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Feb. 12, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:46:31
My Teenage Daughter is Attacking Herself!
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Time Text
Hello. Hey, how's it going?
Hi, Stefan. Okay, how are you?
I am fine.
I am fine. I'm glad to be able to have the chance to chat and I appreciate you taking the time.
And of course, if you have any childcare stuff to do, feel free to do it.
That's no worries and so on.
So, gosh, let's hear about what's going on and how I can best help.
That's a year ago. Around the beginning of December of last year.
I noticed that I was sitting in the front of my daughter's hair.
She's 15. So I asked her, what happened here?
And she said, oh, it was itchy.
So I told her if it's itchy, go ahead, it's it.
I'm like, why did you cool the hair?
And she just didn't say, she's like, oh, it's just itchy.
I didn't take any of it.
I said, okay, wash your hair, you know?
And I got her dandruff shampoo and all that.
The next day, I noticed the gap a little bit wider.
So I asked her, I said, what happened?
Mom, why are you pulling your hair from here?
And then she said the same thing.
I took her to the dermatologist, and he checked her scalp, and he didn't see any, like, external irritation.
But he still prescribed me, like, a hydrocortisone cream.
I put for her every day.
So whenever she was pulling to the front, I didn't know that she was just...
So that's how it started.
And then about three days later, I went to the craft from school and the teacher called me to the side and he said, I was walking between the desks and I saw that she had clipped a big chunk of her hair and she had it on the desk of some part.
And he's cold at her and he's like, oh, that's gross.
Take it from it in the draft.
I was like, why did she do her hair?
And I was shocked, and I told him I'd already took her to the dermatologist.
And he prescribed her some cream.
Maybe I need to take her some of you.
Right away, I took her to another dermatologist.
They think I don't see any irritation.
I don't see any skin issues.
I think she just needs to, like, wash it more frequently.
It's fine. It's been less than a month.
She pulled all of her hair, all of it.
I tried to talk.
you I came nicely in that her dad was more stern with her.
And right away, I started calling around her therapist to see what's wrong.
He saw probably fix himself a different therapist.
Nobody. It's been a year now.
Nobody figured out the reason why she's doing this.
But if there's a treatment or solution, nothing works.
And I feel helpless to help her.
I don't know what's wrong. And here in California, they don't allow you, like, to know what conversation happened between the therapist and the patient.
Like, that's my daughter. She's a minor.
Is there something significant I need to know about?
They will not say to me, but they will not tell me.
So, at this point, I even had to enroll with a therapist from the Netherlands.
He had made a program for habit reversal, because they classify it as an obsessive disorder, kind of like nerve-biting.
He finished that program.
Also, no. Not improvement.
And recently, her hair started growing.
As soon as it was long enough for her to hold, she started pulling.
So I grabbed the tremors that I shouldn't afford her again, all the way down.
And believe me, I tried my hardest to keep back from not crying in front of her.
As soon as I finished shaving her head, I went to my room and I cried for hours.
I don't want to do anymore.
That's very, very tough.
Boy, that is really, really tough, and I just really want to express my sympathies about it first and foremost.
It is really, really a horrible thing to be going through.
Obviously, I'm no psychiatrist or anything like that, but I guess I could ask some questions about, you know, what's the history of your family, your childhood, and all of that kind of stuff would probably be helpful to know.
I'm from Middle Eastern.
My dad is really tough with us.
More tough on the boys than me.
You know, I had a good childhood.
And then I married and I came to the States about 20 years ago.
There is some issues in the marriage.
Between me and my husband.
We're not really...
We don't fight in front of the kids.
We don't argue.
Me and him have a very dry relationship.
And that started... I'm sorry, a very what relationship?
Like a dry relationship.
We don't really...
You know, we don't sit with each other.
We don't talk much other than...
I want some food or...
Give me a drink or anything.
Like, my relationship with my husband got really, like, we were very distant for the last, I would say, eight to nine years.
He started taking Xanax to sleep, and so I think Xanax made him so numb that he doesn't really have any feelings whatsoever towards me or the children.
He's just He's there, but he's not really there.
When he comes home from work, he just goes straight to the bedroom, and he takes the pills, and he just falls asleep.
What do you mean? Sorry, what time does he come home from work?
He comes around 5 p.m.
He goes to sleep at 6 p.m.?
Yes. What do you mean?
He doesn't engage with us at all.
And I spoke to him about it, and we had arguments of fights, And then he promised he would stop.
He said to rehab two times to quit the Xanax.
But as soon as he did rehab, he comes back and he starts taking it.
And I told him it's causing you erectile dysfunction.
It's causing you to be distanced.
You're missing out on your children.
You're growing up.
You're missing out on your relationship with your wife.
Like, what's wrong with you? Why do you not see what's happening?
And I think that plays a role.
Wait, so for eight or nine years, your husband's been kind of like a half zombie?
What? I'm shocked.
I'm shocked.
What the heck? Stefan, I can't even tell you how bad things are.
At what point?
My brother-in-law, he passed away about three years ago.
He was also an opiate, and so he wanted to detox my husband.
I told him to come and I'll take care of him because he didn't have anybody to take care of him.
He didn't want to go to his parents.
So I said, fine. I don't mind him staying around, you know, to detox.
That's fine. You know, he just...
And so he stayed for about a couple of weeks and I took care of him.
He got really sick and all that.
And then he started coming more frequent because he loved the kids.
And he...
Every day he would come and my kids got attached to him a lot.
And... He passed away.
He overdosed. And so that was the first fun blow on my kids.
Especially my daughter because he really spoiled her.
He would even come in during that time and he would cut them in and he would help them with homework.
He was basically kind of like the father to my children.
I'm sorry, this was your brother?
My brother-in-law.
Your brother-in-law. So your husband's brother.
And he literally became the father.
When my husband is mentally absent, and so when he passed away, that was the best thing for my children.
Sorry, was your brother-in-law clean, though, when he was around your kids, is that right?
Yeah, he was clean, yeah.
So how long was he clean before he relapsed?
About a year and a half, something like that.
And he just... He overdosed.
And he was only 43 years old.
Wow. He looked like him so much.
And they loved him a lot, too.
So that was the first blow.
And then... Well, he didn't love them enough to not overdose.
I know. So your brother's, sorry, your husband's brother overdosed and your husband is still, I mean, I don't know much about Xanax, but is it, I thought it was more for like a generalized anxiety rather than a specific sleep aid.
I guess it puts him to sleep.
He takes off. He takes 8 milligrams.
I think the most you should take is 2.
And he's taking 8 because he's been taking it for so long, his body got used to it.
And so you have to take more and more.
How is he? Sorry.
I'm just reading here.
So it says here, Xanax is commonly prescribed to treat anxiety.
Though it can quickly ease symptoms, it should generally only be used for the shortest time possible.
Right. And he's been on this eight or nine years?
Yeah. Where's he getting it?
He buys it off the street.
No doctor would prescribe it.
Here in California, they're very strict on opioids and stuff like that.
So he buys it off the street.
And I don't even know if it's genuine or not.
And I think to this point, like I told her, you are now suicidal.
It seems that you just want to numb yourself and to take it away because you're not enjoying life.
Sorry to interrupt, but what do you think happened to your husband and his brother that may have given them a susceptibility to this kind of extremely dangerous addiction?
I think part of it plays with their own parents.
They are very materialistic.
They care about money more than anything.
For my brother-in-law, he was hit with a baseball bat while playing baseball in the park, and so they prescribed him opiate at the time.
They had pulled his jaw and shot for like six months because he completely broke his jaw.
As for my husband, I have no idea when he started.
He just said, I need to sleep.
I'm not sleeping well.
I don't know who one of his friends gave him some, and he liked it, and he hasn't stopped them since.
Yeah, that's how both of them started, but I think there's a part of it also.
The neglect from their parents are...
they don't really care much.
About them. And my husband and his father worked together.
And so my husband was 16 years old.
He was working with his father.
And so my father-in-law was illiterate.
So my husband basically does everything talking to the customers, doing the sales and all that.
And they got audited by the IRS. And so they owed like $100,000.
And so my father-in-law refused to help him.
