In this conversation, I, a 19-year-old male, share the complexities of dealing with childhood abuse from my parents, while navigating relationships and communication styles within my family. Stef and I delve deep into the dynamics of my upbringing, exploring incidents of discipline, lack of engagement, and the impacts on my behavior. We discuss challenges such as lying, rebellion, and conflicts with my parents, highlighting the importance of emotional processing and setting boundaries. Throughout our interaction, we uncover the significance of trust, self-compassion, and empathy in fostering meaningful connections amidst challenging family dynamics.Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Hey Steph, I'm a 19 year old male and I've been consuming your content for about seven months.
After listening to RTR, Many Columns, and other of your shows, I understood the need to address the abuse and transgressions that I experienced as a child with my parents.
I've talked to my parents multiple times, both together and one-on-one.
My mother, after a few aggressive conversations, has been receptive to my perspective and has started therapy as a result of our talks.
My dad, however, has only gotten more and more aggressive with each conversation.
After our last talk, I decided that I could not in good conscience go over to my parents' house and have not talked to my father since.
I find myself conflicted on how to navigate the future relationship with my parents.
I imagine it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to maintain a relationship with my mother while avoiding my father, but I don't feel right cutting off both parents as she has been receptive to my criticisms.
I know there is something that I am missing or avoiding that would give me clarity and level of safety.
Oh, sorry, you just lost audio quality there.
You got all tinny.
I don't know if you hit something or... No, I'm not sure.
Okay, I think you're better now.
So sorry, if you could just read the last part again.
Yeah, I know there's something that I'm missing or avoiding that would give me clarity in my decision, and I would greatly value your assistance in uncovering it.
Right.
Well, I'm sorry to hear about all of this.
Of course, it's always quite sad, if not very sad, when families have these kinds of challenges.
So, yeah, I'm all ears.
Do you want to tell me your experience as a child and what brought you to this place?
Yeah, just a quick update.
That conversation with my dad was two weeks ago, as of last night.
And on Thursday of this week, he messaged me.
Or last week, Thursday of last week, he messaged me and he wanted to meet up.
So we met up last night and had a chat and he apologized for the conversation that we had.
But we can talk more about that later just to give you that update.
But as for my childhood, my parents are together.
I grew up Christian, so Christian school, all that.
Went to church every Sunday, Sunday school.
As a young kid, um, my mother, she was a stay at home mom and my dad, he worked a lot and he was part of like a network marketing thing on the side.
So he wasn't home a lot, probably until I was about eight.
And when he was home, he was very tired or working on housework.
Um, so I really didn't develop a relationship with my dad early on, other than in like giving me lectures about Christianity and stuff like that.
Um, and I remember always being really scared of my mom because the way she disciplined me and my sister, my older sister, um, it was a lot of yelling.
Um, she never hit us with like objects, like a bell or a spoon or anything, but it was probably every once, uh, every two months she would smack us or something like that.
Um, she did a lot of like face grabbing.
Or like arm grabbing.
Um, that probably happens every two weeks or something.
And then like yelling or like aggressive language was like every day and multiple times a week.
Um, and yeah, so school, I was very good at school.
Um, I didn't really enjoy it.
Um, um, yeah.
So then in high school I went to a public school
I went to Christian school all through elementary school and then I went to a public high school because it had like an accelerated college program.
So that otherwise I would have stayed in a Christian high school.
Um, and that I, that I, uh, during that I still did very well in school, but I like got really apathetic towards school.
Um, I, I probably just did it out of like a competitive nature.
Um, but I really didn't care about any of the work I was doing.
I didn't want to go to college.
Um,
And I got like really depressed or anxious or cynical in high school.
I was like really angry at Christianity.
Um, I was always very sad.
I wasn't like angry at my parents cause just cause I probably didn't know who to blame or my, I didn't really know how to address any of my feelings.
Like I remember my, like whenever I was sad or angry, my mom would always ask me like why I was sad or why I was angry.
And I would just kind of fog out, like I would just be like, I have no idea.
And it wouldn't get past that.
Yeah, if you have any questions about that, that's the early childhood, probably up until now.
I moved on to high school.
Yeah, you can keep the places.
Oh, right, right.
Keep the places off, that's fine.
I moved far away from home, like
16 hours from where I grew up, like, um, cause I graduated high school early.
So at age 17, I moved far from my hometown for a job in politics, uh, like right wing dissident politics, um, worked there away from home for awhile, about a year, and then moved back just cause I started hating it.
Um, and now I'm back in my hometown living on my own.
Right, okay.
So what was it that prompted you to have, was it a particular incident that prompted you to have the conversation with your parents?
Yeah, so during my time in politics I got exposed to a few people and they exposed me to your work.
So I started listening to your work and just being back home, like I'd go over to my parents.
I have a younger brother that we adopted from
Why did they adopt a boy from China?
Seven or eight, our church did this program with kids from Russia, where an orphan from Russia would stay in your house for two weeks, and they took part in that.
And they got, the kid was pretty aggressive towards me, and he was kind of like a wild kid, you know, understandably.
Did he speak English?
Um, not really, no.
We have to use Google Translate to really communicate with them well.
Seems interesting.
I'm not quite, I'm not quite sure.
You're breaking up a little bit.
I can make it.
Sorry.
Uh, just let me know if that's, uh, working.
Testing one, two, three.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're, you're breaking up a little bit.
I can make out what you're saying, but it's a little difficult.
Um, yeah, it's a lot.
Wow.
And that's so key.
You went back to Russia.
And they tried to adopt him.
I didn't want them to try to do that.
They asked me and my sister, do you want us to do this?
We'll only do it if you want us to do it.
And kind of out of obligation, I felt like I would be punished or I felt like I'd be judged harshly if I didn't kind of go along with it.
So I just agreed to it.
And so they spent a few years trying to adopt him from Russia, but just because of like international politics, Russia banned all US adoption.
And then I guess they still wanted to adopt.
And so we went to China and adopted my brother.
Huh.
And how old were you when the Russian kid and then the Chinese kid came along?
Yeah, so I was around eight when I met the Russian kid.
That went on for a year or two, and then they gave up on that, and it was probably another year or two until they got the kid from China, my brother.
So I was eleven when they adopted my brother, and he was five.
Okay, and you have no other birth siblings, right?
Yeah, I have an older sister, so I'm breaking up a lot.
You have one older sister, and then you have, I guess you had the Russian kid, and then the Chinese kid.
What was the reasoning behind these adoptions?
I'm really not sure what prompted them to host the kid for two weeks.
My mom, I guess, she's
Kind of liberal.
So, you know, it's like, oh, this poor kid from a foreign nation might, might be part of it.
I, I really have no idea why, or at least, you know, consciously, like they, they never told me why they wanted to host this kid from Russia for two weeks.
I don't, I don't think they planned on adopting him when they hosted him.
I, maybe they just wanted to try it out or do it for the two weeks and that's it.
But then they got attached.
Um,
And then after that.
Sorry, I, I, again, I'm not saying that you would know this, but I'm just trying to figure it out for myself.
Like what is the point of bringing a Russian kid over for two weeks when he doesn't even speak the language?
I mean, wouldn't you just take the cost of flying a kid over and putting him up and then flying him back?
And wouldn't you just take that cost and donate it to the family?
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I'm not sure.
I mean, as, as for like the church and the organization, I mean, they're obviously doing it to get kids adopted, but why my family took part in it.
Um, and maybe it's like a Christian charity thing that, that motivated them.
I don't know.
All right.
It's, it just, it seems like a very odd thing to me as a whole.
I just want to sort of mention this and just sort of get it off my chest, so to speak.
No, it's like, are there no poor kids in your country?
So there are, yeah.
And it's a lot of, um, family members, extended family members of mine brought that up and that like kind of burned the bridge between my parents and some of my extended family.
Just cause they didn't, I guess my extended family didn't understand, well, you know, you're in America, why not adopt a kid who speaks English, save some money.
Um, and, and my parents didn't like that.
And do you know why?
I don't know why they wanted to adopt internationally.
I mean, with the Russian kid, I guess I can understand, like, they brought him in for two weeks and got attached to him specifically.
But why after that, when they were looking to adopt again?
No, I never really understood that.
Other than, you know, if you're gonna
Save a kid, so to speak.
I guess China's worse than America in a lot of ways.
Maybe that was the logic behind it, but I never got a reason for that.
You said that they spent a couple of years trying to adopt the Russian kid?
Yeah.
So maybe they just said, look, it's too, it's just too hard.
Right?
Like it's just, it's too difficult.
And, and so we need to go to a place where it's easier to adopt.
And I guess they went to, uh, to China.
Now, how liberal, you know, one to Che Guevara, how liberal is your mom?
Um, when I was growing up, probably like, so on a scale of one to 10, probably like a five.
Um, and then my dad is way more conservative and my dad's like the Christian in our family.
My mom kind of pretended to be Christian just for like the family dynamics.
Um, but me and my sister always knew that like, she didn't like going to church.
She wasn't really Christian.
She didn't like the church we went to.
Um, as she's gotten older, a lot, I mean a lot because of my influence, like she's gotten more conservative, but, um, no, she's still like, like with this Palestine, Israel stuff, like she's always showing me, you know, I'm not like passionate about one side or the other, but she's always like,
Show me the Palestinian war footage.
Like she's just really into that.
Same with like the Ukraine stuff.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, I can tell you probably psychologically why she chose the Russian and a Chinese kid.
Liberals are highly characterized by an outgroup preference.
Right.
Yeah.
So when they said,
You should adopt someone from your own country who already speaks English.
That would upset her because that would indicate an in-group preference would be a kind of bigotry, or something like that.
Oh yeah?
Liberals as a whole are characterized by preferring the out-group to the in-group, and conservatives are quite the opposite.
In traditional terms, conservatives would be loyal to the group, and liberals would be traitorous to the group.
Yeah, it's like the anti-white stuff.
Yeah, they would collude with the out group, and so for her to adopt within the group would be bigoted and preferential and not helping the, you know, it's part of the underdog thing, right?
Yeah.
When women are programmed, in a sense, to prefer the underdog over everyone, and so if someone can convince them that someone in the out group is the underdog, they will have loyalty to that rather than the in group as a whole.
Again, I'm not trying to
You know, boil your mom down to like one simple graph, but that seems a fair way to approach it.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, one of the things that's interesting about liberals, and the one thing I like about liberals is they tend normally to be quite kind to children.
They can be better than conservatives when it comes to being more gentle with children.
It doesn't sound like this was the case with your mom, though.
What do you think was going on with that?
Um, yeah, you know, I don't want to make excuses for her, but like, just thinking about it from like a childhood perspective, her dad was quite, uh, was quite aggressive.
Um, as to why she chose to, and she took like criminal justice in college and she worked in like a detention center for young kids for, for like teenagers as one of her first jobs out of, um, college.
So, you know, she definitely had exposure to like, this is how different cultures or situations affect people's upbringing and how that affects them later in life.
Um, as to why she like, um, yelled at us all the time, instead of trying to understand, um, well, I mean, if she did that, she'd have to like question her father.
Right.
Okay.
So why didn't she question her own father?
Um, he's quite, um, he's got a hard exterior and he, like he, he's just a scary guy.
And, and if you like push him too far, like he just, like he did something to my brother recently when he was like watching him because my, my grandfather lives in a retirement home and my brother was staying there.
