along with her victim narrative.
And you fought this, of course, in your teens.
And you didn't win, right?
You never got her to accept responsibility, right?
No.
You know, it's like that Matrix, the Neo thing with all the bullets flying by in slow motion.
It's not all women, but you know, some women it's like the bullets are all accountability and it's dodge, dodge, dodge, right?
So no, it's the price of survival, the price of your mother giving you food and shelter and not abandoning you.
I mean, she was willing to sell you for 15,000 quid, right?
So your mother doesn't have any particular bond with you it sounds like to me at least of course just from the amateur outside opinion doesn't sound like she's got any bond with you whatsoever so if you were to have challenged her victim narrative and trust me I've done this with a mother and so I know I don't want to confuse our two experiences maybe yours would be different but if you were to say no come on mom you were warned by your brothers he was totally it was totally obvious you chose to
How can you talk to me like that?
I'm your mother, after everything we've been through.
Okay, let's do this, right?
So then I would say, well, as your mother, isn't it important that you not lie to me?
I mean...
I was, you know, you always told me, tell the truth, right?
Tell the truth, don't lie.
So you lying and saying that you had no idea the dad was violent.
Come on.
You know how destructive that is for me, right?
Like you get to feel like maybe you weren't to blame for having a violent guy be the father of your children.
Well, and by the way, two violent guys, because then the, the kid you had when I was in my teens was also with a violent guy.
So you like the violent guys.
You prefer the violent guys.
Maybe you feel that's all you were worth.
Maybe the violence turns you on.
I don't know.
It doesn't really matter.
But just don't lie to me and tell me you're a victim.
Like, if you want my respect, you have to earn it by maybe not sacrificing my trust in men for the sake of your own pathetic defense of your own pathetically bad choices.
I don't know where you're getting all these things.
You don't sound like my daughter at all.
Oh yeah, well I'm getting these things called facts, right?
And that I know that your brother's warned you about him.
And even after you had the experience of dating a violent guy, or marrying a violent guy, having kids with a violent guy, what did you do?
You dated, and then had another kid with, oh look at that, another violent guy.
Right?
So, even though you had exposure to a violent guy for many years, you then went out and had another kid with another violent guy who beat you up in public, or hit you in public, or something like that.
So, all of this talk that you didn't know, that he just changed, it's just a lie.
And it's an incredibly destructive lie.
It comes at the expense of my heart.
It comes at my capacity to trust men.
Because if I genuinely believed you, Mom, that a guy could just be super wonderful, nice and pleasant, but then just turn into this monstrous, alcoholic, violent demon out of nowhere, you realize, because you're lying about all of that, I have a very difficult time trusting men.
Because of your lies.
And I'm just sick of it.
I'm sick of you lying about your responsibility.
You are responsible for your life.
You're responsible for choosing these violent guys.
Well, you wait until you get married and you'll see.
Get married and have your own kids and you'll see what it's like.
So what you're doing is now, rather than take any ownership for your life, is you're attempting to make me paranoid and curse me about the future.
And you're saying that all women who get married and have children end up
Being beaten up or in manipulative or screaming matches or whatever it is, right?
Well, no, I mean, there's lots of couples out there, lots of married people who don't yell at each other, who don't hit their children, who don't get beaten up by their husband.
Their husband's not an alcoholic.
So, no, this isn't everyone, mom.
This is just you.
Just you!
And you're trying to make it everyone because you'd rather screw with my head and screw with my capacity to fall in love and pair, bond and trust.
Rather than take any accountability for yourself.
Do you know how, like, pathetic and destructive that is?
I don't want to talk about this anymore.
When you've talked to me about this decade after decade, you don't get to end the conversation.
Because you've had this conversation, you've given me these thoughts and these ideas, year after year, decade after decade.
So no, you don't get to end this conversation when it's suddenly inconvenient for you.
How convenient do you think it was for me as a kid hearing all of this nonsense, these lies about your, oh, such a victim, such a victim.