He put all the blame on him.
And so my husband, you know, we sold everything that we had.
All the savings were gone.
And then my father-in-law passed away.
And his mother will not give him his inheritance.
And she rubs it in his face all the time.
Wait, sorry, sorry.
Your husband's father died and there was an inheritance.
Why, if it was an inheritance and it was in the will, why would it be up to the mother to give it or not?
He says, after Isaiah, I will give you.
No, no, but if it's in the will, that's a legal document.
I'm no lawyer, but isn't it the case that if you are left some money, you should get that money, and it's not up to someone else to say whether you should or shouldn't?
If your father-in-law left your husband, I don't know, $50,000, then it's not up to his mother to choose whether that goes to him or not, is it?
So, I don't understand why you're not getting it at all.
Why would he roll over with his mother?
Why would he just not get what his father gave him?
He won't even ask for it.
I'm sorry, he won't what? I knew he was a mama.
He won't even ask for it.
He is such a mama's boy.
And he would not even upset her.
Even though he saw what they did with his brother, right?
They didn't care about him at all.
And I told him, like, this is your right.
What are you doing? Why don't you ask for your right?
And he would not even ask her because he doesn't want to upset her.
It's crazy, Stefan.
I'm telling you, this is the whole thing, I think, for him, is that Zana is just completely numbed into everything.
Like, he doesn't care.
He's careless. Everything will be fine.
Don't worry. It's just fine. He's so numb.
There's no emotion.
Even in the most dire situations, if you see me sometimes crying myself to sleep, Over what's happening with our daughter.
And he doesn't even face them.
Like, nothing. Like, why are you crying?
I'm lonely. So, sorry.
Tell me a little bit about how you met your husband.
What attracted you to him in the first place?
Just if you can give me that sort of history.
He came to when I was working.
And... I guess he liked me.
And then his sister came in.
And then we exchanged numbers and we sat down and started talking.
And, you know, he was a really sweet guy.
That's about 20 years ago.
And very respectful.
Very different from the men from where I was born.
So he's good looking and all that.
And so we started talking and then he left back.
To America. And then we continued on talking through emails and phone calls.
About a year.
And then he came back and we got engaged and within like six months we were married.
And I came here.
Of course, I'm a very traditional family, closed society.
I wouldn't even dare to wear a short-leaved shirt walking in the street.
So to me, coming to America was like a dream come true, of course.
I could have my freedom here.
I could finally pursue whatever I wanted to do with my life.
So I thought of it as a win-win situation.
And as soon as I came here, true colors showed.
And I realized how he was not what he said he was.
And I told my parents at the time, and they said, give it time, you know, until you get used to be each other or whatever.
There were many signs for me to leave, you know, but I didn't.
And it took me about 40 years to get pregnant.
And as soon as I had my first child, he didn't touch me.
He hasn't touched me ever since.
And I stayed quiet.
And I told my family and everything, and I decided, okay, I'm going to just stick with it.
I don't want my kids to grow up in a broken home.
So I stuck to it. I'm not saying I'm perfectly fine.
I'm sure I made a lot of mistakes.
But I put up with Allah, especially with his family.
You know, I don't have any family here.
And so... I'm sorry for all of this, it's very heartbreaking, but can you tell me a little bit about, you don't have to tell me the country, but what culture did you come from that was so conservative?
Okay, so you came from the Middle East and this guy was, you said respectful, right?
So there's that sort of cliche that the Middle Eastern guys are kind of dominant and aggressive and so on.
So this guy was more sensitive and that was appealing to you, right?
Yes, exactly.
And did your parents or your family, did they meet him before you got married?
Yes, they did. They thought of him as wonderful.
They thought of him as wonderful.
He was very respectful.
He talked in a sweet manner.
He just swooped us off of our feet.
But then when I came here, and every day-to-day interactions with him, I was 21 years old.
I had no experience.
Is he the same age as you, more or less?
No, he's six years older.
Okay, so help me understand this, because I've heard this before, right?
This sort of chameleon, right?
He seemed perfect, and then he was the complete opposite.
Now, that's, I mean, I get that you were a young woman and all of that, but that seems hard to imagine that he could just have a complete personality switch, and, you know, maybe this was the case, but there were no signs of any dysfunction before, so did he change after you got married?
Is that right? Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so, and you were talking and back and forth for how long, I know it was long distance for some of it, but how long did you know him before you got married?
About a year we talked.
Okay, so you talked for a year, and then you moved to the States, is that right?
Yes, correct. And when you moved to the States, you did so to marry him?
No, we married him. Oh, you married in the Middle East, is that right?
Yes. Okay, so you married in the Middle East, and then he was totally fine.
Although, now, for all the time that you knew each other, how long was the long-distance part of it where you weren't face-to-face?
About nine. So you really only had three months of face-to-face before you got married, is that right?
Correct. Okay. And did you know much about his family history, his family life, his childhood, his upbringing and so on before you married him?
I did not. But my family, my mom, She has some relatives here in the States.
They live in the same area, and so she asked them to ask around, right, to know their family situation is good, and everybody they talk to, they give them much praise on how they are.
And, of course, the most important thing to people is, oh, they have money.
Oh, they are good.
They have work. They go to school.
Oh, so he was a wealthy, good-looking guy.
Yeah. And did that sweep you off your feet a little bit and lower your judgment a little bit?
It's not even about that.
It's more like, because I come from a good, you know, socioeconomic family.
So I wasn't, it's not about that.
It was for me about Okay, he's different than all the guys in my country.
He's not rude. He actually opens the door for me.
He doesn't yell at me.
Oh my God, he brings me flowers.
Like, nothing.
Yeah, so he's charming. Men in my country are very, very...
Now, charming is not always bad, but it can be a warning sign, right?
If somebody's really charming, they might be pulling a number on you, right?
Oh my God, what a number.
Wow. If I only knew...
Right, so there was no indication of problems before you got married, and then what happened, you know, sort of wedding day, honeymoon, like how quick did you flip?
As soon as I came to the States, so I come here, it's new culture, I'm in culture shock, I don't know what to do, how to drive here, where's the store, how do you shop, the money, nothing.
I come here, and first thing, He said, go shop.
Go grab some groceries. I said, okay, are you going to come with me?
I didn't know where the store is.
I don't know. How to buy things here.
So he takes me in the car.
This is the first thing that he did to me.
And he drops me off in the street.
He says, cross the street, right there, there's a store.
Go. Go grab some groceries.
And I sat and I looked at him and I was like, but I don't know what to do.
We don't have big stores like there in my country.
Can you come with me? He said, no, go.
He yelled at me. So I got out of the car and I'm walking to the front of the store and I just looked around and I just said, okay, I don't know what to do.
So I just walked to where the fruit and vegetables and then all of a sudden he walks in behind me.
So mean to me.
We grabbed him over. We went home.
Wait, wait, sorry. He told you to go into the store on your own, and then he followed you into the store and was mean to you?
What happened?
After like 15 minutes.
Yeah, after like 15 minutes, he just walked in behind me, and he started, you know, discovering he dropped it.
And so, I just kept my mouth shut.
I was just embarrassed.
I didn't know what to do. We go home.
The first time. The second time, he did it to me.
We go to a friend of his.
And so he gets down from the car and runs inside the house, his friend's house.
I was still getting out of my car, putting my jacket on.
And I looked around and he was gone.
I didn't even know which house it was.
I'm like, what the hell? I started looking around like, where the hell did he go?
We didn't have cell phones like that.
And so I sat across the street, and I'm looking to see if an open door, then I saw a door open on the side of the house.
I started looking in, and then I saw people inside.
I said, hi, is this the party play?
And I walked in, and I said, hi, I'm white.
And then they said, oh, he's in the backyard.
And I walked in, and I didn't see him.
I sat in the backyard all alone for hours.
He didn't even come look for me or anything.
Where was he though?
He was just smoking with his friends on the other side of the house.
He didn't even walk with me and say, hey, my new wife, this is this person.
And this happened every single time.
So finally I decided I'm not going with you anywhere.
Sorry, sorry, this is a backup.
So he turns out to be kind of an a-hole, right?