And my grandfather made my brother.
Sit at his own table because he wanted to eat with his friends like like his old people friends Um, and I called him up.
I was like, hey, why'd you do that?
You know Like you're supposed to be taking care of him like you can introduce him to people but why are you making him sit by himself?
And like within two minutes he was like i'm not talking about this Like I have my reasons i'm in charge um so Yeah, I mean it's not easy to challenge him but why why she didn't go all the way Yeah, probably probably just like fear
Yeah, it's a funny thing.
I don't understand this about some women.
It's not just women, but since we're talking about your mom, I don't understand why there's this sympathy for the underdog and then cruelty to your children.
Like, sympathy for the Russian kid, sympathy for the Chinese kid, but not sympathy for your own children to the point where, like, you'll yell at them and hit them and... Like, it just... I just can't quite fathom it.
Yeah, me neither.
I mean, surely, if you have sympathy...
For the underdog, your own children are the most underdog, so to speak.
So I don't know why that seems so impossible to process, but rather it's like, well, I'm going to hit my own kids a lot, yell at them a lot, bully them a lot, but oh boy, that poor kid in China, what the hell?
I don't understand it.
Unless it's just, I don't know, propaganda or something like that.
And how's things been going for the Chinese boy?
So, we had, like, me and him had a pretty, like, we would do things together, but he would, like, aggravate me and I'd aggravate him.
Like, it was not, like, a good brotherly relationship.
And my mom and dad have not done a good job with him at all, in my opinion.
Like, the school they send him to, it's like,
A Christian school, so it's better than like a public school, but he's just like, he has, he has a lot of energy and he doesn't like, he just doesn't do that well in school, even though he's very smart, like he's really good at math, but he just doesn't do well in school and he like hides assignments and things like this.
Um, and my dad, he is still pretty absent.
Like he doesn't engage with my brother at all.
He doesn't try to understand my brother and my mom.
Raised him the same way she raised us where it's like, so try to work with you or demand things of you or explain things to you.
And if you don't like get it right, um, like you, you just get yelled at, you get put in timeout, whatever.
Um, so he's kind of in the same spot I was when I was his age where he's just kind of like cynical, aggressive.
Um, he feels alone.
Um, so.
Our relationship has gotten better and I've apologized to him for the ways that I treated him when I was like watching.
Cause for like during the summer, cause my mom started working, um, when I was like entering high school.
Um, so I watched him during the summer and like, I, I mistreated him in a lot of ways and I apologized for that.
Um, so our relationship has gotten better and we hang out pretty consistently.
But as for him and my parents, it's, it's just not good.
I'm sorry.
So your mom, you were about 11 or so when the Russian kid came, no, you were eight when the Russian kid came and then 11 when the Chinese kid came.
Do I have that right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So your mother adopted some kids or adopted this kid and then she went to work?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not, I don't remember exactly if she went to work before
They adopted or shortly after.
No, but what the hell?
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
Yeah, absolutely.
Here.
Good luck kid.
I'm adopting this kid.
I'm going to work.
That's so strange.
Did she not enjoy the adoption thing?
I mean, wouldn't you adopt a kid because you want to spend time with the kid?
Yeah.
No, it's like right from the beginning, like right, right when we, um, adopted him, like when we were in China.
Like, it was immediately, like, drama, anger, yelling, and that never really stopped.
So, like, neither of them engage with him.
Like, he does homework, plays with his own stuff, plays on his iPad.
They don't really engage with him.
Like, their quality time is like watching TV shows together, which is not quality time at all.
I mean, I guess it can be if you have a lot of interesting discussions about the TV shows, but I don't imagine that's going down.
No.
Yeah, no, I, that, um, confuses me a lot.
Especially like with my dad, even more so just cause he's like absent completely.
Um, with my brother, like, why would you adopt this kid?
Not, not treat him with any extra sympathy or understanding.
Yeah, or care.
Wow, okay.
And so, tell me a little bit more about the physical discipline.
You said you got hit, and sort of how often, how hard, implements, not?
Say that one more time, you cut out for a second.
Sure.
If you can just tell me a little bit more about, you said you got hit, quite a bit, so sort of how often would it happen, and was it with implements, or by hand, open hand, closed hand, what kind of stuff?
Yeah, so no implements, nothing like a belt or a spoon.
Like a lot of yelling, like yelling was the thing that I was always really scared of.
And she'd like get right up in my face and like, you know, yell through the teeth type of thing.
And there wasn't a lot of spanking.
I think I got spanked like five times over my whole childhood.
But it was more so
Um, like face grabbing, like she grabbed my face a lot or she like dragged me by my arm a few times.
I remember.
Um, and it was not like, I like the spanking was for specific things.
Like I lied a lot as a child.
Okay.
Um, can you still hear me?
Yeah, go ahead.
Okay.
Sorry.
I just got a message from you.
Um, but yeah, so we're, what was I saying?
Um, you lied a lot as a child.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I lied a lot as a child and I like stole a few toys from friends.
And so they'd spank me for that.
Um, but like the face grabbing was more just whenever she was having especially bad day.
And like, if I, if she told me to, to go find some,
Right up your shoulder.
So I went and looked at the very blue chair, you know, I'm like six.
Um, and I can't find it.
I'm like stressing out, freaking out, trying to find this pen.
Um, and she comes up and she's like yelling at me.
No, it's not that chair.
It's, it's this dark blue one.
She like, um, grabbed me by like the base of my neck and like shoves my face into the chair and is like yelling at me, asking me if I see the pen.
Um,
Oh my god, that's completely psycho.
At six, you're six?
Yeah, I was six or seven, I don't remember the exact age.
And then I bit my nails, probably starting at six, probably until I was about eight or nine.
And if she caught me biting my nails, she would scream at me.
There was one time in the school parking lot where she caught me biting my nails.
And, like, she just, like, did the same thing where she got, like, an inch or two from my face and, like, yelled at me through her teeth to, like, stop biting my nails.
And you know, actually, one of the reasons why people bite their nails, it's not just nerves and stuff like that.
It's actually an adaptive mechanism to expose your body to more germs so that you end up with a more robust immune system.
It actually has some not insignificant evolutionary advantages to bite your nails.
I just wanted to sort of mention that.
I mean, it's not a slightly habit.
I get all of that, but it does increase your immune strength.
Gotcha.
All right.
Okay.
So let's go back to the, the hell was going on.
You're trying to find a pin and you can't find the pin and she grabs your face and shoves it into the chair saying, do you see it now?
Is it something like that?
Yeah.
I mean, did she remove the pen before?
Cause was she shoving your face in around where a pin was?
Um, she kept my face like an inch above the seat.
So I guess not grabbing you by the back of the hair kind of thing.
Yeah.
The base of the neck.
Yeah.
Okay.
What do you think was going on there?
Like that's, that's, that's, that's really deranged.
Yeah.
And then there was a few different that, that, that, those, that like the go find this, those stood out the most, or like when I would not finish my water bottle at school, like there was five or six things that are pretty mundane.
Um,
That I just like, she'd asked me to do it 10 times and I wouldn't do it or I'd get it wrong.
And then she just had this massive blow up.
Um, like that.
That's sick.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm so I'm trying to, so what, what do you think was going on in her head that this seemed like a remotely not evil thing to do?
Um, well, um, does she think you're like, do you think you're willfully
Like, pretending not to see it?
Is, like, does she think you're faking it?
So, she would say, like, I don't know if you're faking it, but, like, no one listens to me.
Like, I've heard that a million times growing up.
Like, no one is listening to me.
I've asked you to do this.
Why does no one listen to me?
And I mean, like, me, like, her and my dad almost got divorced because he was doing this, like, network marketing
Thing that was costing the family a lot of money.
Like a, uh, an MLM thing, like a multi-level marketing, like your friends buy powdered soap stuff.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh God.
Um, okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Had a, had a strip mine, your friendships for fun and profit mostly for others.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so, you know, that, that cost my dad probably like 10 hours a week, 15 hours a week of this free time.
And then a lot of money.
Um, and my mom was never on board with it.
Yeah.
Cause you need to buy all this stuff and then resell it, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Um, and like gas, like you'd go to conferences once or twice a week that were three hours away.
Oh God.
So he really didn't want to be home.
Yeah, exactly.
Um, so I don't know if it was like, um,
You know, like, her parents never listened to her, and now her husband is never listening to her, and she can only express that so much, so she's gonna take it out on her kids.
I guess that's my best guess.
So, when she said, listen to her, that's not really what she meant.
What she meant was, like, mindlessly obey her, right?
Just do whatever she says, right?
Because, yeah, women have this peculiar thing, and again, not just women, but I've seen it a bit more with women,
Where they get completely exasperated if you have any questions about, or any hesitation, or any problems doing what they want you to do.
Suddenly you're like a bad person, you're not listening, and they feel this complete right to escalate to, you know, semi-Charles Manson levels of aggression, just because you're not doing what they immediately want you to do.
Right.
Yeah, and my dad does that too.
He doesn't, he was never aggressive.
So he, he spanked me once after I like stole a few toys from my friends.
Um, and like, it happened like a few different times over a few months.
Um, this was probably six or seven.
It was like Lego minifigures.
Um, so, you know, after like five times of me doing that, he was like, all right, I don't want to do this, but I have to.
Cause, um, you know, he like robbed a gas station.
With his friends when he was, I guess, my age right now, like 18 or 19.
Sorry, he robbed a gas station, but you with the Lego toys, that's like beyond the pale, right?
Yeah, well, his logic, and he said this to me last night, actually, like, I had to do it because I didn't want you to make the same mistake I did.
Like, do you understand how that freaked me out?
No, not really.
Well, I get that, but I assume that he was aggressed against himself, right?
So if it's parental aggression that leads people to want to become thieves, then him hitting you for stealing is not going to solve that problem, right?
Yeah, I think he up and he treats my brother.
He's still like with me, my brother, whatever.
Like he applies a lot of moral responsibility to children.
I don't know if it's like a original sin type thing.
No, it's just an excuse to punish them.
That's all.
It's just an excuse to punish kids.
It's nothing.
There's no thinking behind it.
It's like, well, in order to punish children, you have to give them moral responsibility and you want to punish them for whatever screwed up emotional reasons.
And the price for punishing them is you have to say that they're total moral agents and totally responsible, wise beyond their years, capable of making wonderful decisions, though still strangely children.
And so, yeah, it's not any thought through thing.
It's just, oh, if I want to hit them, then I have to pretend that they're responsible for everything.
So I guess that's what I'll do.
Right.
Yeah.
And my dad, he would just like disengage, like he just wouldn't talk
To us really or like it like interact with us like he would like and this is my family for everyone except for my mom like any conflicts between siblings and any conflict with our father it's like there's like a fight or there's like aggression you don't talk to each other for a few days or a week and then everything's back to normal um but one thing that
Is kind of confusing to me.
It's not so much confusing now after he had that big blow up on me and basically kicked me out of their house when I couldn't front with him with a few things.
Um, but when I was probably around six or seven, eight, something like that, I had a dream that we were in my church lobby and my dad was holding like that.
He just went insane.
Like it was like an animal.
And he was like,
attacking people and like destroying property.
And I was just standing there in like the middle of the church lobby, like crying, like freaking out because my dad was destroying everything and like attacking everyone around me.