No, you don't get to stop the conversation because you're the one who started the conversation and kept it going for decades.
So now that I want to talk about it, you damn well sit and listen.
I should leave and stop crying at this point.
Yeah, so I'll just, you know, I'll give you a moment to collect yourself because I get there's all this self-pity and, you know, I don't believe these crocodile tears for a moment.
But, you know, take a couple of deep breaths.
Hey, man, you know, I can get you a glass of water if you want.
You look like you might need some rehydration.
So, yeah, you know, have your little cry and take a couple of deep breaths and we'll get on with it.
See, I don't know if you remember this.
I'm sure you do, Mom.
You're crying and hyperventilating about a difficult conversation when you're the one who told me, oh, yeah, kids just get sexually assaulted and molested and raped and whatever, right?
So I was supposed to just be fine with that.
So child's rape?
Yeah, OK.
Apparently, I was supposed to be just fine with that.
But you're like hyperventilating and crying over a difficult conversation.
Again, I'm trying to hold onto a shred of respect for you, but this is all just
I don't know what's happened to you.
I'm just gonna pray for you.
I don't know how you became this way.
How can you talk to me like this?
So how can I ask you questions or hold you accountable?
You realize that I got punished as a kid because you held me accountable all the time.
So apparently when I'm 3 or 5 or 7 or 10, I'm supposed to be held accountable for lying or bad decisions.
But you, now that you're in your 50s or 60s, you're just not to be held accountable for anything, is that right?
Like accountability is just for kids who are 5, not for women who are pushing 60, right?
That's not a thing?
I'm done with this.
I don't want to talk about this anymore.
Go and live your life.
Do whatever you want.
I don't care.
Just leave.
You're a demon.
You're just out here to ruin my relationships with my sons.
Just leave.
Get out of here.
I'm done.
Okay, so if I have questions that you don't like or you find uncomfortable... No, I don't.
No, I just want to understand.
Like, I'll walk out the door.
Listen, I'm not going to bother you for more than another minute or two.
Yeah, leave.
Okay, so you would rather me leave and you're going to call me a demon because I'm holding you responsible for your life.
Yeah, yeah.
So responsibility for you.
is just Satan.
Like, any kind of accountability or responsibility is just Satan.
And anyone who tries to say you are a responsible woman, you're responsible for your life, is a demon that you just don't care about.
Is that right?
Like, you don't care about me if I have questions that make you uncomfortable.
She just closed me out at that point.
Okay, well that's a very revealing roleplay, isn't it?
Yeah.
So, I mean, do you know what the bond is for?
The bond is for when it's horrible.
That's what the bond is, right?
Like, do you need to glue your bed to the floor?
No.
No?
Why not?
Because it's got things to keep it on the floor.
Gravity.
Because gravity, yeah!
Because it's already stuck to the floor, so you don't need to glue it.
Do you know what you need to glue together is things that are going to fly apart, right?
Yeah.
Or you need to put a weight on a balloon, like a helium balloon, so it doesn't fly away, right?
So, you need the bond for when things are difficult, when the natural attraction, the natural is not there, right?
That's what the bond is for.
So, if your mother...
Like, verbally abuses you, calls you a demon, and like, I take that very seriously.
That's not just a turn of phrase.
Right?
Like, you're satanic and evil for holding her responsible, for holding her accountable, or just for being honest.
Then, she will always choose her comfort over your happiness.
She will always choose her immediate comfort over your peace of mind and security.
She will always choose her immediate happiness over your long-term future.
Yeah.
Okay, so that's what it is.
Do you remember I said, like, lying or supporting her delusions is the price of the relationship, or the pretend relationship, right?
Like, if you're honest, she'll just kick you to the curb and not even look back.
Yeah.
Okay, so there's no bond.
And listen, that's fine, that's fine.
Honestly, I hate to say that's fine, like it's sad, but it's like, okay, so if there's no bond,
Then I'm going to treat you like a stranger.
I mean, you don't have bonds with strangers, right?
