• 4 months ago
Join me as I delve into profound transformations shared by callers, attributing growth to our discussions. From navigating challenging moments with family to seeking validation and forming connections post-abuse, we explore the emotional toll of estrangement and the quest for understanding within familial dynamics. Reflecting on personal experiences, we discuss the transformative power of introspection and the complexities of seeking resolution within challenging relationships. Transitioning to a French practice session, I emphasize the importance of internal dialogues and diverse perspectives for personal evolution, anchored in truth and conscience as a guiding compass in life.

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Transcript
00:00:00Excellent yeah gosh well long time no hear nice to get reconnected tell me what's going on.
00:00:08Yeah thanks thanks so much for taking the time honestly like it's crazy what happens when you apply what we talk about in the calls i actually wanted to start by giving an update of like.
00:00:20The most exciting month ever sounds good.
00:00:25Okay i'm so i i don't know if you remember anything from our first call because it was a couple years ago and i know you do like a thousand homes every year anyways.
00:00:39Yeah you're so memorable yeah you're so quite memorable so don't assume i know everything but don't assume i know nothing.
00:00:46Okay okay so i guess our first call was back in july twenty twenty two and since since that time i like have completely changed my life.
00:01:01Okay i don't think i'm gonna get like choked up talking about this because i'm so proud of myself um anyways so we had the first call in july and then.
00:01:15I and i was able to stand up to my parents and and all this coven stuff which is completely derailed my life as well because i'm supposed to go to med school and i got an early.
00:01:31Which is a huge accomplishment so i'm supposed to start med school only at twenty one and i wasn't able to go because i'm not vaccinated and so.
00:01:42I i ended up applying for a deferral and going back to school and finishing up my undergrad degree which was great um so that takes me to september twenty twenty two.
00:01:56And then october twenty twenty two we had a call together because i was actually supposed to go home for thanksgiving and after a month of trying to stand up to my family.
00:02:06Over the phone and talking to them about how i felt about how they had raised me and how they continue to parent me and just the overall family dynamic and how my hate my parents relationship but just how toxic everything was how abusive.
00:02:22I didn't want to go home for thanksgiving and finally put my foot down after having our conversation and didn't go home for thanksgiving.
00:02:29And then back in december twenty twenty two i graduated and ended up moving in with my boyfriend rather than moving back home with my family so i hadn't seen my family for two years basically until may twenty twenty four but i'll get to that um so i moved back home in december twenty twenty two i started a job.
00:02:59And may twenty twenty three i ended up turning down med school because i was really doing well in my job um and then come april twenty twenty four um like january twenty twenty four to april twenty twenty four i was like a top performing sales rep at my company and i and i also turned twenty twenty i turned twenty three in april twenty twenty four so being only twenty three with only about a years of a year of experience i.
00:03:28Started excelling in my career which is fantastic and then in may twenty twenty four.
00:03:34Um my now husband and i well we got married so i married my best friend in the whole wide world which is just amazing um and we bought our first car together which is also great because.
00:03:48Our whole life you're driving is driving really awful cars that were breaking down and they're hand me downs and everything and so we were actually able to um buy a nice car together which was super nice and i feel like such a successful young professional which is a great feeling and then i just accepted an insane job offer all within the span of two weeks this has happened um and so i'm starting that job i just wanted to say.
00:04:13Wow like thank you thank you thank you because i really applied everything that i've learned through your show through our call in and i've like completely turned around my life i feel so in control of everything i feel so at peace with everything that's going on.
00:04:28I'm just like i'm so happy and i feel so fulfilled for my age and we're planning on having kids probably in two years once my husband finishes this program he's in and yeah so everything's great thank you.
00:04:52Well i'm obviously beyond thrilled to hear it and it's quite a journey and it sounds like you're getting to a beautiful spot in your life and congratulations on marrying your best friend that's about as good as things get and uh it's beautiful so and congratulations on your career success and all kinds of wonderful stuff so that's that's i'm sure that's the good news and there may be a slightly other set of news to to hear.
00:05:17Yeah yeah exactly so i didn't want to i feel like most people call you to share negative stuff and ask for your advice but i wanted to start on a positive note now that's great for some more.
00:05:31Main reason though of the call is like i mentioned i hadn't seen my family for two years and it was a few days before my husband and i were going to get married we got married on his birthday and we eloped and it was very magical and romantic and so much fun very spontaneous anyways i was getting my nails done with one of my friends because of course you know you're getting married you have to have nice nails.
00:05:58Understood and.
00:06:03To be sitting across from me at the nail salon it was my mom.
00:06:09And i had seen her two years.
00:06:12Wow okay.
00:06:17And oh gosh and so my friend texted me because i didn't notice her at all when i went in when i
00:06:27went to go sit down and she texted me she said look at your phone i looked down she texted me and she said that's your mom sitting across from you isn't it oh gosh.
00:06:43And then she said what you want to do and i just figured she wouldn't do anything because like
00:06:51she's very status oriented and at this nail salon it's like very common from well it's in
00:06:57the neighborhood i grew up in and i just didn't think she'd make a scene or anything so i was
00:07:01like it's fine like i don't she won't come say anything i don't think so whatever and then
00:07:09next thing i know my siblings and my dad come in and i hadn't seen any of them in two years
00:07:17and it was so hard because i didn't know what to do and i regretted not leaving to begin with
00:07:24and so you think she texted them or was this a coincidence she did okay no she texted them right
00:07:32she texted them to come see me and first people to come up to me are my two younger siblings um
00:07:40my older brother wasn't there because he lives across the country for work
00:07:47and my younger siblings come up and they're 17 and 21 but if you were to talk to them it's
00:07:59they're so immature that's like talking to like a 13 or 14 year old for both of them so it's so
00:08:04hard to treat them like adults and they use their little innocent i don't
00:08:16there's like use their innocence to manipulate me i feel like and my dad came in and they all
00:08:22come up and like oh oh my gosh nice to see you and my mom walks over and i completely shut down
00:08:30and it's really interesting because it's so hard for me to even remember what was happening
00:08:35because i feel like i just completely shut down um anyways and so i sat there as i got my nails
00:08:43done my mom goes and pulls my friend outside and talks to my friend and i'm in there with
00:08:52my two younger siblings and my dad and they're asking me all these questions about what i've
00:08:55been up to the past two years and i'm sitting and i'm just so uncomfortable about the whole
00:09:02situation and my mom keeps saying to me like what's wrong with you my husband's and my husband
00:09:09and his family have completely manipulated me and are abusing me and taking advantage
00:09:13of me oh gosh and i'm just trying so hard to hold it all together yeah they start with like
00:09:18in this nail salon where they kind of know people that are all around me
00:09:25and next thing i know i've been talking to them for three hours um i finished my so i got my nails
00:09:35done and then my friend says oh you should stay and talk to them to try or at least talk to your
00:09:41siblings and it puts me in such an awkward situation so i know that like i mentioned earlier
00:09:49all right hello hello are we back okay hey steph sorry no i don't think that was you i think that
00:09:54may have been something of my end i don't know i just seem to have all kinds of trouble getting
00:09:58data but i think we're good to go now no it's all it's all good i'm so sorry you were just talking
00:10:02about how my wife yeah you were just talking about how your family kind of all swarmed and
00:10:09your husband was brainwashing you according to them and all all of this kind of terrible stuff
00:10:13they were saying yes exactly and so basically what happened is my younger two siblings were
00:10:23asking me all these questions about what was going on in my life and my dad was just kind of
00:10:26silent the whole time um and so i wrote it down here and you know i'm part of me is kind of glad
00:10:33that i cut out there because it gave me a second to regroup my thoughts um anyways okay so after
00:10:39i had finished my nails my family followed me outside um while my friend stayed inside and
00:10:46so my mom and i had a superheated discussion like the ones that we used to have two years prior when
00:10:52i was trying to express how i felt towards her and the rest of my family and it goes like something
00:10:57along the lines of you're creating that's not true you're so wrong so a whole bunch of gaslighting
00:11:02and then everyone else oh you made that the whole time
00:11:08yeah precisely got it um and so i i started crying and i told my friend that we should
00:11:16leave and my friend told me that we should try to talk that i should try to talk to my siblings
00:11:21at least um and so obviously like i mentioned earlier my mom while i was talking to my
00:11:29siblings originally had brought my friend outside and i don't know i my my friend kind of
00:11:35comes from a similar family dynamic to me um and were raised with similar culture so i can
00:11:42an element of respect your elders is very much instilled within her still just to blindly
00:11:49respect the parents and so she told me that i should go i should stay and talk to my siblings
00:11:56even if i didn't want to talk to my parents um and so my parents left and i agreed to talk to
00:12:02my siblings and so while talking to my siblings they kept accusing me of being unreasonable and
00:12:08cruel and i tried to talk to them about how evil my mom is and how abusive she is and all the harm
00:12:16that she's done not only to me but to my siblings and then my siblings don't even acknowledge any
00:12:21of it in fact they say i'm lying but none of it happened and despite them doing all this to me
00:12:28like i still want to ask them questions about their life because and part of me still cares
00:12:34about them i guess and so i'm so conflicted i was like i want to leave but part of me just
00:12:40wants to stay with them and continue talking to them um and then after walking around the area
00:12:49with my siblings i said i want to leave and they asked me to give them a ride to their car
00:12:59um but then once they got into my car they refused to get out and my sister was crying
00:13:05and my little brother kept saying that i'm so cruel for making my sister cry and my sister
00:13:10kept saying that we're best friends and that she loves me and misses me and i asked her why
00:13:16because how could they love me when i'm apparently so cruel and heartless and
00:13:21depressed and all these awful things and they refuse to get out and my sister kept saying that
00:13:28she didn't want to get out the car because she was scared that she was she was scared that she
00:13:32never seen me again and they asked me to pick you promise that i'll go for a walk with them
00:13:39the following week and i say i'll think about it and eventually kick them out of the car
00:13:46um and the whole reason they asked me to give them a ride was i think to lock me to lock
00:13:52themselves in my car because turned out their car they had reason my family recently had gotten a
00:13:58new car and i didn't know um and so the car was literally like a block away so i didn't need a
00:14:04ride to their car um and then as as soon as they got out of the car i sped away and i broke down
00:14:12like in a hysterical crying fit and all this took place in three hours and i don't even know how it
00:14:21was three hours because i feel like i can't even remember half of it because i felt like i just
00:14:24shut down and so i thought i had made such progress with everything with my family and
00:14:29this is the reaction i had like i just shut down around my family i ended up talking to them for
00:14:36so long i still feel it's so hard for me to separate myself from my siblings and so i was
00:14:45just wondering if we could talk through like why is that like why i ended up staying there for three
00:14:53hours and how to overcome this like feeling that i need to save my siblings yes no listen i uh i
00:15:04hugely sympathize what a uh what a riot would you have uh would you have left the nail salon if you
00:15:11had known yes if that it was going to be such a painful three hours absolutely well it's not just
00:15:20then it's it's all the you know the wounds getting pulled open again right yeah exactly like
00:15:28oh that's just the feeling of having to even see my mom i didn't i i wish in hindsight that like i