And I didn't, I was too scared to tell him about that dream.
But I still remember it.
Like, it's pretty vivid.
And then
Sorry, so let's just go back on two things.
The first is, why do you think you stole from your friends?
And, you know, stole, it's a pretty heavy word to use for a kid who's six, but why do you think you took things from your friends?
Well, I mean, it wasn't like a lack of toys or anything like that.
No, but even if you did lack toys, that wouldn't explain why you stole things.
That's like saying, well, criminality comes from poverty or whatever.
It doesn't, right?
So, poverty comes from criminality.
So, again, I'm not calling your six-year-old self a criminal, but it wasn't a lack, even if it was a lack of toys, that wouldn't be why you would steal.
Or take.
Let's say take.
Why would you take things?
Right.
I'm not sure with the stealing.
The lying I can make more sense of, but the stealing, I'm not sure.
So, the reason that you would take things... Again, I'm not going to try and give you this instant answer that's perfect.
I'll tell you what I think, and if it fits with your experience, we'll put it forward as maybe true.
And if it doesn't, we'll toss it aside.
But in general, I think that children take things because they can't talk to their parents.
Right, so if you can talk to your parents and you say, gee, you know, I really, really want this Lego figurine or this couple of Lego figurines, right?
Well, I mean, your parents would say, they would give you some options about that, right?
They'd say, well, you know, maybe if you do a little extra work, we can buy you some, or maybe we can buy you some either way.
Or maybe you can trade some of your toys for what your friend has.
And that way he can have something that he wants of yours and you can have something that you want of his.
And you know, they can teach you a lot of different solutions about how to get what you want.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Now, because you can't talk to your parents, you have no functional way to get what you want.
So if you're six or seven, right, and you want these Lego figurines, what would happen if you said to your parents, I'm really dying for these Lego figurines?
Like what would they, what would they say?
What would they do at that age?
Um, they would say you can wait till your birthday or Christmas or anything like that.
And my grandfather always said, you can shit in one hand and want in the other and see which one fills up faster.
Wait, sorry.
You can, you can shit in one hand and want in the other?
Yeah.
And see which one fills up faster, which basically like you'll get a handful of shit before you get what you want.
So desires are shit?
Yeah.
Or they're weighed with, wow, that's inappropriate for a kid and a hideous, almost demonic image, right?
Yeah.
So what you want makes you a piece of shit?
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
Yeah.
And it's funny because want, that's a complete opposite, right?
Because of course shit is what your body doesn't want.
It's everything your body can't use, it doesn't want.
So he's saying what you want should be weighed with the exact opposite of what you want.
And that's really nutty.
Okay, so they'd say, just wait until Christmas, but they wouldn't try and figure out, you know, when kids want something, that's a good training on how to get things in life that you can try and get a hold of, like to try and figure out how you get what you want, right?
So, there's lots of options for kids to figure out how to get stuff, right?
It's not just about, well, I'll just run off and buy it for you or something like that, right?
So they're supposed to figure out something.
They're supposed to figure out ways in which their parents are supposed to help their kids figure out ways in which they can get a hold of things without, you know, just running out and buying it for them.
But even if that's the case, at least they can then ask for things and negotiate from that standpoint.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay.
So there was nothing like that.
So they just get what mad at you or upset or frustrated or angry or something like that.
Right.
Yeah, it was just things like that.
And then if I.
Like push any further.
It's like, why aren't you grateful for the things you have?
Like you have more stuff than, than most people.
I remember one time I like told them about this one Lego set that I really wanted for Christmas.
And then they got me a different one.
And I made a comment about how I didn't ask for this one.
I wanted the other one.
And my mom got really pissed off at me.
Um, so yeah, it's just, you know, anger if I push enough.
Right.
So if you express a preference.
Then, if your parents get it wrong, you're bad and ungrateful, right?
Yeah.
So, isn't that interesting, right?
And by interesting, I mean horribly hypocritical.
So, your mother expresses a preference, and what happens if you don't give her what she wants?
Say that last part one more time.
So, your mother expresses a preference for something, like go into the room and find this pin, right?
So, she expresses a preference, and what happens if you don't give her what she wants?
Oh yeah, it's like total, like death.
Yeah.
So if you don't give your mother what she wants, you're a really bad kid and you've got to get your face shoved within an inch of the chair and aggressed and yelled again and all that, right?
That's if you don't give your mother what she wants.
But if your parents get you something that you don't want, in other words a Lego set that you didn't ask for.
Hey, you're bad either way, right?
If you don't give your parents what they want, you're bad.
If your parents don't give you what you want, hey, you're really bad, right?
You're ungrateful, and right?
Like if your mother says, I want you to stack the dishes this way or fill the dishwasher this kind of way, and you fill it a different way, right?
Then she'd get mad at you or something like that.
Yeah, she'd get mad at you.
But if you were to say, hey mom, you taught me this lesson with the Lego set that you're just being selfish and ungrateful.
I'm doing it.
I'm maybe not doing it exactly the way you want, but you should be
Grateful and not be selfish, because I'm doing it, right?
So, you should be happy for the gift we get you, even if it's not what you want.
You should be happy at the way I'm doing the chores, even if it's not exactly the way you want.
But, of course, that wouldn't work, right?
Like, you can't judo-reverse these principles.
Yeah.
Okay.
Got it.
Got it.
That's, yeah, that's pretty horrible.
So, yeah, so you would take things because you want them,
And there's no way to get them.
Like there's no way to get them other than taking them.
There's no way for you to get these Lego figurines other than, uh, taking them because you can't, you can't negotiate with your parents.
Of course you wouldn't be able to at the age of six or seven, figure out how to trade with your friend or whatever.
Right.
So of course you're going to take them because you want them.
And there's no, there's no other way to, to get ahold of them.
Like my daughter wants things right.
And she always has, and she's pretty good at not going overboard on wanting things.
But, you know, we would always try to facilitate a way for her to get things.
Now, we wouldn't just run out and buy them for her, but we'd sort of try and figure out, okay, what can we do?
We don't want to keep accumulating toys, so if you want a new toy, there are some toys we could donate to charity.
And that way we don't end up with the endless mountain of toys.
So if you have some old toys that you want to donate to charity, we can get you a new toy, or you can trade with a friend.
You know, do some chores, like something that she has some power to get what she wants, because it's important with kids to teach them how to get what they want, but not just give it to them, right?
Because otherwise it's just asking.
There's no discipline involved in any of that.
But yeah, I assume you took stuff because there was just no way for you to end up getting that stuff and so you might as well just take it because you're also mad at your parents for not talking to you and listening, right?
Because you can listen to a kid wanting something, that doesn't mean you have to run out and buy it.
What's most important for the kids is that they feel heard, right?
Yeah.
Like, Oh yeah, that does look like a really, really great toy.
You know, we're kind of broke right now, but blah, blah, blah.
Or, you know, maybe what you can do, or we can do is if you really, you know, we can have a garage sale, we can make some money.
We can like, if you're broke or whatever, right.
There's still tons of things that you can do to get a hold of, uh, of the toy.
There's like so many options to set up a lemonade stand, you know, and, and let's go buy the ingredients for the lemonade.
You can set up the lemonade stand, make some money and buy the, like, there's so many things that you can do.
Yeah.
Yeah, the lying, I would just say it's the same thing.
Like, too scared to tell them the truth, or scared of punishment if I tell them the truth.
With whatever, I just knew I couldn't open up to them or be honest with them or I'd be punished.
And so what sort of stuff would you lie about?
Trying to think of some specific things.
I guess one big one is I'd be sent to school with this big water bottle, and I wouldn't drink all of it, but I'd pour it down the drain at school, so that way I wouldn't have to drink it, but I wouldn't get yelled at for not drinking it.
And I'd walk out to the car, and my mom would be like, what took you so long to get out of school?
And she'd basically interrogate me until I admitted it, and then I'd get yelled at and all that.
Yeah, you mentioned the water thing before, like, I don't mean to sort of pretend like incomprehension, but what the hell is the deal with the, like, did you have a dehydration issue?
Like, why the hell would you need to drink so much water?
I don't, I have no idea, no idea.
Okay, so it's not missing, it's just like, you weren't thirsty, but your mom wanted you to drink water.
Okay.
Was she some sort of health kick?
Yeah.
Like, you gotta drink a certain amount of water or you'll die!
Like, was there some health kick going on, or?
She is, like, um, not so much with food, but, like, with cleanliness.
She's, like, super health-concerned.
Like, cleaning, or, um, like, washing hands.
Like, if I, like, if I go outside for five seconds and come back inside, you have to wash your hands.
So she's really like a big germaphobe.
Like every time we came back from school, she'd like Clorox wipe our water bottles.
And if we wanted to use a pencil, you know, you Clorox wipe the pencil.
And if you're done doing your homework, you Clorox wipe the counter.
Cause everything was at school.
Um, so not, not so much with food.
I don't think that was what was going on with the water.
Cause I mean, she wasn't, yeah, she didn't really explain the hydration thing.
It was just like drink the water.
Huh.
Okay.
So you didn't know why, right?
Yeah.
Like a crazy amount of water?
Um, not insane.
I would drink like half of it.
Um, but yeah, I just wasn't thirsty for the whole thing.
Right.
And, and again, this is nothing that you can negotiate, right?
You can't say like, mom, I'm like, I'm not thirsty.
Like, why do I need all this water?
Right.
Yeah.
And anytime I tried to negotiate or like,
I remember with the hand-washing stuff, I'm like, can you please explain to me?
I only did this for five seconds, and this isn't even dirty, why do I have to wash my hands?
And she'd try for a little bit to explain it, but then I'd get my rebuttal, and eventually it was just like, well, do it because I said so.
So reason didn't mean much, right?
No, not at all.
Got it.
Got it.
Okay.
Interesting.
Now, when did the physical aggression fade out, and when, if it did happen, did the emotional aggression fade out?
Both of those... The physical aggression was probably around... Probably after we got my brother.
Um, cause she like, after we got my brother, the narrative became like, my brother was really awful towards me.
Like that was, yeah.
Okay.
So the Russian kid was only with you for like two weeks, but you mean the Chinese kid?
Yeah, exactly.
And did he come with any knowledge of English or anything like that?
No, he learned within six months.
Right.
Okay.
But no, he didn't have any when he came.
Um, but yeah, he like,
Would spit on my toys or like spit on my food or stuff like that.
Um, and I assume that's like a territory thing.
Like probably wasn't a lot of access to food or clothing in the orphanage.
So.
Oh, and how old was he when he was adopted?
Five.
Oh, wow.
So they really took on a hell of a challenge, right?
Yep.
Wow.
Um,
So yeah, uh, after, after we got my brother or shortly after the physical aggression stopped.
And then once I got into high school, like, like the yelling stop, it didn't stop with my sister, um, really ever.
Um, and it still kind of goes on less so, but, um, like all through high school or in my mom would like didn't yell at fights and stuff like that.
But yeah, probably around 13 or 14, she stopped yelling at me and it just turned into nagging.
Huh.
Okay.
All right.
Now after that, um, once I got into high school and into politics, my dad started yelling at me a lot more.
Um, it, I like wouldn't wear a mask at school.
And so I got kicked out to your authority.
Um,
Yeah.
So it, uh, my mom hasn't been aggressive towards me or yelled at me.