I mean, if somebody knocks on your door and says, hey man, I need $50,000 and a kidney, you'd be like, well, good luck, but I don't even know you, right?
Whereas if someone you truly love and care for needs $50,000 and a kidney, I mean, you'll at least consider it, right?
And you'd probably do it.
Yes.
Right.
Right.
So, if there's no bond, then you judge her according to objective moral standards, because she's saying, we have no history.
Our history doesn't count.
We have no bond.
And therefore, I'm going to put myself in the category of people with whom I have no history.
Because the history is what's supposed to accumulate into a kind of bond, right?
Right.
You then, if there's no bond, right?
And somebody who says, like, if I walk up to some stranger, I don't know, like I'm sitting next to that stranger on the bus, right?
And I start to ask them, you know, deep probing questions about their life choices or something like that, they might be uncomfortable and they might say, listen, I don't, I'm moving to another seat.
I'm just here for a business trip.
I'm not here to be whatever, right?
Be examined in this way.
That's perfectly fair and reasonable, right?
Because I'm just some guy, right?
There's no history, right?
So he would judge me as like, okay, this is like we just met, right?
And so he would move away because we have no history, we have no bond.
Now, if I have a friend or someone and I'm asking them questions about their life or whatever, that may be a different matter because we've got a friendship.
I would sort of expect them to go along with that process, at least for a while, just as if they start asking me questions about things that I would go along with it because we have a history, there's some sort of trust, credibility built up and all of that, right?
But a stranger, if I'm sort of in their face asking them a bunch of questions, the stranger might be like, yeah, I don't, I don't really know you.
This is kind of inappropriate.
I'm not comfortable having this conversation.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if your mother is like, I don't do uncomfortable questions, then there's no bond and then that's fine.
So then you would judge her according to objective moral standards with no
History.
No loyalty.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
So then it's a dinner party question, right?
Or, I don't know, maybe a buffet question.
Because at a dinner party you at least know all the people or some of the people.
So let's say you're on some cruise and you just get sat at a table with a bunch of other people, which happens in cruises, and then there's just someone who's sitting across from you or sitting next to you and
It's your mom, right?
Except it's just some woman, right?
And she tells you about her life and all of that, then you would judge her according to that, right?
And so for me, it was like, okay, so I'm on a cruise and I get sit down next to someone like my mom, and my mom does her thing in terms of being who she is.
Would I ever want to have anything to do with this person?
Would it be like, oh yeah, no, listen, let's
Let's meet up for drinks later, I'd like to chat some more.
I'd be like, oh my gosh, that was kind of a ride through crazy town, I'm glad that dinner's over, and I would actively avoid her in the future.
Whereas I've actually been on cruises in the past, and I've met people, we've actually become friends, and I've enjoyed their company, and so on, right?
Sometimes when my friends and I are playing sports, we'll meet people and we'll play some sports together, and maybe become acquaintances, maybe become friends.
You can meet strangers and really like them, but if you met your mother, you were just sat down randomly, and you met the woman who happens to be your mother, and you listened to her and chatted with her over the course of a dinner, would you want to see her again?
No.
Okay, now the only reason you would see her again is if there's some kind of bond.
Some kind of history.
Right?
Now if she's saying
If you say anything to displease me, you are dead to me.
Then she's saying that there's no bond.
There's no history.
She's treating you as a stranger.
Like if some stranger started coming up and asking me a bunch of uncomfortable questions, I'd be like, no, I don't, I don't know you.
I don't like, we don't have a relationship.
This is kind of weird and inappropriate.
And I don't want to do this.
And I move away from the situation.
Right.
Cause we're just strangers.
But if a friend or, you know, someone I'm really close to comes up and asks me a bunch of questions, if the questions are uncomfortable, I'd be like, well, you know, we've got a history and so I'll submit to this uncomfortable stuff because there's a bond or there's a history.
So again, I don't mean to flog a dead horse here, but to me, it's like when my own mother was like, well, if you ask me anything I don't want to hear, then I'm just going to, you know, fly into a rage and, you know, yell at you and throw things around the room and stuff like that.
