Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - I Left My Brother Behind! CALL IN SHOW

Feb. 3, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:18:25

I Left My Brother Behind! CALL IN SHOW

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Listening to Paralysis 00:02:10
	I sent you a message that said that I can't listen to your call-in shows without experiencing feelings of self-hatred and paralysis.
	And I'm a father of two, I'm a husband, and I desperately want to do better.
	Please help.
	Yes, yes.
	I read the message today, and I'm happy to hear what you want to do better at.
	Sure.
	Well, I think that everything that you make, every show that I've listened to, especially the call-in shows, there's so much in there that I can tell is great and would be great for me.
	But especially when it comes to practical things, especially when it comes to things that I could actually do, I get those feelings.
	I get the self-hatred.
	I get the paralysis.
	I can get dizzy.
	I can get an urge to drink alcohol, all kinds of things.
	And I think that that's what I'd like to change.
	I'm sweating right now telling you that.
	Sure, sure.
	And how long have you been listening to what I do?
	One year and nine months, roughly.
	A year and nine months.
	Okay.
	How did you, I mean, I'm a little surprised these days.
	How did you find out about me?
	I don't know.
	I have absolutely no memory.
	It's a miracle that I found you.
	Okay, good, good.
	I'm just curious.
	Okay.
	And did you start listening to the call-in shows or something else?
	I know that very quickly I listened to the call-in shows.
	And I think it's not important to me what I started with, but the call-in shows is what kept me listening because of the way that you communicate, the way that you're honest with people.
	Thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	All right.
	Okay, so you've had this sort of love-hate relationship in a way that you like the call-in shows, but you have a sort of physical like a reaction, like almost like an allergy, is that right?
Born Rough, Gained Camaraderie 00:12:02
	That's what it turned into, yes.
	In the beginning, it was just love, just the honeymoon phase, I guess.
	And then it changed.
	Yeah, before the inner alter egos get activated.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And do you remember when you first, like what was happening, what you were listening to, or when you first began getting more of a reaction?
	Well, I think that listening to your role plays that you do with people, where one is the parent, the other one is the adult child.
	And then I started thinking about my own mother more and more.
	I think that was probably one point where I got stronger and stronger reactions.
	All right.
	Well, let's talk about your childhood.
	What's going on?
	Oh, God.
	I did the, I know that you used to ask people to do the ACE, the ACE, ACES test.
	So I did it, and I got a six.
	And sort of, I was born to a single mother.
	Pretty much, my father was out of the picture very quickly.
	And it was just neglect, left, right, and center.
	That's how I would describe it in one sentence.
	That she sort of, it was just her, just me and her.
	And there's no one else.
	Oh, no siblings, right?
	Later, there was a half-brother when I was six, I believe.
	Before that, no.
	No, that's rough, man.
	The single son of a single mother is one of the most challenging combos of all.
	And I'm really sorry about that.
	What happened to your dad?
	So I tell you in his own words, when I was, I think, 20, I talked to him.
	I think the only long conversation I ever had with him, the last one too.
	And he explained it to me that I was born prematurely.
	And so I was attached to a few machines in the hospital, and I was cross-eyed.
	And he walked in into the room.
	And my older brother had died a year earlier.
	So there was, you could say, it's a pretty bad situation.
	My parents were already on the brink of something terrible.
	And he said that he looked at me and he just couldn't take it.
	He just had to.
	I mean, that's where the sentence ends.
	That's all I remember.
	But I mean, in my head, I'm adding is that he just had to run away.
	And that's pretty much what he did.
	And what had happened to your brother?
	He had encephalitis.
	I think that's what is called an inflammation of the brain when he was something like one and a half years old when he died in the hospital.
	Yeah, that's awful.
	It's awful.
	Okay, so you were born prematurely, and your father had concerns that you also might be sick or damaged or die or something, right?
	That's I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Well, we only know with what he said, but he said he ran away when he saw you premature and cross-eyed and so on, right?
	Right.
	But I mean, if he had just talked to a daughter, to a doctor for a minute or two, I think I wasn't born.
	Like I was born maybe a few weeks too early or something, nothing crazy.
	So I think the chance of me actually dying are very low.
	Right.
	No, no, I get that.
	I get that.
	So it may have been somewhat of an excuse or something like that.
	And do you know how long your parents were together?
	I don't know exactly, but something like three years, maybe.
	Okay, got it.
	And when he left, was he like just totally despawned or did he ever come back?
	Or how did that go?
	So the way that I remember it is that we'd sometimes see him.
	That's not even a handful of memories in those first years, let's say six to eight years.
	And there's that strange sense that he was my father, but it's very weird.
	These memories are really weird.
	And from what my mother said.
	It's a very weird way.
	Yeah, sure.
	I see these pictures.
	I remember one memory, I played football with him, and he sort of kicked the ball into my belly, and it hurt a little bit.
	It was a softball, though.
	Then my mother sort of was angry at him and scolded him.
	And the memory just sort of floats in nothingness.
	And it's like just thinking, thinking about it makes me feel like sort of dissociate.
	Like I'm more aware of my vision.
	I'm more aware of the sweat in my skin.
	It's as if.
	I don't know.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, so those disconnected memories usually occur because there's zero emotional connection and there's just a couple of vivid physical things, like I guess him kicking the ball into your stomach, but there's no conversations, there's no eye contact.
	It's just being around someone without having any real connection.
	I mean, I didn't have much connection with my father at all.
	In fact, we never connected.
	And I mean, I just, I have these sort of flashes of memory, both from when I was younger.
	He actually came to visit me when I lived in Montreal in my 20s and actually kind of stiffed me on a restaurant bill, but that's a topic for another time.
	But yeah, because there's no actual eye contact, there's no connection, there's no self and other present in communication in a sort of relaxed and open and curious way.
	And so if the memories seem weird, usually it's because there's just this massive emotional gulf between people and all you have are physical sensations, if that makes sense.
	Yes, I was getting some sort of like dizziness while you were explaining this, and I got these details from the memory, which is that, yes, there was no eye contact.
	It was just this him being close to me and this longing.
	That's it.
	Sorry, him being close to you.
	I'm not sure I follow that.
	Well, his body is not that far from my body, but there's no sense of him really seeing me or him like a real connection or contact.
	Yeah, eye contact is the key, right?
	And yes, the main reason why people don't have eye contact is guilt.
	The guilty person, and particularly if you're a parent, the guilty person cannot meet the eyes.
	The guilty father, the guilty mother, they cannot meet the eyes of their child.
	It's too agonizing because in order to be selfish as a parent, you have to dehumanize your child.
	And eye contact is designed to overcome dehumanization.
	So most people who don't have that emotional connection or have that eye contact are avoiding guilt.
	Well, I'm not surprised.
	I'm not surprised, yes.
	And you said it was up until around six or seven?
	And it vanished after that?
	Well, my mother, she took us.
	So by then, that was my brother, my half-brother, too.
	And so when I was eight, I believe, my mother took us pretty far away.
	Like, well, I mean, like three hours by car.
	So you could argue it's not that far.
	But it was far enough that I didn't get to see my friends anymore.
	I didn't really get to see my family anymore.
	I think my father, I saw him a few more times, but it was more of a hassle.
	Like one time I got on a train all by myself and had to switch trains.
	And I wasn't much older than nine or ten.
	I remember how exciting that was, but I think that's when for all these could say practical reasons, which I mean, of course, like now I know that they are not practical reasons.
	He could have seen me more often, but he stopped seeing me.
	And sorry, you said you had your half-brother.
	So when did your mother met a new man?
	Did she get remarried?
	Or how did your half-brother come about?
	She met a new man who lived, I think, pretty close to us.
	That must have been when I was something like five, I think, or maybe six.
	She got pregnant very quickly from him, and she left him, I believe, while she was pregnant.
	Oh, so when your half-brother was born, his father wasn't even around?
	Yes, that's right.
	The fuck is wrong with your mother?
	I've been wondering that for a long time.
	Okay, so she gets knocked up by this some dude and then he leaves her or she leaves him before your half-brother is even born, right?
	Yes.
	So what is she living on?
	Where's her income?
	So back then, she did, she worked at a government job, the kind of thing where you stamp passports or something like that, which, I mean, I think it was considered like a safe job back then.
	And it wasn't actually that easy.
	Like you had to do some sort of proper studying for like three years or something to get into that job.
	And so that's what she did, which is a very like you can't get a lot of holiday.
	If you have kids, you get all kinds of, I don't know, I'm still struggling with the words right now, but I think it does make sense, right?
	What I'm saying.
	Sorry.
	Well, I mean, that's so she's gotten, but who was taking care of you when she was working?
	I had to go to daycare when I was very, very young.
	And once she told me that that was pretty terrible for me, that I had a really rough time in the beginning.
	I don't know how young I was.
	But, I mean, I assume something like one year old.
	Wait, so she stayed home for a whole year?
	No, how could she have if your father left?
	Oh, so it could be, yeah, don't tell me where you are, but you could be in some place where there's a lot of government support for this kind of stuff, right?
	Like a lot of maternity leave and a lot of, you know, subsidized daycare and all of that sort of stuff, right?
	Exactly right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So she's just basically married the government.
	She has.
	Okay.
	That's tragic.
	Okay.
	So did you were six or seven when you're you seven or eight or six or seven when your half-brother came along?
	When he came along, I was six.
	Six.
	Yes.
	And when I was eight, we moved away.
	Okay.
	And do you know if your half-brother, I guess he never saw his father either, right?
	His father was around much more often than my father.
	Something like every couple of weeks.
	He would either invite my brother over or, yeah, I think mostly that.
	He would invite my brother to his place.
	Okay.
	And were you ever along with this, or was it just them?
	It was just them, even though I do have fond memories of that man.
	Now that you're asking this, I actually am quite surprised to hear myself say that I was never, you know what?
	When I was a little older, when I was a little older, we would do the three of us would do a few things.
	But yes, it was mostly just him, him and his son, him and my brother.
	Okay.
	And what was the relationship?
	I mean, it's a baby, right?
	And you're six, so it's not much of a relationship at the beginning, at least I assume so.
	But what happened with your relationship with your half-brother over the years?
	The way that I remember it is that I was annoyed by him because he was different than me.
Babysitter Memories 00:14:12
	He was slower.
	He was very stubborn.
	But there was some word camaraderie.
	Can you help me with that word?
	Cara camaraderie, yeah, that's good.
	That one.
	So I do feel that there was some sort of bond, and we did have conversations, and it was kind of a sort of a real relationship for quite a few years.
	And what was your relationship with your mother like over this first sort of half decade or so of your life?
	So I think mostly I'd either be anxious around her or relieved, one of the two.
	I would be anxious if I couldn't sort of tell what mood she was in.
	And then those moments, those stretches of time when I just knew that I was safe, I was relieved.
	Okay, so sometimes she was unpredictable and sometimes she was more predictable.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	That's actually right.
	And what would happen when she was in a bad mood?
	When she was in a bad mood, these memories get strange again.
	I have some memories of her abusing me physically, so that's easy.
	But that kind of thing.
	Sorry, what's the scene?
	You can't just drop that in without some details.
	What does that mean?
	Sure, sure.
	Sorry about that.
	So one time I would splashed her, like I was jumping into some muddy puddles, and I and then she got some mud on her, on her white pants.
	So she just slapped me across the face hard.
	Another time, it's kind of the same thing where I played in a swimming.
	Do you remember how old you were?
	Something like four, I think, four or five, maybe.
	Okay.
	Then around that same age in the swimming pool, we played and I sort of scratched her face and she lost her glasses.
	She dropped them.
	Then same thing, just a very hard slap across the face.
	And I could just remember being completely disoriented, just sobbing.
	And of course, there was no explanations.
	It was just reaction, right?
	It wasn't like you're supposed to.
	Like in some of the ideal stuff around spanking, you sort of patiently explain and then you do the spanking and you explain after.
	But she just lashed out.
	Is that right?
	That's exactly right.
	And then later she'd explained it to me that it had been because she was so angry or just because of like her white pants and when you get dirt on them, then you it's hard to wash them.
	Yeah, that's why you don't have white pants around four-year-olds when there are puddles.
	Anyway, I mean, that's just like saying to some kid, you know, well, I want you to carry, you're three years old.
	I want you to carry this antique vase down the stairs.
	And then saying, well, you dropped the vase.
	I'm angry, right?
	I mean, it's just nuts, right?
	Anyway, okay.
	All right.
	So did she explain it to you with apology or what was her mood as far as you could guess when she was explaining why she hit you?
	It was some sort of strange apology.
	I want to say that it felt like self-pity.
	Like, I think there was no eye contact.
	Now that you kind of brought that up, I think that's a pretty, that's sort of a threat that I can track, that there was no eye contact during those times.
	So it never felt seen.
	Okay, so she was sort of half justifying it, like I'm sorry, but I was angry, or like, well, I was angry, and that's why it happened.
	So there was sort of stuff, like some sort of justifications, even though there may have been an air of regret.
	I think that's pretty spot on, yes.
	Okay.
	Okay, got it.
	So she hit you twice.
	And what else do you remember in terms of physical stuff, if anything?
	From that time, not much else.
	There was one time that she was preparing something in the kitchen that was supposed to be a surprise.
	And I sort of broke through the door.
	Like I just kept smashing into the door until it opened.
	And then there was something there.
	I think she just was very angry at me.
	She might have slapped me.
