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Nov. 22, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:56:19

I FEEL NOTHING FOR MY BABY! Freedomain Call In

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	Alright, well, nice to meet you, and I'm glad we're getting a chance to talk about this.
	It's a very, very important topic, so if you wanted to start off by reading your message, we can take it from there.
	Oh, thank you.
	I'm in my late 40s.
	I married for several years to my wonderful wife in her late 20s.
	We have a one-year-old son together.
	and hope to have more children.
	When my son was born I felt no emotion about him or towards him.
	I remember my mother told me that my father was glowing when I was born and full of joy.
	I also remember many friends and other fathers who have heartfelt and joyous relations with their own children.
	However, so far, I felt very little with regard to my son.
	When I tried to play with my son, I soon feel an overwhelming sense of sadness.
	At not being able to connect emotionally and not being able to find fun things to do, we both would enjoy, even for a few minutes.
	Even writing this down makes me cry.
	I want to connect, but I can't and I don't know why.
	Our wife and I worry that our son and other children might be or become autistic as well.
	My mother and me are very similar.
	My father is not.
	My father is somewhat extroverted and enjoyed a career as a teacher to meet his social needs.
	My mother is more of a bookworm and enjoys going outdoors sometimes just to see the park or local fauna.
	My mother is emotionally very stoic like me and doesn't easily show any sign of exuberance or strong emotion.
	If there is a psychological cause for my autism that can be resolved, I want to find it.
	But I don't know where to go.
	Therapists seem to think it is incurable.
	I have very little confidence in them because of that.
	My entire childhood I was always sleepy, until my early 30s, when I learned to drink several liters of water and to use blue light filters on my screens.
	Since then my sleep massively improved.
	I began to feel alert and much more capable.
	I finally learned a skill and got full-time employment, married my wife and have been blessed with a son.
	The first time I got an assignment from school to make an essay, when I was about 9 years old, I just didn't do it.
	I didn't know how to do it and I was too afraid to ask anyone for help.
	I don't know why, but I felt something like the Gestapo were listening to everything and that something was somehow out to get me, and that I better stay quiet.
	I fell stuck between not knowing how to do it and being too afraid to ask for help.
	I suspect something happened to me as a toddler or baby to make me have that feeling.
	Finally, my teacher called my parents and let them know about the essay.
	That night my mother summoned me into the kitchen to sit on her lap, and my father began to ask me, Why didn't you do the essay?
	Couldn't you ask for help?
	Why this?
	Why that?
	He kept on asking me, and with every question he would raise his voice more and more.
	His voice became extremely loud and the tone of his voice very high-pitched.
	Like that of a dog when you step on its tail or when a wolf howls at the moon.
	My throat tightened and my vocal cords nearly froze and I became physically incapable of speaking even if I wanted to.
	I got a very intense migraine, intense ringing in my ears, and I completely shut down.
	Eventually my father quieted, and I was let go.
	In the following days he helped me with the essay by me sitting on his lap while writing the essay on his computer.
	I hate to speak when I'm very upset because I have to push through my frozen vocal cords and must speak in the same tone of voice as my father's yelling if I want to speak at all while I am upset.
	It may not seem like a lot to some people to have been yelled at as a child, but I'm very sensitive.
	For a man I cry much more easily than others.
	I wish I had control over that, but I don't.
	Ever since then I was resentful towards my mother because she didn't protect me from my father's yelling.
	My father yelled at me several more times in that howling wolf voice, and each time it gave me a migraine and froze my vocal cords.
	Some friends have told me I should have been more angry with my father than my mother, but I cannot control my feelings.
	For a long time, I resented my mother for failing to protect me from my father's yelling.
	For doing nothing.
	That's it.
	Right, okay.
	How do you feel reading this?
	A little bit smart.
	And are these your current judgments, or judgments that you had more in the past, or how have they changed, if they have, over the years?
	Like memories.
	I'm sorry, you'll have to repeat that.
	Some part of that got cut off.
	Is that?
	Yes.
	Let's see.
	Is that any better?
	I'm not sure.
	It sounds okay on my end.
	I'm outside in the yard right now.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I think this is a little...
	Well, we'll try for another minute or two, otherwise we'll have to reschedule, but I'm fairly booked up for a while, so if we could do this now, great.
	Otherwise, it'll be quite a wait, so...
	Alright, so, yeah, I got the initial part, or got the message as a whole, and you said you're feeling kind of sad about what you were reading, is that right?
	Uh, yes.
	Okay.
	So, why did you want to have a child?
	No, looks like we're cutting out again.
	I'm not entirely sure.
	Sorry, I wasn't sure if you were pausing or we got a cutout.
	So you're not sure why you wanted to have a child?
	Were you very keen on having a child?
	Not emotionally, no.
	I wasn't looking forward to it.
	It was something like how I sort of understood my mission in life, if you will.
	But...
	I became Catholic like six years ago.
	That's basically when I started to straighten out my life and get a job and so on.
	And that's also basically my conviction in Catholicism has also brought me to want to have children.
	Well, but that's a religious obligation, but did you yourself want to have a child?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Okay, and why did you want to have a child?
	Outside of the religious obligation, just in your heart, why did you want to have a child?
	I've seen a lot of ugly things in the world and a lot of Bad decisions by parents and children.
	I thought I could do better by now.
	I don't understand what that means.
	Why did you want to have a child?
	Did you want to love?
	Did you want to hold?
	Did you have a yearning to instruct, to teach?
	I'm trying to understand why you wanted to have a child.
	Right.
	I never really thought a lot about it in response to a question like this.
	Well, it's the most obvious question, isn't it?
	I mean, you worked very hard to have a child, right?
	You got your life cleaned up, you took the blue light on your screens, you drank water, you got rest, you got a job, you got married, you got pregnant, or your wife got pregnant, and so, you know, you worked very hard with the goal of having a child, and I'm trying to understand what your thought was.
	About having a child before, right?
	I mean, if I work very hard to get a degree in English literature, then I would have some idea, like I want a degree in English literature, and I want to graduate, and I want to have the degree.
	So I'm just trying to follow what you were looking for or what you were hoping to gain by having a chance.
	Right.
	Right.
	Uh...
	Well, I've seen a lot of other things in life.
	It does a lot of beautiful things.
	Mostly just by reading books about the lives of people.
	Most especially just Catholic saints.
	I also have now a lot of friends with wonderful families.
	I think I just wanted to share The beautiful things I see in the world with a child, with someone, including my wife.
	I've seen in the world a lot of people who are ignored and put aside Who I think are very decent and beautiful.
	No, but you've just created another one, right?
	Because you're not able to bond with your son?
	So if you say, well, there's people who are emotionally ignored in the world and you don't feel much towards your son, aren't you just creating another one?
	Yes.
	But it wasn't what I was expecting.
	Well, okay, so, sorry, when you say the autism, obviously if you are neurodivergent or have diagnosed autism, I mean, there's not much that philosophy can do in that situation, is that right?
	Right.
	So, is that the case?
	I mean, are you autistic?
	Do you have that as a formal diagnosis and you have that as part of your personality?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And so what philosophically can I help you with?
	I've never been convinced that this defect in my psychology is insolvable, that it is completely impossible to overcome.
	Okay.
	So, I'm basically trying to find a solution to overcome it.
	Okay, and I'm not disagreeing with you.
	I'm the last person to tell you what is or is not the content or potential of your own mind.
	So what do you think might have gone wrong in your life, in your childhood, that would have left you feeling this distant from your son?
	That's something I just don't know.
	Thank you.
	That's what I'm trying to figure out, especially since I started listening to your going shows.
	And what is it about my call-in shows that you think is the most compelling or that you think might open up your heart the most?
	The way I see how you reframe or recontextualize the way in which people look at the events in their lives and the things that were done to them in their childhood.
	or something.
	Thank you.
	My childhood also has a similar effect on me.
	Okay, and what is it in your childhood do you think might have made you more distant from your emotions?
	I just think that it's something about my father yelling at me in a way
	that gave me migraines and my mother didn't see the harm being done or didn't protect me from that.
	That's what I suspect.
	Even before my father yelled at me after the essay, I was still afraid of something.
	Like, I needed to be afraid of some kind of secret police.
	That was my feeling.
	And to me, it doesn't make sense that that kind of feeling just came out naturally in my psyche because I was growing up or something.
	It has to have a cause.
	Agreed.
	Now, sorry, how old were you when your father first yelled?
	Were you nine?
	Do I remember that, when your father first yelled at you?
	I'm not exactly sure.
	Towards the end of elementary school.
	Okay.
	So something around the single digits.
	All right.
	Tell me a little bit about your thoughts of the secret police.
	Primarily, it was a feeling like if I ask for help, then people will see it was a feeling like if I ask for help, then people will see that I'm failing and Something like that.
	No, I understand that.
	Tell me about the secret police aspect of it.
	That's an unusual, though not crazy, obviously, but it's an unusual thought for a kid to have.
	I can find it, I think, accurately describes the feeling.
	Like how you would have to be afraid in Germany of the Gestapo if you were a dear or something.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Can you remember a time before you were nine or so when someone did help you with the difficulty you had?
	Not really.
