Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Life in a GROUP HOME! CALL IN SHOW

Dec. 1, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:38:58

Life in a GROUP HOME! CALL IN SHOW

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	I'm all ears if you want to lay out the topic.
	The topic is: I owe you a huge apology.
	I was on your show once a few weeks back on a Sunday, and I was out having fun with some drinks with some friends.
	I came on your show plastered.
	Well, I appreciate that.
	I appreciate that.
	Is that the only topic?
	Because you booked a lengthy chunk of time here, so I appreciate that.
	But what else are we going to talk about?
	Oh, I owe you two hours, do I?
	I'll give you two hours if that's what it takes.
	Oh, yeah, I didn't get to any of the topics I actually wanted to talk about.
	Like on my computer at home, I had like a document outlining the things I wanted to talk about on customer relationships as a freelancer and what's worked and what's not.
	And I didn't get to any of that because I was drunker than I've been in a very long time.
	Okay, I'm very sorry.
	No problem.
	No problem.
	So we'll survive.
	And how can I help you now?
	Well, let me see.
	I think I still have the document.
	I found it.
	Yes.
	So I really should have excused myself.
	So okay, I'm going to apologize.
	So I'm a self-employed and freelance writer.
	And of all things, I specialize in writing fan fiction, which kind of just fell out of the sky and isn't anywhere in the same hemisphere as where I saw myself being in life.
	Now, I have a few problems, though.
	I've long since plateaued financially.
	And I think it's because I'm too passive in pursuing the business side of the art.
	And you, on the other hand, have gone after it.
	You've gone after what you wanted and aggressive.
	You've been aggressive about it.
	You've pursued your goals.
	You're a former businessman in tech, right?
	Yeah.
	I know you tried a lot of things and failed at a lot of things more than I have.
	You've got like 30 years on me, I think.
	So I've been sitting around and waiting for opportunity to fall out of the sky, and now I want to kind of attack it.
	Now, there's a few things on this in this topic generally I wanted to talk about, but so far makes sense.
	Yeah, I mean, I'd like to know how you got into fan fiction and your general history as a whole.
	So yeah, let me know.
	Oh, I got into it by first reading it.
	Like in high school, like I was in group homes.
	I don't want to get too much into talking about group homes today.
	I want to do a paid interview later to do that because there's a lot of stuff that I think we would rather talk about in private first.
	Okay, that's all right.
	Yeah, it's totally up to you.
	But, well, what do you know about group homes?
	Well, I sort of divide them into two categories in my mind.
	One is where a kid has been sent because there's no particular immediate possibility of adoption.
	And the other is where kids have been sent because they have done something illegal, but they're too young for jail.
	I'm sure that's far from the complete picture, but that's my sort of understanding of it.
	Well, I was actually expecting you to tell me what you think a group home is because a lot of people don't.
	Oh, it's right where kids are sent when they don't have a particular home to go to, but they obviously can't be turfed into the streets.
	If they've done wrong, they're too young to jail, too young for jail.
	So they go to a group home in the absence of anyone else to take them home.
	Is that somewhat accurate?
	Kind of too vague in general, honestly.
	So what a group home is, is it's kind of like a school campus that's also halfway between a prison with a bit of foster care workers, social workers, education majors, people who weren't bright enough to get into public schools, which is a scary thought.
	And they're the ones taking care of these kids and they're just not qualified for it.
	So it's essentially a prison for kids, usually who did nothing wrong because their parents can't take them or have been deemed by the state to not be suitable parents.
	And the rest of the family isn't stepping up.
	So that's the situation I was in.
	And so in high school, I was essentially in a prison.
	I couldn't go out to many places.
	So a lot of what I did was I just read.
	I'm sorry, but how did you appreciate the additional information?
	But how is it that you ended up in a group home?
	What happened as a whole?
	Well, I was the child of a single mother.
	I had a lot of issues, including some things I don't want to talk about today.
	So I was a troubled child, and naturally the schools noticed.
	And instead of identifying what was actually wrong with me, they just said, hey, let's give him meth.
	Let's give him all these other drugs.
	And that's what methylphenidate is.
	You mean the psychotropics?
	Ritalin.
	Rital methylphenidate.
	Methylphenidate and other drugs that were essentially amphetamines.
	And they did not help me.
	In fact, I spent a lot of my childhood hallucinating.
	Like one drug they gave me, I don't remember what it was called.
	They only gave it to me once, and I had a very good time playing with the snakes that my shoelaces turned into.
	Wow.
	I'm sorry about that.
	And what were what were the, again, you don't have to talk about anything you're uncomfortable with, but in general, what were the behavioral issues that the school noticed?
	There were two in general.
	One was that I fought back when bullies picked fights with me, which is a no-no.
	Quiet kids fighting back.
	No.
	And there's always bullies, plural, always.
	The other thing was, well, I think I don't know if I had it then.
	I know I have it now.
	I do have narcolepsy, which is, in their defense, easily confused for ADHD because I'm just falling asleep and not paying attention in class because I'm sleep deprived.
	I'm sorry, I'm certainly no expert on narcolepsy, but narcolepsy is more than just being tired because you haven't slept, isn't it?
	Sort of some sort of neurological disorder where you fall asleep no matter how much rescue you get.
	Yes, when I tried to be in the military, I was passing out during marches.
	So, yes, it didn't matter if I get six to ten sleeps, uh, hours of sleep at night.
	But combined with that, the also the sleep deprivation of waking up at 5 a.m. to get to school, it was just not a good combination.
	And why were you getting up at five?
	To get the bus to school, because I was the first person on the route.
	Good lord, how far away were you?
	How long was the bus ride?
	That's wild.
	Like two hours for some of some long periods there.
	So, I mean, obviously, there was no closer school.
	You must have been really out in the boonies.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I was a Navy Brad, so we were always closer to actually, I don't know.
	I should ask about that.
	Like, really?
	But there was no closer school?
	That seems to be unusual, but I mean, I guess it's possible.
	So, you were a Navy Brad, but you said that you were the son of a single mother.
	Was your mother in the Navy, or was this when your parents were together?
	He was in the Navy from the start.
	Sorry, he was being your father?
	She was.
	Oh, she was.
	Sorry, sorry.
	Okay, so she was in the Navy.
	And do you know what happened to your biological dad?
	She had no idea who he was.
	She was drunk?
	Or she was a drunk woman in the Navy, a young woman in the Navy.
	She did what a lot of young women in the Navy did.
	So she had a drunken sexual encounter and didn't even know who the man was?
	Correct.
	And did she ever try to find him?
	She did.
	And she got two wrong men that were tested.
	They were then.
	And I'm sorry to be the usual nag, but when you laugh about this sort of stuff, it's a little bit disconcerting.
	Because this is pretty tragic, right?
	It's very tragic.
	I did have stepfathers, but no, the real problem happened was that when she still had to go on naval trips when deployed, and I had to be left with other people, and some of those people were very bad people.
	I do not want to go into details.
	But yes, I was troubled in addition to the problems I had neurologically.
	And how many stepfathers did you, or step parents or step-by-strips or whatever did you go through?
	Or what did your mom do?
	I know she had, I know of only two.
	She was married to both of them eventually.
	Not immediately, but yes, she married one that I don't remember because I was a baby and they were divorced by the time of five, my earliest memories.
	And she married another one after that.
	So I had two.
	And the second one was the bad dude.
	The bad dude?
	A bad guy.
	No, I wasn't left with them.
	No, I was left with other relatives that abused me and they left me very troubled.
	No, no, neither of my stepfathers ever raised a hand to me.
	Okay.
	In fact, my mother believed in peaceful parenting.
	When I was with her, life was very good.
	Ah, okay.
	So it was neither your mother nor the stepfathers who were negative.
	No, neither of them were ever a problem with me.
	In fact, when I was with my mother, she was an amazing woman.
	I mean, when I was allowed to be with her, her mistake was having a child in the military and leaving me with bad people.
	But when I was with her, I mean, because of her, I was reading at a seventh grade level when I was in the second grade.
	She taught me how to, she taught me how to read more advanced books and sat down and read them with me.
	She knew I was a quiet kid who just wanted to sit around and read and play video games and listen to music.
	And she provided me a very good environment at home.
	Yeah.
	And how often did you not see her?
	I only remember only know of two long periods where I didn't see her, which were both half a year long.
	And one when I was four to five.
	I'm sorry, go ahead.
	Go ahead.
	No, go ahead.
	One when I was four to five and one when I was six to seven.
	And the first one, you said you didn't remember too much because you were so young, but do you remember the older one?
	Oh, yeah.
	I remember staying with friends of the family and then later, then my aunt S, who I will avoid saying the name of.
	All right.
	So during that period, I stayed with two people, just family, friends, and then my aunt.
	Okay.
	And those were negative experiences?
	No.
	Well, the experience with my aunt was, but it wasn't any physical or sexual abuse.
	Same with the family there.
	The other family I was staying with, they had a son my age.
	And I lived with them for a little while.
	The only thing I'll say about them is they had too many dogs.
	They didn't quite clean up after them the way they should have.
	But other than that, no, things are fine.
	Okay.
	So good mom, good step parents, not too negative experiences with the family and with your aunt.
	So where did things go wrong for you?
	I don't really know the exact moment.
	Well, I know exactly.
	The first time things started going really wrong was they kept giving me more medications because I was going to school at a school that doubled as a group home.
	So I wasn't in the group home yet.
	I was in the school connected to the group home, if that makes sense.
	Okay, hang on.
	So a school that's connected to a group home, I'm not sure if how to process and a school that doubled as a group home because those two things don't seem similar to me.
	The campus had the housing that was the group home.
	Like when you're at the school, you can see the housing.
	It's right there, and it's connected.