Be like, okay.
Okay.
I can't be honest.
And she has no obligation based upon a bond to go through anything uncomfortable.
Okay.
So if she doesn't have to go through anything uncomfortable, right?
What does that mean for me?
If my mother doesn't have to do anything that she doesn't want to, she never have to sacrifice her own pleasure, her own interests, her own what she prefers in the moment.
If my mother
Won't do anything uncomfortable.
Do you know what that means for me?
You have to be uncomfortable?
No.
No, it means I don't have to do anything uncomfortable either.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
Now, if I don't have to do anything uncomfortable, and I don't feel like answering the phone when my mom calls, or going to have lunch, or giving her money, or cleaning up her place, like if my mother won't do anything uncomfortable, then I don't have to do anything uncomfortable either.
Yeah, that makes sense.
Now, if I don't have to do anything uncomfortable, and I don't feel like talking to her, I don't have to.
I don't have to.
I don't have to.
Because she's said, we're in a relationship.
I just universalized her principles.
So you won't do anything uncomfortable.
You won't have a difficult conversation.
So you're like, my happiness, my pleasure is all that matters.
It's like, okay, well, then let's make that a principle of our relationship.
So if I don't want to do anything uncomfortable, I won't.
Because, I mean, I'm not going to self-sacrifice when you won't do anything uncomfortable.
That's called being exploited, right?
No, thanks.
No, thanks.
Already had to do that when I was a kid.
Don't have to do that as an adult.
So that's why it's so important to talk with your parents, right?
It's like, okay, well, if they don't want to do anything uncomfortable, great, neither do you.
And then if you don't feel like chatting with them, right?
All you have to do is say, well, what's my pleasure in the moment, right?
Cause that's all they're doing.
And so, you know, if my mom were to call or send an email or whatever it is, right?
I don't think she's got email.
At least I've never gotten one.
But if my mom were to call and say, I really want you to call back, right?
I just sit there and say, do I feel like it?
Do I want to?
No.
No, I don't.
Okay.
So I won't.
Because that's the principle of the relationship.
There's no bond.
You don't have to do anything difficult because she's not.
So you just look and say, do I want to?
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, thank you.
I'm feeling light again on that, yeah.
Because you can only have one kind of relationship in your life, fundamentally, at a personal level, right?
And really at an economic level as well.
You can only have one kind of relationship in your life.
Yeah.
And if you have these
Obligation, duty, self-sacrificing relationships, and they're always one-sided.
They're always one-sided.
Like, you can't have two people self-sacrificing themselves for the other, right?
It always has to be one person sacrificing, in which case you sacrificing your truth, your honesty, your experience, your reality to your mother's immediate hedonistic preferences to avoid pain and pursue pleasure.
Okay, so that's your relationship, and if you have that relationship in your life, it will tend to eclipse.
Or the other, well really the other kind of relationships, which is a relationship based upon moral values and mutual benefit.
Yeah.
And so the reason why you are concerned, I think maybe about turning into your mother, is you still feel an obligation.
You still feel an obligation.
Maybe you feel bad for not being in contact.
And I understand that, I mean that can certainly happen.
But have you clearly defined to yourself the level of dysfunction, the level of destruction, the level of sacrifice?
For your mother to say, I had no way of knowing your father was abusive, is to curse you with a complete lack of trust in yourself, men, love, the future, pair bonding, marriage.
It's to completely excavate your capacity to pair bond for the sake of protecting her own shitty choices.
Like, you are an Aztec sacrifice, like beating heart cut out of your chest, held up to the guards of vanity, if that makes sense.
Yeah, yeah.
I thought I had, um... I thought I had, but I don't think, um... I'd fully done it properly, and... I was experiencing some guilt, um... about Ben, and...
My relationship with Tom as well.
Well, are they both in touch with your parents?
Yeah, so Ben's the one obviously who's constantly defending them while I try to get everyone to at least acknowledge what we all know to be true, but... Right, right.