Like, he's mean, he's cruel, he puts you in these impossible situations, he's lording it over you, and he's kind of humiliating you, he's mean to you, he ignores you, he takes off on you.
Like, just really, just terrible behavior, right?
How bad?
Right.
So why, why did you stay?
I was so stupid.
No, no, no, that's not an answer.
That's not an answer.
And you're not. Because I did want my kids to grow up in a broken home, and I had to make the decision.
No, but you didn't have kids yet.
You said, sorry, if I understood, sorry to interrupt.
Sorry, I don't mean to interrupt, but as far as I understood it, didn't you say it took you four years to get pregnant?
Yeah, it took me four years.
So, no, no, no, there's no kids in a broken home.
For four years. There's no kids.
I'm not trying to be mean to you.
I'm genuinely curious.
I've stayed in dysfunctional relationships, so I'm not lording it over you.
I'm not better than. I'm just genuinely trying to understand.
This guy turns to be a horrible person, and you stay with him for four years trying to have babies.
What's the thinking behind all of that?
Number one is that if I go back, I will be a prisoner of my parents' house for the rest of my life.
For the rest of my life.
Why would you be a prisoner?
Because nobody else would marry you?
Nobody else. And of course, I would be a disgrace to my family.
No man would want to marry me.
That's a damaged product, basically, to them.
Well, but sorry to interrupt, but I mean, could you not find another man?
I know it might be tougher to stay in the States, but could you not find another man in the U.S. or something like that?
I mean, this is still post-internet.
Maybe you could meet a man online or something like that.
So, I mean, wouldn't there be some kind of options?
If I did that, they would disown me.
If I left my husband on my own accord.
I just stayed in the U.S., they would disown me.
100%. So if I were to leave, I would not go back.
Okay, but if that means that they're going to lock you up and shame you and disown you for trying to get out of an abusive or terrible relationship, and again, I know that's easy to say, but isn't it kind of like good riddance?
I mean...
I mean, they're not living with him, you are!
I know, but...
They always say, because it's the traditional marriage thing, oh, you're getting to know each other.
Just be patient. Or sometimes, you know, he's very stressed out.
All kinds of excuses. And when I took a roll, I took a roll.
I listened to them and they told me, hey, he will get better, you know, things will get better.
And so I did. I did.
Do your parents have a good marriage?
A marriage that you would be happy to...
If something like that happened to you, you'd be happy with your parents' marriage?
What are the issues with your parents' marriage?
With my mom. My mom ran away from her own family to marry somebody from a different country to get away from the oppression of the family.
And so she came to a village.
He was not how he claimed also to be.
So I did the same mistake like my mom did.
I repeated the same mistake. Well, she helped you to do that too, right?
Yeah, she did. And I blamed her for it.
And I told her about it. I said, you should not let me do that.
You should have told me to repeat the same mistake, but you encouraged me to.
Thinking that he's from a different country, maybe he's better.
My husband was from a different country.
And look how your life was.
Wow, okay. Yeah, so she did kind of sabotage your life, right?
Encouraged me to get out, you know.
Right, okay. Sorry, go ahead.
Yeah, after that, my parents and him were like, okay, you need to have children.
Time to have children, you know.
And so... I was not on breath control.
I never took any breath control, but I never got pregnant either.
So we went to do in vitro, and it did not work.
And the last try, I was there.
The doctor walked in with a team of interns, maybe seven or eight of them.
And so he looked at me and he said, you know what?
I don't think this method is going to work for you.
You're going to need to do the IBS, the one that cost $25,000.
Otherwise, you're not going to get pregnant.
Just like that. Just like that while he's doing the procedure for me.
And so the very next day, I got my period.
And then I told my husband, this is it.
If God is not going to give me children, no man is going to give me children.
I'm not going to try again.
I'm done. If you want children, you can let me go back to my family.
You go marry. I'm done.
He said, no, I don't want kids.
I don't want kids. Whatever.
We're fine like this. I'm fine.
I don't want kids. And so we just let go.
We let it go. And then this is my first time I go back to my country.
And while I think we were there, it seems that I got pregnant because we came back here and I was not feeling well.
I went to the doctor and he told me, you're pregnant.
So everybody was happy for us.
Like I was ecstatic that I was pregnant.
And so we had our first child.
And after the first child, he got so bad with me.
And it's now like six months or seven months, and he hasn't touched me.
And I told him, what's going on?
Like, why are you not touching me?
What's wrong? You know, I did not gain that much weight.
I look okay. And then, I don't want to say this.
I'm not going to say what he said to me.
But you can just imagine what he said.
The worst thing you can say to him.
That he doesn't find you attractive anymore?
Yes. He said, I don't like having sex with women with a nude vagina.
Oh, gosh. I'm very sorry.
I mean, obviously, that's just...
You're right. I mean, that's just absolutely appalling.
I let it go. Okay, we can move on to kill the kids.
I'm sorry, you had your first kid and then you just had kids, so...
Yes, and then after about a year and three months, I was pregnant again.
And after my daughter, we completely became just a group of people.
We grew people. Absolutely.
Even though I tried so hard to make us intimate again.
Nothing. No amount of lingerie.
No amount of poising and sweet talking.
Nothing. I tried it all.
And finally, I gave him. I was just like, forget it.
Forget it. He doesn't want me.
You can't push someone to love you.
They don't like this. I let it go.
And I'm focusing on the kids.
And I'm planning on that, too.
But she's killing me.
And I feel a big amount of guilt.
You know? My daughter, she, uh, it took her a long time to be polytrane.
So she's almost nine years old, and she's ruining her bed.
And I did not just, you know, I took her to the doctors, the specialists, and they did all kinds of study, they prescribed medication, and they gave her like a machine that you put in your undies at night if there's a little bit of moisture to an alarm, alarm would ring, and so to get her, you know, get up and go at night.
So finally, she got clean and everything.
Then, uh, this is, this is a key point.
When she was in fourth grade, the teacher with She asked me to come in, and she would tell me, well, your daughter is doing this, like, weird hand movement during class.
It's very distracting.
I was like, what hand movement? She flutters her hand out of the blue, the candle.
And I said, okay, what's wrong with that?
She's like, I don't know. I just want to let you know that she's doing that.
And I said, okay. Well, maybe she was excited about something, yeah?
Every day she would ask me that.
And then I started talking to my daughter and asking her what's going on.
And she said, she's picking on me.
Every day she picks on me. She's so mean to me.
And I was like, what? Really? So I went to school and I talked to the principal and I said, can you please move my daughter to a different classroom?
I think the teacher is not being said with my daughter and it's stressing her out.
So he said, let me talk to the teacher and see what's going on.
The next day he tells me, You need to take her to a doctor.
Without a doctor's note, I'm not going to move her.
And I said, doctor's note? For what?
Well, the teacher says that your daughter has some kind of mental disorder.
And I said, excuse me?
Are you serious? So I went and I took her in the same day.
I took her to the paramedicare doctor.
And he referred her to a neurologist.
He told me, the PCP, that there's nothing wrong with your daughter.
But, you know, if you want to do more intensive or deeper diagnosis, take her to this.
He made that appointment. I call in and I say, okay, so what do I need to do?
He said, this is a neurologist.
You need to deprive her from food and water and sleep.
After 6 p.m., you can let her fall asleep.
Then around 2 a.m., you bring her to us.
We're going to do a stress test.
We're going to put her on a treadmill and we're going to flash light in her eyes to try to induce a seizure.
So I told her, you want me to deprive my child from food and sleep and water?
Then I'm going to bring it to you in the middle of the night for you to do a stress test.
If she doesn't have seizures, she's going to get one.
And I refused to take her.
We canceled the appointment. And I went back home and I was telling my friend what happened.
And he said, what to do?
Like, I don't want my daughter to continue with this teacher.
Yet the principal would move her without a doctor's note.
Like, I don't know what to do. And she told me, Let's write a letter to the superintendent and send it to her and see if we can put pressure on the principal.
So I took the letter by hand and I registered mail, you know, sent about registered mail.
Two days later, she called me, the superintendent, and she, can I three-way the principal?
