• 4 months ago
In a heartfelt conversation, I discuss the caller's struggles with psoriatic arthritis, depression, and alcoholism, reflecting on the impact of neglectful parenting on childhood. We explore the lasting effects of childhood trauma on self-worth and relationships, emphasizing the need to break negative generational patterns for emotional well-being. Additionally, we delve into a caller's tumultuous relationship marked by infidelity, highlighting the link between past familial dynamics and current relationship challenges. Self-reflection and accountability are key in learning from past mistakes to build healthier relationships in the future.

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Transcript
00:00:00Hello, sir. Hey, good morning. How you doing?
00:00:03Hey, I'm not doing too bad. And yourself?
00:00:06I am fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. So yeah, you probably know how this all goes. Just
00:00:12spill your guts and we'll see what philosophy can do for you.
00:00:16All right. So where would you like me to start?
00:00:20Well, usually the way that we work is current problem, current crisis, and then we go back
00:00:28into childhood. So if you want to lay it down for me what's going on at the moment,
00:00:32then we can get a sense of the problem and then try and figure out the root cause.
00:00:37Okay, sounds good. So right now I'm finding myself in a very dark period in my life,
00:00:45the darkest I've ever found myself. And I'm currently failing at a retail job,
00:00:50struggling with alcoholism. I lost my driver's license some time ago, almost about nine months
00:00:59ago, almost one month exactly after I got married to my wife, which caused me to lose my job as a
00:01:08choir traveling. And so... I'm sorry, are you using, sorry to interrupt, are you using speakerphone
00:01:16because you're kind of cutting in and out a little bit? Oh, am I? Oh, I'm so sorry. No,
00:01:20no problem. No, I'm not. I've got some earbuds in. I might have to move location here. It might
00:01:28just be the echo. Yeah, no problem. I just, I always want to concentrate on what you're saying
00:01:34rather than whether I can hear it better easily, so. Yes, of course.
00:01:38Can you hear me better now? Not hugely.
00:01:50Okay, how's this? That seems fine. It's hard to tell until you keep going,
00:01:53so sorry for the interruption, but please go ahead. No problem, no problem. So, all right.
00:02:02So, essentially a year ago, I became extremely ill with an illness that kind of crippled me
00:02:10physically and prevented me from working. And because I'm a musician, I wasn't able to play
00:02:16anymore. And this was a huge problem for me because if I'm not able to work, if I'm not able
00:02:22to play, it kind of struck me in the identity and... And sorry, what was the illness?
00:02:30It's called psoriatic arthritis. So, it's a very severe kind of arthritis that kind of
00:02:37shoots through your whole body like nuclear radiation where every part of you is affected
00:02:43and you develop massive sores and parts of you swell up and become impossible to use.
00:02:52I'm so sorry. That's just, that sounds absolutely appalling. And
00:02:56and was it fairly rapid in its onset? Or tell me a little bit about this. I mean,
00:03:02health stuff is a nightmare. It's something you totally take for granted. Oh, I'm fine.
00:03:07And then if you don't have it, it's like everything else in life falls away and you just
00:03:11become like one thing, sick guy. So, I really sympathize. And yeah, tell me a little bit about
00:03:18the history at the end. Did you ever have it before? Did it come on quick or how did that go?
00:03:22It was severely rapid onset. So, essentially, I was fine for the first two months of last year.
00:03:30And then all of a sudden, I developed these sort of like welts all over my torso. And then my hand
00:03:36starts freezing up and I immediately have to go to my boss and say, dude, I don't know what's
00:03:41happening to me. And I, being a typical man, I just like, well, whatever, we'll get through it.
00:03:48And but I call my mom and she says, you need to go to the hospital right now. And so I did.
00:03:56They checked me out. And almost immediately after I went to the hospital, I stopped being able to
00:04:06move around or use my hands. I'm talking like my hands were so broken feeling. They were so
00:04:13frozen up and swollen that I wasn't able to hold a glass of water and pull it to my mouth.
00:04:20I wasn't able to open the fridge door, feed myself. I basically just became a very sad case of just
00:04:27laying on the couch for the next four months, unable to move or help myself to the bathroom.
00:04:33Sorry, I'm obviously no expert in any of this, but for the people I know who have arthritis,
00:04:40I don't know that it presents with skin welts.
00:04:44Yes. So that's the psoriasis part of the-
00:04:47Oh, psoriasis. Okay. Sorry. I thought you said psoriasis. Okay. So the psoriasis is the skin
00:04:52part and then is it the swelling of the joints and so on that happens with the arthritis part?
00:05:02Correct. Yes.
00:05:03So is it an autoimmune disorder, like your immune system is attacking you?
00:05:09That's exactly right.
00:05:10Okay. And did you take the COVID shots?
00:05:15I did not.
00:05:16Okay. Wow. That is some seriously bad luck. I'm so sorry. Any family history or anything like that?
00:05:24That's the thing. I took some blood work last year, maybe like a year prior to when this first
00:05:31started flaring up and it said I may have the potential to develop arthritis,
00:05:39but no family history as far as I can tell, but I'm not exactly close with my extended family and
00:05:45I have no access to their medical records. So I've never even met my grandfather, for example.
00:05:50So there's a whole history there that I'm just completely shut out of.
00:05:55Okay. So did they say that you have a chance of developing arthritis as a whole,
00:06:01or was it this stuff? Because this seems like a bit of a different animal.
00:06:07Well, yeah, exactly. So they said just in general, you may develop arthritis later in life
00:06:13and then all of a sudden I'm swelling up like a balloon and all my joints stop working and I can't
00:06:19and I can't move. It was very, very strange and well, I'm just going to say it was traumatizing.
00:06:26No, gosh. I mean, absolutely. I mean, in any shape or circumstances, this would be traumatizing.
00:06:32But of course, for a musician in particular, it's, you know, I guess I could still vaguely
00:06:37do what I do, but you would be shut out of your whole business, right? Your whole career.
00:06:43Yeah, that's exactly right. So that was pretty bad. As a result, I sort of spiraled into a
00:06:52self sorry hole. What's the word?
00:06:57Oh, self-pity.
00:06:59Yeah, self-pity. And I spiraled into a depression and allowed myself to
00:07:05self-medicate with alcohol in order to deal with just the stress and anxiety of losing
00:07:10my identity in my career.
00:07:13Well, I mean, it's almost like losing your life in a way, right? I mean, you're trapped in a body
00:07:18that was there constant pain or if you didn't move, it was relatively okay.
00:07:24That's the thing, Tony. I'm always in pain. Sorry. That's an Avengers reference. I'm serious.
00:07:32Sorry, go ahead.
00:07:33Okay.
00:07:34Oh, that's a Tony Stark reference. Is that right?
00:07:37Yeah. Well, yeah, it's the Hulk. He says something about anger, but I'm always in pain. I'm in pain
00:07:45right now. I've been in pain for the last year straight.
00:07:48Gosh. And what is it, you know, the old one to 10 scale, what is it like for you?