Yeah, I think I just triggered his defenses.
Why is it your job to get your family to see the truth?
I mean, you didn't choose them.
It's not your relationship.
It's your mother's relationship.
It's your mother's choice.
You didn't choose your dad.
You didn't choose your mother.
You didn't choose your siblings.
So why is it your job?
Right.
Why is it your job to get everyone to see the truth when you didn't even form or make any of these relationships?
Yeah.
And you can't get anyone to see the truth.
If you don't see the truth, then it's not your job to get them to see the truth.
Sorry to be, like, winding my own tail here, but...right?
If you're fundamentally labouring under a delusion, it's a bit disconcerting for you to think that you're the harbinger of truth.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I see that.
It's not your job.
I mean, I think it's your job to live virtuously in the present, and it's your job to seek like-minded, virtuous people.
I think that's a reasonable job to have.
But going back historically to a multi-decade violent, brutal, dysfunctional, false, no-bonding, lying, betraying kind of relationship,
How can that be a thing that's your responsibility?
Yeah.
Maybe it's your job to teach your kids not to be smokers and to not smoke yourself and all of that, but how is it your job to get some uncle who's been a chain smoker for 50 years and doesn't even think there's a problem, and anytime you bring up anything about smoking, he throws you out of the house.
How the hell is that your job to fix?
Yeah, giving myself an impossible, putting myself in impossible situations.
No, it's putting yourself in abusive situations.
It's worse than impossible.
I mean, two sides of the same coin, maybe, but I mean, your family, at least in that role play with your mother, has clearly said that they view the truth as evil, which means that they are kind of demonic in that way, right?
Because what is Satan called?
The father of lies, right?
And your mother is like, if you tell me the truth, you're the opposite of me.
Yeah.
I mean, if people clearly say, don't tell me the truth, I don't want the truth, and if you try to tell me the truth, I will verbally abuse you, right?
I mean, you're not obligated to bring the truth to strangers.
Why on earth would you be obligated to people who torture you for trying to bring the truth to them?
That was my life in the cult, though.
Bringing truth to strangers.
That's just another echo of the early life, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, you could say that it's a decent and positive thing to do to bring truth to those who are interested in the truth and are willing to take on the truth and so on, but those who openly attack, condemn and abuse you, and being called a demon is one of the worst terms of verbal abuse
That could possibly be imagined.
Like, I literally was jaw-dropped when she said that.
You couldn't see, like, my hand went to my mouth, like, oh my gosh.
Yeah.
That's monstrous.
That's appalling, and I'm so sorry that you would ever hear anything like that, even in a roleplay, even in your own mind, from anyone who ever claims to love you.
You're a demon is, to me, a completely relationship ending sentence.
Like, thank you, thank you, you just clarified everything, bye bye.
How did you come back from that?
So I did cut her off, um, for about a year after that.
And, um,
I started to feel guilty because my siblings were basically acting as mediators going back and forth between us and I used that as an excuse basically to just reopen the lines of communication.
Sorry, did she call you a demon in one of your conversations?
Yeah, so this was when I said that I was going to, if they didn't stop hurting Tom, when Tom opened up to us and said that they were
Hitting him and badly abusing him.
So I said, if they didn't stop, if she didn't do something about it, if she didn't talk to his dad, I'd call social services.
And yeah, that's when she called me a demon.
And I cut her off, went full no contact with her for a year.
But yeah, every time I
I tried to meet up or see Tom.
I just felt guilty because he was basically the going back and forth between us.
And he didn't look like Cheryl.
Did your brothers know that your mother called you a demon?
Yeah, they did.
Right.
And that your mother called you a demon when you were trying to intervene in a situation of child abuse?
Yes.
Okay.
Why the fuck would you do that?
Help me understand this.
How could they claim to love you and want to be in connection with and supporting someone who called you a demon for trying to protect a child from abuse?
Yeah, Jerry was the only one who warned me not to get back in touch, but I think that was
The first and last time I probably won't listen to him.
Not probably, that's the first and last time I won't listen to him again.