And I said, please. She said, what's happening?
I told her the situation.
I told her, this is what that requirement is from a neurologist to my child.
You know, can I just move the teacher?
Maybe it's a teacher.
And so she told the principal, can you please move her daughter tomorrow?
And right away, the next day, we go to school.
The principal, the new teacher, has a welcome party for my daughter.
All my daughter's grades went up.
All of them. She was the happiest you could ever be.
I figured, okay, that was the teacher.
She's speaking of my daughter. Maybe because I'm an Eastern.
I don't know. I don't know what it was, but I was happy she was moved.
And then, the year after that, lockdown came.
Lockdown. So, she lost contact with her friends.
They were not able to do the online schooling thing.
So, I just...
Sorry, your daughter wasn't told her her friends weren't.
I'm sorry? No, I know that, but you said they weren't able to do the online schooling thing, and I'm not sure who they referred to.
Oh, yeah. And my children.
Okay, your children. But why couldn't they do the online thing?
They were not able to sit down and just listen to the teacher and whatever.
It was so costly, and the timing was not correct, and so they were unable to focus at all.
So I took it up on myself.
I went and I bought curriculum for her grade and his grade.
And I started doing the homeschooling with them.
And so during this time, so they said two weeks, now it's two years.
They missed two years of their life from social interactions and everything.
And I practiced the fall, nobody fall harder than me to stop the lockdown.
And, I just wasn't the guy.
Well, they are a whole protest.
Boom.
you And I feel a certain guilt when it comes to that too, because I didn't change anything.
All the protesting I did, it didn't change nothing.
I should have spent that time with my children instead.
You know, I feel a big guilt when it comes to that.
Did you, sorry to interrupt, did you talk, did you think, I'm sure you did think, did you think of moving to a place with less lockdowns?
I hope he refuses to leave here.
I'm sorry. More than when he refuses to leave California.
Okay. He does not want to leave here.
I tried that many times.
He doesn't want to move.
And so, even though he doesn't have any family here, but he doesn't want to.
So, I'm stuck.
And so, yeah, she was left alone a lot during this time.
Oh, because your husband was working and you were protesting?
Right, okay. Yeah.
Then, after that, time passed.
Now, we go back to school after two years.
My son is now going to high school and He was fine.
I did not want my daughter to be messed up.
And I figured it would not help her at all, you know, especially two years without, you know, being locked up.
I wanted her to have face-to-face interaction.
So all the public schools were forced and they would try to push the back thing on them too.
So I told my husband, I'm going to find a private school for her and I'm going to put her in a Christian private school.
And I found one.
And the school is amazing in every single way you can think of.
And so she was there for two years.
And everything is quite there.
It's been a little bit more homework, so she felt that's best.
But you know, like I'm home, I'm always helping her and everything.
Then comes the last, so towards the end of the last year she was there, that's when the pulling started.
Then I spoke to the principal and all the teachers, and I said, Tyler's going through this, and I don't know what happened to you.
Is there something that you guys can tell me?
Something happened at the school, some kids harassed her?
Anybody? Any clue why she's going through this?
Nobody. Listen, she's good.
She plays. She has her friends, and she's a little bit closed off.
She doesn't really like mingling with the girls too much.
She likes the company of the boys more, but not really anything that No, it's a bomb.
And so, um, that's how we got to the point where, you know, towards the end of the lockdown, she was there.
So, and I had to ask the principal because she didn't care where to be because she has a bull spot and they allowed it and they were very grateful with everything.
Like, I think if she was in a different school, things would have been much worse.
Um, they, They made homework load much less for her.
They gave her more time to do homework in her meeting.
So they were very helpful in her situation.
And that did not help.
Less homework and all that.
So I still couldn't put my finger on.
Why? You know, she started pulling.
And I was afraid that she was maybe molested or something.
So I talked to her and I said, had somebody that she ended up completely did...
Anybody possibly at school?
Anything? No, no, no.
And so I figured maybe hypnosis.
We could get up, okay?
Maybe she will not tell me.
She's afraid to tell me. So I found a hypnotist that would try to hypnotize her.
And of course, because no clinics were allowed to have patients.
And so on Skype, And he sat down, you know, she laid on the bed, and he tried to hypnotize her, which I don't think it worked.
But he started asking her a question.
Has somebody like that anything and everything she told him?
Because I watched the tape afterwards.
Everything she told him was a lie.
He asked her, when was the last time you pulled your hair?
And she said, I was in my room.
What were you feeling back then?
And she said, I was happy.
She's like, really? You were happy?
Who did you see?
Before you went into the room, she said, oh my God, he came in and he kissed me.
And he said, how are you?
And I said, okay. And then I was happy.
And I said, I told him, I said that to the guy, I said, no, this does not make any sense.
Like, you should have pressed her more.
And that doesn't make any sense.
You can't be happy and you start hurting yourself.
So by the way, I felt...
Somebody else, different.
She saw about six or seven different therapists.
Then I found this therapist from the Netherlands and I purchased this book and I was reading and he had a program.
It's like habit reversal, right?
Kind of like nail biting.
You have to stop that habit.
So kind of like one of the therapies for this.
It did not work.
Nothing works. All these therapists, not one of them was able to reach the core reason why she started pulling.
Nobody. And then my brothers came here and they were telling me, your daughter is not normal, you know that?
And I told them what do you mean?
They're like, other than the hair pulling.
She seems to be autistic, you know that, right?
And I told them, I see some tics in her, okay?
It's fine. But I don't trust doctors here.
If one of them says something to social services or anything, I would not be able to get her back.
All the lawyers in the world would not be able to get her back if I lose her to the system here.
I'm scared to put her through that.
Look at what kind of tests they want to do on her.
I don't want her on segment. Look at her father on segment.
What's happened to him?
I'm scared. I'm scared of them.
I'm scared of the doctors. I don't trust them.
I don't want to get her diagnosed.
She's fine. I'll work on her myself.
Stefan. I don't know if I'm crazy or not.
But I'm scared to take a psychiatrist here.
I'm sticking to therapy, okay?
We should be all hands-on with her, okay?
We should all just be present with her, keep her engaged, keep her happy and stressful.
She doesn't need to be in a stressful situation.
I took the phone away from her, no tablet, no internet.
Take her out for support.
Make her go out on trams and everything, and I'm going to teach her how to be responsible and take care of herself and help with the house chores and all of that.
And I'm being judged. But no, you're not doing enough because you're not taking off to a psychiatrist.
Sorry, what did you think, what did your brothers say about her behavior that they expressed these concerns?
What did she manifest?
That she's autistic.
No, I know, but that's what they're saying, but what behaviors were they observing that you think might have led them in that direction?
That she has that hand movement, the fluttering of her hands.
She doesn't focus.
When they ask a question, they have to ask it to her twice.
The first time she says, huh?
And then she'll ask it again, and then she'll answer.
She's not like...
If she's...
She's...
Repetitive, like in her movements, for example, like she'll get up and just like jump up and down like five times.
She has, yeah, like certain, you know, body movements that she repeats.
Not throughout the day, like in the morning when she wakes up in the most, like she'll bounce up and down.
If she's bored or if she gets excited about something, she'll jump up and down.
When it comes to schooling, her grades are excellent.
She's an artist, very creative.
She has a little hard time with math, but she, you know, like A's and B's, her grades.
She doesn't have a disability when it comes to learning.
She writes the most beautiful.
She wrote a poem, and she won over the whole district.
So, educationally, she's excellent.
Friends-wise, she has one best friend, and she talks to a couple other students in the school, but one mainly close friend.
And she loves her brother, even though her brother He's distant now from her.
He's, like, ashamed of her.
He doesn't like to walk with her to school.
He doesn't talk to her or take her to school.
He's also blaming me for not taking her to a psychiatrist.
He tells me that he has his whole life ahead of him.
He doesn't have time for her.
And that as soon as he's out, he's out.
He's not going to care for her whatsoever.
It broke my heart.
And I said, is this time to talk about your sister?
What else? Wait, sorry, your son, who's been raised by a non-empathetic, cruel and emotionally distant dad, is himself cruel and non-empathetic?