	Yeah, but the school itself was not the group home.
	It is.
	The same organization.
	So is it a high school for troubled kids?
	Is it a school for troubled kids?
	It was a primary school.
	Yes.
	Troubled kids.
	Okay.
	So how did you end up going to a school for troubled kids?
	Fighting, mostly getting into fights.
	Well, not getting into fights, fighting back.
	I never started a fight growing up.
	It was except once.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, no, I just, what age were you fighting back?
	As soon as I first got into a fight, like five, five and a half.
	Okay.
	And so you've got a mom at this point.
	You've got a stepdad.
	And how did they handle these conflicts?
	My mom, let's see, trying to think.
	I should talk to her about that.
	How does she handle me getting so many fights?
	It wasn't a daily occurrence or even a weekly or monthly occurrence, but I fought back, which was just unheard of.
	Well, no, I get that.
	And then you get into a conflict or you fight back and then the teachers come and then they call your parents, right?
	Yeah.
	I know my mother had to come several times.
	Okay, so your mother was aware, and she would ask you what happened, and you would say they were bullying me or they were picking on me.
	And so your mother would know that she would go into the meeting.
	And I would guess if she hasn't told you since, there's, I guess, no way for you.
	I mean, were you in these meetings?
	Do you remember what she said?
	I don't.
	I was very young, and there are huge black holes in my memory for reasons, mostly to do with the even more intense drugs they gave me later and several concussions I had growing up.
	I have very bad memory of long stretches of time.
	Like there's one three-year period where they got me on a lot of drugs.
	It's a black hole.
	Nothing.
	And what age was that?
	11 to 13.
	Okay.
	So.
	But yeah, I do remember one incident in particular.
	It wasn't even at the school, but it was with children from the school, which was that I was just sitting around reading in our neighborhood, and they forcibly invited me into their water gun contest.
	Ruined my book.
	I came home soaked and crying.
	And their mother, they were siblings, their mother came over and complained about how I punched them.
	And she showed, and I was, it was like right after I was still covered in these soaking wet clothes in my ruined book, and my mother went off on them.
	Now, I don't know what exactly what incident got child protective services called on the first time, but you should know it doesn't take much for them to get involved.
	Like these days, I've known several parents that say, I had CPS called on me for letting my children play out in the neighborhood unsupervised within eyeshot of the house.
	So I don't know what incident first got them involved, but eventually somebody called them on us.
	It only took one.
	Oh, go ahead.
	Sorry, what age were you when you were put on the Riddlin?
	I think I was six.
	So that would have to go through your mom, right?
	I mean, they can't just put you on Riddland, don't they?
	Have to have some sort of permission.
	Not only that, the thing that finally got me taken away from her.
	Sorry, sorry.
	Not only what.
	I don't understand what that refers to.
	Not only do they not need her permission, did they not need her permission?
	The incident that got me finally taken away from her was when she took me off the drugs without their permission.
	Oh, okay.
	So you were put on the drugs.
	They would inform your mother, though, right?
	Yes, they informed her.
	She knew, and they ordered her to give me the drugs as well.
	And the reason, and I remember her exact words for when I asked her why she took me off the drugs, she said, you were sleeping 18 hours a day.
	I wanted my son back.
	You were a zombie.
	Okay.
	So they put you on drugs without your mother's permission, and then CPS was called or child protective services was called when your mother tried to get you off the drugs, I assume, with some sort of doctor's supervision.
	No.
	What happened was the reason I admitted that she took me off the drugs.
	I didn't know I wasn't supposed to talk about that because I was already going to the school with the group home.
	And when they, she, maybe I wasn't just picked up on time to go home.
	So they said, oh, it's time for your medication.
	I'm like, oh, I don't take those anymore.
	Uh-oh.
	Okay, so then CPS got involved because your mother took you off the medication, and that was at what age?
	I don't know when she asked Child Protective Services got involved.
	I know it had to have been before I was attending the group home school, but I know that's the reason I was taken off.
	And I'm sorry, that's the reason I was put there properly taken away from my mother.
	That was the initial reason.
	And I think I was eight when I was finally fully taken into the group homes.
	I'm so sorry.
	That's, I mean, that's that's a hell of a story.
	And that's really something.
	So, so it really was just, it wasn't about anything but the drugs.
	When you were on the drugs, you weren't, I assume, getting in fights?
	Oh, no, I was.
	In fact, I was worse on the drugs.
	Was the funniest thing is those two months of clarity when I wasn't on the drugs, I was getting all these accolades.
	Like, wow, his grades are improving.
	He's more well-behaved.
	It's ridiculous.
	Okay.
	And so, in other words, my behavior kept getting worse, so they kept giving me more drugs.
	At one point, I was on at least five different ones.
	I have no idea what they are.
	I've tried to get my medical records.
	Nothing.
	Right.
	Okay, so then you were taken away from your mother about the age of eight.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	And for a couple of years, though, she only had weekend visitations, and she was able to take me out, I think, in those times.
	So I was spending weekends with her for a while and then not at all.
	Not at all means that she was not allowed to have any contact with you.
	Yes.
	And the incident that caused that was when she had to go away on a business trip, my aunt called the police and lied and claimed that I was in danger with my stepfather, that he was beating me.
	And later I learned that she falsely accused him of sexually molesting me, too.
	This was the same aunt I spoke with before.
	Yes.
	Oh, and this is your mother's sister?
	Yeah, of course.
	I mean, because you don't know who your father is.
	Okay, got it.
	Got it.
	So your mother's sister called, like, like ratted her out in false ways and then accused your stepfather of molesting you.
	Yes, and physically beating both her and I. Do you have any idea why she would do these kinds of things?
	Well, I know that there was an incident where he accidentally, as stupid as this sounds, broke her wrist when he tried to twist keys out of her hand.
	So she being the aunt?
	My mother.
	My mother.
	So your stepmother, my stepfather.
	It's all familiar to you.
	I'm just trying to understand, all right?
	Yes, sir.
	So just slow down a little.
	So your stepfather broke your mother's wrist trying to twist keys out of her hand.
	Yes, because she was leaving.
	They were having an argument.
	It was like one of only two arguments they ever had.
	And he tried to twist the keys out of her arm, broke her wrist.
	I mean, that's pretty dangerous, right?
	It is.
	So she was, I understand why she thought he was violent towards her.
	And that's the only information she ever had about this man.
	Like, she never even met him, I think.
	Oh, you met the aunt, never met your stepfather.
	Yeah, she met him.
	Never mind.
	Yeah, no, she met him.
	Okay.
	And so your aunt was worried about her sister, your mother, and the violence or the broken wrist that she'd experienced at the hands of your stepfather.
	No, my mother had to go out for the weekend for a couple days for something Navy related.
	And my aunt somehow found out, called the police that I was in danger.
	Because you were alone with your stepfather.
	Exactly.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	And that's when I was taken away from her full-time.
	Later, both of them became drug addicts as well.
	So then I couldn't go back with them.
	I'm sorry.
	But they never became who?
	My mother and stepfather.
	Became drug addicts.
	Yes, after I was fully taken away from her, she got into drugs.
	And yeah, they both became drug addicts.
	She eventually kicked it.
	She's much better now.
	What kinds of drugs?
	Ironically, the same thing I was put on.
	Meth.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	But yeah.
	So after that point, I couldn't go back with them.
	I'm sorry.
	How old were you when your parents became drug addicts?
	I think I was nine.
	So that was about a year.
	It was probably a slow descent after I was fully taken away from her at eight.
	So after about a year after that, I didn't see them at all for five years, maybe six.
	Wow.
	Yeah, really rough.
	But I think I kind of skipped over some things here.
	Namely, I didn't really tell you how much of a hellscape group homes are.
	Hang on.
	I'm just, I'm sure you're right.
	I just, this sort of goes against my understanding.
	So in the United States, schools generally cannot administer medication to a child without the explicit written consent of a parent or guardian.
	This requirement applies to both prescription and over-the-counter medications.
	Parent consent is a fundamental part of the process, and schools must have written permission from the parent or guardian to administer any medication.
	There are limited exceptions, primarily in emergency situations where a child is experiencing a medical crisis and immediate treatment is necessary to prevent serious harm.
	In such cases, schools may administer medication without prior consent to address an acute health issue.
	Federal and state laws reinforce the principle that schools cannot force a child to take medication.
	Title 20 of the United States Code explicitly prohibits state and local educational agencies from requiring a child to obtain a prescription for a substance covered by the Control Substances Act as a condition for attending school or receiving services.
	Several states have enacted laws that specifically prohibit school personnel from recommending or requiring psychotropic drugs for students.
	And in many cases, a parent's refusal to administer medication does not constitute grounds for a child protective services intervention.
	Now, again, what do I know?
	I'm just sort of reading this as a whole.
	I'll say two things to that, which is first, this is in 1999, which is notoriously bad for its treatment of children.
	Second, I was made to see a psychiatrist before then by the schools.
	And they could.
	I need to know what the law is.
	This was in 1999, so 20 plus years ago, in San Diego, California.
	Well, I was trying not to.
	I mean, remember, I said, like, don't use identifying stuff.
	But I know that maybe she, I don't think, I'll have to ask her if she ever consented to my drugging, but I know that I was originally fully taken away, partially taken away from her because she refused to drug me any longer without their permission.
	And they probably could construe that as putting me in danger.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	I mean, what do I know, right?
	So it just, it seems, it seems unusual to me, but again, I'm certainly no expert on what happened in your neck of the woods in the 90s.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So you ended up.
	I'm sorry?
	I need to take notes on that.
	Laws in 1999, drugging children.
	There we go.
	All right.
	No taken.
	Okay.
	So, sorry, remind me what age you were when you were put in the group home.
	Fully put in the group home, eight.