Right.
I mean, when you draw clear moral lines through being honest, people fall on one side or the other.
And sadly, and in my experience as a whole, when you draw clear moral lines, most people choose evil.
The only reason that they can convince themselves that they're not evil is if no one else, like no one else around them draws clear moral lines.
Most people, they'll just choose evil.
And if you were abused in this kind of way by your mother, and not, sorry, not if, I know that you were, I mean, obviously, right?
So you were abused in this kind of way by your mother for trying to protect a child from abuse.
And of course your mother never apologized, she never, right, retracted, she never, oh my gosh, I can't believe I said that, whatever, right, I'm so sorry, I'm gonna go to therapy, that was nothing like that, right, I assume?
No, um, we, uh, we don't... Your brothers know, yeah, your brothers know that your mother is a child abuser who called you a demon for trying to protect the child.
That's all they need to know.
That's all I would need to know.
In order to know which side I'm on.
I mean, you can't get clearer than that, right?
What does she have to do?
Hold up to seven heads of a baby?
For heaven's sakes, this is all you need to know.
Yeah.
And people are certainly free to choose to support and enable evildoers.
They're certainly free to choose and support evildoers.
But if they want to, they can fuck right off out of my life.
Yeah, so I think that's why I ended up separating from Ben and his wife as well, because I just couldn't hear it anymore.
It was just constant lying and pretending like
And where does Jerry stand?
None of it ever happened.
Jerry warned me when I was making my excuses to reopen the lines of communication, not to do it.
But yeah, I did it anyway.
Right, right, right.
Because you're still in the place of guilt, not relief, right?
Yeah.
You understand, this is like the baby zebra saying, I'm so guilty because that lion is hungry.
Mm, yeah, yeah.
Not, I'm so relieved I got away.
Yeah.
It's so essential, my friend, in life to understand if people don't listen,
If people won't listen, you have no control, and therefore you have no obligation.
Those of us who reject the use of violence, of course, right?
I mean, how do you affect people?
How do you influence them?
Words or fists, right?
Language or violence.
That's the only choices we have.
If people won't listen to language, and of course we reject the initiation of violence,
So, there's nothing.
There's nothing you can do.
There's absolutely nothing you can do.
There's zero.
You have no control.
You might as well be yelling at the moon to change its color.
Become cheese!
Yeah.
Right?
I mean, it's an action of craziness, and I recognize this sort of in myself.
It's an action of craziness when people don't listen to think my words are going to have any effect.
Yeah.
You have no control.
You have no effect.
Yeah.
Is Jerry still in touch with Ben?
No.
Ben decided to cut me and Jerry off because we're too negative.
We were in a victim mindset.
Right.
OK.
And he said, maybe we can get back in touch in three years time.
And I just said, no.
It's at that time as well that your call about being liberated
Came out.
Sorry, the show about being liberated came out.
So I just, yeah.
Are you still feeling guilty?
I was, but I don't think I do anymore.
Okay.
There's nothing that I could say if that's what they've chosen then.
Yeah.
But then why are you still carrying this weight?
I can hear the weight in your voice.
What's the weight?
Probably Tom.
Because he's still in there, right?
Yeah.
Right.
And when does he hit adulthood?
He's 15 right now.
Right.
And do you think that you not having a future because you can't rescue him, right?
Do you think that you not having a future, you're not getting married, you're not settling down, you're not falling in love.
Do you think that helps him?
Do you think that serves him?
Do you think that that's going to help him down the road in the future?
No, no, definitely not.
Philosophy leads to paralysis.
Philosophy leads to loneliness.
Philosophy leads to isolation.
Philosophy leads to endlessly chasing endless ghosts off an endless cliff.
Don't you want to show him, when he becomes an adult, how amazing and wonderful and beautiful and positive philosophy is?
How it can bring you love and connection and treasure and devotion and pair bonding and children.
Like, don't you want to be
Something he can aspire towards?
Don't you want to build the kind of life where when he becomes an adult, he says, dang, how did you get that?