00:15:36punched her in the face because i hate her so much may not have been the wisest i mean listen
00:15:42i understand the impulse but you know i know may not have been a super though then they get leverage
00:15:47over you and things get like but no i mean i i understand the impulse i really do i'm glad you
00:15:53didn't do that but i understand the impulse no i probably wouldn't have had the courage in the
00:15:59moment but you know after no no that's not a courage thing that's a wisdom thing it's not it's
00:16:03not wise to punch people in the face even if you dislike them unless they're running at you with
00:16:08chainsaws which she may have felt that way emotionally but it wasn't happening that way
00:16:12physically right yeah exactly um why do you think you stayed
00:16:26you know i've tried to think through this so many times because
00:16:32like how knowing my mom i feel like that was a really ignorant thing
00:16:36think that she wouldn't have come to talk to me because i kept saying like oh i kept telling
00:16:43myself like oh she won't say anything she won't come talk to me i just want to get my nails done
00:16:48and leave but you know looking back i'm like my mom our restaurant once fallen jumped a bottle of
00:16:55water like a pitcher of water on my head and started screaming at me i mean what a stupid
00:17:01thing to think and in hindsight like maybe i feel like i need closure i don't know right right
00:17:14right and uh what happened after um this you talked to your husband you said you had a bit
00:17:22of a breakdown which i understand again and what was the sort of fallout or how long ago did this
00:17:27happen and what's been the fallout since okay um it would have happened mid-may
00:17:36and after that i didn't hear from any of my siblings um just my mom sent me messages on instagram
00:17:48saying because i think i don't think i've actually blocked her number but i think she
00:17:54thinks that i blocked her number and so she messages me on social media um which i'm not
00:17:59even active on really um but she sent a couple things like oh come home we love and miss you
00:18:08so much you're being brainwashed um basically along those lines yeah right okay and uh how was
00:18:22your i'm sure he was great but how was your husband with all this um you know he he was
00:18:28wonderful but i have this thing where like well i came home and his um i came home and
00:18:39we went on a drive somewhere to talk about it and he kept pressing me saying like why
00:18:49did you stay it's like three hours why would you stay for three hours why didn't you
00:18:53leave initially i mean it's just stupid nails you could have got your
00:18:57nails done the next morning or something and whenever he'd ask questions i just be like i
00:19:05don't want to talk about it and i just i shut down and i get it's just so stressful for me
00:19:11like i feel like my whole it's like a whole body reaction talking about this kind of stuff like i
00:19:16feel like i'm like sweating through my shirt did he uh did you have a sense from him that i don't
00:19:22want to put words in his mouth of course right but did it feel sort of a little bit like accusatory
00:19:26like why on earth would you or you know what kind of crazy person would uh stay was it something
00:19:32like that did you sort of feel like there was a negative response or a negative idea about you
00:19:38staying at all at first i'm gonna be honest at first it was i think that's part of the reason
00:19:45i was like so embarrassed to say that i wanted to talk to my siblings and then he said something
00:19:53then he said something along the lines of well do you think it's because you still care about
00:19:58your siblings and then when he said that i like broke down sobbing so that's probably the reason
00:20:06i stayed well but you didn't know your siblings were coming at the beginning right you your
00:20:12assumption was that everything was going to be relatively hunky-dory right like your mom wasn't
00:20:16going to have uh she wasn't going to have a scene and and so on right yeah it sounds to me you know
00:20:21obviously it's your experience so tell me what happened but it sounds to me like you did not
00:20:27anticipate things going the way that they were going or that they went i i not think that my
00:20:37siblings and my dad would show up absolutely no way that my mom would call them or a textbook or
00:20:44whatever she did to come over come over and ambush me in a public place like that i no way i thought
00:20:51that couldn't happen now why did you not think that would happen and this is not accusatory at
00:21:00all right i'm just i'm just genuinely curious because i mean in hindsight it makes sense right
00:21:06in hindsight yeah it does it does make sense but i maybe i just part of me thinks that
00:21:13i didn't like want to scare away this friend because
00:21:21during covid i lost a lot of friends and it was nice to finally make a friend with someone with
00:21:28more traditional values and part of me was like oh i because she had never met my mom before that's
00:21:36why she said i think that's your mom um and so part of me was scared to scare her away but you
00:21:45know after how she reacted the full way like i don't know if i want her to be a friend anymore
00:21:49after she reacted how she never she never followed up on anything that happened with my family really
00:21:56and asked me how i was that was my next question sort of what happened afterwards um with with
00:22:01your friend um she she texted me and saying something along the lines like oh i hope you
00:22:08work things out with your siblings um if you need to talk about it let me know and then she never
00:22:16followed up but i thought to myself i told her absolutely everything that my family would do to
00:22:22me and my what my relationship was like with my siblings and after everything i've told her i was
00:22:31like how can you think that would just be okay after i talked to them for like a couple hours
00:22:39but maybe i don't know maybe i was being too judgmental
00:22:43and what's her status so what's the status of her relationship with her family
00:22:48um she's basically in my boat three years ago like she's her her parents are
00:22:56very abusive from what i hear and they she comes from like a traditional mediterranean culture
00:23:05with a bunch of hot heads and talking to her how she's has to like change plans sometimes last
00:23:12minute because she's fighting with her mom or has to do something for her parents or has a change of
00:23:18plans last minute because her parents are having guests over it just reminds me a lot of myself
00:23:23three years ago right okay and how what was her perception of your relationship with your family
00:23:30did you think you were taking a break that you were going to work it out that this was temporary
00:23:33and what was her thought about that i have a feeling that a lot of people that i talked to
00:23:40about my family think that it's temporary because a lot of people really like my parents and they
00:23:49find it very difficult to wrap their head around that they're such awful people but for her like i
00:23:55mentioned she hadn't met my family but i think because of the culture that she grew up with she
00:23:59just assumed i was fighting with them even though i kept telling her that this this is gonna be a
00:24:04permanent thing um i feel like a lot of people find it hard to believe that you can fully detach
00:24:11yourself from your family oh yeah no i uh i get that all right and how have you been since so we'll
00:24:20get more into the details about all of this but how has this been since for you um well for the
00:24:29for the first week and a half well basically the next day after that happened um where my husband
00:24:35and i got married it was like you have to take a ferry to get there and we spent like five or six
00:24:43days there so i wasn't really worried about anything happening during that time and they
00:24:49knew i mentioned that i have to go home and pack and do this stuff because i'm going away
00:24:54and so i figured that they and i knew they were going away as well because this is all taking
00:24:58place over may long weekend right um so i kind of knew nothing was happening but then after that
00:25:05i was always kind of worried that they'd come over because they kept my my sister kept saying well
00:25:10we're going to come over my mom was saying we're going to come over and this would be to your place
00:25:15with your husband yeah and so i was worried that that might happen but it didn't happen
00:25:23and um they didn't know that i got married and then i hadn't used any social media for like
00:25:32you know almost two years really maybe even longer some again i just i don't like social
00:25:40media really but i felt this urge to post about getting married maybe it's like a part of it was
00:25:46because i want to like brag that i'm so young and getting married and married for the love of my
00:25:53life like it's just such a wonderful thing um but then part of it was me wanting to tell my parents
00:26:00like f you like you can't tell me what to do and they and i thought in response to me posting it
00:26:08like i i wanted to really hurt them so i thought they would get really mad about it and call me
00:26:13but they didn't um and after i did that my mom sent me some i don't know she's big into sending
00:26:21these you know like the live love laugh kind of stuff oh yeah it was like oh i'm like one of those
00:26:27parents that doesn't think when you turn 18 your parenting job is over like just come home when
00:26:32you're 34 i want to like do your laundry and when you're 40 i want to see you open your christmas
00:26:38gifts and i was like oh my gosh this is so stupid anyways like being a parent is not just being a
00:26:43nanny and giving gifts but okay um and then yesterday she actually liked the picture the
00:26:52pictures i posted which i was like so surprised about and i even like i've changed my last name
00:26:57and whatnot and outside of that nothing negative which is kind of surprising for me first time
00:27:05this has ever happened to me what do you mean where i'm not like where i post something on
00:27:13social media or i do something and i don't get criticized for it right right
00:27:20right okay all right sorry go ahead and i was just gonna add i haven't heard from any of my
00:27:27siblings or my dad right right okay
00:27:35and is there more that you want to add because i i have a pile of questions but i'm obviously
00:27:41happy to hear if there's more that you wanted to add oh no i'm all done all right all right
00:27:48so what has your experience been over the last couple of years of not seeing your family
00:27:53i mean i you've told me all the positive stuff which is great yeah uh what else
00:27:58um an emotional roller coaster
00:28:04um
00:28:08there are times they're really really hard
00:28:12because like
00:28:16my mom's big into social media and so some maybe i do this to myself but
00:28:23i definitely do this to myself knowing that it'll might hurt me but i go on to her facebook where
00:28:29she posts all the highlights streams of her life and she just
00:28:39her first year of not having a daughter in her like me in her life and she just
00:28:45just traveling all over the world staying at five-star hotels with my other siblings
00:28:50posting about how wonderful her life is and it really hurts because you obviously you feel like
00:28:58she doesn't care or doesn't affected her that much right they never came to they know where
00:29:04i live and they never came to try to see me once my dad came so i graduated in december 2022
00:29:14and i moved back into my home city but i moved in with my boyfriend
00:29:18and my dad came over once when i was at work
00:29:25um and never again and that was like just after the first christmas um they never sent me any
00:29:33christmas cards or birthday gifts or christmas gifts or try to come see me which like i know
00:29:41i'm talking about gifts right now but they never put any effort to come try to talk to me in person
00:29:46once i move back home right for two years and not even my siblings and they can drive
00:29:54so it really sucks well does it
00:30:01well part of it's liberating because
00:30:05it's like wow you guys i mean you you could have had these three hours once a week
00:30:11i know i mean that doesn't that suck sucks because they're not in contact with me it
00:30:16sucks that they're in contact with me i almost feel like there's a common denominator i just
00:30:20can't put my finger on it it's just it's all it's just awful to think that parents that
00:30:27claimed care so much about you would want to hurt you so much and then once you cut them off
00:30:34and they still claim to care about you so much they put no effort into trying to come to see you
00:30:40or trying to fight for you because they're spreading these awful rumors about my husband
00:30:45and his family that they're insanely abusive and if the if like i'm in such an abusive relationship
00:30:52you have my husband's contact information you know where we live why would you put effort in
00:30:58to try to cut me like to try to take me out of this abusive situation sure sure and then i would
00:31:05have my mom's friends come up to me and tell me how like how much my mom loves me and how much
00:31:12she's hurting and how i just need to suck it up and go home right because my mom's suffering and
00:31:21she's my mom as a mother they know what it feels like right and it's just like
00:31:30oh it is so so awful because everyone just looks at me like i'm like i'm a depressed psycho basically
00:31:43because i don't want to have my family in my in my life right
00:31:51right but i mean that's the negative aspect and the positive aspect is
00:31:58i'm not being told how worthless and how much how worthless i am every day how toxic i was to my
00:32:06family i'm i i'm i'm very accomplished for my age and i work very very hard and i'm very maternal