It's just more nagging, but my dad has been more aggressive.
I mean, he was kind of like the mask enforcer, like, like he's like a manager.
So you can sure people were wearing the mask.
Um, and so he's kind of like betraying his conscience when he's doing that.
Cause he knows like the, the authoritarian plan or whatever, and like all the COVID stuff, like he knew all that.
Um, but he still wasn't forcing it.
So I'm sure if it's like his son is braver and more courageous than he is.
Right, right, right.
So you probably weren't enjoying school a whole lot, so.
No, it was a psychology class.
And the first class was like, this is the psychology of why Donald Trump is retarded.
Right.
And so I was like, all right, screw this guy.
Let's have some fun.
And so I like didn't wear the mask and got kicked out.
And that was during high school, and it was a college class, so I just stopped going to the class because I didn't need it.
But yeah, so if his son is braver than he is, he's gonna get pissed off.
Well, it's not just that, but he's actually enforcing.
Yeah, exactly.
So it's not even like he should be resisting, he's actually enforcing something that he doesn't believe, right?
Dear oh dear.
Okay.
So, what happened with your relationship with your parents in your teens?
I guess, like, your mom stopped yelling at you a little bit, your dad, I guess, picked up the slack and so on, but how was it in your teens with your parents?
Yeah, so I wasn't very close to them.
Like, me and my mom would, like, watch TV shows together.
Me and my dad would, like, talk sometimes.
After school, but I spent most of my time during high school during homework because it was like very homework intensive.
So it was school and then like three to four hours of homework every night.
What?
Why?
Why so much freaking homework?
Well, maybe two to three, but you add in like dinner and like eating after school.
So it's like by the time I got done with homework,
It was like 8, 8.30 p.m.
And then some nights later, there was so much work.
It was just like the school was like a college prep school.
Like by the time you graduate, you're supposed to have like an associate's degree.
So it's like a lot of preparing you for college or so they said.
So they just load on the homework and like, read this book, write this paper.
You're a freaking apple polisher though!
Like, I'm sorry, I don't mean to sound like a douchebag, maybe I do, but why would you do this much work?
I mean, that wrecks your teenage years, doesn't it?
Yeah.
You know, maybe it all makes sense, but I mean, isn't there a bit of rebellion and like, no, I want to go make some bad decisions?
I don't know, maybe?
Um, no, there really wasn't a whole lot of that.
Um, well, actually, so freshman and sophomore year, not really.
Um, I, I just kind of did that.
I had some friends that I would hang out with every once in a while.
Um, and I, I had a girlfriend at the beginning of high school.
So, I mean, there was like a little bit of outside of school stuff, but no, like school was very stressful.
Um, and yeah, it just wasn't like, we, we would talk and we wouldn't get in that many fights.
Your parents?
Yeah, we just weren't very close.
It was just like nagging from my mom and then like a conversation here and there with my dad.
So tell me, and I don't mean to criticize, I'm just kind of curious, and maybe you made way better decisions than I did, but what was your thinking regarding the school?
Was it like, I gotta get out, or was it like, well, the stuff that I want to do really does require this school stuff?
What was the story there, do you think?
Yeah, so for a while, like until sophomore year, my goal was to get into MIT.
And get into like aerospace engineering.
Uh huh.
Um, so I was like, if I can save, you know, two years of college worth of money, that's really good.
And then I have it on my record that I did this.
So even if I don't get into MIT, I've saved this much money and I can get into a good school anyways.
Um, and then COVID hit during sophomore year of high school.
Um, and so I started like,
We're good to go.
stuff during all my free time.
And so during that time it's like, where was the rebellion streak?
Like that's, like me doing politics was like a huge rebellion for my parents, and then like moving away to work in politics as well.
Why was it a rebellion so much for your parents?
You asked why it was such a rebellion?
Yeah, why would they consider that such a rebellion?
Well, they just disagreed.
I think he's probably going to find what I see best.
With my mom, she disagrees with it, and the things I say piss her off.
I'd get a rise out of that, and I'd enjoy arguing with them about it.
I just didn't like being around them, so moving away was part of that, too.
How did they deal with the COVID stuff?
I mean, obviously, or I would assume that they
They had some issues with your life kind of going on hold for COVID and all of that, right?
Yeah, they never forced me to wear the mask or they didn't force me to get vaccinated, but there was probably like three or four conversations where they were like,
Um, both yelling at me or raising their voice that like I was being disrespectful by not wearing a mask and they would like try to convince me to get vaccinated.
Um, so, I mean, they didn't force me to do anything, but it was a lot of fights about it for sure.
Huh.
So they, they didn't have any particular doubts about the efficacy of the vaccine or anything like that, or the utility of it, or.
Um, they didn't really talk about the utility of it.
It was more so just like, you know, we have to get it for our jobs or we have to get it to see these family members.
Um, as long as it don't cause trouble sort of thing more than like the science of it.
Okay.
Got it.
All right.
And what happened, I guess, so you did a couple of years of the college thing and, and did that, did I get that right?
What happened sort of from there?
Yeah.
So.
Um, after high school, I had a bunch of college credits.
Um, but right after high school, I moved to work in this political job.
Right.
Right.
And how did you enjoy that?
Um, so when I first moved and started working, I enjoyed it.
It was like, I was around a bunch of people who thought the same.
They were like edgy and rebellious and we were having fun.
It was a bunch of young guys.
It was a small new company.
Um,
And we were all living together.
So it was really fun at the beginning and we did some pretty cool stuff, but it didn't take that long before we were like getting suspicious of the managers at the company.
And so I'm not, that's not really like, I don't want to get into all of that, but it kind of fell apart.
Um, I lived down there and worked there for a little over a year and then pretty much everyone who I enjoyed or hung out with and thought was a good person ended up leaving.
It was just very corrupt.
Um, like, like the clientele and the management was just really bad.
Hmm.
Okay.
Got it.
Um, yeah.
Yeah.
Like the, the way you got raises or promotions or whatever, it was basically like, who's more aggressive.
Like there was really no value of competency at all.
Uh, and you know, I was able to work well with that, but it wasn't good.
Right.
Okay.
And then when did things come to a head with your parents?
So yeah, after I moved back, this was in December of last year.
I really got settled in January of this year.
I would go over there and do laundry and see my brother once a week, every two weeks.
And so it was probably March, I think, the first time I had a conversation with my mom.
Um, and she got pretty aggressive.
And then when I tried to have a conversation with her again, my dad got involved.
Um, and so, and my dad like freaked out on me and left the conversation, but my mom like stayed around and heard me out.
And I eventually like explained to her, like, you know, you bullied your three children for as long as you had power over them.
And she's like, I didn't bully them.
Like I didn't mock you guys.
You know, so I, I didn't bully you.
And I was like, are you serious?
Like, do I have to explain to you what a bully is?
Like a bully is someone who repeatedly, um, aggressors against someone because they have more power.
Um, and like, that's exactly what you did.
Like, like you yelled at us and you like physically aggressed against us, like at least once a week with the yelling at least once every two weeks with the physical stuff.
So what do you mean you didn't bully us?
Um, and she, she did the whole, like, you're just saying this to hurt me.
Like, I've already said, I'm sorry.
Um, like why, why are you doing this to me?
Why is this so important?
Um, and I was like, I just said, like, you've already tried that.
Like, you know, that doesn't mean anything.
Um, and she, she eventually was like, all right, yeah, you're right.
I, I bullied my, my kids for, for this long.
Um, I like kind of forced her why I didn't force her, but like, I wasn't satisfied.
Until she like said the words, like, I bullied my kids for this long.
And so after that, she was like, all right, I'm gonna go to therapy for like anger management.
And I'm like, that's not really the issue.
Like, I mean, I guess that's part of it.
But it's like, the problem isn't that you're just like, you know, you just shut your anger down more.
I don't really know what goes on in anger management therapy.
So you got a bad understanding of it.
But the the thing with her that I'm still
Well, I guess we can get to that later.
But with my dad, about a month after he stormed out from that conversation, I tried to bring it up again.
My mom went to bed or whatever, and I was like, hey, we had this conversation, and you've never stormed out from a conversation with me.
So that hasn't sat well with me.
Um, can we like try to talk about this again?
And so we talked for like five minutes and then he just started like lecturing and yelling at me.
And then at one point I interrupted him.
I'm like, can I please just get a word in?
Like, can you just listen to what I'm saying?
Like, you're, you're just yelling at me and lecturing me.
Like, can I get a word?
And he's like, no, I don't think you can get a word.
And I think you need to leave.
Um, so I got my stuff.
And then before I was about to walk through the door, I was like, I was going to ask him,
Will we ever be able to like have a conversation about my childhood?
And before I finish the sentence, he's like, I'm gonna stop you right there.
And then he went on this long rant about how I was being ungrateful and how like family is so important and I'm breaking like the family.
Um, at one point he was talking about my grandfather is an atheist.
He's like, your grandfather like turned you away from Christ, but I still kept him in our life.
Cause that's what you do for family.
Like sometimes you just have to deal with people you don't like.
Um, and he was like, you know, I want to cheer for you and I want to help you, but sometimes you make it damn hard.
Um, and I, I just, yeah.
So that, that, after that conversation, I sent you the email.
Right.
Okay.
And how are your parents getting along these days?
How are my parents getting along?
Yeah.
Um, their relationship, like I, for like during my teenage years, I didn't want to get married and I didn't want to have kids just based on their relationship.
Like my mom just kind of like nags my dad and then my dad, like a lot of his behavior is just centered around appeasing my mom.
Like he'll like measure his words or his actions to appease her.
Um, in like a submissive way.
Hmm.
Um,
So it's all right.
I don't know.
I haven't met around them that much for the past two years, but I think it's fine.
I wouldn't call it deep or anything like that, or they don't seem very happy around each other.
All right.
Okay.
And do you know if your
Your mother going to therapy and your mother doing the anger management or whatever she's doing, do you think or have you, do you think that that might have... You're cutting in and out a lot.
I don't know if you're walking in.
When, um, your mother going to therapy, going to anger management and so on,
Do you think that that's changing her relationship with your dad at all?
Or have you had any... I'm sorry, I can't hear what you're saying.
That's strange, I haven't moved at all.
All right, we'll just wait for it to clear up.
Let me know when you can hear me again.
Your mother going to therapy and going to anger management, do you know if that's destabilized her relationship with your dad at all?
I know they've had some discussions about it, like he didn't...
One thing that he said to her was like, I'm, I'm not going to let him do to me what he did to you.
Like basically like make her feel guilty or responsible.
Um, so like he's, he was kind of against her like feeling responsible and he, he went with her one time, but he's not like a big fan of the therapy thing for this.
Like they went to couples counseling.
Um, but,
Yeah, they've had some arguments about what I've brought up now that she's more receptive to it.
But he wasn't.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Now, tell me about something, I can sort of hear this in your voice, it sounds like you're carrying a burden, not to criticize or anything, it's just a wee bit of an energy drain, you know, like the way that you talk is like you're just kind of carrying a burden and it's kind of flat.
Is there a particular burden that you feel, or a heaviness that you feel, or anything like that?
I mean, this situation has weighed me down.
Um, for the past couple of months.
I mean, I was pretty.
Okay.
So that's it.
Like, so this situation has weighed me down for the last couple of months.