00:07:55Okay. So it goes up and down. I'm actually on a kind of experimental medication right now
00:08:01that costs about $1,000 a month that it reduces the pain and reduces the inflammation,
00:08:08but there are parts of my body that are never really going to go back to normal.
00:08:12So for example, one of my hands, fortunately enough, my right hand,
00:08:16that is, it's never going to be the same. My left hand is going to be okay.
00:08:23But for pain scale, when I was on a 10 before, I'm now at about a 4, which is manageable, I think.
00:08:34And is the answer that it's just genetics and age? Is there any other approximate course?
00:08:41I obviously a bit hesitate to say, you know, it's the omnipresent distress,
00:08:44you know, which probably is not true, but is there any other course that you've been given?
00:08:49They say that it's genetics and stress. The drinking probably doesn't help.
00:08:57And so I've been paring back on that. But no, those are the three primary excuses that I've
00:09:03been given. Sorry, stress, genetics and drinking?
00:09:09Correct. But if I understand this rightly, you were drank as a result of the ailment, not
00:09:15before it? Or was that also occurring before it?
00:09:20Well, it was also occurring before it, but not as heavily.
00:09:24So like, what did it go from and to as far as drinking?
00:09:29All right. So we're probably talking about typical tradie boy,
00:09:34handful of beers the night, maybe three or four beers a night, and then working its way up to,
00:09:40well, I have nothing going on and I feel like I'm dying. So let's just drink two bottles of
00:09:45wine then pass out on the couch. Oh, gosh. So, I mean, you were a medium
00:09:51daily drinker before, right? That's right.
00:09:56Got it. And from what age were you drinking this way?
00:10:04Mid-twenties, I want to say.
00:10:07Oh, so you might be like a teen drinker.
00:10:11No, not really.
00:10:14I like to be precise. And it's just my own particular fetish. So I apologize for this.
00:10:19But stuff like not really drives me crazy, because I don't know what that means.
00:10:24Fair enough. So my mom would buy wine very often. And I would have the occasional glass
00:10:32on the weekends when I was in high school, say, 16 or so.
00:10:37Okay, got it. So, I mean, no particular drinking that matters
00:10:40or would have much of a health effect. And was your mother a drinker?
00:10:44She was, yes.
00:10:46And was she like an alcoholic?
00:10:52I don't know. I mean, yes.
00:10:55You probably do, actually, technically. I mean, if you don't know who does, right?
00:10:59Right. Fair enough. So, yeah, I suppose, correct. She would meet the definition of alcohol.
00:11:07And what would she drink? How much did she drink?
00:11:12Probably about the same as I did when I got sick. So a couple of bottles of wine.
00:11:17Actually, you know, maybe not every night, but she would have her moments a couple times a week,
00:11:23weekends, and then whenever she felt the affliction coming on.
00:11:28Sorry, what's the affliction here?
00:11:31Oh, sorry, the want to drink.
00:11:35Oh, the urge. She'd feel the urge. Okay. I've just not heard it referred to as an affliction. Maybe
00:11:40that's a lingo. Okay. So your mother would drink a couple of times a week, a couple of
00:11:48bottles of wine?
00:11:49Yeah, that sounds about right.
00:11:50So how on earth is that not a clear alcoholic? Again, I'm no expert, but if she's drinking,
00:11:56I don't know, five, six, seven or eight bottles of wine a week, how is that not a raging alcoholic?
00:12:05Because you had some like, well, maybe, I'm like, what?
00:12:12Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. All right. So my mother was a raging alcoholic and
00:12:17so am I. Well, I'm just curious as to the hesitancy, I suppose. And it's not a criticism,
00:12:27I'm just genuinely curious. Like, I thought you said, well, she'd have a couple of drinks on the
00:12:33weekend, maybe one or two during the week, or, you know, if she was a social drinker, but it's like,
00:12:37no, no, no, five, six, seven, eight bottles of wine a week. That's like, serious alcoholic, right?
00:12:43All right.
00:12:44And is that something that's a surprise to you? Or if I ask you that question more directly,
00:12:48is it like, yeah, I guess she was? Is it that?
00:12:53No, no, not at all. I just, I feel a little bit of shame about it myself.
00:13:01You do?
00:13:02Well, because I feel like I picked it up from her. And so I feel like I've ruined my life
00:13:15because of her influence. And it's just, it's not a good situation.
00:13:21Well, that's an interesting question of causality, right? I mean, you've heard a
00:13:27million times that, you know, the twin brothers, one drinks, the other doesn't touch alcohol.
00:13:32And I say, why do you drink? Well, my father was an alcoholic. Why do you not drink? Well,
00:13:37my father was an alcoholic. I saw how bad it was, right? So having a dysfunctional family member
00:13:44does not cause dysfunction in the next generation. It can easily go the other way. Like, you know,
00:13:49both my parents have mental health problems based on mysticism and selfishness. So I try to be
00:13:54generous and rational, you know, sort of. I mean, I don't think you can go too far in the opposite
00:13:59direction. Like you can't have too few drinks. So the causality is not that your mother drank.
00:14:06It's something else.
00:14:10So where would you like me to go next?
00:14:12Well, what was your childhood like as a whole? Did you grow up with a father? How did your
00:14:17parents get along? How were you disciplined if you were? How was school? You know, that stuff.
00:14:22Sure. All right. So I was a pretty lonely kid. I struggled to make friends quite often. I had a
00:14:29few friends here and there, but.
00:14:32Sorry, are you an only child?
00:14:35No, I have a sister, a younger sister.
00:14:37How much younger?
00:14:39Three years younger.
00:14:40Three years younger. Okay. Did you play with her much or did you hang out with her much?
00:14:44Oh, yeah, but we definitely had different interests and I loved to be alone. We would
00:14:51have, we would play sometimes and then we would fight and it wasn't really serious, you know,
00:14:58rough and tumble. And then she would get hurt by accident and then she would hit me and then I'd go,
00:15:04hey, and smack her back, you know.
00:15:07Sorry, so you would, you would roughhouse as kids do and she would get injured?
00:15:12Not, like, severely, just like.
00:15:13No, no, I didn't say severely. Let's not, let's not haggle over language here. I didn't say
00:15:17severely. So she would get injured and how often, roughly, would she get hurt or injured or accident?
00:15:23I mean, I get by accident and all of that, right?
00:15:26Very seldom, you know, once a few months or whatever.
00:15:32Okay. So, but, sorry, so go ahead.
00:15:35Oh, okay. So, I mostly just spent time, you know, doing, playing with Legos in my room or
00:15:42playing video games by myself, imagining, drawing, and just entertaining myself. When I was going
00:15:51into elementary school and junior high.
00:15:54Sorry, sorry, sorry, just interrupt. I'm trying to sort of figure this out. So, your mother,
00:15:59sorry, first of all, your mother was a teacher, right?
00:16:02I'm trying to sort of figure this out. So, your mother, sorry if I missed this,
00:16:05your mother and your father were together, right?