	Last saw her for a while at nine.
	And when, to your knowledge, did she get into drugs?
	I don't know the exact year.
	I think it was by the time I was nine.
	And are you sure that she did not get into drugs beforehand, and that's why maybe you were taken from her?
	Yes, we've discussed this.
	Well, because she didn't get her dishonorable discharge from the military until after I was taken away.
	They tested regularly.
	They would have.
	Yeah.
	She would have been discharged much earlier if she had been.
	Well, I don't know.
	Again, what do I know?
	But maybe they give you a couple of chances.
	Fair.
	So maybe she was in the process of trying to get clean and they were trying to have that work or help or something like that.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So seven, sorry.
	Seven, you go into the group home and eight, you last saw her.
	Was that right?
	Nine, I last saw her.
	Seven, I was already attending the group home, not living there.
	Eight, I was put in there to live in the group home.
	Okay, got it.
	And do you know how long your mother was addicted to drugs for?
	I think it was for a good five, six years.
	Oh, gosh.
	Well, no, not quite six, four or five years, because I know by the time I saw her again at 14, 15, she was off the drugs.
	She was working a proper job that did drug test.
	So I know she was clean by then.
	Right.
	I'm very, very sorry about that, of course.
	I mean, that's a terrible situation.
	And of course, I assume that the agencies that put you in the home would have preferred, in some ways, to have you back with your parents.
	But if they were on drugs, that wouldn't be possible.
	No.
	Well, first of all, they didn't.
	What I've saw with other children, the only children that ever got put back with their parents were the ones that came from the worst environments.
	It was a really evil irony.
	And some of them I know died because of that.
	Okay.
	Like it was never, there was never any effort to get these kids back to their real homes.
	And the reason is being because the financial motive was there for them to keep the kids.
	I know today they get $3,500 per month per child.
	So just basic financial incentives.
	They wouldn't be working too hard to get the children back.
	Yes.
	But I mean, if the parents petition and the parents are evaluated and so on, if the parents are pushing for it, maybe it's more likely.
	Again, what do I know?
	But I guess if your parents were drug addicts, that wasn't happening.
	Yeah, that wasn't happening.
	But also, none of my extended family ever tried either.
	And I think they didn't because they saw, well, no, she did go through periods of getting clean, and they continued to deny her even when she did everything they demanded of her because they didn't tell her the real reason they were keeping me.
	And so your case is that the real reason they were keeping you was for the money they were getting from the government for having you?
	No.
	The real reason was because my aunt falsely accused my stepfather of sexually molesting me.
	And so long as she was married to him, they wouldn't give me back.
	Ah, yes.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	And I didn't find out about that.
	None of us found out about that until I was 15.
	And how did you find out about it?
	Because I was there when they were on the phone, when my caseworker was on the phone with my mother and said, so long as you're with that child molester, you can't have him back.
	Well, isn't there an investigation of some kind?
	There are a few things you should know about social workers and these caseworkers.
	The first is that they have qualified immunity and they get away with anything.
	Like, no, social workers have qualified immunity.
	I'm not kidding.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Listen, I don't have any way to evaluate all of this stuff.
	And frankly, neither do you, to some degree, because you're relying on what your mom says about some documents I was holding when I investigated.
	I'm sorry?
	On some of it, I have her word for it and other families' word for it.
	But a lot of what I know, I was getting documents for when I graduated.
	I know a lot of my medical records, what little survived, my school records, I have those.
	So I know a lot of things.
	Some, not all of it, though.
	Like, there are periods where I just don't have any records.
	I told you, I can't find anything.
	And you said she had three years of like no, no memory.
	That was 11 to 13, two years.
	Two years.
	Sorry.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So then we move into your teenage years.
	Well, first, I think we should actually just discuss what the environment of a group home is like, if you're okay with that.
	It's your call, man.
	Whatever works for you.
	Okay.
	Have you ever been brought to an HR board disciplinary meeting?
	I have not.
	Ah, well, just imagine that 24-7, 365, where nothing is too minor.
	Because you're in this facility that's essentially a prison if it was designed by corporate community to be corporate friendly.
	Okay.
	So even on without all the abuse going on there, on its best day, it's just bureaucratic abuse in like the worst company you ever worked for.
	It's like being in a very badly disciplined, badly ordered, and badly maintained school 24-7, 365.
	Like I remember, well, for one, we didn't have summer vacations.
	I think the longest one I had was two to four weeks.
	Like the longest one I had was one month, but we usually got two weeks because why bother?
	You're on to school.
	But the problem with it was the people in charge were just not qualified to be around children.
	These are education and social work majors.
	And these are the dropout education and social work majors.
	I'm sure you know, I know you know this.
	The two lowest IQs of every college major are social work and education majors.
	Right.
	They were dumb and they were power-tripping Karen's taboo.
	Like I know, oh, I just remembered the color system.
	They had this system where you were assigned a color to.
	Oh, hello.
	And to the point that...
	I'm sorry, you just cut out for a second there.
	You started talking about the color system?
	Yes, there was a color system that essentially was how good of a kid you were.
	And usually your allowance was also tied to it, which is nice.
	And so, like, red is the lowest.
	Green is usually the medium.
	Sometimes some places had silver and gold that were even higher.
	And so your allowance was reliant on this, but it was completely arbitrary and up to any staff's member decision to take you down one.
	And so they did it for arbitrary reasons all the time.
	And it doesn't take long for all the children to just stop caring because, okay, my behavior has no correlation to outcome at all.
	Right.
	Right.
	So this is even without the psychiatric, psychological abuse, the fighting, the and some abuse that I'm going to, oh, I don't know if I want to talk.
	Oh, I should.
	I don't think you'll believe me, though.
	Okay, you said he wanted to jump to teen years.
	Let's do that.
	No, no, it's your call.
	Whatever you want to talk about, it's fine with me.
	Well, I think what would be best is to talk about the group homes in order.
	So after the next group home, I was there for a few months and they got me off the drugs.
	Like they slowly weaned me off.
	The group home after that, no drugs at all for most of my time there.
	Right.
	And it was great because this one was actually just a house.
	They had a little house for the little kids, which is ironically bigger than the big house for the teenagers.
	And so we had a house.
	All of the people that worked there, to my memory, they were men.
	And they weren't just men.
	They were men who actually had testosterone, which I'd never seen in the group homes or schools before then.
	And things were good.
	But there was an incident with a new social worker I got who I wish I could name because I can't find her anywhere, any information on her, if she even existed.
	And I want to find other victims of her.
	But there was an incident where she was visiting me and talking to me.
	Said, so like, what do you want to be when you grow up?
	This was the actual conversation.
	I said, you know, it would be kind of cool to like work for the military building bombs and missiles and stuff.
	Her reaction was to run around like her.
	I'm not exaggerating slightly.
	Ran around claiming, I wanted it.
	He wants to build a bomb.
	He's a bottom-terrorist.
	I'm not kidding.
	Once she demanded I got back on the drug, she got me seen by a psychiatrist.
	I was back on the drugs because of that.
	So one last thing with that group home.
	The one time I was ever visited by a relative, it was that same aunt.
	And she visited me after I was back on the drugs.
	I don't think she and I had ever met when I wasn't on drugs.
	So she never met the real me.
	And so she met me with her son, my cousin.
	And all I remember from that meeting was me trying to protect my cousin from my foster sibling because he was so annoying.
	We all wanted to beat his ass.
	That's all I remember.
	Sorry, whose ass did you want to beat?
	My cousin.
	Well, all of my foster siblings wanted to, too, because he was a real little monster.
	Sorry, how old is he?
	Same age as us, 11.
	I mean, it's kind of rough to call a kid a monster at the age of 11, isn't it?
	True, but his mother worshiped the ground he walked on.
	Like, even when I was with her during that one stage.
	Hang on.
	I mean, he's 11.
	He's not in charge of his own family environment or what his mother does.
	You just reminded me about a really messed up frame of thinking they instilled upon us as very early ages in these group homes.
	That we are, they put responsibility on us.
	So they trained us to take responsibility for our lives very early on.
	I remember these long-winded lectures on that.
	Oh, all those bastards.
	I remember saying, Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Hang on.
	You're kind of skipping over what I'm saying, though.
	Oh, yes.
	But thank you.
	I'm sorry.
	You just reminded me of that.
	Yes.
	And the reason I'm thinking, I now know why I said that about my cousin when he was 11, because I was trained to be responsible for my behavior at all times.
	And I was never given any excuses.
	And I didn't do the same for other children.
	So, yeah, you're absolutely right.
	It was very messed up of me to think that way about my cousin who had a much more normal childhood than me.
	Well, and I mean, you said that you never started fights, and then you're telling me how much everybody wanted to beat up on your cousin, including you.
	And I protected him.
	I said I wanted to.
	I didn't think I did.
	I didn't start a fight.
	I never said I never wanted to start a fight.
	Okay, got it.
	All right.
	And so, sorry, going on into your teenage years?
	One last thing about that group home.
	That was the first time I was ever exposed to racial issues.
	Am I still there?
	I'm seeing bad network quality.
	I can hear you.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	That was the first time I was ever introduced to racial issues because we had one teacher, the one Caucasian person that worked there at the school that was connected to the group home again, not physically, but legally.
	And I remember unsolicited, she once just gave me an 11-year-old white boy a lecture on my white privilege in 2003.
	Yeah, it's really bad.
	That's that has been around for a long time and it's really sad.
	And people don't know.
	Like people were talking in the mid-2010s about how this has just started.
	I'm like, oh, where have you been in the last 20 years?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But to really emphasize how good racial relations were, even with kids in the group homes before then, I never heard a racial slur before until I was 11.
	And like we were out at a YMCA and some random girl wanted to play with me.
	I didn't want to play with her.