Like it's slowly like slight sliding off a cliff or something into an abyss.
Yeah.
If that makes any sense.
So, so tell me about this, this, this burden.
I'm trying to think.
It may be more of a feeling than a thought.
Yeah.
Um,
Yeah, I guess kind of like a hopelessness, like I feel hopeless a lot, even though I know it's not pragmatic.
No, no, no, don't get me... I don't want to hear the intellectualizing, right?
Let's just go with the emotions, right?
Okay.
Okay, so you say you feel helpless, right?
Hopeless or like apathetic about a lot of things.
Okay, so, help me understand the... See, normally, if you take a break from dysfunctional relationships, you're supposed to feel energized, or that's often the result.
I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong, but that generally is the case.
And so, I'm trying to understand the burden here.
What's the undertow?
What's the weight?
So, you feel helpless?
Hopeless.
Is that right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So, what do you feel helpless or hopeless about?
Um.
Is it your dad?
Yeah.
Uh, yeah.
Cause in my personal life, like career or relationships, like I don't feel hopeless about that, but in regards to like these conversations with my parents, yeah, I felt really hopeless.
Okay.
So how do you know those are your feelings?
Because it seems to me that the only person who's expressing genuine helplessness or manifesting general helplessness in this entire story is your dad.
Because he's now made it a point of pride, like, I'm not gonna let him do to me what he did to you, and like, all of this.
So he's now helpless because he's taken this stance.
Like, he can't listen, he can't give way, he can't surrender.
He's given away his free will, he's lost his choice.
So it seems to be that the only person who's genuinely helpless, in a sense, in the whole family situation, I mean, maybe it's your sort of stepbrother, but definitely your dad, from what I've heard.
No, you're exactly right.
So how do you know that these feelings are yours and not your dad's?
Yeah, no, I don't.
And it has been something that's confused me.
Like, I don't know why I feel it.
And I didn't feel that when I moved away for a while.
But yeah, I think you're right.
Well, I'm not right enough to change how you're talking, so we'll keep digging away.
Okay, so if you have feelings of helplessness, what is the worst case scenario that your feelings of helplessness are giving you?
What's the most negative outcome that can happen if your helplessness and feelings turn out to be accurate or true?
I'm just like forever stagnant.
Like I don't find any... I don't improve the relationships.
I don't make a decision on the relationship with my parents.
It doesn't improve, it just kind of stays the same.
I don't really go anywhere career wise.
Like I just kind of stay and like deal with whatever fallout happens in the next couple of decades.
And I'm just like, yeah, I, I just don't realize, um, my, I don't take advantage of my potential or things like that.
And I just kind of like fall away.
Okay.
So that's a lot more than just your dad, right?
Um, that's what happened.
Like that, that's what I imagined.
But, like, I have no reason to believe any of that would be true.
That's kind of what's confused me.
But you saying, I have no reason to believe, that hasn't gotten rid of it, right?
Okay, so just, you know, avoid all the stuff that hasn't worked, right?
Like, if you go to your doctor and you say, well, I've tried this and I've tried that, this hasn't worked, that hasn't worked, and at some point your doctor's going to say, okay, so you're here because this stuff hasn't worked, right?
So, I get that, right?
So, tell me how helplessness with regards to your dad turns into decades of mediocrity and failure for you.
Well, I mean, that's kind of how he turned out.
Um, and that's like, he's encouraged me into that spot.
Like, um, like he's tried to convince me to work at the exact same place that he works at, even though he complains about it all the time and doesn't like it there.
And he's tried to convince me to like, stay around these bad relationships, like with my grandparents or with other family.
Yeah.
Okay, so he's sabotaging you.
So, tell me what you're, like, if the worst case scenario is this kind of helplessness with regards to your father, what's the best case scenario with regards to your father?
What would you most like to happen?
So, like, a perfect situation would be, like, he realizes all the ways he's failed or compromised in his life with people and with career and stuff like that.
And, like, apologizes for the way he treated me in, like, a really specific and genuine way, not just, like, a general, like, I'm sorry for the things I did wrong.
Yeah, that's, and then we build on from there, or if that doesn't happen, like, I just don't talk to him.
Sorry, I'm trying to figure this one out.
So, your father is in his fifties?
Late forties.
Late forties, okay.
Yeah.
You want your father to say, I was a bad father and I've wasted most of my life.
I mean, that's the truth, I think.
No, no, I'm not saying it's not true, but that's what you want.
This is your ideal scenario for your father to realize that he totally effed up his parenting and has stagnated and wasted his energies in his non-career.
Is that right?
Yes.
Now, have you ever been around someone who's older?
Have you ever been around someone who has gone through that process of, my life is a fake and a lie and a failure?
I have one buddy who is 30 and is making really big progress in that regard, but he doesn't have a family or anything like that.
Okay, so he's almost 20 years younger than your dad, right?
Yeah, but no, at my dad's age, no.
And he's got no kids, and right, like, the parenting is, I guess, while your stepbrother is still around, right?
But your dad's not really interacting with him, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
So, what did your friend, who's 30, what did your friend have to go through to get to where he's at?
A lot of conversations with me.
He went through the drama at the politics job.
And that kind of like jolted him awake.
But yeah, it was like a lot of stuff like that.
Okay, that's some surface level shit, brother.
A lot of conversations.
Okay, what did he have to go through emotionally to realize that his life had been a failure up to 30?
Yeah, lack of good relationships, no career prospects, like total nihilism and depression.
And how long did that nihilism and depression last before, I guess he's starting to turn the corner now, right?
Probably like five to nine years.
So are you saying that he was depressed for five to nine years before he began to turn around?
In a major way, yeah.
I don't know all the details of those years, but from what I know.
I didn't mean, because I assume you haven't been having conversations with him since you were nine, right?
Or ten.
So he was depressed for his adult life, and then what happened when he began to really realize what a failure he'd been?
What was that arc?
Um, for a lot of months that I was working with him, it was like he'd realized that or you think about that a lot and you just get more and more like depressed and hopeless once he thought about that.
Um, and then some conversations with me and some other people, we've started to like unpack that and figure out like why that is and how he can move forward.
Um, but yeah, for a while, just like you think about all, like all the years you've wasted or things like that and you just get more and more depressed.
Okay, so for how long was he going down, and where is he in the backup journey?
From the realization part, not from the general adult depression stuff.
Yeah, he's probably in like the beginning stages of coming back up.
My God, this is like wrestling with fog.
Sorry.
What was my question?
How far down did he go?
How long?
Months?
Years?
Days?
Minutes?
Yeah, so probably like a year, a year into the way back up.
A year into the way back up?
So he was going down, he hit bottom for about a year and now he's starting to go back up?
Yeah.
Okay.
Alright, so do you think he's got six months to go, a year to go until he's up?
Oh yeah, I'd say that sounds about right.
Okay, so let's just say, round it up, let's say a two year process, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
He's 30, no kids, no marriage, right?
And he certainly has enough time to recover, right?
Yes.
Right.
So, why am I asking you all this?
What about my father?
Yeah.
So let's say that you get what you want with your dad, he realizes he was a bad dad, he's missed his whole parenting window, he can't get it back, he's had a bad relationship with his wife, he's got a bad relationship with his kids, and his career's been a mediocre failure.
And he's pushing 50.
Yeah.
Okay?
So for your friend it's two years.
What is it for your dad?
I mean...
It's impossible to say, but like five, ten at least.
Like, just insane.
Okay, so let's say that your dad will be catastrophically nihilistic and depressed for a couple of years.
Yeah.
That's your optimum outcome?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
How does it affect you when your dad's reaching out and flailing and falling down that canyon that you have to fall down in order to rebuild your life?
It just absolutely holds me back.
It takes a lot of my time.
It pulls you down!
What do you mean it holds you back?
It pulls you down!
Yeah, yeah, you're right, yeah.
Okay, so your best case scenario is your dad pulls you down into the darkness for a couple of years.
Right, yeah, yeah.
Do you understand why you're feeling helpless?
Yeah.
Yeah.
That, that makes a lot of sense.
There is no good outcome.
Yeah.
There's zero good outcome.
Unless you want to count three to five years until your dad resurfaces, where he's holding you down, desperate, nihilistic.
You got to talk him out of the tree.
You might have to talk him off a ledge.
You might have to, like, he won't want to get out of bed.
Like, tell me where's like, if you're, if your dad's going to change for the better, it's going to be years of hell.
For you, for him, for your sister, for your stepbrother, for his wife, your mom.
Isn't it going to be years of hell?
Yeah, absolutely.
So you understand why there's helplessness here?
Yeah.
You don't want that, do you?
Because you've got to get a life started.
Yeah.
You can't be waiting until you're mid-twenties to pull your dad out of the swamp every day.
Yeah.
So either he stays the same, or he falls and falls and falls.
Yeah.
Yeah, you're absolutely right.
This is why it's kind of important to fix shit before you're almost 50.
Yep.
Yeah, that's always where I stopped thinking, was like, what do they, like, okay, he, he realizes everything I want him to realize.
And then what?
Like, he divorces my mom?
Or he, like, stops... Like, what does he do?
Well, he won't do anything.
He'll stop doing everything for a while.
Right.
So, do you understand... Sorry, I hate to sound patronizing, and I apologize for that.
No, no, I don't.
You're a smart guy.
Okay.
But do you understand why your dad is saying, I'm not gonna let my boy do to me what he did to you?
Do you know why he's saying that?
Oh, just because I'm gonna, like, expose him?
No.
The reason he's saying that is because he knows he can't do that journey.
Right, okay, gotcha.
It's just an elemental self-preservation.
Yeah.
You know, hey, my wife, he can push you off a cliff, you've got a parachute.
I don't have a parachute, so I'm not going anywhere near that cliff edge.
Right.
I'm just gonna fall and fall.
Okay.
So this is not a principle thing.
He's saying, I am beyond help.
I cannot and I will not make that journey.
I can't make that journey.
I won't make that.
It doesn't matter, right?
That journey is not for me.
Or to put it another way, he's saying, I won't survive that journey.
Right.
Yeah.
And when he was yelling at me, one thing he said that stuck out to me, he said, if you come in here and try to fix us, you're going to have another thing coming.
And I was like, whoa, that's like crazy mask off.
Well, but it's very accurate.
Another thing coming, which will be his depression and nihilism and this and that and the other, right?
Yeah.
I mean, have you ever bullied a kid?
Yeah, I would say I bullied my brother.
Yeah, your stepbrother, right?
Okay, I mean, that's pretty tough to recover from, right?
And you have all the excuse of being a kid, and you didn't choose to have him in your life.
Yeah.
Right?
And it was really your parents' job to maintain and keep that relationship healthy.
Yeah.
Right.
So, trying to picture it from your father's point of view... Sorry, how old is your half-brother again?
My brother is twelve or thirteen.
Thirteen.
Okay, so maybe he could fix things there, but the problem is that
Your brother will probably be almost an adult by the time your dad gets out of his nihilism.
Right.
And then he won't get out, because then he'll be depressed about not being there for your brother.
So he probably won't get out!
I mean, it's pretty tough to find a half a decade to burn as an adult, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, it's impossible.
Right?
Yeah.
Because let's say he waits, well, I'll just hang in there until my youngest, uh, the Chinese kid gets to be an adult.