	Again, it's just that sense of just like complete shock and me just sobbing uncontrollably and just sitting there and not understanding what was going on.
	Okay.
	And what about, did she yell or screech or call you names or anything like that?
	Oh, that's so strange.
	No.
	She never, she was never loud.
	Never, ever.
	She would call me stupid and stuff like that, but in sort of a mocking voice.
	Like what?
	What would that sound like?
	Very calm.
	Like, oh, you're stupid.
	Oh, you're stupid.
	You're a liar.
	Sort of like that.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And you said that you experienced neglect.
	Is that right?
	She was government worker, so she wasn't working like 70 hours a week, I assume.
	So what was it like when she was home?
	So the neglect pretty much starts with that time when we moved.
	So when I was eight, that's when she had two kids.
	She was all by herself.
	No, no, no.
	Sorry, it's already interrupted.
	We got to start earlier than eight because by eight, your personality is already formed.
	So we've got to figure out what went on earlier.
	So you said that you'd been put into daycare.
	Like, okay, let me ask you this.
	What's your earliest memory?
	No, I don't know.
	Well, I'm not asking you, you have to have it down to the time stamp, but what's some early thing that you can remember?
	I mean, like, after school, or you said you were in daycare, were you in daycare from like a year until school or kindergarten or what?
	Well, I'm sorry, I wasn't being precise.
	When you asked me that question, I saw pictures with myself in them as a baby.
	That's what I saw.
	I know that there are these pictures, like where I'm in a bathtub, but there's a picture of me in that group in kindergarten.
	That's what I saw when you asked me for my earliest memory.
	Oh, so it's not you from the inside out, it's remembering pictures or pictures that you saw of yourself.
	Yes.
	Yeah, it's funny.
	I was just remembering that there's a picture of me when I'm very little, maybe like a year or maybe 14 months.
	I'm actually standing on a frozen pond, which is an insane thing to do to a kid that young.
	And I look kind of nervous.
	The ice does not look very thick, but I guess that's just kind of general hazard stuff that some of us went through.
	Okay, so what about your earliest memory from sort of inside of the eyeballs out?
	You know what?
	Yeah, I want to say that that's when I tried breaking through the door where my mother was preparing that surprise.
	I think that's a pretty early memory.
	And do you have any idea how old you might have been?
	I'd say four.
	Okay, and so I guess you'd still be late daycare or early kindergarten.
	Do you remember where you were during the day when your mother was working?
	I don't remember anything, no.
	I have a single memory from daycare where I think I kissed a girl sort of in secret.
	That was it.
	And I have no idea when that was or how that fits into anything else.
	Well, it could also be a story that we've internalized.
	Okay, so when do you start having memories of your day?
	I have these memories of me being in a house with a cat.
	So that might have been also that kind of age where I was three or four.
	And you know what?
	I have this strange memory where I was in that house and I ate something.
	I found something on the floor.
	I just ate it.
	And I think it like just the taste, it must have been something like chocolate.
	But pretty much until two years ago, I had a really bad conscience about eating that.
	And I always thought it must have been poop.
	That's, I think, a pretty early memory.
	And that's just me.
	What do you mean, like a bad conscience?
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	Well, it can't be, right?
	Well, I have this.
	I felt guilty.
	Felt guilty for eating that from the floor.
	But sorry, you were a little kid, you found something on the floor, and you tried to eat it.
	I mean, that's what little kids do, right?
	It's like feeling guilty for pooping in a diaper.
	I mean, I'm not sure.
	And I'm sure there's a good reason.
	I'm just not sure what it is.
	I mean, why would you feel guilty for trying to put, like, for putting something in your mouth?
	That's what kids do.
	So that's the anxiety that I always had, that I just do things wrong.
	Okay, do you remember any authority figures from other than your mother from when you were little, like daycare teachers or somebody in charge?
	There was a babysitter.
	My best friend was a refugee from Africa, him, and his mother and his three brothers.
	And they had a babysitter who was a very, very intimidating woman.
	I remember her.
	I was very scared of her.
	Sorry, and so this is a black family.
	And are you a white person or some other ethnicity?
	White.
	Okay, got it.
	Okay, so you had as your authority figure a black woman, and were you staying with this black family when you were little during the day?
	I'm sorry, the babysitter was white too.
	Maybe I misspoke.
	Oh, the babysitter was white.
	Okay, go ahead.
	Sorry.
	So the family was black from Africa, and the babysitter was white, and you were white.
	And so she babysat you and the three black kids.
	Is that right?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	And what was intimidating about the white woman?
	We would eat lunch there, and there's this terrible dish that is like chicken with pineapple.
	And I just thought I'm going to throw up if I eat that.
	And so I told her I can't eat that.
	And then she said, you have to.
	And then I said, well, but I'll throw up if I do.
	Then she said, well, then you'll have to eat it anyway because I just know that you do that on purpose.
	So I felt completely trapped.
	And I think I ate it and I somehow didn't throw up.
	Yeah, it sucks when it works, right?
	When that level of intimidation does end up working for them, right?
	Ah, you're not going to throw up.
	And then you find a way to not throw up.
	And they're like, see, I told you, right?
	It's like Quitter's Ink.
	Yeah, okay.
	All right.
	And how long was that woman in charge of you?
	I have no idea.
	I know that I saw her quite a number of times.
	And then there was some sort of strange birthday party in the end where we go to her house and she had a lot of big dogs in these big cages.
	And I think it must have been her birthday or something.
	So she was sort of like, she must have been a stable part of my life for a little while at least.
	Okay.
	And so she, I mean, she was quite cruel, right?
	Well, that food story, I think, is quite interesting.
	Well, that's indicative, right?
	You only need one or two of those stories to get the pattern.
	Okay.
	And I suppose you did you not like her?
	Was she ever affectionate or playful in ways that were positive?
	Oh, no.
	No, no, no.
	Oh, God.
	I want to say no 800 times.
	Right.
	Okay.
	I'm getting a German vibe, but don't tell me where you are.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, of course, you couldn't say to your mother, I don't like the babysitter.
	She knew.
	She knew that I disliked her.
	I think it just didn't matter.
	And so you told her or she observed something, or do you know why, how she knew?
	I remember some sort of conversation about the babysitter that I didn't like her, that I was scared of her.
	And my mother, let's just say my mother gaslighting me, kind of saying, oh, it's not that bad, or something like that.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And that's interesting because if the daycare, oh, but she, you didn't like the daycare, so the daycare may have been subsidized, but if you didn't like the daycare, then your mother's going to put you maybe into this environment, right?
	If I had to guess, I would say that it was kind of on and off, that because they were my friends, sometimes I could maybe be with them.
	Sorry, who was your friend?
	Sorry, I'm not sure, but you mean the black kids.
	Oh, the black kids are your friends.
	Okay.
	And did you get along well with them?
	Very well.
	Yeah, I liked all of them.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay, so you were at least spending time with friends, and that was a positive.
	But the babysitter was kind of mean, and your mother just basically said it's going to be fine, or it doesn't matter, or it's not as bad as you think, or something like that, right?
	That's right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And then how did things go for you when you went to school?
	Well, I was always very good at school.
	And I remember that there were many kids from different countries at that first school that I went to.
	And so everything was very slow and tedious.
	But Do you mean like because of language difficulties and so on?
	It was, if I had to guess, it was just an IQ thing.
	They did speak the language, but they clearly weren't interested in learning and they probably couldn't, or maybe couldn't.
	I don't know.
	So either they weren't interested or they just didn't get it.
	Okay, and were you able to make any friends at school?
	I did make a few friends, yes.
	I would say like one or two, something.
	Not actually more.
	I think I was reasonably popular.
	I got along with the boys.
	I only remember boys.
	Okay.
	And sorry, I feel like I keep asking you, and I get like one sentence in response, which is fine.
	It's just not the most efficient way to get information out.
	I mean, do you want to go to teenage years?
	I mean, what do you're still trying to figure out the origin of your anxiety?
Extreme Reaction Explained 00:02:39
	And if you only hit once or twice or three times, maybe, and your mother wasn't yelling, and you got along well with the African kids, and I mean, you had a mean babysitter.
	I'm trying to sort of understand the origin of the anxiety.
	I think you were talking about anxiety earlier.
	Right.
	Right.
	I'll do my best.
	So.
	Well, okay, let me ask you this to make it more efficient.
	What's your theory as to why you have this anxiety?
	My theory is that I just couldn't do anything right.
	Is that there'd be a lot of nagging.
	There'd be nagging from who?
	From my mother.
	Okay.
	And what was she?
	This is part of the stupid stuff, or like, what was she nagging about?
	Well, it could be absolutely anything.
	Like, I would either be too slow or too fast, or I'd be wait for her.
	Oh, so that's why she understands that.
	Yeah, that's why she couldn't keep a man around because she's a nag.
	Right, that makes sense.
	That wouldn't surprise me.
	And then there's that.
	That's something that she do a lot of.
	And then another thing is that there was just these one or two times where her punishment was extreme.
	And then my reaction, well, my reaction was more extreme than the punishment.
	Yes.
	But one of those times was when we were outside in the snow, and I threw snowballs at her.
	And so there's this pattern that I have a lot of fun, right?
	I have a lot of fun.
	I'm very explosive.
	I move around.
	I sort of tease her.
	I play with her.
	You're a bad person.
	I always throw a snowball.
	And what she said is, okay, if you stop doing that, I will rub the snow in your face.
	And so I kept doing it.
	And then there was this, you know, this hard snow, like when the snow is really hard and it hurts if you put it on your skin.
	So she rubbed that all over my face, sort of taunting me that I deserved that.
	And then, you know, how do I like this?
	How do you like that now?
	And so my reaction to that was to just run away.
	I just ran away into the woods.
	And the police brought me home, I don't know how much later, on that same day.
	So that's one thing where I feel like.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Did you say that that was a strong reaction on your part?
	It always seemed like a very extreme reaction, yes.
	Sorry, why is that an extreme reaction?
	I mean, if you rub shards of ice on a kid's face, you can take out his eyes.
	Oh, I'd never.
Run Away Into the Woods 00:02:56
	Yeah, I guess.
	Yeah, I mean, get the fuck away.
	I mean, I don't know why that's an extra.
	I mean, I'm obviously always happy to be corrected, but I don't understand how that's an extreme reaction.
	If your mother is grinding ice particles into your face, that's incredibly dangerous and painful.
	Well, I guess the extreme part is that I didn't run to get distance from her.
	I just kept running.
	I just kept running.
	And then I was just lost.
	Right.
	So, it meant that you felt that you were in such danger that the woods were safer.
	That could be one.
	I've always thought that I was just done with the world.
	It was just like, this is it.
	I don't know.
	It was just too depressing.
	Everything.
	Sorry, what was depressing?
	I mean, whole life?
	I don't know.
	I just felt that, like, when I was in the woods, after a while, I saw a path.
	And like seeing that path, I was just disappointed to see it.
	And does this make any sense?
	Well, yeah, I mean, I think I understand.
	So you felt that you had a better chance of survival on your own.
	And how old were you at this point?
	Must have been five or younger.
	I'm going to say five.
	Yeah, so you, I imagine, it's sort of like if you are in some dangerous environment and it's probably going to get worse, then you just take your chances.
	Right.
	So if you're in some plane and the pilot's dead and the engines have all failed and you're like, you'll just have to jump, right?
	Yes.
	Because to stay where you are is certain doom.
	And so you'll just try your luck anywhere.
	Maybe you can live on berries and vegetables and eggs in the woods.
	Maybe some family will take you in and you can provide labor for them.
	Or, you know, maybe there's some childless couple in the woods who have a cottage who are looking to have a child.
	Like, you'll just jump in from the plane.
	And, you know, I'd always felt that I have to do everything by myself anyway.
	I think that's also bad anxiety that my mother would sort of stand there on the sidelines and comment on what I do, or she even just judge what I'm doing.
	But I'd have to do everything for as long as I can remember.
	Well, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	So sorry to interrupt.
	And correct me if I'm wrong, of course, right?
	But I think it's more accurate to say not that you wanted to do everything by yourself, because children don't want to do everything by themselves, generally, if they're happy or have good relationships.
	But it was easier.
	It was easier to do things by yourself because your mom was a dangerous nagging witch.
Genes and Broken Mothers 00:15:16
	That's for sure.
	I was just easier.
	It's not like you wanted, like, out of nowhere, you just say, hey, I want to do things on my own.
	It's just that if you have a friend who's trying to help you do something and they're just making it worse, it's not like you want to do it on your own.
	It's just easier than doing it with your idiot friend's help.
	Yes, it was easier.
	But it was also just an incredible burden.
	So it was so hard to do.
	I mean, as a young kid.
	Sorry, it being doing everything on your own.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Yes, but it's less of a burden, right?
	Well, that's for sure.
	But it was so, but then it's so lonely, too.
	Again, and I sympathize with that, but it's the lesser of two evils.
	It's better to be alone than in bad company, right?
	You know, when you think of people like the Great Escape stuff, like they're in some terrible concentration camp and they break out, and they don't necessarily have a plan.
	You know, obviously they're going to hope for some aid, some help, some whatever, right?
	But it's better than staying in the concentration camp, right?
	That was five.
	Right?
	Oh, God.
	This was.
	I mean, my memories of this time are so strange.
	It all seems like stop saying strange.
	Stop it.
	There's nothing strange about this.
	The strangeness is in your mother.
	It's in your father.
	But you said, my memories are so strange.