	She went around and told somebody I called her the N-word.
	And so when the lifeguard came around and asked me, did you call this girl the N-word?
	My face lit up like, that's awesome.
	What is it?
	I'm sorry, that's what?
	As an 11-year-old boy, I said, that's awesome.
	What is it?
	There's an N-word?
	Right.
	I thought I knew all the bad words.
	It was not awesome.
	Okay.
	So, yes, that was my first encounter with racial issues.
	Something happened in 28, 2008, around that time, where racial issues in this country just got really bad.
	I don't know what it was.
	Yeah.
	It's a mystery.
	Yeah, it's a mystery.
	But on to my teenage years.
	The next group home I was in.
	Oh, no, there was one more group home before the black hole in my memory.
	And this is really bad.
	This is why I have a black hole in my memory.
	This next group home was shut down.
	And thank God.
	Oh, I forgot.
	And this is important.
	Aside from the group home I was just in before this and two more later on, there was this thing that's done in group homes, two things of physical abuse.
	One is they will restrain students, as in two grown adults pinning children down to the ground until they stop having whatever psychotic break they're having from the drugs.
	The other, I don't remember what they called these rooms, but there were these stark white, frigid, they almost looked like free walk-in freezers.
	They would throw the kid in there, hold the door closed.
	They weren't allowed to actually put locks on the doors, and wait until you wore yourself out.
	And I just remember, like, you know, when you're cold as a kid, you pull your arms into your shirt, hide your head inside, just doing that for long periods, trying to escape the stark white light and cold.
	Must have done hundreds of times in those.
	I'm so sorry.
	That's just wretched.
	Wretched.
	And, but this is worse.
	In this group home, they had the same, but they had the broad idea.
	Hey, hey, maybe we should put a carpet on the floors and walls.
	Sounds like a good idea, right?
	Problem.
	Other children soiled themselves in those rooms.
	And as far as I could smell or feel, those were never cleaned.
	So I came out of that one feeling like there were insects crawling under my skin.
	Now, I find it, I mean, obviously, my sympathy is enormous, but it's disconcerting to hear you tell these stories.
	Yeah, that's because I've already written them down and I've been planning to write a book about it for a very long time and never pulled the trigger.
	And I only started writing it.
	Hang on, hang on.
	You're not asking me why.
	Why are you disconcerted?
	I know why you're disconcerted.
	Even as bad as your childhood was, you can't, you have the same problem I can.
	You can't fathom how people could do this to children.
	The children.
	Well, you're wrong.
	Hang on.
	You're wrong, though.
	Oh.
	Like, it's a little rude to assume that you know what I'm thinking.
	Because then it's not a conversation.
	Then you're just talking to yourself, right?
	Yes, sir.
	So why do you think it's disconcerting?
	I'm sorry, I got a little whiplash there.
	You said it was rude to try and guess or assume what you're saying.
	So I said I'm a little disconcerted by what you're saying.
	Well, I have massive sympathy.
	And you're like, well, I know why.
	It's because I've written any story.
	And that's not like isn't the polite thing to do to say, well, what's happening for you in the conversation?
	Well, why?
	What are you feeling right now, Stefan?
	Well, it's disconcerting because you have absolutely, as far as I can tell, no particular emotional content or connection to these horrible tales.
	Correct. Do you want to know why?
	I don't.
	Well, I guess we can get back to you, but how about we spend a few moments talking about this?
	I've been talking for 40 minutes.
	I barely said anything.
	And let's get back to me.
	Right?
	Like, I thought you just left the big old science.
	I'm like, are you inviting?
	Is that an invitation for me to tell you why?
	Or go ahead.
	Well, I mean, does that make sense to you, what I'm saying?
	Does it accord with your experience?
	Or I suppose another way of asking for it, and I don't mean this with any criticism whatsoever, but what do you feel when you're because the way you talk, it's kind of like a documentary and like or like I'm trying to sort of understand what because this is, you know, this is just horrible stuff, right?
	This is completely wretched and horrible stuff.
	And I'm trying to sort of figure out what your emotional experience is because this is a public call, right?
	So in a public call, I have to battle dissociation because if you are telling, you know, these absolutely appalling stories of what was done to you, but you have no emotional connection to anything, that's going to cause the people who listen to this to emotionally disconnect.
	And they're just going to hear some dissociated babbling, which is unfair to the horrors that you've experienced.
	Fair.
	There are things I'm angry about.
	They aren't the things most people would assume.
	And it does freak people out that I'm dissociating.
	Now you're back to narrating.
	Like I'm trying to figure out, like, what is your emotional experience of my emotional experience is I'm very angry about different things than this.
	These things I wasn't angry about for the longest time.
	And I know why, because they trained me not to be.
	Like there was constant anger management, quote unquote, training, where they just don't want you being angry about your situation.
	Okay, so now you're back to blaming other people, which again, I accept, right?
	But I'm trying to get a sense of what your emotions are about this.
	Not your complaints about the anger management or things like that, but what's your emotional experience of your mother having sex with a guy she doesn't even know, having no idea who your father is, and being, you know, in a sense, dumped with others, with the family and so on, and then being drugged, and then your parents becoming drug addicts and you going to these terrible homes.
	I mean, this really sad, awful, and terrible stuff, right?
	And I'm just, I find it disconcerting to hear, you know, it's like, oh, yeah, well, you know, my, my parents were murdered in front of me and then my sister was raped and then I did, and then I went, you know, and it's just like I'm trying to sort of connect with you rather than in a narrative sense, which is kind of disconnected, but in your emotions.
	Well, with my emotions, the things I'm really horrified of and still angry about are things I kind of didn't want to talk about because they usually involved outright sexual abuse.
	Well, okay.
	And I'm not asking you to talk about what you don't want to talk about.
	I mean, of course, I'm going to respect everything that you don't want to talk about, but what you've talked about is already horrible enough.
	And that's what I'm trying to sort of understand is your emotional connection to what happened to you.
	Okay.
	I'm going to explain the emotional connection.
	It's going to sound bizarre to you, but I need you to understand.
	Our frames of reference are different in that, well, there's two reasons.
	One is I experienced things worse than this, that these other things seem minor to me and always have.
	And I've not been able to emotionally connect in that way with these things that I can't believe I'm saying it to me were minor at the time.
	And I didn't have that emotional connection at the time for these things.
	So I didn't build that long-term emotional connection that stayed with me.
	No, but this is the foundation of the terrible stuff that happened later, the stuff that you don't want to talk about.
	And so if this stuff hadn't happened, the later stuff wouldn't have happened.
	Right.
	No, though, the most horrible things happened when I was five.
	And I skipped over that earlier.
	The most horrible stuff I said that we skipped over earlier was when I was five with distant relatives.
	Oh, and that's sexual abuse that you don't want to talk about, right?
	Sexual and physical abuse that I don't want to talk about.
	Yes, sir.
	Okay, got it.
	All right.
	And that would not have happened.
	Hang on.
	And this is when you were still with your mother, right?
	Yes, when she was out on a naval trip.
	Okay.
	So why didn't your mother know or that something had happened?
	It's a very good question.
	Part of it is, I didn't talk about it.
	No, no, no, that's not the answer.
	No, it's your job as a parent to keep your children safe and to be emotionally connected with them to the point where if something bad happens to them and you're not there, you know because they're different afterwards and you understand that, right?
	She did notice I was different afterwards, but she didn't make the connection.
	And I am baffled that neither did the psychologist, bro, bro.
	Okay.
	Sorry.
	So it's a lot of narrative, right?
	I'm trying to get to the person here, not the narrator.
	Okay.
	So she knew that something bad had happened to you.
	And so what is her responsibility as a parent?
	Well, it was her responsibility of the parent to not let me get in that situation in the first place.
	I understand that.
	But given that that was not achieved, that she handed you over to people who abused you horribly, which is a great failure as a parent.
	So given that you were then horribly abused at the age of five, what is her responsibility after that?
	Her responsibility was to figure out why.
	And I know she tried to.
	And the psychologists and psychiatrists were so off the mark.
	It's ridiculous.
	Like, how do you get a six-year-old who responds violently to being tickled by his mother, who doesn't like being touched, and not realize, oh, somebody molested him?
	Okay, so why didn't your mother know that?
	She's not a very, she's not trained in that things.
	We have the internet today.
	We know that when a child acts that way, it's usually due to some kind of sexual molestation.
	Okay, so why didn't you, well, let's just forget the sexual molestation, not that I'm saying forget it, but just for the purposes of this, you said that you were physically abused, right?
	She knew about that, but that's because she got that from other hand sources and asked me.
	Okay, so she asked you, and you told her that you had been beaten or violently assaulted as a five-year-old, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And the rest of the family thinks still to this day thinks I was lying about that.
	I don't quite follow that one.
	Sorry.
	My aunts and grandparents and other people in the family still to this day think that as a six-year-old, I just made that up.
	I mean, the aunt who accused your stepfather of sexual abuse.
	Yes, the aunt who falsely accused my stepfather.
	It's so eerie to me.
	Yes, so you're my mother.
	Like, I just, I need to try and get to the person who's not narrating, but actually experiences things.
	Well, one last, well, before that, I feel like I need to justify my laughter on that one.
	I mean, this is an aunt you say falsely accused a man of sexual abuse.
	So you don't need to tell me other bad things she did.
	No, no, just the irony of her doing that after not believing me about actual sexual abuse.
	That's why I laugh about it.
	Like, there's just a really sick irony to that.
	That's not funny, right?
	It's not.
	It's not funny.
	None of this is funny.
	It's all absolutely appalling.
	And that's what I'm trying to connect with is that I don't know that you know what it's like to be on the receiving end of this kind of information.
	I do.
	No, you don't.
	I had foster siblings that went through way worse, and they told me.