00:32:19and when i was home i'd get up early to make my siblings lunches for school i'd drive them to
00:32:26school i helped with all their assignments university and scholarship applications i would
00:32:32do all the cooking in the house i do all the cleaning in the house and in response
00:32:37i was yelled at i was told i was worthless that i should die i'd have death threats they'd throw
00:32:44things my mom would throw things at me to the point where i'd have to lock myself in the bathroom
00:32:49and she'd be pounding at the door saying that she was gonna get in she'd kill me all these
00:32:55pulling me by the hair throwing like dishes at my face so that's the response i would get for
00:33:04doing all these great things and then now i continue doing all those great things because
00:33:07i actually enjoy it and i love being productive and making people feel good and making people
00:33:12feel special and i don't get that anymore and i get nothing but love and return so it's much
00:33:17better in that aspect all right all right all right you let me know when you're ready for the
00:33:27tough love i'm ready for the tough love ready for the tough love all right yeah well first of all i
00:33:33mean you are such a nice and lovely young lady that i can completely understand why you'd have
00:33:38all of this optimism and this hope and the maybe maybe and they've learned because you know it's
00:33:43real easy to mistake the world for ourselves when we're nice people it's pretty easy to say well i
00:33:48i'm nice so why is everyone else so not nice or maybe they'll learn or they'll cross over they'll
00:33:53see how great it is to be nice and all of that kind of stuff right it doesn't it doesn't happen
00:33:59in general but it's very tempting to think that way and and you know it is part of your genuinely
00:34:08and generally nice nature that you would think that so um i just wanted to mention that that
00:34:16that makes perfect sense to me now with niceness also comes a great challenge of self-protection
00:34:22okay so in the two years since you last had close contact with your family or really any contact
00:34:26with your family what indication have you had that they've changed at all none yeah so what
00:34:36expectation were you going to have of any change when you saw them again
00:34:49i don't know i don't know like
00:34:56maybe i thought that they would just shut up and listen to my side of the story for once
00:35:02okay why would you think that
00:35:06it's just wishful thinking there is no indication that they would change
00:35:10okay i know it's wishful thinking why do you have this wishful thinking i know it's wishful thinking
00:35:15but why because it's what i want in this dream world it's what i want i want them to change
00:35:28and why do you want them to change
00:35:36well i think like i mentioned before i don't it's hard for me to find friends
00:35:44like good good friends and then these people that
00:35:50i've grown up with and i i've actually opened up to because i have told them everything
00:35:57what i feel and everything that if they would be willing to change
00:36:04i could have a family that could be there to support me because i don't have that
00:36:10i don't have a friend group that could be there for me to help but eventually
00:36:14when i have kids and stuff and it really scares me it scares you about not having people around
00:36:22when you have kids yeah because i want to homeschool them and i know eventually my husband
00:36:30and i we want to move to the states somewhere for career opportunities and cost of living stuff
00:36:38and then it's it won't be that difficult because we don't really have roots here but i just find
00:36:43it so difficult to make friends with people around our age that are in the same phase of life as us
00:36:49with the same values as us i just i've never come across it and even with my friend i like that one
00:36:56girl that i've recently been spending a lot of time with within the last year and a half
00:37:01i'm the more time i spend with her the more i realize like we're not that similar after
00:37:06all we're in completely different phases of life um i think she's
00:37:11uh more talk than she's not as traditional as she lets on and
00:37:21they just make it just makes me nervous because it's so hard to meet people
00:37:26and so if i could rekindle things with my my family maybe it'd be easier i don't know
00:37:32so tell me what is the hardest thing for you about the not not having as much social contact
00:37:40or not having the kind of friendships that you want
00:37:46i think it's more once i like right now right now it's fine because my husband and i i mean
00:37:56we're working really hard and then when we're together i mean there's no one else
00:38:00i'd rather spend time with because i enjoy his company so much but when it comes to i want to
00:38:07have four or five children and homeschool them and it makes me really nervous that if i don't
00:38:12have family around how the heck am i supposed to do that on my own when my husband's working
00:38:19when my husband's working
00:38:23okay got it i understand i understand okay all right and what is your worst case scenario
00:38:30regarding socializing let's say you have a bunch of kids can't find any community
00:38:37and what's what's the worst case scenario for you there
00:38:40i mean i suppose now that i think about it a bit more i mean worst case is with my husband's line
00:38:52of work and with all the companies that he could potentially work for he could work from home a lot
00:39:00of the time so it'd be him working from home like and during that time i could have his help and
00:39:07then it would just be him and i and the kids which i mean it's not that bad because i enjoy
00:39:14his company so much and he's super helpful and whatnot but i mean i don't want the kids
00:39:21just to be like our own family and super isolated from everyone i want them to be able to make
00:39:26friends their own age you know other homeschooling kids and whatnot okay and have you ever looked
00:39:33into homeschooling groups like there are lots of people who homeschool and they like to get
00:39:39together for lots of different reasons i have on like on facebook there's homeschooling groups and
00:39:47i went through this phase of when i deleted all social media but facebook and i was joining all
00:39:53the homeschooling groups and homesteading groups and sourdough groups and stuff so
00:39:59and i did see a lot of people on there but i mean that was like a year and a half ago and all of it
00:40:07was just like hypothetical i don't have any children so i haven't really i haven't messaged
00:40:12anyone or tried to make friends with anyone so sorry what you mean it was hypothetical you mean
00:40:19like you oh yeah i mean i understand if you don't have kids would be a little odd
00:40:22to join but they're there right they exist they do exist yeah i've looked into it yet
00:40:29remind me where you are with regards to religiosity
00:40:33uh i'm not religious no i was raised catholic but um it's not part of my life at all now i'm
00:40:41gonna go out on a limb and i'm gonna speak for you of course go out on a limb and say
00:40:46that most of the values of you know tell the truth and don't steal and and all of that
00:40:52and um the the sort of christian values would not be something that you would be like
00:40:57innately opposed to or anything right no yeah i mean so of course
00:41:05one of the ways that you can gain a community is through christianity
00:41:12and to me if you accept the same values then you're closer to christianity than
00:41:19a supposed christian like say your parents who don't really accept those values
00:41:28that's a good point that's very true um i suppose part of the reason that i'm kind of
00:41:41intimidated about going make religious to make religious friends because i
00:41:47grew up with a whole bunch of people that claim to be religious they're all a bunch of hot tempered
00:41:52idiots like you know have you seen the sopranos yes you know how that family dynamic is picture
00:42:01that like 10 000 times worse than those people that i grew up around and they all claim to be
00:42:07very catholic religious but they're all full of crap and beat their kids and their wives and
00:42:14yell at each other and scream and pull hair their hair it's just awful
00:42:21and so like how
00:42:24how can you claim to be religious when that's what you're like behind closed doors
00:42:29no i get that but of course you wouldn't judge i don't think it would be fair to
00:42:33judge all you know this right you can't judge all christians by your family or community right
00:42:38yeah no i that's true because you know good decent christians wouldn't want to
00:42:43be around that kind of stuff it's true yeah so any good person wouldn't yeah i mean you're
00:42:52just because catastrophic clan would be repelling good people left right and center right
00:42:57so you'd say well gee all the christians i knew when i was younger were not very good people and
00:43:01it's like well yeah that's by definition right i mean they're not going to be good people because
00:43:09if they were good people they wouldn't want to be around your family is that is that a fair way to
00:43:13put it yes um and i guess another thing worth mentioning about why i'm so hesitant is i grew
00:43:24up with a lot of people who i thought were good people too and then they support my mom and i say
00:43:30okay well i'll tell you my mom's very different behind closed doors and they pressed me impressed
00:43:36me i said fine okay well i'll tell you everything then and i tell them everything and then they
00:43:40still tell me to go back to my mom and these are people that like i thought maybe because they're
00:43:48not part of the crazy italian community that they would be different but they still tell me go back
00:43:53to my mom because they say but it's your mom it's your family like you can't just cut off your family
00:44:00well and that obviously makes i mean this kind of thinking is the real cult
00:44:06right i mean if you if there was any social organization or any church where they abused you
00:44:10in the way that your parents have abused you and everyone said well you have to go back you have
00:44:13to forgive them you have to spend the rest of your life there that clearly would be a cult
00:44:19yeah no it truly would i mean and i i think the best the like the way that i like to explain it
00:44:28to people now is just imagine my husband treating me the way that my mom treated me
00:44:33you'd tell you'd call the cops on him yes you would yes you would so
00:44:43the worst case scenario is you end up with okay let's go with the scenario you end up for some
00:44:51reason there's no homeschooling groups that you like there's no decent people there's no
00:44:56good people around for whatever reason i don't know uh some curse has descended upon your blood
00:45:04line and it's you your husband and five kids you don't like your neighbors you don't like anyone
00:45:13in the town you don't like anyone your your husband works with you like there's no even
00:45:19though you become functional and happy and positive and are not susceptible to to wrongdoing
00:45:24or wrongdoers for some reason you just can't find anyone to spend any time with
00:45:32who's not a total piece of crap right
00:45:38what's uh what's the worst case scenario there let's say that is the worst case scenario
00:45:42socially everyone is abusive everyone will betray you no matter where you go and what you do
00:45:50so what's what's that then well when you put it like that it sounds very outlandish but
00:45:55worst case then we can move somewhere better and try again all right you move to the new place
00:46:04everyone is evil everyone betrays you everyone sides with abusers and it's just you your husband
00:46:12and five kids you can move again if you want but i think you'll get the pattern right now
00:46:20i mean fortunately i love my husband so much and
00:46:25i'm assuming our kids are going to be wonderful too because they'll have him as a dad so
00:46:32i guess that's not that bad
00:46:35so we always have to compare our worst case scenario with a non-worst case scenario because
00:46:41i i don't think honestly i don't think this is your worst case scenario by any
00:46:46stretch of the imagination what do you think my worst case scenario is going back getting
00:46:52swallowed up and being blind to the corruption again and being exploited and abused for the
00:46:56rest of your life well that does sound much worse yeah i mean possibly and then losing the love of
00:47:04your husband because he's so traumatized and then handing your children over to their grandparents
00:47:08who are abusive and destructive and tell the kids all kinds of lies about you and you know
00:47:13all this kind of stuff they work to destroy your marriage they work to destroy your happiness your
00:47:19peace of mind they work to destroy your reputation and you just get swallowed up in your sibling's
00:47:25drama and and not and then you go back to the family and they now really lord it over you
00:47:31and they can say whatever they want to you because you just hurt them so much that there's
00:47:35you know they're just going to get back at you for the rest of your life
00:47:38you know it does sound horrible and i did get a glimpse into that because i mean
00:47:47back in our call in july 20 22 so my husband did the call first and then i had a separate call with
00:47:53you and after you had the call with him you said like your i guess girlfriend at the time
00:48:03your i guess girlfriend at the time claims to love you so much like what has she done to prove it
00:48:10and i think there's like a after that call there's a few weeks where our relationship
00:48:16was kind of raw because i was like oh crap like i'm gonna have to stand up to my family otherwise
