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March 16, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:31:05

I Was 10 and 300 POUNDS! Freedomain Call In

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	Hello! Hey, how's it going?
	Very good. First up, I just wanted to apologize for being in a grump before I've assumed.
	Assuming makes an ass out of you and me, but it was me that time.
	I do apologize for that.
	It was a good helpful lesson, and we all do it, so it's good to be reminded for everyone.
	No problem at all. Yeah, so I got your message, and do you want to lay it out for me how I can best help you?
	Yeah, well, I'm hoping that the issue that I have is something...
	Just silly and technical that could be applied to anyone, regardless of...
	I don't want it to be, oh, woe is me, tough life, all that stuff.
	I don't like doing that because it's not...
	It's being in a spiral.
	I feel like I'm in a negative feedback loop.
	I don't know what your opinion is of that.
	You're stuck on the ruts that you're in.
	You don't know how to get out of them.
	There's probably something very obvious that you're missing, or maybe I'm lying to myself about things of what I actually want to do, and I guess I'm full of shit to myself.
	I don't think so. The issue that I have, just like a technical one, is mainly procrastination to the point where it looks like it's going to...
	I mean, at the moment right now, it's 5am, and I'm I talk about procrastination and putting things off.
	Even though I have every incentive to do the right thing or to do something that benefits me, if you have to do your chores and it doesn't benefit you, you can put that off.
	But I have something that is actually really good that I keep on delaying and just filling it with just nothing.
	I look back and I'm doing nothing and I And I'm really worried at the moment of thinking, well, I'm either going to crash and just burn out and then...
	I don't know.
	I don't want to think about that.
	But I have to because I can feel that coming.
	I don't know what to do.
	It's hard to...
	When you're doing something by yourself, there's no technical help for...
	What you're doing, like, field-wise, because it's, like, completely new.
	Not completely new, but, like, it's...
	There's just no help. There's just no help.
	And I don't know what to do, so I'm just kind of hoping that...
	So I'm just kind of hoping that...
	I don't know. Like, I don't know where you want me to go for context.
	Like, it's to do with basically...
	Intentionally...
	Finding every excuse possible in your head to not do the thing that you need to do, but there's every incentive for you to do it.
	I can't figure out...
	It's just a habit that I have.
	It's just that at the moment, I can't get away with ignoring that or going, oh yeah, that's just a quirk that I have.
	That's just my personality.
	It's like, no, now it's...
	It's like being irresponsible as a kid.
	You get away with that when you're a kid, but when you're an adult, you're on your own, or you have...
	People that depend on you, it's like, oh shit, now, you can't do that anymore.
	Is it a tram line?
	Is it something else? I don't know.
	I don't even know how to frame that.
	Is it a tram line? Is that what you say?
	A tram line? I'm not sure what you mean.
	Oh, I mean, sorry, when I mean negative...
	I don't know what your opinion is on you being in a positive feedback loop.
	You were inspired to do something and everything's going well and you're on the upswing.
	I feel like I'm on a downswing of I'm stuck in a rut and I'm going around in circles and the lines are fixed and getting deeper.
	I just don't know what to do.
	What's your age range and how's your life as a whole?
	I'm 28.
	I don't know. Life-wise, I already said I'm at home.
	I've been housebound.
	Not housebound, but I can go out.
	It's just I have a lot of trouble walking.
	I've been on and off crippled with a type of juvenile arthritis since I was a kid.
	So I... I don't know.
	I think considering the circumstances, I'm pretty positive as a person.
	I used to, in October last year, I had to stop working at a local airport.
	That was my part-time job, and I was trying to transition into doing something else because I knew that my body physically, it's like, I like my job and I like the people there, and that was my socializing, really.
	But it was going to work and helping and doing all the airport stuff.
	I love that. I love interacting with people.
	And I didn't used to.
	But because I couldn't put pressure on my knee anymore, and it's back to like it was when I was living and working on the farm, dragging my leg behind me, it's like, well, people won't hire you.
	It's like, you're not disabled enough to be counted as disabled, but you're disabled enough that, like, Completely fair.
	No one's going to hire you to do...
	I couldn't work at the mines or do any of the typical stuff that other people do to earn a high income.
	I just had to stick around on the farm as a plow horse.
	Sorry, I'm not sure when you're finished, so I don't want to interrupt.
	Bye.
	you Oh, sorry.
	I didn't want to keep on rambling.
	Oh, hold on. Yeah, so, life-wise, I don't know.
	I think if other people were in my position, they wouldn't be happy.
	It's just that I've been in my position for being alone for just so long that there's no point sucking about it.
	I don't have a partner.
	I don't think I will.
	It's not even being defeated, so I don't think that's fair to other people.
	The dog that's been just kind of On its own for too long.
	Let it live its life on its own.
	It's going to be like, just not get along with other people.
	Not even that. I'm nice to people.
	I don't have an issue. I don't know.
	It's that thing of I guess I dealt with social insecurity from having been isolated in a bad way that it ended up working where I got fed up because something bad happened.
	And I just gave up and thought, you know, like, fuck people.
	Like, absolutely fuck them.
	Like, I put so much effort into, like, pussyfooting around people and caring about other people's feelings.
	And then this thing happens, like, well, clearly my feelings don't matter.
	And I kind of spat the dummy.
	And when I spat the dummy, everything to do with socializing got better.
	Because I spat the dummy in a way that, oh, it's like, you have personality change.
	Like, you're not I'm not pre-planning conversations.
	I used to pre-plan conversations before I had them if I would do deliveries for my family's farm.
	I'll talk about the weather.
	I'll talk about this thing in the news.
	It feels smart if you're autistic, but it's not off the cuff.
	All someone has to do is say something that's not off the cuff.
	Oh, crap. You don't have the decision tree to actually engage with people.
	I couldn't talk to you even over a microphone.
	Not that long ago.
	Just being afraid of saying what I think.
	Being raised to always be very concerned about other people's feelings.
	Who cares about yours?
	I'm finished. Thanks, I appreciate that.
	We'll need to have over and out.
	That's fine. And what is it that would be the best outcome for you in a conversation with me?
	It's kind of like someone going to church and then waiting for
	the religious experience that might not happen.
	Well, I've...
	On your show, the times where I've seen you kind of grill into someone and there's something...
	Quite often it's like you'll say something like, no, this isn't true.
	You know that's not true. You're lying about this thing.
	You're lying about what you want or something.
	It feels...
	I kind of want that of like, oh, that kind of not eureka moment of You can tell someone if they're overweight that they need to eat less and exercise more, but the odds are very good that they understand that.
	That's not the issue.
	It's like, why aren't you doing the thing that you could be doing?
	And there might be a whole bunch of legitimate reasons for that, but that's not...
	It's like...
	The thing that's actionable and the thing that's to do with a narrative that you see everything through that warps everything.
	It's like, if you think all women are shit and terrible, then you're not going to interact with women nicely and then you're not going to have nice outcomes.
	For me, I don't think I'm interacting with myself very nicely.
	I'm not doing right by me and I'm not doing right by my future.
	At the moment, it's very clear two paths of Either the thing that I'm doing works, or it doesn't.
	And I don't know what comes after that.
	I'm blessed at the moment for even having the advent of Starlink, because before that, I couldn't even get a proper signal for doing anything.
	I had no options for doing anything, because the internet's completely shit where I am.
	So, yeah.
	Over. Right.
	What do you think I was asking for when I asked you what you're trying to get out of this conversation?
	Because I need to know how I'm landing for you.
	Hang on, let me finish.
	I'm not saying anything negative.
	I just really want to understand.
	Because I don't understand what you want out of the conversation other than you're glad to have gotten better internet and you fear you might be alone forever and I've told other people that they're lying.
	So what specifically, like, how would you gauge this to be a successful conversation for you?
	Like, what would you hope, what insight would you hope to have?
	What barriers would you like to overcome?
	Sorry, sorry about that.
	I didn't mean to kind of warble on.
	No, no, I didn't. I'm not saying this to correct you, or I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong.
	I just want to make sure that I know what you're looking for.
	Yeah, no, what If we do something and the outcome is positive, what does the positive outcome look like?
	Well, the positive outcome is...
	It's kind of like when you framed...
	I assume this doesn't apply to me because I spat the dummy for socializing, and that is kind of what fixed my issue because then I realized it's kind of like if you tell someone that having sex isn't a big deal, well, Like, that's all well and good, but that doesn't get rid of the monkey off someone's back.
	But if someone does actually get rid of that monkey off their back, then they can look back on that and think, yeah, it wasn't actually that big a deal.
	But if your problem is that monkey...
	Okay, dude, dude. I'm trying to be patient here.
	What do you want to get out of the conversation?
	I appreciate these monkey analogies.
	They're very interesting. But I still don't know what you want to get out of the conversation.
	Okay. I want to be...
	I want to not procrastinate.
	I want to not actually self-sabotage and rep things for myself.
	Okay. Do you want...
	You said that you're practicing...
	That's quite complex.
	Oh, no. Even just saying that, it's like, well, that's so complex and open-ended.
	No, no, no. I didn't ask you to judge what you've said.
	I just asked you what you wanted.
	So overcoming procrastination, that's a big one for you, right?
	The biggest, yeah. That's the biggest.
	Okay. What about your...
	This woeful retreat into rural isolation, that you are going to be alone forever and ever, amen, and so on.
	Is that something that you want to overcome, or is that something you're more or less content with?
	Well, I don't like...
	I mean, I've lived in the city, I didn't like it.
	So it's not... The things that I'm hung up on, like that's not...
	Okay, did I ask you which cities you've lived in?
	Ideally, if I'm successful. Hang on, hang on.
	You need to listen to...
	Please, I beg it here. Listen to what I'm saying and answer the question.
	If you want to tell me about the cities you've lived in that you liked or didn't like, that's not my question, right?
	Do you want or do you view as a...
	No, no, let me finish.
	Let me finish. No. Do you view it as a problem to be overcome that you experience severe isolation and expect to for the rest of your life?
	For the rest of my life, yes.
	But if you mean isolation as in living in a rural area itself, which is inherently isolating, then no.
	That's not actually something I have an issue with.
	That's something that I prefer.
	But to do with socializing, at the moment...
	No, no. Fuck socializing.
	Sorry. I'm happy.
	Hang on.
	What about a wife?
	What about kids?
	What about all of that sort of stuff?
	Probably not. I can't suck about not having something if I haven't put in any effort to acquire it.
	Okay, I'm not asking about the effort you have or have not put in.
	I'm asking, is it a problem that you would like to overcome, which is to be without a partner and without children for the rest of your life?
	The only reason it feels like a problem is because it's an expectation.
	So hang on, but is it your expectation or other people's expectation?
	No, I mean like social expectations of like, well, why don't you have X and Y by this age or that age?
	It's like, well, I can give myself a whole bunch of legitimate excuses of, yeah, I didn't do blah, blah because of X, Y, Z. Okay, no, no, hang on, hang on.
	So I'm not asking about social expectations.
	And I'm sorry to have to interrupt.
	I just want to make sure that we get a good use out of our time together.
	No, you're all right. So you don't want to fall in love.
	You don't want to get married.
	You don't want to be a father. Is that right?
	Forget social expectations.
	You, in your heart, you want to go through life without a partner, without a lover, without a mother for your children.
	Is that right? And I'm not criticizing.
	I'm just curious. It's not about the alternate timeline where that's a thing.
	Yeah, that sounds great.
	I don't think If I'm going to put an effort into something first, it should be the thing that's my immediate problem, which is to do with business and being successful.
	If I can figure that out, if I make excuses because I'm sick and I'm isolated, and then that becomes a negative feedback loop of, well, there's no point in pursuing all the things you're talking about because...
	Like, well, I've already lost.
	You know, it's kind of like you're the bald dwarf at, like, 15 or something.
	Like, you're downranked.
	Like, you downrank yourself, and then you don't put in effort because you think, well, what's the point of putting in effort?
	Because you're only going to... All right, this is all very abstract.
	Now, this is all very abstract, and you're giving me some odd philosophy of something or other, but I'm basically just asking the question.
	If you could have...
	Hang on, let me ask the question.
	If you could have a happy marriage with children, would you want that?
	Yeah. Okay, okay.
	So the reason I'm saying is that don't you...
	I don't see that as bad. I'm sorry?
	I don't see that as bad.
	It's just that I wouldn't put myself out there in the position that I'm in now.
	It's like there's no point.
	Well, I'm not asking you about now.
	I'm asking over the course of your life.
	Like, let me put it to you this way.
	When you want to build a house, you don't just start throwing bricks together, right?
	What's the first thing you do?
	Plans for where everything goes.
	Well, you designed the house.
	Do you want one story, two stories, how many bedrooms, what size attic?
	Is it going to be centrally heated?
	Do you want air conditioning? Is it going to be built in?
	Is it going to be on the window? You plan the house, right?
	And then you only start building once you know what the end goal is, right?
	So I'm going to have a different conversation with you.
	Hang on, sorry. I'm going to have a different conversation with you if your end goal is to overcome procrastination.
	Or if your end goal is to have a wife and kids.
	I'm just telling you, that is going to condition the conversation.
	I don't care what goal you want.
	I'm like the taxi driver.