00:16:09Oh, yes, up until I was about 14 or 15.
00:16:13Okay. So, you've got two parents home, I mean, in the evenings and on weekends, right?
00:16:18Was your mother a stay-at-home mother?
00:16:21She was, yes.
00:16:21Okay. So, you have two parents home and one home full-time, I mean, even before school,
00:16:30after school and so on. So, why would you spend all this time alone? And it's not a criticism,
00:16:37I'm just curious why you would spend all this time alone. I mean, my daughter, you know,
00:16:44I've been a stay-at-home dad for like close on 16 years and my daughter wakes up and
00:16:51we plan what we're going to do with our day, right? Because we enjoy each other's company.
00:16:54So, did you not seek out your mother's company? Did you not enjoy her company? Did she not play
00:16:59with you or take you to parks or board games or, you know, imagination games or
00:17:05why was the solitude so pervasive?
00:17:11The first thing I think of is I was very severely bullied in school when I was younger. I was a
00:17:17small sort of nerdy looking kid. And so, I would seek out the solitude of my room where I could
00:17:24just engage in my fantasies and play with my imagination.
00:17:28Yeah, that's okay. Sorry to be annoying. None of this is causal. None of this is causal. So,
00:17:33small nerdy kids are not inevitably bullied. You weren't bullied for being small and nerdy looking.
00:17:41Okay.
00:17:42Do you know why kids are bullied?
00:17:46I suppose not.
00:17:48Okay. I mean, I know tons of small and nerdy kids and weren't bullied or anything like that. So,
00:17:53the reason that kids are bullied is because they lack protection and connection with their
00:17:57parents. They're separated from the herd. They're isolated. They're without protection. They don't
00:18:01have older brothers. They don't have fathers. They don't have a close... I mean, they don't
00:18:06have close connection with their fathers. Bullying is the target of the weak and the isolated who
00:18:14can't fight back because they don't... I mean, no kids can fight back really, but you don't have
00:18:19parental protection and that's why you're bullied. It's your parents' fault.
00:18:25Okay. Well, I was not particularly close with my mother growing up. She did feel very, very absent.
00:18:35We would still do movie nights on Friday and Christmas was typical, but I didn't really
00:18:43see her much during the week and I don't have a whole lot of...
00:18:46What do you mean? Were you in a house or an apartment? Was it a mansion? Was she in the
00:18:50West Wing? What do you mean you didn't see her? You're in the same house.
00:18:54Yeah. So, my dad made a lot of money in the oil field. He was able to buy a big house and
00:19:02she spent a lot of time out of my view. I had my own room.
00:19:08She just didn't feel like she was there.
00:19:11So, she's kind of a thief and a con artist then?
00:19:17To be blunt. No, and I'll tell you why. So, your dad's making good money, right?
00:19:24And your mother is a stay-at-home mother, right?
00:19:28That's right.
00:19:28Except she's not doing her goddamn job.
00:19:32She's not parenting. She's not engaged. So, she's taking money for a job
00:19:36she's not really doing, which is why it's kind of a con artist and a thief.
00:19:39Oh, man. No one's ever put it to me like that before.
00:19:43Hey, listen. Tell me I'm wrong. A stay-at-home mother is supposed to stay home and what's she's
00:19:50supposed to do? Run the household and raise the kids, which means you're paid $100, $150,
00:19:56whatever it is, $1,000 a year. You take your portion of that. You've got a big-ass house.
00:20:01You don't have to work and you have one job, fundamentally, which is to take care of your
00:20:09which is the mother part of the stay-at-home mother, to actually mother,
00:20:12to actually parent your children. So, she took the money. She just didn't do the job.
00:20:18That sounds about right.
00:20:20All right. So, that's pretty catastrophic. And your father paid her
00:20:27and didn't find out whether she was doing the job.
00:20:31Hmm.
00:20:35I mean, if your father took $150,000 to work on an oil rig for a year
00:20:41and just never showed up and cashed the checks anyway, he'd go to jail.
00:20:48Yeah, that's right.
00:20:50And raising children is a little bit more important than sucking dinosaur juice out of the ground.
00:20:56Yeah.
00:21:02Well, it doesn't-
00:21:03I'm sorry. I found this outrageous that a woman, I mean, anybody,
00:21:09would take, let's see. So, she had the job of raising you for 20 years, right? So, let's say
00:21:16she got $100,000 a year to raise you for 20 years, right? So, that's $2 million,
00:21:25which you invested it and all of that probably would go to $4 to $6 million. So, let's just say
00:21:30so she got paid $5 million for a job she didn't really do.
00:21:37Because her job was to protect you from bullying, to make sure you were close,
00:21:41to keep tabs on you, to engage with you, to give you good advice, to raise you,
00:21:46to parent you, not just be a parasitical roommate.
00:21:54Yeah.
00:21:54Again, if I'm being unfair and unjust, absolutely correct me.
00:21:58No, no, that's a fair assessment.
00:22:02I mean, if I'd stole $5 million, they'd lock me up until the moon turned to cheese.
00:22:08Well, as long as we're talking about that, can I tell you about my father as well?
00:22:13Yeah.
00:22:15All right. So, this guy, when I was growing up, I have a much stronger recollection of
00:22:22what he was like. And I didn't-
00:22:25Oh, even though he was gone a lot, right?
00:22:28Yes. And there's a good reason for that.
00:22:31Because he was kind of a rage monster when he finally got home.
00:22:36So, I did not have very strong communication with him.
00:22:40Most of it was just a matter of me trying to avoid him because I-
00:22:45He didn't hit me or anything. There was no physical abuse at all.
00:22:50But he scared me in the sense that I went to my little imagination land in my room,
00:22:57and he would do things like barge in and go,
00:23:01you should stop doing that. Go outside and play and take away all my stuff, my video games,
00:23:07my toys, and kick me out of the house and tell me not to come back until there were bats
00:23:11or something like that.
00:23:13And so, how old were you when this started?
00:23:18I don't remember a time before I reached adulthood where that wasn't the case.
00:23:23Okay. So, if your earliest memory starts sort of two, three, four,
00:23:27so he would kick you out at the age of four to roam the neighborhood and not come home?
00:23:35Essentially, yeah.
00:23:37Sorry, I'm not sure what essentially means.
00:23:39Oh, yes. Yes.
00:23:43Okay. Sorry. I just- The hedging terms, I always want to make sure that I am precise.
00:23:48So, from four years old or maybe younger, maybe a little older,
00:23:53you were kicked out of the house with no toys, no money, no friends,
00:23:58just go wander the neighborhood and don't be inside?
00:24:02That's right.
00:24:03And your sister, too? When you were older?
00:24:07My sister, too. Yes. I think she might have had things a little bit more leniently than I had
00:24:15them. It seemed to me when I was growing up that she was allowed to stay in and play with her doll
00:24:20house or whatever while I was forced to go out and try and make friends with the neighbor kids.