	Well, I don't know if you know what it's like to be emotionally connected or try to be and be on the receiving end of this kind of information.
	To be on the receiving end of this kind of information is to feel great sorrow and sadness and anger and to have you, and you know, laughing from time to time.
	And it's a very great disconnect, because what I'm in my mind's eye and none again, none of this is critical.
	I'm just sort of telling you my experience right, but in my mind's eye I'm seeing this, you know, abused and violated and neglected and drugged, and like just almost every conceivable negative thing that could happen to a poor, innocent little child was inflicted upon you.
	And I'm seeing that child in my mind's eye being hurt and abused raped molested assaulted, whatever happened right, and I'm seeing this narrator.
	And then this happened, ha ha, and then that happened.
	That's the disconnect, that I see this like very sad broken, abused and angry and hurt and neglected child, and the narrator of the story doesn't seem to have any connection with that to me right, and?
	And so that's the.
	That's the disconnect.
	Um, if you're hoping that I'll express emotively about my own story no no don't don't no no, hang on, hang on.
	What do you mean hoping?
	I'm telling you my experience.
	I'm not trying to manipulate you oh, I'm not trying to get you to like emote or I'm just honestly telling you why it's difficult to connect when you're telling me these stories.
	I'm not trying to get you to do anything.
	I'm just being honest about my experience.
	Maybe you've had a lot of manipulators in your life, but I'm just telling you honestly about my experience because I don't want to just not give you any feedback or any sort of person-to-person, man-to-man connection on what you're telling me and just have this sort of wall of narration, uh, hit me without any feedback right, because that would be isolating for you.
	I, I get it, I get how that?
	Yeah, you're right, that is really disturbing and it's weird that i'm so used not only to speaking to people about these things like that, but being spoken to by people who've experienced similar in this same way.
	That's fucked, you're right, because that's how we were trained to talk about things by these psychopaths right, but you'll never find any of my foster siblings who will who, when they open up are at all emotional about it.
	They're as deadened in the way they talk as me.
	Well, I I didn't say deadened right, so I don't want you to get that impression from what i'm saying.
	Yeah no no, i'm just saying, but I that that's not coming from me.
	If that's what you experience, and I do feel that's how it is, it is deadened and I i've never been able to say, be angry or sad about.
	I've only been angered or saddened by other people's experiences, never my own from like the self-empathy of pain.
	Why do you think that that is?
	Well, part of it is.
	I already lost so much of my life.
	I remember saying this when I was 16, we had this weird pity party therapy session.
	And somebody said, why aren't you getting involved in any of this?
	I'm like, look, dude, I'm going to die someday.
	I don't know how many years I have ahead of me.
	I already know I lost the ones behind me.
	I ain't going to waste time emoting about this shit.
	I remember saying that.
	And what do you mean by emoting?
	Being sad and angry and willowing on this in ways that prevents you from living in the now or the future.
	Okay, so being sad or angry is bad because it's wallowing and prevents you from living.
	Is that right?
	I viewed it as a waste of time, yes.
	And especially with the sexual stuff, I'm like, well, I still want to be able to connect with people physically and sexually.
	And if I'm constantly reopening these wounds, that makes it difficult.
	And it did.
	In addition to like just people were, I saw, okay, I saw a trend and I was protecting myself from it, which was that the people who talked about the things more got worse over time.
	Like they didn't get, they didn't heal from opening up about these things and constantly having therapy.
	They got worse.
	Okay.
	And apparently science has figured that out lately.
	Like, no, constantly talking about things that happen to you over and over again is just recausing the trauma.
	You shouldn't be doing that a lot.
	Like, oh, I kind of figured that out on accident.
	Oops.
	Okay.
	So if that's the theory, and I'm not going to argue, of course, with you about that, but if that's the theory, then why are you talking about it with me if talking about it is bad?
	Well, I'm talking about it with you because you asked last time I was on, and you made me start.
	Well, you didn't make me, but you got me thinking again.
	Like, you're right, there's a lot of angles from this I didn't understand or think about.
	I should talk to Stefan some more, not only because he's making me think about things, I should.
	When I said earlier, that was when I was 16.
	That's what I thought when I was 16, half my life ago.
	I don't think that way.
	I thought you were talking about how science is shown and it's a bad idea in general.
	But that's what you thought back then, but that's not what you think now.
	Is that right?
	That's not what I think now.
	I don't think it's a waste of time now.
	I do still agree that going to a therapist every week and talking about it over and over again is not the healthiest coping.
	But that's not the purpose of therapy is not to have you talk about it over and over again and never release, right?
	And never intended.
	Ideally, but my experience with therapists that I was forced to talk to weekly about nothing, but I don't have a lot of hope or respect for the therapeutic industry.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Again, I'm not going to question or debate your experiences.
	I obviously accept your experiences.
	So sorry, go ahead.
	But you did ask me, why do I want to talk to you?
	And part of it is because I'm like, man, there's a lot of people out there that kind of need to hear that they're alone because for the longest time, I thought what happened to me was normal.
	No, no, you didn't.
	No, come on.
	Come on.
	I did.
	No, you didn't.
	Or like, no, no, you're not.
	Bro, bro, bro, you were in a group home.
	That's not normal.
	That's not average.
	And I grew up only around other people in group homes.
	And even in the first few years of my adult life, I get that.
	I get that.
	I get that.
	But you also knew that there were entirely people not in group homes.
	I don't mean identical to me in every way.
	I mean that all of them had had some kind of abuse and they all had terrible childhoods in one way or another.
	I didn't think everyone grew up in group homes.
	Right.
	You knew that you were in an unusual situation relative to the general population.
	Okay.
	I just want to admit that.
	Yeah.
	So everybody who's in the group homes is probably traumatized.
	I get all of that.
	So, okay.
	Yes.
	So it's normal for the group home, but it's not normal in society.
	Correct.
	Okay.
	I just wanted to make sure I understood that.
	So sorry, go ahead.
	I didn't mean the group home situation was normal.
	I meant people being abused as children was normal.
	Well, the people in the group home, for sure, would have terrible tales of.
	Okay, got it, got it.
	All right.
	So do we want to pick up in your 20s or where would you like to go from here?
	I want to finish that group home with the carpet and the.
	Oh, the hugging yourself because it's cold and your hands inside the shirt and stuff.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Yes.
	The room had the carpet and it was soiled, so I came out feeling disgusting.
	But so in this group home, this was when they, instead of the white, hard, cold rooms, it was a warm carpeted room, which they thought was a mercy.
	It was not.
	It was gross.
	And probably one of the reasons they were shut down.
	But something started happening when I was living there.
	I started having blackouts, like full-on days missing.
	And what I think happened was they were just mixing up our medications.
	And so I started having blackouts.
	And then the next group I was in, all black, except for like locations.
	And weirdly, I remember names.
	I'm terrible with names, but I remember the names of the children there.
	So now we pick up on the teenage years.
	I was in another group home.
	This one was also fashioned like a house.
	And the woman who made it was one of the most racist people I've ever known.
	She only hired black people.
	She treated the black kids better than the white.
	Like, I remember once there was a lice infestation, and she made all the white kids shave their heads, but not the black kids.
	And naturally, none of us had lice.
	Like, what?
	So I don't know, but that's when the black, what I really want to talk about there is now this when I started getting off the drugs again, because I think at 13, I was 14 when they finally told me at 13, you can just refuse the drugs.
	Just refuse.
	And say no.
	And the moment I was told, I'm like, oh, I'm going to refuse these.
	And it was like a week's, like, I don't know if you know this, but when you get on these drugs, it takes weeks for them to really start working.
	Like, I'm not sure if you can do that.
	Yeah, that's like six weeks, yeah, something like that.
	But go ahead.
	And same when you're coming off them.
	So like there was this three to six week period where I was coming to, and it was kind of like, what was that movie where the guy took the pill and he was suddenly smarter?
	Limitless.
	Have you seen that movie?
	It's from Flowers for Algernon as a book.
	But yes, go ahead.
	There was this scene in that movie where he's on it for the first time.
	He looks around his house like, my home.
	Wait, no, this can't be my home.
	Who would live like this?
	And so there was this moment where I was regaining sentience, essentially.
	And I looked at myself.
	My nails were long and unkept.
	My hair was long and unkept.
	And I couldn't remember the last time I brushed my teeth.
	And I'm pretty sure I spent an entire year without once brushing my teeth.
	They drugged me so much, I couldn't even keep good hygiene anymore.
	And as soon as I was off, I was human again.
	I'm sorry.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yes, I'm debating myself if I want to tell you this next part.
	It was a very specific kind of sexual abuse.
	It was so bad.
	The woman in charge was forced to do this, and eventually she stopped doing it.
	I think that's why the place was closed down.
	Sorry, was forced to perform the sexual abuse?
	Okay, maybe people are going to think I'm weird for calling this sexual abuse, but I think you all agree with me.
	I can only describe it as anti-rape training.
	So we had these weekly lessons, let's call them.
	And she had to read out of this book.
	And I want that book.
	And what they were really hypothetical sexual situations and what you'll do in them.
	And it's anti-rape training.
	And I only remember the final question.
	God, I don't think you're going to believe me.
	I don't think anyone's going to believe me.
	I need that book.
	It was so bad that this woman, who was a real piece of work, never did any more of these.
	And I didn't see her do it, but I saw her go into the office.
	What sounded a lot like a wave of a woman slam-dunking a book into a trash can, is what I heard.
	So this was the hypothetical question.
	You are babysitting a seven-year-old girl.
	You decide you're going to rape her.
	Her hymen blocks you.
	What do you do?
	Sorry, that doesn't sound like anti-rape training.
	This was the actual question.
	That's the only one I remember in detail because it was just so bad.
