Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - I Slept With My Husband's Cell Mate! CALL IN SHOW
Aired: 2026-04-07
Duration: 01:43:20


=== Ruining Her Life (03:32) ===

[00:00:00]  Yeah, so basically, I don't really know where to go with this because my daughter is just absolutely ruining her life.
[00:00:10]  What happened was about three years ago, during a day at work, she works quite rurally and she was driving in the car with one of the clients.
[00:00:24]  And as she reached the top of a hill, the sun was blinding and she didn't see that there was.
[00:00:31]  Two cyclists abreast of each other in the middle of the road.
[00:00:35]  So, just as she crested the hill, obviously there was a collision.
[00:00:40]  My daughter did everything right.
[00:00:41]  She phoned the ambulance, you know, did everything that they told her to do and phoned the police and what have you.
[00:00:48]  And sadly, later on in the hospital, the lady died.
[00:00:53]  And ever since then, my daughter has just been doing one thing after the other to absolutely ruin her life.
[00:00:59]  She has started taking drugs, she's given up her work.
[00:01:06]  She's started doing things to get money for drugs that I know she's going to regret later on.
[00:01:12]  And now, as a result of that practice for what she's been doing to get money for drugs, she's pregnant.
[00:01:21]  And my daughter's in her late 30s.
[00:01:23]  She's in her late 30s.
[00:01:24]  Like, this is completely.
[00:01:26]  I was like, we just don't know where this has come from.
[00:01:30]  I can only put it down to the fact that she feels so bad about killing the lady cyclist.
[00:01:36]  It's the only thing that we can think of that's, you know, and things are just going from bad to worse.
[00:01:42]  And now she has been, it came out that she has now been taking drugs during the pregnancy and there's an issue with the growth of the baby and what have you.
[00:01:53]  So now I just don't know what's going to happen.
[00:01:56]  I don't know how to approach my daughter to speak to her about any of this because she's so, like, it's almost as if her capacity for anything is just like a full, like, it's a, Fool, like it was at the brim all of the time.
[00:02:13]  And if you say one little thing to her, she's over the edge and, you know, she just can't take it and she just has to walk away.
[00:02:19]  So, yeah, pretty much, Stefan, I just wondered if she had any ways for me to look at this, to deal with this, and maybe some advice.
[00:02:27]  Wow, I'm so sorry to hear about that.
[00:02:29]  That's very tough.
[00:02:30]  So, she was not at fault in the accident.
[00:02:34]  I assume everything was investigated and she was clear.
[00:02:37]  Is that right?
[00:02:39]  That's right, yes.
[00:02:40]  I mean, if the police could have, you know, Charged her with anything they would have, but it was ruled just an accident, just a horrible accident.
[00:02:49]  And was it, sorry, was the cyclist just in the road or coming out of nowhere?
[00:02:54]  Yes.
[00:02:55]  No, so it was a really rural, rural road, and two cyclists, the two friends, lady friends, were cycling together right slap bang in the middle of the road.
[00:03:05]  So they weren't even over to the side or anything, and you know, she just crested the hill.
[00:03:10]  And I mean, because my daughter was in her work vehicle, like the vehicle was tracked till they knew that she was only.
[00:03:18]  You know, she wasn't going fast and all of that stuff.
[00:03:21]  So, yes, it was ruled just a tragic accident.
[00:03:24]  Okay, so she just crests over the hill.
[00:03:26]  She wasn't speeding, and the bicyclists are in the middle of the road, and there's almost no escape at that point to avoid hitting them, right?

=== Running Away Home (16:12) ===

[00:03:33]  Exactly, yes.
[00:03:33]  Gosh, how terrible.
[00:03:34]  And sorry, how long ago was this?
[00:03:37]  It was three years ago.
[00:03:38]  Three years ago.
[00:03:39]  Three years ago past, and yeah, last month.
[00:03:41]  Okay, so she was in her mid 30s then, right?
[00:03:44]  Yes.
[00:03:45]  Okay, so tell me a little bit about her life.
[00:03:48]  From the beginning, growing up, and how she ended up in this situation in her 30s.
[00:03:54]  I mean, not that anything led to this accident, but unmarried and so on, I assume.
[00:03:59]  So, yeah, tell me a little bit about her life.
[00:04:03]  So, my daughter, so she, I was very young when I had her and her brother, like extremely young.
[00:04:13]  I was only 16 when I fell pregnant with her, and 17 when I fell pregnant with her brother.
[00:04:19]  So, growing up, the two of them have been very close.
[00:04:24]  Their father was, well, I mean, abusive to me.
[00:04:32]  And when the kids were probably about six or seven, he left me and I got on to this other guy who was also abusive.
[00:04:43]  So I suppose you could say for the first, well, the kids both left home pretty sharp.
[00:04:52]  I myself left home when I was 16, but also both of my children left home when they were 16 too.
[00:04:59]  And they have pretty much witnessed, you know, domestic abuse and, well, I mean, alcoholism and drug abuse, sadly, in the home.
[00:05:09]  And none of that is present now, but certainly they grew up witnessing all of that.
[00:05:14]  Gosh, I'm sorry to hear about that, which then would lead me to ask the question what about your childhood, my friend?
[00:05:20]  How was that?
[00:05:22]  Well, I mean, it was fine.
[00:05:25]  I have considered it.
[00:05:26]  I thought that you might ask me this.
[00:05:29]  But it was absolutely fine.
[00:05:30]  Like, my parents worked a lot.
[00:05:32]  They were together right until my father died.
[00:05:34]  My mum's still on the go.
[00:05:37]  I mean, they just worked a lot.
[00:05:39]  They had, I mean, when I was a teenager, my parents were millionaires.
[00:05:44]  But I suppose it just meant that I did a lot of looking after myself.
[00:05:49]  I had a big sister, but she also worked.
[00:05:52]  She was a good bit older than me.
[00:05:54]  So while they were all working in the family business, I suppose I was just taking care of myself.
[00:06:00]  So, as soon as I got the opportunity, well, so what happened was they sold that business when I was just turning sort of 15, 14, 15, and then suddenly they wanted to be in my life again.
[00:06:13]  Like, they wanted to, you know, cook meals for us and all that kind of thing.
[00:06:20]  And I was kind of like, well, you've never cared up until now.
[00:06:23]  Like, I had loads of freedom, and now suddenly you're wanting to know what I'm doing, who I'm seeing, and where I'm going.
[00:06:28]  So I rebelled.
[00:06:30]  Well, I ran away from home basically when I was 16.
[00:06:33]  Okay.
[00:06:33]  And neither of your parents had substance abuse issues or anything like that.
[00:06:38]  Is that right?
[00:06:39]  No, no.
[00:06:39]  Oh, my goodness.
[00:06:40]  Nothing like that.
[00:06:41]  No, absolutely.
[00:06:42]  Straight as I die, just workaholics.
[00:06:44]  Okay.
[00:06:45]  And how were you disciplined as a child?
[00:06:48]  Well, I wasn't really.
[00:06:52]  I don't really remember being disciplined.
[00:06:55]  If I was late home, my mum would kick my bum up the stairs.
[00:06:59]  But I mean, that's all I can really remember.
[00:07:02]  I always tell people that I was quite spoiled being the youngest, and I sort of sense that they may have felt a bit guilty because they knew that they were working too much.
[00:07:10]  And so, in a lot of ways, I was just spoiled.
[00:07:14]  Interesting when you say kick your bum up the stairs, what do you mean?
[00:07:18]  Literally, literally chase me up the stairs and kick me.
[00:07:21]  Ah, okay.
[00:07:22]  So, I mean, there's some discipline which would, I guess, be kicking you, right?
[00:07:26]  Yeah.
[00:07:26]  But, I mean, that was only when I was much younger.
[00:07:28]  I mean, it's not something.
[00:07:30]  I mean, she did do that, but I'm not traumatized by it or anything.
[00:07:35]  And you said you were the youngest?
[00:07:37]  How many kids?
[00:07:38]  Just me and my sister, just two of us.
[00:07:40]  And what's the age gap?
[00:07:42]  Five years.
[00:07:43]  She's five years older than me.
[00:07:45]  Oh, it's an interesting age spread.
[00:07:47]  Okay.
[00:07:47]  And how was your relationship with your sister?
[00:07:50]  Well, it's non existent.
[00:07:52]  I can't remember the last time I really spoke to my sister.
[00:07:57]  We didn't have any relationship growing up.
[00:07:58]  I think there was too much of an age gap between us.
[00:08:01]  And I think, maybe looking back, what adult eyes, like my parents expected quite a lot from my sister.
[00:08:08]  And she was working in our family business and what have you.
[00:08:11]  But whereas I was just left to run wild.
[00:08:15]  So, yeah, we didn't have any relationship.
[00:08:18]  Okay.
[00:08:18]  Okay.
[00:08:20]  So, how did you learn how to live as a kid?
[00:08:23]  What were your influences?
[00:08:25]  Like, you know, we all got to make.
[00:08:26]  Decisions as kids, as adults, the right and wrong stuff.
[00:08:30]  Was it religion?
[00:08:31]  Was there media?
[00:08:32]  Was there something else that helped you learn how to live?
[00:08:36]  No, there was nobody religious or anything like that.
[00:08:39]  There was how to learn, make decisions.
[00:08:43]  I think just we had quite a big family, so there was kind of a big extended family.
[00:08:47]  You know, grandparents lived close by, lots of aunties, cousins, and that in the town.
[00:08:52]  And I suppose it was just you just adhere to the norms, really.
[00:08:56]  You didn't want to be left out.
[00:08:58]  Like I always.
[00:08:59]  I was always a popular child, even with my parents.
[00:09:02]  Like, I never held a graduate or anything like that, you know.
[00:09:05]  So, I always wanted to be part of the group.
[00:09:09]  And as such, I was.
[00:09:11]  It was just at home, I was just kind of left to get on with it myself.
[00:09:16]  But I never had any problems as a kid growing up.
[00:09:19]  I was always popular and welcomed by everybody.
[00:09:23]  Well, I mean, one of the things, not to be too blunt about it, but one of the things in particular that girls have to learn.
[00:09:30]  Is about sexuality and dating and pregnancy and all of that.
[00:09:35]  And how did that evolve over the course of your teenage years?
[00:09:38]  Because you said you got pregnant at 16.
[00:09:41]  Yeah.
[00:09:41]  And so we just learned that at school.
[00:09:44]  That was just an art school from the, you know, a class at school and from your peers.
[00:09:52]  Like, there was nobody spoke about anything like that in the home or anything.
[00:09:56]  But you kind of have to, don't you?
[00:09:58]  I mean, otherwise, these kinds of situations, I mean, you have to talk about sex with your kids and tell them about the pluses and minuses, the values of delaying and so on.
[00:10:08]  Because, you know, everybody, teenagers are all crazy and want to have sex with each other.
[00:10:11]  And it's usually not the best thing when they're in their mid teens.
[00:10:14]  I mean, were you pregnant at 15 and gave birth at 16?
[00:10:18]  No, pregnant at 16, gave birth at 17.
[00:10:21]  Okay.
[00:10:21]  And then again at 17 and gave birth at 18.
[00:10:24]  So I had two children by the time I was 18.
[00:10:27]  Right.
[00:10:28]  So help me understand how that came about.
[00:10:30]  Because, I mean, obviously that's not an ideal situation for family formation.
[00:10:35]  No.
[00:10:35]  So I'm sorry, did you ask me how it came about?
[00:10:39]  Well, yeah, how did it come about that you would get pregnant at 16 when, you know, females have 18 different forms of birth control and there's abstinence and so on?
[00:10:49]  So basically, my boyfriend, the father, and my children, we got together, and I suppose we just were in similar situations, like at home, and we didn't want rules and what have you.
[00:11:05]  And so I just left a note on the stairs, and the two of us ran away.
[00:11:11]  And we ran away to London and England, and then we went over into Europe and travelled around Europe for around seven years.
[00:11:21]  Travelled around Europe for seven years with two children.
[00:11:23]  How?
[00:11:24]  I'm sorry to be so middle class, but how?
[00:11:26]  I mean, it's expensive.
[00:11:29]  No, no.
[00:11:30]  Well, we were beggars and buskers.
[00:11:32]  We did begging and busking, and that's how we made our money.
[00:11:36]  But with two children, babies?
[00:11:38]  Yes.
[00:11:39]  I mean, help me understand how that works.
[00:11:41]  That's a wild lifestyle choice.
[00:11:44]  So basically, so initially when we ran away and we went, so obviously within a very short space of time, I was pregnant.
[00:11:53]  So at the end of the pregnancy, we came home until the baby was born.
[00:11:58]  And then once the baby had their three month injections, Then we literally just put everything that we could carry that we would need into.
[00:12:07]  Well, I'll tell you the truth, it was a single doobie cover, and we wrapped it up with a washing line and stuck out our thumbs and took a guitar and started hitchhiking.
[00:12:18]  And we were basically gone for seven years.
[00:12:21]  So just hitchhiking, busking, begging?
[00:12:23]  Hitchhiking, busking, begging.
[00:12:26]  I mean, how was that for your children?
[00:12:29]  Well, I always thought that they loved it.
[00:12:33]  Like, they'd never, like, by the time that we came home, so my daughter was just starting into primary school when we came home, and my son was just one year too young for primary school.
[00:12:46]  So, yeah, so, like, they were quite well.
[00:12:49]  So, it didn't really bother me.
[00:12:51]  Like, I think they had fun.
[00:12:52]  Like, my daughter used to play the tambourine, we used to sing, you know, like, it was good.
[00:12:57]  It was always nice weather.
[00:13:00]  We were stable, funnily enough.
[00:13:03]  Okay, and how were things with your boyfriend, husband?
[00:13:07]  Did you guys get married?
[00:13:09]  No, we never got married.
[00:13:10]  But so he was abusive, but I didn't know that that's what it was at the time.
[00:13:19]  I think when you're that young and you grow up in a, like, almost sheltered, like, I didn't know those people in the world that would play mind games like that, you know, so I didn't recognize it.
[00:13:33]  Or what it was.
[00:13:34]  And so, at the time, the time he left me, like I had absolutely no identity at all.
[00:13:42]  I didn't know who I was.
[00:13:44]  I was just completely like, I always liken it to, like, you know, you hear stories like when somebody goes into the military, they break them down and then build them up.
[00:13:53]  So I was broken down, but I hadn't been built up.
[00:13:56]  And I just, I was just, yeah, pretty vulnerable when he left.
[00:14:01]  So, what would he do?
[00:14:03]  How would he break you down?
[00:14:05]  Um, it was just mind games, just gaslighting mind games.
[00:14:09]  But yeah, I know, but like, it's a description, but can you give me an example?
[00:14:12]  I'm not disagreeing with you.
[00:14:13]  I just want to make sure I understand what you mean in particular.
[00:14:16]  So, like, so I remember one time.
[00:14:20]  So we were in Europe somewhere at the time and I had the two kids and I had one in each hand and we were, I was skipping and singing a song with the children.
[00:14:31]  And he would tell me that I was effing stupid.
[00:14:35]  Did I want us to get murdered that night?
[00:14:38]  Like, you know, it was that kind of thing.
[00:14:40]  You know, I was just making myself a target.
[00:14:42]  I was making all of us a target for some murderer that would see how stupid I was, you know, and want to murder us that night.
[00:14:50]  So it was that kind of thing, you know.
[00:14:52]  And it was constant.
[00:14:54]  Sorry, I don't understand the murderer thing.
[00:14:55]  I mean, you're not in the Congo or something.
[00:14:58]  I mean, you're in Europe, right?
[00:14:59]  I mean, it's fairly safe.
[00:15:00]  I mean, if it's safe enough to travel with two little kids, does he feel like there's a murderer behind every bush?
[00:15:06]  I'm trying to understand the mindset.
[00:15:08]  Yeah, listen, I've spent a long time trying to understand his mindset too.
[00:15:13]  But now that I'm older and I can look back, I think maybe he had some mental illness going on, like undiagnosed mental illness or something like paranoia or something.
[00:15:23]  I don't know.
[00:15:23]  And maybe he felt the weight of being just a youngster himself and having a wife and two children to look after, basically, when we're living in a tent and begging on the streets of Europe.
[00:15:35]  So I don't know what was going on in his mind.
[00:15:40]  But whatever it was, the end result was always I was stupid.
[00:15:44]  I was putting us all in danger.
[00:15:46]  And if I would only just do what I was told, I would keep us safe.
[00:15:51]  Right.
[00:15:52]  Okay.
[00:15:52]  And how often would these verbal attacks happen over the course of, say, a week?
[00:15:58]  Oh, God, Steph.
[00:15:59]  It's so long ago, Steph, and I can't remember.
[00:16:02]  All I know is that it was constant.
[00:16:05]  Like every single day, I couldn't make a decision.
[00:16:09]  Like he had to make all the decisions.
[00:16:10]  I couldn't make a decision.
[00:16:13]  And in the end, I didn't feel able to make a decision anyway.
[00:16:17]  So I was quite happy for him to take on the responsibility of all of that, even down to what song we were going to sing on the street.
[00:16:25]  And how old was he?
[00:16:27]  He would decide.
[00:16:28]  How old was he?
[00:16:29]  How old was he?
[00:16:31]  So he was only a year and a half older than me.
[00:16:34]  And when did you first notice these quirks or problems in his personality?
[00:16:41]  Well, I didn't really start to notice for a very long time.
[00:16:45]  I just thought it was me.
[00:16:46]  I just thought it was me because obviously I had been isolated away from all of my own friends and family.
[00:16:54]  You know, because we were away for so long, the only influence that I had was him.
[00:17:01]  So it took me a very, very long time to even realize anything was wrong, really.
[00:17:06]  And it wasn't until he left that I realized how broken I was and thought, how the hell did that happen?
[00:17:13]  And yeah, it took a good long while for me to understand that it was actually abusive.
[00:17:19]  And did your parents, your extended family, your friends, did they track you down?
[00:17:24]  Did they try and talk you into living a slightly better or more average lifestyle?
[00:17:30]  I mean, did they just let you go?
[00:17:33]  Yeah, I think they pretty much just, well, my parents couldn't stop me.
[00:17:38]  I just left them, you know, I just left and then they couldn't do anything about it anyway.
[00:17:42]  And my friends tried to have relationships with me, but then he would, you know, obviously he didn't want that.
[00:17:51]  So, and it wasn't that he out and out said to me, you will not see your friends, but it was just such a hassle every time that I did that it wasn't worth it.
[00:18:02]  Didn't want to watch what was happening to me, and so they just, they just let it, they just stepped away as well, you know, never said anything.
[00:18:10]  And how long did you know him before you got pregnant?
[00:18:13]  And well, we were at school together, so we knew each other.
[00:18:16]  He was local so yeah, we knew each other a year, a couple of years.
[00:18:21]  And did you know his family?
[00:18:23]  Yes, and what were they like?
[00:18:25]  And the mum was um, the mum was a bit of well, so i'm still in touch with his father, So I see the father quite regularly now, actually.
[00:18:38]  He was a good grandparent to the children, and he's kept in touch all these years.
[00:18:44]  But she was difficult, a difficult woman.
[00:18:49]  In what way?
[00:18:51]  So basically, she came over to Europe, this part of Europe that we were at this year, for Christmas to meet us.
[00:19:01]  And when she was there, she.
[00:19:04]  Told the father of my children that she had found cigarette burns on the seat to my children and that must have been me, that kind of thing.
[00:19:14]  Even when it was completely obvious that they don't house, you know, and it was easily proven that that was rubbish, she still, that was just the kind of thing that she would do, you know, like, yeah, again, just I think that's where the mind games came from was from her, like his mind games.
[00:19:30]  Oh, so maybe he got some of his paranoia from her if she's accusing you of, or, yeah, go ahead.
[00:19:37]  I'm pretty sure that that is the case.
[00:19:39]  I'm pretty sure that she had a lot to do the way that he is or was.