00:24:27And did your father
00:24:30take you outside, play ball, parks, running games, whatever, climb trees,
00:24:35like whatever you'd be doing outside? Did your father bring you outside and
00:24:44did he play with you outside ever or much?
00:24:47It wasn't that he played with me. So, I was made to play hockey ever since I was five years old,
00:24:55and that was his way of playing with me. He was usually my hockey team coach.
00:25:01And so, I was never really into hockey all that much. I enjoy team sport as much as the next kid,
00:25:11but I didn't enjoy actually playing hockey because it involved a lot of going to hockey practice,
00:25:19going to arenas, and putting on the stuff and engaging with the other kids on the team in
00:25:26the locker room. And a lot of them were not exactly my kind of... They weren't people that
00:25:33I would wish to hang out with on my own time. Some hockey kids are a little psycho.
00:25:41Oh, yes.
00:25:42I mean, there's a huge level of aggression, lack of empathy, and they're not exactly sensitive or
00:25:48thoughtful. I mean, they're sort of brute robots of skating and bashing, which, I mean, that's the
00:25:55sport, right? It's a pretty aggressive sport. It can be violent. And they're still probably
00:26:01better than the boxing kids, but not exactly the theater kids, right?
00:26:07Absolutely.
00:26:09And they're resolutely anti-intellectual. I mean, a good friend of mine was a hockey kid,
00:26:13and I hung around some of those kids. And yeah, not my type of kids either,
00:26:18but I suppose if you have a war to fight, they're pretty good. And that's probably what it's kind of
00:26:22for. So, okay. So, your dad... And you didn't really have a choice with this, right? It's just
00:26:28hockey or get yelled at?
00:26:32Basically, yes. Very much so, yes.
00:26:36Okay. And so, were you disciplined in any way that was consistent or
00:26:43memorable in terms of when you did stuff your parents didn't like?
00:26:49So, there was one time where my father spanked me, but his heart wasn't in it,
00:26:55in the sense that I could tell even as a six or seven-year-old child that he was
00:27:01trying specifically not to hurt me. And so, when he finished with two or three pats on the bum,
00:27:07I just sort of pulled up my pants and ran away. I was like,
00:27:10oh, I guess that's over with now. Back to my regularly scheduled imagination land.
00:27:16But aside from that, it was mostly just fear of anger and being yelled at.
00:27:24And when he yelled at you, did he call you names?
00:27:27No, I think... I'm sorry. He would imply that I was...
00:27:37What would you say? Being a bratty child. I don't remember anything specific, if that's
00:27:46what you mean. But the feeling I would come away from the yelling match was that I was
00:27:55being a bad son who was a disappointment to him.
00:27:59So, did he have this half-ape-like, manly standard of manliness,
00:28:04and any time you deviated from that and you're a sissy, you're weak, you're
00:28:09disappointing, you're not a real son, you're not a real boy, you're not a real man,
00:28:13was it that kind of stuff?
00:28:15Yes.
00:28:16Okay. All right. Again, not wildly unknown among... I've done my stint among
00:28:22heavy manual laborers, and I'm not saying he was unskilled. Obviously,
00:28:25working on an oil rig is quite skilled. But I know the type, and they have no inner voice,
00:28:32they have no observing ego, and they just act fairly impulsively, and they don't have
00:28:38any particular standards by which they control, focus, or restrain their behavior.
00:28:44Yeah, that sounds extremely accurate.
00:28:47Okay. And how did your parents get along?
00:28:53Um, they didn't. They would fight quite often, sometimes loudly. They wouldn't hit each other,
00:28:59no physical abuse, except for this one moment where something very strange happened that will
00:29:06always be lodged in my memory, where they started yelling, started screaming. And so,
00:29:11my sister and I went up to our respective bedrooms. We heard this very loud gong sound,
00:29:18and we found out the next day, when we were preparing to go for school, that my dad had
00:29:23thrown a knife across the kitchen into a giant popcorn bowl and left a big hole in it because
00:29:29he had struck his target. And it scared my mom pretty bad. We were all terrified for a long time
00:29:38after that. But it was mostly just yelling. That is the big moment that struck us.
00:29:44And what did they fight about?
00:29:48I don't know. I honestly don't know.
00:29:50Well, you must have heard some of the language.
00:29:55If I did, I must have been specifically trying not to hear it. Like, I'm talking,
00:30:02going up into my room, then into my closet, then putting both hands over my ears and trying
00:30:07very hard not to listen.
00:30:09Right. Yeah, I was just saying to somebody the other day that
00:30:11one of the most frightening things for children is the perception that the parents are out of control.
00:30:18Right.
00:30:19Because then you can't be protected and so on, right?
00:30:22Now, what age did you start getting bullied?
00:30:28Pretty early on. I think at about the age of seven, six or seven, something like that.
00:30:36And did your parents know?
00:30:40No, I didn't tell them. And what is most telling to me about this is when I finally did tell them,
00:30:46I was already in junior high, and I admitted it over the dinner table and just very sheepishly,
00:30:53like, well, this is what's happening to me now. And this is what I'm still continuing into junior
00:30:59high, right? Yeah, it happened for a long time.
00:31:03Okay. And how did the bullying manifest?
00:31:08There were a lot of fights, physical fights, a lot of...
00:31:12A lot of physical fights is very obtuse. I mean, did you get attacked? Did you fight?
00:31:18Did you fight back? I mean, none of this is good or bad. I'm just curious.
00:31:22Oh, sure, sure. So, I would never start a fight myself, but people would attack me. And
00:31:32it took me several years before I got to the point where I started fighting back.
00:31:38And then my philosophy regarding having physical fights with people was,
00:31:44if you're going to be in a physical fight, just put the fucker down,
00:31:47hit him in the goddamn face and end it. And so, it was how I was resolving my fights
00:31:53from about the time that I was 10 onwards. And when did the bullying fade out?
00:32:00It faded out at the end of junior high, so I must have been 14 or so.
00:32:06And then, well, I started to go through... Well, I was in puberty, but I started to
00:32:12really develop my looks and my body started filling out. I started getting stronger looking.
00:32:19And then I was never bullied again after that point.
00:32:22So, was it from kindergarten or primary school onwards until the age of 14?
00:32:29That's about right, yes. That's correct.
00:32:31So, it's almost a decade.
00:32:34Yeah.
00:32:34My God, man, that's just appalling. I'm so sorry. To me, it's incomprehensible
00:32:45what these parents are doing or not doing.
00:32:49So, do you feel that your parents are somewhat off the hook because you didn't tell them?
00:32:53No. I... It's... Okay. I didn't tell them because I didn't want to...
00:33:07Well, I didn't feel close with them, for one. And for two, I didn't want to engage with my
00:33:13father's anger and feeling like I was this tiny little sissy boy who wouldn't fight back.
00:33:18Right.
00:33:20Because I'm supposed to be a hockey player, right? I'm supposed to be an athlete.