It's like, but then, you know, maybe there's some grandkids on the way and then he can't, like, you, you just don't have half a decade lying around.
Yep.
So I think that's the helplessness.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that, that really struck me.
Like I, I, I cried a little bit when he said that, like that.
Totally hit it on the head, yeah.
Right.
And... Yeah, I... Yeah, knowing when there's a bounce for people is pretty important.
Yep.
Yeah, I haven't really been able to... Like, I kinda know that some people can't bounce back, but it's hard to define, like, what are the parameters or timeframe, but... Yeah, with this, I guess it's pretty clear.
Now, how long has your mom been doing the self-knowledge thing?
A month or two.
Right.
And it's what the therapist she's worked with in the past, so I don't even know how valuable it is.
Right.
When did she go to therapy in the past?
Like couples counseling with my dad, and then a little bit after my brother came, because like they were, it was like a horrible time for them, or they, yeah, for them, um, but like they, yeah, so for couples counseling and then for like parental counseling or something like that.
Right, okay, so this is like eight years ago?
Maybe a little bit less than that.
Oh, after the cancer?
Yeah, like six, and probably for a total of a year or two.
Okay, so they did quite a substantial amount of therapy, right?
Yeah.
And yet?
And yet.
And yet you as the newly spawned adult had to come in and bring the truth, right?
Yeah, exactly.
So, if your mom's been down this self-knowledge thing for like a month or two, that process is barely taking.
And it depends, of course, what's happening with the therapist, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Of course, we don't know that, but... And also, she may be doing it just for show, she may be doing it to keep you around, and it's not like a deep thing.
Yeah, I've definitely suspected that.
And could the heaviness also be that you want your mom to fight for you harder with your dad?
Yes.
I've thought that a lot.
After she apologized and went to therapy, and I told her this today, because she asked how I was doing, I was like, I've still felt this anger or resentment towards her, even after she apologized and went to therapy.
And I was thinking about that.
Well, she's like totally fine or not totally fine, but she's not like freaking out about the fact that her husband did this to her son or is still doing this.
Like she's acting in a way that's not causing huge problems.
So like, does she really mean any of what she did?
Like she's still fine pretending.
Right.
Um, so yeah, I'm still, I still feel like anger and resentful, resentful towards her.
Absolutely.
Um, and I wish, like, I was thinking, okay, well, what do I want her to do?
Um, and then it was like, well, I would really like, ideally she'd be like, all right.
Or excuse me.
Sorry about that.
Yeah.
Um, I'll get rid of that.
Yeah.
Our, our, our son said this and I realized what he's saying.
So now I know my husband did this and he's reacting horribly.
Like we need to figure this out right now.
Otherwise our family is going to fall apart.
So I don't, I don't care what.
How long this takes or what, how, like what we have to do, like, we're going to figure this out.
Um, like that's, that's what I would do in like a friend group or, or like with coworkers, like, all right, this is a huge problem.
We can't ignore this.
We have to figure this out.
Right.
Cause something like that will happen if we don't.
Um, and there's just none of that.
I mean, she'll like try to convince him to do it, but it's probably just like little nagging is here and there.
Um, like it's nothing real, something real.
And then,
Like the apology that he gave was just a lot of excuse making, and it was just the exact same conversation I had with him last time, but with no aggression.
It was just like excuse making, and well this is what you have to do, this is just sometimes how it is.
It was the same thing, he just wasn't pissed off that day.
Right.
Have you ever had, thinking back on this relationship, like you've got close on 20 years, can you think of a time where you felt
Really connected with or close to your dad?
No, never.
Right.
I mean, there may not be an authentic self there.
There's not.
I really, I don't think there is.
No.
Okay, so then it's just defenses and manipulation, right?
Exactly.
Yeah, that's all.
That's every conversation.
There's just levers.
There's no... It's just MPC, right?
Input-output levers and programming and, right, defense and blame and avoidance and manipulation.
There's not a person to contact.
There's a machinery of self-protection hiding the absence of a self.
Exactly.
Right.
Exactly.
And that's who your mother is spending her life with.
Yep.
So, I wouldn't hold my breath.
Yeah.
And then you have the tricky situation, because, and it is a very, very difficult situation for which you have my deepest sympathies, which is, you seem to have gotten through to one parent, but the other parent is doubling down.
Yeah.
So what does this do over time?
What happens over time?
It's the same thing that's happening now.
It's just fights here and there.
Oh yeah, that's just how he is.
We're working on it.
You gotta give him time.
It's just excuses and a limit on the depth or honesty.
So it's just how he is, you have to give him time and you have to accept him for who he is, right?
Yeah.
Was that kindness, so to speak, ever extended to you as a child?
No.
Right.
So again, it's just a hypocritical manufactured standard designed to avoid responsibility, right?
Like, you get the back of your neck grabbed and shoved into a pillow, your face, because you can't find a pin when you're six.
But with your dad, apparently, who did you some serious harm and damage, it's all about patience and acceptance.
So, that's vile, obviously, at every conceivable level, because it means that your mother is very fully aware of the values of acceptance and patience and gentleness and generosity, right?
He's fully aware of those values, just not when you're six.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm so sorry, man.
I'm so sorry.
What a pair to have to deal with.
Or not, as time goes along.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay, so, and you said that you don't have to get into any details if you don't want to, but you said your dating life is going okay?
Yeah.
I dated a little bit in high school.
I didn't date at all when I was working that job in politics.
It was just work, work, work.
And pretty soon into it, I knew I was going to be leaving.
So I didn't want to start anything that I would have to move away for.
So I didn't really do any of that during that time.
But now I'm getting pretty social and I'm on a few apps.
So I'm very optimistic about that.
Okay, so you get a quality woman, right?
You've probably heard this spiel before, right?
I have.
You get a quality woman, and how's she going to be reacting to the old parental units?
Yeah, not well at all.
As, you know, if I am like, yeah, yeah, no, I've thought all these things before, you're absolutely right.
And that's, why are you still there then?
Yeah, I mean, I tell you, man, my wife is very classy.
She's all kinds of sophisticated!
She's very classy, and if I had to drag her over, and you know, I did in the past with ex-girlfriends, probably why they're exes, but yeah, my wife is very classy, very sophisticated, and man, if I had to drag her over to my mother's repulsive hovel...
I mean, it's just impossible to really imagine how that would have gone down.
Well, it's possible to imagine that it would have gone down pretty quickly.
It would have gone nowhere pretty quickly.
Yeah.
And when I'm around my parents, I'm a lot less talkative.
I'm a lot less energetic or confident.
So I just wouldn't want to be around a girl I'm trying to impress when I'm around my parents.
That sounds awful to me.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
So, I mean, I appreciate all the background, and I think I have a fairly decent handle on the situation.
So, what is it that you most fundamentally call to ask me?
Yeah, well, it was the clarity.
It was the clarity on, like, where to go with my parents.
Because it's like, it was, I always felt that, like,
This was how it was going to be, but there wasn't anything I could do, right?
Like any real hope of change.
But when my mom was really apologetic and like started therapy and, you know, just last night my dad apologizing, it's like, all right, well, do I owe them some sort of patience?
Do I, do I like try to work with them or, or not?
Um, and so there, there was a few blocks there.
Like, with the, well, what happens if your dad and your mom do what you want?
Like, what does that do for you?
That was really what I was looking for, and you helped me a lot with that, so thank you so much!
Would you like a little more help?
Yeah, absolutely!
Okay, so, when you give yourself shoulds and ought tos, it is an expression of not trusting yourself.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Right.
So, you know, how should you treat your parents?
Well, you know, if, I mean, you're a highly intelligent, highly competent young man...
So, in my life, I try not to say I should or shouldn't do X, Y, or Z. What I do is I say, well, listen, I'm a good person with good intentions, I've got good values, and I'm gonna trust my feelings.
And what that means is that if I feel like forgiveness towards someone, right, then I'll tend towards that.
If I don't feel like it, I'm not gonna say I should.
Exactly.
Yeah, well, and that's how I felt about going over to their house.
And when I was away, I never missed them.
And when they came a few times, I was like kind of dreading it.
And then when I was, when I was reading RTR and you were like the whole, you know, your mom's name lights up the screen on your phone.
Like that hit so like that, that hit me so hard.
Um, and yeah, I never, I never missed them when I was away.
And then whenever I think about going over to their house, like, ah, it's just like, all right, I'm going to go over there.
I don't look forward to it.
I was doing my laundry there, so just recently I went to a laundromat and my mom was like, I'm so sorry you had to do that.
And I'm like, I enjoyed it way more.
I was able to read a book.
I got it done faster.
This was way preferable.
Yeah, a couple of quarters should beat that mess, right?
Yep.
Okay, so, as regards to what you should or shouldn't do with your parents, I mean, obviously, I think you've done a very brave thing, and you've spoken to them honestly about your experiences and what you want and what you're looking for.
And that's, I mean, that's truly magnificent, and, you know, most people go through their lives, as you can see from your parents, right, most people go through their lives without any shred of that kind of honesty.
Yep.
So that is something to be truly admired, and I just think that's magnificent, honestly, amazing and beautiful and great.
Now as far as what you should or shouldn't do going forward, I would just trust your instincts.
Because otherwise you're at war with yourself.
So if you say, well I don't, you know, my mother's forgiven me but I still feel resentful towards her, should I or should I not?
It's like, but you do!
Yep.
Now, if you want to talk to her and say, you know, I appreciate the apology, but I still feel resentful.
Okay, so if, if you say that, what do you think your mom would say?
I'm not saying that you would say like the RTR thing.
I still feel resentful.
I'm not saying it's you.
I just, I still have this experience of resentment.
Like not all the problems of 19 years have been solved in a month.
And it's still the issue of dad, and you know, you're obviously not fighting hard for dad to take this step or anything like that, so I don't know if that's the cause.
I still feel resentful, what would your mom say?
Yeah, I actually did that a few hours before we started, because she asked how the conversation with my dad went, so do you want me to read that?
Sure!
Yeah.
So she asked me, how did it, how did it go last night?
And I said, it was all right.
I was a little confused afterwards.
Um, it just seems like there isn't a real change, but I do appreciate the apology.
Um, and I said a few other things along the same lines.
She said, I get that.
I also know the perception of how a conversation goes is sometimes different.
Um, she said, of course, my, my wish is that you will not stay away and that you'll come over and hopefully work through things.
Um,
I said, to be honest, I don't feel eager to.
It feels like an obligation.
It doesn't mean I shouldn't or anything like that.
I just have to think more about it.
All right.
Hang on.
Hang on.
Let's get back to what your mom said.
Yeah.
No, exactly.
All right.
So, read me your thing again.
The first one?
Yeah.
She asked me, how did it go?
And I said, it was all right.
I'm a little confused afterwards.
It just seems like there isn't a real change.
Okay, so when you say, I'm a little confused afterwards, I mean, I'm not saying you're doing this in a manipulative way, but what's one of the reasons why you would say that?
Well, one of the reasons, I was, like, conflicted afterwards, but I guess in regards to the conversation, I'd say that because it's not definitive.
Like, it still gives her, like, oh, maybe it'll be alright.
No.
Sorry to be annoying and tell you what you do and don't do things.
So the reason that you would say I'm still confused is so she will ask what?
Why are you confused?
What are you confused about?
Tell me, tell me, tell me the sides of things.
This is a big, long conversation.