=== Neglect and Lies (14:05) ===

[00:19:45]  And what happened after the seven years at the end of the relationship?
[00:19:49]  Yeah, so we were where we were in Europe, and he said to me, Listen, I just want to go home.
[00:19:58]  We haven't been home for a long time.
[00:20:00]  I just want to go home and visit.
[00:20:03]  And I said, Well, I don't want to go home.
[00:20:06]  And he said, Well, you know, the kids need to see their grandparents.
[00:20:09]  It's been a long time.
[00:20:10]  It's not fair.
[00:20:11]  You shouldn't let them.
[00:20:14]  So I said, Well, you take the kids then, because I'm not going.
[00:20:17]  I'm staying here.
[00:20:19]  So he took the kids for two weeks to Scotland and was going to come back and meet me.
[00:20:25]  And of course, he never came back.
[00:20:28]  And so I just came up the road a week later.
[00:20:31]  And did he say why?
[00:20:33]  I assume you talked to him to get the kids.
[00:20:34]  Well, by this time, he's already.
[00:20:36]  Sorry for interrupting Stefan, but this time, By this time, he'd already moved in with the only friend that I was allowed to have.
[00:20:43]  Like, so all of my other friends, my real friends from school and stuff, they had all dwindled away for the reasons that we discussed earlier.
[00:20:52]  But I was allowed this one friend.
[00:20:54]  And when I came back, when I arrived home, he'd already moved in with her.
[00:21:00]  And three months later, she was pregnant.
[00:21:03]  Good Lord.
[00:21:04]  And she was like 25 at this time?
[00:21:07]  Yeah, something like that.
[00:21:09]  What is the magic?
[00:21:10]  Pixie dust that this Heathcliff has to get all of these women.
[00:21:16]  I think it was just our own stupidity.
[00:21:18]  No, no, no, no.
[00:21:20]  Come on.
[00:21:21]  Was he tall, handsome?
[00:21:23]  Was he charismatic?
[00:21:24]  What was his thing that he's just able to get women and get them pregnant like this?
[00:21:29]  Yeah.
[00:21:30]  Well, I mean, he was funny and he was charming.
[00:21:34]  You can imagine it to the onlooker.
[00:21:37]  He played guitar, he can sing.
[00:21:40]  So he did have some charms and he was quite good looking.
[00:21:43]  And that's enough, right, to just get women knocked up.
[00:21:46]  I mean, don't women say, I don't want to get pregnant with a guy who's already got two kids and he's just been in another relationship for seven years?
[00:21:56]  Like, is there something in the air that takes away women's reason in the highlands?
[00:22:00]  Like, what's the story?
[00:22:02]  No, I think this particular woman was chosen too.
[00:22:07]  I think people like him spot victims or what he thinks are victims.
[00:22:13]  And so this girl, I. Do not know why, but she obviously, well, I think she may have envied my lifestyle for some reason.
[00:22:24]  I've got no idea why.
[00:22:25]  She might have thought it was glamorous or, you know, like all hippie or something like that, you know.
[00:22:32]  And I think he had chosen her because he could see that with a bit of working, he'd be able to make her want to take my place or something like that, which is exactly what happened.
[00:22:44]  And what happened with their relationship in the long run?
[00:22:47]  Well, it turned out that she wasn't as pliable as me, and she wouldn't do as she was told, so he left her.
[00:23:00]  Oh, so then he has another family that he's abandoned?
[00:23:03]  Yes, he's had more children after that.
[00:23:07]  He had another family after that as well.
[00:23:10]  I'm trying not to dislike Scottish women as a whole, but okay, so what happened to him in the long run?
[00:23:18]  Well, in the long run, he ended up getting sentenced to 14 years for attempted murder.
[00:23:29]  And then we didn't really hear anything.
[00:23:31]  We've never, like, obviously, I haven't heard from him in, God, a long, long time.
[00:23:36]  But he just recently, so he's out the jail, but he just recently contacted the kids who don't want anything to do with him.
[00:23:45]  So he just, yeah, he just showed up again on our horizon just last year.
[00:23:52]  This year, in fact.
[00:23:53]  And what was the story with the attempted murder?
[00:23:57]  So it was, I understand it was a petrol bomb into a property, and five people's lives were endangered, put at risk.
[00:24:09]  But I think that his intention was to kill them.
[00:24:13]  So that was why I think he got the attempted murders.
[00:24:17]  And do you know why?
[00:24:18]  I think nobody did die.
[00:24:19]  I think what?
[00:24:20]  Sorry, but why was he doing this at all?
[00:24:22]  Oh, I've got absolutely no idea.
[00:24:24]  I'd already split up with them, or we were already split up by that time.
[00:24:27]  But I think it was probably the drug scene.
[00:24:30]  So it would be something related to drugs.
[00:24:33]  I mean, kind of an evil man in a way, right?
[00:24:37]  Yeah, yeah, I think he is lost, to say the least.
[00:24:43]  And do you know why he didn't get back in touch with you, just your kids?
[00:24:47]  Yeah, just the kids.
[00:24:48]  He wouldn't bother getting in touch with me.
[00:24:50]  And do you know why he was, what his reasons were for being in touch with the kids?
[00:24:55]  Yeah, he just wanted to, well, I don't know, he just wanted, I probably put his side of the story over.
[00:25:03]  To be honest with you, I don't know what he wanted because it never got further than just a couple of messages, I understand.
[00:25:11]  I don't know.
[00:25:12]  I think that, well, I'll tell you what it probably is, is that his own mum just died.
[00:25:17]  And so she was the only one that was, you know, she couldn't see past him.
[00:25:22]  She thought he was the son, you know, Sean, out of his backside.
[00:25:27]  And, you know, he was the greatest thing, sliced bread.
[00:25:29]  So when she died, I think there was nobody left to, I don't know, get money from or something.
[00:25:35]  So maybe he thought that the kids could, would be able to give them money or something, but they don't want anything to do with them.
[00:25:41]  And I mean, I'm only speculating that that would be the case anyway.
[00:25:45]  I mean, it's most likely, yeah, he just wanted a place to stay or money or resources.
[00:25:48]  Yeah.
[00:25:49]  Yeah.
[00:25:50]  That's what I suspect.
[00:25:52]  Okay.
[00:25:54]  Do you fault your parents at all for their neglect?
[00:25:57]  No, not at all.
[00:26:00]  I think that looking back now as an adult, I can see that they had choices to make and that they made them.
[00:26:08]  They thought that they were doing the best and they're good people.
[00:26:10]  My parents are good people.
[00:26:13]  And I suppose they just grew up in a different era where kids were shoved out the door to play and then they came in at nighttime and that was it.
[00:26:23]  Well, that's an interesting question, right?
[00:26:26]  So if your parents were good people, how did you end up?
[00:26:30]  Being impregnated and stolen off by an evil guy?
[00:26:35]  Well, I think that, because I have considered this too, so I think that we didn't, it was almost like a naivety.
[00:26:48]  And I certainly, I don't know about my parents, but I certainly didn't know there were bad people like that out there to look out for.
[00:26:56]  Do you know what I mean?
[00:26:57]  I couldn't have recognized it because I didn't know it existed.
[00:27:00]  And I mean, I'm sure that's not the case for my parents because there are adults that I don't know why.
[00:27:08]  Well, I mean, if a family has a front yard or a front garden that goes onto a very busy and dangerous road and they don't warn their children about the dangers of cars and they don't build a fence and their child wanders onto the road and gets killed, would we not fault the parents for failing to train the children about the basic dangers in their environment?
[00:27:32]  Yeah, yes.
[00:27:34]  Yeah, definitely.
[00:27:35]  Definitely.
[00:27:37]  I think that I did try and have the conversations with my parents, not so much my dad, but with my mother.
[00:27:45]  And she just never, she wasn't open to having any conversations at all.
[00:27:50]  And I think I stopped trying around about my early 40s, stopped trying to have any kind of meaningful conversation with her about.
[00:28:02]  You know, when I was young.
[00:28:04]  What would she say when you would bring up your childhood?
[00:28:08]  She just made it absolutely clear she didn't want to talk about it.
[00:28:11]  She would just say, I haven't done anything wrong.
[00:28:13]  Your father has loved me for the last 45 years and all this, you know.
[00:28:17]  So I just knew that she didn't want to talk.
[00:28:21]  Well, that's like your boyfriend.
[00:28:23]  That's like the husband of your, the father of your children because your mother's gaslighting you and is selfish.
[00:28:30]  It's selfish.
[00:28:30]  If your children want to talk about something that's important to them, you have to listen.
[00:28:34]  I mean, you can't just say to your children, I raised you this way, and you're never allowed to say anything about it because you were barely raised at all.
[00:28:42]  Yeah, I agree with that.
[00:28:43]  And, and as a result, as a consequence of that, I, my own children and me have had extremely difficult conversations about their childhood, which I, which I had with them, a teeth on the chin and, and all of that stuff.
[00:28:59]  And I've tried to make amends for all of that too.
[00:29:02]  Like, no, I think you're absolutely right.
[00:29:04]  But I think, I think that what had happened with my parents was that I walked away with very low or little self-esteem.
[00:29:12]  Like, I was a confident kid and all that, but I think self esteem was pretty low.
[00:29:17]  And I'm not sure that my parents would even know what I was talking about, you know, really, if I was to suggest that.
[00:29:24]  Well, okay, so let me ask you.
[00:29:27]  I know it's, I mean, she's not here, but if someone were to ask your parents, do you think it's important for parents to take an interest in their children, what would they say?
[00:29:36]  Yes, they would definitely say yes.
[00:29:38]  Okay.
[00:29:39]  So it's not that you just had some magically low self esteem, I think.
[00:29:43]  It's that your parents didn't show any particular interest in you, so it's hard to feel like you're worth anything.
[00:29:48]  Well, I mean, I suppose you could say it like that.
[00:29:51]  I hadn't thought on it like that.
[00:29:53]  I had thought of it more just that they wouldn't have been aware of how to build self esteem because they themselves haven't been brought up that way.
[00:30:01]  Do you know what I mean?
[00:30:02]  I suppose looking back, I've just told myself that that's what the issue is.
[00:30:07]  It's not that they knew, it's that rather that they didn't know.
[00:30:12]  Well, no, that's why I asked that question.
[00:30:15]  If somebody had asked them, should you?
[00:30:17]  Pay some attention to your children?
[00:30:18]  Should you take an interest in your children?
[00:30:20]  And they said yes.
[00:30:21]  So they knew that they should be doing differently than what they were doing.
[00:30:24]  So they failed their own standards.
[00:30:26]  Yeah, I think that that is probably true.
[00:30:29]  But I'm not sure that they would have known that at the time.