	All I'm saying is, where do you want to get to?
	Now, if you say, I want to go down the street, that's one thing.
	If you want to say, I want to go across the city, that's another thing.
	So I'm just asking, what is the end goal of an ideal life that...
	You would like to achieve. Well, ideal life and conversation with you that leads to a more ideal life is not the same thing.
	Having a wife and kids would be wonderful, but at the moment, the problem that I really want to deal with, maybe if I become successful, that leads to me becoming, in my mind, marriageable.
	I don't see myself as that at the moment, and I wouldn't I wouldn't put that on someone.
	I get that.
	You've said that a bunch of times.
	And again, I'm sorry about the diabetes that you're suffering from and the ailments and so on.
	Have you ever been coached before?
	I'm going to assume not in sports, but have you been coached before in math or have you taken writing courses?
	Have you experienced coaching before?
	And what were you coached in?
	Yeah, sure. Well, I guess for the most recent thing, it would be not just coaching, but also teaching vertical rescue.
	What's that? Are you talking about writing?
	Are you talking about something academic?
	Well, when I used to volunteer, I used to do...
	You have to learn how to do all the things for state security services.
	Okay, so have you experienced coaching from an expert before?
	One-on-one coaching?
	Yes. And how did that go?
	It was very nice.
	It was wonderful. Not feeling confident in the beginning and then afterwards, you know, you can do something.
	And it's a wonderful feeling.
	Okay, because I'll tell you my experience of talking to you so far is that we're kind of wrestling for authority, or not quite control, but something like that, right?
	So we've been talking for, what, I don't know, 15 minutes or so, and I have a particular methodology for approaching these conversations.
	And you're fighting me every step of the way.
	For me, it shouldn't take 10 minutes to get an answer to a simple question, do you want to get married and have kids?
	Yes or no? And I'm getting all this stuff about, well, maybe later or procrastination is my biggest issue, but down the road and ideal and vertical security.
	It's just as far as efficiency goes, all you have to do is answer the question.
	But I think that's tough for you because you won't surrender to a particular kind of process that is my coaching.
	Because you want to tell me about why it's not appropriate now and why you may not have something to offer and all of that sort of stuff.
	As opposed to, I'm asking you questions for a reason.
	You know, just give me the answers.
	I don't need an essay.
	It's not, I mean, it's kind of yes-no.
	Some people, they don't want to get married and have kids, and some people do.
	And if you're one of those people, say yes, in the long run, it would be nice to be married.
	I'm procrastinating. I'm sorry?
	I'm essentially procrastinating on the answer.
	I'm procrastinating on the answer of coming to you of my problem being procrastination, and I'm not answering that.
	I don't... During my day, I don't think about having a wife and kids at all.
	I just don't. Hang on.
	Did I ask you if during the day, do you think of...
	Can I just say yes or no? Yeah.
	That's the whole point. That's efficient.
	Can I just say yes? Okay. Okay.
	What? Okay.
	No. It's just answering what I have.
	I'm sorry? You're asking, oh, you don't, or you want to be alone.
	You'll say, oh, you want to be alone forever.
	It's like, okay, but that's leading because I won't be alone.
	It's just that I might not have a wife and kids.
	It's like, I don't care about that.
	If I really cared about that, then I would have pursued it.
	So, no. I'm going to say no.
	I'm probably not going to have a wife and kids.
	Well, of course you wouldn't have pursued it because you have a problem with procrastination.
	Right? So say, well, no, no, no, I'm so decisive that I would have just pursued it.
	If you say, oh, no, if I wanted a wife and kids, I'm so decisive I would have just pursued it when you've told me that your biggest single issue is procrastination, I'm looking at your level of self-knowledge here, right?
	Of course you wouldn't have just pursued it because you have a huge problem with procrastination.
	You want to defer to later.
	And even in the reply to me, you say, well, a wife and kids would be nice in the future, but not right now.
	Like, now I'm not ready.
	Now is not the time. Now is this, right?
	Even though you've been an adult for 10 years, right?
	You've been an adult for a decade, right?
	So you're saying, no, no, no, wife and kids?
	It's yeah, I'll put that off till later.
	If you were crippled and you were sick all the time, you wouldn't give up.
	I guess you wouldn't give up on those things.
	I'm just weaker on that. Okay, so tell me a little bit about the physical symptoms, which of course I massively sympathize with, but tell me a little bit about the development of the illness and what's going on.
	It's spondyloarthropathy or ankylosing spondyloarth, basically just Like, really bad arthritis.
	Like, that was...
	Like, I was bed-bound at, like, 10.
	I had to wait a very long time to get medicine so that I could walk, but then there was this issue where if I... Like, it actually started because I went on, like, a weight-loss kick when I was a kid, and that somehow that kind of triggered my immune system of, like, oh, I lost too much weight too quickly.
	And then something that's Genetically, you determine whatever propped up.
	The pattern is from 15 onwards, really, for a condition waxes and wanes.
	The medicine works.
	Then I'll start losing weight.
	I'll start putting in effort.
	Then the medicine would just stop working.
	I'm going to have to move to something else. You get your hopes up, and then We just get kicked down again and again.
	At the moment, I don't have anything other than prednisone to walk, because there's nothing left.
	So it's like, yeah, can I make the best of what I have at the moment?
	It's like, yes, I can, but anything else is like, that'll be wonderful, but Do what you can do first, and don't be too hard on yourself, but those other things.
	Right, okay. So, at the moment, you use apregnizone, I think.
	It's anti-inflammatory.
	I'm not a doctor, obviously. Is that a painkiller?
	Is that what you use so you can more easily get around?
	It's steroid.
	It's a steroid.
	You're not meant to be on it long term.
	And when you're on this and it's working, how functional are you?
	It lets me...
	Well, I don't need crutches, but it's like it doesn't get rid of...
	It's just like inflammation and stuff is too big.
	I can take a dog.
	I can take the dog for a walk, but it allows me to bend my knee and stuff and put pressure on my feet.
	And it's...
	I don't know. At least I'm in America.
	Healthcare, it's not that bad.
	My rheumatologist is good, but I've just gone through every medication since I was a kid.
	So it's like, okay. Whatever, that's it.
	On that front, that's it.
	As a kid, I thought it would be not completely selfish, but it would be better to be Crippled in a permanent way where you don't feel something.
	You're in a wheelchair. I know that's a horrible, shitty thing to say.
	No, I get it. As opposed to...
	You can at least write something off and go, okay, now there's no treatment.
	You have to deal with that.
	But when you have your kind of Like, yo-yoing, or you know what it feels like to, like, you have better days than others, and it's like, well, why can't there all be better days?
	Now it's just, yeah, like, being able to sympathize with, like, elderly, like, people, like, elderly neighbors of, like, oh, yeah, like, I understand your back pains of, like, yeah, like, we're all hobbling over and, like, we've all got our walking sticks.
	Right. And how heavy were you in your mid-teens that you did this dieting, and how much did you lose?
	I was 130 when I was 10, 6'2", and I got down to 80, maybe 85 in a year.
	But that was basically going nuts and being really horrible to myself for not eating or eating diet, jelly, aspartame bullshit and stuff.
	Because I was doing a school over the air at the time, and the workload wasn't that much, I could spend all day just walking around.
	Because the farm at that point was huge.
	Just walking, listening to audiobooks and stuff on my iPod.
	That's in the bush, but there's no one there.
	That was before I was crippled.
	And then... Once I got down to my goal weight, but once things started looking like, holy crap, I can do a hundred setups.
	Just feeling amazing and thinking, okay, where am I going?
	Should I join the military or something?
	Or anything. Before we get there, I'm trying to figure this out.
	You said you were 130 at the age of 10.
	Does that mean pounds? No.
	No. They're all as big as a kid.
	So, sorry, 130...
	Oh, that's kilograms.
	Yes, it's huge, yes.
	What the heck? Isn't a kilogram 2.2 pounds?
	Yes. So, wait, you were pushing 300 pounds at the age of 10?
	Yes. How on earth did that happen?
	I'm not blaming you. I mean, you were a kid.
	I'm just... I mean, you have parents, right?
	You're not raised by wolves.
	What happened? Well, like, it's...
	I can blame my parents for that, but I have agency.
	No, no, no.
	I'm not doing that.
	Hang on, hang on.
	I'm not doing that with you.
	Of course you blame your parents.
	They're in charge of your diet and your environment and your health.
	Of course you blame your parents.
	I mean, you can't give a five-year-old or an eight-year-old full moral responsibility.
	Otherwise, they'd be out there signing contracts and driving cars.
	It's your parents' job to inform you about health, to keep healthy food around, to encourage you to eat healthy, to eat healthy themselves.
	Of course it's your parents' responsibility.
	I mean, who else would it be?
	You can't blame kids for these decisions.
	It's more that, like, if they're not doing it, then it's not a good thing.
	It's more that, like, if...
	It's not like they...
	They didn't like me or anything.
	If you let a child become like that, you can't like them as much as you could.
	It's like, well, if something wasn't done with malevolent intent, if I'm raiding the fridge, if I'm the one that's doing whatever...
	When I was a kid, there wasn't, okay, your kid is depressed, they go to therapy or something.
	That wasn't... It wasn't a thing.
	Were you depressed? Yeah.
	Okay, so what were you depressed about as a kid?
	I mean, not just being fat, not getting along with people, not having friends at school.
	I don't know. I feel like it's normal stuff of being I didn't grow up with my real dad.
	Maybe I was upset about that. I didn't like my stepdad a lot.
	I like him now because I get him more as an adult.
	There's a level of respect there.
	As a kid, if you're seven or eight and your stepdad's calling you Dudley and stuff and they're making fun of you for being fat, that's not nice, but then...
	Someone just grows up with that's normal or that's banter or something, then there's no point looking back and being resentful.
	Is that healthy? It doesn't feel like that's healthy.
	It's like if I was circumcised as a kid, but my parents thought that it was a good thing, there's no point in being upset at them having done it.
	I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean there's no point.
	I mean, you have the emotions or you don't.
	You just kill your emotions by saying, well, what's your purpose?
	Show me your papers. I need to know your project plan.
	I mean, you have the feelings or you don't.
	I mean, if the feelings are there, you have the feelings, then you deal with them.
	But I don't think that you would interrogate your feelings and say, well, if you don't lead to some productive purpose, you can't be here.
	Well, yeah, kind of.
	I mean, if you say something to me, and for the things that you've talked about, like, yeah, I'm not as upset now, but I was upset before, but it's not like that was your intent.
	I'm sorry, how do you know?
	How do you know what people's intent is?
	I don't quite understand.
	Well, it's not knowing what someone's intent is, it's just that you're better off, like for your parents at least, if you're assuming that it wasn't malevolent.
	If you have every indication that it wasn't, apart from, okay, you're big, but you're also the...
	I get that.
	It's that thing that people...
	I'm sorry to interrupt, but I don't know what you're talking about.
	Is it not the case that your parents...
	And I'm sorry if I've misunderstood something.
	Please correct me if I go astray.
	Is it not the case that your parents...
	Let you get so fat that when you dieted, it wrecked your health, like in a semi-permanent fashion.
	Am I wrong about that?
	It's...
	No, that's not...
	Yes, no, do I have to...
	I thought you said that the diet...
	I know, you're gearing up for another speech, which I really can't do.
	So, as far as I understood it, you were almost 300 pounds when you were 10 years old.
	You dieted so savagely that you triggered some kind of autoimmune response.
	Is that right? That's the theory.
	If your immune system fucks up, you don't necessarily know why.
	It's just that that was the precursor of, okay, what's the biggest change in my life?
	It's going from A to B, and now I can't walk.
	I assume that you've looked this up.
	I don't know if dieting has anything to do with...
	I assume you've looked this up.
	Is there a theory out there in the world that you know of that says that extreme dieting can lead to autoimmune disorders?
	Yes. Okay.
	So that seems to be the most prominent cause.
	Someone that I know has MS because of it.
	Wow. Okay. So your parents allowed you...
	Or created an environment where you got so fat that dieting might have permanently wrecked your health as far as this stuff goes, right?
	Yes. Do you think that parents don't know that a 300 pound 10 year old is unhealthy?
	I think if you...
	Yes, of course they know that it's unhealthy.
	It's just that if you're a kid and you're being fought every step of the way, it's like, yeah, you can put the hammer down.
	No, you can't put the hammer down if you're talking about smacking or something, but yeah, I guess it's that parasitic-y kind of bargaining that parents will do with their kids.
	It's like, well, if this shuts them up or stops them from sucking, it's like, yeah, have a happy meal, have this or that.
	Irresponsible. Irresponsible.
	I don't want to feel resentment to people that I like now for things in the past.
	I just don't want to feel that.
	I don't want to, for all the things I can steal on, for the problems that I have, adding not liking my parents is not one of them.
	Okay, so you have answers for your life, so I'm not sure why we're calling, right?
	Because I'm trying to sort of give you an outside view, and you're saying, well, I'm not going to do that.
	And that's fine. Look, obviously, it's your life.
	You can do whatever you want or don't want.
	But if you're going to put so many rules on what we can talk about or the approach that we can take, then I'm not sure what value I can provide.
	No, no, no. No, I apologize then.