	We were not made to answer that one.
	So I later learned that the reason I was in this group of all of us was there was because we were viewed as budding sexual predators.
	Us specifically.
	I found out later the reason I was is because while blacked out on these drugs, I zombie walked from the shower naked to my room and exposed myself, they claimed.
	Well, I'm sure I did walk to my room naked.
	They in puppy deliberately exposed yourself.
	The worst any of those kids did when he was 13, he had consensual sex with the 12-year-old girl.
	They were both from a foreign country where that was.
	Okay, no, no, no, no, there's no, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	There's no consensual sex with a 12-year-old girl.
	He was 13.
	I don't care.
	He wasn't consenting either.
	Fair enough.
	Yes, I agree.
	I agree completely.
	But I remember this woman who I hated.
	I still don't respect her as a human being, like I do most people I meet as strangers.
	But even she went on the rat, like, there's nothing wrong with these boys.
	She had three daughters.
	And she's like, my daughters are worse than these boys in that way.
	I said I wasn't going to get emotional, and here I am.
	Jesus.
	Do you mind if I take a quick break to get a cup of water, sir?
	Yeah, go ahead.
	I'll be back in like 30 seconds.
	Okay, I'm back.
	I never told anybody about that before today.
	Okay, I'm all you're going to have.
	Oh, I said I never told anybody about that training until today.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So, um, and then next group poem.
	Oh, there was, I defended, I went to Juvenile Hall next.
	Oh, well, okay, I can say that one.
	I went to prison next because I defended myself.
	What do you mean by prison?
	Oh, sorry.
	You were going to say why.
	Sorry about that.
	Juvenile prison because I defended myself against a grown man who put his hands on me and the charges were dropped for self-defense.
	Okay.
	And the weirdest thing happened there.
	Sorry, if the charges were dropped, why were you going to prison?
	The charges were dropped a month later.
	So it was juvenile hall, juvenile detention facility.
	So not, I haven't been charged yet.
	It's, I forget the distinction: jail versus prison, which one you're in while you're waiting for your court date.
	Okay.
	And the weirdest thing happened.
	I was happy and safe there.
	It was the best group home I was ever in, I joked at the time, which is a terrible joke.
	And the guards were confused by me.
	They couldn't fathom why I was there, and they said as much to me.
	And I remember a social worker came to meet me there, and she said, and she was all concerned, like, how are you doing?
	I'm like, I'm great.
	And I think I horrified her, and she realized something was seriously wrong with that group home I was in.
	Because the next group home I was in, next two group homes I was in were great.
	Trying to remember.
	Nothing really bad happened in the final group home I was in, which is thankfully still open.
	It was an academy, housing, school, housing.
	And they were connected to like several agriculture fields in the area.
	And I got jobs working in agriculture.
	And that was the start of my life, my adult life, working mostly as landscaping because it made me happy.
	But the one thing I'm really angry about with all of this that really came to a head there was my education.
	Like this, after hearing all I've said, it's going to weird you out that the thing I've been angriest about for the longest time was how I was kneecapped educationally because I read at the seventh grade level when I was in the second grade.
	I later got my IQ tested officially when I was in one of the group homes, 145.
	And I think they knew.
	And the quality of the education was just so bad.
	I only learned later that despite being an A and B student in math, I never learned Algebra 2 or trigonometry.
	So I spent a month once teaching myself algebra 2 and trigonometry for fun.
	And I remembered, oh, right, I loved math.
	I loved learning.
	What was wrong with them?
	And aside from maybe that training we were just talking about, that's the thing that I've been angriest about for the longest time.
	Sorry, were you in the middle of a thought there?
	I don't want to.
	No, I was finished.
	I want to give you time to talk.
	This is your show.
	No, no.
	I get that.
	So when did you get out of the group home?
	So 17 or 18?
	18.
	Oh, okay.
	Anybody listening, please take this advice to heart.
	Nobody told me.
	You can graduate high school at 16 by just testing out your GED.
	Nobody told me I could do that.
	Otherwise, I would have studied a GED exam book for a month and graduated two years early.
	Right.
	Another thing nobody told me about was the job core, which I highly recommend everyone listening who's young enough look into if you're American.
	But yeah, there were three final middle fingers.
	Oh, the reason I was so angry about the schooling is because they misplaced my transcript so many times that I repeated grades.
	They once had to, they twice, they had to jump me up two grades because they realized, oh, he's not behind.
	He's fine to be with his peers.
	I jumped from the third to the fifth when I was 10 or nine and a half, 10, or whatever.
	And then I jumped from the ninth to the 11th.
	So I essentially missed out on four years of schooling and still graduated on time.
	But the only reason I graduated on time is they shuffled me along.
	They didn't actually teach me the material.
	But yeah, there were three final middle fingers that the group home system gave me on the way out when I turned 18.
	One, they were supposed to expunge my records, which means that charge for self-defense was supposed to be gone.
	They didn't.
	I did the paperwork.
	They didn't do it.
	So every time I have to do a security clearance, I've worked a lot of security before.
	It keeps coming up.
	Like, hey, what's this charge?
	It was self-defense.
	I was 14.
	And I don't know why that always made me so angry that I had to talk about that with so many employers.
	So, two other things they did was they misplaced my transcripts one last time, and I had to go to an adult school to get the last credit to graduate because I did something very stupid in high school over the last two years.
	I know why I did it because I thought it didn't matter, which was that I said, okay, how many what GPA, yeah, GPA do I need to graduate?
	2.0?
	Okay, I'm just doing that.
	Didn't do any homework, just sat around reading Heinlein and Ho and all the great sci-fi authors or playing video games.
	And I just did the classwork.
	I'm like, yep, on track to graduate with 2.2.001.
	And I had to take an adult class for one credit where they taught me Excel.
	Like, oh, here's here.
	We taught you Microsoft Suite.
	There's a credit.
	And the final middle finger they gave me, I have my high school diploma in a somewhere over there in a folder.
	I can't find any proof I graduated high school.
	Like, the records just aren't there.
	I have the physical diploma.
	I graduated.
	It hasn't come up except once when I tried to go to college.
	Like, we can't find any evidence you graduated high school, my dude.
	I have my diploma right here, right here.
	So, yeah.
	I'm sure you have a lot more questions about how this impacted my adult life.
	I've had a lot of time to think about that.
	I promise you.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, how did it impact your adult life?
	Well, both in terms of work and dating, in very strange, positive and in very strange or negative ways.
	Positively, because I've just not put up with corporate abuse, and it paid very well not to.
	Like, the people who stuck around just did not do well, do as well as me.
	And I didn't do well financially in adult life.
	Oh, I should take a step back.
	A lot of people would not consider me a successful person at 31, not no family, no house.
	But by my standards, I am because as soon as I exited high school, I went out with like a handful of goals.
	One, don't get into a debt, to get into any debt, success.
	Two, don't get hooked on any drugs.
	Only thing I ever struggled with was alcohol or really caffeine, even more than that, but I'm beating both.
	It's a slow battle, but it's working.
	Three, don't get any girls pregnant.
	And I think four was don't go to jail.
	Never went to jail, never been arrested as an adult, at least.
	And I think five was don't get any life-debilitating diseases or injuries, success.
	I succeeded in all those goals, and I set them out for myself because I saw my foster siblings dropping like flies as soon as they got out.
	Some of them even died.
	And I remember deleting my Facebook account because people from my old group homes kept reaching out to me.
	And like a coward, I ran away.
	I didn't want to hear how they destroyed their lives or who died this time.
	So I succeeded in my goals.
	Now I have new goals.
	Ones that you and other people on, and I don't know if you want to call this, is this still called the mana sphere?
	Um, I, it's time for me to start looking towards building a family.
	But I was, even when I was young, I realized why I was terrified of doing so.
	And it took a lot of very, it took a lot of life setting me beautiful things for me to realize I was wrong.
	You're better at asking questions than I am at coming up with things to say, sir.
	Well, yeah, I'm still here.
	Uh, it's it's interesting.
	How's your dating history been in your 20s?
	I had an unfair advantage in that I was six foot two and skinny.
	I didn't earn my success with women, but I also didn't abuse it, as weird as that is.
	Um, I turned down more girls than okay.
	Just give me the give me the facts before the narrative, right?
	So, you go off a narrative before I even know what the facts are.
	Sorry, I do do that.
	Um, sex came easy, relationships came very hard, very hard.
	Um, but I turned down more sex than I took just because I'm like, oh, you went to school for poetry and you have 50 grand in debt.
	No, and I was really judgmental about people's background.
	Let me let me ask more simply, and you don't have to give me any numbers you're not comfortable with.
	What's your rough body count?
	More than 30, less than 40 over like a 10-year period over my entire adult life, and I haven't had sex in five years now.
	So, from 18 to 27.
	I'm sorry, to 27.
	Sorry, I thought you were 31.
	No, I'm 32.
	Did I say 31?
	I may miss her.
	No, biggie.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So, from 18 to 27, so nine years, more than 30, less than 40.
	Do I have that right?
	Yes, sir.
	And what was the long?
	You don't have to call me, sir.
	It's a bit disconcerting.
	I'm not, I'm not a military guy.
	So, I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	I can't help it.
	I am.
	Well, you can't.
	I'm making the request.
	Don't tell me you can't help it.
	Just try not to find it disconcerting.
	Disconcerting.
	So, you get it.
	Now, what's the longest relationship you've had?
	Two years.
	But I don't know why if I want to consider that a relationship.
	I don't know.
	I mean, you tell me.
	She only came around for sex.
	She didn't want to go out and date.
	And it took me a long time to realize why she was Muslim.
	I'm Jewish.
	Her family would have literally maybe killed her.
	Right.
	So she was having a relationship with me in secret.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So besides that, the two longest relationships I had were both about six months.