	Okay.
	How physically close do you remember your parents being?
	Did they cuddle or hug or kiss or did they stroke your hair?
	Did you get much physical contact that you remember as a little boy?
	I don't think so.
	I don't really remember being close.
	I touched a lot.
	I hugged her.
	Did your parents, when you were a little boy, seem to take much pleasure or a lot of pleasure in your company?
	I'm not sure.
	I mean, I'll give you an example.
	I mean, so when my daughter comes down in the morning, I jump up, I give her a hug, great to see you.
	I, you know, yesterday, we chatted in the morning, and then I took her out for lunch.
	And, you know, we walked up and down the street, she needed to pick up some ingredients to make some popsicles.
	So we went up to the store there.
	And, you know, we're just chatting and I really, really enjoy her company.
	She is a great deal of fun and very warm and friendly and smart to spend time with.
	I look forward to spending time with her.
	So, in the morning, you know, I might knock on her door and say, you know, get up.
	Dad needs some time.
	And so, get her out of bed and so we can spend some time together.
	So, In terms of just looking forward to spending time with your child and enjoying your child's company, did you experience much of that when you were little?
	I don't think so.
	I don't remember a lot like that.
	Did you feel when you were little that you were a burden to your parents or that you were a source of problems or challenges or they didn't have time for you or something like that?
	I'm not exactly sure.
	My parents have told me that I was always a very quiet child and not crying a lot.
	Sort of the opposite of my sister.
	And how old is your sister younger?
	Two years.
	Two years, okay.
	So your parents said you were quiet and didn't cry very much?
	Yes.
	So usually the two reasons why children don't cry are, number one, they don't feel sad, or number two, they don't believe that crying will do them any good.
	It won't change anything.
	It won't get them what they want.
	Maybe comfort or a food or a hug or attention or something like that.
	Do you think that you didn't feel particularly sad as a child, or do you think that crying was pointless because your parents wouldn't really react in a way that crying would...
	They would help you.
	They wouldn't help you.
	you.
	They wouldn't make you feel better.
	I'm not exactly sure, but I just never felt like asking my parents for anything.
	Okay.
	Now, you do understand, though, at some point you had to.
	Like, when you were a baby, I mean, you have a baby son now, so babies, they do cry and they do laugh or smile, at least, from six weeks onwards and so on.
	So babies do have to communicate with their parents what is good or bad for the baby.
	And if the baby has a rash or is tired or hungry, then the baby will let the parents know.
	So you had to have, just to survive, You had to have cried and smiled around your parents, and they would have had to react in a way that was positive for you.
	Or maybe they didn't, I suppose.
	They don't have to.
	But did you ever have a feeling that your emotions would prompt your parents to make you feel better?
	better?
	If you were sad, do you remember ever going to your parents and they helped you feel better?
	I don't think so.
	I think I just, as far as I can remember, I never did something like that.
	Okay.
	Other than your father yelling, and I appreciate you're doing a fantastic job, by the way.
	Just wanted to let you know I appreciate everything you're saying and very good job.
	So, With your parents, did you ever, or can you remember, strong emotions on the part of your parents before the time that your father yelled at you?
	Do you remember seeing them very happy or very sad or angry or upset in some way that that was some sort of strong emotion before you were yelled at?
	I have one particular memory from, I guess, when I was four or something.
	When I was at the playground with my father, and he was playing with me on one of the playground games.
	And I think it was a seesaw.
	And my father was on one side and, you know, jumping up and down with me on the other side.
	He was smiling and talking to me.
	To me, the memory is like he seemed very happy while playing with me.
	Okay.
	And was that a memory that you remember because it was unusual?
	I don't really know.
	It's like the only memory that I Remember, like, before I was six or something.
	Okay.
	So, outside of your father yelling at you, can you tell me some of the other strong emotions that you saw your parents experiencing or exhibiting?
	Both good or bad, positive or negative emotions.
	Uh...
	Thank you.
	Oh, well...
	When my father got a speeding ticket, he would cuss and swear every time.
	Okay, so that's a strong emotion.
	Anything else?
	I once saw my mother write some letters and her crime.
	I'm sorry, said again, some letters, what?
	My mother wrote some letters, I think just like pages in a diary or something like that.
	And crying about what she was writing and then throwing the paper in the fireplace to burn it.
	Oh, gosh.
	And do you know what she was upset about?
	I have no idea.
	I mean, she had some kind of issues with her father.
	Her father triggered her a few times at least.
	It caused her to sort of blow up and be very angry with her father.
	But things they thought were seemingly innocent.
	Can you think of an example?
	My grandfather, my mother's father, was telling us a joke about when he was in school and he was making a stink bomb in the chemical lab.
	And somehow that triggered a very strong reaction from my mother.
	Huh.
	The story of him when he was a boy?
	Uh, or a teenager, I guess.
	Okay.
	And do you know why your mother was upset at that story?
	Was she angry?
	Yes, she went out and said some angry things.
	I don't know exactly what.
	Do you remember roughly what?
	I'm not sure.
	Something like it's inappropriate or something.
	Okay.
	I really don't know precisely.
	Okay.
	No, I mean, I understand that.
	I mean, it's like fart jokes and bad smell jokes and poop jokes and so on.
	Some women can really be upset by that stuff, although it seems to be Pretty much the cornerstone of young men's humour, and so...
	Alright?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so your mother would get angry at your father as she cried about something and then threw the letters into the fireplace.
	Now, that's very interesting.
	So, do you have any...
	You thought she might be writing something to her father and then she threw it in the fireplace?
	I guess.
	Something like that.
	So, what...
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I've seen my grandfather be angry once when we were visiting him in a clarification house.
	We were having dinner and I've always been picky with food.
	They had to make all sorts of fancy foods that I hated, all of them.
	I just didn't like any of them.
	So I refused to eat most of them.
	Somehow that triggered my grandfather.
	And he got very angry and so angry that I felt like I should be afraid for my life.
	Oh gosh.
	Okay.
	So I was very scared sleeping that night.
	And do you remember roughly how old you were then?
	I'm not sure, like eight or nine.
	I really don't know.
	Okay.
	So, what do you think it means that your mother wrote letters while crying and then threw those letters in the fire?
	Why would she do that, do you think?
	Sorry, can I just ask you for a favor, just while we're talking?
	So, I keep saying stuff and you keep talking while I'm in the middle of talking?
	Okay, sorry.
	Just wait till I finish my sentence, and then it's all yours, okay?
	Just because then I feel kind of rushed to finish my thought, and it's mildly annoying.
	So it's fine.
	Just if you could do me that favor, let me finish my sentences before talking.
	That would be great.
	So, yeah, what do you think it means that your mother wrote these tear-stained letters and then threw them in the fire?
	She was...
	Trying to write something to someone who hurt her.
	I think now it's her father.
	And that maybe she didn't want to send it, or maybe she never intended to send it.
	I just don't really know.
	Okay.
	Well, I'll tell you what it does mean.
	So what it means is, and we'll just say it was her father, right?
	Because it sounds really personal.
	So, it means that she has very strong emotions, but there's no point communicating them.
	There's no point calling up her father and reading the letter.
	There's no point sending the letter.
	There's no point just having a conversation with her father about her feelings.
	In other words, her feelings have no point, no purpose.
	They can't achieve anything.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	So, what is the purpose of feelings?
	Why do we have them?
	What are they for?
	Because if you feel kind of numb, well, either you don't have feelings, which philosophy can't fix, but we're going to go on the assumption that that's not the case, or you don't feel them because there's no purpose.
	I mean, if somebody gives me a toothbrush and tells me to dig a big hole, well, I can't really do that with a toothbrush, right?
	It's the wrong tool for the wrong job.
	So I'm just going to throw that toothbrush aside because I can't dig a big hole with a toothbrush.
	So, what is the purpose in your mind?
	Why do we have emotions?
	And what is the purpose of those emotions?
	I mean, there has to be some reason for them, otherwise we wouldn't have them.
	They're very powerful, and evolution would have filtered them out if they didn't serve some useful purpose, if that makes sense.
	So, why do you think we have emotions?
	I think that we have emotions to...
	No, when something is wrong or when something wrong has passed and is no longer wrong.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So, what is the purpose of knowing that something is wrong?
	So, let's just start with sensation, which is the most basic form of emotion, right?
	So, when I was a kid, I picked up a knife from the stove because I wanted to butter some bread, but the knife was very hot because it had been by a burner, like a gas burner.
	So, my body said, ow, and I dropped the knife.
	So, what was the purpose of that sensation of pain, of burning?
	To know that your hand was being injured by the heat of the knife.
	In order to do what?
	Why would my body bother telling me that?
	In order to pull your hand away and to stop the injury.
	And to prevent me from doing it in the future.
	Right.
	So the purpose of sensations are to change our behavior.
	In the moment and in the future, like I never picked up a knife again on the stove without checking its temperature first.
	Like you lick your finger, you touch it really quickly, you know, you find out how warm it is, right?
	So the purpose of sensations is to change our behavior.
	So if you have the sensation called, I mean, I'm really thirsty, well, the purpose of that sensation is to get you to put liquid in your body, right?
	Right.