Of course! Isn't that how it works?
So I expect that I don't trust the country to do the other stuff.
I'm scared of them. I don't want them to not hurt her with medication.
And he says, well, you need to know what's wrong with her.
I told him what the therapist told me, told the spectrum, okay, but she's not as bad as the rest.
It's just a hair-pulling thing.
I need to figure out why she's doing it.
And so, he said, do whatever you want.
And he went in his room and shut the door.
And I'm looking at my husband, and he says, yeah, he's right, you know.
And I said, okay, fine.
Do you want to take her to Japanese school?
Go for it. Take it. I'm not going to get the one.
Let's get him. Okay?
You want to do it? Go for it. Of course, she's not going to.
I know he wasn't getting the one.
I sat down with her last week, and I heard Can you explain to me?
Because I saw a new patch.
As soon as the hair grew a little bit long, she's pulled.
And I read many things.
I said, did it hurt to pull your hair?
She said, no. What do you mean, though?
If I tried to pull one hair, it hurts.
You're pulling, like, many chunks at, like, one time.
It's not one hair you're pulling.
I was like, how do you pull?
And she said, she puts, like, About maybe 50 or 60 strands between her fingers, and she twists her fingers, and then she pulled, like, viciously, viciously way over.
Pull it. And I said, oh my God, that hurts a lot.
And she said, I don't feel it.
Like, what do you mean? I don't feel any pain when I pull her hair.
I said, really? Okay, so I grabbed, like, a hand from her eyebrow, and I pulled it a little bit.
She's like, ow! I was like, yeah, it hurts.
How are you not feeling any pain in your...
It's cold. No, I don't feel anything.
I said, why do you think you have the need to cool so much?
And then she said, I just, it's bothering me.
I was like, okay, if it bothers you, keep it short like a kid.
But if you keep pulling from the root, you're going to kill the solico.
And then you might not grow a head again in your scalp.
You don't want to wear wings for the rest of your life.
You have beautiful hair.
And she said, I don't know. I just, I don't feel myself pulling in.
Does it hurt? And I can't do this to follow myself.
She asked me, I don't feel.
So my brother told me, maybe she has something.
Maybe she really doesn't feel pain.
Maybe that's why she's pulling it.
It's kind of like if they say it's a habit, it's just a habit.
Maybe we should do like an neurological test on her, like see if she has like the nerve endings in her head.
So, I don't know if I'm doing it right.
I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm just not sure what you mean.
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean when you say that you're lost.
I'm not disagreeing with you.
I'm just not sure what you mean.
I can't find a therapist that really can get to the core of it.
No, no, no. Forget about your daughter for a second.
So for me? Why am I lost?
You're in a loveless, dysfunctional, non-communicative relationship with a drug addict.
Help me understand what you mean when you say that you're lost.
This is one of the most miserable marriages I've ever heard of.
I mean, from what you're telling me.
So, I'm trying to sort of help you understand your focus on your daughter.
When you're as miserable a person, and I mean this with sympathy, I don't mean miserable like mean or bad, you're as unhappy a person as I've ever heard.
And how are you going to fix your daughter if you're miserable?
I tried to hide it.
I don't care.
No, honestly. See, now we're back to talking about your kids.
I'm not talking about your kids.
I'm talking about you. What are you doing?
In this miserable existence?
I don't know. I'm scared to leave.
I'm so scared to leave.
In what way?
I've never been on my own all my life.
I went to my parents' house here.
I don't know how to do it on my own.
Oh, come on. No, no, no.
What do you mean you don't know how to do it on your own?
What are you saying? You don't know how to sign a lease or pay bills?
I don't understand what you mean.
I have a college degree.
I would have to move.
Every listener to this show gets for me the top 1% of intelligence.
So you don't get, in my view, you don't get to roll over and play dead intellectually.
Because you listen to this show.
Yeah, I'm not.
I'm honestly telling you.
So you're a highly intelligent woman.
I would have to move. I'm sorry?
I would have to move away from where I live right now.
I would not be able to afford paying rent here.
Okay. And that would make the children have to choose between me or their father.
And I'm sure my son would want to go with his father because he's not there.
He allows him to do whatever he wants to do.
Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Have you talked to a lawyer?
No, I have not. So, hang on.
So, listen. Have I listened a lot?
I've listened for like an hour, right?
You did, you did. So, you need to let me talk a little because every time I start to talk, you're talking over me?
I don't mean to be mean, it's just we're not going to have a very productive conversation if I can't get a word in edgewise, alright?
So if you haven't talked to a lawyer, how do you know what the outcome of a separation would be?
I'm just guessing on what my son would choose.
That he would choose to be with his father because there is no I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
No, hang on, hang on. How do you know that?
When I went back to visit my family?
No, no, legally.
No, legally. I don't mean like in terms of they choose.
Legally? How do you know?
I mean, I don't know what the law is.
I mean, I have some idea if the law is in California, like there's a 10-year marriage rule, at least from what I've heard, and I think that the courts in America try to help the children continue as undisrupted as possible, right?
So, I don't think that the kids just get to choose who they live with.
I think there's shared custody.
I think there's all kinds of things, right?
Also, I don't know. I mean, if you can convince the court And I'm not giving any legal advice here, right?
I'm just saying that if the court understands that your husband is coming up for 10-year drug addict, I mean, I assume that's going to have some effect on that deliberation.
So, again, don't talk to me.
I'm not a lawyer. But I don't understand...
This sort of fear, and you're creating all of these ghost stories to scare yourself with, instead of talking to somebody who would actually know.
I don't follow. Well, my first reason is that I had a woman to grow up in a broken home.
That's my first reasoning, right?
Okay, tell me what you mean by broken home.
That the parents are divorced.
Okay, but hang on, hang on, hang on.
What do you mean by divorced?
I mean, do you mean like the legal thing or the fact that you barely talk to your husband
and he drugs himself when he gets home from work?
Aren't you letting your children bond and get modeled by a drug addict?
I mean, you're not letting your children bond.
You're not letting your children bond.
Again, maybe I'm missing something here, but I don't know what you mean by broken home.
You know, if you bought a dog for your kids and it kept biting them, would you say, well, I don't want to separate them from their pet?
It's like, it's not a pet, it's an attack dog.
And your husband is not fathering, it sounds like.
He's not parenting. He's not being a husband or a father.
He's a drug addict. So I don't know what you mean by broken home.
Isn't it broken already?
I'm happy to be corrected.
I'm just telling you what I think.
Oh, my questions. I need this.
I need this, please.
I'm sorry? I need this from you.
No, I'm just honestly asking questions.
You have this boogeyman called divorce that has kept you in a loveless, abusive marriage for over 10 years.
But it's not about you, right?
You're a mother. Who is it about?
What's your one goal as a mother?
What's the one thing you absolutely have to do as a mother?
Children, protect them.
No, you have to keep your children safe.
You have to expose them to the best things in life, right?
Absolutely. Okay.
Absolutely. So, having your children grow up...
With a drug addict in the house who's cold and mean and I assume abusive to some degree, right?
Is that what's best for your children?
No, it's not. It's what's best for you, because you've defined yourself into a corner, right?
You've defined yourself into a corner so that, well, I have to stay married, and I have to do this, and I can't move, and I'm going to lose my son, right?
But this is not real.
This is all just stuff you've made up to justify the fact that you don't want to make a decision
Does your husband drive the children when he's on drugs?
== Notes and I'm going to be back in a few minutes.
He doesn't go anywhere. Oh, he doesn't go anywhere?
He's never in charge of them when he's high?
Never. He just stays in the room.
And so, he doesn't take us anywhere.
I take the kids and do stuff with them.
doesn't engage at all.
So they effectively have no father from what I understand.
Is that right? 100%.
Okay. Except he's in the room and he's in the house.
Do they feel comfortable having friends come over with a drugged out dad in his room?
They don't. My friends, my son's friends, they come but they go straight to his room and they don't sit with us in the family.
They just walk and say hi.
They go out to the room and they close the door.
They stay for a little bit and then they leave.
They don't stay for long.
I don't know what I need to do, but I'm scared.