	Sorry, if you're a tennis player and I'm the coach and I say, you need to keep your eye on the ball and you need to stand this way, and you say, no, I'm not standing that way and I'm not keeping my eye on the ball, thank you very much.
	Okay, but that's fine.
	Then you can play tennis the way you want to play tennis.
	I'm just telling you that as a coach, and I'm fairly good at this kind of stuff, this is kind of what you need to do.
	And if you say, well, I'm not going to do that, that's fine, but then I don't know how to coach you.
	I messaged and called you because...
	You're good at this stuff.
	No, but you're fighting me every step of the way.
	You're fighting me with tangents.
	You're fighting me with abstractions.
	You're fighting me with there's no purpose to this.
	You're fighting me with I don't want to feel this.
	You're fighting with this I don't want to dislike my parents who I now like.
	You're fighting me on everything.
	It's like your immune system is now attacking me, not just you.
	Do you know what I mean? I'm sorry.
	The issue that I have with what you've said is that I can't see mentally how it's productive to feel resentment towards my parents.
	Like, I get it.
	Okay, what did I say?
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	What did I say about emotions and productivity?
	I'm not saying whether you agree with it or not, but do you remember what I said?
	You have to... I've forgotten what you said specifically, sorry.
	Honestly, this was like seven minutes ago, so I'll repeat it, but you really do have to find a way to relax and listen.
	And listening to me doesn't mean that you agree with me at all, right?
	You can listen to me and say, he's full of crap, but I would appreciate being listened to, because otherwise my motivation to give you input kind of diminishes if you're really not listening.
	And again, listening doesn't mean agreeing.
	What I said was, you either have the feelings or you don't.
	Demanding that your feelings show you proof of productivity in your life or some sort of end goal that you approve of is just another way of rejecting your feelings.
	Let me give you an example.
	Let's say I'm at some roadside diner.
	I'm driving across the country.
	I'm at some roadside diner and I eat some fairly dicey sushi.
	I'm driving along and I get stabbing pains In my gut, right?
	I've got some kind of food poisoning.
	Now, do I just grip my teeth and tell my stomach to shut up and stop complaining because I'm never going to eat there again.
	We're just driving through, so there's absolutely no point me having these stabbing pains because that's all in the rear view and I'm never going to eat at that place ever again, so shut up and stop feeling nausea and pain.
	If I had that relationship, would that make any sense?
	No. Right, so you have feelings.
	I mean, your parents, I mean, from what I can see, they poisoned you with food, and then your cure poisoned you further.
	I mean, a kid 300 pounds is dying, isn't he?
	And setting yourself up for lifelong health problems no matter what happens.
	Yes, it is.
	It's just that...
	You're right.
	It's just... So feeling, like, just sad.
	It's like, oh, okay, I'll add something else to the list.
	Like, you're right. Like, I'm not happy about the past, but I can't change that.
	Like, to me, it's like, okay, well, I have it.
	You don't. Come on, man.
	But it's done. Come on. No, no, no.
	You've got to stop insulting both of our intelligence.
	If you're going to spend time in our conversation informing me that you can't change the past, I don't even know how to have this conversation.
	Honestly, I'd be straight up with you, man.
	Because saying I can't change the past is so obvious and factual that saying it as some sort of thing in a conversation, it's like me saying, well, you know, clearly, my friend, I can't reverse gravity.
	You understand that. You understand that I can't reverse gravity.
	It's like, well, of course, but what on earth would your feelings have?
	Your feelings are about the future, not the past.
	Okay, then I'm not used to dealing with my emotions in a way that is productive towards the future.
	No, no. Forget the productivity.
	It doesn't matter. Productivity is irrelevant to your emotions.
	Who are you to judge how your instincts that have developed over hundreds of millions of years, who are you to judge the productivity of your instincts?
	They are part of your personality.
	You should listen to them.
	You should not rule them. They should not rule you, but they should have a seat at the table.
	Who are you in your conscious mind who has problems with procrastination?
	Who are you to say to your feelings what they should and should not be, what they should and should not tell you, whether they're appropriate, inappropriate, productive or unproductive?
	You have feelings.
	Listen to them. Accept them.
	Doesn't mean that they run your life.
	But you do not have the knowledge or the wisdom to say to your feelings, and neither do I, if it's any consolation, to say to your feelings, thou shalt not be.
	You have to prove to me your end goal and your end plan before I'll let myself feel a damn thing.
	That's just cutting yourself off from all of your instincts and all of your feelings.
	And that's very bad.
	This is really important information for you to have.
	So how did you get all this weight on as a kid?
	What was in the house?
	What were you eating?
	Did you grow up in a rural area as well and therefore you couldn't even run down to the local sweet shop or tuck shop?
	What was happening as a kid that you got this obese?
	It was more just moving away from...
	My mum was single when she was young and At that point, I was real thin.
	I was, I don't know, healthy, but whatever.
	I was skinny. I was a skinny kid, and then she met my stepdad, and we moved to, because he was a farmer, so we moved out to where he lived, and it was like, okay, well, all my friends are gone from school, and I'm at a new school, and everyone's, you know, you're the weird person there, and I didn't get along.
	I was kind of scared of my stepdad.
	Sorry, why were you weird? It was never...
	I don't know.
	I don't know. Maybe I'm being narcissistic and doing that.
	No, no, no. Please don't tell me another psychological thing.
	I'm begging you. Why were you the weird kid?
	Just being the new kid doesn't mean...
	I've been the new kid at a bunch of schools when I was a kid.
	Being the new kid doesn't mean that you're the weird kid.
	I'm just curious. Why were you the weird kid?
	They're both kind of class clown.
	But also coming into a school where you don't know anyone and everyone already has their thing set up.
	No, I get that.
	I get that. I've been in that situation a bunch of times, too.
	So why does that make you the weird kid?
	And I'm not criticizing, I'm just curious.
	I guess I just framed that as me being the weird kid.
	Like, maybe I was fine. Maybe I was normal.
	I'm just telling you, feelings.
	I felt like the odd one out.
	But that's probably not...
	Oh, now your feelings are important, right?
	Because you felt this. All right.
	So what was weird about you in your estimation?
	What was the weird part?
	I didn't get along with people my own age.
	Like, I liked...
	I preferred just talking about people or talking to people that were older about things that were older.
	No, but you did in your previous school, right?
	Like, I just...
	Uh...
	No. It's more that I grew up with, like, from, like, kindy to, like, for the people that I knew, like, at school.
	Well, I knew those people, so it's like, you're Maybe you're weird, but it's not a negative.
	It's like, oh, I'm saying weird, and I'm framing it as a positive.
	I'm framing it as a negative.
	But it's fine if it's like, you're not boring.
	I certainly wasn't boring.
	Oh, God, no. No, nobody wants to be the weird kid.
	Come on, man. Let's not start redefining ourselves into up is down and black is white.
	So you had friends in your old school.
	You moved to the country with your stepdad, and you can't make friends at the new school, right?
	It's like the kids are farming kids.
	It's like, well, you've got town kids, kind of rural, but live out kind of in the sticks kids.
	Yeah, they're just being like a disconnect there of like, okay, well, what are they doing on the weekend?
	It's like, well, they're going hunting, they're like pig trapping and stuff like that.
	It's like, okay, all that stuff's completely bizarre to me and kind of like, yeah, it's not my thing.
	Sorry, do you have any siblings?
	I have two sisters.
	Okay, so did your parents attempt to get you to fit in more to the social environment that they moved you to?
	Like, no?
	Like, do you mean...
	No, like, social outings for things like, okay, signing up for tennis, and things like doing extracurricular stuff, then like, yeah, they did what they could, but like, also, the...
	Being grain farming and being in the desert, it's quite hard.
	You've got a kid out in the middle of nowhere, it's like, well, yeah, I can't just go over to my friend's house like I used to before and just run amok and ride bicycles all around town.
	It's like, well, you're in the middle of nowhere.
	It's like 48 degrees.
	It sucks. And it's like, yeah, just stay inside and play video games.
	And did your mother notice that you had lost your social life?
	Now it's like if I'm not causing too much...
	It's like the bare minimum, I guess.
	If I'm not in trouble, if I haven't got a report written up, it's like...
	Sorry, is that just a no?
	No. Okay, so your mother didn't care that you had lost your social life enough to do anything about it?
	If I was crying and tormented by it, then she probably would have done something.
	But I didn't do that.
	Oh, so now it's your fault because you weren't crying?
	I could have picked up on more. No, it's the parent's job, right?
	No, I mean... It's the parent's job to know how their children are doing.
	It is, but... But I'm not a parent, so I can't shit on a parent that might not have done a perfect job.
	That feels horrible.
	What do you mean? It feels horrible when you think, okay, well, it's not someone let you down.
	They let you down, but they didn't mean to.
	Well, they weren't paying attention.
	They could have paid attention. Maybe they're blind and they're stupid and they're arrogant and stuff, but they didn't.
	For my mom, for my stepdad, it's a bit different because it was a bit of like, well, you're not my kid.
	You've got that kind of energy there.
	But put that to Whatever.
	No, no, no. You marry a woman, you marry your children.
	No, you marry a woman, you marry your children.
	Having the option to say, well, you're not my kid, so I don't have to parent you, that's abusive.
	Like, that's not an option, right?
	I mean, it would be as crazy as saying, well, I'm going to feed my kids, not your kids, right?
	It's like you married the woman, he knew that your mom had kids, right?
	So, yeah, I mean, there's no excuse for your stepfather either.
	I mean, it's the parent's job to know if the children are unhappy and do what they can to fix it.
	Right? We understand that, right?
	I mean, that's not massively complicated parenting.
	If you take your kid out of the city and put him into the country where he can't see his friends, you need to see if he's happy and work to try and give him a social life.
	Like, this is not really complicated parenting.
	Does that make sense? Yeah, it sounds wonderful.
	So, what's wrong with saying that it was bad, that wasn't done?
	There's nothing wrong with what you're saying.
	It's that it's right in a way that's really uncomfortable.
	Okay, so I'm happy to...
	I'm sorry that you're uncomfortable, I understand that, but I'm certainly happy to hear about your discomfort.
	Why is that uncomfortable?
	Because it just means that...
	Yeah, like I... I...
	Made excuses for other people, but I didn't have to.
	I guess. It's like treating myself like I have agency, but I would never treat another kid that way.
	I must be better than other kids.
	I must have been capable of more than other kids because I wouldn't say that about any other kids.
	I know I wouldn't. Yeah.
	I don't know, that kind of feels like narcissistic.
	Yeah, like, I broke the dam of, like, that.
	that's all I have a following what you're saying if you could break it down some more
	up talking about like agency for kids of like I like it just wasn't an environment where like you discussed
	emotions you know like It's like therapy. Therapy was for people that were insane.
	It's a bit like people who are homophobic in the past and now you hear them now and they don't say a bad word at all.
	It's like, I know what you were like before.
	The culture has changed and that's not an excuse for Like, how I was treated.
	It's just that that's not something that I was expecting to, like, try and unravel of, like, does that matter?
	Like, I don't need to go back to productivity.
	It's like, okay, that's just the feelings, like, just on their own.
	I'm sorry, have you listened to Colin?
	Sorry, you've listened to Colin shows before, right?
	Yeah. Okay. I mean, are you aware that I talk about people's childhoods a lot?
	Yeah, like, I know you are, but maybe I was just trying to...
	I was hoping that my headcanon of, yeah, like, that that wouldn't...
	Yeah, like, maybe that wasn't the issue.
	It's like, oh, like, you'd say, oh, okay, you don't need that.
	It's like, oh, okay, it's just this bullshit technical thing of, yeah, like, do blah, blah.
	Yeah, like... I was looking for a quick fix, I guess.
	Yeah, of thinking, okay, maybe there is just a sentence someone can say that fixes everything.
	It's like, okay, well, if it's not, and it's something more challenging, it's like, okay, uphill battle.
	That's what I call in for.
	I have to deal with If I have to deal with all these other things, if I have to deal with the feelings first and then everything else comes after, then that's good.
	I don't know.
	I'm just not used to dealing with that.
	For the background that I was raised in, you just shut the fuck up and you just do what needs to be done.
	You don't say anything. It's like, man up.
	You just don't deal with it.
	Or you cry in silence on your own.
	So you're supposed to just have productive outcomes, man up and get things done, right?
	Yes. Okay.
	So why didn't...
	Hang on.
	Sorry, if that's the case, that you're just supposed to man up, get things done and do the right thing, then how did you end up almost 300 pounds as a 10-year-old?
	Why didn't your father, your stepfather, man up and make sure you didn't get the damn food, keep it out of the house and...
	Get you out and walking about.
	If you're just supposed to deal with things and get things done and be productive, why didn't your parents do that with you when you were gaining such a huge amount of weight?
	Because anything to do with me was not a priority.
	It's like, well, it's sisters or it's farm or it's themselves.
	It's kind of like the Like, he can look after himself.
	Okay, so that's a theory.
	The theory is that you can look after yourself, but clearly you weren't looking after yourself because you were becoming morbidly obese and half-wider than you were tall.
	Yes, but it's like, yeah, that's true.
	Like, There's nothing else to say there.
	Yeah, then they fucked up on that.
	It's just...
	Okay, how long did it take you to go from being a skinny kid to almost 300 pounds?