	If you're really, I don't know, let's be coarse, if you're really horny, then your purpose is to grab your wife and have some sex, right?
	So that is, if you're hungry, then you eat.
	So the purpose of sensations is to change our behavior, to satisfy a want or a need.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yes.
	So the purpose of emotions, which are a more sophisticated form of sensation, the purpose of emotions, why does a baby cry?
	A baby cries so that the parents are alerted to the fact that something is wrong.
	And the purpose of the crying is to get the parents to change their behavior.
	So if the baby is hungry, And the baby cries.
	The purpose of the crying is to get the mother to put her nipple in the baby's mouth.
	Is that a fair statement?
	Yes.
	So the purpose of emotions, at least when we're young, is to get other people to change their behavior, right?
	So you met your wife, and at some point you asked her to marry you, And so you fell in love with her, you felt desire for her, you felt drawn to her, you felt lust for her, all of that good stuff.
	And the purpose of all of that emotion was to get her to change her behavior.
	In other words, to come and be your wife and bear your children.
	Like, your emotions were there to get her to change her behavior.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	So with your mother, she writes down...
	These letters, she's crying, and then she throws them in the fire.
	What that means is that her emotions can't change her father's behavior for the better.
	Her father won't listen.
	Or if she tells him how sad and upset she is, he's just going to get angry or cold or hostile.
	He's going to make fun of her.
	He's going to roll his eyes.
	He's going to snarl at her.
	He's going to hang up the phone.
	So the emotions that she has, which are designed to have her father change his behavior for the better, Either will be ignored or will change his behavior for the worse.
	So she throws them in the fire because her emotions cannot serve their intended purpose.
	So, that's why I'm asking you about, did your parents comfort you?
	Did they enjoy your company?
	Did they caress you?
	Because when we're happy, we want other people to share in our joy.
	When we're sad, we want other people to comfort us.
	And even when we're angry, we want other people to comfort us, and being angry can be healthy and helpful, unless we use it just to intimidate and bully people, which sounds a little bit like that happens in your family.
	So, the question of why don't you feel much, my guess would be, I don't know, but my guess would be that feelings for you Don't get you what you want.
	Feelings don't change other people's behavior.
	Right.
	And that's why, so I'm asking about a time when you were upset, because your mother was upset at her father for telling a joke about making the stink bombs, and he just got angry or ignored her, is that right?
	My mother got angry.
	And what did your grandfather do?
	I think he brushed it off.
	I don't remember him reacting.
	Right.
	So, if my daughter gets angry with me, it's my job to inquire as to what's happening.
	Why are you upset?
	Is there something I did?
	And maybe she's upset for some reason that doesn't have much to do with me, or maybe it does have something to do with me, but I need to accept that her anger has purpose.
	Her anger has a reason.
	Her anger is designed to change either her behavior or someone else's behavior or both.
	But if emotions can't change anyone's behavior, what's the point of having them?
	You know, like, I'll give you an example that may sound kind of silly.
	So, I mean, when you were a kid, did you fly kites?
	Uh...
	Maybe.
	Yeah, well, you know, the general idea.
	You've got the canvas or the plastic on the thin cross, and you've got a string tied, and you pull it against the pressure of the wind, and the kite goes up, right?
	Yes, I understand.
	All right, so you can control the kite to some degree, right?
	And some kites have two...
	Little harnesses and sports kites and so on.
	But let's just talk about a simple.
	You can basically make it go up or make it go down.
	So if you pull it, there's more resistance with the wind and the kite goes higher.
	If you let it go a little bit or you relax the tension, the kite goes down.
	So you can control the kite with your hand.
	And that's fun.
	However, if the string breaks, then your kite just goes off into the sky and there's nothing you can do to control it anymore.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	So the kite is fun to control when the string is working because you can pull it and you can let it get some slack and you can twist it from one side to the other.
	You can control how the kite flies and it's kind of cool with the long tail and all of that.
	However, when the thread breaks, then your arms, you stop doing that because your arms can't control the kite anymore so they just...
	They do something else.
	Maybe you run to try and get the kite, or if it's really just blowing away, your arms just hang by your side and you feel sad because, right?
	So the purpose of your arms with the kite only happens when your hands can control what the kite is doing, when your hands can have an effect on the kite.
	If the string breaks, Then your arms just go by your side because they can't control the kite anymore.
	That's kind of like the emotions.
	If the emotions have an effect on changing someone else's behavior, then the emotions have value.
	If the emotions cannot affect someone else's behavior for the positive, Then we want to not have those emotions.
	So, for instance, if we're being tortured, we don't want the torturer to know what hurts us.
	So we will count a signal, right?
	If the torturer does something really painful, we'll say, oh, that's fine, that doesn't hurt at all.
	Whereas if he does something that's not painful, we'll say, ow, ow, ow, so that we are confusing the torturer and having him do something that's less painful rather than more painful.
	So our emotions get reversed.
	So if in your family...
	People get upset, which everybody does, every relationship, every family, everyone gets upset, have strong emotions from time to time.
	If, in your family, when people get upset, nobody changes their behavior for the better, right?
	If you're frightened of your father, right, when you were nine or so, eight or nine years old, at the end of primary school, and your father is yelling at you, you know, why didn't you ask for help, right?
	When you show great fear towards your father, which I assume you did, what should your father have done?
	To calm down and ask me why.
	Thank you.
	Why I didn't talk.
	No.
	Not quite yet.
	And this shows me the gap, right?
	So if your father is yelling at you, was he screaming or just yelling?
	Screaming.
	Okay.
	When you step on its foot, it's like screaming loud.
	Okay.
	It's the loudest sound I've ever heard in my life.
	Okay, so that's completely terrifying for a child, right?
	So if your father is screaming at you and he notices that you're terrified, what he should do is shut his mouth, lower his head in sorrow, and beg your forgiveness for frightening you.
	Right.
	Not just like, oh, calm down, and, like, he has really frightened you.
	You know, like, if, when your son gets older, you'll probably play hide-and-go-seek with him, and you'll be tempted sometimes, you know, he's coming around the corner, you're hiding behind the door, and you might jump out and go, or something like that, right?
	Just sort of play with him, right?
	Now, if...
	If you do that and your kid laughs, that's good.
	But if you do that and your kid screams in terror and falls on the ground covering his face with his hands, then you have frightened your child by accident.
	Does that make sense?
	Right.
	So then what you say, you get on your knees and you say, I'm so sorry, I meant for that to be fun.
	I made the mistake.
	I misjudged.
	I'm so sorry.
	I didn't mean to frighten you.
	I won't do that again.
	My daughter hates jump scares, right?
	So I don't do them.
	I think they could be kind of fun, but she doesn't like them, so I don't do them.
	So your father, when he yelled at you, first of all, he should never have been screaming at you.
	But secondly, when he saw that you were frightened, terrified in fact, which I completely understand and agree with, that it is terrifying.
	I had a screamer for a parent as well, so you and I are in the same boat as far as that goes, so I really do sympathize and understand.
	So when your father is screaming at you, Then you're terrified.
	Then he should have seen that you were terrified, realized that he was insanely overreacting, fallen to his knees, and apologized.
	But he didn't, right?
	Did he ever apologize?
	No.
	Tell me a time, if you can, when your father has admitted fault and apologized.
	He said the story a few times, I think.
	I don't really, like, I don't think he really deeply apologized for fans that I have seen.
	Because he screamed so loud that you got a migraine, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, that is a very strong and completely understandable reaction on your part.
	Now, your mother was witnessing this, right?
	Yes.
	And you said that your mother did not protect you.
	She did nothing.
	And I felt like she was holding me there, so I couldn't.
	I couldn't do that!
	You couldn't what?
	I'm sorry, go ahead.
	Take your time.
	I'd give you a big hug if I could.
	But you couldn't what?
	I couldn't run.
	You couldn't run because you wanted to run because you were terrified because your father was out of control, right?
	Right.
	Right.
	And I'm so sorry, brother.
	I really am.
	I completely understand your terror.
	It feels like someone's taking a flamethrower to your soul when they scream at you like that, so I'm really sorry.
	I really am, and I'd give you a big hug if I could.
	Thank you.
	Right.
	Now, are you ready for a little bit of darkness?
	Yes.
	I've seen a lot of dark things in my life.
	Okay.
	Well, let's do another one then.
	Okay.
	So, it is not that your mother failed to protect you.
	Your mother is responsible in many ways for the whole situation.
	I'll give you an example, right?
	So let's say that your mother brought home a dog that regularly bit her children.
	And even though the dog regularly bit her children, she did not take the dog to get trained, she did not keep it outside, and every now and then, she would poke the dog with a sharp stick and goad it into being very aggressive.
	Now, if you kept getting bitten by a dog that your mother brought in, kept around you, and sometimes goaded into aggression, would you say only that your mother had failed to protect you?
	No.
	What would you say?
	That she enabled it and that she...
	To create a situation.
	She caused you to be bitten.
	Now, if you were walking in the woods and some dog came and bit you out of nowhere, you could say that your mother failed to protect you, but she did not create the situation.
	Does that make sense?
	Sorry, could you repeat it?
	Sure.