	What you're doing is you're sucking in this strange gas and mingling it with your blood.
	Like, then you become strange.
	And I don't like that in this conversation.
	I don't like that in any conversation.
	It is not strange to react in extreme ways to extreme circumstances.
	That's not strange, is it?
	I got it.
	Oh, you're.
	I just, this strange thing.
	It's like the, oh, it's so weird.
	He's so weird.
	It seems weird.
	It's like, no, no, no, the circumstances are bad.
	And he's reacting as most people would.
	And you were in a bad situation and you were reacting as most people would.
	And there's another darker reason why you may have run away.
	Go on.
	Well, let's go back to when your mother was rubbing ice shards or frozen snow, grinding it into your face, right?
	Which was shocking and painful and terrifying and dangerous, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So if you'd have said to your mother something like, fuck off, you psycho, the fuck are you doing?
	I'm a kid.
	I'm supposed to play.
	What the fuck is wrong with you?
	Or, you know, whatever the equivalent would have been for you at that age, right?
	Right?
	And let's say you'd have jumped on her and ground ice into her face and said, this is what it's like, you weirdo.
	Don't do shit like this.
	Jesus.
	No.
	So imagine.
	So what would have happened if you had fought back?
	Something bad.
	Something really, really bad.
	Okay, so like what?
	I agree with you, but like what?
	Like her completely losing it and just doing things to me that are much, much more dangerous than what she was already doing.
	She had no control of.
	She couldn't fight.
	She had no idea what she was doing.
	She could have just gone completely crazy on me and really injured me or killed you.
	Something like that.
	It's so hard to imagine that she could.
	Well, no, I'm not saying.
	By the way, I'm not saying she would have wrapped her hands around your neck and choked you out or anything like that.
	But if people don't have control, so if people don't have control over their temper and they have to win, then they escalate until you comply or get really damaged.
	And so if you had fought her back, right?
	Like imagine when your mother slapped you in the face for jumping on the puddle, right?
	And you just said, you said really quietly, Mommy, I need you to come down to my face so I can apologize, right?
	And then she leans over and then with all your might in your sturdy frame, you smack her right across the face.
	What would have happened?
	Oh my God, she would have completely lost it.
	Right.
	So you were in a dangerous predator situation in that the normal instinct of children is to fight back, right?
	If you're aggressed against the normal, especially boys to mothers or whatever, right?
	So the normal impulse is to fight back.
	Yes, it is.
	And you had an instinct, which I am absolutely sure is perfectly correct, that some seriously fucking bad stuff could happen if you fought back.
	So you ran away to prevent your mother doing something extremely dangerous.
	You could not just surrender because your genes say, look, and this, sorry, this is kind of deep, but then forgive me if it's not relevant.
	Just obviously tell me for this.
	But this is sort of what I think.
	It doesn't mean I'm right.
	So What happens if a young boy completely surrenders to his mother's will and simply tries to appease her and make her happy and never have any actions or words that go against her narcissism?
	What happens to that boy in the long run?
	I mean, I only see a couch potato for all eternity.
	Right.
	Someone who's never going to leave the house.
	Right.
	And how attractive is a woman who's sorry?
	How attractive to a woman is a man who's been completely broken by his mother?
	As attractive as a slug.
	Yeah, like, no, no, no.
	She's like, yeah, you might as well be a tarantula on her arm, right?
	So you could not, your genes said, well, we don't have the option of simply surrendering to our mother, right?
	We cannot surrender to our mother because then our genes end and we get, you know, 60 or 70 more fucking years depressed and broken, nobody wanting to date us.
	So genes will try anything rather than die.
	And the genes that signaled little boys who were being brutalized by their mothers, oh, just, you know, rip your balls off, put them in your mother's purse, and bow and nod and approve of her forever and ever.
	Amen.
	Well, those genes, the genes that did that died out, right?
	Because they're so unattractive.
	Does that make sense?
	I guess up to that point, it all makes sense.
	What I don't, what I quite can't see, like, like, yes, it is unattractive.
	Now, oh, yeah, sorry, I'm not done.
	So let me sort of finish up here and then you can tell me if it makes any sense in your circumstance.
	Okay, so the genes that say we're just going to fold like a cheapsuit and do whatever mommy wants from here on in so that we never upset her, those genes die out because nobody wants to mate with such a broken man, right?
	Now, what about the other genes that say fight back no matter what, as hard as you can?
	What happened to those genes?
	They don't survive either for different reasons.
	That's right.
	They don't survive either.
	Right?
	So you can't fight.
	You can't surrender.
	what's the only thing you can do well i i need to there's one thing though Sorry, but no, no, don't apologize.
	It's your call, man.
	I mean, if I'm astray, let me know.
	So listen, while you were saying all this, this could be a missing puzzle piece for me.
	But there's a part of me that just says that you're wrong about, or that I'm wrong about being so unattractive if I just appease my mother.
	Like, that's just, that just can't be.
	I understand that that will be true in some circumstances in some societies, but isn't there some, like, is that always true?
	That if you really just do what your mother wants as a boy, that you're unattractive?
	That can't possibly be the case.
	Sorry, when you say always true, what do you mean?
	I mean, genes go on probability.
	I mean, we can't know the future.
	I do know for myself that every single boy that I knew who was broken by his single mother never got married.
	I mean, that's anecdotal.
	I get that.
	But there's very good reasons for all of that.
	Now, you might, as a boy who's broken by his mother, you might grow into a man that a woman will marry and have children with, but only if your family is wealthy or has some sort of status or you're super good looking.
	So there could be ways that you could bypass this, but you'd still be miserable.
	Because if you're a broken man, but you've got $10 million because of inheritance or family money or then, yeah, absolutely.
	Then, you know, women will exploit that brokenness and push you around and get your money.
	But You'll be pretty miserable, and you won't have much influence in your children's lives because they won't respect you, right?
	Yeah, sorry.
	So, she clearly didn't want me to be very energetic.
	She didn't want me to have all that.
	I moved around so much.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry.
	I feel like we're jumping out of this part of the conversation.
	I don't think we quite finished.
	No, no, this is a I'm trying to reply.
	Okay, sorry.
	I'm trying to reply.
	Just give me a little longer, please.
	What I'm just noticing is that everything that made me attractive and successful later in life, these are things that she sort of didn't want me to manifest.
	Like that energy, that drive, the will that I had.
	Oh, yeah.
	My mother used to cut my hair with thinking shears, or like she'd give me bold haircuts.
	And that's a good-looking kid, but you wouldn't have guessed it by how my mother groomed and dressed me.
	So, yeah, for sure.
	Mothers, single mothers, in particular, single children, and in some ways, you were a single child because you were six when your half-brother came along.
	But yeah, they destroy their kids' chances for sexual success.
	So there's no question that that's a very strong pattern in society.
	At least it's no question for me.
	And I've seen that.
	Okay, we're on the same page now.
	Yeah, that's so repetitive.
	And the reason they do that is because they have no one to grow old with.
	And if a quality woman comes along, so if they say, listen, man, you've got to be really attractive, you've got to get a good haircut, you've got to work out, you've got to, you know, take care of your skin, you've got to make sure that you're taking care of your teeth, you've got to make sure that you are using deodorant and like whatever it is, right?
	So the more attractive their sons are, maybe the higher quality woman their sons can attract.
	But what happens when a high-quality woman comes across a mother like that?
	Well, she despises her.
	Yeah, she's like, yeah, I'm not having anything to do with that.
	Right.
	So the only way, if she grooms her son for sexual success and her son manages to get a high quality woman, then the single mother's days are numbered.
	And certainly her days of control over her son are numbered.
	So she wants to keep him looking like a loser and keep moving him around so that he can't get involved with a quality woman who's going to threaten her power over him because she also needs to keep him around like a beta orbiter for when she gets old so that she's got companionship into her old age.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Yeah, we're completely on the same page now.
	Okay, exactly.
	So back to the day with the ice in the face.
	So you can't surrender because that's it for your genes.
	You can't fight her because that's too dangerous.
	So literally the best chance your genes have is to be in the woods.
	And I assume that deep down you probably knew that you were going to end up back with your mother.
	And maybe, just maybe, she will moderate her violence for fear of you running away again.
	And so running away, again, you know, maybe you can live in the woods.
	Maybe you can find another family or whatever it is, right?
	Most likely thing is you get sent back to your mother, but at least you haven't rolled over and at least you haven't challenged her directly.
	So maybe I think from a gene strategy standpoint, it's your best move.
	So that's why I say when you say this like so strange and it's weird and I said weird, you said strange.
	But in this context, doesn't it just kind of make sense?
	Yes, now that we spent a few minutes on it, it does make perfect sense.
	I mean, if you could send a message back in time to yourself when your mom's rubbing ice on your face, scratching you and potentially damaging you, what would you, what would you tell him to do?
	Do what he did, just run and just keep running.
	Right.
	So if with decades of experience and knowledge and wisdom, you're telling your younger self to do exactly that, what's weird about it?
	No, yeah, I had missed, I had missed quite a bit about this.
	There's nothing weird about it.
	I mean, and I say this because as you may or may not have heard, I tried running away when I was maybe four.
	And yeah, because, I mean, out there was peace and quiet.
	Out there was the best chance for my genes to survive.
	Because if I was completely broken by my mother, which she was trying to do, I think, if I was completely broken by my mother, my genes are toast.
	The devouring mother, like she takes your balls first and foremost, right?
	So my genes are toast.
	So I can't fight her because she's supremely violent and much bigger than me, and she's willing to escalate.
	And we all get a sense of that with regards to our mothers.
	So, and also the fact that there are absent fathers is entirely indicative of how dangerous our mothers are.
	I mean, that's how we process it as little boys.
	We say, holy crap.
	So this is a guy.
	My dad is a guy, particularly, as you said, your parents were together for like three years.
	My parents were together for probably five years or maybe six.
	But if your dad's gone and you know he's not dead, then you know for sure that a man or a male that your father, sorry, a man that your mother claimed to love, were your parents married or no?
	Yes, they were.
Tons of Sex, Dated Engaged 00:04:27
	Okay.
	So they dated, they got engaged, they got married, they had tons of sex, they had a kid.
	So with all of that bonding, all of that promise, a male that your mother chose to bring into her life, who she loved and made eternal vows to love forever and made a child with him, well, he's gone, baby.
	He's gone.
	Now, that's a very dangerous thing for a young boy to understand.
	Did your mother express that?
	It makes me anxious.
	Yeah, well, it does.
	Because it's dangerous, right?
	Because if she can get rid of a guy she truly loves and who provides an income and who provides sex, I'm not saying you'd know all of that at the age of five, but you know, if my mother loves a man enough to get married and have a baby with him and he's gone, it means she don't bond, baby.
	She doesn't bond.
	She doesn't pair bond.
	She does not pair bond.
	And if you've got a mother who doesn't pair bond, you are skating on some very thin fucking ice for your entire childhood.
	And sorry, doesn't that explain the anxiety right there?
	Well, I think that has a lot to do with it.
	Yeah, for sure.
	For sure.
	And so, because did your mother did she ever express things like, it would be easy without the kids, or I could have had this without the kids, or the kids are holding me back, or kids are in the way, or I don't want to, obviously, if it wasn't, that's fine.
	I'm just curious if there was any sort of, because a lot of single moms do that, where they kind of get really exasperated at the damn kids who are in the way of whatever, whatever.
	She'd never say it like that, but sort of through the nagging.
	So I was either I was too fast or too slow or too wild or I was too boring or I had to be outside when I was inside.
	I had to be inside when I was outside.
	And then when I wanted to go home, we kept going.
	And when I wanted to keep going, we had to go back home.
	So there, I feel like I was always a burden.
	Well, she was just thwarting your will the whole time, right?
	She's just thwarting your will.
	Everything that you wanted to do, she was opposed to because that's a way of slowly wearing down your will so that you're easier to control and you just give up.
	Well, that was quite a lot of work, and it did not.
	It did not work.
	I have a lot of will.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So I appreciate that.
	And so what happened going into puberty and so on?
	So there's that.
	So we moved and then school was let's just sort of skip right to that big moment when I was almost as strong as my mother.
	And she had to break me, I think.
	And when I talked back at the lunch table, then she got up to get some water or something.
	And she just took my head and just smashed it against the wooden cupboards a few times.
	And sorry, how old were you?
	That must have been at the onset of puberty, pretty much.
	So 11, 12, 13, kind of thing?
	I'd say 12, yeah, yeah.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Right.
	So she grabbed your head, she grabbed you by the hair and she smashed your head into a cupboard?
	Yes, she did.
	I'm so sorry.
	And it was because of why I had talked back at the lunch.
	I remember being very angry and sort of sneering at her.
	Like she sneered me.
	I don't remember what she was.
	You were being assertive and you were kind of being aggressive back.
	Exactly.
	Right.
	And she had enough of that.
	I think I didn't do much of that generally, but I think.
	Well, no, because you don't want to get a concussion.
	Right.
	You know, I was reading, I didn't.
	Sorry, just by the by, I was reading about Scott Adams, the cartoonist and intellectual and entrepreneur, and you name it, he did it, who just died a few days ago.
Anxiety's Paralyzing Grip 00:09:13
	So he was a stepfather to a son that he started raising at about the age of two.
	And the son, his son, died of a fentanyl overdose when he was 18.
	And of course, normally you would think bad parenting, bad childhood, bad environment, or whatever.
	But and maybe that was the case.