	Four or five years, maybe?
	So from the age of six to the age of ten?
	Around that, but I was very tall as a kid.
	Fat is fat.
	That's irrelevant. It's just that I haven't grown much since then, height-wise.
	Okay. You weren't over six feet when you were six, right?
	Yeah. No, I wasn't over six feet, but I was six foot two when I was like ten.
	Okay. You know that six foot two is in no way healthy at 300 pounds, right?
	No, it's like if I was five foot, it's not filling out.
	It's not like, oh, he looked better because he kept it all kind of even.
	It's like, no, I was just yeah, like It was mainly being at home, being sedentary, and playing video games and kind of hiding away from when I stepped out of like, okay, I don't want to get growled at for not having done this or that or just like, yeah. And then it's obviously, well, if you're fat, then that's going to have a negative feedback loop of, well, you're insecure because people make fun of you for being fat and Kind of fair enough if it's other kids.
	Kids will be horrible.
	Well, I don't want to deal with kids because we didn't deal with family stuff.
	So your stepfather would growl at you for being fat or swear at you for being fat, which obviously didn't help.
	What did your mother say or do about you gaining weight?
	Oh, he made fun of me for being fat. Okay, but what did your mother do?
	He never growled at me for being fat.
	Oh, he just made fun of you?
	She would, like...
	Yeah. Yeah, no, he never growled at me for being fat.
	Anything. It was like chores or like...
	It's kind of like...
	I'm trying to think of what...
	It's kind of like a very passive-aggressive...
	He was never violent.
	My mother was violent.
	She would get angry and she'd smack or use a jug cord or something like that when I was a kid.
	But then she said that she didn't...
	Like the power cord for a kettle, sorry, not a jug.
	Yeah, I'll get smacked.
	Wait, so she beat you with electrical cords?
	Not often, but...
	She beat you with electrical cords.
	I can hear your tone, it does sound kind of silly.
	you Honestly, if you had a female friend whose boyfriend beat her with electrical cords and you pointed that out and she said, well, not often, what would you say?
	I'd say you're fucking evil.
	Well, no, the girlfriend is telling you.
	The girlfriend is telling you. Maybe not.
	Maybe I wouldn't go there. No, a friend of yours who's a girl, a woman, is telling you her boyfriend beats her with electrical cords and you say, well, that's basically, he beats you with electrical cords and she says, well, not often.
	What would you say to the girl, to the woman?
	Sorry, I'd say you need to get out of there.
	Like, this guy's insane.
	No, no, no. But she would say, no, but he doesn't have any bad intent.
	He doesn't have any bad intention.
	You know, he's not acting malevolently.
	You know, he's trying to help in his own way, I guess.
	Yeah, it's completely hypocritical on my part to...
	Treat myself differently from how I do other people.
	See, now you're just attacking yourself.
	Now you're just attacking yourself.
	Saying, do you really think that the problem I have with you being beaten with electrical cables when you were a child is that you're mildly hypocritical about it as an adult?
	Do you really think that's my major moral issue?
	Is the effect that these kinds of beatings have had on you as an adult?
	No. It's...
	Having it said that way, it sounds really stupid.
	Yeah. Well, it is.
	It doesn't sound stupid. Now you're insulting yourself again, right?
	Now you've gone from hypocritical to sounding stupid.
	But how do I be honest?
	How do I be honest without sounding like I'm being shitty to myself?
	How about you judge your mother for beating you with an electrical cable when you were a little boy?
	Instead of how hypocritical or stupid-sounding you might be, how about you judge your mother for beating you with an electrical cable when you were a helpless and dependent child?
	Oddly, what do I do with that?
	At the time, of course, at the time I was upset by it.
	At the time, it's like...
	Do you think we're going to get a chance to connect emotionally at all here, or are you just going to keep jumping out of your body and analyze and abstract everything?
	Well, what am I supposed to do with this knowledge now?
	You were beaten as a child by your mother repeatedly with an electrical cable.
	That's appalling. That's horrible.
	That's immoral at the extreme.
	I'm so sorry. That's terrible.
	That's terrible. Listen, I have a daughter and the idea of anyone beating her with an electrical cable makes me
	frankly murderous.
	And maybe the beatings had something to do with the eatings.
	Maybe you needed to put on a lot of flesh to protect your skeleton from the beatings.
	You needed padding.
	Maybe the fact that your body was used to torture and punish you meant that you tried
	to counteract the torture and punishment that your body was used for by praising and rewarding
	your body with excess food.
	Yes, I know that if I say this, I know what it sounds like, but if it was reserved for
	the worst thing, you talk from someone like, I don't know, for anyone in the old days,
	they were smacked and they said, well, it was good that they were smacked.
	Maybe that's cult. Maybe that's all bullshit and it was always negative and it's never been a positive or it's never been neutral of just something that you integrated and moved past.
	You suffer the same thing I do and you Because you're you, you integrate it and you move forward, but I don't, and it kind of eats away at me.
	It's like, well, what's the difference?
	To me, it's just the narrative that you see it through.
	Brother, this filibustering verbal nonsense has got to stop in this conversation.
	Please. It's so alienating and dissociating.
	That we're talking about you being beaten with electrical cables repeatedly as a child.
	And you're just skating right over all of this.
	I don't know what the correct response is other than going...
	No, stop talking. Your response of abstracting and babbling is not the correct response.
	It's a way to have yourself stop feeling anything.
	Stop experiencing anything.
	And maybe because of your illness, you're still living at home.
	Is that right? No, I have my own place.
	Oh, you have your own place. Okay. Maybe your mother helped you a lot with your illness, and maybe you feel some obligation.
	Maybe you feel there's some disloyalty.
	I don't know. But you said to me, emotions weren't processed in my house.
	Well, anger is an emotion. Rage is an emotion.
	And that emotion was very much...
	Acted on and practiced in your house because you were beaten as a kid with an electrical cable.
	So there were some emotions that were absolutely allowed in your house.
	What was your relationship like with your mother when you were little?
	Yeah, just not...
	Uh...
	Probably...
	Kind of...
	Like...
	Bye.
	I don't know what the term is, like, the malevolent mother goose, I guess, of, well, everything's great until it's not, and then you're just like your father, of that being, like, the worst possible thing that you could be, of, like, biological father, of, like, yeah, like, she'll fight for you, like, but if you say, like, one thing, then it's like, oh, like, you're basically not my mother.
	Like, where has she gone?
	You know, like, You were wonderful before.
	You were on my side before and I was on yours.
	Kind of like, I don't know, like friends.
	It was more like a...
	Not friends if you get beaten, I guess.
	The relationship there was like, okay, well, I'd spend...
	My sister didn't get along well with my mom.
	I was mom's single mother's boy, I guess.
	Sorry, I thought you were abandoned to your own room to play video games and Eads.
	I'm sorry, I'm not accusing you of anything.
	I just want to make sure I understand, because I thought you were kind of abandoned by your mother, and now it sounds like she was kind of clingy.
	No, no, no.
	You were saying, okay, like, yeah, like, I got smacked a lot when I was younger, but I didn't...
	Sorry, now I'm also confused.
	I thought you said it wasn't too often.
	Now you say you get smacked a lot.
	I'm trying to figure these things out.
	When I said that I got smacked by a jug court, I also said that that was reserved for the worst things that I could do.
	It wasn't like I was beaten every day.
	It was like, I don't know, maybe once.
	You might get smacked once every two weeks.
	You would say that's too much.
	You would say that's too much. If I was feral, or I broke something, or...
	You deserved it.
	Right, so you're like the abused wife, and she talked back, or she didn't listen, or the food was served cold, and she just deserved to get beaten.
	Is that your theory? No, well then I guess it's more like, well, if the abused wife makes sure that dinner is on the table at the right time and everything's perfect, then there's no problem.
	It's like, well, if you don't say anything that pisses me off, or you don't do anything that pisses me off, then, like, we're fine.
	So, that to me was framed as like, okay, well, like, If I'm on a good side, then it's a good day.
	But you could say it's a bad day that I'm in that position of, well, I'm kind of juggling that.
	But when you're a kid, you don't get to choose.
	You don't get to choose that stuff of...
	When you say that you were smacked every two weeks, what do you mean?
	Open fist? Sorry, open hands, closed fist, implement an electrical cable.
	What do you mean when you say you were smacked every two weeks?
	It would be like a wooden spoon.
	You'd get the wooden spoon and get a really hard smack.
	There was one time where I broke the railing in a hotel room, and that was when I got Oh, so it's okay to hit children if you screwed up your life to the point where you can say, well, I'm stressed.
	Like, if your girlfriend said, well, my boyfriend did beat me up, but he was stressed.
	He's been stressed at work.
	What would you say? There's no excuse, right?
	It's no excuse whatsoever, but it's...
	Then why are you putting it forward like it's an excuse?
	Because it's easier to make up stories, I guess, like to frame it as not as bad as it was.
	Okay, well stop doing that. Because here, you know, you said to me one of the most valuable things that I did in these calls was to call people out on falsehoods, right?
	Yeah. And it's all valuable with other people, but it's not so valuable with you, right?
	Because you want to keep minimizing and dodging and prevaricating.
	Yeah, right When did the hits hitting stop
	I mean honestly when I became like like taller than them really
	like like really like Yeah, it might have been like around like nine or ten or
	something. It's like Yeah, so when you hit your growth spurt and you got taller than them.
	Okay, so the reason why your mother hit you isn't for any other reason than she was bigger, because it stopped when she wasn't bigger, right?
	So it wasn't because she was stressed, and it wasn't because she was a single mother, and it wasn't because there were money worries, and it wasn't because she was mad at your dad.
	The only reason the only reason that your mother hit you is because she was bigger than you which makes her a bully
	There's no other reason otherwise or are you saying that your mother was never stressed after you were nine or ten
	years old world.
	Of course she was. But she didn't hit you because you were bigger than her.
	Well, then it's like the fear of, I don't know, like being hit back.
	That's no better. She's able to control her behavior.
	She's perfectly able to control her violence when she's not bigger than you.
	When you might hit her back.
	Then she's like, oh, well, we can't use violence now that you're big, and I'm never going to hit you again.
	So that means, of course, she had the complete choice to never hit you.
	She just chose to hit you when you were too small to fight back.
	But the moment you got big enough to fight back, she stopped hitting you.
	So she always could have stopped hitting you.
	She hit you because she chose to.
	She hit you because she was bigger.
	She hit you because...
	She could, without fear of retribution.
	And when her fear of retribution became too big, oh, look at that.
	She magically finds all of this self-control and ability to reason things out and no longer uses violence anymore.
	Yeah. Yeah, that's...
	I can't weave anything there of like, yeah.
	So she was a child-assaulting bully.
	And you say it wasn't that often.
	Every two weeks you're getting hit.
	Right, so over 10 years, that's well over 200 assaults.
	It's over 250 assaults, in fact.
	Thank you.
	260, to be precise.
	What do you think it's like for a child to be assaulted 260 times?
	Or we can just say 200 maybe didn't happen when you were a baby, I don't know, 200 times.
	Have you ever been assaulted as an adult?
	No, like still today. What do you think it would be like as an adult if you were assaulted 200 times?
	systems.
	you In prison, say. I feel very upset if something wasn't done about it.
	Well, we can assume, after 200 times, not much is being done about it.
	Yeah. One would be too much.
	Sorry, I can't hear what you think.
	You're away from the mic. Sorry.
	Sorry, I said once would be enough as an adult for me to kick up a stink and get upset and actually do something about it.
	Okay, but 200 times as a child, you're defending people and saying they didn't have any bad motivations or bad intent and nothing was really wrong and it's just the way they were raised.
	So you have nothing but excuses for child assault, but you'd probably call the cops if it was an adult assault.
	No, it's that I'm applying different standards to myself.
	myself.
	you Oh, so if it was another child being assaulted 200 times,
	you would raise a stink about that, right?
	If I had a time machine, would I report my mother if I was...
	I don't know.
	You've got that Stockholm Syndrome of...
	Like, just stop, please.
	You know, like, you'd rather not do it than, like, send them to prison.
	You know, it's- Well, forget about the practical outcomes, right?
	No, because, forget about whether if you had a time machine, but it was evil and outrageous and appalling and immoral how you were treated.
	Now you say your father didn't, your stepfather didn't hit you, is that right?
	He never hit me now. And what happened to your biological dad?
	You didn't need to. There was an issue with my...
	It came to a point when we were young where because they lived in another country and then they moved to a very messy...
	They weren't even divorced for a A long time.
	Like, she kept the name and stuff, and it was nasty.
	No, I don't mean legally. I mean, what happened to your relationship with your biological father?
	Oh, like, I got in contact with him when I was younger, like, maybe like eight or nine.
	Like, we got back in contact, and then there were...
	And there's just a disconnect there of, like, well, this person is very much...
	He looks like me. But...
	He's not my dad. He is my dad.
	I don't know him.
	We just dropped off.
	You get the email at Christmas or birthday or something like that.
	He didn't put in that much effort either.
	He could have done more.
	He don't really have much of a relationship with the biological dad, right?
	No, like, I genuinely like my stepdad more than my biological.
	And your stepdad knew that you were being beaten, is that right?