	So, if you and your mother, when you were a kid, you're walking through the woods and some dog...
	Just runs through the woods, jumps up and knocks you over and then keeps running.
	Like, kind of comes out of nowhere.
	Well, it's true that your mother had failed to protect you, but she did not create the situation.
	Right.
	But by marrying your father and knowing his anger issues, his rage issues, Keeping you around your father, keeping your father around you,
	not demanding that he take anger management classes or go to therapy or deal with his rage, but taking a guy with severe rage issues and giving him two children is creating the situation where the children are damaged, are attacked.
	And attacked in a worse way, really, than a dog, to some degree, because the dog only bites the body, but this level of rage can harm the soul, if that makes sense.
	Right.
	So your emotions, your father...
	I mean, I know it's hard to remember because it's a while ago, but when your father was screaming at you when you were nine, do you think that he saw the fear or the terror in your eyes?
	I don't think so.
	So that means that he had completely lost track of your feelings as a human being.
	He was completely cold to you because he did not recognize that you were terrified, even though, obviously, he was doing things that would terrify any child, right?
	So he lost track of your emotions.
	So your body said, okay, we're crying, we're terrified.
	He doesn't care.
	So, we will manifest a migraine to see if that stops him from screaming at us.
	And did it?
	No.
	I'm sorry?
	No.
	So, at that point...
	Fear has not helped change your father's behavior.
	Terror has not helped change your father's behavior.
	Pleading, crying, looking to your mother for help.
	A migraine, nothing has changed your father's behavior or stopped him from screaming at you, right?
	Right.
	So your emotions have no purpose and must be discarded.
	They can't help you.
	In fact, the great fear is that your emotions will hurt you.
	Because if you're around cruel people and you show how upset they make you, the great danger is that they just work harder to make you more upset because they get some weird, sick enjoyment out of it.
	Right.
	So your emotions are designed to keep you safe by changing other people's behavior for the better.
	And if your emotions can't change anyone's behavior for the better, they serve no purpose.
	And if your emotions that are supposed to keep you safe actually put you in more danger because cruel people will exploit them to make you feel worse, you have to abandon your feelings.
	You have to suppress and reject your feelings, because not only do they not help you, but they're used against you.
	Right.
	How does this fit your experience?
	It sounds very accurate.
	But, uh...
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	I'm just a little bit confused because my father also showed compassion for my mother when she was upset and helped her and comforted her.
	No, but that's even worse.
	No.
	No, it is.
	That's even worse.
	Do you know why?
	Is it the opposite for me?
	Because he knows how to do it.
	He knows how to comfort people.
	He just won't do it with you.
	All right.
	If you're in Japan with your father and you get injured and you need to speak about your injury to the doctor, and your father says, well, I don't speak Japanese, I can't help you, and then you try and struggle your way through trying to communicate to the doctor, and then later you see your father chatting in Japanese with the doctor, wouldn't you feel incredibly betrayed?
	He knows how to speak Japanese, he just didn't speak it on your behalf.
	Right.
	It is dark.
	Sorry, yeah, it is dark, right?
	So let's go back a moment to when you had the strong emotion, which I hugely respect, and thank you for sharing that with me.
	So your strong emotion was around, I couldn't even get away, right?
	Right.
	Now that is a statement of great despair.
	Right.
	Because one thing you, and I'm not criticizing anything that you're saying, I appreciate your directness and honesty hugely, but The optimistic statement is, I could not get through to him at that time.
	Right.
	But you didn't feel that.
	Or another statement could be, I could not get through to him at all.
	But the statement, I could not get away, means that you had given up trying to connect with your father in any positive way, and in fact your vulnerability was used against you.
	So all you could do was to get away.
	I mean, if you're in the woods and a hungry bear is running at you, I mean, you can't reason with the bear.
	You can't negotiate with the bear.
	You can't find a win-win solution with the bear.
	It's fight or flight, right?
	Now, you couldn't fight your father, so all that was left for you in your despair was to get away.
	And the getting away part is your mother plus your father, as you've correctly pointed out, right?
	Your father is screaming at you, and your mother is doing fuck all to help you.
	In fact, she's engineering the situation in many ways.
	So that is a statement of ultimate despair.
	I cannot connect with these people.
	They cannot connect with me.
	I'm isolated and in danger.
	and the people who are here to protect me are tearing me apart.
	That is a statement of terrifying despair, like I feel it in my gut, the despair of that, that my emotions not only can't help me, but they're that my emotions not only can't help me, but they're being used to hurt me.
	Thank you.
	Right.
	Despair has basically followed me until my 30s.
	Right.
	Right.
	So...
	How did things play out with your parents in your teenage years?
	I tried to avoid them.
	When I had homework at school, I don't know why, but I just didn't do it at home.
	You don't know why?
	What do you mean you don't know why?
	Of course you know why!
	Don't try that with me, my friend!
	Why?
	What do you mean why?
	What was the big conflict with your father?
	Over homework!
	Yeah.
	Well, I was always tired.
	So tired, I just couldn't focus very easily on anything.
	Okay.
	Do you know why you were tired?
	Not really, no.
	Okay.
	Now, I get the water and the blue light and all of that, but tiredness comes usually from hypervigilance.
	It means that you're always nervous, you're always looking over your shoulder, you're always afraid that someone's going to get mad at you or attack you or make fun of you or humiliate you or scream at you and you just feel nervous all the time and that kind of burns out your fight or flight mechanism, your adrenals and like everything.
	Right.
	And if it's any consolation, I was tired a lot as a kid, too, because it's exhausting having predators in the house.
	I mean, imagine how little sleep you get if you know that there's a tiger in the house somewhere.
	Right.
	Can't sleep every little bump.
	You gotta watch out.
	There's a shadow.
	What was that?
	Did I hear something?
	You can't get any rest, right?
	Right.
	And since your teens, how have things gone with your parents?
	After elementary school, my school aptitude test put me in the highest classification of, what do you call it, it were three levels in The middle school that you could go to, and I went to the highest in the first year.
	But I didn't do my homework, and I did do some homework at the late at night, and somehow I was clear-minded when everyone was asleep, when I was supposed to be asleep.
	Well, you know why you were clear-minded, right?
	Everyone was asleep.
	Yeah, the chances of attack were low.
	Right.
	So, I got enough homework done, but not quite enough to stay in the highest level.
	Then I went to the lower level in the next year.
	And my father might have yelled at me again, but I don't remember exactly.
	But anyway, in the second year, it was sort of the same.
	And I went to the lowest of the three levels.
	And in the meantime, we moved to a new city where my father worked.
	And we moved to schools, and there I finished my education by just paying attention in class, finishing my homework just before the teacher was coming to inspect it.
	It's like we're twins.
	Yeah.
	And doing my essays and everything the night before.
	Sure, yeah.
	And that worked and things were like sort of peaceful and I could play my video games to get away from horrible feelings.
	And then they found a school, like a profession school for me to become a laboratory technician.
	And I really enjoyed the That choice, like it suited me.
	And I did basically the same there, but I did still quite well.
	And besides, I could do my homework during breaks, so it was quite pleasant.
	I remember still from middle school in the first year that some children were censoring me and my parents thought that they were bullying me, but they weren't beating me or stealing from me or anything like that.
	It was distracting me very often and making jokes about my farts.
	making jokes about your what?
	Yeah, but that's funny.
	I mean, one of the best things as a kid is when you make another kid laugh so hard, he farts.
	Right.
	I mean, that's joy on Earth, you know, breathing the atmosphere of Venus while a kid is giggling on the ground.
	Silent and violent.
	All right.
	Okay, so you were just giggling with kids about farts, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	My teachers noticed that they were pestering me, and they became convinced that they were bullying me, and then they told my parents, That's why they thought that I was not doing well in the first two years of school.
	It really bothers me because it wasn't the truth.
	This case didn't really bother me.
	It was just annoying.
	Well, and the other thing, too, that often women don't understand that men making fun of each other or boys making fun of each other is a sign of affection.
	Right.
	Alright.
	So, and did you do any dating in high school?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No.
	I noticed a lot of girls, but I never really thought of approaching any girls.
	Right.
	Anyway, during the second year of middle school, my parents kept on telling me that I need to do my homework or you'll be homeless and you'll get nowhere in your life.
	And they said it so often.
	But I just lost all of hope.
	Because I didn't think I could do well in school.
	And that's...
	Thank you.
	I'm sorry.
	No, no.
	Don't apologize for your feelings.
	That's what we're here for.
	This is good.
	This is good.
	I appreciate you having strong feelings.
	You don't need to control your feelings.
	Just take your time.
	There's no rush.
	I mean, other than your battery life, maybe.
	But there's no rush.
	That's when I began to think about suicide.
	Is that because you felt that your future without homework would be homelessness and horror?
	That's right.
	That I have no future.
	This is just sadistic, right?
	I mean, I don't know if you're aware of that.
	It's just sadistic.
	Right.
	I'm not sure if they realized it.
	Well, I could care less what their possible motivations might have been 20 years ago, right?
	Okay.
	I can't know that.
	We just know that terrifying a child with homelessness is very cruel and terrifying, right?
	Right.
	And unnecessary.