00:48:21i'm gonna lose him i think i did also tell him to support you in some of the conflicts you were
00:48:27having with your family i don't think it was quite yes yeah i just wanted to balance it out but yeah
00:48:31i know i know but the whole prove it aspect i mean it's what i needed to hear because
00:48:39i hadn't been fair to him for the prior like i don't know i guess we had been together for like
00:48:44three years at that point and i'm just sucking him into it oh yeah the the deep black hole of
00:48:51abusive name for my family like oh my gosh they're just awful disgusting people and so i think that's
00:48:58what i needed to hear because it's a huge reality check like oh shoot like if i don't do something
00:49:03i'm gonna lose him yeah so i did something and now we're married so that's great yeah
00:49:11step by step yeah all right so to me the worst sorry if there's more that you wanted to add to
00:49:15that no that's okay so yeah the worst case scenario is you take that you take that three
00:49:21hours and stretch it out forever
00:49:25oh shivers just went up my spine yeah yeah because it doesn't end unless you end it right
00:49:33how do i just end it i mean i'd
00:49:40other than just not talking to them i mean the thought i can block them on everything
00:49:46well i can't you know i can't give you any practical yeah i can't give you any practical
00:49:50steps so that's that's sort of technical so give me the scenario like what happens
00:50:00in their mind in their thoughts in their conversation that has them change and become
00:50:05good and thoughtful and sensitive and caring and curious and i know this sounds kind of cynical
00:50:11i don't mean it that way like genuinely in your mind what is the sequence that could occur
00:50:17that would have that happen what would what would need to change what would need to happen in their
00:50:22mind and their conversations and their thoughts for that desired outcome to occur
00:50:31um i guess they'd have to think and and reflect back on the previous conversations i had with
00:50:38them two years back in the the most recent time and think you know this is what i like
00:50:45i like that daughter x was saying so maybe we should listen to her
00:50:56and what would stimulate that thought right because i mean they've had decades like a
00:51:02quarter century give or take of with you with self-righteousness and and being right and and
00:51:08never doubting and never questioning and blaming you for everything so they've had that and so what
00:51:13would jump them out of that what do you think would would get them out of that get them to jump
00:51:17that train track like realistically i feel like one of my other siblings standing up to them but
00:51:25i don't i can't see any of my siblings doing that okay so if another one uh how many siblings you
00:51:32have again three three okay so if another one of your siblings were to stand up and
00:51:37you know call it like it is and uh you demand change and so on
00:51:42then you think that might be enough to to change them
00:51:51yeah because i mean growing up it was very evident like and everyone like everyone outside
00:51:56of her family would even remark on this that i was clearly like my mom's least favorite
00:52:00and so if my older brother for example oh not for example if my older brother did it
00:52:08oh for sure she would reflect because my older brother's my mom's favorite child
00:52:15and do you know why he's her favorite child i know first first child no first born son no
00:52:24um because he does exactly what she says yeah because he'll never do that
00:52:28yeah exactly no he's
00:52:32he is her little minion um he is such a mama's boy
00:52:39just all he wants to do is please her yeah he's scared and swallowed up and you know he's he's
00:52:46merged right yeah you know it's funny that you use the word merge because i usually when my
00:52:53husband and i use it we say we're merged we use it with the positive right right yeah you've become
00:52:59one flesh which is totally appropriate for husband and wife not so appropriate for mother and son
00:53:05or mother and daughter one flesh no no no you start that way then you separate so that you can
00:53:09go merge with someone your own age all right okay so it's not going to come from your brother
00:53:17so where else might it come from do you think it would come from some internal reflection
00:53:24i don't i don't think my mom's capable of that well there's no evidence for that right
00:53:32she's no she's never ever ever been like that and she always gets what she wants and when she
00:53:39doesn't get what she wants she throws a temper tantrum and she's so terrifying throwing things
00:53:44pulling hair punching holes in the wall and hitting people and scratching and you know
00:53:49and when she had the opportunity to see like she had not just had the opportunity she did see you
00:53:58right now if you were her and you were estranged from a child who i don't know fallen under bad
00:54:07influences let's just say right if you were your mother and you saw across the nail shop
00:54:14your daughter who had not talked to you for two years what would you do
00:54:21oh that's my biggest fear
00:54:24sorry what's your biggest fear i'm trying to keep track of all these biggest fears there's a lot of
00:54:31all the monsters are loose did not have a good relationship with my daughter you know
00:54:36okay so so let's say for whatever reason right so what how would you handle the situation
00:54:41if you saw your daughter across the nail shop i'd go up to talk to her and what would you say
00:54:54i'd ask her if after she was done getting her nails done if we could go across the
00:55:02street to the coffee shop and talk and then she would say um you can talk now
00:55:07and so
00:55:14i'd ask i'd ask her about why she doesn't want me in her life anymore
00:55:21well i i assume that she would have told you some things and and you would have had a chance
00:55:28to reflect right so you wouldn't probably want to put the whole burden on her you'd say
00:55:32here are the things that i did wrong in the relationship for which i'm bottomlessly and
00:55:38deeply sorry and this isn't a demand for us to become best buddies i just want you to know that
00:55:46i have really thought about it i've actually done almost two years of therapy i've been going three
00:55:51hours a week i've done anger management i look back and i'm really appalled at the things that
00:55:56i did and my heart is broken at how i treated you and i am so sorry this is not any kind of
00:56:02demand i i would love obviously to to have more conversation but that's up to you that's up to you
00:56:09and i actually hugely respect you for giving me a wake-up call you know i was watching this show
00:56:16it's on tv called uh intervention and people who are addicts uh all their friends and family they
00:56:24get together and they say you've got to change or we're not going to have anything to do with you
00:56:28and you stopped seeing me and that was a very courageous thing to do that was a very hard thing
00:56:35to do and it's exactly what i needed because i realized i was addicted to rage uh self-righteousness
00:56:42i'm being a bit more your mom in this situation than you yeah right but i i you were the one who
00:56:48stood up to me and you were the one who stood up for what was best in me by not accepting what was
00:56:52worst in me and i love you for that and i'm i'm so sorry that i put you in that position
00:57:01that i was so blind to the ugliness of my will and personality that you are the one
00:57:10who had to stand up and say things have to change and they did have to change i i don't want to be
00:57:18going back to being the kind of mother who did that i mean it's appalling to me
00:57:22and i you know my gosh if if i did that to you and and i i i think of doing that to my
00:57:30grandchildren i'm i'm sick i'm sick to my stomach at what i did to you and i i i applaud you
00:57:37enormously and deeply and i thank you enormously and deeply for taking a stand and forcing change
00:57:43and to your credit and i'm aware of this you spoke for years about the need for change and
00:57:49we just didn't listen that's not your fault that's 100 my fault and your father's fault
00:57:55well maybe 101 of his fault um but you tried using your words what to be you know we always
00:58:03said use your words not your fists right you tried using your words for years and we didn't listen
00:58:07and then you finally had to say and you were right to say it this can't go on this can't go
00:58:15on and through you standing up for the best within me or at least not bowing down to the worst within
00:58:22me it really did shock me into a kind of change and i am deeply deeply ashamed of so much that
00:58:28i did and i'm deeply ashamed that you are the one who had to take the stand and
00:58:38i'm sorry
00:58:42now if your mother had said something like that to you what would you think
00:58:52uh i'd be so take i'd be stunned more stunned than i was with how she reacted
00:58:58and the man pushing me like i've been so surprised right i think that's
00:59:03impossible i think it's impossible for her to be okay
00:59:10well uh you know i i give you a speech like that because your mother won't ever
00:59:15and that's the speech you just that's the speech you deserve that's the speech you've earned and
00:59:19that's speech that in a sense you should never have had to receive because your mother should
00:59:24have dealt with all of this before it got to this point and i the universe your mother won't give
00:59:31you that speech nobody in your family is going to give you that speech but somebody should
00:59:37no i i'm i'm with you there and even like i thought maybe my dad would stand up a bit more
00:59:45but over the last two years i feel like my anger has grown the most for him or towards him
00:59:53like oh he's just he's such a simp and he's just so awful the way that like there were so many red
01:00:03flags in my parents relationships that i learned after the fact because i was taught talking a lot
01:00:09with my mom's younger brother and his wife so my aunt and uncle and they're telling me all this
01:00:16information about what their relationship was like that i was totally unaware of like you know
01:00:21the movie my big fat greek wedding or whatever it's called i certainly do yeah i saw that with
01:00:27my wife when we were dating so yeah she's greek right yeah yeah so i was told that that was the
01:00:34kind of wedding that my parents had and that my parents had this incredible love story and that's
01:00:42apparently couldn't be further from the truth they broke up many times because my mom's temper
01:00:47and her hitting my dad and throwing stuff and they called off two weddings and elope
01:00:55and i was told my whole life that they had this big extravagant wedding
01:00:59and my dad knew all this going into the relationship his parents didn't approve of
01:01:06my mom because they said she had too hot a temper and they didn't want to go to the first two
01:01:12weddings and that's why they called off the first two weddings and ended up eloping because his
01:01:16parents refused to go and yet they still got married my dad still picked this crazy abusive
01:01:22woman to be the mother of his four children right and and that's a sin i mean whether you think of
01:01:33of it in terms of christianity or not that is a sin whether it was lust or i don't know maybe
01:01:40she was super pretty or or whatever right but there is a huge amount of sin involved in pursuing
01:01:48someone to be the mother of your children who is abusive even to someone bigger than her and if
01:01:54she's abusive to someone even bigger than her what's she going to be like with people smaller
01:01:58little babies toddlers children who are smaller yeah and heck that's what she's like towards
01:02:06my dad when she was 10 years his senior and my dad was
01:02:15basically partner at a huge firm making insane money and could have gotten anyone
01:02:24and because he's genuinely outside of his weird sim nature and masochistic nature because he
01:02:32picked my mom he's actually like a really nice guy to talk to and spend time with outs like
01:02:38outside of my like outside of any emotional support you know like he's actually enjoyable
01:02:44to spend time with and he could have picked anyone he picks a psycho woman to be the mother of his
01:02:49kids and i told him this and he said he said well you can just do what i do if you don't want to put
01:02:58up with it and just stick your head in the sand well you can't do that as a kid though
01:03:05no instead i just hid in their walk-in closet behind all his dress shirts so that they couldn't
01:03:11get me right right you know this it's a funny meme uh it popped into my head when you were
01:03:20describing your parents relationship and it's not really that appropriate to your parents but it's
01:03:24kind of funny where somebody was saying like okay so quiet shy guys why do you always end up with
01:03:30these fiery emotional women and the reply was well someone's gonna have to tell the waiter
01:03:37someone's gonna have to tell the waitress that i didn't order mashed potatoes and it's not gonna be
01:03:40me that's so true oh it's so true my mom like whenever we'd go to a hotel and something was
01:03:50wrong she'd go off on the people and start like cursing at them in italian under her breath and
01:03:56stuff and i was like oh this is just so unattractive how can a guy won't be attracted to a woman like
01:04:02but it's so true right now
01:04:08if it's not going to come from your brother it's not going to come from your mother's internal
01:04:12reflections so those of us i mean it's called an observing ego right which is you look at yourself
01:04:21and compare yourself to some external standard right so most parents they don't want to be
01:04:29yelling at their kids they don't want to be hitting their kids and so on and the parents who solve that