Okay, so tell me what you're scared of.
That's what I want to understand. Because you're making up all of these stories.
Maybe they're right, maybe they're wrong.
I don't know. I'm no lawyer. But help me understand what you're scared of.
I don't... I know...
They're going to say, okay, he's on drugs.
You're going to have full custody.
And the kids are going to blame me.
Oh, you're probably asking my father?
That's another thing I don't want.
You know? That's why I keep telling myself, okay, I don't want to fight with him over the kids.
I want to have a relationship with their father.
I don't want them not to see him.
So they don't blame me in the future.
Why did you do this? So it's still about you.
No, it's still about you.
It's still about you.
Well, I don't want my kids to blame me, and I don't want to be criticized, and I don't want this.
But you're a mom.
It's not about you. It's about what's best for your kids.
Now, I don't know what's best for your kids, obviously.
I'm not there.
I don't know. I mean, I just know what you've told me, so I don't know what's best for your kids.
But you can't be acting out of fear of any kind of criticism.
Because then it's about you.
It's about protecting yourself, not your children.
Am I wrong? I mean, I could be wrong.
I'm happy to be corrected. I don't know.
I'm staying here for them.
That's what I tell myself.
No, no, no, you haven't said...
No, no, let's be honest, man.
You haven't said one thing about what's for them.
You've said it's all about you.
I don't want to move. I don't want to be criticized.
I don't want this. I don't want that.
You haven't said anything about them.
What you've told me is that it's all about you.
Alright.
Alright.
Every day that your children are in a household with parents who hate each other,
they're digging themselves a little deeper into being imprinted with a really bad relationship.
you Right?
How long is it going to take for them to dig themselves out of that hole when they get
older or are they just going to end up in marriages like yours?
Does your daughter know how miserable you are?
you I'm sure she thinks...
I'm sorry?
I'm sure she knows.
Okay, so your daughter knows how miserable you are, and would you say that you are now, but particularly when you were younger, when you were 21, were you very physically attractive?
Yeah. Yeah, okay.
So, to some degree, you chose your husband out of looks and money, and to some degree, your husband chose you out of looks and money, right?
Yeah. Now, I have no idea what's going on with your daughter, obviously, right?
I'm nowhere competent to talk about any of that sort of stuff.
But let me give you a theoretical scenario, not involving your daughter, right?
Now, in a girl's eyes, physical attractiveness will lead her to the life her mother has.
So if you were chosen for your looks, then if you're miserable, a girl could very easily in her head say, good looks, being attractive leads to misery.
Being good-looking attracts dangerous men.
Being good-looking gets you married and miserable.
So it's, to me, theoretically possible that a girl would say looks lead to absolute misery.
Being good-looking.
Now, a primary attribute of a woman's good looks Is her hair, right?
And you said your daughter has very attractive hair, right?
Nice hair. Is that right? Very thick and curly hair.
Beautiful hair. So, if your husband chose you for your good looks, and you're miserable, and you have been miserable for...
For how long have you been miserable?
Oh, 10 to 12 years.
I'm sorry? About 10 years.
10 to 12 years. So for 10 to 12 years, you've been miserable.
And was it 12 years ago that you married your husband?
No, it was longer than that.
Okay, so hang on.
So you come over to the States.
Your husband drops you at a grocery store and you have no idea what to do.
And then he comes in 15 minutes later and starts yelling at you.
And then he takes you to a party, disappears.
You don't even know where the party is.
He leaves you alone in a new country with strangers.
So, if your daughter's 13, it took you four years to get pregnant, that's 17 years ago, isn't it?
Yeah. Not, uh, 17.
Uh... Or 18?
How many years ago did you get married?
20 years ago.
And what is the longest time of truly sustained happiness you've had in your marriage?
How long has it...
For how long were you and your husband, like was it a week, a month, six months, a year, that you and your husband were very happy?
Or just happy?
The longest? Oh my God.
I would say maybe the longest was above a month.
And I would say that came...
The second year, when I started working, so I wasn't home and then I was happy at the work because I started making friends and all that.
No, no, in your marriage, like in your marriage, so you've had a month's sustained happiness.
I've never been happy.
Never. So you've never been happy in your marriage?
Never. Okay.
So, your daughter, or, again, can't speak to your daughter in particular, a girl who looks at her mother and says, my mother was chosen for her beauty and it led to twenty years of misery.
So, my beauty is dangerous.
And the best way to not be chosen for my beauty is to destroy my hair.
I mean, let me ask you this.
Let me ask you this. If you go back 21 years to when you met your
husband, would you have preferred, in hindsight, would you have preferred to be
bald when you met him?
I'm not saying bald forever.
I'm just saying that when you met him, would you have preferred to have a really bad cold,
to have some giant pimples or something, right, that made you unattractive to your husband?
I wish that every day, the fun.
Right, so you curse, in a sense, your youthful beauty, right?
Yeah. Because it kind of got you snared, right?
Sorry, go ahead. I let go of myself for the past five years.
And have you, like, gained weight, or what is it that you mean by that?
And how much weight have you gained?
I'm now 210. And your height?
I'm 5'4".
Right. Okay, so you have wrecked, in a sense, your physical beauty and to some degree your health, right?
So you are trying to get your daughter to preserve her attractiveness while modeling
the destruction of your own.
You were saying it's better for my life if I'm less attractive and then your daughter
is making herself less attractive, right?
It just clicked in my head, because she always calls me, Mom, why are you so fat?
Right. And what's your answer?
I always joke, I say that's weird belly.
You joke and say what? No, it clicked in my head.
It's beer belly. Oh, it's beer belly.
Okay, so what's the honest answer?
Hang on. What's the honest answer to your daughter as to why you've gained so much weight?
If you could be perfectly honest without consequences, what would you say to your daughter about it?
She says, why have you gained so much weight?
Why are you so overweight? What would you say?
Because my husband doesn't touch me.
He doesn't care for me. He doesn't love me.
So why should I even worry about it?
It's not going to touch me all the way.
Isn't that attractive to me?
Why should I care?
Right.
And then she would say, but wouldn't you care because you want to stay healthy for us kids?
Or stay healthy for yourself?
And then she would say, but wouldn't you care because you want to stay healthy for us kids?
Or of course it could just be another way of staying in a bad marriage because if you're overweight then
Maybe another guy won't choose you or whatever And has your husband said anything about your weight gain?
and click on the link below.
Thanks for watching.
you I'm sorry?
He doesn't care. Oh, he doesn't care?
He doesn't care. Right. Yeah.
After I had my daughter a couple of years old, like when I was 20, I don't know, like 32.
I was 10. And I...my...my spirit was, you know, my kids weren't good and healthy.
They took care of me and everything else, like, to me as how I felt, was my best.
And then I slowly started letting go, especially after my brother-in-law passed away, and the responsibility also on my shoulders, right?
Because the father is of absence.
And so I played both, uh, mother and father role, which confused the kids, by the way.
And, uh, I'll just miss the thought, right?
I thought about leaving many times, but like, you know, I'm sorry, I'm having a little trouble understanding you.
I thought about leaving many times.
It's just, I'm afraid of what could come after the consequences of deciding to leave from my family, society, his family, my children.
I'm afraid. I'm always afraid to take a big decision.
Do you think that I want to go down this road of your fears again?
You've said this to me about half a dozen times.
Hang on. Hang on.
You've said this to me about half a dozen times about your fears and I'm fears and I'm sobbing and I'm sad and I'm upset and I'm crying and I'm this and I'm that.
What do you think my reaction is to you after I say you've got to focus on your kids, you talking about your own fears again?
You've got to focus on your kids.
But I, Mimi, I. What about your kids?
But I, Mimi, I. Well, what about your kids?
But I, Mimi, I. What's best for your children?
Not what's best for you, not what's easiest for you or less fearful for you.
What's best for your kids? I don't know the answer to that.
But what's best for your kids isn't you talking about I, me, me, I. My fears, my feelings, my this, my that, my the other.
I mean, you've been doing that for 20 years.
How's that working out?
I'm good. I'm good.
What do your friends say if you've talked to them about your marriage?