	He did, and he wasn't happy with it.
	But if he was around, it didn't happen.
	Well, but he married and provided for a woman who beat her children, right?
	Yes, but he came from...
	Now we're going to get excuses for him.
	Are we going to play this game again?
	Like excuses? No, you're right.
	That's exactly what I was about to start doing.
	Yeah, you're right.
	He wasn't happy with it.
	He made that compromise, I guess, of maybe not my kid, not my place or something.
	Well, no. I mean, he's married to the woman, he's taken on responsibility, legal responsibility for the children.
	Right? So, saying that it's not my deal, it's not my business, it's not my responsibility, is not even remotely true.
	Of course it's his responsibility.
	No, I just mean, like, if you grew up with a stepdad, like, I don't know, like, I think you didn't have a stepdad, did you?
	Where there is just, like, a disconnect there of, like, Male on male.
	Disconnected. Like, you're not...
	Like, we just weren't the same.
	It's like, he was outdoorsy.
	He was very gruff farmer type.
	And I was, like, indoor.
	He's like a dog and I'm like a cat.
	Like, he's just We're just different people.
	Like, completely had no...
	Oh, my God, man. Oh, my God. I feel like a cheese grater on your defenses here, man.
	I'm not talking about your fucking personality differences.
	I'm talking about the fact that he was stood in a household, married a woman, and knew that she beat her children with implements.
	Yes, that reflects...
	Yeah, that reflects...
	Of course, bad him.
	It reflects poorly on him.
	Yes, it does. Okay, so do you want to know?
	I feel like I'm going to drown in these defenses, so I'm going to tell you why I'm talking about all of this stuff.
	Do you know why I'm talking about your childhood?
	And its relationship to procrastination?
	I'm sorry? No, I was waiting for you to continue.
	I said that it's a source of Well, it's something that I'm not dealing with.
	I didn't want to deal with that, but that's good because that's what I came to you for.
	So I'll tell you why you procrastinate, since you want the sensible stuff, right?
	You want the stuff that is practical, right?
	It's what I'd like, but it might not be what I need for what you've gone through right now.
	I can tell you why you procrastinate.
	So procrastination is another word for excuses.
	We procrastinate, and I do it too, right?
	So we procrastinate because we're giving ourselves excuses.
	Oh, I don't really need to do this right now.
	I'll get to it later.
	I can defer. You know, I deserve a break.
	I've been working hard. So we give ourselves excuses.
	I don't know if that fits with your experience of procrastination at all.
	Yeah, yeah. Okay.
	So you give your parents excuses, and therefore you give yourself excuses.
	Your parents are not responsible, therefore you're not responsible.
	Your parents can't be held accountable, thereby you cannot hold yourself accountable.
	That's why you procrastinate, because you give all these excuses to your parents.
	That's why I'm asking about your childhood and focusing on holding your parents accountable, so you can hold yourself accountable.
	You can't hold yourself more accountable than you hold your parents.
	If you give your parents excuses for beating children...
	Of course you're going to give yourself excuses for whatever it is you want to do in your life because nothing's more important than how you parent.
	And if your parents get excuses for beating their children, there's no shortage of excuses you will ever get for any of your own behavior.
	The issue that I have is that I've talked to them about it, and I've put my foot down and said, hey, but my stepdad, what you said to me when I was a kid, and making fun of me, I said that was horrible.
	I also said to my mother, yeah, you smacked and that was horrible.
	I've already done that kind of like, oh, you're not meek anymore.
	Not knowing, yeah, you are just being a wet noodle and bending over and just letting people be shitty to you.
	For me, Maybe it wasn't right.
	Maybe it wasn't enough.
	For me, standing up for myself on that front was, at the very least, pointing out that that was bad, but then maybe pretending to move on from it.
	If you're saying that, well, yeah, you're right.
	Like if I make what was there one house, why the hell have you have you ever heard of me talking about what is needed?
	for Restitution when you've really wronged someone
	Like like just sincerity like it Everything seemed sincere.
	I didn't have any reason to assume that they weren't sincere about it.
	Sorry, sincere about what?
	I didn't think. Sincere about feeling like they had actually done me wrong.
	Sorry, so they said with sincerity that they had done you wrong?
	Yes. As an adult, coming up to them, oh yeah, this was terrible, that was terrible, or not having...
	Being depressed as a kid, it's like, well, why didn't I go to counseling or something and say, yeah, we fucked up there.
	It's like, well, it's all well and good, but why not?
	I was asking, and then everyone gets uncomfortable, and it's like, well, why are you bringing that up at the table?
	It's like, if someone's being normal, or if I stepped out, or being...
	If I go to their place and I'm being shitty about something I did as a kid, I'm like, oh, that was embarrassing.
	It's like, well, that reflects poorly on you.
	Not me. But I have...
	I don't know what else to do.
	If I make excuses for other people, why the hell am I not...
	Why wouldn't I have trouble not making endless excuses for myself?
	It's like, well, if you... Yeah, if you...
	If you are the failure, or if you are this or that, then yeah, it's easy to kind of just defer to other people and pretend that they're not shit.
	Sorry, once more, I'm lost in fogland.
	I have no idea really what you're saying at the moment.
	So how long ago was it that you confronted your parents on what they did wrong?
	Oh, probably like my early 20s.
	Like, 21, 22?
	But it wasn't like, I said, like, sit down at the table, we need to talk about this.
	It was just, like, in a conversation of, like, oh, everyone's kind of having a joke and having a laugh at my expense.
	It's like, well, no.
	I'm not sure, like, swear words were kind of passed across.
	But it was also, oh, okay, like, Why does my sister get an excuse for having BPD, but I'm just a piece of shit that should know better?
	I'm sorry, can you say that last part again?
	Bipolar? What do you mean?
	If my sister has BPD as an excuse for being horrible, but if I do the same thing, I'm just a piece of shit and I should know better, it's like, well, who has agency and who doesn't?
	I was treated as a kid as having more agency.
	I had no agency as a kid.
	Well, this reflects Paulian.
	No, it reflects Paulian.
	So your sister is...
	Sorry, at least one of your sisters is kind of messed up, too.
	Yes. And when you pointed out that there were deficiencies in the parenting, your parents said, yeah, I guess we fucked up, and they just kind of moved on.
	Is that right? They seem embarrassed, but it's a bit like, okay, well, how would they make it up to you?
	Apart from being embarrassed.
	They keep asking you how things have affected you.
	They try to find out how things have affected you.
	I mean, when you were losing that much weight, you were living at home, right?
	I mean, you were 15 or so?
	Okay, so you're crashing weight, right?
	You went from 130, did you say down to 80 or 50?
	I can't remember. Sorry for not remembering the exact numbers.
	No, 85. No, no, no, 85.
	No, fair enough, 85. Okay, so you went from 120 to...
	It was a year and a bit, yeah.
	Okay, so you were losing weight at extremely rapid pace, right?
	Yes, but it was because I was outside and doing lots of exercise.
	I thought you said that you restricted your food to the point where you were eating these kinds of aspartame and jellies.
	Did I get that wrong?
	I said as well that because we lived on a farm, I would just go for walks all day.
	I did both.
	I dieted and I did I couldn't run at that weight for, like, my joints.
	It's like, running sucks, so I would just walk.
	And I would just walk.
	Yeah, it's like, okay, like, today I did, like, 40 kilometers.
	It's like, okay. Wait, you would walk, sorry, you would be morbidly obese, and you would walk 40 kilometers?
	Yes. Okay, so let me just, I'm just so, 220, you went from 220 down to 85, right?
	What? No, you're doing it in pounds.
	Sorry, 120. My apologies if I got that.
	Sorry, 120. I was doing it in my head at the same time as I was doing it on the screen.
	Okay, so you went from 130 down to 85.
	Is that right? Okay, and it's 2.2, so...
	It was 1.30. 1.30, okay.
	And I'm just going to...
	I'm sorry to just...
	I grew up on Imperial, so I still can't do metric very well.
	My apologies. Okay, so let's see here.
	KG to LBS. So you lost 77 pounds as a kid.
	Yeah, so it's 2.2.
	Okay, so you lost 35 kilograms, you lost 77 pounds.
	Is that right? I don't know.
	I don't know how to calculate. No, that's fine.
	I'm 30, take 85.
	45? 45 pounds.
	Sorry, 45 pounds.
	Okay. So 45 kilos.
	45 kilos, right?
	So 2.2.
	So you lost almost 99 pounds.
	We just rounded up. So you lost 100 pounds as a kid in a year and a half, right?
	But it was a positive.
	Like, I had, at the time...
	No, no, no. Please, I'm not asking for excuses or clarifications, so I'm not asking for any of that.
	Now, that's a huge amount of weight loss in a short amount of time.
	I'm no expert, but that seems like a lot, right?
	Yes. Now, did you tell your parents, I'm going to go on an extreme diet and exercise program, or did you just do it on your own?
	I just did it. I wanted to get fit so that I could leave.
	Okay. Now, your parents noticed you obviously losing weight, right?
	Yeah. Okay.
	So did they take you to a doctor to make sure that you lost weight in a healthy manner?
	No. Why not?
	Didn't you get annual checkups?
	I was happy that I was...
	Well, if I was ever talked to by a doctor, it was like, you're too big.
	So if I'm losing weight, then that sprain is a positive.
	No, not always.
	I know what you're saying.
	Of course, of course. I mean, didn't it produce potentially the autoimmune issue that you're still dealing with 13 years later?
	Yes, but that's not something that anyone would have predicted of that being very rare to happen.
	If you're overweight, if someone says, okay, well, I'm on a weight loss kick.
	Yeah, you don't want someone starving themselves and not eating right.
	But as opposed to the opposite of where you're like, my 600-pound life, it's like, okay, this person is going in the opposite direction.
	It's like, well, when they get to 65 kilograms, then we kind of intervene, I guess.
	Well, if you're not getting bigger...
	Then that's a positive. And certainly if I was framing it while I was, I was happy while I was doing it.
	It's like, well, I'm happy just doing my thing.
	And like, because I said I was doing school of the air, it's like the school workload wasn't that hard.
	It's like, well, like, oh, he's going outside.
	No, but you lost, hang on, but you lost almost a third of your body mass in 18 months.
	But that was a positive to me.
	No, no. Sorry.
	Oh, my God. Will you please just listen and stop?
	Every time I say something, you come up with another excuse or a justification or a speech every time I say something.
	I feel like I'm fighting against this wind full of daggers.
	Every time I open my mouth, you come up with some excuse or some pushback or some explanation or some abstraction.
	It's impossible to talk.
	I'm sorry.
	I don't want to...
	Cool your jets a little bit.
	Let me talk.
	Please. You called me so I could talk, right?
	I've listened. Have I listened?
	Yes. Okay.
	You have. Yep. So, I'm no expert, of course, but my understanding is that weight loss is tricky for the body.
	Women can lose their periods.
	Boys can lose muscle mass.
	They can lose bone mass.
	They can have malnutrition.
	They can have severe problems.
	And a third of your body weight in 18 months sounds to me, again, as an amateur kind of extreme.
	You need to monitor your blood.
	You need to monitor your glucose.
	You need to monitor your body fat percentage.
	You need to make sure you're not doing any damage to your heart.
	And you need to lose weight, and then you need to plateau for a while, and then you need to lose a little bit more weight.
	I mean, did you read a bunch of books, or how did you come up with your weight loss program?
	I was a kid. My weight loss program was just don't eat stuff and more clots.
	It wasn't well thought out.
	The strategy was just access to...
	Wii Fit came out at the time.
	I was like, okay, well, I'll just do Wii Fit at night, right before I go to bed.
	It sounds like you're smiling through this.
	Oh, no, well, it's kind...
	Because you say, well, don't you understand that that's not healthy?
	Of course I do in hindsight.
	It's just at the time, it's like, well, if you're fat and you're going from being fat to not being fat, it's like, well, that's better than getting fatter.
	It's dumb. No, no, come on.
	I'm not going to go with these two extremes.
	Hang on. I'm not going to go with these two extremes, saying that the only option is extreme weight loss or extreme, even more morbid obesity, right?
	No, I'm not, of course I'm not saying that that's the only, that was, I'm telling you what I did.
	I'm not saying that it was smart.
	I'm just telling, that was how I interpreted it.
	That's how I saw things at the time.
	The way that I saw it as a kid, with dumb kids, you said that kids don't have agency.
	Like, okay, well, if I was a kid and I made that choice, like, oh, well, I'll just do this and I'm not going to think it through.
	Like, yeah, that reflects poorly on everyone around me who was like, okay, well, you've lost weight.
	And it's good that you're losing weight.
	It's not like they didn't say, hey, like, maybe you're going a little bit too far.
	Well, no, they get you to a doctor.
	Hang on, hang on. They get you to a doctor.
	They get you to a dietician.
	They make sure you're doing it in a way that doesn't produce, I don't know, an autoimmune disorder.
	Like, that wasn't known.
	Of like, okay, like, well, if you have issues, like, Even when I was young, the thing that you're talking about of women exercising a lot and they lose their periods.
	No, dieting. Even dieting.
	Or dieting.
	But that stuff, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think that stuff was well known in the 2000s.
	Of that being a... Women can go in the military and everything's fine, and then it's like, oh, hang on, they go through all the training.