01:04:34or fix that are the parents who look at their own behavior and feel bad in other words i'm not
01:04:44reaching the standard that i want this is a long way and this is what i say when i see parents
01:04:50being abusive in public i go on and i say look this this is not really how you want to be a
01:04:54parent is it like this isn't what you dreamed about when your wife got pregnant that you'd be
01:04:58like screaming at your kids like this is not how you want to be i know this is not how you want to
01:05:04be this is not what you dreamed of and all of that and so it doesn't seem to me that i mean
01:05:11obviously your mother's more vivid in my in my mind than than your father but doesn't seem the
01:05:15case for anyone in your family no one in your family outside of you through some heaven-sent
01:05:21miracle no one in your family seems to be able to compare their behavior to any outside standard
01:05:27they are their own standards whatever i do is right if someone angers me it's because they're
01:05:32a terrible person and i can just go off on them because your your mother handled let's say you
01:05:42had been brainwashed by your husband right let's say right well you'd still need to be humble
01:05:49enough as a parent to say well what deficiencies in parenting did i commit that my kid gets
01:05:53brainwashed but also if you are brainwashed by your husband then getting in your face and
01:06:00snarling you've been brainwashed by your husband right is is exactly the wrong thing to do
01:06:09so if they genuinely like if they genuinely believed you've been brainwashed by your husband
01:06:13then they would look up how do you deal with someone who's been brainwashed and the last
01:06:18thing you do is scream at them that they've been brainwashed like that's the absolute wrong thing
01:06:22to do according to just about every expert i've ever read on the subject so even if they if they
01:06:28genuinely believe that they would look it up and they'd talk to experts and they'd try and figure
01:06:33out how to solve it and they wouldn't ever do what they did so even in screaming at the jew that
01:06:39you've been brainwashed and turned against your family even in doing that they're doing exactly
01:06:42the wrong thing they're just indulging their own anger and trying to in a sense smash you into
01:06:48compliance no that's 100 what they're doing my whole life they just try my mom would just try
01:06:56to bully me into like what she wanted me to be to do what she wanted me to do and i know i keep
01:07:03bringing her up but like all everyone else in the family is there's nothing in comparison to her like
01:07:08she's so obvious right so so she's she's the indisputable one right in in other words her
01:07:16behavior is so egregious and and and immoral and outrageous that anyone who can't see that
01:07:23you know it the kids the kids have it really hard to get neglected
01:07:28yeah because like what do you say you know well i spent quite a lot of time in my room and i didn't
01:07:33really feel a very strong connection to my parents they always seem to be kind of busy
01:07:36you know as opposed you know like your mother death threats and fists through walls and
01:07:41physical violence that's so in your face and outrageous that anyone who can't see that i
01:07:46mean it makes sense to me that you would talk about your mother because anybody who can't see
01:07:51anybody who can't see that is is beyond hope
01:07:56so let's go back to the nail salon okay
01:08:04why didn't you leave and again i don't know whether you should or shouldn't have
01:08:07but i'd like to know your thinking process as to why you didn't
01:08:10you see your mom across your heart starts pounding this is a crisis moment right
01:08:25yeah what do you say to yourself that you stay
01:08:31i i said all right this is what i thought and this is like that's what i texted i texted my
01:08:38friend too and i said don't worry it's fine she won't make a scene okay but who cares
01:08:48right and first of all that was incorrect right it was incorrect okay but that's so
01:08:54no there has to be a thought there so to to even want to stay you have to be thinking something
01:09:00right maybe part of me was curious to see what would happen i don't think so because you had
01:09:06no evidence over the course of your entire life that anything different would happen
01:09:13and that's that's a that's a pretty dangerous thing to be curious about
01:09:16you know like if i've been mauled by a lion five times and then i reach out to pet a lion well i'm
01:09:21just curious what might happen like that doesn't make any sense right and you were mauled a whole
01:09:25lot more than five times right yeah okay so it's not that
01:09:37and i'm thinking really hard um
01:09:46i'm i'm not sure i mean i could sit here and think about it for
01:09:51five minutes but i don't know was there and i'm not trying to put words in your mouth so
01:09:55this doesn't fit just let me know but was there any part of you and this may be a male side of me
01:10:00so it could be totally wrong but was there any part of you is like well screw you i'm not moving
01:10:04i'm not leaving not driving me off no 100 actually and that's another thing i said i said you know
01:10:12i'm getting my nails done for my wedding um i'm not gonna let her rob me of that joy
01:10:18okay so you got into a plant your feet and protect your property and protect your
01:10:28goal get my nails done you're not pushing me out
01:10:34yeah and part of me so
01:10:40where we live there's like the area that i grew up in and then there's like the neighboring
01:10:45town i don't know like suburb i don't know what you'd call it anyways
01:10:49they don't really feel very suburb but whatever suburb whatever great word it really should be the
01:10:55word um but whenever i go let's say to the other side of town where i grew up in part of me is
01:11:05always scared that i'll see my family but i always think like you guys can't claim this area and
01:11:11my family is part of this country club and i haven't been taken off the membership and i know
01:11:18no one my family really goes but part of me is always nervous they'll bump into them or someone
01:11:23i know when i'm there but i like i'm like screw you guys like this is a very nice place i want
01:11:29to come and enjoy it and like i'm not gonna let you guys claim everything you can't claim this
01:11:35whole town and then whenever i go in this area and bump into you can't just ruin everything for
01:11:40me and ruin my whole life i deserve to enjoy some beauty and they do they can ruin everything
01:11:47for you this happened weeks ago right yeah i guess yes no no i mean listen i i'm i'm a big
01:11:53one for courage i really am i mean i hope i've got some credibility that i'm a decent one for courage
01:11:59yeah but not do but not running into lawnmowers you know running into threshing machines or
01:12:05sticking your hand in a blender oh i'm so correct like but the fact is that they do
01:12:11have that power and how could they not they raised you they're always going to have that power over
01:12:16you well i talked they totally do i totally shut down when my mom was there i shut down okay okay
01:12:23so so hang on so where does this tough talk come from that is not like if if you had some guy he'd
01:12:32been at war for five years right and and a year after he came back from war you said hey let's go
01:12:38see some i don't know giant blood-smeared war movie like saving private ryan or i don't know
01:12:45full metal jacket or something like that and he's like yes i'm ready i'm not gonna
01:12:50avoid war movies i'm not gonna let them own that theater like would that be sensible
01:12:55no no
01:13:02i maybe maybe 20 years after but this is soon in your life this is like only 10 of your life
01:13:09has been spent less than 10 of your life and i only maybe about 40 of your adult life has
01:13:16been spent not in contact with your your parents so why because you have this bravado thing
01:13:25and i guess i'm trying to figure that out like it look i mean it's been 25 years since i've seen
01:13:32my mother and if i you know if she showed up at my doorstep i'd i'd crap my pants
01:13:42i don't maybe i go back and forth because i think like wow the fact that i stood up
01:13:47stood up to who i think is devil the devil on earth the fact that i had i was able to do that
01:13:54sometimes i feel kind of invincible but then
01:14:00i sometimes go back and forth okay so hang on who feels invincible in your relationship with
01:14:09your mother okay well my mom's probably the more invincible when she gets away with anything
01:14:19right your mother is your mother feels invincible because she can't be corrected
01:14:24and can't feel like she ever did anything wrong and can't admit fault and never apologizes
01:14:29so this invincible stuff is coming from your mother not from you
01:14:37i'm gonna stake out my territory and i'm not gonna get pushed around and right that's your mother
01:14:42i'm not backing down i mean that's your mother no listen my friend back the heck down
01:14:53if there's a lion you back down don't you
01:14:59if there's a shark in the water don't you get out of the water i'm not gonna let the shark
01:15:06i'm not gonna let the shark drive away me from my paddling it's like you're gonna lose a limb man
01:15:16she's a kind of predator that dominated your life for like 20 plus years
01:15:22how are you supposed to fight that the only way you can fight your mom is by becoming your mom
01:15:27which trust me you really really don't want to do because then you'll lose your husband
01:15:32i absolutely do not want to do that when i was younger i never wanted to get married
01:15:37and never wanted kids like i'm still quite young but you know like in my teens and yeah early like
01:15:45early 20s i guess i'm still early but anyways because i was so scared of having a relationship
01:15:51like my mom and dad do and having a relationship with my kids like i do with my mom okay so let's
01:15:59go back to the nails nail salon okay and it's so appropriate that the nails are claws right
01:16:05it's appropriate in the fang sharpening store okay so you stayed my friend because your mother
01:16:15wanted you to stay so that she could exercise power over you and you're so used to complying
01:16:21to her as we all are with our parents especially if they're dysfunctional you stayed because she
01:16:30wanted you to stay now that you mention it i mean that makes sense because there's nothing there's
01:16:39no benefit to you right no i could probably go get my nails done somewhere else for cheek right
01:16:47right you would you would get your nails done somewhere else and you'd say well i'm glad like
01:16:52you don't if you get if you get out of the water when there's a shark in there do you have any
01:16:57regrets no no like few few i saved my arm yeah fantastic i'm glad i noticed my mom i you you
01:17:07get up you walk out and you breathe a sigh of relief like i got out of the water
01:17:17because like you're like the person in the in the horror movie who's like
01:17:21you go for help i'll follow the bloody footprints you know it's like
01:17:24you everyone's screaming like don't don't right
01:17:29and then and then you contacted the person who gave you bad advice
01:17:40so let's let's say well hang on let's say let's say that you had
01:17:44texted your husband saying my mom's right here in the store
01:17:50yeah what would he say get out let's say like somehow you had texted me and i'd
01:17:57been working or whatever and see it pop up hey staff i'm right here my mom's right in
01:18:02the store i haven't seen her in two years what should i do what would i say
01:18:06run despawn take the vents whatever you need to do beam out scotty b-map right i would say
01:18:15get out yeah no but i might no go ahead sorry my husband would have said the same thing too but
01:18:26i i don't know where he was but anyways he didn't have his he didn't see the text until later so
01:18:32so okay so you did text him before you texted your friend is that right
01:18:38no my my friend yeah i i texted before i text my friend that we should stay yes
01:18:45okay so you did text your husband but he just wasn't he didn't see the message or whatever
01:18:48right yeah exactly okay so when i asked you oh this sounds always sounds so accusatory hey when
01:18:58i asked no but when when i asked you what would your husband say you said he'd tell me to get out
01:19:04yes so why did you need to text him
01:19:14why doesn't your inner husband your internalized husband give you good advice
01:19:18he would right if you said what would he like what were you expecting him to take
01:19:22sorry if you were expecting him to text back get out then why not just take that advice
01:19:26that you knew was coming and get out because the internal internalized mother overshadowed
01:19:32the internalized husband well that's that's a very correct answer and i i think it's very
01:19:37interesting but you then text your friend right and your friend says stick around
01:19:47perhaps i was testing her well it's high stakes
01:19:52it's high stakes because you could also text her and she says stick around you know like okay she
01:19:58failed the test and get out
01:20:04so if wise people in your mind were telling you to get out and unwise people
01:20:09on your phone were telling you to stick around then the question is
01:20:13why stay now we can say well your mother wanted you to stay
01:20:18but there has to be a mechanism by which which that is achieved
01:20:25so there has to be a thought and maybe maybe the thought is i'm not giving up my square i'm not
01:20:32giving up my nails i'm gonna stick it out and i'm gonna what are you gonna win you're gonna win i
01:20:37mean what did you think might happen you think she would just ignore you walk out and you'd win
01:20:48like what do you mean what's gonna happen that's kind of that's what i was telling myself but that
01:20:56she was gonna see you there she was gonna ignore you and she was just gonna stomp out not say a