They understand that There is a way I stay and they also
Understand that that he is the father.
He's a good guy, you know, in general, right?
He doesn't beat them up.
He doesn't, you know, so...
Kind of like, do whatever you want to do.
You know, we're here for you.
But either way, And my family wanted me to leave the kids and him and just go back home.
Sorry, when was that? About four years ago.
They wanted me to leave.
And I said, no, I'm not going to leave my children here.
Sorry, what happened that they changed their mind, or rather than saying, work it out, or you'll get used to each other, or these are adjustment pains, what happened in your marriage that your family knew about that they said, come home, or at least leave him?
Wow, we have another hour, Stefan.
His mother and sister traveled to And I saw my family there and they went to my parents' house and they started saying that I am a whore.
I don't cook or clean or feed my children.
I forced my husband to do a gastric bypass surgery.
So he didn't say I'm hungry, so I have to cook for him.
Now, where did they decide to do all of this?
I found out later.
Of course, my parents, my father called me immediately and he said, Why are they saying this about you?
Are you okay? Is everything okay?
Are the kids okay? I said, yeah.
I don't know why they said that.
I don't understand. So I went to my husband to work and I said, why is your mother and sister talking all that bad stuff about me?
And he said, I don't know.
It turns out that he decided to say all of this bad stuff about me, make up all this stuff to his mama.
For some reason, Stefan, I don't know what the reason was, honest to God.
Until today, I don't know.
I even asked everybody in his immediate family.
I'm sorry, who on earth cares what the reason is?
Well, I don't understand. What does the reason matter?
Yeah, because I don't know why would they go and say that about me to my own family.
Hang on, sorry. So he got gastric bypass surgery and then he said you made him get it so you wouldn't have to feed him?
Yes. So is he saying that he wasn't overweight?
Oh, he was overweight. He was like 350 pounds.
And I did not start to do the surgery.
I told him, if he's been unable to do the weight, you know, I saw a lot of people...
Hang on, hang on, hang on. Sorry, sorry, sorry.
When did he hit 350 pounds?
When my daughter was two years old.
350. And I was then, like I said, I was...
Hang on, how much did he weigh when you met him?
No, he wasn't. He was like 180 when I first met him.
Okay, so he doubled his weight?
Yes. And how did he do that?
I mean, what was he eating? He was just eating a lot.
A lot. And he doesn't exercise.
And so he gained it pretty fast.
Yeah. When he went and saw the doctor and he encouraged him and he did the surgery, which was painless.
He did not feel any pain.
Of course, it was like the shock of the amount of how much you can eat in the beginning.
And so he dropped the weight fast.
Within like a year, he had lost almost all of the excess weight.
And he felt like a brand new man.
He felt great afterwards.
I don't know why he would Say that.
Like, what pushed him?
No, again, I don't care.
I mean, he's a cruel guy, right?
Yeah, very cruel. Okay, so he's a mean guy.
So when we say, why are people...
Why are mean people mean?
It's sort of pointless, right? They're mean.
I mean, we don't care. The origin doesn't really matter.
Because the only person who knows for sure is the person who's mean, and they'll never tell you.
Because they're mean, right? So that's...
Yes. Okay, so hang on.
So two years into the wedding...
Sorry, two years into the marriage, he doubled his weight.
And then how long did it take for him to get the surgery?
Yeah, so he was maybe for about a year at the maximum weight.
About a year. Okay.
And he reached to the point where he was unable to tie his own shoes.
And that's when I suggested that, you know, it's good to do that surgery.
You know, talk to the surgeon and see what he tells you about it.
If it's like minimum risk.
You should go for it, you know?
It's not good to be this heavy.
So you got married...
I'm sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I was 130 pounds, which is my average weight.
So you got married to a mean guy who very quickly became morbidly obese and you're like I've really got to stay
See you I mean you have a thing that you'd like the crying and the victim and the sadness and and all of that like
Like, how much do you feel like a victim in your life?
How much do you feel like you had no choice and things were done to you and all that?
I don't feel like a victim, but I think just because my mom stayed through all of it, she was in the worst position that I am.
At least I had the freedom to come and go.
I had my own car. My mom didn't have that.
So I had myself in a better position than she is.
And why is yours a worse position?
I'm in America. She's over there.
I have more freedom to come and go.
If I want to work, I can do whatever.
My mom was in a worse situation.
So why did I stay?
I'm stupid.
I don't know what to tell you so far.
I'm scared. But I want the best for my children.
And I don't seem to get the best advice on what to do.
I cannot make that decision.
I don't know what it is.
And I can't seem to get the right advice.
Like for my family, they said, leave everybody and come home.
I can't leave my children.
What are you talking about? That was a lot of advice too.
And nobody's giving me the right advice to continue on the right path for the sake of my children.
I'm careless about myself, obviously.
I let go. But I was what I missed for my children.
And I'm failing.
I'm failing. You're in your 40s, right?
Yes, I am. Why do you need people to tell you what to do?
You've been an adult for a quarter century.
Why are you just running around like a lost little lamb saying, I need someone to tell me what to do?
if you orient yourself by what's best for your children you feign a lack of knowledge but you know what's best for
your children in your current environment
your daughter it seems to me or it sounds like she's going half crazy and
your son is going half cruel right?
Is that an unfair way to characterize it?
Nope. Okay, so this current environment, is it good for your children?
Absolutely not. Okay, so you don't need anyone to give you advice.
You just don't want to make a decision.
I understand that.
I understand that.
But don't tell me you don't know what to do or you just don't get good advice.
Like, you know, I just I asked you two questions and you had the answer right there.
your daughter want a life like yours?
you No, possibly not.
I would not wish it were my boyfriend.
Well, that means that you are your own worst enemy because you've wished it on yourself, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay. So if your daughter doesn't want the life you have, then she's going to do the opposite of what you did, right?
If going north is the opposite direction that I want to go, then I'm going to go south.
I'm going to go the opposite of north, right?
So if your daughter doesn't want the life that you have and the life that you had was founded on physical attractiveness,
she's going to do the opposite of physical attractiveness, in my view.
If I overeat and don't exercise and I get fat and I have a son who wants to not get fat, what's he going
to do?
you If I overeat and don't exercise, what's my son gonna do if
he doesn't want to be fat like me?
Are you still with me?
Yeah, we're just...
I've taken it all in.
No, no. I'm asking you a question.
If I get fat because I overeat and I don't exercise and my son desperately doesn't want
to get fat, what's he going to do?
Probably he will seek drugs in the future.
What? No, no, hang on.
Let me try this again. Okay, so I get fat because I overeat and I don't exercise.
And my son doesn't want to get fat like me, so what's he going to do?
He will exercise. Yeah, he will not overeat and he will exercise, so he will do the opposite of me, right?
Yeah. So, when you were younger, and you were beautiful and sexy and all these kinds of things, I'm not saying you aren't now, but, you know, back in your heyday, right?
So, when you were younger, your physical attractiveness was probably your most noticeable aspect, right?
Right. And it led to multi-decade misery, right?
Yes. So, your daughter...
My mom was really attractive, too.
I'm sure. And everyone looks at beautiful people and thinks, man, they've got it made.
Like everyone looks at rich people or famous people and say, they've got it made, man.
I wish I were like them.
But beauty is a great danger.
Beauty is a great danger.
Did your husband choose you for your virtues?
Your strength of character, your integrity, your strength.
Did he choose you for those attributes?
Why did he choose you?
Yeah, why did he choose you? For the looks.
Yeah, for the looks. Yeah.
Being attractive leads to ruin.
And you wonder why your daughter might be pulling her hair out?
You know, it's a little bit...
Well, I'm so blind.
Well, no, it's a little tough to see, isn't it?
Bye.
Bye.
you And you and your daughter are both harming your attractiveness, your physical attractiveness, kind of at the same time, right?
And you put on 70 pounds, and you're saying to your daughter, why would you want to be less attractive?
Why would you want to be less attractive?
And I assume your son is modeling himself after your father with contempt for women
You You
Bye.
you scorn at his mother, scorn at his sister, aligning himself
with the patriarch.
And you know, I mean, I assume all other things being equal he's gonna end up
much like his father, isn't he?