00:33:24Yeah. But if you were smaller, I mean, it's not like you were bullied for your size,
00:33:28but given that you were disconnected from your parents, the size is a factor in terms of just,
00:33:33can you win? Can you be easily picked on? Because, you know, I mean,
00:33:36size variation among boys is huge.
00:33:40Yeah. Well, I was smaller as a kid. I'm now... I think I'm above average in terms of
00:33:48height and I'm way above average in terms of fitness and strength, I think.
00:33:55I think. Well, no, but I'm not sure why we're talking about you now.
00:33:59We're talking about when you were five or 10 or 12.
00:34:03Okay. I was pretty small.
00:34:05Okay. So, let me... I mean, you're not a father, right?
00:34:13Not yet.
00:34:14Okay. Wait, is it coming? Is your wife pregnant?
00:34:17She's not pregnant, but we've stopped trying not to have children. So, we're just sort of
00:34:22playing fast and loose. And if she ends up pregnant, then happy accident.
00:34:27Right. But, sorry, are you missing the source of income at the moment?
00:34:34No, I actually do have a job and she works as well.
00:34:38Okay. Got it. Okay. Sorry. I just wanted to check on that. Okay. So, when you become a father,
00:34:44you and your child kind of share a nervous system, like you're kind of one.
00:34:52You know, your child stubs their toe and you wince, right? And if your child is unhappy,
00:34:56you feel it immediately.
00:35:00Yep.
00:35:00So, just to be clear, your parents
00:35:07had the absolute responsibility to know that you were bullied. It was their job. It wasn't your
00:35:16job to tell them. It was their job to know. So, if you say to parents as a whole,
00:35:24is bullying a problem in school? What would they say?
00:35:29Yes.
00:35:29Yes. So, they would say, yes, bullying is a problem in school. It is a risk factor.
00:35:36You know, it's sort of like saying to parents of teenagers, hey,
00:35:40do you think peer pressure is at all an issue? And it's like, well, yeah, of course,
00:35:44peer pressure is an issue and you need to keep your eye on it and so on, right? Are drugs in
00:35:50school? Yes, they are, right? So, do kids drink? And yeah, of course, sometimes they do. And so,
00:35:55this is a sort of natural and normal risk of childhood.
00:36:02Now, for your parents, they'd say, oh, okay, is your kid a little shy? Yes, he is. Is your
00:36:07kid kind of smaller than average? Yes, he is, right? So, could he be at risk for bullying?
00:36:12Yes, of course, right? I mean, that's not even complicated parenting.
00:36:24That's very true.
00:36:25So, it was their absolute job and responsibility to make sure you weren't getting the living
00:36:33shit kicked out of you, bullied, frightened, harassed, chased, haunted, living in anxiety,
00:36:39looking over your shoulder, hiding in the bathroom, all the shit that happens to kids
00:36:42who are bullied. It was their absolute job and responsibility and a completely fucking obvious
00:36:47one to make sure you weren't bullied. And they failed. So, in doing that, they were colluding
00:37:00with the bullies. In other words, the bullies instinctively absolutely knew this about your
00:37:09parents and that's why you were bullied. That's why I say like a lack of connection and protection.
00:37:15So, by not asking you if you were bullied, and the other thing too, like again, when you become
00:37:18a father, you'll… I hate to be this like play the father card, but when you become a father,
00:37:22you'll genuinely understand that your kid's moods are completely obvious to you.
00:37:29You know, like kids, they think they're hiding stuff, you know, like they try and put on a
00:37:32brave face or like your kid's moods are completely so obvious. So, what that means is that, you know,
00:37:38there was a day before you started being bullied and then there was the time after
00:37:42you started being bullied and your parents absolutely knew the difference.
00:37:52Yeah.
00:37:52Right. Like if you have a girlfriend and then she goes to some party and she gets assaulted,
00:38:00right? Let's just say she gets punched in the stomach or, you know, it's not like black eyes
00:38:05and stuff like she gets punched in the stomach or, you know, some wound that she can cover up
00:38:10or something like that, and if you went for her for brunch the next day,
00:38:16do you think you'd notice a change in her mood?
00:38:19Oh, big time.
00:38:20Of course you would, right? So, you had before bullying and after bullying and your mood would
00:38:26have changed enormously.
00:38:29Yeah.
00:38:30So, your parents saw that and did nothing.
00:38:35Correct.
00:38:36Your parents can say, we had no idea that our child was being bullied. That's what they always
00:38:43say, right? If it comes up, right? Oh, gosh, why didn't you tell us? It's your fault. You
00:38:48should have told us and it's like, but if I had been able to tell you, I wouldn't have been bullied.
00:38:55Yeah.
00:38:55Because your dad's a tough guy, right? And as a tough guy, he'd want to protect his
00:39:01small son, right? Because he's a tough guy.
00:39:04Yeah.
00:39:05Except he didn't. He chickened out. Or he liked it.
00:39:13Or he's not a tough guy.
00:39:15Yeah, I mean, you know, people who consider themselves tough guys because they scream at
00:39:19little kids, that's really just about the most, I mean, that's like some guy saying, I'm a fantastic
00:39:26boxer because I can beat up a girl guy. Like, that's just sad. That's just pathetic.
00:39:32Sorry.
00:39:34The way you worded that was funny. But no, it is pathetic.
00:39:39So what did they say when you finally told them you'd been bullied for like a decade almost?
00:39:44So it is kind of a poem in the story of our family as to when I finally confessed to them
00:39:52that I was being bullied and how it made me feel. My parents, they went down to my school the next
00:39:59day and spoke with the, I don't know what you call them, the principal, superintendent.
00:40:05And sorry, how old were you at this point?
00:40:07I believe I was around 12.
00:40:11Oh, so this is like two years before the bullying ended.
00:40:15That's right. Yes.
00:40:16Okay. So your parents go down to the school and what did they say? That's what they did the next
00:40:21day. But what did they say when you said, hey, I've been bullied for like seven or eight years?
00:40:26Oh, oh, this is really going to raise your hackles.
00:40:30It's not my hackles who need to be raised, brother.
00:40:33Well, my mom all but climbed onto the desk, pointed at the principal and said...
00:40:41No, no. That's the next day. When you said, mom, dad, I've been bullied for seven or eight years,
00:40:47you said you said that like dinner or something?
00:40:50That's right. Yes.
00:40:51Okay. So what did they do and say when you told them this?
00:40:58Oh, okay. So my dad became very quiet. My mom said, I can't believe this is happening to you.
00:41:07And then my dad said, you should just punch him in the face. That was his advice.
00:41:17Right. Yeah. So Mr. Tough Guy is putting the protection of his child on his 12-year-old
00:41:24child who's prepubescent, who's facing damn bullies probably a third larger than he is.
00:41:31Yes. Okay. Okay. So that's terrible.
00:41:36And did he offer to teach you how to box or how to punch or did he take you to
00:41:40martial arts or did he teach you something about self-defense or?