	Are you saying that doctors and nutritionists had no idea that a 10-year-old who's 300 pounds just stopping eating stuff and exercising while also going through puberty over the course of this, maybe, I don't know when your puberty hit or whatever, you don't think that a doctor or a nutritionist might have any concerns about crash dieting from a 10-year-old who's 300 pounds?
	Of course they would.
	It's just that I wasn't a doctor looking at a 10-year-old who's doing his own thing.
	I was the dumb 10-year-old.
	You are one of the toughest callers I've ever had.
	I'll tell you this, man. I'm trying not to get annoyed because I know that this is just provocative.
	But you're actually informing me.
	You're loftily informing me that at 10 years of age, you weren't, in fact, a doctor.
	That's what you're telling me? That's the contribution you're having to this conversation?
	Did you think I thought you were a doctor?
	Do you think that I'm expecting you at 10 to know everything about nutrition?
	What am I talking about when it comes to your parents having some responsibility?
	You're talking about my parents.
	Of course I am!
	Why didn't they actually?
	Yeah, yes, yes. It all comes back to parents.
	I don't want it to come back to them. It does.
	It's like, yeah, it's like Yes.
	At that time, we've already established that, okay, well, if they screwed up in one dimension, it's like, well, they screwed up in another.
	It's not like...
	It doesn't matter.
	It's like, okay, well, you hit a kid and then you don't know what it does.
	You don't have an excuse for that.
	Yeah, they weren't paying attention.
	They just saw everything on a surface level of, okay, well, He's happier, and he's not moping.
	And, like, yeah, like, disengaged, but it's like, whatever, like, he's not getting fatter.
	That's a positive.
	Fact is, brother, you've never held your parents to account.
	Never. You've made a couple of comments in passing close to 10 years ago.
	They've never acknowledged responsibility.
	They've never apologized in any important way.
	They've never been curious about your experience.
	They've never made any restitution, and they've never figured out a way to ensure that they'll never harm you again.
	For having been crippled, okay, well, then maybe this isn't the thing that hasn't come up yet.
	It's like, okay, well, then it's like the Munchausen's, I guess, of, well, Like, when I was sick, like, they were there.
	It's like, they didn't, like, lead me to the wolves.
	Like, I know that's the bare minimum.
	Like, bare minimum of, okay, like, I'm miserable and I'm sore.
	It's like, well, they never...
	It's like, I didn't have anyone else.
	It's like, if you don't have anyone else, it's like, you don't not, like, the shitty people that you're with.
	Sometimes it's like, okay, like, they're shitty, but in this area, like, they're looking after me.
	Like, as a kid, it's like, You have no one else.
	It's not an excuse. That's what I said.
	Maybe they were nice to you when you got sick.
	My mother was nice to me when I was sick.
	Because you're not a threat and you're not provoking them and so on.
	There's maybe some sort of softer side that emerges.
	So, I get that.
	So then, rather than talking to me all this bullshit about motivations and this and how they were raised and the standards of the time, just say, I didn't want to criticize them because I needed them to help me with my illness.
	Like, you're giving me all this other crap, which is just nonsense.
	I mean, the fact is that you felt you couldn't criticize them because you needed them to help you with your illness, which is something I said, like, 45 minutes ago.
	No. No.
	No, I disagree with that.
	Like, very strongly. I... I didn't...
	It wasn't selfish on my part of thinking, oh, well, I'm not going to criticize him because, well, I just need handouts.
	It was, oh, I'm at the point where I want to kill myself for pain, and the reason that I don't is because I don't want them to suffer.
	I don't want them to be upset and wreck my family.
	Of, okay, well, yeah, your contribution in life is that you're the kid that killed himself.
	It's like, I do...
	People can be horrible to you and you can still love them.
	Like, it's...
	Again, I'm saying something...
	Help me understand. And I'm sorry for the suicidal thoughts.
	You understand that you're bringing this in late in the game, right?
	Like, when I really start to talk about criticizing your parents, you start to talk about your suicidal tendencies when you were younger, right?
	Which is another way of distracting me from your parents, by the way.
	Being crippled! No, no, no.
	No. Hang on a minute.
	I got sick, and the sickness crippled me, and it crippled me with pain.
	We didn't even get...
	The whole time we've been talking about everything leading up to that, I wasn't suicidal before, but when I had thoughts of, okay, well, if my life is just pain and misery, I saw that as a positive.
	If my life is just pain and misery, and I could just kill myself, why don't I? I was like, well...
	I don't want to, because I don't want to upset the people around me that I care about.
	Right. I understand all of that.
	That can be alive. I understand all of that, and I said that exactly back to you.
	Right? But what I'm pointing out is that when we talk about zeroing in on some of your parents' immorality, you bring up your suicidality, which you hadn't done for the last two hours.
	Right? So it's a way of distracting.
	It's a way of being crippled.
	I'm sorry? We hadn't actually got to the point where I was crippled.
	Well, I know. I know.
	But hang on. Hang on.
	Hang on. One of the first things I asked you about was to tell me about the history of your illness and how it is now.
	So we had actually talked about the history of your illness and how it started.
	We did all of that. So, saying that we hadn't got to the ideology of my illness is not a true statement, because that's one of the things I started out with.
	I'm not blaming you, obviously.
	I'm just saying that to say that we hadn't talked about it is not true.
	As a kid, like, thinking, okay, I had a condition.
	It was way worse in the past than it is now.
	I'm not bedridden.
	Like, I was, like, Paralyzed as a kid.
	My jaw to my toes.
	We didn't go into that because I was thinking hopefully, fingers crossed, all of that stuff isn't entirely relevant.
	Clearly that's not true.
	Yeah. You've had the lowest point.
	I didn't see it as necessary to bring it up except in the context of hold on a minute.
	To hit back.
	You could say, well, that's I did not use the word selfish.
	I did not use the word selfish.
	Now, if you interpret it that way, you can just have a conversation with yourself and you can call me back when you're done.
	But I didn't. Did I say selfish?
	It sounded like something... well, I must... well, I'm wrong.
	It's not my head.
	I was angry and I misheard then.
	I don't know what misheard means.
	I mean, I don't know what misheard means.
	You made something up.
	No, it means wrong.
	Well, no, but misheard is like, I said the word doubtful, and you thought I said Mrs.
	Doubtfire. But I didn't say shellfish, and you misheard shellfish, right?
	You just made up a word.
	And you're responding to the word, not me.
	No, well... I apologize, but could you repeat what you said?
	What I said was...
	I said your parents were helpful to you when you were unwell, and so you're unwilling or you don't have a desire to criticize them because they were helpful to you or very helpful to you when you were unwell.
	If that's what you said, then that's 100% true.
	Yeah, so I'm not sure what we're fighting about.
	Well, I don't know.
	You started to fight, so I don't know what we're fighting about.
	I am. Yeah, okay, well, I'll assume that I'm wrong, not misheard, that I'm just wrong.
	Yeah, I thought that the way that you said something, it sounded like that my first thought was My own self-interest.
	No, it's like, oh, the thing that helped me was thinking about other people.
	What reason do I have?
	It's like, well, don't do harm to other people.
	Or don't make things worse for other people.
	Okay, so we've got the principle called don't do harm to other people, right?
	That's the principle that's important to you, right?
	And your parents, obviously, your parents did harm to you by having food in the house and not monitoring your eating or not helping you deal with your problems and letting you be 300 pounds or so at the age of 10, right?
	So they did harm to you.
	Your mother did harm to you by beating you hundreds of times with implements, wooden spoons, electrical cables, and so on.
	And your stepfather did harm to you by mocking you and so on when you were gaining weight and not asking what was going on or how he could help.
	Your biological father abandoned you, abandoned the family, and then was an indifferent person to be around when you got older and you said you got back in touch with him at about the age of nine or so.
	So a lot of people did you a lot of harm.
	And I deeply sympathize with that.
	Also, of course, after you gained all of the weight, then losing a third of your body weight without any medical supervision whatsoever, To me, seems, as an absolute amateur, it seems quite dangerous.
	Yes. It is.
	It was.
	I didn't say I'm going to lose this much weight.
	That's on your parents exposing you to massive dangers.
	In terms of weight gain and weight loss.
	I'm sorry? Yes.
	I wouldn't have been in that position if I hadn't been big in the first place.
	Well, yeah, if they hadn't allowed you to be overweight.
	I mean, nobody looks at a fat cat and says the cat's just greedy and the owner is innocent, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Okay. So you have been very hard done by, and I really sympathize with that.
	That I really, really sympathize with.
	The excuses and the defenses is what we're talking about.
	Now, here's a big-ish question.
	you You said that people can be horrible to you and you can still love them.
	Now, my definition of love is it's our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous.
	Now, if you were listening to this and you weren't you, and you heard about parents, The mother chose a man who abandoned the family or drove the man away, or both.
	She takes her kid out into the country, takes her kids out into the country, away from all their friends, and never tries to figure out how to effectively have them a social life.
	The kid gains 100 pounds over a couple of years and ends up 300 pounds at the age of 10 and then goes on a crash diet without medical supervision.
	She beats him twice a month or more.
	And nobody intervenes to help him.
	Nobody intervenes when he's depressed.
	Nobody intervenes when he's distracting and dissociating himself with video games or, I don't know, pornographic materials you may have found on the internet.
	Oh, I guess you said the internet was bad out there, so maybe you were spared from that.
	Yeah, I was quite lucky, yeah.
	Okay, so if you were to hear about other parents, not your parents, if you were to hear this story from a third perspective, from a third-person perspective, These are other parents, not yours.
	Other parents who ignore, overfeed, beat, neglect, mock their children.
	All the hits, yeah.
	Yeah, all the hits indeed.
	Would you say that these were parents who were lovable?
	Would you say that the child should love the parents?
	you I would understand if they did, but I would probably try and take a similar position to you.
	Just me being weak then, I guess, if I was that kid.
	No, stop insulting yourself.
	Stop it. Stop insulting yourself.
	Stop it. Every time I talk about your parents, you attack yourself.
	Stop it. I won't put up with it.
	I won't be on this conversation if you insult yourself.
	I will hang up on you, because I won't support that.
	I won't do it.
	Yes, like, the parents...
	Yeah, like, I would say those parents were terrible.
	And yes. The child, the adult child of these parents, who, it may be the case, has a lifelong physical painful disability that has half-wrecked his life, perhaps partly as a result of the parents overfeeding and not getting medical intervention for a rapid diet in a child.
	And the child says, as an adult, well, people can be terrible to you.
	And you love them. That is the definition of bonding with the abuser.
	If a woman said, my husband beats me, starves me, overfeeds me, ignores me, neglects me, mocks me, attacks me, undermines me, and I love him.
	Would you take that as a robust statement of health?
	And he also has never really apologized and never will.
	And then that person, that wife, who has, who loves and bonds with the people who abused
	her, that wife says, you know, my biggest problem is procrastination.
	Yeah, okay. It's kind of petty.
	Well, it's a small shadow cast by a large monster.
	It's like the shadow from one of the claws of the giant monster.
	If you meet a woman, and, you know, maybe you meet a woman who's got, I don't know, lupus or some similar ailment that you have, and you'd have that in common, right?
	There's no reason why that couldn't happen.
	You say, oh, well, you know, but I'm not a great partner.
	Well, you know, you would have someone to go through life with where you would share the struggles, and that could be a great and beautiful thing.
	There's nothing wrong with that at all.
	It's a good thing. So, you would meet this woman, and she, let's say she's a good, strong, moral, intelligent woman, cares about you.
	And then you say, oh, yeah, here are my parents.
	They're going to be around us for the rest of their lives, and they're going to help raise our kids, and, yeah, these are the people you're going to be spending the next 30 years with.
	What would the strong, virtuous, intelligent woman who really cares about you They wouldn't approve.
	I don't know, but if I said with my hand on my heart that they're wonderful to everyone else, that being a thing, would you believe me for a second?
	Yeah, of course I'd believe you.
	It's called camouflage.
	It's incredibly common. It's almost...
	It's almost the cliché.
	My mother was wonderful to people outside of the family.
	Yeah, she was very funny. She was very warm.
	Oh yeah, it's camouflage.
	I get that. I mean, go look at the history of Jimmy Seville, one of the most popular men in England who was a brutal raper of ill children.
	Oh yeah, being nice is a very common defense.
	Or you go to a woman who cares about you or it could be a male friend who cares about you and you
	say these are the unapologetic parents who abused me as a child.
	They'd never apologized.
	They'd never made restitution.
	They don't even really admit that what they did was wrong.
	They did me incredible harm, and I love them.
	Or... Not more.
	It's not more. You're right.
	It is what you're saying.
	It's just... Let's say you care about a woman.
	Rationalize. No, it's not rational.
	It's not cold at all. It's very passionate.
	So you care about a woman.
	You love her. She's wonderful.
	And her family mistreated her horribly in the past and continues to mistreat her horribly in the present by not allowing her to talk about what happened in the past.
	See, the abuse doesn't end while you are still silenced.
	Do you follow?
	If you can't talk about what happened to you, the abuse is not over.
	If you're still sworn to secrecy and punished for honesty, the abuse is not over.
	you And in some ways, the cover-up is worse than the crime because the cover-up is now.