	But according to Scott Adams, and I'm sure this is true because the mother would have been through all of this as well.
	But the boy fell off his bike, had a bad fall off his bike at the age of 14.
	I imagine he wasn't wearing his helmet or something like that because he got a very bad brain injury.
	And according to Scott Adams, the late Scott Adams, one of the outcomes of that brain injury was significant impulsivity, lack of executive functioning, lack of looking at consequences.
	And that seems to be something that would have driven the drug abuse.
	And so what I'm saying is that one of the reasons you didn't fight back was that your mother was willing to inflict potential brain injuries on her child.
	And you cannot afford that as a child.
	You cannot afford that.
	Because first of all, if you're slamming your kid's head into a cabinet, again, back to the eyes, right?
	I mean, the edge of the cabinet catches, the corner of the cabinet catches, and you're blind.
	You can lose teeth.
	You can get a cracked jaw, and sometimes those can lead to lifelong pain.
	And so if your mother is willing to inflict significant brain or head trauma on you, then you cannot afford to fight back.
	Like when I was running away and my mother caught me and sort of beat my head against a metal door, I went limp.
	My body just went limp because it's like, well, we can't risk this.
	We can't risk this.
	Because one brain injury and your life is effectively over.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Well, I was just going to say, when you mentioned all the kinds of things that could happen, the first thing I thought is that I went to a government school.
	And if I had come to school with a few teeth missing or something, that would have been just a disaster.
	Like, just forget about all the really serious stuff.
	Like, already something like that, I wouldn't have been able to get any girls.
	And that really just means that it's not.
	Well, it's constant pain.
	Yeah, people, there's a lot of nerves running through the jaw.
	And if you get a cracked jaw or something happens to your jaw, you can end up with a lopsided face.
	You can also have nerve pinching, which could be permanent pain.
	I mean, violence is a very dangerous thing because let's say you didn't lose any teeth, but then you're in kind of constant pain.
	Well, then you're going to go to opioids or something like that.
	And God knows you could develop an addiction.
	A lot of people do.
	I mean, just talking the number of guys who develop addictions out of back surgery, right?
	Because you've got to take the pills to get better from your back.
	And so you could end up an addict.
	Or let's say it's just constant pain.
	You know, how charismatic and funny and enjoyable company.
	What kind of enjoyable company can you be if you're in constant pain?
	Yeah, forget it.
	So that's just Eugene saying, we can't afford this fight.
	It's too dangerous.
	If somebody's willing to do a head injury on us, we can't fuck around with that.
	That's not acceptable.
	So when you say didn't fight back, it's like, well, yeah, I mean, that makes sense.
	Right.
	And just talking about all this, it makes me anxious.
	It just makes me so anxious because the way that I feel is that she would always, at sort of the right moment, she would do something like that.
	And then I couldn't assert my will at all for years to come.
	So I would always have to tiptoe around her, always just be, you know, the good boy.
	And something in me was just fighting.
	Like there's something.
	Yes, I did hate it.
	So a lot of anxiety comes out of having to hold back the idea to do some real violence to people.
	Wow.
	No, seriously.
	Anxiety is what we use to cover up physical aggression, the desire to do some serious fucking damage to people who've really harmed us.
	Anxiety is our way of saying, well, I'm really angry, but if I act on my anger, things will get worse.
	I can't just pretend to have no emotions.
	So anxiety is used to counter a feeling of aggression or perhaps even murderousness in us, often, not always, I think, but often.
	Sorry, and it's better than fear, right?
	Because fear paralyzes you and anxiety, it sort of keeps you moving.
	Well, no, because fear is fairly unbearable, whereas anxiety is bearable.
	So it's called fight or flight, right?
	So if you had great fear, then you would act on it.
	But anxiety is paralytic because anxiety is not bad enough to act on, right?
	So I used this example the other day.
	The Menendez brothers.
	This was two sons who killed their parents with shotguns.
	And the reason why it escalated was because the older brother had found out that the father was continually molesting the younger boy and told his father to stop.
	His father said he wasn't going to stop.
	And so there was this massive escalation because he said, I'm going to the cops.
	And then the boys were afraid that their parents would kill them because pedophiles, of course, can't really afford to go to prison because they get killed in prison because so many people in prison were put there in a way by pedophiles raping them when they were younger or molesting them.
	And so they were so scared, like they'd lived with this anxiety of this completely screwed up family for many years, or two decades plus.
	But it had escalated to the point where it became fight, like true fight or flight.
	They were absolutely terrified.
	And when you're absolutely terrified, you tend to act.
	When you're anxious, you tend to not act.
	It's a way of putting everything on pause so that you don't do something that is too dangerous in terms of self-defense.
	Yeah, that sums up my childhood right there.
	And again, I'm really, really sorry about all of this.
	And my major goal is for you not to think that anything weird happened.
	Perfectly normal, given the environment and the circumstances.
	You navigated it beautifully.
	And it's a horrible thing to have to navigate, but there's nothing weird or strange about it at all.
	I hear you.
	You know, if you see some kid screaming bloody murder and running at the top of his speed through a field, it's like, well, that kid's weird.
	Like he's got spooked, or what's that kid doing?
	And then you see a pack of wolves chasing him.
	Does his behavior look weird anymore?
	No, it does not.
	It does not, right?
	It does not.
	Okay, no, I hear you.
	I hear you.
	So, yeah, so the anxiety is there to counteract.
	And for men in particular, when you're under assault by the female, if you're under assault by a male, fight or flight kicks in and you just start throwing hands, right?
	You just start physically aggressing against each other.
	But when you're under attack by the female or the feminine, men generally get anxiety.
	This is sort of the modern post-Second World War phenomenon, particularly in Europe.
	It's just this anxiety because men in Europe are under attack by the female.
	And so the anxiety is very common.
	And the anxiety is to cover up real fight or flight.
	So a man, you go and confront another man, you have your fight, and you dust up, and you usually can shake hands afterwards and go on with your day.
	But if a woman is engaged in malicious reputational destruction, then you probably feel quite aggressive, but you can't really act on it.
	So you just have this anxiety, which is the impossibility of fighting back, right?
	Yes.
	I've done a lot of IFS therapy.
	And at some point, this question would come up that to voice my anger towards my mother.
	And what I always noticed is that I wouldn't know what to say.
	And I wouldn't even know what to imagine, if that makes sense.
	Well, that's because anger is there to repair a relationship.
	But if the relationship cannot be repaired, then what's to say?
	I mean, I tried having conversations with my mother like 30 years ago, a bunch of times.
First Girlfriend 00:09:40
	It didn't go anywhere.
	She just kept lying and escalating.
	So I don't feel, I felt angry about my childhood.
	And so I had conversations with those who had impacted me as a child.
	And then when I couldn't get through to them or couldn't get them to acknowledge anything, then I stopped talking to them because there's no point, right?
	Right.
	You know, a surgeon is really stressed when he thinks he can save a patient he really cares about.
	But, you know, three weeks after the patient is dead, he's not stressed about saving her anymore.
	I mean, he's got some mourning to go through and some other emotions to work through, but he's not like stressed about can he save her.
	Wow, there's another connection there.
	Okay, okay.
	So what?
	We've got the anxiety, we've got the anger.
	I'm sorry, sorry, go ahead.
	No, I'm just sort of blowing my mind a little bit, which is good.
	So no complaints here.
	Okay.
	So what happened with your dating in your teens?
	I think I had my first girlfriend when I was 14.
	That was bad.
	I don't know.
	I was very shy.
	I was also really anxious around girls.
	But she's good looking.
	I did.
	I did sort of pursue her a little bit, and then I was completely shell-shocked, you could say, when she was very close to me.
	Then at some point, she finally just kissed me, and then that was that.
	Okay, and what happened with that relationship?
	We stayed together for like half a year, and I just gradually lost interest.
	And then I just broke up with her.
	Was it because she wasn't particularly interesting, or was there some other reason?
	It's very hard to tell for me.
	Like, I'd already been watching quite a bit of porn by then, and I can't sort of tell whether it was her.
	Like, she seems like a really sweet girl in hindsight.
	I think I just got bored.
	Okay.
	I'm not sure how that's related to the pornography, but I mean, it would be, isn't that sort of a common thing that if you watch porn that you get bored by real girls pretty soon, especially if it's pretty vanilla.
	Well, I don't know, but I mean, if she was a good conversationalist, I'm not sure that pornography would necessarily be the exact opposite of that, if that makes sense.
	All right, okay, okay.
	So let me clear that up.
	No, she was not.
	And I was mostly interested in, you know, fooling around and that kind of thing.
	Yeah, yeah, I get it.
	You're a young man, a young boy.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And then what happened in the rest of your teens with dating?
	Then I guess I didn't pursue girls for quite a while.
	I actually have no idea why.
	And then just towards the end of school, I pursued another girl, and then she became my girlfriend.
	And she's my wife now.
	She's been my wife for 20 years.
	Oh, how many times are you?
	She's been my sorry.
	No, sorry, not my wife for 20 years.
	She's been my girlfriend for 20 years and my wife for last years.
	I'm sorry, your wife how long?
	Oh, God, I'd have to.
	What was it?
	Four years now.
	Four years.
	Wait, she was your girlfriend for 16 years?
	Yes, she was.
	Why?
	I don't know what to say.
	It's a long, it's a long story.
	We just.
	Let's not get into that if we don't have to.
	It's your call, whatever you like.
	All right.
	Okay.
	And so how long ago did you become a father?
	My daughter is six, almost seven now.
	Ah, congratulations.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So she's about the age that you were when your stepbrother came into the picture.
	Yes.
	Right.
	And you know that kids track our own childhoods, right?
	Like our own childhood.
	Sorry, I wasn't clear.
	So if your parents separated when you were five, then when your kids turn five, some of that stuff gets reawakened.
	Our kids go through our childhoods and remind us of things.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So, what is it that is going on that I can best help you with, like that you said to book the call with?
	So, now that we've talked about it for a little bit, what I think is going on with me is that I'm not a practical man at all.
	Like, you know, if you can, no, I'm so sorry.
	Please don't give me your story or your conclusions or your abstractions.
	I'm just looking for the facts to start with.
	Because the one thing I know is that if your abstractions were accurate, you wouldn't be calling me.
	Right?
	So, you know, in a sense, don't go to the doctor and tell them all the things that you think it is that you've tried to solve, because if you'd solved them, you wouldn't be going to the doctor.
	So, just if you can give me the facts rather than whether you are or are not a practical man, because I don't really know, I don't have any context to judge that by.
	So, if you can just give me the facts about what's going on, that would be helpful.
	I will.
	I will try my best to do that.
	Thank you.
	When I listen to your call-in shows, it's great to think about what I hear.
	It's amazing to listen to.
	I can make a lot of sense of it.
	But I'm just paralyzed.
	I feel like it has nothing to do with my life.
	I can't possibly ever live the kind of life that you're describing there.
	Sorry, that you're trying to live.
	I'm not sure what you mean by what kind of life I'm describing.
	So, I guess a life that's guided by philosophy.
	Ah, okay.
	What's your relationship like with your family of origin at the moment?
	So, I'm ready to be done with my mother, but my wife is not.
	So, this is.
	I'm sorry, what would you wife have to do with it?
	Well, my wife has her own relationship with my mother.
	No, but that's only because of your relationship.
	It's your mother, it's your family, it's your decision.
	I'm not sure what your wife would have to.
	I mean, obviously, she gets an input, but I'm not sure how she would get any kind of final say.
	Oh, I had not considered that.
	Okay.
	So, tell me a little bit about what's happened with you and your mother over the last 20 years since you were in your late teens.
	I mean, there's been my mother, she found another man when I was in my teens.
	Then he paid off all of her debt and he fixed her house.
	And then she decided, suddenly she told me that he's the worst man in the world.
	I'm trying to make this as short as possible.
	So, she left him too, and then she was just living in a small apartment.
	She never had a job anymore, pretty much.
	She quit her government job because she got bullied there, she said.
	So, then she had all these kind of small little jobs that anyone could do, right?
	So, but what was she living on?
	Just that.
	So, I mean, when she divorced, sorry, I wasn't clear.
	When she divorced that man, she got a good amount of money.
	And then the jobs that she took well enough.
	This poor bastard paid off her debt, and then she took him to the cleaners in the court system.
	Pretty much, yes.
	It's not a huge, not quite as bad as that sounds, but that's sort of well, it's enough for her to live on for a while, right?
	Yes, yes, but she doesn't need much money at all.
	She's never been a big spender.
	It doesn't matter.
	The point is that it's enough for her to live on, which means it's relative to her expenses, it's a good chunk of money.
	That's for sure.
	Oh, wow.
	Okay.
	Right.
	So basically, what did she say?
	She said he was a bad guy, the worst guy.
	And what did she say was bad about him?
	He was trying to convince her that she's a bad mother.
	That's one thing shit that she said.
	Which, well, doesn't sound too terrible.
	Yeah.
	And she might have said something, something like that.
	Just that he was sort of abusing her psychologically or something.
	But that was the only example that she ever gave.
	Okay, so he had concerns about her as a mother, and then she stripped him bare financially like a piranha on a cow.
	Not surprising.
	Okay.
	And when did that happen?
	That was something like 10 years ago.
	That whole thing probably ended, maybe a little longer than that.
	Okay.
	And when you became an adult, when did you move out?
	I moved out when I was 19.
	Okay.
	And how often did you see your mother after you moved out?
	I think I would go back there in the holidays.