	One, I didn't even realize was a relationship for most of that.
	What do you mean you didn't realize the relationship?
	Did you think you'd been kidnapped?
	What do you mean?
	I thought we were just friends.
	I thought we were just friends, but she was, but I thought we were just hanging out as friends, and she was Japanese.
	And everyone in Hanhara school knew she had a boyfriend and it was me.
	So you were just hanging out, but you weren't kissing, holding hands, or having sex, but she thought you were her boyfriend.
	Yes.
	And I enjoyed our company.
	She was really cool.
	I did like her.
	I just didn't push for that until I realized until she told me.
	I don't remember what the conversation was.
	What is it?
	I don't remember how she's told me I was her boyfriend.
	I'm like, oh, really?
	Oh, that saves me the trouble of asking you.
	how how often did you guys hang out uh three times a week And you never usually with other friends present.
	That's why.
	Usually with other people present.
	Like with me, traditionally, dates are one-on-one.
	Right.
	Having dates with other people there was kind of a new thing to me at the time.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	And she's actually the one girl I kind of wish I'd married.
	She was the best relationship I ever had.
	The other one I'm actually.
	But it was a friendship.
	Yeah.
	It was a fr and it was amazing that I didn't feel that I was in a relationship with somebody.
	I had this connection with a woman that wasn't entirely sexual.
	I wasn't feeling pressured into sex all the time.
	Like my experience dating women is like, if you don't rush into sex, like you, I felt pressured to rush into it all the time.
	And if you don't, it was actually a trend I saw is that if you don't sleep with her on the first day, you're not seeing her again.
	Huh.
	So this woman you hung out with a couple of times a week, often with friends for six months, but didn't make any moves.
	Yeah, I don't.
	It's because there was a couple divisions.
	Were you sleeping with other women during this time period or were you monogamous to something?
	I was not, weirdly enough.
	I wasn't sleeping around during those six months.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	So I didn't feel bad after I was like, oh, shit, I have suddenly cheated.
	So what happened when she said, you're my boyfriend?
	Did you have a relationship?
	We did.
	We went out some more, kissed some more, and the relationship started to fall apart when we tried to have sex.
	What happened?
	What do you mean, tried to have sex?
	Did you miss?
	She was an intact virgin, and I couldn't fix that.
	And either emotionally or, yeah.
	Oh, so this is back to the reminds me of the horrible sentence in that book from when you were in the group home.
	So she was an intact virgin and you said, I'm not going to take your virginity because some reason, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And so what happened then?
	Well, I think I said, that's, I don't think I said this, but I think this was my frame of thought because you have this gift.
	You have the choice of who to give it away to.
	And I'm just some American you've been dating.
	Let's wait.
	And I said, let's, you should wait maybe till marriage.
	And then I didn't go marry her.
	But what happened to the relationship after you decided not to have I mean, I mean, obviously there's more than that.
	I'm sorry?
	We still dated a little bit after that, but we started to fall apart.
	I mean, I'm sorry, we started to drift away.
	And then what happened?
	Oh, my time there ended.
	I was part of this, I forgot what it's called.
	Well, I can't tell you the name of it anyways.
	There was this agency that did housing for former group home children at reduced cost.
	And I think I came into it late, so I only had a year of it.
	So it was time for me to move.
	And the prices of rent in that area just shot up during that time.
	I was barely working two part-time jobs that together were maybe a full-time job and not enough to rent a place.
	And I got better job offers across the country.
	I'm like, I can't even afford to live here, let alone to be a boyfriend, let alone be a husband and father.
	And I know I'm not emotionally ready to do that.
	I broke it off.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	Got it.
	All right.
	And so that was the longest sort of relationship.
	And what was the longest actual romantic-y sexual relationship that you had?
	From the beginning to the end, it was a girl I regret having a relationship with because, well, I'll tell you how it ends.
	Thai girl.
	I met her at the library.
	We hit it off.
	Went out eating all the time.
	I helped her with her school homework.
	We made love all the time.
	She was like sex-made human form.
	It was great.
	But the entire time, there was like this weird sense I had that something wasn't right.
	Eventually, she broke up with me.
	A month later, she was pregnant and married.
	And what was not right?
	Well, you had to, I was waiting for the sort of big reveal, the sort of sixth sense.
	That was the big reveal.
	A month afterwards, she was pregnant and married, which means she was dating other people at the same time.
	Oh, yeah.
	And she was just there for the green card.
	She was just there for the green card.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	So I'm like, this is too good to be true.
	I was warned earlier, like, if a woman is that good to you all the time, be careful.
	Okay.
	And yeah.
	And what's with the Shiksha thing?
	Your mother never said find a night's Jewish girl?
	Like, what's the story there?
	I'm only Jewish by blood, not by faith.
	Same for her.
	Like, she, she's, she's Catholic now for some reason.
	Um, I'm, I'm Christian by faith, uh, Protestant.
	Okay, but your mother was Jewish.
	And that matters.
	Yes, she was a Jewish woman when she had me.
	Okay, got it.
	I'm Jewish.
	Okay, got it.
	By blood, I'm Jewish.
	Yeah.
	So, but yeah, so like the longest-term romantic relationship proper that I consider actually romantic was six to eight months.
	Maybe a month of petering out.
	I think I still talked to her on text for a month afterwards.
	I think we tried the long distance now.
	Okay, got it.
	And you haven't had sex in five years.
	Is that right?
	That's sort of continuing to now, or there was a five-year stretch.
	No, for five years from today, to today.
	To today.
	Okay.
	And what has caused you to back away from that arena?
	Part of it was just most of my dating experience was just awful.
	But also 2020, there was this thing going around that people were panicking about.
	Yeah, I do platforming.
	Yeah, yeah, got it.
	Got it.
	Nothing else going on in the world.
	I think that might be platforming, but yeah, sorry, go ahead.
	Correct.
	Nothing else.
	And after that, dating became like an order of magnitude more teeth pulling.
	And I also realized, oh, the 2020 was also around when I became really bad for alcohol, like a lot of people did during the panic.
	Right.
	Mine was because I finally gotten a job that would have launched me out of poverty and gotten me into position where I could afford a house and family.
	I was a radio tower technician thing, like 80-something K per year, three times more than I've ever made before.
	I'm like, yes, finally, I can start a life.
	Economy's starting to improve under Trump for two middling years, and job's gone.
	Everything's gone.
	All the friends are locked up.
	Nothing.
	Yeah, it was horrible.
	Yeah, it was just a horrible time.
	That was one of only three times I was ever offered a job that would have gotten me into financially the positions I wanted to be.
	The other two I turned down.
	But yeah, nothing.
	And so thank God I discovered people were willing to pay me to write.
	Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to feed myself during that time.
	Right.
	Right.
	That was around the time I started doing freelance writing for actual money.
	And sorry, what was the arc of the alcohol stuff?
	As soon as things opened up, it got better, much better.
	And what was at the height?
	What were you?
	How much were you drinking?
	Believe it or not, the worst wasn't during COVID.
	It was during a one-month period after COVID when I got into a new place.
	I had a roommate who was, I think he was straight up schizophrenic, screaming at the walls all hours of the day and night, exposing himself to the rest of us.
	The police kept having to be called.
	Everything was being stolen.
	The place was filthy.
	And at that point, I was drinking 750 milliliters of vodka per day.
	Wow, that seems like a lot.
	I couldn't, I can't believe it today now.
	And how long?
	I mean, that was one month.
	One month.
	When did you have you cut back from that?
	Is that right?
	I did cut back from that.
	As soon as I moved in with my grandmother after that, because nobody else is willing to take care of her, that's when I kind of got off the alcohol.
	Problem is, she's a heavy drinker, too.
	So there's so much alcohol in the house.
	And you know, with people who've struggled with alcohol in the past or an alcohol, but my drinking mostly was only correlated after that to my writing because I like to drink while I write.
	It's a very bad habit of writers.
	And yeah.
	But I've gotten down to less than one serving per day, less than five per week right now, as in like one beer.
	Okay.
	Good, good.
	So I'm doing much better.
	I'm almost completely off caffeine, too, which, as weird as it's going to sound, I think is way worse than alcohol, especially for me.
	Because narcolepsy, it interferes with your sleep.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	So hang on.
	So I just want to make sure because we've got about another 20 minutes to 25 minutes to go.
	What's the best way that I can provide value for you in the time that we have remaining?
	The best way you can provide value to me.
	How will you know it's a successful conversation when we're done talking?
	I want people who hear this to talk to you to get their stories out there and spread from there.
	Because the reason, there were three reasons I wanted to share this with you after our conversation, however many weeks ago.
	One is, this is right up your alley in terms, I know that you've fought a verbal war against public schools.
	Good.
	It's starting to die.
	I'm not sure if you've seen the data lately.
	these group homes might be your next beast to conquer um that and i know that a lot of people that listen to you probably aren't weren't willing just aren't willing to come on and talk to you because there's some of their stories are a lot worse than mine if they were in group homes
	But the third is, I kind of want people who are in the same group homes as me to contact me so I could get receipts because I found out recently after our talk, a lot of this stuff is not outside of what's it called on the time limit for crimes.
	Oh, statute of limitations.
	Yep.
	I just found out that some of the abuse ended for me a year ago, and I could have gone after them at any time.
	I didn't know.
	And I want everyone out there to know you can go after these people legally, not with a gun.
	Don't find out where they live.
	But what about the qualified immunity thing?
	That's for social workers.
	Not necessarily for the psychiatrists or the workers in these group homes or the group homes themselves, which can be sued as legal entities.
	Okay.
	So I want, I don't want you to provide value for me.
	I want us to provide value for the people who might listen to this.
	Okay, so that they can look into if they were mistreated, they can look into the legal remedies.