01:21:01word and then you'd own the space is it something like that yeah that's that's yeah because i we
01:21:09didn't even make eye contact i'm sorry say again we didn't even make eye contact i didn't even know
01:21:15like because i didn't notice her so i was like well maybe she didn't even notice me no but she's
01:21:20probably gonna notice you right i mean i don't know how big this salon is but she's probably
01:21:24gonna notice you right yeah heck we were right across from each other you know in those chairs
01:21:29with you you put your feet in the little pool for you oh gosh did you have feet did you have
01:21:36fish eating your feet you know no because you know there's that thing no no but they
01:21:43some of the asian ones they have these uh uh they have these uh fish that chew on your feet
01:21:49you're not heard of this no no i i know exactly what you're talking about because one time we
01:21:54were in mexico and we made my dad do that nice yeah no wonder he's upset okay he's taking it out
01:22:02on me revenge right right uh okay so you're literally sitting foot to foot with your mom
01:22:10it's a it's a very big nail salon but like we are across the room from each other so we're probably
01:22:16like i don't know like 20 feet apart maybe so she's gonna see you yeah okay so your idea is
01:22:25she's not gonna make a scene because that would be low status right yeah especially
01:22:33she's so status-oriented and then she's like oh no sorry my name oh um oh so and so yeah daughter
01:22:42oh like i can't like so sorry though like i can't believe you're in this abusive relationship just
01:22:50come home we'll take care of you oh my gosh and then it escalates and escalates but i just like
01:22:57the fact that you just call me out in front of him and then there was literally literally a mom
01:23:02that we know from a very wealthy family that walks by and says hi in the middle of all this and
01:23:10she still goes off and i was like what are you thinking like how that was very unusual like that
01:23:17she would continue escalating when there are people that we kind of know around
01:23:26well i'm sorry to be annoying um but i think that this is uh maybe a bit of a tough thing that you
01:23:37have to empathize with your mom so i can tell you why she escalated
01:23:43why is that because everyone knows that you haven't talked to her for two years
01:23:52and so she needs everyone to know how in the wrong you are and how right she is and how angry
01:23:58she is and outraged she is that you haven't talked to her in two years because everybody knows
01:24:03so what she can't hide it because everyone knows so the only thing she can do is win
01:24:08that makes sense because she keeps framing herself as the victim yeah oh poor me my daughter got
01:24:14swept up in some terrible guy marriage blah blah blah and and woe is me and she's terrible and
01:24:19she's disrespectful and right so so she can't hide it like if if this was hidden then i could
01:24:26totally understand her not escalating but given that everybody knows the only thing she can do
01:24:31is uh tough it out and and attack and continue playing the victim card that
01:24:38makes sense that makes sense well the attack victim card of course yeah right
01:24:49so and the thought sorry you're gonna say
01:24:52well i was just gonna say okay so if the reason i stayed to get my nails done was because i want
01:25:00like maybe partly because my inner mom was saying do this because this is what i want you to do and
01:25:07then partly because i was wanting to claim my territory so let's say that's the reason i stayed
01:25:15that's the reason i stayed but why would i agree to go for a walk with my siblings
01:25:20for like two and a half hours or whatever it was well because you're looking for allies
01:25:28you're hoping you're hoping against hope that they're going to see your point of view
01:25:33and join you uh in your criticisms of your mother
01:25:38that makes sense yeah no that that does make sense and so you feel that if you just
01:25:44get the right words across right
01:25:48they'll finally understand me yeah if you just get the fight if you just find a way to unlock
01:25:53the keys of their heart then
01:25:59everything will be fine and you'll have allies and you'll have a community and you'll win
01:26:05and you'll have a community and you'll win and your mom will lose or at least
01:26:09she might change based upon everyone's consistent feedback that if you just have some allies
01:26:16everything's going to be so much better
01:26:20right that isn't that going to be isn't that sort of your big thought and idea
01:26:24and i understand that my gosh totally
01:26:26yeah definitely because even even like i said now i hate my dad and i didn't even want to engage in
01:26:35conversation with him but um back in like two two years back i was really trying so hard for him to
01:26:46understand my perspective and it's you know how i said my older brother is my mom's favorite well
01:26:52brother is my mom's favorite well it's very evident that i'm my dad's favorite
01:26:58and so i was like i always listened to my dad complain about my mom to me
01:27:04and i was always his ally standing up for him to my mom and to my siblings especially to my
01:27:10older brother because my older brother's insanely disrespectful to my dad even though my dad
01:27:16literally like buys him like whatever the heck he wants and like pays for everything for him
01:27:22yeah um he's just so rude to him anyways so i always did stand up for my dad and i thought you
01:27:28know what maybe maybe i could get win him over and i spent so many hours talking to him expressing
01:27:35myself which and it didn't get anywhere telling him how i felt about everything saying these
01:27:40things happen to me because my dad he's very successful in his career and wasn't around a
01:27:45was traveling a lot always working long hours and whatnot so i was like these things happen when you
01:27:50weren't around well sorry and just just by the by this is why he says just stick your head in the
01:27:54sand of course he was successful in his career he didn't want to be home yes yeah exactly like
01:28:02we um during covid he was working on the other side of the country and he would say i am so
01:28:10excited to go run away to my place on the other side of the country because your mom is driving me
01:28:17crazy and i'm like tell me about it yet i have to stay here and put up with it forever whereas you
01:28:22can just leave whenever you want like sometimes he'd be gone for a month at a time traveling all
01:28:26over the world sure and probably didn't even have to my dad went to africa yeah i mean he basically
01:28:33tunneled through the earth and emerged perpendicular to where he started he couldn't have gone further
01:28:37away while still staying on the planet i don't blame him i wanted to go to africa too just not
01:28:43with my father so yeah right um so like i tried to get an ally to my dad and didn't get me anywhere
01:28:51and maybe and with my older brother i know like he's impossible like i hate my older brother he's
01:28:58just like my mom he's very mean to me but then my two younger siblings who play this little innocent
01:29:02card and innocence card and act like they're like tweens or whatever you call it i'm like well
01:29:11they're so like since they're so young and immature maybe they're more open-minded
01:29:18yeah and how's that theory going
01:29:23pretty horribly right pretty horribly okay so let me ask you this
01:29:29would you say that overall in life you have a good conscience i don't know what a perfect
01:29:36conscience or you know but a good conscience you've done you haven't done great harm to people
01:29:41that at least that you haven't apologized for and you've been um you know pretty dedicated towards
01:29:48goodness and and virtue and so on and you haven't you know threatened children with
01:29:53death or you know things like that would you say that overall you have a pretty good conscience
01:29:57good conscience yes right that's your weakness straight up so not the weakness is not having a
01:30:04good conscience that's a great strength what's the weakness i'm talking about
01:30:09maybe coming across too nice and so people can easily take advantage of me
01:30:14yeah but why because i think the weakness of have the great weakness of having a good
01:30:20conscience is you think that other people can change because if you have a good conscience
01:30:28you can change but if you have a really bad conscience change is too ugly
01:30:40i remember on an original call and you said it'd be so difficult for
01:30:44my parents to acknowledge the harm that they did yeah so it's better just not to have to change
01:30:51it's easier for you say better i mean i don't even know that it's possible after a certain
01:30:55amount of time you know after a certain amount of cigarettes you don't get to be a marathon runner
01:31:02and you know i i can i can very very very much i don't have any proof of this but i can totally
01:31:07understand why my father didn't want to have anything to do with me for the last i don't know
01:31:12five to ten years of his life i think he got to a place of relative peace which was pretty
01:31:16tough for him and i think that he laid his ghosts to rest he had a graveyard of the past
01:31:25where things didn't stir and if he'd had a you know because the big question is well why didn't
01:31:30he contact me when he got old when he was unwell to make and i think it's because he needed to have
01:31:35some peace because he didn't have much peace over the course of his life and i think he needed to
01:31:39have some peace later later in his life and i was too tough for his conscience it would have been
01:31:44very very difficult for him and and i think functionally impossible and i i don't even
01:31:51really blame him i mean you know peace peace is a good thing to have peace of mind is a good thing
01:31:57to have and if poking around wrongs you did 50 years ago that you can't fix and that you've
01:32:05ignored for half a century like what what is the point it's it's like a surgeon digging up a body
01:32:12from a botched surgery 50 years ago like what's the point
01:32:23yeah fair especially especially when they've done so much harm because
01:32:28for me there was when after i did the call-in with you in july 2022 there was some friendships
01:32:36that i kind of ended point blank because my mom was just making them too painful
01:32:41and i ghosted some people and i sent them long letters apologizing explaining what happened
01:32:48how it wasn't nice for me to do what i did but that's very different than what my mom did
01:32:55what my mom did like that me being a kid saying like i'm sorry i ghosted my high school best
01:33:02friends whereas for my mom and be sorry i inflicted years of abuse on my children and husband
01:33:15yeah so because you haven't harmed children for decades you think that the change that is
01:33:23available to you is available to others and it's not
01:33:33it's not available because they have such a terrible conscience
01:33:38that change would be
01:33:45see change requires that you can
01:33:48change requires that you can compare your life to some higher standard but if you had the capacity
01:33:56to do that in the first place you wouldn't have abused your children anyway or you would have
01:34:01stopped you would have started and stopped because you'd be like oh gosh this is just
01:34:05too terrible the things i'm doing are just too awful and right so if they had the capacity
01:34:11for change or any kind of comparison of what they're doing to some
01:34:17higher standard they wouldn't have been abusive to begin with
01:34:26so there is no functional possibility of this kind of change because
01:34:32they wouldn't need to change if they had the capacity to change earlier
01:34:41if if beating your child if putting your fist through walls if threatening to murder your child
01:34:51or kill your child if that's not enough to bring you up short and say oh gosh you know especially
01:34:56when you're a christian right because christianity has a lot to do with the protection and tender care
01:35:00of children so if if beating your child is not enough at all
01:35:11to have you change how are those child's words much later going to be enough like literally
01:35:23hitting your child is not enough to cause you to even question a tiny bit what you're doing
01:35:29how are mere words 20 years later going to be enough
01:35:36you know stefan when i was much younger my mom and dad were fighting and my mom threw a glass
01:35:46at my dad and it hit the ground and shattered and sliced my sister my baby sister's head
01:35:54um like right just right above the eye and she had to go to the hospital and get stitches
01:36:01and like heck if that's not a wake-up call right if that's not a wake-up call rats like
01:36:05heck she ended up in the hospital it could have been blind yes so if that's not enough
01:36:10guarded glass just missed her eye yeah if that's not enough you know uh i remember when i was
01:36:17younger a friend of mine uh said that he was having some fight with his girlfriend and he
01:36:23he got so angry that he punched they were sitting in a car and he punched the window of the car
01:36:29and it it cracked the window like the windshield of the car right and then they had to make up
01:36:34this big story i think that she said oh we were on the highway and a truck obviously kicked up
01:36:41some gravel and it hit her window like all of that sort of stuff right and he said he said oh man
01:36:47you know i gotta do something about my temper like i just i just smashed the windshield of a car
01:36:54and he did he went to get some anger management he did some therapy you know
01:36:58dealt with his temper now that's just breaking that's just cracking some glass
01:37:03some safety glass even right