100% that I already see the side.
And that's what's scaring me the most.
No, that is not what's scaring you the most.
That's just a word people say.
Particularly moms. How do I know that's not what's scaring you the most?
Because you say, well I can't even think about leaving or even talk to a lawyer because I'm so terrified of what
might happen after.
you If you were the most scared that exposure to your son's
father is turning him into his father, then you would try and figure that problem out rather than
wallowing in your self-pity and your sadness and your fear and being paralyzed.
And I'm not trying to be harsh.
I have genuine deep sympathy for your situation.
I really do. I have genuine deep sympathy for your situation.
But you sound kind of paralyzed to me.
Like you sound like...
You just...
The anxiety rises up.
And you just get paralyzed, right?
And then you get paralyzed, you go limp, you go rubber bones, and then you say, well, people have to tell me what to do, and nobody's telling me what to do, and I'm afraid of this, and I'm afraid of that, and I can't talk to this expert, and I can't, like...
So then you end up paralyzed.
But when was the last time...
That you genuinely felt loved for who you are.
You felt treasured, respected, adored, desired.
I've never had that before.
Right.
I mean, people often feed their bodies because their hearts are starving.
Yeah.
If you and your daughter observed that children soak up everything in their environment,
Everything. You know, we have lives, we have taxes, we have friends, we have plans, but our children just have us, so they notice and see everything.
They're like obsessive archaeologists or anthropologists simply studying their parents.
And... Your daughter, like all same-sex children, your daughter looks at you and says, Do I want what she has?
Do I want what my mother has?
Now if I don't want what my mother has I can't be like my mother.
And if I really, really, really don't want what my mother has, I have to be the opposite of my mother.
I have to be the opposite of my mother.
you Again, I don't know. I don't know.
It's just a possibility.
I mean it seems to fit the facts but that doesn't mean that that's certainty.
Mr. Sillisbaran, I didn't tell you that much. Now that you shone the light on it, I see it clearly now.
And I thank you for that. Thank you so much. Thank you.
You're welcome.
I mean...
She may say to herself, pulling my hair out is less pain than...
What not pulling my hair out is, which is my mother's life.
Yeah. And now I see it, as she said to the therapist, that the first time I put my dad back to my room and I was happy, I couldn't be happy.
It's the masking of me pretending to be happy, but I'm not.
Now I see it. Right.
Now I see it.
Yeah, I mean, this is like where my sympathy is enormous, right?
So, I mean, I've had, you know, countless phone calls or calls like this.
And I think of, it's probably close to, if not the top three or five, of all the people I talked to, you were the saddest right at the beginning.
The most unhappy right at the beginning.
And for that, I have massive...
Massive sympathy. And listen, of course, growing up in the Middle East, as a woman, as a girl, you're not exactly trained to have will and power in your life, right?
And certainly your mother didn't model any of that.
So helpless, pushed around by fates, men, law.
We are trained to be subservient.
The society against Christians as well is very harsh.
If you're attractive on top of it, going to school is at risk every day.
I was groped, harassed, you name it Stefan.
It was horrible, so getting out of that country was a life-saving technique.
It was a very, very harsh society.
Yes, that I understand.
but there's leaving the country and then there's leaving the mindset
to accept that you have some
power strength and authority It's tough when you've been raised in this kind of harassed and brutalized and groped and aggressed against kind of way, right?
As you say, as an attractive Christian girl and woman in the Middle East, that's not an easy life at all.
Absolutely. And that's why I can understand, like, yeah, going back would be awful.
And divorce on top of that?
Oh my God. Right.
Right. My nickname would be the whore in that country.
Right. But you in America now!
And that means you have allies.
That means you have people you can talk to who will help.
And I don't know what that help means.
Again, I'm no lawyer or therapist or psychologist or psychiatrist or anything like that.
I don't know what that help means. But there are people.
Who will help you? Unlike when you were growing up.
Unlike your family. Who, as you say, said, stay with him.
It'll be fine. And then, when their reputations took a blow, leave him and your kids.
Like, yeah, I get that. That's terrible advice on both sides, right?
But you are going to need to try and find some way, in my humble opinion, you are going
to need to try and find some way to become a person of strength that your children can
admire.
Not someone who feels this, you know, this much pushed around and helpless and so on.
And again, I sympathize with all those feelings.
I really, really, really do.
But I know it goes against what you were raised with and so on, but I think it's probably quite important for you to try and find some way to be a leader in your family.
I mean, it doesn't sound like your husband's doing it.
In fact, he's kind of leading everyone in the wrong direction, it sounds like.
But you're going to need to find some way to become strong.
I'm honored for smiling right now.
Thank you so much. You're welcome.
Thank you. And listen, I can't...
I mean, I had my own rough background, whatever, whatever, but I can't imagine what it was like for you.
I can vaguely picture it, but obviously the genuine experience of being that preyed upon as a girl and as a young woman, I can't imagine.
So, with all huge humility, you know, I sort of bow my head in your direction and say that the burden that you had to carry is more than I can genuinely imagine.
And I have sympathy for what I really can't deeply understand in the way that you've experienced it.
So, I just want, in all humility, I want to sort of provide that perspective as well because I don't want you to feel like I'm just, you know, oh, you've got to be strong!
It's like, no, no, no. It's a whole different world out there in that part of the world.
And with those sexual and gender and racial and religious tensions, it's a whole different world.
And I can only feel around the edges of what you went through, and I just have huge sympathy for all of that.
I try to stay, you know, strong.
So I'm headed, you know, and step fast.
But I'm falling apart.
I have to be the leader again.
And I'm willing to, I'm ready to take that step.
And I see it clearly now.
Because if I don't, I'm going to lose everything.
And I don't want to lose my children.
The future for me is the best thing I want to know.
If I go and pass away, that both my kids are unable to sustain themselves.
They're living a good life. They're making the right decisions.
And I need to do it right now because it's too late.
And that's why I reached out to you.
I wanted to reach out for so long, Stefan.
I mean, it sounds wise insofar as the teenage years of the last stand of parenting.
Like, that's where you get your last shot, so to speak.
And so it sounds wise to get involved.
In that way, but I think definitely getting the facts about what your options are is probably quite important.
Again, I don't know what you should do, right?
Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you because you have to make these decisions yourself, but I don't know what you should do, but I do know that gathering information about your possibilities, your options is really, really important.
Otherwise, you're just going to make up scare stories and paralyze yourself further.
No, I absolutely don't know what I need to do now, Stefan.
100%. Alright. How's the conversation been for you as a whole?
I want to obviously make sure of that because it's been quite intense in a way.
I've learned so much from you throughout the years and I've followed you.
How about peaceful parenting and all of that?
And I modeled a lot of that from you.
Especially the conversations with the kids and make them understand instead of just giving orders.
It helped a lot.
Also, this phone call is what I was praying for for the past couple of months.
Thank you for getting back to me fast.
I was really anxious.
It sounded kind of urgent, so yes, I moved some things around.
Yeah, yeah. I felt like I'm running out of time, man.
And I knew you were the only one who could help me.
Well, I appreciate that.
No pressure, no pressure, but it's you or nothing, Steph.
You or nothing! You've always impressed me, you know, with your perspective on things.
I love to listen to the calls, the people, and the points you shine a light on always surprise me, like, oh my god, I've never even told that.
So I know you're going to have a unique perspective on the whole situation, and I appreciate your time and everything.
You're very welcome. Will you keep me posted about how things are going as a whole?
I will, I promise.
All right, listen, sister, big hug, big virtual hug, big hug, and, you know, your strength of this call should not be underestimated, and I really do appreciate, I mean, the trust that you put in my little mind to try and provide a few shreds of wisdom, I'm really humbled by, and I'm glad it sounds like it's been helpful, and I absolutely wish you the best, but yeah, big hug from me up here.
Thank you, and I'm sorry about all the emotions.
No, no, no. Emotions are fine.
We welcome the emotions here.
We are down with the feels.
All right. Well, listen, keep me posted.
And again, thanks again for a great call.
And I absolutely wish you and your children the very, very best.
All right. Take care.
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