[00:30:32]  But having said that, with me, with the difficulties with me getting pregnant and all that so young, I must say that they have taken a completely different tack with my own children.
[00:30:45]  And my kids have got a fantastic release.
[00:30:47]  In fact, my mum and dad were almost like their.
[00:30:50]  They treated my kids like they should have treated me.
[00:30:53]  Oh, so they do know how to do better.
[00:30:56]  Yeah, they had a second chance with my own children and did very well.
[00:31:00]  So that means that they do know how to treat children well?
[00:31:04]  Well, they do now.
[00:31:05]  Well, no, it's not organic.
[00:31:07]  Like, I mean, if I say, well, if I say to my daughter, well, I didn't teach you Japanese when you were a kid because I didn't speak Japanese, and then I start speaking fluent Japanese to my grandchildren.
[00:31:20]  That's a little confusing, isn't it?
[00:31:22]  Yes, I suppose when you put it like that, yes, it is.
[00:31:26]  And what happens?
[00:31:27]  Sorry, go ahead.
[00:31:28]  No, I was just going to say I think I'm trying to look for easy explanations.
[00:31:35]  Well, not easy explanations, but explanations that make me feel easy.
[00:31:41]  Well, to be technical, you're looking for explanations that are the most convenient and least confrontational to your parents.
[00:31:49]  Yes.
[00:31:50]  Well, yes.
[00:31:52]  I hate confrontation.
[00:31:54]  Absolutely hate it.
[00:31:55]  That is usually the result of a lack of pair bonding.
[00:31:58]  In other words, the reason we have confrontations is we know we're going to be loved even if we strongly disagree.
[00:32:04]  But if you don't feel that you're loved as a child, you never feel like you have any security to disagree and fight for what you want because you're just going to be rejected further or ignored more.
[00:32:15]  Well, it's funny because I always just put that down too.
[00:32:18]  I agree.
[00:32:19]  I do agree with that.
[00:32:20]  I think that is.
[00:32:21]  Makes sense.
[00:32:22]  But I always just put it down to my early experiences with their father being abusive.
[00:32:29]  I didn't think it had anything to do really with the childhood so much as because I was so young when I got in touch with him and then spent, you know, the next seven years being told that I was stupid.
[00:32:41]  So I just put it down to that as opposed to my childhood.
[00:32:45]  You mean just being young?
[00:32:47]  Yeah.
[00:32:48]  Being young, getting into an abusive relationship.
[00:32:49]  Yeah.
[00:32:50]  Okay.
[00:32:51]  But.
[00:32:52]  Neglect is one of the worst forms of child abuse outside of sexual abuse.
[00:32:56]  It's one of the worst forms of child abuse because you end up kind of unformed and insecure because nobody's taking the time to get to know and understand you.
[00:33:04]  Nobody's thinking about you.
[00:33:06]  Nobody's putting your needs first.
[00:33:08]  Nobody's interested in your thoughts and feelings.
[00:33:10]  So you're kind of unformed.
[00:33:12]  And then what the grave danger, which happened to you, maybe it happened to your sister, certainly happened to your friend, if you're neglected, then you're unformed.
[00:33:20]  You are just like water or, in a sense, putty.
[00:33:24]  And then what happens is when a strong willed person comes along, they just scoop you up and do what they want.
[00:33:30]  Yeah, that is absolutely exactly what happened.
[00:33:34]  And that's the result of neglect.
[00:33:35]  And that's why your parents needed to spend time with you and care about you and care about what you think and feel.
[00:33:42]  Because if people genuinely care about you, then if an abusive person comes along, you instinctively recognize the difference, if that makes sense.

=== Unformed by Danger (02:42) ===

[00:33:51]  Like you're like, well, these people, this person is not treating me in the positive way.
[00:33:55]  That my parents are treating me, therefore I don't want to have anything to do with them.
[00:33:59]  But if you don't have anything to compare your boyfriend's abusive tendencies to, then it's really hard to say, well, this is wrong and bad and strange, and I don't want to have anything to do with it.
[00:34:08]  Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:34:10]  Yeah, I've never thought of it like that before.
[00:34:12]  That's very interesting and something that I will consider later on.
[00:34:17]  All right.
[00:34:19]  What was the trajectory of your sister?
[00:34:22]  So, my sister is the exact opposite of me.
[00:34:25]  She, um, Was extremely academic, you know, and she's got high flying jobs.
[00:34:30]  She's currently living in the UAE somewhere, earning a fortune.
[00:34:35]  And she's just obviously the pride and joy of my parents.
[00:34:40]  No marriage, no kids?
[00:34:42]  No, no, no, she never had children.
[00:34:45]  She recently got on to, so obviously in the UAE, women are not allowed, or certainly when she first moves over there, they weren't allowed to drive.
[00:34:54]  I think that's changed recently.
[00:34:56]  But they weren't allowed to drive, so she was allocated a driver for whatever job that she was doing over there at the time.
[00:35:04]  And he's like the same age as my son, basically.
[00:35:09]  And she's gone into it with him.
[00:35:11]  He's got his own family, two small children, and all that in Egypt.
[00:35:15]  And she is putting him up in the UAE.
[00:35:18]  And yeah, I think she's even got married to him over there because it wouldn't be safe not to.
[00:35:26]  Okay, so she married a Middle Eastern man with children?
[00:35:30]  Yes.
[00:35:32]  Did she ever try to find you or when you were a kid?
[00:35:37]  Because I guess she was in her early 20s when you got pregnant.
[00:35:40]  And did she ever try to find you or help you or anything like that?
[00:35:45]  No.
[00:35:46]  So she came around to visit the baby once.
[00:35:53]  And the baby's father, my ex, I can't even remember what he said to her, but he said something to her that she didn't like.
[00:36:01]  So she stormed out the house and I never saw it again.
[00:36:06]  Oh, so she knew that your boyfriend had a tendency to cruelty and she abandoned you to him?
[00:36:13]  Yes.
[00:36:15]  Yes, effectively.
[00:36:17]  I mean, can you imagine?
[00:36:18]  Imagine if you have a daughter and a son.
[00:36:22]  I mean, if some abusive guy was treating your daughter badly, would you just walk out and never talk to them again?
[00:36:30]  No, I wouldn't.
[00:36:32]  I wouldn't.

=== Storming Out the House (04:32) ===

[00:36:33]  But at the same time, like, where my mind is going is that.
[00:36:38]  That effectively, what she's dealing with now, although it's not a man, there is a big bad thing that she's dealing with.
[00:36:47]  And I mean, I pretty much am walking away, well, not walking away, but stepping aside because I just don't know what I can do to stop it.
[00:36:57]  Oh, you mean you're with your daughter?
[00:36:59]  Yeah, you know, with drugs and all that that my daughter's dealing with now, if we're using the analogy that there's a big bad thing, then I kind of feel.
[00:37:10]  I can't really speak about my sister because maybe I'm doing the same thing too.
[00:37:14]  Well, no, I hear that, and we'll definitely get to that.
[00:37:17]  And I really sympathize with that and your sensitivity towards that.
[00:37:20]  I'm just saying that you were still legally a child and she was older.
[00:37:25]  And I think there's a bit of responsibility to look out for your siblings.
[00:37:29]  Yeah, so I never look out about it, but.
[00:37:33]  I mean, who cared about you in, let's say, the first quarter century?
[00:37:38]  I don't think it's true that the guy who then.
[00:37:41]  Tried to kill five people.
[00:37:42]  I don't think that he cared about you.
[00:37:44]  It doesn't sound like your parents cared about much you, you about you very much.
[00:37:48]  It doesn't sound like your sister did.
[00:37:50]  It doesn't sound like your extended family tried to warn you about the dangers of the world or prepare you for adulthood.
[00:37:56]  So I'm trying to figure out, just over the first sort of 25 years of your life, I mean, who cared about you the most?
[00:38:04]  Well, nobody's really, and certainly not me.
[00:38:09]  Well, you can't if other people don't.
[00:38:12]  We learn our value from how other people treat us.
[00:38:15]  There's no other way.
[00:38:16]  You can't just magically get value from the universe and feel important from the universe.
[00:38:22]  You have to be cared about in order to care about yourself.
[00:38:26]  It's like asking us to invent language and history and culture and architecture and medicine and science.
[00:38:32]  And like, we can't do any of that.
[00:38:35]  We have to inherit it from those around us.
[00:38:38]  Yeah, I just had never thought about it.
[00:38:40]  I never really thought twice about it because when I look around, like in that time, like back in the 70s, did anybody really get cared for?
[00:38:51]  It seemed that everybody got chucked outside.
[00:38:54]  Well, and of course, I understand that as well, but that's not the perspective of a child.
[00:38:59]  The perspective of a child is the expectation of love.
[00:39:03]  And when we get older, like when I was a kid, my mother was cruel and violent.
[00:39:08]  Now, of course, as an adult, I'm like, well, you know, There was a war, and she was horribly treated, and the world was blowing up.
[00:39:14]  So, as an adult, I have that perspective, but it is important also to remember the perspective of a child.
[00:39:20]  Otherwise, we kind of lecture the child in us out of its authentic feelings by saying, Well, you just didn't have enough perspective.
[00:39:26]  And it's like, But of course, we don't have enough perspective as a child.
[00:39:28]  That's natural.
[00:39:29]  And we still have to deal with those original feelings.
[00:39:31]  We can't just wave them away with this adult perspective, if that makes sense.
[00:39:35]  Yeah, it does make sense.
[00:39:37]  And I had never considered it or heard anybody say that before.
[00:39:41]  And I suppose I was a little surprised, and my surprise doesn't mean anything.
[00:39:45]  It doesn't mean that I'm right or anything like that.
[00:39:47]  But I was a little surprised when you said, My children had a great childhood.
[00:39:54]  We talked about up until your eldest was in primary school, and I think your son was a little younger, just a year before primary school, that they had a great time as children while watching on a near daily basis their mother get verbally abused.
[00:40:11]  And gaslit by their father.
[00:40:14]  Yeah.
[00:40:15]  That part of it, I'm not even sure.
[00:40:18]  I'm not even sure I've ever considered the effect that that might have had on them because.
[00:40:24]  Oh, no, no, not might.
[00:40:25]  I was just saying.
[00:40:25]  Not might have had on them.
[00:40:27]  Not might have had on them.
[00:40:28]  Had on them.
[00:40:29]  Watching your mother be told that she's effing stupid and a burden and a liability and an idiot and dangerous, like on a continual basis by an evil man.
[00:40:42]  Is rough on kids, man.
[00:40:44]  Yeah.
[00:40:44]  Yeah.
[00:40:47]  And what effect do you think it might have had on them?
[00:40:50]  Well, we've had our troubles over the years, obviously, because I didn't deal with it all very well.
[00:40:55]  And yes, the kids have told me that it wasn't good for them.