	So you get these long holidays when you're at university.
	Yeah, like some few months long.
	And then I'll always go back home and spend time with her.
	And why would you go back home?
	Because it was like being at a hotel.
	She would cook for me and clean my clothes and all of that.
	Okay, got it.
	All right.
	And then after you left university, what happened?
	Did you got a job?
	Sort of.
	Yeah, I started working.
	Sorry, what's the pause there?
	I mean, you're knocking over gas stations.
	What do you mean?
Poker as a Win-Lose Situation 00:11:50
	No, I started playing online poker and I was pretty good at it.
	Oh.
	That's what I did then.
	Okay.
	And I moved to a different city.
	And my mother actually moved to that same city like two years later than me.
	Okay.
	So we've been in that same city for many years.
	And then she would always, you know, just sometimes we'd visit and have dinner together or something like that.
	It was just very superficial.
	And how long did you do the poker thing for?
	Still sort of doing it.
	So now I think it's been something like 15 years.
	Oh, wow.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So you're a professional poker player?
	I mean, yes.
	Let's say yes.
	I'm sort of second-guessing a few things right now, but I've been a professional poker player for 15 years.
	Okay.
	So what do you mean by sort of or sort of yes?
	Do you have other jobs or another job?
	I did a good amount of coaching.
	I did some interesting coaching poker coaching and then life coaching.
	Okay.
	So, I mean, you're a gambler.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And what do you think about that as a career or an occupation?
	I think it's sort of like investing.
	There's some sorts of investments that you can make that are similar to playing poker.
	And I've always found that.
	Sorry, involved.
	Sorry, what do you mean?
	Investments like what?
	Well, I mean, for example, if you buy, what is this?
	Like these index funds and if you like portfolio.
	No, no, it's nothing like that.
	No, it's nothing like that.
	No, it's not just that.
	No, that can't be part of your poker.
	It's nothing like that.
	Because with poker, you are winning money from other people and a cut goes to the house, right?
	If you invest in an index fund, they're investing in companies that provide products and services and grow the economy and hire people and all of that, right?
	But poker is a negative sum game, right?
	If there's $100 on the table and you win it, then a couple of bucks goes to the house and that guy's out $100, right?
	All right.
	I mean, that analogy, that would be chess, right?
	Chess is very similar.
	And I think that's pretty much it.
	No, no, it's not, because chess is usually not a gambling sport.
	So I mean, I don't have any particular opinions about it, but let's call it for what it is.
	You make money generally off people's overconfidence, right?
	Because they think they can beat you, but they're wrong.
	Well, but that's exactly like chess.
	No, no, but chess is not a gamble sport.
	You can't usually make a living gambling on chess in the same way that you can on poker.
	And the other thing, too, is that chess is not a game of chance.
	Poker, to some degree, is a game of chance.
	Chess has no dice.
	There's no face-down cards in chess.
	So chess is just a raw skill, right?
	Well, the overconfidence aspect, I feel like that's poker, there's that in poker and in chess.
	Whereas like the other stuff that you're mentioning, my friend is a founder, so he has a startup.
	And I think that's pretty similar to what poker is in some other areas.
	But there's a lot of stuff.
	So hey, friends, hang on.
	Sorry, we just went through a lot there.
	Okay, so the chess analogy is not accurate because chess is a recreational game.
	And I know poker is swell.
	And maybe there are big giant chess games of gambling.
	I don't know.
	I don't know much about the gambling world.
	I've never really heard of them, which doesn't mean much.
	But if you were to say to people, do you think that making money in poker is bigger or smaller than making money in chess?
	What would most people say?
	Is gambling on poker more or less than gambling on chess?
	I think I understand the question.
	Then it's poker.
	It's more.
	Yeah, it's way bigger, right?
	Yes, that's for sure.
	Okay, so the chess analogy is not particularly accurate because, I mean, you can win or lose playing tennis, but that's not the same as making a living playing poker, right?
	I mean, I do agree that you have to sort of focus on one aspect, and then you can say in that aspect, poker is very similar to something else, and you never quite catch all of it.
	But I do feel like there's a lot of similarities to chess.
	There's a lot of similarities to tennis, even, and there's a lot of similarities to start like foundings, like being, what do you call them, a serial founder where you try to be involved in as many startups as possible.
	Thank you.
	Okay, all that said.
	So I'm just asking, which is bigger, making money gambling on poker or on chess?
	Provide numbers.
	Because this is not to get you.
	I just want to make sure that my instincts are either correct or incorrect.
	Okay, yeah, so I'm just having a quick look here.
	And I'll rebut the.
	Okay, making money gambling on poker is significantly bigger than on chess by every major metric.
	Total money in play, price, pool, stop earnings, number of winners making substantial income and overall gambling or betting market size.
	Yeah, this is what I thought.
	Chess has almost no traditional gambling ecosystem.
	Side bets or bookie wagering on matches exist, but are tiny and often niche or grey market.
	Earnings come almost entirely from prize money in tournaments.
	So I'm just looking at, yeah, so it is online poker is part of a massive global online gambling market valued at 80 to 95 billion dollars and projected to grow to 150 to 190 billion dollars or more by 2030.
	Poker is a core segment with billions in avenue annual rate and volume.
	Chess betting or gambling is negligible.
	No meaningful regulated market exists for wagering on chess matches, unlike sports or poker.
	Any gambling on chess is informal or tiny compared to poker's ecosystem.
	So yes, it's not the same.
	Of course, I mean, you could say, well, they're both games where people win and lose.
	Sure.
	But we're talking about the gambling side.
	Sure.
	I mean, I'm still following, tracking what you're trying to tell me, but I mean, that's you're right.
	Okay, now with a startup, and I've done a startup, right?
	I've actually done more than one startup.
	So in a startup, it's win-win.
	In poker, it's win-lose.
	So in a startup, you sell a, I mean, just take a silly example, right?
	So I start a coffee shop, then people come in and pay two bucks for a coffee, right?
	I want their $2 more than I want my coffee, and they want my coffee more than they want their $2.
	So we both trade, right?
	And we're both happier.
	It's win-win, right?
	Does that make sense?
	It makes perfect sense.
	Okay.
	Poker, it's win-lose.
	So it's not like being an entrepreneur at all.
	Because if you win, the other guy loses.
	Whereas with an entrepreneurial business, it's win-win.
	Everybody walks out of the transaction better off.
	But there's no way that can happen in poker.
	Because it's negative sum.
	It's negative sum, which means that two people walk in with 50 bucks.
	Nobody walks out with 100 bucks, usually, because you have to pay the house, right?
	Oh, yes, you do.
	So you can walk out with 97.
	He walks out with nothing, and the house makes three bucks, or whatever it's going to be, right?
	Yes.
	So that's what I mean by it's a negative sum game in that the two people walk in with a hundred dollars, but they don't walk out with a hundred dollars, even in aggregate.
	It's a negative sum game.
	It's win-lose.
	So it's not the same as being an entrepreneur.
	I'm just the economics of it.
	I'm a bit of a stickler and maybe annoyingly so for these kinds of things, but you are involved in a win-lose situation.
	Now, in terms of the overconfidence, if people accurately judged your skill, it would be very hard to win against them, right?
	Not necessarily, no.
	Well, consistently, it would be hard to win against them for sure, right?
	I've played many, many matches spanning weeks and months sometimes, where it was pretty clear that I was the better player and the other guy wanted to learn.
	Yes, but he's not betting a lot of money just to learn because otherwise he'd pay you to be his coach, right?
	I guess in that sense, people might not be very smart sometimes.
	It might have been a much better choice to hire me as a coach.
	Well, so what I'm saying is that you generally make money the most consistently off people's vanity or stupidity.
	Well, some people, they just treat it just a hobby.
	Like they just sit down.
	Well, yes, they don't put enough money in to keep you in gravy and biscuits.
	If it's just a hobby, then you just play for nickels and dimes and quarters, right?
	But the way that you make your money for 15 years in general is off people betting because they think they can beat you either because they're vain or they're stupid.
	I mean, there's certainly a percentage of that, that's for sure.
	No, that has to be the majority.
	Because you couldn't make money off people if they weren't vain or stupid, like not consistently.
	Because they have to think that they can beat you and they have to be wrong about that, right?
	If they think they can beat you and they're right, then you lose everything, right?
	So they think they can beat you, but they're wrong.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, there's six, usually there's something like six, five or six or seven players sitting on one table.
	And if only one of those players is bad enough, then all the others can win, right?
	Okay, so I get that, but you make the most part when you're the guy who wins the most.
	And you win the most when people are the most vain or stupid.
	In other words, they are miscalculating for whatever reason, and usually it's vanity or stupidity.
	They are miscalculating their odds of winning and they are underestimating you as an opponent or they're overestimating themselves or both, right?
	Yes, you definitely win the most if that's the case, yes.
	Okay, so you make your living in general off people's vanity and stupidity, which is not the same as being an entrepreneur with an entrepreneur.
	I mean, I guess maybe if you're selling some stupid overpriced watch, you know, whatever it is, then maybe it's some vanity.
	So there's some of that kind of stuff.
	I've never been involved in those kinds of businesses, but if you're selling overpriced stuff for vanity reasons or whatever, I guess you could have that.
	Or maybe, well, women's shoes, though, are an investment in getting a high-quality man, so that's not dumb.
	And you could say that the guy with the high-quality watch wants to impress girls and get laid or whatever it is, right?
	But as a poker player, you can only win if other people lose.
	And the way that they lose is usually vanity and stupidity.
	Or vanity or stupidity.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yes, I mean, it was very nice to chat with you about this.
	It's very surprising how you.
	I mean, you're absolutely right.
	You're absolutely right.
	And so, how do you feel about that as a whole?
	Well, much worse now than I did 10 years ago.
	Well, I mean, but I mean, what are your feelings about it?
	Makes me a little angry, a little ashamed.
	I mean, look, it's money.
	And look, everyone's there by choice.
	You're not doing anything evil, right?
	Everybody's there by choice.
	But I just, you know, with your intelligence and particularly your probability skills, I just wonder if there might not be a more noble way to add value to society.
Skills and Intensity 00:04:55
	Because with your mother, my concern is that with your mother, it was win-lose, right?
	So your skills at negotiating win-lose come from child abuse.
	So all the calculations that we were talking about earlier, and it's actually kind of fascinating that you're into poker.
	Right.
	So all of the stuff, remember we did these calculations when your mother was rubbing ice on your face and your genetics and like you had to weigh these odds and so on, right?
	And I said it's all like genetics, it's all just a matter of probabilities, right?
	And so, and with your mother, it was win-lose.
	You couldn't both win, right?
	So with my daughter, if we, for whatever reason, we have some time and we can't quite figure out what to do with her time, something opens up.
	Like if I have a cancellation in a show or whatever it is, a call-in, well, we will usually sometimes spend 20 minutes to half an hour figuring out what we want to do that we both want to do, if that makes sense.
	Right?
	Because I want it to be enjoyable for her and I want it to be enjoyable for me.
	And, you know, there's a lot of overlap because, you know, the other night there was ice.
	It had rained and then frozen.
	Now, my daughter loves to go to bargaining or sledding, I think it's sometimes called.
	And it was kind of late.
	And I didn't, you know, I was kind of comfortable and cozy on the couch, but I also know that she likes it.
	I also know that she's, you know, she's almost an adult.
	So, you know, how much would I give, you know, when I'm 70 to go back into bargain with my daughter again, right?
	Anything, right?
	So, yeah, we drove out and we sledded for about an hour and a half, and it was quite exciting and tiring because it's trying to climb this icy hills and all of that.
	And so that's win-win.
	Like, we both had a great time.
	And then, you know, we picked up some coffees on the way home and had a great chat and all of that sort of stuff.
	So that's sort of win-win.
	And to that, it sounds like that really wasn't possible in your family that you with your mother could aim or negotiate for win-win.
	There never was win-win.
	No.
	Right.
	So you were trained on win-lose, right?
	Yes.
	And now your career is win-lose.
	Like, that's not an accident.
	Like, that is something that you learned very early.
	You had to.
	Yes.
	This is strange hearing this.
	I think you're right.
	And you also could not be emotionally honest and open with your mother, right?
	Definitely not.
	And what's the number one skill in poker?
	Bluffing is pretty important, and having a poker face is also pretty good.
	Yep, hiding your feelings or showing the opposite or manipulating others, right?
	But you could not share thoughts and feelings with your mother, or it would be a disaster.
	And now you're fantastic at covering up thoughts and feelings in order to win in a win-lose situation.
	All of this shit comes from your childhood.
	This is all a continuation of the skills.
	Like everyone across the table is your mother, which is why you're so good at it.
	And your intelligence and other skills.
	I'm not saying it's the only thing.
	Lots of people go through bad childhoods and don't end up really good poker players, right?
	So I'm not going to try and take out your skill or your work or all of that.
	But yeah, I mean, everyone across the table is your mother and it's win-lose.
	And I'm sure you have a kind of quiet ferocity with this.
	That the best poker players that I've ever met have this kind of quiet ferocity to them, this intensity, and that's because it's a never-ending battle with your mother.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I was just going to say that it's also why it makes me so anxious.
	Poker makes me very anxious.
	I have to sort of calm down afterwards in a certain way.
	I have to be in exactly the right mood to play.
	I've always wondered why that is.
	Well, and I, when I play chess, my daughter and I will play chess from time to time, and we're both quite competitive.
	And I like the fate of all the world's kittens hang on every move for me.