	What they should have done is said, why don't you want to do the homework?
	Tell me more.
	And you would have said, what would you have said?
	I don't know.
	I'm sleepy.
	Well, it's all useless, busy work garbage!
	I didn't think of it like that.
	I just...
	I don't know.
	Well, okay, so let's say you said, I'm just tired.
	They would have said, oh, tell me more about being tired.
	Well, I'm not getting much sleep.
	Well, why do you think you're not getting much sleep?
	Let's take you to the doctor.
	Let's get your blood work done.
	And maybe they would have found that you were dehydrated, as you said, with the water.
	Maybe you would have had the blue light thing 20 or 15 years earlier or whatever, right?
	So, lots of options.
	But because they just threatened you with living on the streets rather than try and find out what was wrong with you, that's the despair, right?
	Hey, kid, you seem to be carrying a heavy load.
	Here's five fucking anvils.
	I can see that despair.
	I feel it.
	And the only reason that I didn't try to think of practical ways to take my own life was because I knew that it would hurt my sister and my parents and the teachers and everyone else.
	But then that's also when I decided that I wouldn't care anymore whether I would live or die because, I don't know, it was a burden to worry about it.
	Right.
	And how old were you about at this time?
	12, 13, I guess.
	So, this often coincides with puberty, right?
	So, you start getting the hormones and puberty and so on, and if you're unprepared for adult life, you feel great despair.
	I mean, can you think of anything your parents said when you were a kid that was useful advice you still use to this day?
	No.
	Right.
	So you were unparented?
	Yes.
	You were unparented.
	You were just bullied and controlled.
	But people didn't give you wisdom.
	They didn't give you love, affection, support, curiosity.
	They didn't really seem to enjoy your company.
	They just managed you like you would beat a dog.
	Right.
	And I'm really sorry for that.
	You know, I thought all of this was tragic before I became a father, but man, when you're actually parent, it's such a wonderful and fun and great experience.
	Just this last week, my daughter and I, she was just supposed to do a 40-minute show, but we ended up doing a show that was over two hours, and it was just a blast.
	I mean, she's a lot of fun.
	And we really enjoy each other's company.
	And it's, you know, everybody, when I was younger, everyone was like, oh, peaceful parenting, you wait till the teenage years.
	And it's like, you know, she's almost 16 and things are great.
	So, I'm sorry.
	I mean, I'm really sorry.
	I'm really sorry.
	It's so sad and so unnecessary.
	You know, kids just, they want to please their parents, they want to be loved, they want to be instructed and guided, and they want wisdom, and there's just so much that they're appreciative of that they want that's reasonable and great to give.
	So, I'm really sorry.
	It's just, it's all so sad and all so Tragically unnecessary.
	All of this aggression and bullying and screaming and you're going to be homeless.
	It's psycho, in my view.
	It's completely psycho.
	Nice.
	And did they ever ask you about dating?
	Are there any girls you like?
	Not really.
	Okay.
	So what happened in your 20s then?
	No...
	I find a new feeling of betrayal, just learning about the world and all of the ways in which it is screwed up.
	Like how fragile the economy is now.
	It's all sorts of screwed up.
	Oh, because they're boomers too, so you have the whole generational betrayal of the freedoms of the West stuff, right?
	Well, basically everything.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And that got me basically started into various theories and spiritualism, new age, like almost everything, like every theory imaginable that I could find on the internet.
	And did you ever, not that you should have or shouldn't have, I'm just curious, did you ever try or look into talk therapy?
	I had a therapist that my mother found for me, but I don't know if it was like, We talked about things, and I cried a few times, and my mother came as well, but I don't know if that was like what you mean.
	Well, I mean, usually if it's a dysfunctional parent, the therapist the parent chooses is not good.
	Right.
	I've always been confused about my therapist because I didn't seem to get anywhere.
	Well, did the therapist ever give you any practical courses of action or did they just listen and make notes and murmur?
	Mostly the seconds.
	They were suggesting recipes to make for notes.
	Freaking by myself or to find maybe a girlfriend.
	I'm sorry, what?
	I'm sorry, Becca.
	Whoa, hold on.
	Recipes?
	I mean, this is a therapist, not a nutritionist.
	What do you mean recipes?
	I had the same therapist for a long time.
	That was later.
	And the therapist said, you know, try this recipe?
	Uh, eventually, like, in...
	It's just a random idea to try to get some kind of sense of normalcy, I guess, or some sort of routine.
	All right.
	Okay, well, it's not my field, so I will withhold judgment for now.
	So, in your 20s, I guess you went to college or university, and then you started working.
	Did you end up in the lab tech thing?
	No, I never worked as a lab tech for money.
	I did an internship at the same time that I discovered that the world was all sort of screwed up.
	But I wanted to basically stop and get up because I had some governance benefits by then.
	That I could live off of, and my father found a house for me in the park of the city, and there I lived for the next eight years or so.
	So you lived for eight years in a park, in a house, in a park on government benefits?
	For five years, approximately.
	I'm sorry, I thought you just said eight years.
	Was it five years?
	I'm not exactly sure.
	I can look it up, but somewhere between five to nine years.
	Okay.
	And what did you do with your time?
	I played video games, mostly.
	Okay.
	And, uh, no, and, uh, study like, uh, new age philosophies, conspiracy theories, uh, How did you square the economy being screwed up with taking money from taxpayers?
	Cheers.
	Thank you.
	I did.
	I tried to not think about it.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, you're a problem, though, right?
	I mean, to some degree.
	I sympathize with your childhood, but, you know, living on government benefits...
	I know.
	And I felt bad about it.
	And was this disability because of mental health issues?
	Just the sleepiness.
	Generally in good health.
	No, but sorry, how do you get government benefits for being sleepy?
	From autism diagnosis.
	Oh, from the autism diagnosis.
	Okay, got it, got it.
	Okay.
	Alright.
	And so then, at some point, you said you sleep improved because you drank water and you got a blue light filter.
	and did you give up some screen time or did you play less video games or towards the beginning of my 30s i moved back in with my parents Yes.
	in one of the rooms and they found me a work counselor and the work counselor convinced me to take some volunteer jobs maybe to go to school and eventually another work counselor suggested that I should learn to program And for that, she suggested that I go to a coding bootcamp.
	And that's where I learned to program for three months.
	But because I didn't have a high enough degree from school, I couldn't find a job in it right away.
	So I learned by myself with some hobby projects for the year.
	And finally, one of my online Catholic friends suggested that I had enough skills to look for the job.
	So then I went looking for the job and I found it.
	And in your 20s, did your parents help you much with life at all?
	Not really.
	They visited a few times.
	Oh, they only visited a few times?
	Well, yes.
	I was always being distant with them and not wanting to see them.
	I never took initiative.
	Even though I'm a therapist and my friends told me, like, you need to be more social and all of that bullshit.
	And what about your sister?
	Were you close with her at all?
	No.
	But I learned some things about what happened to her, not precise things, but that really upset me.
	Like, I learned that she was bullied in school, and at some point in my twenties, I think, or in my early 20s.
	She was trying to sleep, but she couldn't sleep because of nightmares or something.
	So she went to my room and took her mattress to my room.
	And while she was doing that, I saw scars on her arms.
	Oh gosh.
	She was self-cutting.
	Well...
	Not at that point.
	But I saw the scars.
	Well, what were the scars from?
	I'm not exactly sure.
	I think she was bullied for being overweight.
	But I don't know exactly the chronological events, but I think she was also groomed, taken by some guy, somewhere, for unspeakable things.
	So she was sexually abused, do you think?
	I think so.
	I never asked.
	Why have you not asked?
	I don't want to traumatize my sister, and I don't trust my parents.
	Do you think that your sister dealing with this in isolation is less traumatizing?
	No.
	Not that you mention it now.
	I mean, obesity plus self-harm, I mean, does not usually spell good things in the realm of sexual boundaries for children.
	Right.
	And are you close with her at all now?
	Yeah, I'm closer to my parents.
	I mean, she used to listen to Five Girls music and that frustrated me because I couldn't sleep, but that was superficial.
	Well, she couldn't sleep, and she was just transmitting that, I guess.
	I guess.
	Okay, so where did you meet your wife?
	On the website for Catholic Dating.
	Okay.
	And she knew about your autism diagnosis pretty early in the dating?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And she was fine with that, right?
	She fell in love with me very, very fast.
	And what do you think she fell in love with?
	I'm not saying that there isn't things to fall in love with you for.
	I'm just curious what you thought she was most attracted to.
	Well, I've read a lot of theories about the Second World War, and alternative theories about the horrible things that happened.
	Because I just, all my life, I just want always to be honest with everyone.
	So I also talked about my alternative theories with my wife.
	She thought it was very, like, it was crazy, but it couldn't be made up.
	So she admired your independence of thought?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And what did you fall in love with, do you think?
	I didn't fall in love right away.
	It's sort of similar with my son.
	I don't feel strongly with her when I'm with her.
	Several times a month or a year, like when I'm praying over the crib of my son, I feel grateful for my son and my wife.
	And sometimes it makes me cry because of how wonderful my life is turning out to be.
	But in general, I'm still emotionally sort of flat.