00:41:44He did actually. He took me to martial arts and I learned karate.
00:41:49And when did that happen?
00:41:52Pretty much at the exact same time. He was very immediate about enrolling me after that.
00:41:59Okay. So the first thing out of your mother's mouth, which is quite telling when you tell her
00:42:03you've been traumatized and bullied for seven or eight years, the first word out of your mother's
00:42:09mouth is what?
00:42:15Oh my God, that sucks.
00:42:17No, no, that's not what you told me. Do you remember what you said your mother said?
00:42:26Oh my God.
00:42:28No, she said, I can't believe this happened to you. So the first word out of her mouth that
00:42:34you remember is I. So you've been traumatized and it's their failure, their absolute failure.
00:42:45They could have homeschooled you. Your mom was home. They could have taken you to a different
00:42:50school. They could have asked you how school was going. They could have figured out that
00:42:54you were in a sad mood or a bad mood. So after your mother realizes that she has overseen your
00:43:01trauma, you're being traumatized. She's like the first thing out, I.
00:43:07Me, I, me, me, I, I, me, me, I can't believe this happening. I. Right?
00:43:15Do your parents ever apologize for their failure in protecting you?
00:43:21I think they felt pretty proud about how they defended me afterwards, if you can call it that.
00:43:27Okay. So sorry, let's get to your, what was it? Your dad leaning over the principal's table or
00:43:31what? Right. So the next day, both my parents went down as a couple to the principal's office
00:43:38and my, oh my God, I'm sorry. I need to move my cats out of the room here. They're rustling.
00:43:46Even they sense the tension.
00:43:48Behave. All right. So, so my parents went down to the school together and it was during the day.
00:43:57So I'm sure my dad took some time off of work. My, my mom went down there and they're both in
00:44:04the principal's office together. And the story that I have been told is that my mother became
00:44:09extremely angry with the principal and said, you know, this is happening. You've always known this
00:44:15is happening. It's your fault that this is happening and you need to do something about it.
00:44:21Okay. So she blamed the principal.
00:44:24That's right.
00:44:25Right. Which is, I mean, obviously the principal is, is causal in this, but
00:44:31I mean, it's really the parent's job to protect their children.
00:44:35I'm struggling not to laugh at myself, but I'm just going to say, my God, are you ever right?
00:44:45Yeah. I mean, if, if some parent takes their five-year-old swimming
00:44:49and the five-year-old half drowns, does she get to scream at the lifeguard? I mean, that's
00:44:54ridiculous. I mean, is it the lifeguard's job to help out? Absolutely. But the lifeguard can't
00:45:01substitute for the parent. I mean, if they go, go swim for a five-year-old kid, there's a lifeguard
00:45:09and then the lifeguard is distracted or helping someone else or whatever. And your kid half
00:45:13drowns and then you scream at the lifeguard. It's like, well, shouldn't you be in the water with
00:45:17your kid? I mean, that's, that's ridiculous. I mean, it's, I can't even tell you how ridiculous
00:45:24this all is and how pathetic.
00:45:26Yeah. I know. I know. The only reason I found any thallus was just by fighting back as hard as I
00:45:34could, you know, just out crazy the bully kids. That seemed to work extraordinarily well.
00:45:43Sure.
00:45:45I instilled a lot of fear in my bullies by just unexpectedly whamming them in the face in public
00:45:54in front of authority figures like the teachers or the bus driver, whatever. And then they stopped.
00:46:00And that was the only thing that worked.
00:46:03Yeah. I mean, what would have worked is for you to have a close relationship
00:46:06with your parents and for them to actually protect you. That would have worked.
00:46:10But in the absence of that, after you hit puberty, you can start belting the kids, right?
00:46:16Yeah.
00:46:17Okay. Now what is your relationship to not doing that when you were younger?
00:46:24Like, do you feel bad about that? Are you okay with that? Like in terms of not fighting back?
00:46:31I'm not proud of it at all. I do feel some, some shame, but I don't feel like it's particularly
00:46:39my shame. I do place some blame on my parents. Up until, well, up until this conversation,
00:46:48I've never really blamed them all that much for that, for failing to protect me, I mean.
00:46:53Okay. I mean, in my view, you were entirely wise to not fight back until later.
00:47:01Okay.
00:47:02Entirely wise. So, I mean, I wasn't really bullied much as a kid. There was one guy who
00:47:08was sort of hunting me through the halls of my junior high school because his brother said that
00:47:14I'd hit him, which I hadn't, but it was just causing trouble, right? Well, this kid was 17
00:47:19and I was 12. And he had, I still remember his name now, like decades later. And this guy had
00:47:26this, this, I mean, he was almost an adult, right? He had those cold psycho eyes where you just know
00:47:32there's, there's like nothing going on back there that would ever cause him to halt or question his
00:47:37behavior. I've seen those. Yeah, you've seen those eyes, right? Now, I avoided him and then
00:47:45eventually it just kind of faded away. Now, why did I avoid him? Because he could have killed me.
00:47:53Now, I don't mean that he would have purposefully tried to kill me,
00:47:58but, you know, you reach to hit some kid, the kid jerks away, maybe they fall down the stairs,
00:48:04maybe you break your neck, maybe you're just dead, or maybe you break your arm, or maybe there's
00:48:08some permanent injury, or, you know, he hits you and then a bone fragment goes into your brain,
00:48:14or your nose cartilage goes into your frontal cortex. I mean, violence is really, really a
00:48:20dice roll. It's Russian roulette every time, right? And, and maybe some psycho thing just
00:48:26takes over, like Fight Club style. Where did you go, psycho boy? Right? So maybe just some
00:48:30psycho thing happens because, you know, the kid obviously was severely damaged and abused as a
00:48:34child, and maybe that all comes out. Right? Maybe he's like genetically or just weird as a whole,
00:48:44and it's like, he views me as superior, and then there's this destruction of the superior that's
00:48:50common to this kind of stuff, right? And so, you know, like the people who aren't smart will
00:48:57sometimes attack the people who are smart. The people, like, if you ever saw the movie Raging
00:49:01Bull, right? The boxer's girlfriend is attracted to this handsome boxer, and then her boyfriend
00:49:07destroys his face. It's like, well, he ain't so pretty now, is he? Right? The sort of attack upon
00:49:11that which is perceived as better. And so, you don't know what kind of psycho stuff
00:49:16is going to go on. Or maybe you take out this bully, somehow, right? I don't know,
00:49:24you hit him on the side of the head with the edge of a metal tray or whatever it is you do, right?
00:49:28Okay, and maybe he's beaten, and then he goes to hospital. And then what happens? Well,
00:49:34everybody makes fun of him because he got his ass beat by a 12-year-old.
00:49:40And then what's the only way he can retain his status or regain his status?
00:49:48Beating up a 12-year-old? Well, he's gonna have to do something, right?
00:49:52And so, then you've got a kid in school, well, actually, I mean, an older kid, in my case,
00:49:57sort of a virtual adult, you've got an older kid in school who is tortured until he takes you apart.