01:37:08so if for your mother hitting a child you know maybe as you say like shattering shattered glass
01:37:16around a toddler where you've got to go to the hospital if that's not enough and it's not enough
01:37:22for your father to say whoa whoa whoa time out what are we doing this is crazy right
01:37:29so if none of that is enough for them to change
01:37:34it's it's kind of like this so uh have you ever eaten something you you you drink some milk or
01:37:41you bite into something and it's like really gone off like it happens with yogurt sometimes or
01:37:45it can happen with luncheon meat like you just bite into it and you're like oh god this is gross
01:37:49right and you have to rinse out your mouth and drink some mouthwash and it's like repulsive right
01:37:54yeah so if you've been eating disgusting vile infected decayed food for 30 years and you've
01:38:08not noticed that there's anything wrong in fact you love it and someone comes along and says you
01:38:13know that food is not good it's not good food what are you going to say
01:38:21um yeah it's not good food well no you're gonna say it's fine if you what are you talking about
01:38:27yeah sorry if you've been eating it for 38 years or whatever and you you think it's great you think
01:38:32it's great food it's it's wonderful food it's tasty food and someone comes along and says
01:38:37oh no this food is is rotten and it's going to kill you you say whoa whoa what's wrong with you
01:38:42yeah maybe your taste buds are off yeah it tastes great like nobody who will be able to convince you
01:38:47that the food is rotten if it looks and tastes great to you and you've been eating it and been
01:38:51healthy for 30 years who's going to be able to tell you that no one for me it was my husband
01:38:58well but no you weren't eating the food the food is bad behavior
01:39:03okay okay i understand right so if if you think your soul is golden when it's absolutely rotten
01:39:10and you don't experience any the rottenness of your soul you don't experience anything
01:39:14negative in what you're doing then who is going to tell you i mean it's like somebody telling you
01:39:22uh you know you think you like having an orgasm but you're wrong it's like no i think i'm fairly
01:39:28right about that i i'm pretty sure i'm pretty sure that you're not correct about that so if somebody
01:39:37has done rotten things and for decades and they've never experienced anything as rotten
01:39:46and they think they're doing the right thing and it's healthy and it's right and it's good
01:39:51and you think you're going to tell someone that they're wrong
01:39:55how is that possibly going to work if if if if somebody would have come to you and say
01:40:02well you know listen friend you think you love your husband but you don't you don't really in
01:40:11fact you you hate him like you deep down you just hate your husband you pretend to yourself that you
01:40:17like your husband but you really like if somebody were to try and make that case for you what would
01:40:21you say i wouldn't engage in conversation get me behind me right that would be appalling that
01:40:30would be somebody wanting to destroy your life you're unhinged yeah like yeah like if somebody
01:40:39were to say to me uh your wife doesn't really love you you don't really love your wife it'd be like
01:40:43okay like you're just bizarre like get out of my face right yeah and that would be that i would
01:40:48view that as malevolent okay so please please understand when you say to your mother you've
01:40:53done things wrong that's like someone coming to you and saying to you you really hate your husband
01:40:58and your husband hates you yeah okay no one that's i i can see that is there any amount of
01:41:06words is there any amount or combination of words that would have you believe that you and your
01:41:10husband hate each other no you love each other you're thrilled to be married you're each other's
01:41:16best friends of course yeah there's no amount of language so this is as tough as it would be
01:41:21to budge the self-righteousness of your parents it's not going to my mom always says she always
01:41:27i've never been wrong i'm so right i'm right about everything oh i never did anything i remember i
01:41:34was doing this like mock interview for med school because and then like this this guy i know who is
01:41:40in med school was doing practice questions with me and one of his questions was tell me about a
01:41:45time you were mean to someone and so i told my mom about the answer that i gave what this guy
01:41:50was practicing with and my mom said oh um oh that's a horrible answer me i would just say
01:41:58i've never been mean my whole life and i said i laughed and i was like you've never been mean
01:42:02your whole life and she's like it's true i've never been mean and she might she might be able
01:42:08to pass a lie detector test about that that's the terrifying thing like she she would genuinely
01:42:15completely deeply and honestly she she might be able to pass a lie detector test about that
01:42:21i mean my mom could probably pass a lie detector test which uh said is the only reason your life
01:42:28went badly because you were poisoned by doctors for some reason and she would say i'm sure she
01:42:34would say and she would probably be able to pass a um be able to pass a lie detector test about that
01:42:41you can't you can't change people who don't respect reason you can't change people who
01:42:46don't respect principles you can't change people who can't compare what they're doing
01:42:52to some higher standard and she doesn't she says i've never been wrong so she is her own standard
01:42:57whatever she does is the right and whoever disagrees with her is absolutely wrong in the
01:43:04whoever disagrees with her is absolutely wrong in the same way that somebody would say to you
01:43:13well you don't really love right your your husband well of course you do
01:43:20when you lay it out so plainly like that i mean i don't mean to belittle what you're saying but
01:43:25when you lay it out like that it makes perfect sense right and and that's the empirical evidence
01:43:30that you have right i'm i'm a big empiricist so if there was evidence uh to the contrary we would
01:43:36accept that with with great joy right but she says i'm never wrong okay so then if there's any
01:43:42problems and there will be then it has to be the other person it always has to be the other person
01:43:46always and forever ever amen so
01:43:55you will not ever find an ally in this family
01:44:02and listen i i'm not going to say we have the same family and and obviously you know
01:44:06we're different people we're very different stages of life and so on but i'll tell you this
01:44:12my family of origin did not admit they did anything wrong or if there was wrong it was
01:44:19never anybody's fault you know for my mother it was all the doctors who just treated her badly
01:44:23and poisoned her and so on right injected her with various ailments so uh i've now it's been
01:44:31well a tiny bit longer than you um for you it's two years and then a break for me is 20
01:44:35a break for me is 20 uh 25 years or so and uh you know you're in your early 20s i'm in my late 50s
01:44:44and i've just tell you from from this from from this standpoint
01:44:47with regards to my family and my friends no one changed a bit
01:44:55quarter century and it's not like people can't find my issues i mean i told them directly
01:45:03and they're right out here on the internet right so people could listen to the shows they could do
01:45:07searches for a mother or father or all these things right and so nobody's changed at all
01:45:13not not not one friend has contacted me from the old days my family has not contacted me i mean
01:45:20except to say that my father died which is a whole other story as to why they would tell
01:45:24me that of course because it's negative news and it's designed to make my life unpleasant
01:45:29but uh nobody's changed
01:45:34how did you eventually come to peace with everything
01:45:41well that's a big question of course that's a bit i don't want to give you obviously i don't ever
01:45:47want to give anyone a glib answer and so the stuff that pops into my head i want to make sure is
01:45:52not just surface level stuff but how did i
01:45:57well i gotta tell you so so some of the studying of the brain really helped for me so people without
01:46:02a conscience have very different brains that they're they're fundamentally different from
01:46:08people with a conscience people with the observing ego people with you know there's like a third of
01:46:12people don't even have an inner dialogue they don't ever argue with themselves they don't have
01:46:16any observing uh uh just differences of opinion you know like you sometimes really yeah oh no like
01:46:21a third of people they don't have no inner dialogue nothing that's a yeah i speak french
01:46:27and i have inner dialogue with myself in french practice right right perfidious albion you're
01:46:33arguing how bad the british are in english and in french so no i so there's there's really
01:46:39sort of very fundamental differences in brain structures and i can't imagine what it's like
01:46:48to not have an inner dialogue i mean it's it's almost inconceivable isn't it i mean
01:46:52honestly i'm debating with myself half the day and i actually find it quite enjoyable should it
01:46:57is this perspective that perspective like i'm you know i've spent i don't know how many hours
01:47:02thinking about you know the people who took all the vaccines and if they're having health problems
01:47:07you know how much are they responsible uh how much uh you know all of this propaganda did to
01:47:13take away like i think about these things it's not like i'm arguing with myself in any foundational
01:47:17way but i'm back and forth on perspectives a lot and i i find that interesting of course i write
01:47:23novels with lots of different characters so you can't do that if you don't have an inner at least
01:47:27dialogue so so i can't imagine what it's like like i can't imagine the void that's in people's minds
01:47:34and hearts if they don't have an inner at least at least one other voice in there i just can't i
01:47:41can't conceive of it but in the same way they can't conceive of my mind or your mind we're
01:47:51two different now it's not necessarily a moral thing or an intelligence thing it's just i don't
01:47:57know i don't exactly know how nobody really knows how to explain it but some just and you can do
01:48:02searches for this like no inner dialogue and and you can look at the statistics and and so on so
01:48:08for me it's like okay so when i do something wrong it really bothers me like even if it's
01:48:15accidental you know like if if i get if i make a misstatement in one of my shows or something
01:48:19like that you know and and i i get i say million but i meant billion or something like that like
01:48:24it bothers me yeah me too i'm like that yeah it troubles me and so for me recognizing that
01:48:34some people it only bothers them if they get caught and punished and they can always avoid
01:48:40getting caught and punished or it's certainly within families and parents by just denying
01:48:45they did anything wrong and attacking the other person then there's no problem the gaslighting
01:48:52well yeah but it's like i feel bad even if nobody else knows right i i you know i i mean upb came
01:49:02out of me feeling like ah there's still something not quite i don't have 100 proof of this ethics
01:49:06thing right so if i make a mistake or or i think there's something deficient it it it bothers me
01:49:11it's like uh it's like when you have a i don't know if you've ever been camping and you have
01:49:15like a mosquito in the tent it's like you can't really quite rest until you got that little thing
01:49:19and squished it or something or driven it out so if if i do something wrong even if nobody else
01:49:25knows or it it bothers me and it it i get a little bit of unease and i just have to work to to correct
01:49:32it like if i've said something that could be a little abrupt to someone i need to say geez i'm
01:49:37sorry i think that was that was a bit short and that was a bit rude like i just need to to do
01:49:41that it's it's how i it how i end up enjoying my mind is to have a clean conscience and that means
01:49:48you know i first of all have to notice that i did something wrong and that's an automatic process
01:49:53and it always has been and then i need to do something to make it better
01:50:00and so for me you know that shopping cart test you know like you put the shopping cart back
01:50:06uh even if there's nobody around well yeah of course i do
01:50:11and you know the couple of times in my life that i found something of value even when i'm broke
01:50:18i'll try and return it to the person even though i could totally keep it and if it was
01:50:22just cash or whatever no i try to return it to the person and you know just try to have a
01:50:27a good conscience this certainly doesn't mean that i'm perfect of course but
01:50:30in general it's not dependent on whether i can get away with it right and so
01:50:39to have that conscience
01:50:43to have that comparison of what i'm doing to some better standard is foundational to my existence
01:50:54and i can't undo it like i can't choose to not have that right if i've if i've done something
01:51:01wrong it bothers me and i have to make correct even if it's just a fairly innocent error
01:51:05it just bothers me and that's an automatic process for me and there have been times where
01:51:13it's just been eye-rollingly annoying right which is like oh come on it's such a little thing it's
01:51:18like no no come on deal with it right you know that kind of stuff right and so that's an automatic
01:51:25process for me and i can't imagine what it would be like to not have that process it would to me
01:51:30it would be terrifying it would be absolutely terrifying to not have that conscience to not