=== Jail and Cellmate Love (03:45) ===

[00:41:06]  Sorry to interrupt.
[00:41:06]  There were two things I haven't dealt with yet, and I wasn't sure what it referred to.
[00:41:10]  You said I haven't dealt with it very well.
[00:41:12]  And what were the more specific complaints of your children, if you don't mind me asking?
[00:41:16]  Yeah.
[00:41:17]  So I hadn't really dealt with the first part of the abuse from their father, because when he left, I then got into another guy and was then with him for 11 years, and he was physically abusive.
[00:41:32]  So I hadn't really considered much about looking back.
[00:41:38]  Abuse that the kids would remember in the second relationship that I was in, like with their stepfather.
[00:41:45]  And tell me a little bit about him.
[00:41:47]  So basically, he was quite a good bit older than me.
[00:41:54]  He was like nine years older than me.
[00:41:56]  And so obviously, the father and my children had left me, went away with my only friend.
[00:42:02]  They were having a baby.
[00:42:03]  And then my ex, the father of my children, and she ended up getting the jail.
[00:42:08]  And when he was in the jail, he'd obviously said to his cellmate, Oh, my ex wife, and that, she's effing this, and she's an idiot, I want rid of her.
[00:42:20]  Here's her address.
[00:42:22]  And he wrote me a letter.
[00:42:24]  And we're on in the same circle.
[00:42:26]  Well, we didn't be on in the same circle, but if I lie, I knew some people that he knew.
[00:42:31]  And when he got out of jail, he came to visit me.
[00:42:36]  Sorry, sorry.
[00:42:38]  I just want to make sure I understand this.
[00:42:40]  So the father of your children was in jail and told his cellmate that he hated you and gave his cellmate your address.
[00:42:47]  Was that for nefarious purposes or reasons?
[00:42:51]  Well, it was just back in those days, you didn't really get phone calls or anything.
[00:42:56]  Everybody wrote letters.
[00:42:57]  And so.
[00:42:58]  I was lonely.
[00:42:59]  I liked writing letters.
[00:43:01]  Who I just started writing letters to him?
[00:43:03]  To the cellmate?
[00:43:05]  To the cellmate.
[00:43:06]  And to know what he was in a relationship with for 11 years.
[00:43:10]  Okay, so the father of your children goes to jail and you end up in a romantic correspondence with his cellmate?
[00:43:19]  Well, yes, I suppose so.
[00:43:21]  Yes.
[00:43:21]  I'm sorry, I don't want to be a part of that.
[00:43:23]  I don't want to be a part of that.
[00:43:25]  I'm sorry?
[00:43:26]  I'm not sure it was a romantic straight away, but.
[00:43:30]  I certainly got into a correspondence where his cellmate, who then, when he got out of the jail, he then came to visit me and then we pursued a romantic relationship.
[00:43:41]  And what was the father of your children's cellmate in prison for?
[00:43:48]  I don't know.
[00:43:49]  What do you mean you don't know?
[00:43:52]  I'm sure I did know, but I can't remember.
[00:43:54]  But the sort of thing that he was always in and out of the jail, you know, the sort of thing that he usually got the jail for was like housebreaking and stuff.
[00:44:02]  He was a thief.
[00:44:04]  And at this point, how old are you?
[00:44:08]  So I suppose I must have been approximately mid 20s.
[00:44:13]  Well, let me see, 16, 17, 18, 19.
[00:44:16]  Yeah, maybe about 23 or 24, maybe 24.
[00:44:21]  Okay.
[00:44:21]  And so he gets out of prison, you're in your mid 20s, and you think, well, the father of my children went to jail, but his cellmate will be a good boyfriend.
[00:44:35]  Well, I mean, when you put it like that, I'm sure I didn't consciously think that, but I think that what probably had happened was I was familiar with this lifestyle by now.
[00:44:47]  Not a lifestyle that I was brought up in, right?
[00:44:49]  And asked, but I was familiar with this lifestyle.

=== Deserving Violence (15:52) ===

[00:44:51]  Sorry, but hang on.
[00:44:52]  Hang on.
[00:44:53]  So the vagabond lifestyle and the criminal lifestyle are not the same.
[00:44:57]  I know that there's some overlap.
[00:44:58]  So which lifestyle do you mean?
[00:45:00]  Yeah, I suppose that by this time, I mean the criminal lifestyle.
[00:45:05]  The people, all the people that.
[00:45:07]  The father and my children knew we were all criminals.
[00:45:09]  So by now I was accustomed to being around criminals and drug dealers and things like that.
[00:45:15]  Okay.
[00:45:16]  And were you still in touch with your parents or extended family?
[00:45:22]  Well, by this time, so by this time I'd had to come home from France.
[00:45:26]  So I was home from France and I got somewhere to live in the same town as my parents.
[00:45:32]  And so basically, over the next 11 years or so, basically, My life then went, so it was bad before, it became really bad now.
[00:45:45]  And alcoholism was involved, and basically my children pretty much went and lived with my parents.
[00:45:51]  Sorry, sorry.
[00:45:52]  Sorry.
[00:45:53]  I'm in the land of female vagueness.
[00:45:55]  And it happens with men too on this show as well.
[00:45:57]  Alcoholism was involved.
[00:45:59]  Does that mean you drank?
[00:46:01]  Yes.
[00:46:02]  It means that at that time.
[00:46:04]  So this new guy that I got on tour with was an alcoholic.
[00:46:08]  And so he.
[00:46:10]  Was drinking, and I suppose I kind of thought that I would join him.
[00:46:15]  And so before you knew it, I also had a drinking problem.
[00:46:19]  Wow, I'm so sorry.
[00:46:22]  When did you find out he was an alcoholic?
[00:46:25]  Well, I'm not sure.
[00:46:29]  He just drank a lot, and I suppose I just joined him.
[00:46:33]  I don't know how long it took me to find out that he was an alcoholic.
[00:46:38]  Not long.
[00:46:38]  Okay, all right.
[00:46:41]  Okay, so when did he start becoming physically abusive?
[00:46:47]  Well, so that actually happened quite soon, but it was the strangest thing because what I felt like was, well, this is easier to handle.
[00:47:00]  Like it's easier to cope with physical abuse than it is to cope with mental abuse.
[00:47:07]  So, yeah, so it was easier to deal with.
[00:47:11]  That doesn't really answer my question.
[00:47:13]  Was it like a week after he moved in, or a month, or a year?
[00:47:17]  I would say within the first month, he kicked me in the face.
[00:47:20]  Oh, God.
[00:47:22]  Well, what happened there?
[00:47:24]  Well, he had bare feet, so thank goodness.
[00:47:28]  So we were just arguing.
[00:47:30]  Well, we weren't even arguing, but he wanted a cigarette.
[00:47:34]  I had a cigarette.
[00:47:35]  He wanted a cigarette.
[00:47:37]  He took the cigarette off me.
[00:47:38]  So I knocked it out of his hand and he stood up, kicked me in the face.
[00:47:42]  Right.
[00:47:43]  Okay.
[00:47:43]  And what happened?
[00:47:45]  I mean, I assume you were shocked and in pain and hurt.
[00:47:48]  And what happened then?
[00:47:49]  Well, then he just said sorry and we both started.
[00:47:55]  Started crying or whatever, and it was all okay again.
[00:48:00]  I had to go to the dentist, obviously, but it was fine.
[00:48:04]  I'm sorry, you had to go where?
[00:48:06]  To the dentist the next day.
[00:48:09]  Oh, it was kicked you hard enough in bare feet to damage teeth?
[00:48:13]  Yes.
[00:48:14]  Oh my God.
[00:48:16]  And what did you tell the dentist?
[00:48:18]  I told the dentist they.
[00:48:20]  I can't really remember, but I feel like I remember telling the dentist the truth.
[00:48:26]  Huh.
[00:48:27]  I think she wrote a report for me for the police if I wanted to go to the police, but I didn't go to the police.
[00:48:35]  Okay.
[00:48:37]  And then how bad did it get over the next 11 years?
[00:48:42]  I mean, it wasn't too bad.
[00:48:47]  And I suppose it's the old thing, isn't it?
[00:48:49]  That I would have black eyes and stuff, but the kids never saw how it happened.
[00:48:53]  You know, they knew what was happening, but, you know, it was kind of like that.
[00:48:58]  It wasn't.
[00:48:59]  Too bad, but there was always the threat of it there, lingering.
[00:49:02]  You know, if she moved too quickly and I would flinch, he would tell me not to flinch, that kind of thing.
[00:49:10]  And I'm trying to figure out the movements of your children.
[00:49:13]  So, how long between their father leaving was it when you got involved with his cellmate?
[00:49:23]  Not long at all, probably within six months.
[00:49:26]  Okay.
[00:49:26]  And was he harmful to the children at all?
[00:49:30]  No, no, he wasn't.
[00:49:32]  Although, I would say probably about a year ago, maybe two years ago, my son did say to me that he went into his bedroom when my son was a teenager.
[00:49:44]  The stepdad went into his bedroom and hit him, hit him physically once.
[00:49:49]  Sorry, you hit him or hurt him?
[00:49:51]  Yeah, hit him, physically hit him, struck him.
[00:49:54]  But I didn't know that until like a couple of years ago.
[00:49:57]  My son never ever told me that that happened until a couple of years back.
[00:50:02]  He's in his 30s.
[00:50:03]  Okay.
[00:50:03]  So, but that was the one time, right?
[00:50:06]  Well, he said one time.
[00:50:09]  I've just been thinking recently.
[00:50:10]  I wonder if there's been anything else that he hasn't told me about, but I don't know that.
[00:50:16]  And I've only recently started thinking it.
[00:50:19]  So, I'm not sure when the right time would be to ask or ask.
[00:50:23]  The right time to ask is whenever, as soon as you can.
[00:50:27]  The fewer secrets in a family, the healthier the family as a whole.
[00:50:31]  All right.
[00:50:33]  Okay, so how often would the violence occur with your second boyfriend?
[00:50:40]  I can't really remember it too much, like how often or anything like that, but a lot of it was associated with alcohol.
[00:50:49]  Okay, well, would it be once a month, once a week?
[00:50:53]  Yeah, I'd say probably maybe once a month.
[00:50:56]  Once a month, okay.
[00:50:57]  And how was he outside of that?
[00:51:01]  He was, again, he was funny, and I suppose all of the things that.
[00:51:07]  I wanted to be within myself confident or appeared confident and all of that kind of thing.
[00:51:13]  Funny.
[00:51:16]  Yeah, he, everybody liked him.
[00:51:18]  You know, it was one of, one of that ones.
[00:51:20]  Everybody thought he was a nice guy.
[00:51:23]  Even I thought he was a nice guy.
[00:51:25]  I would say to him, there was, in the end, I said, I remember saying like, I want to get my nose fixed.
[00:51:32]  I want to get my nose straightened.
[00:51:34]  But I said, if I get my nose straightened, will you break it again?
[00:51:38]  And he said, well, you know, I just can't say that I, I can't say that I won't break it.
[00:51:44]  And I thought it was great because he was being so honest with me.
[00:51:47]  And sorry, so you had to get your nose fixed because he'd broken it.
[00:51:51]  Yes.
[00:51:52]  I mean, what was the level of these injuries?
[00:51:54]  You've got broken teeth, black eyes, broken nose.
[00:51:57]  I mean, what was all the extent of your injuries?
[00:52:02]  It was just that kind of thing.
[00:52:03]  It was just punches and kicks, you know.
[00:52:06]  There was no broken, other than my nose, which is broken pretty regularly.
[00:52:11]  I had no like broken bones or anything other than my nose.
[00:52:15]  Sorry, pretty regularly.
[00:52:16]  How many times did your nose get broken?
[00:52:19]  Like a lot.
[00:52:20]  I don't know how many times, a lot of times.
[00:52:22]  Six times, I don't know.
[00:52:24]  And this went on for 11 years.
[00:52:26]  So basically, for the remainder of your children's childhood, they saw this level of violence or understood this level of violence and saw their mother getting assaulted and battered and broken.
[00:52:38]  Yeah.
[00:52:39]  Why?
[00:52:40]  Help me understand.
[00:52:41]  Why would you stay?
[00:52:43]  I suppose I thought that I deserved it.
[00:52:46]  I don't know what that means, really.
[00:52:48]  Sorry.
[00:52:49]  Yeah, I just kind of felt like that was what I deserved.
[00:52:53]  Like, I don't know, it was meant for me or something.
[00:52:57]  It just felt like it was supposed to be, but it was happening.
[00:53:01]  Okay, but deserved for what?
[00:53:03]  Hang on.
[00:53:03]  So, but deserved for what?
[00:53:04]  I mean, this is worse punishment than people receive in jail.
[00:53:07]  In jail, you can't just have the guards break your nose on a regular basis.
[00:53:11]  So, this is worse than jail.
[00:53:13]  So, what did you do to deserve this level of inhuman punishment for 11 years?
[00:53:19]  Well, I'm not sure, but I don't know, really, why I thought that.
[00:53:25]  But I suppose I'd just been, I just feel like I was conditioned over the first relationship to then be in the second relationship.
[00:53:33]  But once I came out of the second relationship, I actually spent a long time working with women who were victims of domestic abuse.
[00:53:41]  And I think that near the end, what I witnessed in other women and what I think had happened to myself is that in the end, domestic abuse can become like a form of self abuse.
[00:53:58]  No, I understand that, but I'm still trying to understand the mentality of he kicked my teeth out in the first month of being with me.
[00:54:08]  And you said, Well, I thought I deserved it.
[00:54:10]  Oh, so is it because he had a story which said, I'm breaking your nose, giving you a black eye, kicking your teeth out because you're doing something wrong and you believed him?
[00:54:21]  No, It wasn't like that.
[00:54:24]  He was just violent.
[00:54:25]  He said that he was violent.
[00:54:27]  He also had like a troubled upbringing, whatever.
[00:54:30]  And Like, I don't know.
[00:54:32]  I just, when compared to the psychological abuse, the punch in the face or the kick in the teeth felt like it felt like right.
[00:54:43]  I can't describe it.
[00:54:44]  It just felt like, yeah, that feels right.
[00:54:46]  Okay.
[00:54:46]  But that's what I'm trying to understand because it's a, obviously, you're looking back at it like it's a strange foreign land because it's not right to be assaulted repeatedly.
[00:54:58]  I mean, I guess over 11 years, that's, you know, well over 100.
[00:55:03]  Assaults that would land a man in jail and so that deserved it.
[00:55:08]  I'm sort of trying to understand that.
[00:55:11]  I suppose I could.
[00:55:12]  I wasn't worth any more than that.
[00:55:14]  And why were you not worth any more than that?
[00:55:17]  Well, I deserve beating.
[00:55:19]  No, no, I deserve regular beatings.
[00:55:24]  I'm trying to fathom that or follow that mindset, if that makes sense.
[00:55:29]  And I'm not criticizing at all.
[00:55:30]  I'm just trying to understand.
[00:55:31]  Yeah, it's so funny because I don't really think I understand it myself.
[00:55:35]  Now that you're questioning me about it, I thought I had, you know, pucked all this away and it's worked it all out, but I'm not sure that I have now.
[00:55:46]  See, it's one thing to say I deserve nothing.
[00:55:49]  And that would make you alone or something like that.
[00:55:52]  But saying, I deserve beatings, that's what I'm trying to follow.
[00:55:56]  Because that's why I asked about violence when you were growing up.
[00:55:58]  And you said, other than your mother kicking you on the butt when you came home late as a teenager, you said you didn't experience any physical violence.
[00:56:07]  I assume that there was no physical violence between your parents?
[00:56:10]  No, no, none.
[00:56:12]  Right.
[00:56:12]  Okay.
[00:56:12]  So where does this acceptance of abuse and violence come from?
[00:56:21]  I honestly don't know.
[00:56:24]  I just felt like, yeah, I think I just felt like I was such a bad person that that's what I deserved.
[00:56:32]  No, I get that.
[00:56:33]  And then the question is for me, and I appreciate you pausing on this because I think it's very important with regards to your daughter, because she's punishing herself, right?
[00:56:43]  Yes.
[00:56:43]  Okay, so this is why I'm focusing on this like a laser you punish yourself through your men.
[00:56:52]  She punishes herself through an accident.
[00:56:55]  The punishment is the question.
[00:56:57]  What the fuck is going on with all this punishment in the women?
[00:57:01]  I have no idea.
[00:57:03]  That's so, like, I've never thought about it before, but no idea.
[00:57:06]  Because you modeled this self punishment.
[00:57:08]  I'm not saying consciously, but you modeled this punishment that, you know, we females are such pieces of crap that we deserve to get our teeth kicked out.
[00:57:17]  And that's why I'm trying to follow this self punishment, this almost like self loathing or self destruction.
[00:57:26]  I'm so terrible.
[00:57:28]  And I don't agree with this mindset, of course, right?
[00:57:30]  But it is there.
[00:57:31]  I'm so terrible that I have to get beaten up.
[00:57:34]  Yeah.
[00:57:35]  Terrible for what?
[00:57:37]  Seven, I just don't know if I'm ever going to be able to give you an answer to that today.
[00:57:41]  Like, I'd never thought about it before.
[00:57:44]  And I just don't know what the answer is.
[00:57:47]  Because you're confronting spiraling self punishment with your daughter.
[00:57:51]  And if you don't know why you have the self punishment, you can't help her.
[00:57:56]  Yeah.
[00:57:57]  I think that's the helplessness you feel.
[00:58:00]  Yeah.
[00:58:03]  Why do I feel the need to be punished?
[00:58:05]  I mean, I have a theory, as I usually do.
[00:58:09]  Could be right, could be wrong.
[00:58:11]  Yeah.
[00:58:12]  Well, I think it has to do with a, and I'm going to use negative moral terms here because I think that's what you're using on yourself, not because I believe them objectively.
[00:58:24]  But if I sort of trace the lineage here, you got pregnant with and ran off with a guy who turned out to be capable of trying to kill five people.
[00:58:36]  Yes.
[00:58:37]  Now, I don't think that it crossed your mind.
[00:58:41]  And again, this is not criticism.
[00:58:42]  I'm just trying to figure out where the self punishment comes from.
[00:58:46]  I don't think you thought in your mind, is this what's best for my children?
[00:58:54]  Is this guy.
[00:58:56]  The best guy to be a father to my children, and is leaving and being a homeless vagabond for seven years the best thing for my children?
[00:59:05]  Is because you said, I mean, at the beginning of the call, you said my children had it pretty good for seven years while we were on the road, and only then do I find out, like half an hour later, that you were being horribly verbally abused the whole time.
[00:59:19]  And verbally abusing the mother is the same as verbally abusing the children.
[00:59:25]  Every time he calls you a stupid piece of crap, or dangerous, or careless, or whatever.
[00:59:30]  That impacts on the children.
[00:59:32]  And I think you were focusing on what you wanted and needed.
[00:59:37]  Because if you'd woken up at one point when you were 20 or 19 or 23, and you'd have said, Is this relationship?
[00:59:46]  Is this lifestyle?
[00:59:48]  Is this what is best for my children?
[00:59:51]  Is this the best that I can do for my children?
[00:59:54]  What would you have said if you'd have woken up at 19 or 20 or 21 with that thought, with that guide?
[01:00:00]  With that, start and navigate by what is very best for my children, what would you have done?
[01:00:06]  Well, I would have just put an end to all of it and just left.
[01:00:09]  Right.
[01:00:11]  Now, if you were to ask any parent, should you do what is best for your children or what you prefer at their expense, what would parents say?
[01:00:22]  They would say what's best for the children, not to do what you want to do at their expense.
[01:00:26]  Right.
[01:00:27]  So, in pursuing your lust for this man or whatever the positives were of this lifestyle that you had, an avoidance of structure or predictable responsibilities or stability or whatever it was that excited you or that you liked about this vagabond lifestyle.