00:50:06Because everybody jeers at him, women jeer at him, his friends jeer at him, he gets known as
00:50:11the guy who got beaten up by the 12-year-old, and he is crushed and humiliated and extremely dangerous.
00:50:17So, do you mind if I tell you a little story about my encounter with a psychopathic,
00:50:23potentially murderous bully? Sure.
00:50:26All right. So, this was about at the tail end of when I finally had had enough. I was in the gym
00:50:35locker room, I think I was 14 at the time, and we had this kid who everybody knew he was kind of a
00:50:42nutcase. Anyway, so, I was laughing at him, not making fun of him or anything, just like he was
00:50:54trying to show off his macho bravado as a 14-year-old kid, and I was just laughing openly.
00:51:02Sorry, you were laughing at him?
00:51:04Yes, yes. I was laughing at his weirdo, childish attempt to prove to everyone that he was a real
00:51:13scary boy. Right. So, he was reminding you of your dad, and you were angry.
00:51:18I was very angry. Yeah, got it. So, I mean, the laughing is like provocative, right? It's jeering.
00:51:25That's right, yeah. I was almost wanting a confrontation. So, then he comes over,
00:51:30so then he comes over, he's much bigger than me, slams me into the lockers, pushes me onto the
00:51:36ground, and starts choking me. And when I say choking, I don't mean like holding his hands
00:51:41around my neck. I mean, he's actually pushing his thumbs into my trachea. Yeah, you can't breathe,
00:51:45and your trachea can get damaged, and your hyoid can get cracked, and like really bad stuff can
00:51:49happen, right? Okay. Yeah. In that moment, I did not fight back. What I did was I laughed at him
00:51:59until I couldn't laugh anymore because there was no air going into my lungs.
00:52:03Right. There was nothing coming through, and I just smiled and smiled.
00:52:07I'm sorry, you just what? Oh, I was just smiling because I
00:52:13was trying to prove to him that I wasn't scared of him.
00:52:17Okay, so that's a bit of a death wish though, right?
00:52:20Oh, absolutely. Yeah, okay. I'm sure you're aware of it. I just wanted to double-check this.
00:52:25I would die rather than surrender because you, I mean, were you scared?
00:52:33It's strange to remember. I remember being scared of being hurt, but I wasn't scared of him.
00:52:42Well, I suppose if he killed me, I wasn't scared in that moment.
00:52:46So you weren't scared of death in that moment?
00:52:49That's correct.
00:52:49And what mattered was to not show any fear.
00:52:54That's exactly correct. Thank you.
00:52:56Which is kind of a death wish because he's choking you until he sees fear, which is a
00:53:01dominance thing from him and a submission thing from you. So withholding that would be courting
00:53:08being murdered.
00:53:10Yes. Okay. Okay. Just as long as we're aware. And your age at this time?
00:53:1614.
00:53:1614. Okay. Got it.
00:53:20Yeah. And so your life at this point did not seem to be much worth living.
00:53:26Yes. This is when my first inklings of suicidal ideation started to occur.
00:53:35And he probably caught a whiff of that anyway.
00:53:37Right.
00:53:38Right. So, I mean, so submission is, I mean, submission to a greater force where there's
00:53:47no benefit. And in fact, the danger increases if you fight back. Submission is perfectly
00:53:54rational and wise.
00:53:58Okay.
00:53:59It is a survival mechanism. I mean, if the deer has a
00:54:05has a giant tiger jumping at it, do you tell the deer,
00:54:09hey, you've got some teeth, you got some hooves, you can turn and fight.
00:54:16So my thinking at the time was, well, I've had enough of this shit of being bullied by
00:54:22people, of everyone in my life not caring about me. I'm just going to laugh at these
00:54:28people until they kill me.
00:54:29Right. No, I get it. Yeah.
00:54:35And then after that point, he let me go. I'm assuming because he was scared of what might
00:54:42happen to him if he actually did hurt me. But I just stood up, went back to my locker,
00:54:49continued laughing, and went about my day as if nothing happened.
00:54:53Of course, internally, I'm screaming, and I just realized the true violence of
00:54:59what can be visited upon me if I don't submit. If that makes sense.
00:55:04Right. But you were also telegraphing that you were transmitting or transmuting yourself,
00:55:09I guess, transmogrifying yourself into a kind of psycho boy yourself.
00:55:13Because after you laugh at a guy, he almost chokes you to death,
00:55:17and then you continue laughing at him and pretend like nothing happened.
00:55:21You are signaling to the crowd that you are now transforming into a kind of psycho boy,
00:55:26if that makes sense.
00:55:29Yeah. And I'm not trying to make this story seem to be like,
00:55:33and then everyone stood up and clapped or something like that.
00:55:36But I could tell that everyone was very scared of me from that point on.
00:55:40Well, I mean, but that's why. Because the story would have gone around like,
00:55:44your name, oh man, he was choked out, he was turning blue, he almost died,
00:55:49and he got up and laughed at the kid and went about his day like nothing happened.
00:55:53And so now, people are, of course, yeah, people are scared of you. That makes perfect sense.
00:56:00And that's what I wanted.
00:56:02Right.
00:56:03And I got my wit.
00:56:05And so,
00:56:06Well, no, no, you didn't get your wish.
00:56:09Okay.
00:56:11Your wish, like all children, was to be cared for, to be loved, to be treasured, to be played with,
00:56:17and for your family, and in particular, your parents, to really enjoy your company,
00:56:22so that you don't feel like a weirdo, freak, Cylon, violent robot.
00:56:26Sorry, that was brilliant wordplay. I love that. That's beautiful.
00:56:33You're entirely right, though. My God.
00:56:36I mean, you made the best of an absolutely shitty situation,
00:56:39and you scared everyone away, which did not exactly help with your isolation.
00:56:46And it also would mean that only girls who had probably some sociopathic
00:56:52tendencies themselves would be drawn to you, because you put out psycho mating signals, right?
00:56:59Right.
00:57:00So, what happened with dating?
00:57:02Oh, boy. Well, once I hit puberty, and I was able to start dating,
00:57:12I found myself to be very successful with girls. So, I've never had an issue
00:57:17attracting girls, having girls interested in me, but I always had this romantic bone in my body,
00:57:23where I just wanted to find my one woman and be with her forever, which was extremely bad,
00:57:31because I encountered a BPD woman when I was 19, and she took advantage of that hardcore.
00:57:40All right. So, hang on. We've accelerated like five years here real quick. So,
00:57:44so you say that you're very successful with women, right?
00:57:49That's right.
00:57:49Okay. I would question that. That doesn't mean I'm right. Obviously,
00:57:53we're just talking for the first time. But to me, successful with women doesn't mean
00:57:59getting dates, and it doesn't mean getting laid, and it doesn't mean having girlfriends.