	I've learned a lot of social things that you do.
	And I know that she really likes touch, so I make sure that I give her a lot of hugs and everything else.
	I really care about her and I try to make sure that everything is good and awesome.
	And what is your relationship with your parents at the moment?
	They visit us a few times a year later.
	And right now we have a summer house in one country.
	Not summer house, but a property house.
	And right now we live with her mother-in-law in another country.
	Sorry, you live with her mother-in-law or her mother?
	Her mother.
	Okay, yeah, because her mother-in-law would be your mother.
	Okay, so you have a summer house and you live with your wife's parents?
	Yes.
	And how do you get along with your wife's parents?
	The father died.
	That's why we moved here, because then my wife's mother and grandmother were alone here, and they're sickly and weak, and they basically need help.
	Okay, that hasn't answered my question.
	I appreciate the information, but how do you get along with your wife's mother and grandmother?
	Right, so...
	I got very well along with the grandmother.
	She's very pleasant and biased and I think generally wonderful.
	The mother, well, I can't really talk a lot with her because we speak different languages.
	Okay, how does your wife get along with her mother?
	Most of the time, somewhat nicely, that every now and then she will trigger my wife in some way.
	I think my mother-in-law seems similar to my mother.
	Oh no.
	Oh dear.
	How so?
	I asked my wife, did she ever say that she loves you?
	And my wife said, like, never.
	Okay, well this is why you can't connect with your son.
	Right.
	You can't connect.
	I mean, I know we don't have a huge amount of time, and so I'll be fairly brusque, and obviously you're a very smart guy.
	So you can't connect with your son because you're living with someone who's like your mother.
	So she's blocking your connection to your son.
	Possibly.
	But I felt still like this before we moved in here.
	My son was born before we lived with her.
	Okay.
	How long have you been listening to what I do?
	One month.
	One month.
	Okay, so you're new.
	Okay.
	So, as you know, I think one of the first virtues is honesty, and it sounds to me like you've been lying by omission to your parents.
	You say you want to tell everyone the truth, but I'm not sure.
	Maybe you have.
	But if you had a conversation with your parents about the issues you had with them when you were younger.
	Right.
	I've been thinking about talking to them ever since I started listening to you, but my parents live far away, and I want to talk to them in person because it doesn't...
	Okay, but this is an emergency.
	Bro, bro, this is an emergency.
	You're not connecting with your newborn son.
	This is not something you delay.
	Okay.
	This is critical for your son.
	I know.
	So, what, is it inconvenient?
	How far away, if you had to get to your parents, how long would it take?
	Uh, 16 hours by car.
	Okay, what about by plane?
	Uh...
	Eight hours?
	Eight hour flight!
	Holy crap!
	In total, like leaving the house and arriving...
	Oh, okay, okay, sorry.
	I was like, how slow are the planes in your place that they only go twice as fast as cars?
	Okay, got it.
	I'm no engineer, but...
	Okay, so you could, by tomorrow, you could be sitting with your parents talking to them about the issues you had with them when you were younger, right?
	Right.
	Now, I don't know whether you should or shouldn't, but you need to be aware, if you don't, you're lying to them by omission.
	You're pretending to have a relationship while not talking to them about the things that you're really thinking of.
	Right.
	And that's becoming a lot more clear over the stretch of this conversation.
	Well, and you're accepting that suppression of emotion is essential for a relationship, a primary relationship like you and your parents.
	You're saying, well, in a primary relationship, I can't be honest, I can't connect, I can't have emotions.
	With your parents, right?
	Right.
	And then that's exactly how you're with your son.
	I can't connect, I can't have emotions.
	Right.
	Bearing false witness has its price.
	I shouldn't need to tell this to a Catholic, should I? No.
	You're bearing false witness with your parents because you're not telling them what you're thinking and feeling about how they raised you.
	Right.
	I see that now.
	So if you won't connect with your parents and you won't be honest with your parents, that's the block between you and your son, which I assume is further distance is created because your mother-in-law is like your mother.
	Right.
	I'm trying to convince my wife to move back to the other house to find a way because of it, because she's constantly frustrating my wife.
	And, sorry, what do you mean you're trying to, is your wife Catholic?
	Yes, that was very important to me.
	Okay, so, sorry, I'm a little confused and I apologize for not knowing Catholicism perhaps as well as I should, but why would you need to convince your wife when you're the head of the household?
	Because I cannot talk to her.
	No, no, no, you're the head of the household.
	Yes.
	You are to your wife as God is to you.
	Unless I misunderstand something about Catholicism, aren't you the head of the household?
	Yes.
	So, if she's a good Catholic, and you say, it is not good for our family for us to be around your dysfunctional mother...
	And my job is to protect the family, to provide and protect for the family, so we have to move.
	And she can, of course, make her case, but isn't the final decision yours in the Catholic view of the family?
	Yes.
	Okay, so that's...
	That's solved then.
	You say, no, I'm sorry, I've heard your arguments, but this is not healthy for us, and it's not healthy for our son, because we need to be as emotionally available as possible for our son, and if your mother and grandmother or whoever is interfering with our connection with our son,
	and if your mother is interfering with your connection to me as your husband, in other words, if your mother is frustrating our relationship, if she's disrupting our relationship, I mean, didn't you all make vows to hold no others before you?
	Yes.
	That you are one flesh and nobody else's higher priority?
	So if her mother is interfering with your marriage, and in particular with your parenting, well, that's the decision is made, right?
	Yes.
	So, I'm sorry, this may be time to just assert some good old patriarchal authority in the Catholic sphere, right?
	I mean, women are fantastic at a lot of things, but detecting threats is usually not one of them.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I don't know why you would need to convince her.
	I'm sorry, say again?
	Like, my wife usually lives here the first time, but I think I'll...
	Well, I'm so sorry, but sorry, you got married on the assumption that you were going to be the head of the family, right?
	I thought so, too.
	Well, no, no, no, that's not a think-so, that is.
	Like, let me ask you this, are you allowed to convert to Buddhism and raise your children as Buddhists?
	No.
	No, that would be breaking the covenant, right?
	Are you allowed to say, you know what, I'm opening up the marriage, and we're going to have lots of hot, steamy sex with Aborigines from Australia?
	Right.
	Right?
	That's not part of the...
	You're not allowed to do that, because you've made these vows, right?
	Right.
	Okay, so...
	vows, and these vows are very serious.
	That's what marriage is, is just a massive series of promises.
	Yes.
	And so, is it best for your son if your mother is around her mother?
	I'm not sure.
	I mean, They don't even speak the same language.
	Yes, but you were saying that your mother-in-law, like your wife's mother, triggers and upsets her on a fairly regular basis.
	Did I get that right?
	A few times a month.
	Okay.
	And how often is your wife upset and tense because of her mother in your relationship with her, in your husband and wife relationship?
	I think she's more stressed, sort of constantly.
	But my wife says that she was also stressed in the other house because of language problems and problems with the taxes.
	Sorry, you said problems with taxes and something else.
	I didn't catch that.
	I'm trying to figure out the tax systems in the other country.
	Okay.
	I think that taxes are usually less stressful than upsetting parents, right?
	Because the taxes, you can hire accountants, you can just deal with it one way or another, right?
	You can figure it out.
	And then you've solved it, right?
	Right.
	Last year, it was very stressful for her just to worry about the taxes.
	And I wasn't able to talk her out of the world, worrying about the taxes, and it was very stressful for her.
	Okay, so if she's susceptible to stress, then being around a mother who's sometimes difficult might not be super helpful.
	Now, in the household with your wife and her mother and her grandmother, are you considered to be, are they Catholics as well, are you considered to be the head of the household?
	I'm not sure.
	My grandmother died this year.
	Uh-huh.
	I'm not sure how much I should say because my wife asked me not to talk a lot.
	No, no, that's all right.
	Don't talk about anything you're not comfortable with.
	That's totally fine.
	Okay.
	So, I would say that...
	I think you need to be honest with your parents.
	Yes.
	And you can say, well, but I don't see them very often, but that doesn't hugely matter.
	The effects of childhood are not what we suffered, but the principles we accept.
	So let's say that my mother always told me, oh, you're a loser, you'll never amount to anything.
	Okay, that hurts when I'm a kid, but it doesn't affect me that much unless I continue to believe it as an adult.
	Does that make sense?
	Could you repeat the last part?
	Sure.
	So, let's say that my mother told me when I was a kid, you're a loser, you'll never amount to anything, you'll never be anything, right?
	Now, that hurts me when I'm a child, but it only really affects my adult life if I continue to believe it.
	In other words, I wake up every morning and I say, oh, I'm a loser.
	I'm never going to achieve anything.
	I'm never going to amount to anything, right?
	Then that has an effect.
	In other words, it's not that my mother said it as a kid that is the problem as an adult.
	It is the principle that I still believe her.
	Does that make sense?
	Right.
	Yes.
	So, child abuse lasts in the principles we accept.
	Now, you have a principle or a set of principles with your parents.
	People don't have to be good.
	They don't have to be virtuous.
	They don't have to be good parents.
	They don't have to be nice to me.
	They can have yelled at me and put me down and abused me and terrified me and bullied me and told me I'll be homeless and, you know, manipulated me.