	Like it's I like playing, but sometimes it can get a bit intense for me.
	But that's because I grew up playing chess and I had a highly competitive brother and all of that, right?
	And I'm also quite competitive, so I'm not going to put that all on him.
	But I'm just, yeah, I'm just wondering the degree to which poker is simply keeping all of those childhood skills activated.
	Oh, it's not, yeah, it's that I have this insane intensity.
	I can be very, very, what would you say?
	And there's a certain kind of conversation where that's the same thing with me.
	I'm so incredibly intense.
	I can just go on for hours and hours and hours between extent in poker.
	It's you like no prisoners, no mercy, cold-blooded victory, right?
	Oh, yes.
	Yeah.
	And that's beat your mother or die.
	So sorry, go ahead.
Playing Computer with Brother 00:15:23
	Sorry.
	No, it's fine.
	It's not important.
	So what's happened with your mother?
	You were in school from like, what, 19 to 22, 23 or something like that.
	But did you finish a degree or did you drift off into poker?
	I drifted off into poker.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And what is your time commitment for making a living at poker?
	How many hours a week do you normally work a day?
	I know it's not just playing because you've got to study too, but what is your time commitment?
	So when I was really putting the most hours in to really build my skills, it was six, seven hours a day, but easily like six, seven days a week.
	No holidays, just all the time.
	It's a little less.
	And what's happened with your half-brother?
	He so when my mom married that terrible man who she got all the money from, that's when my half-brother sort of just stayed in his room like his whole puberty pretty much.
	He was just in his room just playing computer and no one ever really checked up on him on him.
	Oh, not you either?
	No, not anymore.
	No.
	No, no, sorry.
	Back then, I'm not talking now.
	No, no.
	So you said he was he was six six years younger than you, six years of change, or whatever it is, right?
	So when you're twenty, he's fourteen.
	You know, you're eighteen, he's twelve.
	And did you spend any time with him when he was going through his teens?
	I did not.
	I was so relieved that my mother finally had someone so that I didn't have to be the surrogate spouse anymore that I just wanted to focus on my own life.
	Well, but he wasn't being the surrogate spouse, wasn't he just kind of locked up in his room, so to speak?
	Oh, I was being the surrogate spouse until she was a little bit more.
	No, I know, man.
	But when you left, she didn't switch to him, right?
	Because he mostly stayed in his room playing computer games and stuff, right?
	Right.
	No, when I left, she had that new man that was her real spouse.
	And so my brother was basically abandoned.
	And I was just happy to finally focus on myself.
	So I completely abandoned him too.
	Okay.
	How would spending time with your brother, I'll just call him your brother.
	I don't want to keep saying half the whole time.
	So how would spending time with your brother have you not at all focused on yourself?
	I mean, if you had a relationship to some degree growing up, you know, just, I don't know, take him out and take him to a movie and take him mini golfing or, you know, you've got, right?
	So how is it that spending time with your brother would be bad?
	Was he like was he bad company?
	Was he mean?
	Was he selfish?
	Was he insulting?
	Was he like, was there something negative about him as a whole?
	No, actually, he was a really nice guy.
	I was sick of, I was bored by him.
	I wanted to be with the cool kids.
	I was the mean one.
	Oh, you were the mean one?
	Okay.
	All right.
	And did he try to do anything with you?
	Or did he contact you much at all?
	Or did you guys go kind of radio silent?
	Sometimes he'd he tried to reach out just very timidly.
	I remember two or three things that sort of happened, but for the most part, there was pretty much nothing.
	And even when I was there, remember I was there pretty much like three months every year.
	I barely remember doing anything with him.
	And again, sort of that's because you wanted to be with the cooler kids?
	That's right.
	That's right.
	I would play the piano all the time.
	I just wanted to do the stuff that's fun and yeah, and hang out.
	No, but sorry, but why was it I'm sorry to I just want to understand this, but why was spending time with your brother not fun?
	I mean, kids can be a blast or younger people can be a blast and you can do a lot of fun stuff together.
	So, I mean, you have kids, right?
	I mean, I'm sure you don't sit there and say, oh, I'm sorry, daughter, you're six, you're boring, right?
	You're not even very good at poker, right?
	So, you know, you know that spending time with younger people can be can be fun.
	So was there something about him or you or the combination of you that had you not spend time with him?
	Because, you know, I mean, he needed an older father figure, but he needed an older male figure, right?
	Because you knew what it was like being in the house with your mother alone.
	And I don't imagine he got along too well with the guy that your mother called the worst guy around.
	And he didn't have much relationship with his own father.
	So, I mean, I think he needed some male influence, right?
	And you you're good at coaching, so why would he be left so so much behind?
	I could tell you a dumb story.
	I I only have narratives that aren't true.
	I I just didn't want to be around him.
	I I when I was around him, I would nag him.
	I would be annoyed at him.
	I would be bored by him.
	I didn't want to spend time with him.
	Okay, but but he was a nice guy, right?
	So what was it that was negative about him for you?
	I'm getting quite sad.
	I can get that.
	So he was slow.
	Who was no, man.
	I don't know.
	Sorry, he was slow, like he was not smart.
	He wasn't stupid, he was...
	Well, no, you said slow, so I'm just trying to figure out what that means.
	Well, I guess just in the way that he would walk more slowly than other people.
	He would talk more slowly.
	It all seems like terrible excuses now.
	Well, I'm just trying to understand.
	I mean, you certainly could have helped him, right?
	Absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And you certainly knew that being alone with your mother was no fucking picnic, right?
	Oh, yes.
	So why didn't you break him out of prison from time to time?
	Now I'm just these sentences are going through my head that he had his computer.
	He was just playing computer all the time.
	He didn't need me.
	No, he reached out to you.
	Come on.
	Yeah, he was being bullied at school, too.
	Oh, no, really?
	And when did you find that out?
	When I was in 12th grade or something, a friend of mine told me that he had seen it.
	Sorry, when your brother was in 12th grade.
	So he was almost an adult at this point.
	What's that?
	No, when I was, so this is all jumbled up, but I think I must have been at 12th grade.
	Oh, you were in 12th grade?
	Okay, so you were like 17 and he was like 11.
	Something like that.
	So he was getting bullied?
	What was happening?
	My friend said that my brother had been chased by some boys and then he ran up to my friend for help.
	And then he told my friend not to tell me.
	Ah, so why do you think he didn't go to his big brother for help?
	I mean, that's the traditional thing with bullying, right?
	You go to your dad or you go to your big brother.
	He didn't trust me.
	Well, he did what you did, which is it's easier to handle it alone.
	Other people won't help.
	They'll probably make it worse.
	Well, he did go to my friend, though.
	Yeah, but not to you.
	Or your mother.
	Or the stepdad, if he was still around.
	Sorry.
	So you don't ask people to help who are going to make things worse, right?
	You don't ask for the guy with no arms to help you move, right?
	Yes, you don't.
	You absolutely don't.
	Okay, so.
	So I would have made it worse.
	I would have made it worse.
	And what do you think you would have done that would have made it?
	Let's say he'd come to you and he said, I'm really scared to go to school and I'm being chased around.
	I'm being threatened.
	I'm being bullied.
	Can you help me?
	What would you have said?
	Something like, man up.
	I don't.
	Like, oh, man, you should work out more.
	You should do some more running.
	Okay, let's have that conversation, right?
	So you like the roleplays, let's do the roleplay.
	Okay, so you say, and I would say, yeah, but I can't, that's not going to fix it now, right?
	I mean, were you ever bullied?
	No, I was never bullied.
	I have no idea what it's like.
	Well, sorry, I think I've certainly seen mom.
	I think she bullies you, doesn't she?
	I don't want to talk about that.
	No, no.
	I'm here asking, we're family, right?
	And so I need your help.
	So with mom bullying you, did you just like work out?
	Like how did you, because you sound like a tough guy.
	And listen, if you've got things that can help because you're a tough guy, that would be great.
	So, when mom was bullying you or whatever, did you like, did you work out or did like, are you giving me this advice because it worked for you?
	Okay, listen.
	I've been the human shield between you and mom for years now.
	Okay, I'm done.
	Just sort out your own shit.
	Sorry, but you started to give me advice, and I just want to understand the advice you're giving me.
	And I appreciate you giving me advice.
	And I don't know about the human shield thing.
	I mean, I'm having my own difficulties with mom, so I don't know about the human shield thing.
	But if, let's say that we both face this difficult mother, shouldn't we be allies?
	Shouldn't we be on the same side?
	So if you're telling me to work out, is that what helped you with mom or other things like that?
	Oh, it's not.
	No, forget about that.
	No, we've never been on the same team.
	She beat me up.
	She didn't beat you up.
	You were just there watching.
	Sorry, at what age?
	Well, what are you talking about?
	When I was 13 or 12 or whatever that was.
	She banged my head against.
	Yes, when you were six.
	Did I see that?
	I don't remember that.
	What happened?
	We were having lunch, and she banged my head against the cupboard a few times.
	Right?
	You just didn't say anything.
	Did I see it?
	Yes, you did.
	I don't know.
	Yes, you did.
	I don't remember it.
	But okay, let's say that I did.
	So I was like six, right?
	Yes.
	What the fuck am I supposed to say?
	I'm six years old.
	Oh, man.
	Oh, God.
	Oh, I don't know.
	You're not supposed to say anything.
	Okay, listen.
	I'm sorry.
	No, no, no.
	Back your fucking roll-up, big brother.
	You come over here every goddamn summer.
	You sit on her couch, you eat her food, she does your fucking laundry.
	Right?
	Am I wrong about that?
	No, you're right about that.
	Right.
	So you come laser around here, treat the place like a goddamn hotel.
	I've never heard you say one fucking thing to mom about beating your head against the cabinet.
	But you're bitching at me about it?
	I was six, you idiot.
	If you're such a tough guy and it's such a bad thing, why are you shitting on me?
	Why don't you go talk to mom?
	You coward?
	Picking on your little brother?
	Rather than talking to mom?
	Oh, because you're scared of her, right?
	Oh, because you're so good at dealing with bullying.
	Just go work out.
	Because you're scared of her.
	You're not scared of me.
	So you could bully me.
	But you don't say anything to mom.
	You just get mad at me because I was six.
	Mom was what?
	40?
	So you get mad at the six-year-old who doesn't even remember it.
	And you get mad at me because mom hit you.
	And then you go, you're sweet as sugar to mom.
	Yeah.
	So what the fuck are you like?
	What are you doing?
	Like, help me understand this.
	I just.
	Yeah, I let it all out on you.
	I never confronted her.
	I never said anything.
	I just came home to let her just get everything from her.
	She'd cook for me.
	She'd pay for everything.
	And I just, all the emotions that I should have felt towards her, I felt towards you.
	Well, unless I won the lottery or something, in which case I could buy your niceness, right?
	Like mom does.
	Oh, yes, then I would have been sweet as sugar.
	Right.
	So why be so harsh to me when I'm asking you for help?
	And listen, do you just not want to be brothers?
	Because that's obviously a choice.
	We're not like welded.
	We're not chained together like slaves, right?
	I mean, do you just not want to be my brother?
	I want to be your brother.
	I like you.
	You're a nice guy.
	So then why are you getting all ferocious with me about what mom did when I was six?
	I mean, you think that you want to be my brother because I'm a nice guy.
	Well, why don't you try being a fucking nice guy?
	If that's important for being a good brother.
	Because that was, you know, I'm coming to you for help because I'm being bullied.
	And what are you doing?
	You're bullying me.
	That's fucked up, man.
	You're despairing about everything.
	I've never been nice to you.
	You've been nice to me.
	And you've fucked up to me.
	Sorry, I didn't get that last word.
	I've been nice to you and what?
	You've looked up to me.
	You've looked up to me for all these years.
	I mean, don't flatter yourself too much.
	It's not like I had a lot of choice.
	It's not like I got a whole bunch of siblings to choose from, right?
	No, I get it.
	I get it.
	I get it.
	It felt nice.
	I could sort of see that it's just something that you gave me almost as I really appreciated it.
	There was so many things here that were just fucked up and I hated them, but that was nice.
	That felt nice.
	Okay, so it feels nice when somebody looks at you positively, right?
	So why do you leave me on read for three days when I want to hang out?
	I mean, you like it, right?
	I do.
	I do like it.
	Hey, listen, I can't.
	Yeah, I've been treating you so terribly.
	I mean, tell me, honestly, I'll just be frank because I don't know that we have a lot to lose.
	Maybe we've got a lot to gain.
	But tell me one thing about you.
	Sorry.
	Tell me one thing that you dislike about mom that you haven't done to me, other than physical violence.
	I've also been violent towards you.
	Oh, okay.
	So tell me one thing that you hate about mom that you haven't done to me.
	I haven't taken any money from you.
	That's one thing.
	Sorry, mom has taken money from you?
	I thought you said she pays for everything.
	Jesus, okay.
	I don't want to do the mask now.
	Okay, scratch that.
	All right.
	I don't think I've done everything to you that she's done to me.
	How are you different from mom to me?
	And listen, I'm not trying to pick a fight.
Mom Ignoring Us 00:15:35
	Like, maybe there's something I'm missing and I'm totally happy to be corrected.
	But from your standpoint, because you're so mad at how mom treated you, and then you turn and do the same shit to me, isn't that kind of hypocritical?
	To feel like a victim and then do the exact same thing to someone else?
	It is very hypocritical, yes.
	Have you never noticed that?