=== Was It Best for Kids (07:11) ===

[01:00:44]  And whatever you found appealing or attractive or sexy or whatever it was about this gaslighting guy who went to jail for 14 years, I can tell you one thing for sure.
[01:00:54]  And I say this with sympathy because it wasn't like your parents did what was best for you, but you did not wake up and say, Is this the right thing for my children?
[01:01:03]  Is this what is best for my children?
[01:01:06]  No, I didn't.
[01:01:07]  Why not?
[01:01:09]  And again, I say this without some, I'm not trying to shake you by the shoulders here.
[01:01:12]  I'm just, it's a genuinely curious question.
[01:01:15]  Everybody knows that as parents, you need to do what's best for your children.
[01:01:18]  And this was not best for your children.
[01:01:20]  And even now, in your slightly advanced age, you're still saying, no, they had a great childhood.
[01:01:27]  Yeah.
[01:01:28]  So I'm sorry, what was the question again?
[01:01:30]  I'm sorry, Tessa.
[01:01:31]  No, no, I'm sorry.
[01:01:32]  I had a flurry of words there, so I was unclear.
[01:01:35]  That's on me.
[01:01:35]  Sorry about that.
[01:01:36]  So why did you sacrifice what was best for your children for what you preferred for at least seven years?
[01:01:44]  And it only ended because he left, not because you'd wanted it changed.
[01:01:48]  Yeah, I couldn't have left him.
[01:01:49]  Like if she hadn't left me out.
[01:01:51]  Probably still with him to this day.
[01:01:53]  So I look back with gratitude on that, actually, that he did leave me, you know.
[01:01:58]  But I suppose I didn't leave because, well, I suppose I was just too selfish and didn't want to take responsibility for my life.
[01:02:08]  Well, I don't know.
[01:02:10]  That seems like you're reading it off a cue card.
[01:02:12]  I mean, genuinely, why did you not wake up and say, is this the best life for my children?
[01:02:18]  Or even before you have unprotected sex with the man.
[01:02:22]  Again, I know you're 16, but 16 year olds can drive, so they can also operate vaginas.
[01:02:28]  So, did you say, is this the best for my future children?
[01:02:32]  I mean, or was it just like, oh, he's hot, let's have sex.
[01:02:35]  Oh, he wants to run away, let's run away.
[01:02:37]  Oh, he wants to go here, he wants to go there.
[01:02:39]  He doesn't want a regular job.
[01:02:41]  He's verbally abusing me, I don't care.
[01:02:44]  What was your motive in putting your children last and your needs and preferences first?
[01:02:52]  To get away from home, I suppose.
[01:02:55]  I just needed to run away from home.
[01:02:56]  Okay, why did you need to run away from home, Hang on.
[01:02:59]  But why did you need to run away from home?
[01:03:02]  That's what I'm trying to understand because your parents, when they neglected you for sure, but they weren't verbally abusive, they weren't physically abusive, you weren't being sexually abused, you had a roof over your head.
[01:03:12]  Now you were being neglected, which is bad, of course, right?
[01:03:14]  But being neglected doesn't create the kind of urgency where you take up with a criminal to get away.
[01:03:21]  What was going on in your home?
[01:03:24]  That you are willing to roll the dice with this kind of brutal man.
[01:03:29]  I suppose that, as I say, when my parents sold that first business and got the second business, they had a lot more time on their hands to be wanting to know what I was doing.
[01:03:41]  And suddenly, rules came into play and they wanted to know what I was doing, where I was going, who I was seeing.
[01:03:49]  And I just rebelled against that and just wanted to leave.
[01:03:52]  And this guy was my ticket out.
[01:03:54]  Okay.
[01:03:55]  So I just want to make sure I followed this.
[01:03:57]  And I appreciate your frankness with this.
[01:03:59]  It's a complex thing to unravel.
[01:04:01]  So.
[01:04:02]  Your parents had standards and rules, and you wanted to escape them.
[01:04:07]  Yeah, rules that had never been in there before, though, because I was just less to run wild when they had the first business.
[01:04:14]  But the second business gave them more time on their hands.
[01:04:17]  And so suddenly they were behaving in a way that they hadn't behaved up until then.
[01:04:24]  And I just thought, no, I'm not telling you what I'm doing.
[01:04:28]  I'm going to run away.
[01:04:30]  I hear what you're saying, and obviously I'm not disagreeing with your experience.
[01:04:34]  It doesn't.
[01:04:36]  Jibe with what I have read about or talked about, and I've been doing this a long time.
[01:04:41]  It doesn't mean that I'm right.
[01:04:42]  I'm just telling you what doesn't match with my experience with people I've talked to.
[01:04:47]  So, in general, children are happier when there are rules and standards because it means that they're being cared for.
[01:04:55]  So, how old were you when your parents sold the business and became more available as parents?
[01:05:03]  I was probably about 14.
[01:05:05]  Okay, about 14.
[01:05:08]  What were your friends like at that age?
[01:05:09]  I mean, was there something pulling you away from this kind of structure your parents were imposing?
[01:05:14]  No, it was just a tiny, tiny little village.
[01:05:19]  There was nothing ever happened.
[01:05:20]  It was boring.
[01:05:22]  You know, like we had nothing to do, nowhere to go.
[01:05:25]  It was just a tiny, tiny little place that people live, are born, live, and die in.
[01:05:30]  And I just, it was just the last thing that I wanted for myself.
[01:05:35]  Well, there's lots of ways to escape provincialism or some sort of maybe narrow minded or narrow socialized little village.
[01:05:43]  I mean, you can develop flights of imagination.
[01:05:46]  You can write books.
[01:05:47]  You can read books.
[01:05:48]  You can learn how to act.
[01:05:50]  You can write plays, perform plays.
[01:05:52]  You can do art.
[01:05:53]  You can learn musical instruments.
[01:05:54]  I mean, there's lots of ways to prepare for a life outside of the village.
[01:05:59]  I don't know that you need to get knocked up by a guy who turns out to be an attempting murderer and flee to live like a vagabond for seven years.
[01:06:07]  And that's what I'm trying to.
[01:06:08]  Sort out.
[01:06:09]  There's lots of.
[01:06:09]  I mean, I grew up in a pretty narrow minded little village.
[01:06:12]  It wasn't a little village.
[01:06:13]  I lived in big cities, but the entire social circle that my mother moved in was, of course, as you can imagine, predictably narrow minded and horrible.
[01:06:21]  And I did end up escaping it, of course.
[01:06:24]  And I'm not trying to say, oh, I did the right thing.
[01:06:26]  I'm just trying to understand.
[01:06:27]  It's not inevitable that because you grew up in a small town that you end up with this kind of life.
[01:06:34]  No.
[01:06:34]  I suppose, but he was available, Alec.
[01:06:37]  I knew him at school.
[01:06:39]  Like, I didn't.
[01:06:40]  Foresee that he would be like that in real life, you know, like abusive like that in real life.
[01:06:45]  But he was there, he was available, he wanted to escape the same as I did.
[01:06:50]  I suppose we were kind of like just a couple of stupid kids, airy fairy living in Clyde Cuckoo land, really, and thought it would be romantic and all that stuff to run away and be, you know, like modern day hippies or something, you know, like we missed our sort of calling in the 60s, that kind of thing, you know, that was the kind of idea, I suppose.
[01:07:12]  Yeah, the brightly painted smoky Volkswagen bus roaming around the back lanes.
[01:07:16]  Yeah, that sort of thing.
[01:07:17]  Well, where did you get that thought or idea from?
[01:07:21]  Whether it's a particular movie or book or something that, or books or genre or music or something that you liked that sold you that lifestyle?
[01:07:29]  No, there was a guy, there was a guy that he was an older guy, and all the youngsters used to sort of go right into his and smoke joints and stuff like that.
[01:07:42]  And he was an old hippie, and he actually.
[01:07:44]  Said about the lifestyle.
[01:07:46]  Do you know, I never put that two together, but yeah, he talked about the lifestyle and travelling around and sold it to us.