	Because you said, well, I don't have a time machine.
	I'm not talking about the past.
	I'm talking about the present.
	Right now. You cannot talk to your parents and be listened to about what happened to you as a child.
	And whether you like it or not, you are angry, of course, because you're a human being who was cruelly mistreated as a child and as an adult still now.
	For the sake of their fragile egos, you can't tell the truth and you participate in that deal.
	Okay, fine. I'll shut the fuck up.
	I touched on it eight years ago, but I'll shut up.
	I won't talk about it anymore. It's okay.
	I'll shut up about it. You think that this is about the past?
	This is something that's happening right now.
	Right now. You can't be honest.
	So, like, what is it then for...
	Is it like corrosive stoicism?
	It's like fake stoicism?
	Are you going to get real abstract on me again?
	Because I don't know if I can take any more of this weird abstraction stuff.
	Can you tell the truth to your parents?
	Can you be honest with your parents?
	I can tell them, yeah.
	Like, I mean... But what good does it do?
	When you're in the position that you're in now, it's like, okay, you're kind of post-rec.
	And it's like, yeah, is it better to just kind of...
	Maybe not. If I come to you with X issue and you're saying, well, look at issues A, B, and C that you haven't dealt with, that's the actual cause of it.
	It's like, what are the actionable steps of...
	Okay, you've got feelings.
	You're annoyed. And you spin that in a whole bunch of ways that make you dysfunctional later on.
	I find myself really spacing out with these defenses.
	So you're saying, what is the purpose and value of being honest with the people around you?
	Is that really what you're asking me?
	What is the purpose?
	What is the goal of being honest with people I claim to care about?
	No, it's like, if I've already said No, but it hasn't been listened to.
	It hasn't been acknowledged. And the conversation that encompasses the first 20 years of your life doesn't get dealt with in one flyby abstract conversation eight years ago.
	Okay, so the reason you're honest with your parents is to tell yourself, That your childhood is over.
	Because you couldn't be honest with your parents when you were a kid.
	Because you were dependent upon them and they were very aggressive and you could get beaten with yet more wooden spoons and electrical cables.
	So the reason you're honest with your parents is you're signaling to your mind that you're all grown up and you're free.
	And you no longer have to go with this weird blood libel or murder silence about the abuses that happened within your family.
	The reason you're honest is because you're an adult.
	And people should not terrorize you into silence when you're an adult.
	That's how you know you are an adult, is you can speak your mind.
	And if people don't like it, well, that's too bad.
	You're still going to speak the truth, right?
	That there's a real purpose to it.
	In terms of what you've talked about in the past, if people are toxic and you just got them out or something, if someone was toxic in your life, They're just a thing now.
	They're just there.
	They're just a reminder of negative things.
	Okay, I don't know what any of this means.
	Sorry, I'm really bored of these abstractions.
	I apologize for being so direct, but going off on these Waffelberger philosophical treatises doesn't deal with anything that's actually happening in your life at the moment.
	If you don't know, forget people this, people that are talking about you and your parents.
	It's not people this and abstract that.
	It's you and your parents. Is there value in you telling the actual truth of your experience to your parents?
	Of course there is. Because being silenced out of fear is not growing up.
	Now, you can say, I'm too scared of my parents to tell them the truth.
	That's fine. That's an honest statement.
	I'm not going to call you a coward.
	I'm not going to, right? But this, like, what's the use?
	And I don't know the practical purpose and all of that.
	Hang on. Still talking. Still talking.
	Still talking. So you say, well, I don't understand.
	Like, I just want you to be honest.
	If you're too... And I understand your parents are scary, right?
	Your stepfather is caustic and...
	Makes fun of you in pretty dark ways, and he decided to marry a woman who beats her children.
	Your mother is violent and beat you hundreds of times as a child.
	They're scary people, and I am not putting you down for being scared at all.
	At all. That's totally healthy.
	It would be weird if you weren't.
	It would be very unhealthy if you weren't scared.
	But if you're scared, then you can say, I think the most honest statement is, I'm terrified to tell the truth to my parents.
	That's fine. I can live with that.
	I mean, that's an honest statement.
	And I'm not saying whether you should or shouldn't say anything to your parents.
	I'm just asking you to be honest about your motivations.
	But hiding behind these lofty theories of abstractions and hiding behind, oh, well, I don't know the practical purpose and I can't turn back time.
	That's not it. You're scared to tell the truth.
	And I'm not disagreeing with you about that.
	Let's just be honest about it.
	Okay, I am worried about the consequences.
	It seems that the pros don't outweigh the cons, to me.
	No, that's another lie.
	I'm just going to be straight with you. That's another lie.
	The cons only come from their side.
	The pros are for you to tell the truth and break the cycle, and speak Honestly, to those who abused you about how it affected you.
	That's a pro. The only negatives come from their side.
	So don't weigh the pros and cons like it's something internal to you.
	The cons are they'll attack you, they'll scorn you, they'll mock you, they'll trash talk you, they'll whatever.
	I don't know what they would do, right?
	You know. But there's no pros and cons.
	I'm weighing the pros and cons.
	It's like, no, the pros are entirely to you.
	The cons entirely come from them, which means that if the cons are outweighing the pros, it's your fear of them are outweighing your desire to be honest.
	So we're back to the fear, which, again, I have no problem with.
	I'm not putting you down for that, but let's just be honest.
	I said it's fear of the consequences, but the consequences are not, oh, I'm worried about them doing something to me.
	It's that It doesn't seem...
	It doesn't seem fair.
	It's like if you let something go for just a long period of time, it's like, oh, now it affects you?
	It's like, now you're suddenly talking about...
	I know that they wouldn't do that, but to me, that's how I feel like Oh, if you didn't sook before, why are you bringing this up now?
	Because you're upset and other things aren't working for you?
	This is what they would say.
	Where is this coming from? Let's close off on this.
	So you be your parents, I'll be you.
	Because I want to understand how their thinking goes.
	Because it sounds like you're arguing their side, right?
	Okay, so I'm sitting down with you.
	You can be both parents or one.
	I don't mind. And I, as you say, listen, Mom, Dad, I've got stuff I really, really need to talk about.
	I've been thinking a lot about my childhood, and my life's kind of stuck, and I think some of it has to do with childhood habits and all of that, and You know, I had this massive weight gain and then this catastrophic weight loss which may have triggered my autoimmune disorder and has kind of crippled me for the last 13 years.
	And you guys were in charge.
	You were responsible for that. You were responsible for the food that was in my house.
	You were responsible for making sure I ate well.
	You can't expect a six or seven-year-old kid to make all the wise decisions in the known universe.
	And then you never took me to a doctor when I was losing weight.
	And mom, you beat me with these electrical cords and it was pretty terrifying and appalling and painful.
	It might have had something to do with my weight gain.
	You know, stepdad, you, like, mocked me and made fun of me for being fat without ever asking me what was going on or whether I was unhappy, and I just kind of locked myself away in the tomb of my room playing video games until all the hours of the morning, and nobody seemed to care or didn't seem to matter, And I have just I've got real problems with how I was
	raised and you guys were in charge of all of that Who would be but where is this coming up like okay like
	The response would be, oh, okay, I'm sorry.
	It would just be something completely cut and dry.
	I'm sorry you feel that way.
	I didn't mean that.
	We messed up.
	Sorry. That is exactly how it is.
	I'm not asking you to give commentary.
	I don't need footnotes. I don't need the director's cut.
	I was.
	What would they say?
	What I just said. I wasn't doing commentary.
	That was what they would say. No, you were doing commentary.
	So they would say, where's this coming from?
	Oh, I'm sorry.
	Where's this coming from? Okay.
	So what would they say? I'm sorry you feel that way.
	No, it's not a feeling.
	These are facts, Dad. I'm sorry you feel that way.
	I mean, I am angry and I am upset, but these aren't just feelings.
	These are actual facts that I have stated.
	Okay, like, it would just be, I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry. But sorry, what are you sorry for?
	Help me understand. What are you sorry for?
	We talked about a lot here, so just help me understand.
	No, I would just say sorry.
	I'm the parent, yeah. Okay, so dad, mom, what are you sorry for?
	We messed up.
	Okay, in what way did you mess up?
	They would say, we messed up.
	We messed up.
	Yeah, we should have done more.
	We didn't know at the time a whole bunch of things.
	Yeah, we could have put in more effort.
	We could have. Very sorry.
	That's just how it would go. Yeah, but sorry, which aspects are you sorry for?
	And also, you said you didn't know, but A, it's your responsibility to know, and B, I didn't get that excuse when I was a kid.
	Like, if I didn't study for a test, I wasn't given the excuse.
	I was beaten if I did badly.
	So I wasn't given the excuse.
	Well, I just didn't know.
	So how do you have an excuse as parents that I didn't even have as a kid?
	Like, they were beaten harder.
	Like, their lives were shittier. Like, yeah, like, you had it pretty good.
	Like, yeah, like, sorry, like, we did our best.
	I'm 300 pounds at the age of 10, and you're saying I had it pretty good?
	What is the matter with you?
	What are you talking about? That's terrible.
	Well, you did that to yourself.
	Like, yeah. So, it's my fault at the age of seven or eight or six for eating too much, and you were helpless.
	Because, I mean, you beat me a lot, right?
	So, you weren't helpless in changing my behavior, but you were helpless with the food?
	I don't understand. I mean, you weren't a different parent.
	You guys gave me a lot of feedback and criticism and beatings.
	So, what do you mean it's all my fault?
	It's all my responsibility? You guys did a lot of aggressive parenting.
	What are you talking about?
	Well, like, your sister wasn't fat.
	It's like, we didn't, like, yeah, like, you chose to eat.
	Like, it wasn't, yeah, like, we didn't want you to be fat.
	Like, oh, sorry, like, I made, like, I teased you, like, because I hope that, like, that would make you, like, want to lose weight.
	Like, sorry. It didn't, right?
	Yeah, so you teased me for half a decade, and it didn't work.
	So obviously, if something isn't working, you change what you're doing, right?
	Yeah, but we clearly didn't.
	I mean, if you were driving in the wrong direction, you didn't just keep driving until you ended up in the fucking ocean, would you?
	You turn around. You change what you're doing because it's not working.
	So, you saw me gaining 100 pounds in a couple of years as a little kid.
	You didn't take me to a doctor.
	You didn't take me to a therapist.
	You didn't ask me what was going on.
	You didn't care that I was obviously depressed and had no friends and no social life and was locked up in my room on computers.
	Like, it's your job to keep me healthy.
	I'm a little kid.
	Like, what was going on?
	And now you blame me for this?
	You take no responsibility?
	How dare you?
	We're responsible.
	Okay, so you just lied to me when you told me that I was responsible.
	So you just lied to me and you blamed me for my weight gain and now you say that you're responsible.
	What is wrong with you?
	Yeah, I don't want your tone here.
	I don't give a shit whether you like my tone or not.
	You just lied to me and blamed me for my own weight gain.
	And you're concerned? I'm concerned about being abused with food to the point where I was half dead at the age of 10, and you're worried about my tone 18 years later?
	Are you kidding me? Ugh.
	Okay, what do you want me to do about it?
	I'm like, I'm sorry. How about don't lie to me and blame me then say no, it was my responsibility
	Okay, like fine Like, fine.
	Fine what? I don't know what that means.
	He fucked up. No, not in the past.
	You're still fucking up. Because you just blamed me.
	You just blamed me for my weight gain.
	And then you said, no, no, no, it was my fault.
	So you're still fucking up. It's not about the past.
	It's about the present. You just blamed me for my weight gain when I was six to ten years old.
	You're still doing it. Yeah.
	Does it not bother you at all that you blame a little kid for his weight gain when he's obviously depressed and isolated and lonely?
	Does it not bother you at all to blame your kid for his weight gain?
	Does it not strike you at all bizarre?
	I'm sorry? I was still pretending.
	Oh, well, it sounds shitty when you frame it that way.
	Like, yeah, like, oh, you're only going to cover all the bad things.
	Like, what about all the good things? Like, yeah, like, No, the good things, okay, they were good things.
	That's the only reason I'm having this conversation.
	And we've had 28 years of talking about the good things.
	Now we're going to talk about some bad things.
	Because you don't get to run my side of the relationship, right?
	This is what I want to talk about.
	And if you care about me, you'll let me talk about it.
	And if you don't care about me, you won't.
	But I will notice that deeply and significantly.
	This is what I need to talk about.
	This is what I want to talk about.
	And you don't get to run my side of the relationship.
	This is what's important to me.
	You've got other shit to deal with.
	I don't know what you want from me.
	I'm sorry. There you go.
	No, you know that's a bullshit non-apology.
	That's not a real apology. You don't even know what you're apologizing for because you just blamed me.
	Like three minutes ago, you just blamed me for it.
	Sorry doesn't mean anything.
	Sorry is just trying to get me to shut up.
	And I won't. Because this is my side of the conversation.
	I'm running my side of the conversation, not you.
	Yeah, well, I don't have to listen.
	That's absolutely true.
	If you're too busy to listen to what's really important to me, I can't force you to stay.
	I can't force you to listen. I can't force you to engage with me like an actual adult rather than a petulant child.
	I can't force you to do any of that.