	I mean, it's pretty obvious, isn't it?
	I've never put the pieces together, even though I've thought about it a hundred times.
	Oh, come on.
	You must have.
	I mean, you remember that you were violent, right?
	Did you feel ignored by mom and neglected?
	Yes.
	Do I feel ignored by you and neglected?
	Oh, yes.
	Was mom violent to you?
	Yes.
	Were you violent to me?
	Yes.
	Did mom always have her eyes on something outside the family?
	Yes.
	Do you, with your cool friends, always have your eye on something outside the family?
	Oh, yes, I did.
	Does your mom rip off gullible men?
	Yes.
	Do you kind of rip off gullible poker players?
	Oh, man.
	Yeah, I do.
	I do.
	So how are you not mom?
	Hey, again, happy to be corrected.
	I'd be overjoyed to be corrected.
	But how are you not just her?
	And you're so outraged at her.
	It's wild to me.
	Nothing.
	When you thought of going to mom for help, did you want to do it or did you think she would make things worse?
	No, I never wanted to do it.
	She'd always make it worse.
	Right.
	So I come to help.
	I come to you for help with bullying.
	And what do you fucking do?
	You bully me, asshole!
	Oh, I'm proud of you right now.
	You have no right to say that.
	No, I don't.
	Bro, you're almost seven years older than me.
	Why do I have to do this?
	Mr. Self-Knowledge, Mr. IFS therapy?
	Why is this my job?
	The youngest member of the family by far.
	See, I think that I vanished from your mind completely.
	And that to me is unacceptable because you have complained to me many times about how mom ignored you when you were a kid.
	It's one thing if you had no idea, but you do know.
	I mean, I've heard you in social situations if parents come up, oh, I was ignored, I was neglected.
	I have an adverse childhood experience score of six, don't you know?
	What do you think mine is?
	You only had mom ignoring you.
	I had mom and you ignoring me.
	Yeah, that's right.
	I can't imagine what that's like.
	Well, you know, that's a lie.
	That's bullshit.
	You don't think you know what it's like to be ignored?
	You complain about it all the fucking time.
	Of course you know.
	You're like a guy who's bright red saying, I have no idea what a sunburn feels like.
	Bro, you're a tomato.
	So stop lying.
	Stop saying bullshit.
	Stop giving me mom-style platitudes.
	Right?
	Yes, that's what they are.
	You can't let go of mom ignoring you.
	You can't deal with it.
	You can't grow past it.
	Do you know why?
	Are you going to tell me that too now, young brother?
	I am.
	Do you know why you can't move on past mom ignoring you or being violent towards you?
	Do you know why you still carry this?
	Why you still feel this anxiety?
	Why you still feel this stress?
	Is it because I did the same to you?
	Of course.
	How can a thief who keeps stealing get angry about a theft from 20 years ago or 30 years ago?
	How can he let go of being stolen from 30 years ago if he keeps stealing from others in the present?
	Right?
	It's got to stop.
	Well, you can't get angry at mom without getting angry at yourself.
	But you're too vain to get angry at yourself, so you're stuck.
	I mean, I'm in my 30s, right?
	You're in your late 30s, early to mid-30s.
	How are you helping me?
	When was the last time we spent a weekend together?
	Or you called me up to find out how I'm doing?
	Gee, mom's kind of selfish, don't you think?
	No, I keep bullying you.
	I'm still bullying you.
	Well, honestly, I really don't think of you that much anymore.
	I mean, it's way too late for you to be a good brother to be as a kid, right?
	I haven't been a kid for, God, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years.
	Me not being a kid can drive an almost fucking vote.
	Yeah.
	So there's no going back for that.
	That tomb is fucking sealed.
	The time to help me would have been 20, 25 years ago.
	I don't know how you're going to live with that.
	I don't.
	But there's no point doing CPR to somebody dead for a decade, right?
	No, no, there's not.
	But that's the mirror you've got to look into.
	Is how much did you become mom by fighting mom?
	Right?
	What's the old saying, Nietzsche, right?
	Be careful when you fight monsters that you do not also become a monster.
	I mean, I spent my teenage years.
	I mean, bro, I might as well have been in prison.
	I barely left my room, even less, left the house, except to go to school, where I was frightened and bullied with a good-looking athletic big brother who wasn't.
	I mean, did you know?
	Did you know I was being bullied?
	I didn't know.
	Don't lie to me.
	Don't lie to me.
	Did you know?
	There were some red flags for sure.
	Did you know?
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Did anyone tell you?
	Yes, someone told me.
	Okay.
	So why are you talking about red flags?
	It wasn't like you had to read my body language.
	You were told your kid brother.
	You would have known even earlier.
	Yeah, your kid brother is being bullied.
	Right?
	I was 11 or 12.
	You were still in the house, right?
	Yes.
	Did you ever?
	I mean, just did you ever think about talking to me about this?
	No.
	It never crossed your mind to bring it up with me.
	No, no, it didn't.
	Holy shit, bro.
	Did it go in one ear out of the other?
	So somebody said your kid brother is being bullied, and you were like, oh, well, and you just forgot about it until like, what, five minutes ago?
	Like, I know this sounds kind of me.
	I'm just, I'm curious.
	Like, what does this mean?
	You.
	I think it annoyed me.
	It's just like you're just something I don't want to deal with that I must have forgotten that.
	Right.
	And that's the same.
	So, so here's the thing, man.
	At least, at least you understand mom deeply.
	Because that's what her.
	You were annoying, right?
	You told me that story about how you were jumping in a puddle and you splashed mud on mom's white pants and she smacked you in the face, right?
	Slapped you, smacked you in the face.
	Because you were an irritant.
	You were negative, right?
	You were an annoyance, right?
	Oh, yes.
	And that's sometimes why you would be violent with me or hit me, right?
	Because I was being annoying.
	I didn't do it often, but mom didn't do it often either.
	You still complain about it.
	And I hit you hard once.
	I hit you hard on the back.
	Right.
	Right.
	Do you find your own kids annoying?
	Sometimes.
	Right.
	You ever feel aggressive towards them?
	Impatient, exasperated that they're in the way?
	I do.
	I do.
	Rarely, but I do.
	Right.
	Well, I don't know, man.
	I don't know how you deal with this.
	I don't.
	I don't.
	I'm still your brother, right?
	I don't know.
	I don't know how you feel like a victim for what you repeatedly did to others.
	Now, I get you're my big brother, not my father.
	I get this as a difference, right?
	But it's funny, right?
	Because I'm half related to you.
	You're half related to mom.
	But somehow I didn't become her.
	Is that fair to say?
	Would you agree that I didn't become her?
	I've never seen you bully anyone.
	In fact, I've seen you coach people.
	Yeah, I mean, I know you coach people too into this half-devilish poker shit.
	Come this way down the smoky path of win-lose.
	And let's make sure we get a lot of money into the hands of organized crime by paying the house as much as humanly possible.
	But yeah, I don't know.
	I mean, how do you claim victimhood for the stuff that you've done?
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I mean, sorry, guys.
	I don't know, either.
	I mean, this is the perspective that I've been missing.
	Your perspective is the one that I've been missing.
	And when was the last time that we hung out for a weekend?
	Oh, God.
	18 years ago or something.
	When was the last time just you and I hung out for the day?
	Something like that.
	Maybe, maybe 10, could be 10 years, right?
	So you understand that in order for me to have any sense of value about myself, I have to keep the fuck away from you.
	Because if I'm an annoyance and I'm negative and I'm not interesting and I'm, what do you always call me?
	I'm a slow walker.
	God, God fucking help me.
	I'm a slow walker, right?
	So if I have, if I want to feel at all good about myself, can I spend time around you?
	No.
	Yeah, because you're like a sole biohazard for me.
	I mean, do you feel real great about yourself when you spend time with mom?
	No, I do not.
	Quick question.
	Quick question.
	And listen, I appreciate the conversation.
	I really do.
	So, bro, if you had to guess multiples, like time you spend with mom versus time you spend with me, do you spend it about equal?
	Is it five times more with mom, ten times more?
	Like, what would you say in terms of time you spend with mom or time that mom comes over?
	I mean, she's grandmom now, so I assume she's got that going on.
	But how many more times do you think you spend time with mom than me?
	Over the years, something like 50, maybe more.
	Yeah.
	So for every day you spend with me or every hour you spend with me, you spend like 50 with mom, right?
	Yes.
	Right.
	And do you know why that is?
	Because you complain about her the most.
	You say, I'm a nice guy.
	Mom was kind of a bitch to you growing up, if I understand this correctly.
	And you give her all of your time and resources relative to me, right?
	Yeah.
	Why do you think that is?
	Why does she get, she did you harm?
	I mean, did I ever really harm you?
	No, you've never harmed me.
	Right.
	So mom kind of fucked you up, right?
	Lifelong anxiety and nervousness and tension and stress and unhappiness and all of that.
	So mom, you know, she kind of fucked you up, right?
	I was nothing but nice to you, and mom gets all your time.
	Why do you think that is?
	The person you complain about the most gets most of the time, and the person you say is the nicest gets no time, basically.
	I mean, I don't mean to sound bitter, like I'm genuine.
	Why is that?
	It's because I'm like her and not like you.
	Yeah, you prefer her company to mine, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, she's sorry, go ahead.
	It's just going to repeat it again.
	She could be quite a lot like me, so that works.
	So if you complain all the time about mom, but you spend 50 times more time with mom than me, what do you think that makes me think about myself?
	Mom was really violent, mom was difficult, mom was dangerous, mom was selfish, mom neglected me, and you spend 50 times more time with her than me.
	What do you think that makes me think about myself?
	That you're 50 times worse than her.
	I'm way worse than her, bro.
	Way worse than her.
	I'm mom times 50.
	All the negatives of mom times 50.
	Do you see why, like, you were a fucking boat anchor?
	I had to cut you loose.
	You were dragging me down.
	Yes, I see that now.
	And we can't, you know, we can't get that back.
	We're in our 30s, right?
	There's no rewind.
	There's no mulligan.
	There's no do-over.
	There's no shuffle-the-deck and redeal, right?
	That's all dead and gone.
	Yeah, yeah.
	There's nothing.
	I just regret that we can't.
	Yeah, but you've got no feeling in your voice.
	I've not heard really any feeling from you.
	Maybe that's the price you get stuck in your head and your narrative because of guilt?
	I don't know.
	I don't feel any closer to you now than at the beginning of the conversation.
	And I think we've had some pretty hard-hitting truths, but you're still like, I don't know, playing 3D chess in your mind while half listening to me?
	I don't know, because you've always been a kind of abstract guy, but there's no.
	I mean, do you feel connected?
	I do.
	My face is burning.
	I've been putting my hand over my head, sort of slumping over.
	I'm sort of dizzy, disoriented.
	I'm completely captivated, but also, this is, I can barely.
	I wanted to hang up at some.
	Okay, so I've had a lot of talking.
	What do you want to say?
	I'm ashamed and I'm speechless.
	I wish that I could hear more about you, what that was like for you.
	I wish that there must be so much that you've experienced throughout your childhood that you never got to tell me.
	So much anger, so much hurt.
	And I wish I could hear it.
	Tell me about how you feel.
	I think this is shame and sadness.
	My face is sort of burning hot, and my belly is soft, and my arms are tingling, and everything's warm and sweaty.
	I think it's mostly just shame.
	I wish I could cry.
	I wish I could.
	Well, what advice would you give to me in the moment regarding you?
	I know it's hard because we're in the midst of it here, but what advice would you give to me about you if you were like if you heard this from a third party or what advice would you give to me about you and mom?
	What should I do?
Advice Amid Abuse 00:15:09
	It's not a trap.
	Like I'm genuinely open.
	I just, what advice would you give to me about what to do?
	Stay away from us.
	Right.
	Or live your life.
	Because we're.
	It's not only that we're not good for you, it's also that we've just done so much to you that we can never repair.
	This can never be undone.
	This has done so much damage.
	We've got your number.
	We know how to push your buttons.
	You don't deserve this.
	There's million, billion people in the world that are a thousand times better than this for you.
	Just run.
	You've got everything that you need.
	Don't look back.
	That's what you need to do.
	Don't feel bad.
	It's nothing that you don't owe me anything.
	You've never owed me anything.
	No love, no allegiance.
	You don't owe me.
	Oh, no, I owe you justice.
	I owe you justice.
	We owe everyone that in our lives.
	I owe you and mom clear moral judgment.
	Yes.
	But you don't need to be around us to do that.
	That's true.
	So your argument is not only is there nothing for me here, but there's negatives.
	Yes.
	And what are you going to do with mom?
	I don't know what I'll do with her, but that's not.
	That's nothing that you have to worry about.
	Don't manage me.
	I'm not a kid anymore.
	If you're bad for me and mom is bad for me, isn't mom bad for you?
	What the fuck is she doing around your kids, bro?
	How does she get all these prizes?
	Like, I don't, I've never understood this.
	I don't.
	I don't understand it.
	Is she better?
	Is she fixed?
	Did you go to therapy?
	Did she is she is she whole?
	Is she healthy?
	Like, has something happened that I've completely missed about her?
	Has her soul regenerated?
	Like, it's like regrowing an arm.
	Is she better?
	No, she's much worse.
	And your wife seems to like her a lot?
	We're getting there.
	We're getting there.
	I don't want her in my life.
	Mom, you mean, not your wife?
	I mean, mom, yes.
	When did you start thinking that?