=== Tyrants with No Reason (05:30) ===

[01:07:55]  And we were both wanting to do that.
[01:07:57]  And we were each other's ticket out.
[01:08:00]  So there was some creepy old hippie in the village who gave drugs to children?
[01:08:06]  Basically, yes.
[01:08:09]  Looking back, I suppose that is the truth, yeah.
[01:08:13]  So a child corruptor, Pied Piper.
[01:08:18]  All right.
[01:08:20]  So the rule, did you like your parents when they were spending more time with you?
[01:08:25]  Was there anything positive from sort of 14 to 16 when you left?
[01:08:28]  When they sold the business and were spending more time at home, was there anything that you liked about them?
[01:08:34]  No, not really.
[01:08:35]  I never got on with my parents at all.
[01:08:37]  I never wanted to spend time with them.
[01:08:40]  Like, I remember as a child asking to go and like stay over at somebody's house.
[01:08:46]  And like the answer you would say to you, you would ask the parents and they would say no.
[01:08:51]  And then you would say, but why not though?
[01:08:54]  And they would just say, because I said so.
[01:08:56]  And that was the extent of it.
[01:08:58]  That's all you ever got.
[01:08:59]  But as it turned out, I remember this one time in particular the girl's house who I wanted to go and stay over, like they said no because her parents were, well, crazy alcoholics.
[01:09:09]  But I kind of feel like if they had spoken to me, like at the time, had said, we don't think it's safe for you to stay there because, you know, so and so's dad is often drunk or whatever, that might have worked for me.
[01:09:22]  Like I was always just looking for somebody to treat me.
[01:09:25]  Like I had a blame.
[01:09:26]  Well, hang on.
[01:09:29]  I could be wrong, of course, but I'm not sure how in a small village they could say to you, you can't go to your friend's house because his parents are crazy alcoholics.
[01:09:42]  Because, I mean, why would they be cautious about saying that?
[01:09:46]  I have no idea.
[01:09:47]  But they just never, ever did.
[01:09:48]  Oh, well, I'll tell you.
[01:09:49]  Oh, never did.
[01:09:50]  Hang on.
[01:09:50]  I'll tell you.
[01:09:51]  Sorry to be annoying.
[01:09:52]  I'll tell you.
[01:09:53]  And I'm sure it'll be clear when I mention it.
[01:09:55]  Let's say that you're my daughter, and I say, You can't go to Susie's house because her parents are crazy alcoholics, right?
[01:10:01]  And they're dangerous, and I don't trust you to be in their household.
[01:10:06]  So then your friend says, Why aren't you coming?
[01:10:09]  And what do you say?
[01:10:11]  What do you say?
[01:10:11]  But I feel like if my parents had said to me.
[01:10:14]  No, no, hang on, hang on.
[01:10:15]  Stay with me.
[01:10:16]  Stay with me.
[01:10:17]  Your friend says, Why aren't you coming to the sleepover?
[01:10:20]  And what do you say?
[01:10:21]  Yeah, my mom says, I can't come because your dad's a crazy alcoholic.
[01:10:25]  Okay, and then what happens?
[01:10:26]  And then what happens?
[01:10:27]  Yeah, then they come round to fall out with my parents.
[01:10:32]  Well, yeah.
[01:10:33]  So then your friend says something to her parents or to, you know, your friend gets into a fight with her parents and they say, you know, you don't know what you're talking about.
[01:10:46]  And they say, well, you know, do you know why my friend couldn't come over?
[01:10:49]  Because her parents said that you were crazy alcoholics.
[01:10:52]  Yeah.
[01:10:53]  Or she tells her friends who then spread it around and then it gets back to the friend's parents.
[01:10:59]  And then what is your parents' life like in the little village?
[01:11:04]  Yeah.
[01:11:05]  Well, it's impossible because crazy people will rouse all popular sentiment against them.
[01:11:12]  And there is a particular weakness in human society for reasons we don't have to get into here that the crazy people always fucking win.
[01:11:19]  Yeah.
[01:11:20]  They always sway opinion to their side for reasons of threats and bribes or whatever or manipulation.
[01:11:27]  But crazy people always win.
[01:11:31]  And that's a real horror in society.
[01:11:33]  So your parents can't tell you why you can't go.
[01:11:37]  I suppose that's indicative of the relationship that we had or that I wanted, the fact that they just didn't say, just because I said so, you know, that was it.
[01:11:45]  There was never any explanation that you were saying.
[01:11:49]  Okay, hang on, hang on, you've gone back on your train track here because you're just saying the same thing as if we didn't just spend the last five minutes understanding it.
[01:11:57]  Your parents, in this particular instance, your parents could not tell you why you couldn't go.
[01:12:06]  I understand that.
[01:12:06]  Now, to your parents' discredit, the reason why you had a friend whose parents were crazy alcoholics was because they didn't invest in you and be close to you when you were a child.
[01:12:22]  So you had no particular standards of friendships because you were untrained and untutored and you were just looking for anyone to hang out with.
[01:12:31]  And of course, they also chose to live in a small village with, I assume, a lot of fairly crazy people because the people with potential.
[01:12:38]  Get out of the village, and the people who remain generally are not the highest quality as a whole.
[01:12:43]  But yeah, so in that particular instance, I get when, as a 14 year old, as a 15 year old, as a 16 year old, that you would look and you would say, They're just tyrants with no reason because I said so.
[01:12:57]  And so you have two extremes in your life you have rules that are imposed by people who you don't perceive as caring about you because of the first.
[01:13:10]  14 years of your life where they didn't seem to care about you much.
[01:13:13]  So you have what seemed to be bullshit rules imposed on you by irrational tyrants.
[01:13:17]  And then you have Joe Hippiehead over there with his bong offering drugs and total freedom to children.