01:51:37have that inner voice to not have that jiminy cricket to not have that sense that i'm doing
01:51:42something that's not quite right it to me it would be as terrifying like before gps's you'd
01:51:47be driving down the street and you'd be looking for a cross street and as you went further and
01:51:50further along you just get more and more uneasy right because it's like i think we should have
01:51:54been there by now right and that was sort of a common thing or if you're hiking you know it can
01:51:59happen you get uneasy about it before the gps stuff and to not have that to just dum-de-dum
01:52:05i've been driving for three days now i'm sure like that would be terrifying like how on earth
01:52:10would you ever course correct what a total nightmare and so for me to not have that
01:52:20you know like things that are true like there's so many people in the world they don't care whether
01:52:25they true whether things are true they only care whether things are accepted or whether they'll be
01:52:31liked or disliked for saying something or believing something they don't really care about the truth
01:52:35now to me it's like no matter how difficult like the iq data or whatever like no matter how difficult
01:52:41it is it's true and so you know we we can't deny it and it's pretty important to deal with reality
01:52:49so and and to me i like it would be kind of incomprehensible when people say but what are
01:52:55the consequences of believing x y or z and what we should we should decide on whether we believe
01:53:00stuff based on the consequences of like what that's not how we progress i mean there were so
01:53:06many people who said that well you know if if we reject if we don't have slaves we'll all starve
01:53:12to death and freeze to death because there won't be any food and clothing there'll be no cotton
01:53:14we know vegetables no fruits no right and it's like well so if you take that view then you can
01:53:20never get rid of slavery but you say no slavery is wrong and we have to get rid of it and it's
01:53:24an unjust institution and let the chips fall where they may and the world in fact got immeasurably
01:53:29better as a result of that so that the truth is essential integrity is essential if you don't
01:53:38hold up to reasonable values you need to apologize and make restitution and have a
01:53:44course correction all these kinds of things right so i can't imagine life any other way
01:53:54i can vaguely picture it but i can't genuinely get what it would be like to live without a conscience
01:54:01or to live without
01:54:03an inner voice to just have silence in your head
01:54:12i wouldn't want that in any way shape or form i think that would be a terrible life
01:54:16now other people who are like what you're always arguing with yourself or you're always talking
01:54:19with yourself or there's all these voices in there what a nightmare i okay i get that i mean
01:54:23because it's not the life they're used to so for me it's just like they're just like really really
01:54:29they're just like really really fundamentally different and again it's not some moral thing
01:54:34foundationally but i do not expect them i guess there is a moral aspect if it's to do with the
01:54:42conscience i don't expect my mother to grow a conscience any more than i expect me to lose a
01:54:47conscience yeah but i mean i feel like that's fair so she's not going to change
01:54:54and if she was able to change she would have changed the first time she hit me
01:55:01or the second or the fifth but not the ten thousandth that's not going to happen
01:55:06because there's way too many justifications and every time you do something wrong it gets
01:55:10easier to keep doing wrong and harder to turn around to do right and your parents now have
01:55:1730 years of bad parenting or more under their belt
01:55:20or more under their belt
01:55:23yeah 25 yeah they're not going to change yeah
01:55:30i mean can you imagine sorry this is the last thing i'll say and then i'll be quiet so can
01:55:34you imagine you have kids trusting beautiful pink lovely little kids i mean can you imagine
01:55:42what it would be like to hit them every day or threaten them or shake them or put your
01:55:45fists through the walls and terrify them or scream at them or call them names worthless
01:55:49trash useless stupid selfish can you imagine what that would be like to do that day after day
01:55:59i can't imagine doing it um but if you were to do it i mean i don't know how you could
01:56:05ever admit that it's wrong but it's hard to even imagine like yeah if i look at my daughter and i
01:56:12think of like yelling at her or calling her names or you know she's not doing exactly what i want
01:56:17i'm just gonna scream at her and terrify her like it's absolutely incomprehensible to me
01:56:22so the people who do it are incomprehensible to me yeah well i taught swimming lessons for like
01:56:28six or seven years all throughout high school and university and i teach kids from like a few
01:56:35months old all the way to like 10 and just all of them are just so cute and young and playful and
01:56:44nice and the idea to even like the thought to yell at them never even crossed my mind
01:56:49right did you keep your voice because a friend of mine's daughter was a swimming teacher and she
01:56:54kind of lost half her voice from yelling at the not yelling because she had to be loud i'm yelling
01:56:58at the kids but had to be loud when when i was teaching swim team yes because i i competitively
01:57:03swam for a long time and so i channeled my inner swim coach and that required a lot of yelling
01:57:08got it so they're just they're very very very different they're very foreign it's a very foreign
01:57:17mindset i mean all the bees are bees but there's a big difference between the worker bees and the
01:57:23guard bees and the foraging bees and the guard the queen bees they're just they're just very
01:57:27different they're all bees of course we're all people but we're all very different and you change
01:57:35not as the result of what anyone else says you change as a result of your conscience
01:57:43right you don't change because of what your husband says or what you read on the internet
01:57:46or anything i've ever said that's not what causes you to change because if words change
01:57:50people you could change your parents or your siblings but you can't you change because
01:57:57the words ally with your conscience and your desire for truth and your desire for honesty
01:58:03and virtue and courage now if people don't have a conscience
01:58:10all that your words do is interfere with their base half animal will to power and if you stand
01:58:17between the lion and its prey you have a bad day so they don't change because of anything you say
01:58:27and you certainly can't say anything about morality or virtue or truth or honesty or
01:58:34integrity or love because that's all based on a conscience that's all based on having a higher
01:58:37standard which they don't have your mother is and she's very clear she's never been wrong and
01:58:42she genuinely believes that because whatever she wills is right i mean if you if you were to say to
01:58:49a lion who just like imagine you could speak lion and you said to a lion who just took down
01:58:57a tasty zebra and was half eating it if you were to say to that lion oh man you've done the wrong
01:59:03thing you've taken down the wrong zebra this is the wrong approach this is the wrong thing
01:59:06you should have had a salad what would the lion say let me eat the zebra screw off yeah i'm eating
01:59:15what are you talking about wrong like and this is the same when you try to correct your mother
01:59:20it's the same thing man
01:59:24yeah this analogy that you're giving with the lion and the zebra i mean it's very it's the
01:59:30same thing with my mom she's like she pulled the pasta grenade like you like to say did you say
01:59:36that before i thought it was really funny and she's really bad with self-control with food and
01:59:40if you tell her that she shouldn't be eating something she'll be like oh screw off but with
01:59:45more colorful language yeah or she likes to shop a lot and buys a lot of crap that fills up the
01:59:51house and if you say oh you don't actually need that same reaction right if you say to the library
01:59:57the lion who's really enjoying his meal oh you you're not doing the right thing you got the
02:00:02wrong zebra that's the wrong meal you're not enjoying yourself you should chase a different
02:00:06zebra it would just be noise to him like you're like what's the matter with you i'm enjoying my
02:00:10meal i got the zebra like that's right i've never eaten the wrong zebra that's what the lion would
02:00:15say i've never ever eaten the wrong zebra yeah there's a reason why they're so powerful the one
02:00:21right so you the lion says i've never eaten the wrong zebra and your mother says i'm never wrong
02:00:29yeah and that's where things are and if you sort of i don't know i say if you accept that or
02:00:36whatever but if you just sort of meditate on that that you have a standard by which you can be
02:00:40corrected which is civilized to me i do think it's more advanced i obviously think it's better
02:00:45but you have a standard by which you can be corrected and your mother doesn't and your
02:00:49father doesn't and your siblings don't they're just very very different and words are just
02:00:56a waste they won't change anything now maybe some people like that if they don't learn through
02:01:01inner dialogue then sometimes they'll learn through tough experience which is probably
02:01:05which is why as we talked about that you would want your siblings to take your side right because
02:01:13then then you can apply negative pressure to your parents and maybe they'll change because of that
02:01:18or something like that right but they're they're not they're not in that place and and i i've never
02:01:24seen anyone get there i've like i personally have never seen anyone go from no conscience
02:01:32to conscience any more than i've seen someone go from conscience to no conscience
02:01:44now that you again not to belittle what you're saying you lay it out so plainly
02:01:50i know there's a lot of processes and knowledge behind it yeah yeah it's what i do and it makes
02:01:56it makes perfect sense but then
02:02:00i feel like a lot of the time i try to overthink things and like you you want them to be you want
02:02:11them to be like you yeah and even my siblings they describe my siblings sometimes or i could
02:02:18put characteristics that i have onto my siblings and i just think but if they were like you
02:02:26you want your siblings and your parents and we want all the people who don't seem to have a
02:02:30conscience we want them to be like us but if they were like us we wouldn't want them to be like us
02:02:40so wanting someone to be like you to have a conscience to have moral sensitivity to have
02:02:45the capacity for love right so you want them to be like you but if they were like you or had even
02:02:52had that capacity it would happen by now and you'd never be in a situation of wanting someone
02:02:58to be like you right like you want your husband to marry you or you want your boyfriend to marry
02:03:02you so he marries you but if if you know 10 years in you were still wanting him to marry you it
02:03:08would be because he didn't he hadn't married you and all evidence would be probably that he wouldn't
02:03:13right so wanting people to be like you is it it's a tacit admission that they're not like you
02:03:18and you can't make them be like you you cannot make people
02:03:22like you you cannot make them have a conscience again you can look at the
02:03:26brain scans of people who have a conscience and people who don't they're fundamentally
02:03:30different creatures after this conversation i'm gonna go to the gym or for a run or something
02:03:37and i'm gonna listen to an audiobook audiobook on anatomy of the brain right so is that i mean
02:03:43i know we've talked for a long time is that is that a reasonable maybe framework to to
02:03:48think of these things
02:03:52definitely after all my conversations with you i always feel a sense of liberation
02:03:58you know good like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders and the fact that i feel that
02:04:03way right now makes me think that the conversation got me exactly where i needed it's good and i'm
02:04:09listen i'm i'm hugely delighted that you got back in content content of course i'm not thrilled for
02:04:14the reason but i was actually just thinking the other day about how you were doing so it
02:04:17was actually quite fortuitous that uh you gave me the uh the update so i really do appreciate that
02:04:23and uh you know obviously give my very very best to your your husband and you know a big hug for
02:04:27yourself these are very very difficult issues and you are very young and utterly brilliant
02:04:32and good woman to be to be taking this on and what a what an incredible journey in one generation
02:04:37from you as a mother to be to your mother as a mother that was it's just fantastic what you're
02:04:43doing and you will get a great community and this is the only way to get a great community is to
02:04:49cross this desert and make sure you have good distance between you and the people who don't
02:04:54have a conscience because they will just they're just wild animals in many ways and uh they can't
02:05:00be domesticated well stephan this is great hopefully you know in two more years i'll give
02:05:06you another update and hopefully i'll be pregnant i would love to hear that and if there's anything
02:05:10else i could do in the meantime please let me know oh this is wonderful i'm so so happy and
02:05:15like always um feel free to share it on your platform and everything i appreciate i always
02:05:19like listening back i will let you know when it's up and i appreciate your time today have a great
02:05:23night you as well thank you so much bye bye