	Something like one year and nine months ago.
	And I did confront her.
	I talked to mom, and I just did it with no preparation.
	And I did it so terribly.
	And I got to do it again.
	I got to do it better.
	What happened?
	I just got angry at her.
	I hadn't figured out what she was doing.
	You mean you were honest with her?
	How is that bad?
	You are angry at her.
	I couldn't.
	I was just in shock.
	Couldn't take it.
	I couldn't process it when she told me how I was in these conversations.
	And maybe I know why now.
	But there was this barrier where I couldn't pause.
	I couldn't make sense of it.
	I had this inability to even make any.
	I was paralyzed.
	That's what happened.
	So you're going to do it again?
	My life is such a mess.
	I don't want her in my life.
	And I know I can be honest.
	I'm not afraid anymore.
	I can promise you that.
	I'm honest.
	I'm being honest with her.
	Right.
	So then, no dad, no stepdad, no mom, no brother.
	What about your wife's family?
	I'm not trying to egg you on.
	I'm just, I mean, are they good?
	Are they?
	I mean, I'm not sure.
	I haven't really tracked that.
	Is your wife like keen on our mom because she's concerned about her family?
	You know how that shit goes sometimes, right?
	Because no, there's no one left.
	There's no one.
	Oh, they're all gone too?
	Just me.
	It's all happening so fast.
	It's just war.
	It's just for me, in my consciousness, there's no one.
	You mean outside of your wife and your kids?
	That's right.
	And what is your wife's view of her family?
	So her family has treated me very, very badly over the past year.
	And my wife was on her side, on their side, and now she's reconsidering.
	What did they do?
	I guess you would call it verbal abuse and just the silent treatment and just being incredibly cold and distant and not taking me seriously and saying that I'm crazy and just for a whole year.
	Well, I mean, I would thank them if I believed that this woke you up to this stuff.
	Does that sound worth it?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I mean, sometimes it takes being treated badly to recognize how you treat people badly, right?
	I mean, that's been in my life from time to time.
	Yeah, you're the missing piece.
	I mean, you've never.
	Yeah, you're right.
	I've never seen this.
	I mean, I really don't have any relationship with your kids, right?
	No.
	And I assume your wife has not been, hey, where's your brother?
	Let's get him over here.
	Let's get him involved.
	How is he doing?
	I mean, I never hear from her.
	I'm like this ghost in the barn in another country.
	Oh, yeah, I'm still bullying you.
	I've still been bullying you in the small ways that I can.
	No, no, but I mean, your wife doesn't, like, it's not just you, right?
	I mean, your wife doesn't try to fix things up, right?
	I didn't even let her, so to speak.
	No, she doesn't.
	Hmm.
	I mean, she knows how to contact me, right?
	I assume you don't lock her in the basement whenever she's home.
	She knows how to contact you.
	She could.
	She's the one who keeps track of everything here, all the everyone visiting the kids and all of that.
	Of course, she could protect you.
	Yeah, so she knows that I'm.
	Yeah, she doesn't.
	I mean, she doesn't really want me around either, right?
	No, she does not.
	I got to tell you, I mean, that still hurts a bit.
	It really does.
	You know, everybody wants to be bulletproof, but everybody has a kryptonite, right?
	Yeah.
	Just such a nice guy.
	Do you know why she doesn't want me around?
	I mean, maybe she thinks I'm not as nice a guy as you think I am.
	She doesn't like that you're chubby and that you don't smell good.
	Huh.
	Well, I mean, the chubby I could work on.
	I could, if I don't smell good, I can certainly work on that.
	I mean, that's pretty easy to fix, right?
	Yeah, if you had any coaching or anyone on your side, I'm sure you could do it.
	Yeah.
	But then she also must be like you, right?
	I mean, you'd have to have that in common, you and mom and your wife, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	She's the oldest sister.
	She's done plenty of this kind of stuff.
	Oof, man.
	It's going to happen with your kids over time, especially around puberty.
	You know, trying to survive the next year, I'm working day and night on this kind of stuff.
	Hope I can.
	I've been much better with my kids.
	I don't want to be a bully.
	I know it's too late.
	But you're having them around bullies, bro.
	Mom's a bully.
	You said you're getting abused by your wife's family.
	She's taking their side.
	They're fucking drowning in bullying.
	You, mom, your wife, her family.
	And, you know, they're old enough to start seeing how the nice people in this family get treated.
	Bullies get their way.
	Bullies get the girl.
	Bullies win.
	I mean, there's bullies all around them, aren't there?
	I mean, from what I hear, I mean, I wasn't there for what your wife's family did, but I think that's what's going on.
	It is what's going on.
	I woke up in this world something like a year ago.
	Oh, you woke up in the world you made, right?
	Right.
	Yes, I did wake up in the world that I made.
	Oh, I got to fix it.
	Yeah, because I'll tell you this, bro.
	I mean, I remember the bullying that I got around puberty, and it messes with your head, man.
	And if your kids are surrounded by all these bullies, you know what?
	The peer pressure is just going to take them down.
	How are they going to resist it?
	I don't think I can protect them from this right now.
	I don't think that they will be able to resist.
	Well, I mean, they're still young, right?
	So, I mean, there's some peer pressure, but I mean, you and I both know what kicks in around puberty, right?
	That's when the sexual attacks, like the same-sex, sorry, the men tearing down the other men, the girls tearing down the other girls, intersexual competition, right?
	That's what kicks in.
	That's when the bullying happens.
	And, you know, you're a good-looking guy.
	Your wife's pretty.
	Your kids are attractive.
	So they're going to hit puberty and they're going to be pretty and they're going to be popular.
	And what are the girls going to do?
	They're going to tear them down.
	How are they going to fight that?
	How are they going to get get past that?
	It'll be.
	I mean, you didn't get past it because you got peer-bullied into dropping me like a fucking hot potato.
	Oh, my friends are cooler.
	I mean, are these friends, these friends from like 20, 25 years ago, where are they?
	Where are they?
	Are they still in your life?
	No, they're not.
	No, I'm here.
	I'm telling you stuff.
	But your friends are all long gone, right?
	Yeah.
	All the people you chose over family, they're Sayanara, baby.
	So you got peer-pressured, right?
	Because your friends are cooler than me, because I was like younger and stuff, right?
	So you got peer-pressured.
	And it's going to happen to your kids, man.
	Unless there's some serious fucking 180s here.
	And I don't expect it from mom.
	I don't know about your wife's family.
	And I assume you and your wife are the only variables in this equation, right?
	Oh, absolutely.
	I'm trying to be the leader.
	And I hope that she can follow me, trust me, or something, and hope that we can do something good.
	I hope we won't be too late.
	I hope it's too late.
	I mean, no, they're still pretty young, right?
	So we've got time.
	It's not only that, it's just our relationship will have to survive it too.
	I have to make money to.
	There's just a million things.
	It's not like.
	Well, she likes you when you were kind of a bit on the bullying side.
	So if you stop that, that's kind of pulling a bit of a pin on a grenade, right?
	That's why she's been having a bit of trouble with me now.
	Yes.
	Yeah, I mean, if you're trying to soften and humanize and do that eye contact thing that you hate so much, right?
	I mean, if you're trying to get the bullies out and stop being a bully yourself and you're kind of rejigging things, I mean, you're kind of trying to rebuild or change a bridge, but the truck's already going over it, right?
	It's a little tricky.
	I feel like I'm losing my mind half the time.
	It's quite tricky.
	Right.
	It happens 20 times faster than I can think.
	Right, right.
	Hey, but you know, at least you have a family.
	At least you have kids.
	I mean, it's not like I'm sailing through this stratosphere over here.
	Well, you could, you're still a little younger than me.
	Don't give up hope.
	Who knows who I'll be when I take your advice and get the fuck out of Dodge?
	Well, if you leave us behind for good, I think you'd be very surprised where you'd be in two years or so.
	You'd be very, very surprised.
	It sounds vaguely ominous, but I think you mean that in a good way.
	I'm sorry.
	Swimming with the fishes.
	Right.
	No, I know what you mean.
	I know what you mean.
	It's just like you'd be surprised where you're going to be in a lead-like coffin.
	All right.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, I can't be.
	I'm not surprised that you're hearing that undertone in what I say.
	No, I'm just.
	I deserve it.
	I'm just fucking with you.
	I'm just fucking with you.
	All right.
	I will.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, I just said go.
	Just go for it.
	Just go.
	It's your life.
	So I would end the role play here, if that's all right with you.
	I mean, if there's anything else that you wanted to say to the, you know, I'm sorry, because I'm really flailing and I don't know much about your brother, but I assume he's not sailing high in love and romance if he's smelly and pudgy.
	But it's a great role play.
	And how did you?
	I mean, you said you had the physical effects and all of that, but how did that go for you?
	It's yeah, it's mostly physical.
	It's that I, yeah, I was looking at the, I wanted to hang up.
	I mean, I wasn't going to, but it's like this, I couldn't take it.
	I couldn't.
	It's not pain.
	It's more like confusion, just being completely disoriented.
	Like, just listen, like, I was very intense.
	I had absolutely this very surprising each sentence, everything.
	You did not stop.
	This took eight hours, didn't it?
	This was crazy.
	Well, and I also did sort of a tiny cheat.
	I hope you didn't.
	I flipped around in time from like, I'm 12, I'm 32.
	Like, I mean, I was sort of flipping around a little bit there and grasping at some rhetorical straws from the prior conversations.
	I hope you didn't mind that too much, but I just wanted to get the what I imagined his perspective would be across.
	I barely noticed.
	Okay, good, good.
	Well, you'll hear it on the replay and all that.
	So, yeah, so I think it's good to have a conversation, obviously, with your mother, with your father, with your brother.
	And I'm sorry to hear about what's going on with your wife's family, but it's not super shocking, right?
	That she might come from an aggressive family and end up with an aggressive guy.
	That's not all that you are is aggressive.
	And aggression is not bad, right?
	It's not a bad thing.
	We kind of need that.
	But I think it may have eclipsed some of the empathy that you need in particular as your kids are growing up.
	Well, it also makes me quite a bit of a hypocrite because I really couldn't see it and I thought I was so sensitive.
Aggression And Empathy 00:02:01
	Yeah, I mean, I do was sort of looking for how things were with your brother.
	That's why I kind of whiplashed you to bring your brother up because I got your complaints about your mother.
	And, you know, man, you are bang on about your mother.
	And I'm really sorry about all of that stuff for sure.
	And the stuff that you did when you were a kid to your little brother, you have the excuse of childhood.
	You know, it became tougher as you were getting older and all of that.
	But I think that probably is a bit of one of the things that contradiction of feeling victimized by your mother and also not processing how you victimized your brother, that's probably creating a lot of tension in your mind because your conscience is always struggling to get out, right?
	And it's pretty stressful to hold it back at all times, even if it's unconscious.
	Yeah, you bet.
	You bet.
	You can't, I mean, there's so many feelings.
	You know, I didn't think that I had a conscience left, but maybe I do.
	You do.
	Yeah, you do.
	That's why I was exploring the gambling stuff, right?
	So, okay.
	Okay.
	Well, listen, I would journal and you are you doing IFS at the moment?
	I'm taking a break.
	Okay.
	But I'll pick it up again if I need to.
	Yeah, for sure.
	And I mean, if you can have a conversation with your brother and try, it won't go like it did with me because that's a whole different thing.
	But I'm always trying to speak for people's unconscious rather than what they can actually manifest in language.
	So it would be different.
	And it might take, you know, five conversations or ten before it really cracks.
	Does he live far away?
	No, he lives quite close.
	He just doesn't trust me at all.
	It's really, really hard to get him to really kind of like when he talks to me after that, he won't reach out for months.
	He won't pick up the phone.
	And I think that's just kind of what we've pinpointed here, that he's just, yeah, he just doesn't trust me.
Huge Admiration For Your Journey 00:00:51
	Okay.
	Well, I'll stop here.
	And listen, I really do appreciate the call.
	It sounds like it was very helpful.
	And I appreciate you rolling with the role play.
	I can understand, I think, why my role plays could be kind of stressful for you.
	I think that makes sense because it's a kind of conscience stimulator.
	And, you know, good for you for hanging on to your humanity and good for you for doing all of this work.
	And good for you for having a massive upgrade in your parenting from how you were parented.
	And just huge admiration from me to you and your family about all of that.
	Thank you.
	Can I say one more thing too?
	Of course.
	Just that.
	Steph, you're a one-man army against child abuse and for families and kids out there.
	Keep it up.
	Thanks, brother.
	Keep me posted, all right?
	And if there's anything, if your brother wants to chat or anything, or I can chat with you both, just keep me posted, all right?
	Yeah, thank you.
	Thanks, brother.
	Good night.

Chapters

00:00:00 Listening to Paralysis
00:02:11 Born Rough, Gained Camaraderie
00:14:13 Babysitter Memories
00:28:25 Extreme Reaction Explained
00:31:05 Run Away Into the Woods
00:34:01 Genes and Broken Mothers
00:49:18 Tons of Sex, Dated Engaged
00:53:45 Anxiety's Paralyzing Grip
01:02:58 First Girlfriend
01:12:39 Poker as a Win-Lose Situation
01:24:29 Skills and Intensity
01:29:25 Playing Computer with Brother
01:44:48 Mom Ignoring Us
02:00:23 Advice Amid Abuse
02:15:33 Aggression And Empathy
02:17:34 Huge Admiration For Your Journey