=== Childhood Spent in Silence (15:06) ===

[01:13:25]  Yes.
[01:13:26]  Effectively, yes.
[01:13:27]  Got it.
[01:13:28]  Okay.
[01:13:28]  Well, that goes a long way to helping me understand this fork in the road.
[01:13:34]  Aren't me?
[01:13:36]  Aren't me?
[01:13:37]  Yeah.
[01:13:40]  It's almost like you have a god on one shoulder and The devil on the other.
[01:13:46]  And the god says, Here are the rules.
[01:13:48]  I'm not going to explain them to you.
[01:13:51]  And the devil says, rules are for suckers.
[01:13:54]  Hey, man, live a cool lifestyle and travel and experience things and go wild and live free and have no rules.
[01:14:02]  And right?
[01:14:04]  Yeah.
[01:14:06]  Yeah.
[01:14:06]  Okay.
[01:14:06]  Got it.
[01:14:08]  So, 11 years, you're with the nosebreaker.
[01:14:13]  Yes.
[01:14:14]  And what happens at the end of that?
[01:14:17]  I actually had enough of him.
[01:14:19]  I actually ended the relationship, which was.
[01:14:23]  Crazy that I had the strength to even do that.
[01:14:26]  What was the deciding moment?
[01:14:29]  I think that it came over a period of time, but he had turned to heroin, basically, and that was just the final straw for me.
[01:14:42]  I thought it's bad enough that I've got a drink problem without getting into heroin as well.
[01:14:47]  And I think at that time I just was looking forward, I was looking ahead and Beginning to look ahead and think, what do I want for the future?
[01:14:57]  And I just knew it wasn't that.
[01:14:59]  So I ended the relationship with him, threw him out of the house, and he left.
[01:15:04]  Okay.
[01:15:06]  So it's not a massive miracle.
[01:15:08]  It's just that the relationship became completely untenable because of his rampant drug addiction.
[01:15:13]  Yeah.
[01:15:13]  Yeah.
[01:15:15]  But I didn't want to follow him down this.
[01:15:17]  I'd followed him with alcohol and what have you, but I wasn't prepared to follow him down.
[01:15:22]  That was a step too far for me.
[01:15:25]  Right, okay.
[01:15:26]  And so?
[01:15:29]  I can't really remember.
[01:15:30]  I just remember I threw him out of the house and he went homeless.
[01:15:36]  So he just went to the local authority and became homeless, and that was it.
[01:15:42]  And you never had children with him, right?
[01:15:44]  No, no.
[01:15:45]  I've only got two children to the one dad.
[01:15:47]  And did he want kids?
[01:15:50]  He's got kids, other kids.
[01:15:52]  So, no, he never wanted kids with me.
[01:15:54]  And you didn't want kids with him, I guess?
[01:15:57]  No.
[01:15:57]  Okay.
[01:15:58]  I knew that I couldn't look after myself at that point, never mind any children.
[01:16:03]  Okay.
[01:16:04]  And your children, you said, spent some time with your parents when you were with your first boyfriend, but also time with you.
[01:16:11]  So help me understand their living arrangements, roughly, over the course of their childhood.
[01:16:16]  Okay.
[01:16:16]  So when I was together with the children's father, they just lived with us.
[01:16:21]  And then I splabbed their father and got on tour with the second guy, the nosebreaker.
[01:16:27]  Then my parents took a bigger part in the children's lives because the kids, because my parents lived just not far from me.
[01:16:38]  So the kids just knew that if they wanted somebody to be at home and for food to be on the table and all that, they would just go to my mum's.
[01:16:49]  I mean, it wasn't a spoken agreement, it just happened by itself because I wasn't available.
[01:16:55]  So the kids just went to where it was available, which was my parents' place.
[01:17:00]  And sorry, you weren't available because of the drinking?
[01:17:02]  Yeah, because I wasn't emotionally available, yeah.
[01:17:06]  Okay.
[01:17:07]  And so what proportion of their middle to later childhood did they spend with your parents?
[01:17:15]  Like 10%, 50%?
[01:17:17]  I would say 60%.
[01:17:19]  60%, okay.
[01:17:20]  And was there ever a time or were there any stretches of time where the drinking stopped with your boyfriend and the home was more inviting?
[01:17:30]  No.
[01:17:31]  Okay, so that didn't happen at all.
[01:17:34]  Why do you think your children?
[01:17:37]  I mean, I understand that you felt insignificant to your parents and that can create a bit of a cycle, but why do you think your children's needs were not a part of your calculations, really?
[01:17:49]  I suppose I was just caught up in my own thing.
[01:17:57]  I suppose, really, the truth is, I was just so caught up in myself, I didn't think about them.
[01:18:02]  Well, no, I understand that.
[01:18:03]  But if I say, why didn't you think about your children?
[01:18:06]  Do you say, because I didn't think about them?
[01:18:08]  That doesn't really answer the question.
[01:18:11]  Okay, I see what you mean.
[01:18:14]  I thought they'd be better off with my mum and dad anyway.
[01:18:17]  But that's also something that's rare.
[01:18:20]  Yeah.
[01:18:21]  So, because you didn't put their needs in any importance, they ended up better with your parents.
[01:18:27]  But that doesn't answer why you didn't put their needs with much importance.
[01:18:30]  I mean, I suppose, I don't think that I was, it was that conscious in my mind, like their needs.
[01:18:37]  I suppose I was just, I suppose if I did think about it, I just thought that the kids are fine.
[01:18:42]  Well, okay, but you're an intelligent woman.
[01:18:45]  You can't really believe that while you were being beaten up and drunk with a drunkard who became a drug addict, that the children were fine.
[01:18:54]  Yeah, I suppose that my feeling was I don't have the capacity to look after myself.
[01:19:02]  I certainly don't have the capacity to look after you.
[01:19:05]  I know that my mum and dad do have the capacity for that.
[01:19:09]  So just go to mum and dad.
[01:19:11]  Well, I'm sorry to be annoying, but you can't have it both ways.
[01:19:15]  You can't say I was punishing myself and also I lacked the capacity to take care of myself.
[01:19:21]  Yeah.
[01:19:22]  Because punishing yourself is a specific action with a motive.
[01:19:26]  And saying, I don't have the ability is giving yourself an excuse.
[01:19:33]  Yeah.
[01:19:33]  Like, I don't have the ability to be a ballet dancer.
[01:19:36]  I mean, I'm 59 years old and I have the flexibility of your average Redwood.
[01:19:43]  So I cannot be.
[01:19:44]  So I don't sit there and say, gee, I really regret not starting into ballet school at 59, right?
[01:19:49]  Like, it's not possible.
[01:19:50]  It's not a possible thing.
[01:19:53]  So if you say, I didn't have the capacity to take care of myself, that's a different matter than I was actively punishing myself.
[01:20:00]  Yeah.
[01:20:01]  But I mean, I hear what you're saying.
[01:20:04]  I'm just not sure.
[01:20:05]  I just don't know what the answer is.
[01:20:08]  Why didn't I think of the kids?
[01:20:11]  Well, and in a sense, sorry, I suppose because I've, in a sense, the reason.
[01:20:15]  Well, of course, yeah.
[01:20:17]  But that's by definition, right?
[01:20:18]  Why didn't I take other people's needs into account because I thought my needs were more important?
[01:20:22]  That's by definition.
[01:20:23]  But you understand it's happening to this day because earlier on, I mean, my jaw hit the floor when you told me that your children had a good childhood.
[01:20:34]  Yeah.
[01:20:36]  So it's still happening.
[01:20:39]  Okay.
[01:20:39]  Tell me a little bit about what happened after Nosebreaker left.
[01:20:44]  And I guess your kids were almost adults by then, if I have this right, seven years plus 11 years, 18 years.
[01:20:50]  So your kids are adults with six months in between.
[01:20:53]  So your kids are adults.
[01:20:54]  And how do your kids' lives go from there?
[01:20:57]  So they both left home as soon as the kids at 16.
[01:21:02]  At home, meaning your place.
[01:21:04]  Because I think you said 60, 40, they were your parents.
[01:21:08]  Yeah.
[01:21:08]  So, sorry, did they leave you and go to their parents or your parents or something else?
[01:21:13]  No, there was another step in between.
[01:21:18]  So, about when the kids were going into high school, into secondary school, we all moved to a different city away from my parents.
[01:21:32]  Oh, so they lost their sanctuary?
[01:21:34]  Yes.
[01:21:36]  Wow.
[01:21:36]  I guess you weren't thinking of their needs then either.
[01:21:39]  No.
[01:21:40]  Okay.
[01:21:40]  No.
[01:21:40]  And why did they?
[01:21:43]  Was it for your boyfriend's job?
[01:21:44]  No, no, no.
[01:21:48]  It was just to, I suppose, it was to follow him.
[01:21:53]  No, but why did he want to move?
[01:21:55]  He wasn't from the place that I am from and he's from the city.
[01:22:00]  So I suppose I followed him and took children with me.
[01:22:05]  And how old were they?
[01:22:07]  So just going into high school.
[01:22:08]  So That would be like 11 and 12.
[01:22:12]  Okay.
[01:22:13]  12, 13.
[01:22:15]  And when they said, Why are we moving away from all of our friends and grandparents?
[01:22:20]  What did you say?
[01:22:21]  I can't even remember having that conversation.
[01:22:24]  They just were pulled along like a tail of a kite?
[01:22:27]  Yes.
[01:22:28]  Yeah, I suppose that is the case, yeah.
[01:22:30]  Did they put up any resistance to your knowledge?
[01:22:33]  No.
[01:22:33]  No.
[01:22:34]  That's very sad.
[01:22:36]  That's very sad.
[01:22:37]  I mean, I guess they accurately assessed the situation and realised that whatever they wanted would mean nothing.
[01:22:45]  Probably now that, like, I suppose that the case, yeah.
[01:22:49]  I mean, my daughter is very strong willed about her preferences and puts up a pretty good fight for what she wants, which I appreciate.
[01:22:58]  But your children, I mean, I get like I was moved from England to Canada when I was 11, and I didn't put up any protest because, of course, it wasn't going to make any difference.
[01:23:09]  My mother was going to go where she wanted to go.
[01:23:12]  Yeah.
[01:23:12]  And did your parents say anything about, like, you can't take the kids because.
[01:23:17]  You're both drunks?
[01:23:19]  No.
[01:23:19]  Wow.
[01:23:20]  There was no resistance.
[01:23:22]  That's wild.
[01:23:23]  No resistance, but I remember.
[01:23:24]  In fact, I think they were happy to get rid of us.
[01:23:27]  Or, sorry, me and my boyfriend, not the kids.
[01:23:31]  Well, no, but why did they offer to keep the kids?
[01:23:34]  Why did they just let their grandchildren go to a city with a violent, dangerous, abusive, nose breaking fucking drunk?
[01:23:43]  I've got no idea.
[01:23:46]  I don't know.
[01:23:46]  I never.
[01:23:48]  There was no resistance, and that didn't surprise me.
[01:23:51]  Like, I didn't expect there to be any resistance.
[01:23:53]  I don't think so.
[01:23:54]  So, they didn't really care that much about your gifts either.
[01:23:57]  Ah, these poor, wee barons.
[01:23:59]  My God.
[01:24:01]  No, that's sad.
[01:24:02]  That's so awful.
[01:24:04]  And, of course, your need for either self punishment or your hybristophilia, like your sexual preference for criminals or something like that, you were just doing what you wanted.
[01:24:16]  I suppose so.
[01:24:17]  Well, no, I suppose so.
[01:24:18]  That's the empirical facts.
[01:24:19]  I mean, you took your children away from the school, their friends.
[01:24:23]  I did.
[01:24:24]  Their environment, their security, at least it was safer and better at your parents' place.
[01:24:31]  So you took them away from all of that because the guy who beat you was going to another city.
[01:24:38]  Yeah, that is the truth.
[01:24:41]  Okay.
[01:24:41]  All right.
[01:24:42]  So the kids don't matter in this equation as far as I can understand it.
[01:24:46]  You move them like you don't ask your couch, do you want to go to some new city?
[01:24:51]  You just put it in the moving van, and it's the same with your kids.
[01:24:54]  Yeah.
[01:24:56]  At that time in my life, yes, that is the case.
[01:25:00]  That is the truth.
[01:25:01]  Okay.
[01:25:02]  And what happened then?
[01:25:04]  So, this was, sorry, I'm just trying to do the math here.
[01:25:06]  So, this was, say, four years into your relationship with Nosebreaker, and you went on for another seven years after that.
[01:25:13]  I guess their childhood was spent.
[01:25:15]  When did you stop drinking?
[01:25:17]  I assume you have.
[01:25:18]  Yes, I stopped drinking.
[01:25:20]  I didn't stop drinking until I was 40.
[01:25:24]  So that's approximately 15 years ago.
[01:25:27]  Ah, okay.
[01:25:28]  So when you were 40, your kids were 23 and 22, so long past childhood.
[01:25:35]  And why did you quit drinking?
[01:25:40]  Because I just didn't need it anymore.
[01:25:43]  I just didn't feel like I needed it anymore.
[01:25:47]  I didn't want to hurt myself anymore.
[01:25:49]  Right.
[01:25:50]  So, the effects of your drinking on your children wasn't enough for you to try to quit.
[01:25:54]  But when you didn't want it anymore, you quit.
[01:25:58]  Yeah, I suppose so, yeah.
[01:25:59]  Right, okay.
[01:26:02]  And did Nosebreaker work?
[01:26:06]  Sometimes, yeah.
[01:26:07]  He had labouring jobs on and off, but he wasn't a regular worker.
[01:26:11]  And did you work?
[01:26:13]  No, back then I didn't.
[01:26:15]  So what did you live on?
[01:26:17]  Well, I was at college.
[01:26:19]  So I went to college for a good few years.
[01:26:22]  And, but really we were just on benefit.
[01:26:26]  Oh, yeah.
[01:26:27]  Yeah, this is what's so terrible about government money in so many ways.
[01:26:31]  Sorry, go ahead.
[01:26:32]  This is awful.
[01:26:35]  Hearing my choices.
[01:26:38]  I'm sorry.
[01:26:38]  Sorry, say again.
[01:26:39]  I'm saying just hearing my choices like this, you know, it's horrible.
[01:26:43]  Well, yeah, it is horrible.
[01:26:46]  And again, I have lots of sympathy for you as a child.
[01:26:48]  Absolutely.
[01:26:49]  I have a lot of hatred for this hippie corrupter who supplies drugs and delusions to children.
[01:26:55]  That's vicious.
[01:26:57]  I have anger at your parents for putting money above parenting.
[01:27:03]  You know, if you want to just have a job, don't have the fucking kids.
[01:27:07]  And if you want to just work all the time, don't have children.
[01:27:10]  Like, I don't have the kind of.
[01:27:14]  How, house, or lifestyle, or whatever it is that would be conducive to having a dog.
[01:27:18]  I love dogs.
[01:27:20]  Yeah.
[01:27:20]  But I'm not a morning person.
[01:27:23]  So I'm not getting up at six or seven in the morning to take the dog for a walk or anything like that.
[01:27:28]  And so as a result of that, I don't have a dog because I can't be a good dog owner.
[01:27:34]  And I don't understand this.
[01:27:36]  Have children and then ignore children.
[01:27:38]  It's like setting up an aquarium and then just not feeding your fish or changing the water until they die.
[01:27:44]  Like, what's the point?
[01:27:45]  I don't understand.
[01:27:46]  I don't get it.
[01:27:48]  So.
[01:27:49]  You quit drinking when your parents were significantly into adulthood.
[01:27:54]  Both the children were in adulthood, Jess.
[01:27:56]  Yeah, yeah.
[01:27:57]  And you kicked out your boyfriend when he became more of a liability and not anything to do with your children.
[01:28:07]  So, how did your children's lives go as a whole over the past, say, 15, 20 years?
[01:28:13]  Well, they've just been the absolute opposite of me.
[01:28:19]  Like, they both work, they're both productive members of society.
[01:28:25]  Like, neither of them had teenage children or anything like that, you know.