	And it's fine.
	It's fine.
	It's okay.
	I won't be honest about it.
	I'll lie about it.
	I'll pretend things aren't what they are, and I'll just bullshit my way through the relationship.
	Like, that's your principle, right?
	I think.
	I don't have to tell the truth.
	I accept that a primary relationship can be false and empty.
	Right.
	Okay, so that's a principle, but that principle doesn't just, all principles by definition don't just apply to your parents, they apply to all of your primary relationships.
	So, you have a tough time really connecting with your wife, because you can't connect with your parents.
	You have a tough time connecting with your son, because you can't connect to your parents.
	And you haven't told your parents the truth about your experience and your The results in your heart and in your mind of your life being raised by them.
	They neglected you as a child.
	They terrified you.
	They failed to protect you.
	They attacked people, the boys who were just making fun of you for farting.
	They basically abandoned you in this house in the park for somewhere between five and eight years.
	They did not ask you about dating.
	They did not help you, right?
	I mean, when did you get the autism diagnosis?
	Um...
	15, I guess.
	Okay.
	So, with the autism diagnosis, did you get...
	A series of things that needed to be done in order to help you with connecting with emotions, connecting with other people, learning how to socialize better.
	I mean, I can't imagine the autism diagnosis was get him on government welfare and then toss him in a house in a park on his own for five to eight years.
	Like, that's not how you're supposed to help, is it?
	So what were they supposed to do?
	I mean, I actually, I have a friend of mine is dealing with this, and the amount of work that he's put in has been amazing, right?
	So when it comes to autism, when you were diagnosed, I'm sure that there were approaches or treatments or things that could be done that would help, right?
	and did your parents pursue those?
	They found me the therapist.
	Okay.
	And that's it, I think.
	Okay.
	And did they track the progress of the therapist, and did they find out that the therapist was actually helping?
	Not really.
	Okay.
	And do you think that the therapist did help?
	Maybe.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, I guess it's tough to know.
	There's no null hypothesis, right?
	There's no other you without the therapist.
	But it seems like if you have, and I'm obviously no expert in this, but it seems like if you have a kid who's diagnosed with autism and there are treatments, you don't just toss it over to the therapist and then just ignore it for the next 15 years, right?
	I think you're supposed to You know, hey, how's it working?
	How's it going?
	How are we tracking the progress?
	Is it working for you?
	Is there anything else we can do?
	And I don't know that it worked that well if you ended up living alone on government welfare playing video games for five to eight years, right?
	Yeah.
	I've played video games basically my whole life, but...
	Well, but it didn't help.
	I think whatever they were doing, it didn't get you into the workforce until you started to change on your own, right?
	It seems to me like you made the decisions that got you out of that spiral of doing nothing really in your 20s, right?
	Right.
	I mean, you made the decisions to experiment with Hydration and blue screens and getting better sleep and all these others, this came out of you, right?
	Yes.
	Okay, so you'd been in treatment for almost 15 years and then you're the one who had to finally find a cure for the tiredness and that's my understanding, is that correct?
	Yes, that's correct.
	Okay, so it didn't come from the therapist, it didn't come from your parents, it came from your own research and experimentation, right?
	Right.
	So, I think that the challenge to getting closer to your son is to, I hope this word makes sense, to denormalize your, quote, relationship with your parents.
	See, in general, you can't be closer to people than your least close relationship.
	Right.
	And if you have a, quote, relationship with your parents where you don't really talk to them about anything, you're not honest with them, and they just kind of float around and you deal with them occasionally, and yet that's a primary relationship, well, you're still treating them like you are still a child.
	Does that make sense?
	As a child, that's what you had to do.
	As an adult, you can tell the truth.
	So when I was a kid, I had to appease my mother and lie about it and falsify my whole experience with her.
	I had to do that because she was in power, she was in control, and I had no freedom or choices.
	Does that make sense?
	Right.
	So one of the ways that I became a man was to stop treating myself.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Because I couldn't do that as a kid, but guess what?
	I wasn't a kid anymore.
	And so, if you're still treating your parents like you're a helpless, dependent child, it's going to be pretty tough to connect with your own son.
	Because you're not yet a father, in a way.
	Because you can't be both a father and a child.
	You can't behave with your parents as if you're a helpless child and then be the head of your family and a father to your son.
	Right.
	And it does, I don't know if it has to be face-to-face.
	I don't know.
	I mean, what do I, I don't know.
	I mean, I guess it's preferable, but if for some reason that's really difficult, you can just do a video call and say, oh, well, they might hang up on me.
	It's like, okay.
	So let's say you're honest with your parents.
	I mean, are they Catholics too?
	No, they were always specular agnostic something.
	Okay.
	Agnostic something.
	Yeah, that's a good, accurate description.
	Agnostic something.
	Now, did they tell you as a child that it's important to tell the truth?
	Did they value honesty?
	That's one issue I especially had with my mother.
	Because she would tell me about white lies.
	Okay, I understand why, but about important things, did they expect honesty?
	Yes.
	Okay, so they have a value called, it's important to be honest, and it's good to be honest about important things.
	Is that fair?
	Right.
	Okay, so you're going to be honest, you're going to follow their advice, and you're going to be honest with them about important things.
	Now, if they get really mad at you for following the moral advice that they gave you, be honest about important things, if they then get mad at you, then they're just rank hypocrites.
	And if you say, listen, I've really been thinking about your advice, you know, you told me a lot about being honest and you said it's really important to be honest about important things.
	Well, I've got some issues with you guys as parents and I'm upset about some stuff and I think it's actually interfering with my marriage and I think it's interfering with my ability to bond with my son, so I really need to talk to you about the issues that I have with you guys as parents.
	I need to be honest.
	I want to honor my mother and my father By not bearing false witness, right?
	We dishonor people by lying to them.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yes.
	We dishonor the truth.
	We dishonor our obligation to God and conscience and virtue and the commandments.
	So when they say, honor thy mother and thy father, to me, that also means don't lie to them.
	Because lying is controlling and manipulative.
	And honoring people is to tell them the truth.
	I mean, if someone has gained weight, to take a silly example, if somebody has gained 50 pounds and they say, do you think I've gained weight?
	It's not honorable to lie to them.
	No, you look even skinnier.
	You look great.
	You know, that's dishonorable.
	That's bending reality and it's not helping them.
	We honor people by telling them the truth.
	Yes, I think you've gained weight.
	Why don't you get on the scale and we'll have a look, right?
	So, if you go to your parents and you are honest with them about important issues, which is what they told you to do and said was the good and the right and the decent and the honorable when you were a kid, well, if they say to you when you're a kid, tell the truth about important things, and then they get mad at you and hang up and yell at you, When you tell them the truth and follow their morals about important things as an adult, then they're just hypocrites, and that means that they never had any morals.
	They're just bullied with pretend moral statements.
	Now, of course, the fear is, of course, the fear, and I understand this fear, the fear is, well, if I talk to my father honestly about the issues I had with him as a father, what's your biggest fear?
	That he will scream again.
	Right.
	But you see, if you're still terrified of being screamed at, you're still acting as a child.
	You're still living the life of a child.
	If you still do what children do, You can't feel like a full adult.
	And listen, I say this with all humility.
	I mean, I still go through this from time to time, feel like a child, so I'm not saying this from any standard of perfection or anything like that.
	I still wrestle with this as I think most people do.
	But if you still have to lie to your father because you're frightened he's going to get mad at you, then you are still living with the mindset of a frightened and paralyzed and trapped child.
	Right.
	It's a great price to be paid for that, I think.
	And I think that your son is paying the price that's biggest.
	I know.
	But you're an adult now.
	Let's say that your father screams at you, right?
	I mean, it's scary and it's upsetting.
	I get that.
	But you can just hang up and you can go and hug your wife and talk about it and you're free and you're not under their control.
	I mean, this is facing...
	The devil, it's facing the demon.
	It is your 40 days in the desert.
	It's your great temptation.
	The great temptation is to lie.
	Always.
	That's the devil.
	The father of lies, right?
	The great temptation is to lie.
	And I have it, and I succumb to it, and you have it, and you succumb to it, so I say this brother to brother, we're in the same battle against darkness, and the darkness is falsehood.
	The darkness is lying through our asses because it's easier, and we're scared to tell the truth.
	I get that, and I sympathize with that.
	I wrestle with that myself.
	But there's a price to be paid for falsehood.
	Right.
	And the wages of sin are death.
	And if the sin is lying to your parents, the wages of sin is the death of your connection to your son, I think.
	I see that.
	Yeah.
	And I'm making, like, right now, just planning how to confront my father and my mother.
	Well, you might not want to use the word confront.
	You're just telling the truth.
	It's not a big battle.
	It's not a big fight.
	No, you're just saying, hey, I've got some issues, you know.
	You guys kind of ignored me.
	I have very few positive memories.
	You didn't hug me.
	You didn't seem to take much pleasure in my company.
	We didn't play together very much.
	I can't remember any good advice you gave me.
	And, Dad, you screamed at me.
	Till your face was purple and I got a migraine.
	Like, that's weird.
	And then you told me that if I got to study or I'm going to end up homeless.