Or do you want to just circle around this crater, get nowhere, do nothing, and then he gets to be an adult, looks at you and says, well, that's kind of sad.
Yeah.
You're not helping him by paralyzing yourself and your life and your capacity for love.
You're not doing anything to help.
It's not about him.
You understand?
Yeah.
I mean, the only rational thing to do is to build a life where when he becomes an adult, he could see it and say, well, that's really cool.
I really want some of that.
Yeah, that's what I'm working on right now.
Okay, but if you're able to get there, why are we talking?
What's the barrier?
Yeah, it was all this guilt and shame, so... You have no control over someone else's child, right?
I guess you could call Child Protective Services and however that plays out, I don't know, right?
That's obviously maybe something you talk about with a lawyer or some expert, I'm no expert in that field, maybe you could do something like that?
But you yourself have no control, right?
You can't rush in and save him, you can't bungee down the chimney and pull him to safety, right?
You have no control over the situation, right?
No, I don't.
And you need to take a break from child abuse.
Yeah, I really do.
You really do.
You need to take a break from helplessness and you need to take a break from being under your mother's control.
And you wanting to save her kid is being under her control again, right?
Oh, yeah.
Yes, yeah, yeah, I see that.
You can't spend the rest of your life being seven.
Please, I'm begging you, don't.
I won't.
I won't.
And if there's a new guy you like?
Yeah, open your heart, be honest.
But you know, reserve your guilt for things that you choose.
Reserve your guilt, reserve your shame for things that you've chosen.
You didn't choose your family, you begged your mom not to have that kid, right?
This is nothing if this is your choice.
And defining yourself by the choices other people make is kind of not to exist at all.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
Like I have a shadow that moves around when I move.
The shadow doesn't exist.
It's just the darkness cast by what I choose to do, right?
I choose to stand up, the shadow stands up.
I sit down, it sits down, right?
I choose to evaluate myself
Only by things that I've chosen.
You didn't choose to have the pedophile.
You didn't choose to have the mother.
You didn't choose to have the father.
You didn't choose your mother's second boyfriend.
You didn't choose for her to have another kid.
You didn't make any of these choices.
So none of these choices reflect upon you at all.
Now of course your mother wants you to feel responsible and guilty and shameful so that she doesn't feel it.
Like you're feeling all your mother's guilt and shame.
Oh God!
Jesus!
No, but you see what I mean?
Like, nothing gets away.
Nothing escapes.
Nothing gets away.
Right?
So, your mother is feeling toxic guilt and shame, which is why she can't be in a conversation that provokes it.
And as a dutiful daughter, it's a poison container theory, right?
As a dutiful daughter, what are you doing?
Well, you're saying, oh no, I'll take on your conscience.
I'll be your conscience.
I'll take on all that guilt and shame.
Yeah.
Jesus.
You know, when you separate from toxic relationships, you understand, particularly ones you never chose, you leave everything behind.
Everything.
Yeah.
There are people in my life, in my past, who I don't think were great parents.
Now, I won't take on any ownership of that for them.
I mean, I talk to them about it, of course, right?
But I don't have any control.
I won't take any ownership.
And that's really out of compassion for the children.
Right?
If you don't take... You're still in an unconscious conversation with your mom, in my opinion.
You take on none of that guilt, shame, and responsibility, that's the only chance your mom has to feel it and thereby change.
Right.
Yeah.
You reject all of that.
You leave it all behind.
That's the only chance...
Your mother has to actually feel her own feelings rather than you being her poison container.
If your mother feels her own feelings, maybe they should change.
But as long as she smokes and you get cancer, why would she quit?
Oh, yeah, that's a good analogy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But don't do other... You can't feel anything for other people any more than you can digest food for them or go to the bathroom for them.
Some female friend came up and said, I really need to get pregnant, so you've got to go have sex with a stranger.
You'd be like, what now?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course.
Now, if, like with my mother, right, the only chance that she had to change was for me to stop pretending that there was a relationship for her to accumulate.