=== Punishing Yourself Through Abuse (13:16) ===

[01:28:31]  And yeah, so my son's been in a relationship, a steady relationship for a long time.
[01:28:35]  I've got a grandson with him.
[01:28:39]  And my daughter is a different kettle of fish.
[01:28:42]  She's been married, I think, twice now.
[01:28:47]  And although she's never had abusive relationships, but she's always had guys that.
[01:28:56]  She has to fix.
[01:28:57]  So she'll like get a guy, sort him out, you know, get him a good job, get him to pass his driving test, that kind of thing, set him up and then leave him and move on to the next guy.
[01:29:09]  It's kind of been her pattern.
[01:29:12]  But my son's pretty steady in his relationship.
[01:29:16]  And your daughter doesn't have any kids, right?
[01:29:18]  Well, she's pregnant now, but no, she hasn't had any children up until now.
[01:29:22]  Right.
[01:29:23]  Okay.
[01:29:23]  And do you know why she didn't have children?
[01:29:26]  She just never wanted children.
[01:29:28]  No, I get that.
[01:29:29]  I understand that.
[01:29:29]  You keep answering questions with things that don't add more information.
[01:29:32]  Why didn't she have children?
[01:29:33]  Because she didn't want to.
[01:29:34]  That doesn't answer anything.
[01:29:35]  Why didn't she want to have kids?
[01:29:36]  The default position is to have children, right?
[01:29:38]  That's why we're here.
[01:29:40]  Yeah.
[01:29:40]  I mean, I suppose that she just always used to say that, though, you know.
[01:29:45]  But I think the reason that she probably didn't want to have children is because it's too much of a scary responsibility to be responsible for another life.
[01:29:54]  And she knows how difficult her own life was.
[01:29:58]  And I'm not sure that she thought that she would be able to provide.
[01:30:02]  What the baby needs.
[01:30:04]  Well, she doesn't have any modeled good parenting.
[01:30:08]  I mean, how would she?
[01:30:09]  It would be like trying to learn Japanese from scratch.
[01:30:11]  I mean, that's a huge burden.
[01:30:14]  And also, if she became, sorry, if she became, she has a good relationship with her grandparents, is that right?
[01:30:21]  Yes, I. Right.
[01:30:23]  So if she became a good parent, it would put her in direct conflict with you and your parents.
[01:30:30]  Because to become a good parent would mean uncovering all the bad parenting and bad grandparenting that she'd received.
[01:30:39]  I suppose it would, yeah.
[01:30:40]  I mean, that's inevitable, right?
[01:30:42]  And it's incredibly painful to provide to your own children what was denied to you.
[01:30:48]  It's one of the reasons why you didn't put your children first, because if you'd put your children first, it would have been incredibly painful to realize how awful it was for your parents to put you last and your sister.
[01:31:00]  Yeah.
[01:31:00]  When you do better, you realize how painful it was that people did worse.
[01:31:07]  I suppose that would make sense, yeah.
[01:31:12]  So, yeah.
[01:31:12]  Okay, so she had two long term relationships, just like you, right?
[01:31:15]  You had two long term relationships.
[01:31:17]  Yeah.
[01:31:18]  And then she had this accident on the country road where she, where the car really, it was not her, she didn't kill the car, killed the bicyclist, right?
[01:31:31]  Who wasn't wearing a helmet.
[01:31:33]  Right.
[01:31:34]  She would have survived if she had had the helmet.
[01:31:36]  Yeah, I mean, yeah, wear your helmet, people, wear your helmet.
[01:31:39]  Yeah.
[01:31:41]  I had a friend.
[01:31:42]  Who worked 911 calls or emergency calls?
[01:31:45]  And she said the number of calls that came in from people who'd been in bike accidents who weren't wearing helmets was appalling.
[01:31:51]  Yeah.
[01:31:52]  Okay.
[01:31:53]  So then, yeah, she has a moral shock for sure.
[01:31:56]  And the normal response to that would be anger, which is how dare this bicyclist put herself in harm's way while not wearing a helmet and thus inflict an inevitable accident on someone else?
[01:32:11]  Yeah.
[01:32:12]  That's how I looked on it for her, for her, but that's not how she saw it.
[01:32:17]  Well, but what possibility did she have to have an authentic experience of anger based on how she was raised?
[01:32:24]  Well, not much.
[01:32:26]  Well, and you too, right?
[01:32:28]  So earlier I said that you said you hate confrontation.
[01:32:31]  Well, the reason we hate confrontation is it threatens a very fragile bond.
[01:32:37]  If we have a strong bond, then we can disagree and get mad at each other and everything's fine, right?
[01:32:43]  Yeah.
[01:32:44]  I mean, this is boys are taught this in terms of sportsmanship.
[01:32:47]  You really try to win and then you shake hands afterwards and you're friends again, right?
[01:32:52]  So you couldn't experience any anger, which is why you were easy to exploit.
[01:32:56]  And you couldn't experience any anger because your parents ignored you and therefore there was no place in the relationship or it was too dangerous to be angry.
[01:33:05]  Children who, with a fragile bond with parents who don't really care about them, can't express anger because it means they might be abandoned.
[01:33:12]  And historically, that could actually happen, right?
[01:33:14]  So The expression of anger with a non or fragile bond has been bred out of our species for thousands of generations.
[01:33:26]  So you couldn't express any anger, which is why you couldn't get mad at being verbally abused.
[01:33:31]  You couldn't get mad at being punched.
[01:33:33]  You just bowed down before it.
[01:33:35]  You couldn't express anger.
[01:33:37]  And then your daughter ends up in a situation where a careless bicyclist causes an accident.
[01:33:43]  The bicyclist caused the accident, and that was determined legally, right?
[01:33:47]  Yeah.
[01:33:47]  So I would get really angry at somebody who caused me to hit them with a car.
[01:33:53]  Yeah.
[01:33:54]  But your daughter can't express anger because of her upbringing and a lack of processing.
[01:34:01]  Interestante.
[01:34:02]  Because she can't express anger.
[01:34:04]  She can't blame the bicyclist.
[01:34:06]  Who does she blame?
[01:34:08]  Herself.
[01:34:08]  That's right.
[01:34:09]  That's the problem of not expressing anger, you end up attacking yourself, which is why earlier you said you were in these abusive relationships to punish yourself.
[01:34:19]  When you are mistreated, you either get angry or you attack yourself.
[01:34:24]  Yes.
[01:34:25]  And she can't get angry.
[01:34:28]  So she attacks herself, which is unbearable.
[01:34:30]  And so she turns to drugs to alleviate the pain of calling herself a murderer.
[01:34:36]  Yes.
[01:34:37]  And that's the answer.
[01:34:38]  Yeah.
[01:34:40]  So I suppose the question is how can I help her to understand that she should be angry and to help her express that anger that she's not hurting herself and her unborn baby?
[01:34:51]  Well, the first thing you can do is stop pretending your children had a good childhood.
[01:34:55]  Yeah.
[01:34:56]  And talk to her about that and listen.
[01:35:00]  And be willing to be criticized, which you should be.
[01:35:03]  All parents should be.
[01:35:05]  I mean, I get criticized as a parent and that's perfectly fine and valid and healthy.
[01:35:09]  Yeah.
[01:35:10]  I mean, we have had those conversations before where the kids have told me I was a shit mother and, you know, and, and they've said, you know.
[01:35:18]  No, but, but you haven't listened because you're telling me they had a good childhood.
[01:35:23]  Yes.
[01:35:23]  I hear you.
[01:35:24]  I hear you.
[01:35:25]  So you might not in the moment, but it doesn't settle.
[01:35:28]  Yeah.
[01:35:29]  You have to get angry at your own parents.
[01:35:32]  In order to transfer the capacity for anger to your children.
[01:35:36]  Because without anger, children are exploited.
[01:35:41]  Trusted.
[01:35:42]  Anger is our defense against being exploited.
[01:35:45]  Yeah.
[01:35:46]  That does make sense.
[01:35:48]  And you're still praising your parents.
[01:35:50]  You're still praising your parents and you're still praising yourself for providing you and your children with good childhoods.
[01:35:57]  Yeah.
[01:35:58]  And they didn't.
[01:35:59]  And the inability to get anger means that you just.
[01:36:03]  I mean, you can have a kind of okay life if you never get angry, unless something like this happens, in which case you go under.
[01:36:09]  I'm sorry, sorry, go ahead.
[01:36:11]  Sorry?
[01:36:12]  Oh, you were about to say something and I interrupted, so my apologies for that.
[01:36:15]  No, I wasn't going to say anything.
[01:36:18]  Okay.
[01:36:18]  Yeah, so I think that would be the key.
[01:36:22]  A lack of anger leads to self attack, leads to susceptibility to self medication.
[01:36:26]  Sorry, go ahead.
[01:36:27]  Yeah.
[01:36:28]  So if I was just to, like, I just, I'm not sure how to.
[01:36:34]  Well, the baby's almost ready to be born now, anyway.
[01:36:38]  But I just am worried that if I can't do something soon, then obviously I'm going to have the baby.
[01:36:49]  Like, she's not going to be able to look after the baby herself.
[01:36:52]  And the baby might have ill health because of drugs.
[01:36:55]  And then the whole cycle starts again.
[01:36:58]  And the baby may have ill health because of the drugs.
[01:37:00]  Yeah, exactly.
[01:37:01]  Okay.
[01:37:02]  Exactly.
[01:37:02]  Well,.
[01:37:04]  I want you to listen.
[01:37:05]  This is your homework if you want it.
[01:37:08]  I want you to listen back to this call and realize how little emotion you had, one bit of sorrow, but no anger.
[01:37:18]  You were beaten up for 11 years, no anger, no frustration with your prior choices, no anger at the mistakes that you made, which is healthy, no anger at having chosen a violent criminal to be the father of your children, and to no anger or shock or upset when I pointed out that it was abusive to the children to watch you be verbally abused for seven years and then physically abused for 11,
[01:37:47]  and that you.
[01:37:48]  Brought these men into your children's lives.
[01:37:51]  You had a chance to vet the father, the first guy, because you knew him for years beforehand.
[01:37:56]  You knew his family, you knew his mother.
[01:37:58]  And again, 16, I get it.
[01:38:00]  I'm not saying that you're 100% responsible.
[01:38:02]  You were only 16, so I understand that.
[01:38:05]  But still, the one in your mid 20s, inexcusable.
[01:38:09]  I mean, he was the cellmate of your violent husband, and you took him into your bed and you took him into your children's lives and you walked with him into the black pit of alcoholism.
[01:38:22]  Yeah.
[01:38:22]  And then you only kicked him out when he became inconvenient to you.
[01:38:26]  Yeah.
[01:38:27]  No emotion.
[01:38:28]  The problem is that your emotions are very distant from your life.
[01:38:31]  And that's partly, I think, trauma.
[01:38:34]  And it's also partly because of how you were raised as a child.
[01:38:37]  But it's also partly because you have very glib explanations for things and don't go deeper.
[01:38:41]  And I sympathize with that.
[01:38:43]  We all do, right?
[01:38:44]  I mean, I do, you do, we all do.
[01:38:46]  But you have these.
[01:38:47]  This is why I kept having to point out that your explanations don't explain anything.
[01:38:50]  You have these glib explanations that you use to wave away your emotions.
[01:38:54]  But you've got stuff to be sorrowful about.
[01:38:56]  You've got stuff to be angry about.
[01:38:58]  You've got stuff to be hurt about.
[01:39:00]  I mean, you might have stuff to rage about.
[01:39:01]  It seems like you do.
[01:39:03]  And without the connection to those emotions, I think that the child is going to grow up also disconnected and therefore unprotected.
[01:39:12]  Well, that's the reason that I phoned you today because I think I'm ready to sort of do the work.
[01:39:22]  Good.
[01:39:22]  Hello, hello.
[01:39:23]  Hi.
[01:39:23]  Hi, sorry about that.
[01:39:24]  I don't know what happened.
[01:39:25]  We got a wee bit disconnected, but sorry.
[01:39:29]  I was just asking if you'd ever done any talk therapy.
[01:39:32]  No, I've never really done any therapy at all.
[01:39:35]  I've never phoned in anywhere or spoken really to anybody about anything.
[01:39:40]  What did you go to school for?
[01:39:43]  To do caring, social care.
[01:39:46]  I did a degree.
[01:39:47]  In health and welfare and social care.
[01:39:51]  And you said you worked with some women who had been in abusive relationships.
[01:39:57]  I assume that you had some training in self knowledge or maybe a little bit in psychology to be able to talk to women productively who were in abusive relationships.
[01:40:06]  Yes, I worked at the Woman Refuge for a long time, eight years.
[01:40:11]  And yeah, I did all the courses relevant to that, counseling courses and what have you.
[01:40:17]  And I assume that, sorry, did the people who hired you to work with abusive, abused women, did they know that you yourself had been the victim of domestic abuse for many years?
[01:40:28]  Yes, yes, they knew.
[01:40:30]  And did they suggest that you take some therapy to deal with the issues that you had experienced to give you more objectivity in dealing with the women who themselves had been abused?
[01:40:41]  Well, no, they didn't, actually.
[01:40:43]  Because I had been out of the abuse for, I think that was the case, I had been out of the abusive relationship for.
[01:40:51]  A long enough amount of time that they didn't feel that, I think you've got to be out of it for like four years or something.
[01:40:58]  So they didn't, they sought out enough, there was enough time between me and the abuse for me to be working in that capacity.
[01:41:04]  But although I never did any counseling or talking therapy myself, I do feel that listening to others' women's stories helped me, you know, just that in itself helped me to put everything into perspective.
[01:41:19]  Well, I understand that and I'm not saying it doesn't have value.
[01:41:22]  And again, it's just my amateur.
[01:41:24]  Opinion, but I do think that if you're not exactly sure why and how you got into abusive relationships and how and why you stayed, it can be tougher to help other women make sure that they in the future stay out of abusive relationships.
[01:41:37]  But until today, I thought I did know why I did all of these things.
[01:41:43]  Right.
[01:41:44]  Yeah, because it seems like your daughter is in an abusive relationship with herself now.

=== Unraveling Abusive Patterns (01:31) ===

[01:41:48]  Yeah.
[01:41:49]  That's exactly it.
[01:41:51]  Okay.
[01:41:51]  So, yeah, I would be a strong advocate and am a strong advocate.
[01:41:55]  You don't have a relationship, a romantic relationship at the moment.
[01:41:57]  Is that right?
[01:41:59]  I don't have a romantic relationship at the moment, did you say?
[01:42:02]  Yes.
[01:42:03]  No, I'm married.
[01:42:04]  I've been married for about seven years or something.
[01:42:08]  To a good guy?
[01:42:09]  Yeah.
[01:42:10]  Yes.
[01:42:11]  Okay.
[01:42:11]  Good, good.
[01:42:12]  All right.
[01:42:12]  Yeah.
[01:42:13]  So I would strongly suggest some talk therapy to try and figure out more about the decisions that you made when you were younger and how they came about.
[01:42:22]  Because if you can start to unravel that sort of stuff, then I think you can start to unravel how your daughter ended up in this very negative relationship.
[01:42:30]  With herself, because if you say, like, I spent most of my youth and early middle age punishing myself, and your daughter is punishing herself for this accident, I think those two things are related.
[01:42:40]  And I think talk therapy would really help unravel that.
[01:42:42]  Well, I might, I might, yeah, I might do that, actually.
[01:42:46]  I've never done it before.
[01:42:47]  And I just never felt that it would be helpful, but maybe I wasn't ready at that point for that.
[01:42:55]  So, yeah, I think maybe that's not a bad idea, Stefan.
[01:42:58]  Okay.
[01:42:59]  You're very welcome.
[01:43:00]  Listen, I'll start.
[01:43:00]  Here, but I really, really do appreciate the call.
[01:43:02]  And I just really wanted to express my sincere condolences to what happened to you as a child, to what your children experienced.
[01:43:09]  And I certainly wish you the best.
[01:43:10]  I hope you'll keep me posted about how things are going.
[01:43:12]  I'm thoroughly invested now.
[01:43:14]  Yes, I certainly will.
[01:43:16]  Thanks again.
[01:43:17]  You're very welcome.
[01:43:18]  Take care, my friend.
[01:43:19]  Okay, thank you.
[01:43:20]  Bye.