You know, I mean, obviously you had a big talk with your father.
It's really, you're changing the basis of the relationship and, uh, you know, help, help me to understand what you're confused about, what were the pluses, what were the minuses, you know, blah, blah, blah.
Right.
So when you say I'm confused, I'm not saying there's anything manipulative in what you're saying, but when you do say I'm confused, part of you is probing for empathy.
Curiosity.
You're probing for curiosity.
Yeah, absolutely.
Right?
Like if you're trying to get to someone's house and you phone them and you say, I'm lost, what are you hoping they're going to say?
Well, where are you?
And you know, oh, you take this next third left and right to go to the lights and then take a right or whatever, right?
Like they're going to ask you where you are and then they're going to solve your problem called I'm lost.
And when you say I'm confused, you're probing your mother for empathy rather than manipulation.
Yeah, and then she just gives what she wants.
Okay, so let's go to what she said.
Just give me the sentence by sentence.
Yeah, I get that.
I know the perception of how a conversation goes.
Okay, hang on.
I get that means what?
I don't care.
Well, no, but what is she surface level saying?
I understand what you're saying.
No, but you said I'm confused, but you haven't said what you're confused about.
Exactly, yeah.
So when she says, I get that,
What does she mean?
I get being confused or I get like being fart.
But if you say I'm confused and somebody says I understand that they can't because they haven't actually asked you what you're confused about.
So getting that someone is confused
Confused is the absence of something.
It's the absence of resolution or certainty, or closure.
Yes.
Right?
Yeah.
So, you're saying, I don't understand, I don't have conclusions, I don't have resolution, I don't, it's all foggy to me, and if somebody says, I totally understand that, that makes no sense.
Because you can't understand something which is just, if you're confused, and that means you don't have closure or a certainty or understanding, then how can she get anything if you don't even get it?
At least without asking a bunch of questions.
Does that make sense?
Exactly.
Yeah, no, makes perfect sense.
Okay, so she says, I get that, and then it seems to me she's suing straight into manipulation.
What does she say next?
Yeah, she says, I also know the perception of how a conversation goes is sometimes different.
Okay, so hang on.
I also know the perception of how a conversation goes is sometimes different.
Yeah, I didn't know what that meant.
I think she's saying, I talked to your dad about it and he perceives this.
Now I'm talking to you about this and you perceive something different.
Yeah, he probably thinks it went great.
Okay, so when she says, I understand that the perception of a conversation can be different, right?
Okay, so she's saying you and your dad disagree.
Yeah.
Okay, I think I get that.
I'm going back to when you were a kid, right?
So when you were a kid, you had a perception of a conversation that was different from your mom's and your dad's, and what happened?
Yeah, it was just like, I was wrong.
Well, you got attacked.
Yeah, exactly.
Emotionally, physically, vocally, right?
You got abused and attacked and hit and put down and yelled at, right?
Your mom would, what, grab you by the face?
Isn't that what you said?
Yeah.
Okay.
So, it's obviously a little baffling to me, from a sanity standpoint, which is, your mother is like, well, you know, people can very much have different perceptions of a conversation, and that's okay.
But if that's her belief,
What about when you were a kid?
Right.
Now, do you think that your mother would have any perception of how horrible it is to hear that it's very important to recognize differences in opinions and differences in experience and different perceptions of a conversation and to be gentle and curious and accept it?
Like, that all of this, when she was screaming blue murder in your face and shaking you by the face when you were a kid and didn't understand something or had a different perception of the conversation.
If I said that you were?
Well, I mean, no, I mean, do you think, sorry, do you think that she has any understanding of how different these standards are?
No, not at all.
I mean, right after we had this conversation about parenting, she was telling me about this other kid, or, like, this other co-worker of hers, who was, like, fine with the way
They were parented, but it was really aggressive, just to keep the story short.
And she was like, you know, some people just see it differently.
And this is after she's apologized for being aggressive towards me.
I'm like, we just had this whole conversation.
Oh, so now she's trying to program you to say that it's just a relativistic preference, like preferring red over blue.
Right.
Like, a million times, because she kept saying, like, these are just your preferences of what good parenting is.
I was like, no, this is not, like, just my idea, or my, like, arbitrary standard.
Like, there's reasoning behind this, and I can give it to you if you want, but, I mean, it's pretty obvious why you shouldn't hit children.
No, but it's even, sorry, it's even deeper than that.
Sorry to interrupt.
Because she's saying that it's just relativistic.
But if it's just relativistic, then why would you violently impose it upon others?
Yeah.
Right, so it would be like, something like... Okay, let me have the convo with your mom, if you can just play your mom for a sec, right?
Yep, go ahead.
Okay, so, mom, you're saying that my preference to not be hit is just a subjective and relativistic preference and other people can perceive it very differently?
Well, I mean, I get why you would feel that it's bad, but I mean, a lot of people get hit and say that it's good, so I mean, it's, you know, who's to say?
Okay, so, you're disagreeing with me now, right?
Um, I guess.
No, you are.
I'm saying it's bad, and you're saying it's subjective, right?
Well, I mean, look, I'm disagreeing because, you know, you're just giving me your perspective, but like... No, no, no, I'm not complaining that you're disagreeing, but you are disagreeing with me, right?
I guess, yeah, I guess I'm disagreeing with you.
Okay.
So, you're disagreeing with me.
Do I get to hit you?
Like, what if I just punched you or grabbed you by the face or shook you?
You don't get to hit me, okay?
You don't need to talk to me like that.
No, no, no, I understand that.
I understand that.
Okay.
So, it's wrong to hit for disagreeing?
Yes.
Okay, so when I was a kid and I disagreed with you, why did I get hit if it's wrong to hit for disagreeing?
I don't know, I guess I was just a bad mom.
No, mom, don't go rubber bones on me, because you're saying that it's not bad to hit children, and that's fine, it's just a subjective thing, but you said it was absolutely wrong to hit you for disagreeing with me, but when I disagreed with you as a kid, I could get hit.
Listen, I would tell you where things are or how to do things a million times.
I showed you how to vacuum a million times, and you just wouldn't listen.
I didn't know what to do.
Have you ever had trouble with your computers or your printers or your tablets, mom?
Yes.
Okay.
Do you come to me for help?
Yes.
Okay.
Do I get to belt you and hit you and scream at you because I've told you a bunch of times how to do this stuff?
No.
Okay.
So what's the difference?
You're an adult.
I was a kid.
Surely we should be nicer to kids than adults.
So why don't I get to belt you when I've told you a million times how to print wirelessly?
I honestly don't know.
I've already said I'm sorry.
I don't know why we need to be having this conversation or what you want from me.
I feel like you're doing this just to hurt me.
Okay, so, mom, you realize that you just said I, me, me, I like half a dozen times in about five seconds.
Well, can we only talk about you?
There's two people in this conversation.
Not according to you, because I keep making these points and then you just keep talking about yourself.
So, for you, there's only one person in this conversation, it's partly the problem I have, because it seems pretty narcissistic and selfish, for you to just talk about your thoughts and perceptions and feelings and make these arguments and then fold immediately when I disprove you and then complain that I'm not serving your needs or feelings and, like, it's just all about you, right?
Like, do you not understand that I'm in genuine pain here and I'm genuinely frustrated about these completely hypocritical standards?
Listen, I know that I'm selfish or I've been angry before, but you doing this isn't helping.
Oh, sorry, sorry.
I'm supposed to help you, mom?
That's my job?
I'm angry at you for hitting and belting and yelling and screaming at me as a kid.
And now the only thing you can think of is how I can help you to get how narcissistic this all is?
Yeah, I guess I'm just a narcissist then.
Okay.
Alright, well, so then, as a narcissist we can't have a relationship, because narcissists don't have relationships with anyone, so I guess you've just made things really clear to me.
If that's your answer, that you're a narcissist and you can only think of yourself, and you can't ever really have empathy for anyone else, then that's my answer.
I mean, if you want to take the defense of narcissism, I'll tell you that comes with complete disengagement from me.
Because narcissists can't be fixed.
I want, I want to have a relationship with you.
No, no, you just said you were a narcissist.
And now you're saying, I, I, I, I want, I, I, I, I want.
I'm here!
Can you recognize that at all?
Yes, obviously you're here.
Okay, thank you.
Can you stop talking about yourself for five goddamn minutes?
Well, apparently all you want to talk about is the way I parented.
Like, we're only criticizing me here.
So you're back to talking about you.
I don't know what your goal is here.
If you just want to criticize me, I don't want to have this conversation.
Can you start a segment of the conversation without talking about yourself?
I guess not.
Okay, then I guess you are a narcissist and there's no point trying to have a relationship.
It would be unfair, right?
Because I'm asking you to do something you just can't do, which is to have empathy for someone else.
Yeah, and then it just goes in circles from there.
No, so it doesn't go in circles.
And did you see, I mean, you got that, right?
Like, everything, I, Mimi, I, you're hurting me.
It's just, she cannot get out of her own head and into somebody else's heart.
I'm so sorry, man, that's hideous.
Yeah, that's always, like... And you got the hypocrisy, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
It would be absolutely wrong.
Hitting you as a kid was great.
If I disagree with you, how dare you hit me, you disagree with me as a kid, I totally got to belt you.
Yeah, exactly.
Right, so, of course it's convenient relativism.
It's relativism when you're complaining, and it's absolutism when she's complaining.
Yeah, exactly.
That's how I always felt as a kid, like it was just everything I did had to be perfectly measured to how she was feeling that day, otherwise I was a bad person.
So it's all just a series of power play manipulations to make her right and you wrong, so that you can be dismissed and she can get her way.
Right.
And now, did that break at all over the conversation, or was it just like she felt the threat of you maybe not wanting to spend time with her so she'll appease you and comply in order to just continue to get what she wants, which is your company and presence, so that she doesn't have to explain to her friends where the hell you are.
Yeah, that's the, the apologies or the appeasement has all felt like that.
Um, like, like instinctually it's been like, you're, the things you're saying,
Are just like different versions of what you've said in the past and like nothing about you is really changing.
So you have to be just be saying these things to appease me and keep me around.
Right.
Okay.
And like, I'm, yeah, like, like, like you were saying, like, you know, I'm a relatively virtuous person and I don't look to harm people.
And if people truly forgive or ask for forgiveness, like I'm, I don't withhold it.
Um, so why do I, why am I still angry?
And it's like,
It's probably a really good reason for that.
Right.
Yeah, I don't make myself do stuff.
You know, I mean, I'll focus on virtues and values and so on.
I don't make myself do stuff.
Because that's to say that there's some part of me that's just really bad and wrong and corrupted.
I've just gotta, I gotta force myself and hurt myself like a bunch of one random sheep with the worst sheep, with the most aggressive sheepdogs known to man.
I'm like, eh, you know, if I feel like calling someone, okay, I'll give them a call.
If I don't feel like, I feel no obligation to do that, which goes against some pretty deep moral instincts that I have.
Which have guided me, you know, pretty well in life overall, and I have lots of validation.
But of course, I had to kind of invent the wheel, which you don't have to.
Hopefully myself and other people have, you know, shaped a couple of rocks around it, at least for you.
Oh yeah.
Yeah, but if you still feel resentful, it's like, yeah.
It's because, you know, I mean, it's hard to say exactly what it looks like, because it's so incredibly rare.