	Okay, is there anything else that you wanted to get out to people?
	Yes.
	Yes, people who are still in the group homes.
	I said one earlier.
	When you're 16, 100 bucks, get your GED, either get out of there or make them pay for your college, which is why they never told me because I could have gone out with an associate's degree.
	Okay.
	And is there anything else that you wanted people to know?
	I mean, to contact you if they knew you and anything else.
	Job Corps.
	My God, the Job Corps.
	Nobody told me about the Job Corps.
	I'm still angry about that.
	For those of you who don't know, the Job Corps is a free trade school for people under the age of 24.
	I found out about it when I was 24 and a half.
	So there's one.
	If you're a young man, don't join the military.
	There's this thing called small claims court.
	If your employer steps one toe out of line in breaking employment law, sue them.
	I would be a millionaire today if I sued.
	I pretty much had license to sue half of every employer I ever had.
	Working in America was just not work for small businesses.
	Work for yourself independently if you can.
	That's especially if you grew up in group homes because it's just more of the same.
	Those same people that ruined your childhood are the ones in charge of HR.
	And when I say imagine your entire childhood just in a meeting with human resources morons, that's what it was.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention as we close down?
	Yes.
	One big issue I face that I think you'll find very telling.
	It's to do with that anti-rape training I went through.
	I remember they went on and on inferring the negative in saying that most people who sexually abuse children were themselves sexually abused as children.
	I grew up as an adult because of that training, I was terrified.
	I was like a danger to children.
	Like there was some demon demon inside of me that would make me rape children.
	And then I started being put around children and they were wonderful and I couldn't imagine ever hurting them.
	And children are wonderful.
	Okay, that's obviously good.
	I mean, certainly if people have been abused, I recommend seeking some help, some professional stuff, and so on.
	And is there anything else that you'd like to mention?
	I'm trying to think.
	You're better at asking pointed questions about all the stuff I've shared so far.
	Like, are there parts where you think I should have a takeaway?
	Or I probably do, but I just am not thinking about it.
	Well, you know, I think the only thing that I would mention is, and this is somewhat the nature of these kinds of conversations.
	So I know that this is not your average everyday conversation.
	But you don't check in with people.
	So earlier in the conversation, I was saying I was having difficulty with the conversation.
	Oh, you're talking about how I talk to people.
	Yeah.
	Well, I was talking about that.
	No, I was talking about my experience of the conversation.
	So obviously, if you want to get married and have kids, you need to check in with people about how they're doing with what you're telling them.
	Right.
	So when I'm having conversations, I'm like, does this make sense?
	Or do you have anything to add?
	Or, you know, that kind of stuff.
	I almost want to check in with people to see how the other person is experiencing the conversation.
	You have a bit of a canon, you know, just boom, boom, boom, boom, like stuff just coming out, coming out, coming out.
	And I think it eclipses the other person a little bit.
	I don't think that you're necessarily saying, okay, how is the other person processing what I'm saying?
	And even when I did say, I'm having trouble processing what you're saying, you kind of went on and you never circled back to say, has that changed for you or how are you doing with your side of the conversation?
	And it's just, it's a minor tweak, but I think it might be important in terms of maintaining a longer-term relationship that you really do have to check in with people to see how their experience of the conversation is.
	Otherwise, people tend to sort of zone out or space out or disconnect or dissociate because there's no participation in the conversation.
	And it really is just about an information dump.
	And again, I know this isn't a sort of standard average conversation, but I think you have to, if I were to give you sort of one tip, it would be, you know, to, even if you've got to set a timer, like every five or 10 minutes, check in with the other person and see how they're doing, see if what you're doing, see if what you're saying makes sense and see how their emotions are, particularly if, you know, you're going to be dating out there in the world, hopefully at some point soon.
	And at some point, you know, the past or the history of the childhood is going to come up.
	At least I hope it does because it's important stuff to talk about in any relationship.
	And if you go into motor mouth mode and this sort of disconnected mode, I think the other person is going to have a very tough time connecting with your childhood.
	And eventually, if somebody just keeps firing trauma at you without checking in with you, people are going to start to feel used or ignored, if that makes sense.
	And again, this is a minor tweak.
	And again, I want to reiterate: I know this kind of conversation that we're having tonight is not a standard issue conversation, but I would say make sure that you are pausing and checking in with people about how the other person is experiencing what you're telling them.
	I wrote down dominating conversations as something to work on.
	You're absolutely right.
	And you're not the first person to say that.
	But I will say this only ever comes up when I'm talking like on online forums, like on Discord chats or things.
	Like in person, I'm really quiet with people, but you're all right.
	No, but that's why I said when you date, they're going to ask about your history.
	Yes, sir.
	And just make sure that.
	Oh, I said so again.
	I'm sorry.
	It's fine.
	But yeah, just make when you are talking about this kind of stuff, I think, because I think some of it is unprocessed.
	And I think that you narrate it in a very emotionally distant way and you don't check in with the other person.
	And just when, you know, I remember when I would date, you know, before I met my current wife and people would ask me about my childhood, I'd sort of say little things here and there or say a little bit more and say, well, what do you think?
	Or how do you feel?
	I know this is kind of an unusual history and all of that.
	And try to get people's experience of what it is that I was saying.
	Otherwise, I would just be like, boom, boom, boom, trauma dump and disconnected, dissociated with no checking in with the other person.
	And that kind of reproduced my childhood if I were to do that, because I felt invisible to people in my childhood.
	And I don't want people to feel invisible when I'm talking about my childhood because then I'm kind of recreating in them what I experienced as a kid.
	And I was, I wasn't always perfect with that, of course, right?
	But I generally did try to avoid that stuff.
	That's very good stuff.
	And I think this really is just that this isn't a face-to-face conversation.
	I kind of forget you're there.
	If I'm being, as weird as that sounds, I really prefer like, I don't see your facial touch.
	Okay, so I mean, you either take the coaching or you don't, because there's going to be times when you're on the phone with people, right?
	There's going to be times when you're on the phone.
	So saying, well, but it's not face-to-face.
	I'm just, I'm just, yeah, I don't need the caveats and now, because there will be times when you're talking about this stuff on the phone or on Skype or not Skype anymore, I guess, but on Discord or whatever.
	So just, yeah, that's just a sort of minor tweak that I would suggest to make sure that you stay connected with someone when you're talking about your history.
	I agree completely.
	And you're not the first person to say it on, again, you're not the first person to say it.
	And it's something I've made mental notes to work on, but now I'm putting it a little bit higher in priority because if it's coming from you, it must be real bad.
	Well, I mean, if other people have said it before and it still hasn't taken, then it would be something to focus on.
	Well, listen, I appreciate the call.
	I really do.
	And I also appreciate the apology.
	And I also would really like to say that I'm incredibly sorry for everything that happened to you as a child.
	I think it's just terrible.
	I mean, how are things with you and your mother if she's still alive?
	Things are great between us.
	I did remember something I wanted to talk about.
	It will only take a couple minutes.
	I've been terrified about writing this book about my experiences.
	And talking to you last week made me outline two additional chapters, no, three additional chapters, because you asked questions that I needed to be asked, and you did the same today.
	And thank you so much.
	This really helped me with my project.
	But I'm terrified of actually writing and releasing this book because it shares too much of my story.
	It's embarrassing.
	It's humiliating.
	And I'm worried about any social consequences it would have in the future if I share it.
	I mean, first of all, you could just write it anonymously.
	And secondly, if you're going to be making significant accusations, I would run it through a lawyer before you.
	It's on my list.
	Okay.
	Yeah, but I mean, you could just write and publish it anonymously and change the names and the details, as people often do with these kinds of things, because the important thing is the story gets out.
	And if you feel like you're doing it anonymously, it might be easier for you to be more direct and honest, as opposed to if you if you're thinking, oh, what are people going to think?
	This is going to trace it back to me and so on.
	It might interfere with the honesty process.
	I just wrote down, I'll write it anonymously so I can be more direct and honest.
	That's the brave stuff.
	But yeah, if anybody ever contacts you about wanting to talk about a group home stuff and they want a second opinion on hand, you have my number.
	Yeah, yeah, I'll forward emails to you.
	If people do want to, they can always email me, support at freedomain.com, and I will forward the emails onto you.
	And I, of course, wish you the very best and hope you have great luck with writing and great conversations with people who choose to contact you.
	Thank you.
	I'm hoping that some of them talk to you and hear what they need to hear.
	But oh, besides the dominating conversations and the slight dissociation, any other criticisms?
	I'm actually way more, as a freelance writer who gets a lot of feedback, I'm more open to criticism than you might think.
	Yeah, no, that's the major stuff that I would mention.
	And again, just massive sympathies for what happened with you as a child.
	I don't know if I should share this.
	One problem I've had throughout my adulthood, just because it's come up here a few times, is which is why trigger warnings are so stupid.
	People who feel sympathy or sorrow for me secondhand has always made me irrationally angry.
	And I know it's stupid, like you should be, but like I, that's like one of the only triggers I've had.
	It's like, so sorry you had that because there was just so much false sympathy growing up.
	So just one last problem I wanted to share with you for other people to hear is like, that's not normal.
	You shouldn't be angered by people saying, that's not right.
	I'm sorry.
	Yep, I agree with that.
	Although I understand if there is a lot of fake sympathy, it can make you kind of kind of twitchy that way.
	All right.
	Well, I'll stop here, but I hope you'll stay in touch and let me know how things are going.
	And I'll forward you any emails I get from people who want to chat.
	Yes, sir.
	Maybe next time we can talk about writing, says I know you know a lot about that.
	I have a little bit of experience to talk about.
	All right.
	Well, thanks, Ben.
	I appreciate it.
	Have a great night.

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