	Of course. You're totally free to get off your ass and walk out the door.
	Is that what you want to do? Well, No.
	Okay, good. Then let's stay and have a conversation.
	Why are you being a pussy? Why are you being a pussy about this?
	What do you mean by being a pussy?
	Why now? Because it's on my mind.
	I don't know. Why did you dream about an elephant last night?
	Because that's what was on your mind.
	What the hell does that matter? Why this?
	Why now? Why on earth would that matter?
	What do you want? I'm sorry?
	If you want to deal with it, fine.
	What is it? What do you need?
	Well, I need you to not lie to me and blame me for what you're responsible for.
	I need to understand what on earth was going on in this family that I got beaten, overfed, and ended up half-starving myself into the grave.
	That's messed up, man.
	I need to know what was going on in the family.
	What was your thinking?
	I don't want to hear excuses.
	I don't want to hear minimization.
	I don't want to hear non-apologies.
	I don't want to hear any of that crap.
	I want to genuinely know what was going on in your guys' hearts and minds when all of this stuff was happening.
	I mean, you noticed me getting fat, and all you did was mock me for it and continue to beat me.
	That didn't work. I ended up having to try and solve the problem all on my own, which might have caused this horrible stuff I've been dealing with over the last 13 years.
	I mean, other than beatings and pulling me out to the country and having no friends, I mean, what kind of parenting was really going on?
	I don't remember getting much advice.
	I don't remember getting any curiosity.
	I don't remember anyone asking me how I was doing or what I wanted or whether I was happy or what I needed.
	Like, what was going on in this household?
	What were you thinking? Let me ask you this.
	What were you thinking when I was gaining all this weight as a little kid?
	It's bad, but yeah, like you don't have to do that like That's on you.
	But if I, I don't know, how I was raised, if I tease you a bit, I thought that would work.
	I did it out of kindness.
	I teased you out of kindness or something.
	No, but it didn't work, right?
	A bit of banter. You had five years of something not working, so you're not a dumb man, right?
	So, of course, you don't try five years of something not working and think you're doing something smart, so there had to be something else.
	You can't just be a dumb man, though.
	I'm sorry? You can't just be a dumb man, though.
	That is like an... Like an option.
	To just be a dumb man?
	To just be a dumb person.
	Well, no, but then you wouldn't be manipulative in this kind of way and blaming me and half-apologizing.
	Like, you wouldn't be cunning and manipulative in this kind of way.
	That shows in intelligence, so I can't give you the dumb stuff, right?
	I guess. Right. So, so no, he's not a dumb guy because he's very cunning and
	diplomatic and therefore he's got the intelligence to answer the question.
	But you're dumb when it's convenient.
	Yeah. Well, play dumb. Yeah, that's a very common tactic.
	Now, unfortunately, like in the role play here, I'm asking questions of your parents that you wouldn't have the answers to.
	So there's a limit on the role play here, right?
	Like what was going on in the family that they just let you gain all this weight and then let you half starve yourself half to death with no consultation or...
	I mean, your father was a farmer, right?
	Yeah, he was. Okay, so if his farm animals were losing weight catastrophically and suddenly, would he call the vet?
	If they were all doing it at the same time.
	Well, whatever. There's some animal that's losing weight.
	He would kill them. He would call the vet, right?
	Oh, no, I thought you were about to say something.
	Oh, yeah. Oh.
	Oh, like... It depends, like, oh, when you were saying what you were saying, I thought, oh, yeah, like, he would, like, blow their brains out.
	It's like, oh, wait, you know, you're talking about the vet.
	Okay, like, yeah. But I assume that he called the vet over the course of being a farmer from time to time, right?
	Of course, yeah.
	Okay. So he called the vet to get medical intervention for his animals.
	Initial fast assessment, yeah.
	Yeah, so he called the vet to get medical assessments on his animals
	Just not a stepson It's it's not like I never went to the doctor
	I never went to the doctor for that specific...
	Oh, okay, try Weight Watchers.
	The issue with being overweight is that you're depressed because of everything else around you, and then you eat stuff.
	It's like, well, if that's not being dealt with, no counseling or anything, because that's just That's weird.
	You only go to counseling if you're insane.
	Well, no. Hang on.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	But what your parents would do is they would go to the doctor and they would say, our child is gaining weight, right?
	And the doctor would say, I assume, well, don't have the bad food in the house.
	Don't take him to restaurants with bad food.
	I mean, that's ideal, but that's not how it went.
	No, that's not an ideal. That's a basic.
	If your father's animals were gaining weight, would he restrict their diet?
	Yes. Of course he would.
	He knows that. Not for sale.
	Not for sale. Sorry?
	Oh, sorry.
	I was thinking, well, farm animals.
	Okay, well, he's...
	If it's like cattle, no.
	That's great. No, but if his animals were gaining weight in an unhealthy and destructive way, he would restrict their diet, right?
	Yes, he would. If he was paying attention to...
	He wouldn't put all the food in the animal's trough and then just lecture them to not eat it, right?
	He would not put as much food in their trough, right?
	He would restrict their calorie intake so that they would stop gaining weight and hopefully lose some weight, right?
	So your father, your stepfather, knows everything there is to know about what to do if you're gaining weight.
	You said you mentioned McDonald's, so is it true that you were gaining weight and they took you to McDonald's?
	I mean, like, of course, like, It's not like, oh, he put on a kilo, let's take him to McDonald's.
	It's like, you're fat, and you go to McDonald's.
	You know, it wasn't like all parents with children who were gaining weight take their children
	to restaurants to serve bad food, at least for weight gain, right?
	Actually, I accept that. He wasn't actually pro junk food.
	It was my mom that would buy it, and then he'd be like, oh, we need to cook everything at home.
	He would just make jibes and stuff.
	Actually, no, he would do the thing where it's like, okay, you come home with a chocolate bar or something.
	If you say, oh, I'm trying to not eat unhealthy, he would come home specifically with something unhealthy.
	So that's the only time where he would.
	Of those things of like, okay, well, If the only times that you...
	Why do you never do this?
	Why do you do this in this context?
	It seems kind of malevolent, but not really.
	He would be, okay, junk food is expensive.
	And so we'll just cook everything and just be miserable and have veggie sandwiches and stuff like that.
	Except in the context of, well, if you say...
	Being angry, like when I was losing weight, of like, I told you not to get me something.
	It's like, oh, if I'm telling you I'm doing this, and then, like, now, it was like, now, now why are you okay with all this stuff?
	It's like, you don't even want to eat it.
	Like, it's... Wait, sorry, who are we talking about?
	Your stepdad would bring home food that was bad for you when you were trying to lose weight?
	Yes, but, but he wouldn't do that before, because he was, like, he grew up in a really rough, kind of, like, living off the land type, but borderline subsistence, like, and, like, brutal, like, And so, yeah, like, penny pincher kind of attitude, like, you don't go to McDonald's.
	It's like, ah, but, like, in the context we do, it's not, like, something that I'm pro.
	Like, oh, like, you only do this thing when I say not to do it.
	It's like, well, that's, yeah.
	It's a passive...
	I said before that he wasn't violent or aggressive or anything about it, but his thing was just passive-aggressive kind of stewing and doing the one-up of, well, if you fail, then I'm better than you.
	Helping kind of...
	What was his thing?
	I still use it today.
	Give people enough rope to hang themselves of...
	Well, it's like, oh, okay, give you enough temptation for you to fail, I guess.
	Sorry, I understand that he sabotaged your weight loss?
	Yes, but you've been talking about that so far.
	Okay, well, they both sabotaged a lot of things, but yeah, there's the only times...
	I knew it was...
	Passive aggressiveness and malevolence, I'm framing them as different things.
	Someone's salty, but they're upset.
	If you succeed, then they fail.
	If you're doing well, then...
	They're doing poorly. And if you're upset and you're miserable, then they have company.
	That's kind of the way that he was raised with his family.
	Like, okay, well, if we're all kind of miserable, then yeah, no one's winning.
	We're all losing at the same time.
	Not very nice, but because of the way...
	The times when he would talk about how he was raised and the shit that he went with, I couldn't not feel sorry for him.
	It's like someone say they're not a child predator or something, but someone is abusive but you know that they're abused and you would want them to get...
	You sympathize with someone that's bad.
	You can sympathize with bad people and I've done it for him and I've I mean, it's not for everyone, I guess, but it's like it doesn't...
	Yeah, I don't know what to do with those emotions.
	I'm too juvenile to kind of know what to do with them.
	Do you notice it all when you filibuster?
	When you just take someone on a language journey from here to everywhere to nowhere?
	Well, I'd rather just listen and hear answers, but...
	No, no, you wouldn't.
	No, you absolutely wouldn't, because I'd be trying to give you answers, and you really don't.
	I mean, or rather you do, but your parents don't, like your inner parents.
	But yeah, so the last thing I'll say is that...
	You say that you can treat somebody...
	Somebody can treat you horribly and you still love them.
	That may be your relationship with procrastination because the procrastination is causing you significant discomfort, right?
	Yes. So it's almost like you're treating yourself horribly but still trying to love yourself?
	If the procrastination is causing serious problems in your life, it's like, well, but I still love myself.
	It's like, well... I think self-love or self-respect does have to be earned that way, right?
	Sorry, go ahead. Whatever feelings I have for myself, I don't think self-love is one of them.
	I think it's more like contempt or just being upset.
	I don't know. I don't wake up and think, I love being me or I love No, I understand that.
	That's why I said self-love has to be earned, right?
	Or maybe on the other side, you're used to mocking and contempt from your stepfather, and so you just fulfill that.
	That's the role you have, that's the role you know.
	I write about this in my book, Real-Time Relationships, which you should check out if you haven't already.
	It's free at freedomain.com slash books, which is the repetition compulsion of I'm unworthy.
	I'm not good enough.
	I'm a failure.
	I'm like whatever you may have internalized in order to try and find a way to get along with your stepdad or your mom if she was that way inclined as well.
	You just kind of continue doing that stuff because that's the role you're in and that's, you know, you don't have control over your parents, but you have control over your own emotions.
	And so if managing contempt is your childhood experience, then you're going to need that contempt as an adult to continue to manage.
	Sorry? I said that's a really good way of putting it.
	Of managing contempt.
	Of like, oh yeah, kind of like, just don't let it boil over until it, you know, like just Turn the dial down however you can.
	Well, what's life for you like if you don't have, like, this is why I had to really forcefully intervene in you insulting yourself before, right?
	So what's your life like if you're doing all the right things?
	What's your life like if you're taking responsibility and holding people accountable and not procrastinating?
	I mean, we all do a little bit, but nothing major, nothing serious.
	What's your life like? Well, I think it would be kind of tough.
	Because if you're worthy of respect, then your parents were disrespectful.
	If you're kind of just a screw-up and a failure, and you can't get anything done, and you can't get your life organized, and you always procrastinate, well, then your parents were right.
	And then they weren't abusive, or they weren't verbally abusive or destructive.
	They were just, you know, identifying factual things, right?
	Like, if I can't sing, and my parents say, you really can't sing that well, you know, they're not being abusive.
	Right? I just can't sing that well.
	But if I am a really good singer and my parents say, you sound like shit, then they're being abusive.
	Or, you know, you're a bad singer when I'm actually a good singer, then they're being abusive, right?
	So if your parents say all these negative things about you, then if you stop all of that stuff in your life and they continue to do it, they're exposed as abusive.
	If you continue to conform to their expectations, hey, man, they're just identifying facts.
	They're not being abusive. And that may be a place to start as well.
	I also do have fdrpodcast.com.
	I have a whole show on procrastination.
	You should obviously watch it later, not now.
	Kidding. But you might want to check that out.
	That's a good video about Master Slave Morality and its relationship to procrastination.
	I think I'll...
	I'm going to have to look at the relationship kind of stuff first, maybe, of If that is, like, yeah, like, I wasn't expecting to get upset by any of that.
	I didn't think that it would, well, clearly it does, because it upset me, but that's good.
	Like, okay, well, then that's the thing that I'm not, yeah, I'm not dealing with.
	It's like, well, that's uncomfortable as shit, but it's meant to be.
	Well, technically, I didn't upset you, I upset your inner parents.
	Because they're the ones who don't want to be confronted.
	No, I... You've been wonderful.
	I wasn't slagging on you.
	You did me wrong.
	You've done everything right, but I'm still upset, which means that it's my thing to deal with.
	Yeah. Well, listen, I really do appreciate the call, and I hope that you'll keep in touch and let me know how things are going, and I hope that you enjoy the video or find it useful on procrastination.
	I think it was pretty good. Well, thank you very much for answering and all the stuff about rambling and going around.
	I do apologize for that of that.
	This is in a position that You do this stuff all the time.
	I just wasn't expecting to be upset.
	I wasn't expecting to be that upset by things.
	I didn't think all the stuff that I... Don't deal with content management.
	It's like, okay, you made it simmer.
	No, no, I appreciate that. In the future with people, the more honest thing to say is I'm really upset and I'm not sure why rather than going on this exhausting filibuster.
	That's the more direct thing to say.
	Keep me posted. Thanks a lot for the call and I look forward to getting an update.
	Thank you. Take care, brother.
	Bye. Thank you very much.

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