	And then the funny thing is, you said, oh my God, you've got to study or you'll end up homeless.
	And the funny thing is, then you abandoned me to live on government welfare for five to eight years.
	I didn't end up homeless.
	So you lied to me.
	I wasn't going to end up homeless because I just ended up on government welfare.
	Well, we didn't know you were going to get diagnosed.
	Anyway, so you've got some issues, right?
	And those are fair and reasonable issues.
	And all parents need to listen to their children because no parents are perfect and children have a right to be upset.
	Of course they do.
	To demand that your children never criticize you is an act of absolutely sinful pride and vanity.
	It's saying, well, I as a parent was absolutely perfect and my children can have no complaints.
	But that's an unbelievably arrogant and prideful sin.
	We must approach our parenting with humility that we make mistakes.
	And that even if we don't make mistakes, let's say that I've been a perfect parent, well, that makes my daughter's life difficult as well.
	Because then she has to go out into the world of imperfect people and she's going to have complaints about that, which I... So even if I'm perfect, which I'm not, but even if I was perfect, she would have complaints that I would need to listen to, right?
	Right.
	So all parents should listen to their children's complaints because we're human and we make mistakes and we're mortal and we're sinners and we fall down before our highest ideals on a regular basis.
	And the way that we pick each other up is by listening and accepting that we are imperfect and working to do better and all of the great project of humanity that's been going on ever since we shed our fur coat and decided to walk upright.
	So, you're just being honest with your parents and you're being real to them and you're breaking the cycle of childhood.
	As a child, you could not be honest.
	It was too dangerous.
	But now you're an adult.
	The way that your unconscious recognizes that you're a full adult is you stop behaving in childish ways.
	You stop behaving as a child and then your unconscious says, oh crap, we're all the way grown.
	And that's a powerful thing.
	Right.
	Everything seems so much clearer now.
	And just one last thing, and I'm sorry to be yapping on.
	This is my daughter's new favorite word, yapping, and I actually quite agree with it in some ways.
	The last thing I wanted to say is that philosophy is not about taking orders, right?
	So I'm not saying, go have tomorrow this conversation with your parents.
	If you want to, that's fine.
	If you choose not to, it's important to just know the reasons why.
	So if you say, if you were to say to yourself, listen, I've gone over this in my mind, I've talked about it with my wife, this conversation is not going to go well.
	Like, there's just no way it's going to go well.
	Then the whole point is to get closure.
	Closure just means certainty, right?
	I have closure in my relationship with my wife because I love her and she's great and, you know, we've been together 22 years and we're amazingly happy and so I have closure.
	I don't sit there and wonder if it's going to work out.
	Closure is just certainty.
	So if you decide not to expose yourself to your parents' Blowback for being honest with them.
	That's fine, too.
	Philosophy doesn't order you to go and have a conversation with your parents.
	But it does say it's important to be honest about your relationship with your parents.
	Now, if you have some doubt and you say, well, maybe things could improve or maybe they'll listen, then I think it's a good idea to have a conversation with them.
	If, you know, after I had a couple of conversations with my mother, I stopped having those conversations because I'd gotten closure, right?
	But some people would get that closure without even having those conversations and say, well, no, I really don't think there's any way they'll ever accept the truth.
	So I don't want you to feel like somebody's programming you to go have this conversation, because philosophy is all about choice, and...
	Knowledge can be obtained through mental rehearsal rather than through the actual act of talking.
	So if you want to talk, you think it's going to be helpful, I think it's a good idea.
	If it's dangerous or too upsetting or too triggering, that's also then you don't have to have the conversation, but that is If you have the conversation and it works out, great, things can improve.
	If you have the conversation and they blow up and bully and hang up and pull all the same tricks they pulled when you were nine, that gives you some clarity.
	And if you decide not to have the conversation because you don't believe that there'll be anything positive that can come out of it, that also gives you some clarity.
	I'm just trying to get you to clarity, not to prescribe a particular course of action, if that makes sense.
	Yes, I've heard you say it every call-in show.
	Right, but it's always different when it's you, right?
	So I just want to make sure that you get that as well.
	It always hurts.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, again, I know we've got some slightly limited time.
	Is there anything else that you want to mention?
	I think I have 30 minutes.
	Well, I remember you said that you had two hours on your phone battery, because I remember we were talking about Well, it went down two thirds from where it started.
	Okay, well then, if you've got another little bit of time, I'm certainly happy to hear if there's anything else that I could add to this.
	I don't really know.
	I'm going blank.
	Well, that's fine.
	And how has the conversation been for you as a whole?
	You sound worlds different from when we started, which is, I think, good.
	But how has the conversation been for you as a whole?
	Very clarifying.
	It's sort of like I sort of can't believe I didn't see it myself.
	of Thank you.
	Well, that's why we have, you know, we all have to watch each other's back.
	There's a reason we have eyes in the front of our heads and not in our back, is because we're tribal animals and we have to watch each other's back.
	Obviously, there are two things.
	If you don't have anything, I'll just close off with two things.
	The first is, I'm really, really sorry about the coldness and the hostility that you experienced as a child.
	That's really, really sad.
	I'm sorry about what might have happened to your sister, and it might be worth having a conversation with your sister about what might have happened to her, because that's a heavy burden to carry alone.
	The coldness and the hostility And the lack of love.
	I mean, it's really sad.
	And, you know, when your heart opens up to your son, which I'm sure it will, but when your heart opens fully up to your son, you will grieve what was missing for you.
	And part of avoiding your own son is avoiding your own grief.
	Because when your heart opens up to your son fully, you will recognize, down to the last atomic detail, how much was missing from your own childhood.
	Right.
	And it's really tragic because being an open-hearted, connected, close parent is so much fun and so enjoyable and so great.
	Everybody loses when the parents are cold.
	They don't win at your expense.
	You know, it feels like that way.
	Well, they're winning.
	They get their way.
	Everybody loses.
	It's just such an unutterably sorrowful and tragic state for everyone to be losing out.
	They didn't get the fun of enjoying parenting.
	You didn't get the fun of having parents who loved your company and Everybody lost out and it was just a huge net loss to the entire universe.
	Like everyone gave up their soul not for some great victory or fame or beauty or money or talent or riches.
	They just gave up their souls for nothing.
	For nothing.
	And it's the saddest thing is realizing that the end result of making a deal with the devil is just a little handful of ash and bullshit.
	That's all it is.
	And this is what Dostoevsky says, like, the great tragedy is you sold your soul for nothing.
	They're not successful parents.
	Their children are facing struggles.
	They're not happy people.
	They don't have a life of richness and connection and closeness.
	They're just petty bullies and fear-mongers and so on.
	So when your heart really opens up to your wife, and in particular to your son, oh man, just realizing how absolutely sorrowful and tragic your own childhood was, It's just awful.
	I mean, how much my mother and my father gave up on by not being good parents is just really sad.
	I mean, they ended their lives in great tragedy and loss that could never be recovered, and it was also pointless and also useless.
	And so, in a way, you're trying to keep your own sorrow at bay by not connecting with your son, because when you get that connection with your son, it just takes your breath away.
	And you realize just how starved you were when you finally get the great buffet of love.
	I mean, that's God's promise to humanity, is that the recompense for death and sin is love, virtue, and connection, right?
	That's the deal, right?
	We have the tendency to sin, and we do sin.
	We get old, we decay, we die.
	But the great bounty, the great prize, the winning lottery ticket in the universe is a heart full of love and virtue.
	That's the price.
	That's the gift that makes the price worth it.
	That's the benefit that makes the cost all worth it.
	And for people to not get the benefit of love and virtue and instead to just bully and be cold and distant and manipulative, it really is, to me, as incomprehensible as a starving man walking away from a buffet.
	In order to die alone in a desert.
	It's incomprehensible to me why people don't do it, other than, you know, your parents maybe were hiding from their own sorrow by not connecting with you, and maybe you're hiding from your sorrow by not connecting with your son, but I really wanted to say just how sorry I am for the cold,
	angry desert of hearts made of sand that surrounded you as a child, and you deserved infinitely better We all deserve infinitely better and your son, obviously, I think not only deserves but will get infinitely better and I just really wanted to express A, my deep sorrow for what you went through as a child and B, my deep appreciation for the passion you've shown in this call.
	Like I felt the feelings, I felt the And that to me says, well, your heart is beating like a lion in there.
	And there is great passion and there is great connection in you.
	And I admire you enormously for all of that, because what you went through as a child was very Chilling and cold and cruel in many ways.
	The fact that you've retained that capacity for connection and passion, which you've shown many times in this call, is incredibly admirable.
	I can't tell you how much I respect your heart for being still so powerful and so passionate, despite everything it's gone through.
	Thank you so much.
	Will you keep me posted about how things are going?
	Yes.
	All right.
	Big hug to you.
	Give your son a kiss on the forehead for me.
	I'm sorry.
	Go ahead.
	In Skype is good.
	That way I can remember the convo and what was going on.
	So I would appreciate that.
	All right, brother.
	Have yourself a great evening.
	Thank you so much for staying up so late.
	And I hope to hear from you soon.
	Thank you.
	Take care.

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