Now, my mother didn't change.
So, that means that there was absolutely nothing I could do.
Like, if me not feeling her feelings anymore, me not lying to her, me not falsifying my experience, me having reasonable requests in the relationship, if none of that made her change, then change was completely impossible.
And I was trying to talk a lion into becoming a vegetarian while it was chewing on my leg.
It's like, sorry, gonna keep my leg and step out of this mess.
Yeah, yeah.
Wow.
Part of the pedophile thing too is to transfer the shame to the children.
Everybody's sick and they vomit down the gullets of children.
And the children get sick and they say, relatively okay, well as long as soon as you stop being that poison container that's the best thing you can do for the world.
For yourself, obviously, but for the world as well.
And of course the other people don't want you to do that because
Then they start to feel their own moral horror and maybe that's too much for them.
I don't know.
I don't really, I don't really care.
I honestly don't care.
I'm not taking any ownership for things I never chose.
Zero.
Because that's the kind, I mean, in my view, the best thing you can do, for the 15 year old, the best thing you can do, stop feeling any guilt, any shame.
Stop trying to change things you can't change.
Stop trying to have control over things you have no control over.
Live rationally with the limitations of reason.
Have a great life yourself.
The best thing you can do for him.
By far.
And there's not even a close second.
Everything else, to me, is dysfunctional.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what you're doing is you're saying, hey, kid!
Uh, virtue makes you helpless!
It traps you in shame and guilt!
You can't have a life, you can't get married, you can't have kids, and you just feel shitty about everything!
Hey, you wanna come and be virtuous?
Hm.
Then you're like the fat person selling the diet book, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's clear to me now, yeah.
Wow.
Yeah, that's, I mean, and listen, if it's any consolation, I mean, I have heard many times, and I sympathize and really sympathize, you know, my youngest sibling is still stuck there and things are terrible and things are bad.
I get it, and I'm not saying that's an easy thing, and I appreciate, respect, and treasure you for your sensitivity in this matter.
Like, it's a beautiful thing.
It really is a beautiful thing.
But instead of trying to fix something you never broke, how about you build something you don't break, right?
Instead of trying to fix some broken kit that you have no control over, how about you get married and have your own kids and don't break them?
Yes.
Yeah, that's clear.
Yes, thank you.
It's like there's a bridge in a war that's currently being shelled and you're like, I gotta go fix that bridge!
It's like, no, just go to a peaceful country and build a bridge.
Or you're just gonna get blown up and the bridge ain't gonna get fixed anyway.
Great.
Sorry, I don't mean to overdo the analogies here, but they're just popping into my head.
No, they're great.
They're great, thank you.
Yeah, I do feel that's what I'm basically doing pretty much, yeah.
And it's going to be useless to him when he becomes an adult and has to compare people's lives and look.
Yeah, particularly when you're young, you get drawn to that which appears to be the most successful and you just have to show that, I think, right?
Yes.
Well, that's most of what I wanted to get across.
I know it's a lot later for you than it is for me.
Is there anything else you wanted to say right here at the end?
No, thank you so much, Steph.
I knew there was a reason why I needed to do this, and yeah, I feel... I'm not gonna say everything's completely gonna say I'll definitely complete what I need to do in therapy and stuff, but you've just... I feel like you've put me on a speed rap.
Excellent.
Excellent.
Okay, well listen, will you keep me posted about how things are going?
I certainly will.
Yes.
Thank you.
And I hope that you just remember my friend, my sister in flesh, I'm incredibly sorry for all that you had to suffer and everything that you had to go through.
And yes, I can say, ah, yes, but it is the forge that makes us stronger.
It's like, no, it sucks.
And I'm really, really sorry for all of that.
And I just wanted to not have that escape in the general wash of endless analogies that just my genuine and deep and heartfelt sympathy for everything
You went through, and my intense admiration for your pursuit of philosophy and virtue and reason in the face of all of those obstacles is nothing short of incredible, and I hope that you wear that proudly for the rest of your life.