For your mother to genuinely get it.
It's impossible.
She's never gotten anything, really.
If she's still in the state where every one of your perspectives she can only interpret as to whether it helps or harms her immediate emotional interest, then you're not in the conversation.
Yeah.
Like, well, I'm not getting what I want, therefore you're bad.
Well, I am getting what you want, therefore I'll give you a pat on the head, right?
That's just, that's how you train a puppy, right?
So, that's not personhood.
Personhood is, tell me more.
I'm curious, tell me more, right?
Yeah, and I never, like even since Dave apologized, like my dad last night in the conversation where he wasn't aggressive and he apologized, like I, at one point
Cause he was explaining how important family is.
Cause it's like the piece away from the chaos of society.
I'm like, I never once in my entire childhood felt that way about my immediate or extended family.
And then he just like glossed right over that.
Right.
Like I just said a very important thing.
Right.
But it's not important because he's trying to tell you family is everything.
So you do what he wants.
And if that strategy doesn't work.
Then he'll just move on to some other strategy.
He's got no curiosity about your experience.
It's like, okay, I'll try this key in the lock.
Does it open the lock?
Nope.
Okay, I'll try this key in the lock.
I'll just try my whole series of bullshit manipulations and I'll just keep trying the keys until I get what I want.
Yep.
Doesn't matter.
Like, you don't sit there and say to the lock, are you okay?
Do you mind if I violate you once more Harvey Weinstein style?
Like, are you okay?
Do you need some lubrication?
Do you need some wine?
Do you need some Barry Gibb or Barry White?
Do you need anything?
You know, sweet nothings, candlelight, you know, do you need a sponge bath, a back rub, you know?
It's just like, nope, try the key, try the key, try the key, damn it!
Right?
Yep.
Right.
Yeah, it's a pretty horrible thing to be on the receiving end of, just seeing that they just don't care.
They don't care.
Seems to me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I just know that if I, like, because my dad, he probably feels like, oh, I apologized.
I was really open.
And if I go to him and be like, yeah, you weren't open and you haven't changed at all.
Well, so the apology then just becomes a precursor to more bullying.
Like, hey, hey man, I apologize.
Exactly.
I apologized, I did what you wanted, what more do you... now you're just being unreasonable.
I did what you asked.
That's exactly what's going to happen.
I did apologize, and now you want more, and then come on, man.
That's exactly what's going to happen.
Yeah, so it's just a setup, and I'm sorry about that.
It's just, you know, genuine apologies are really powerful and beautiful things to both give and to receive, and this kind of setup is really gross.
Yeah, it just felt... it all felt gross.
It all felt gross.
And again, the last thing I want to do is tell you what to feel, but the mindset that helped for me, and it may or may not help for you, but the mindset that helped me was something like this.
Look, my parents are beyond choice.
They have no functional free will.
In other words, like I'm an empiricist, right?
So I'd say, okay, what evidence do I have that they're capable of making choices?
That they're capable of self-reflection, that they're capable of looking back upon their lives and saying, well I had these ideals or these standards, I didn't fulfill them in this way and I feel bad and I need to make amends, like, where's the conscience, right?
And, you know, my father died, no reconciliation, no apologies, no kind, he didn't even let me know he was unwell.
And, you know, my mother, it's been like 20 plus, 23 years or something, 24 years, maybe even 25 if I really add it up.
And, you know, she's still around, and...
You know, there's nothing.
And I mean, there's nothing that could be done now.
I mean, good lord, I'm gonna probably be a grandma, a grandfather in not too long from, you know, in, you know, probably eight years.
So, like, what on earth would I need parenting for?
I haven't been a grandma for, like, what, years, right?
So, I view them as machines.
They are.
They're NPCs.
And I remember reading somebody talking about a video game character.
I think it was in the game Morrowind, which, you know, you probably would have been five years old when that game came out.
You probably didn't play it, but it was the precursor to Skyrim and, and so on.
And I remember somebody saying, Oh yeah, I had this guy, this character in Morrowind.
Uh, I haven't played the game in 10 years.
I just booted it up and I, I picked, I left him on the mountaintop and he's just been standing on a mountaintop for 10 years, freezing his ass off.
And, you know, that's a kind of, and I remember playing the game Morrowind, and I had an NPC character, and I, you know, these things with NPCs, I don't know if you play many games, but I like some of the RPGs, right?
So, you know, you get this sidekick, you get this NPC character, and I remember sometimes they're just not there.
And you're like, damn, where did he go?
Because, you know, they maybe get stuck somewhere or whatever, right?
And I remember having to retrace my steps, and I found him locked in a room in a dungeon I'd been at like two days previously.
Right.
Right?
And of course, it's just a bunch of digital blobs.
It's not an actual person trapped in a room, and he's like freaking out and having flashbacks to his childhood about being locked in cupboards.
It's just a bunch of digital nothings with no preferences whatsoever.
You know, like I play the game Catan sometimes when I'm exercising, and if I'm in the middle of a particular set, then I don't make my turn.
And the robots are all like, the NPC characters, they're all tapping their watches like, hey man, come on!
It's like, they don't care.
I could wait a thousand years, they wouldn't get impatient, they wouldn't be bored.
So it's just a bunch of blobs of digital data.
Now you can personify it all you want and it's kind of funny in a way to do that.
I felt vaguely relieved to have released my NPC from the dungeon where he got stuck behind a door.
But of course, it doesn't matter whether he's there or not.
I could have just generated another NPC or, you know, hired someone else or whatever.
It doesn't matter at all.
And Dragon's Dogma has these, like, NPCs and all of that, and they'll chat with you some sort of vague AI way, you know?
Like, if it's kind of dark, they'll say, hey, it's getting dark, and, you know, they'll suggest things.
But of course, it's just a bunch of digital blobs with no free will.
They're just NPCs.
And part of the game, of course, is you personify, like, you anthropomorphize these blobs, or you put the soul into the machine.
And we have that kind of impulse sometimes with those who are close to us, particularly if they raised us, right?
Which is to try and put the soul into the machinery.
Or imagine that we can reach through the machinery without losing fingers or limbs and free the soul.
Like I went back to free my NPC.
But when I freed my NPC, he was just a bunch of digital blobs in a different digital blob.
Right?
He doesn't even think of the term dungeon.
He's just in a particular digital blob called walls.
Yeah.
And so if for me, it was like just looking at my parents and saying, okay, they're basically just NPCs.
Now it frustrates me because I'm not an NPC and I'm like, well, I was able to escape
My manipulations and my programming and all of the NPC train tracks, I was able to jump tracks and, you know, go aerial or whatever.
And they're not, so if I just find the right key or the right combo, I can reach through the machinery and free their soul, like my NPC from the dungeon!
But there was no evidence that that was going to happen, there was no evidence that they even knew they were trapped.
In fact, they viewed me as bad, right?
Yeah.
I'd view them as misguided, and they viewed me
As bad.
Just as in that little roleplay, your mom was like, you're hurting me.
Because, you know, the woman who shook your neck and shook your face and yelled in your face, apparently it's just really bad to hurt people.
It's like, what?
Like, there's no consistency.
Well, I'll just try to manipulate his empathy into
Not hurting me, right?
He's upsetting me by bringing me face-to-face with my own conscience, or lack thereof.
He's upsetting me!
So what I'll do is I'll try to play on his empathy, because I'll try to make him believe that you shouldn't hurt those you love, and hope that he wouldn't notice that I spent a good chunks of his charity terrifying and terrorizing him.
I'll hope that he won't notice that hypocrisy, right?
And then if he does notice that hypocrisy, then I'll play the self-pity, and then I'll play the self-attack.
I'll go, oh, I guess I was just a bad mother, and then he'll rush in to defend me from that, and he'll forget about himself.
So the reason why narcissists constantly talk about themselves is so you'll end up dealing with them, rather than bring your own complaints to the table.
There's an old Monty Python skit about the complaints department, like you call the complaints department, and all they do is complain to you about their bad backs, and you know, they've been sitting too long, and you know, they think they have a headache, and you know, one of their testicles is slightly larger than the other.
So that's the complaints department, and then of course you never end up getting to complain, because all you're doing is listening to other people's complaints, and that's kind of how the selfish people operate, is they'll just continually
Talk about themselves, and then they'll pretend to be self-attacked, they'll pretend to have self-pity, they'll pretend to cry.
Anything to have you focus on them, rather than your own thoughts and feelings.
Because if they end up having to focus on your thoughts and feelings, like, you gotta understand this barrier.
If your mother or your father, or if they genuinely focus on your thoughts and feelings,
They turn from good people to bad people.
Because the barrier between them and focusing on your feelings is all the times they hurt you.
Yeah.
And they hurt you because they did not process your feelings.
They only process their own feelings.
I'm frustrated, you damn well have to pay.
And so the barrier between your emotional reality and their perception
Is a pile of bodies in a sense as high as the Himalayas.
It's like a Mount Everest of bodies.
Yeah.
It simply can't climb that and they can't see you on the other side.
And the bodies are the wrong things that they did.
And there's a bad conscience causes a permanent eclipse between your heart and the heart of everyone else's.
This is why it's important not to have a bad conscience.
Sorry.
I keep, I keep talking.
You wanted to say something.
Go ahead.
No, you're exactly right.
Yeah.
There, there just, there wasn't a moment that there was like a, um, a consideration of how I was feeling.
Right.
Wow.
There was a few times when I was like, wait, what do you think of my parenting?
Like, is there anything I could do better?
And I was like, yeah, I don't like when you yell or like you scream or like you grab me.
And she's like, well, do you understand why I'm doing those things?
Like, do you understand why I'm frustrated?
And you know, I'd be like,
Yeah, yes, okay, and then, you know, just bullshit from there on.
Yeah, anything to keep your emotional reality away from her heart.
And the way I also viewed it is like, you know, are you Christian?
I'm not Christian, no.
Okay, so, but the analogy would be that they sold their soul to the devil,
They sold their soul, they sold the happiness of their relationship with their children for the sake of immediate and petty emotional gratification, satisfying anger or hostility or rage or whatever, right?
And after you sell your soul to the devil, certainly after a certain amount of time, you can't get it back.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
And I don't know exactly what the tipping point is, but if you harm children for long enough, you never get your soul back.
The path to NPC is the bones of child love.
That's the path to NPC-dom, is to crunch the bones of dependent children, to harm children, is the surest way.
to end up without free will, because you can't choose empathy, you can't choose connection, you can't choose love, you can't choose self-criticism, you can't choose any higher standards.
The path to NPC is littered with the bones of children, except the children survive.
It's just you who don't.
Hmm, geez.
Yeah, exactly.
So, is that a useful mindset, perhaps, to approach this stuff with?
Yeah, that's amazing.
Yeah, that's extremely helpful.
Good, good.
Well, I appreciate your patience with some of the technical issues.
I'll take out a couple of names and places here and there, but I really do admire you for what you're doing.
This is going to be an amazing foundation for your own future family to make sure you maintain that connection and that your children don't see you being, you know, pushed around by some what sounds like kind of cold-hearted bullies.
And I just think what you're doing is fantastic in terms of the progress of the species and your own family line in particular.
Yeah.
Magnificent job.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Yeah, you've helped so much with that, so I appreciate it so much.
All right, brother.
Well, keep me posted, and I really do appreciate your time today.