00:58:04Success with women is success with quality women, with moral women, with caring women,
00:58:09with thoughtful women, with women with the capacity to pair bond and love and be great
00:58:12mothers, right? And after your, you know, I'm a psycho mating display, and again,
00:58:19how that would have raced around the school and carved into the annals of school history or
00:58:23whatever, quality women would have been like, oh, God, I can't. I mean, I guess he's a good
00:58:29looking guy, but damn, I'm not. I mean, he'd be a crazy dad and a dangerous guy to have children
00:58:35with or to date. So, the quality women, right, the women of character and of morals and of virtue,
00:58:43and with caring fathers in particular, right? Because, you know, I guarantee you,
00:58:50these conversations happened where, because you were a good looking young man or a good looking
00:58:55boy, they would have been like, yeah, he's cute, man. And yeah, he got almost choked out and
00:59:01laughed at the guy who was choking him out. And what would the dads have said?
00:59:04Um, that kid's nuts and don't talk to him.
00:59:10Yeah, like, this is a seriously disturbed kid. And listen, I mean, as a father, right, I mean,
00:59:18to a daughter, I mean, you would say, listen, I'm real sorry that that kid's going through this,
00:59:25like whatever has happened in his life that he's like this is really sad and really tragic,
00:59:29but you can't have anything to do with him.
00:59:34I would just stress that. Okay, so I did jump ahead a little bit.
00:59:42In between the moment when that happened, and I started getting old enough to date,
00:59:47you know, after high school and everything. I did. I moved into the position of,
00:59:55well, I was starting to go through puberty. I was getting really good at hockey. I was
01:00:01a good fighter with karate and everything.
01:00:05You bet you were good. You were joining the dark side, right?
01:00:10I see. That's the thing is like, I really tried to hone my idea of what it meant to use violence,
01:00:17and it was always in self-defense. And I never did anything like that again.
01:00:22Like when I think about that moment of the bully choking me,
01:00:26it scares me even now, thinking that I have that within me. I acknowledge it.
01:00:32But I always, I only, how do I put this?
01:00:37I would only ever use violence to defend myself and the people I care about.
01:00:43But I would never start a fight. It was, and I just, I encountered too many fights.
01:00:48Okay, this is all a bunch of words, but you ended up dating a bipolar girl.
01:00:52That's the dark side. So you could tell me all you want about your theories,
01:00:56but the evidence is you were on the dark side.
01:01:00Bipolar is about as dark as it, sorry, was it, it was a borderline or bipolar?
01:01:05It's borderline.
01:01:06Okay. So borderline is about as dark as it gets, right? I mean, it's one of the worst,
01:01:11I mean, we're probably just using this term in an amateur sense, right? Because we're not,
01:01:14we're not clinicians and I don't know if she was ever diagnosed or whatever.
01:01:18But I mean, that's, that's about as bad as things get, right?
01:01:23Yeah.
01:01:23It's the bad, it's the worst thing I've ever experienced.
01:01:27Oh, no question. So if you are getting wrapped up in the life of a borderline,
01:01:40then you're in the, you're in the, you're in the dark side.
01:01:42I'm not saying you yourself are immoral or evil or, I'm not saying anything like that,
01:01:47but this is the dark side. This is the, this is trash planet. This is like the,
01:01:50the underbelly. This is like layers of hell. This is Dantean, right? This doesn't get worse than this.
01:01:58I couldn't agree more.
01:01:59Right. Okay. So did you get any dating advice from your parents,
01:02:04particularly as they saw that you were growing into a good looking young man?
01:02:09Let me just say this. No.
01:02:12Okay. So you had to try and figure things out yourself.
01:02:15Yes.
01:02:20And you had taken the dark side. And again, the dark side is not that you fought back,
01:02:28although that's semi-dark. Now, listen, I'm, self-defense is perfectly morally justified,
01:02:33and I have no problem with self-defense. You know, people break into your house,
01:02:37you can use whatever means, including lethal force to protect you and your family. Like,
01:02:40I have no issue with that. But the problem is that the
01:02:46bullying is evil seeking to replicate by imprinting upon children.
01:02:54So, I mean, I'm not a Christian, but we can look at sort of the general analogy
01:02:58of the demon possesses the bully and then uses the bully's body
01:03:03to torture other children so that other demons can take up residence.
01:03:07Okay.
01:03:09And the only way to avoid that happening, I mean, I hate to say it, is to keep avoiding the fights.
01:03:22Oh, I'm sorry. I try as hard as I can to avoid fighting. I never want to fight.
01:03:33No, you can always avoid fighting.
01:03:42Okay.
01:03:43No, I mean, technically you can, right? I mean, you did when you were being choked out.
01:03:52Right.
01:03:53And listen, I'm not at all criticizing anything. I'm just talking about the different paths,
01:03:59right? So, you got lured into a life of violence.
01:04:07How many fights would you get into in any given school year? And again,
01:04:10I'm not saying you started them, but how many fights would you get into?
01:04:14No, I never started fights, but I think I got into an average of about five per year.
01:04:23Right. And these would be full-on, like, bare-knuckle schoolyard or street brawls, right?
01:04:29Yeah, knockdown, drag-out, bloody noses, kids crying, everything.
01:04:35So, how many fights do you think you got, like you said, five a year, for how many years?
01:04:45Maybe the last five years of my experience being bullied.
01:04:53Okay. So, from the age of, say, 9 to 14, you got into 25 fights?
01:04:59That's about right.
01:05:02And that's after you learned karate and self-defense and so on, right?
01:05:09Yes.
01:05:09Okay. So, you know, I always hesitate because I never want people to think,
01:05:15aha, he's catching me out, or I'm trying to jump you, or like some
01:05:18prosecution lawyer. I don't mean that at all. But my understanding was, and I could have
01:05:23misunderstood completely, probably did, right? But my understanding was that you said,
01:05:27I learned how to fight back and the bullying stopped.
01:05:34That does not quite square with, it went on for five more years even after I was
01:05:37beating the crap out of kids because I knew karate and they didn't.
01:05:42Right. Yeah, I suppose. Yeah, no, you're right.
01:05:48And again, I'm not trying to catch you out. Oh, I got you at a contradiction.
01:05:50I'm just genuinely like, I don't quite square the, I can't quite square the circle.
01:05:57Um, oh, uh, I should mention some of these fights happened on the ice in the hockey rink.
01:06:03A good many.
01:06:04Okay, but that doesn't really count, does it? I mean, that's, you know, the old deal,
01:06:08the old joke, like I went to a, I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out.
01:06:13Okay. Well, if that's the case, then maybe one per year for the last five years.
01:06:18Okay. Okay. But still, it didn't stop when you fought back.
01:06:24Um, well, I stopped being dominated by people.
01:06:28I'm not, I'm not that, that's not what I said. The fighting didn't stop when you started
01:06:33punching back the, the bullying because you just kept for another, another half decade,
01:06:39which is like 35 years in the life of a child is like dog years, right?
01:06:43So for another half decade from nine to 14, you were still getting into fist fights.
01:06:49So it, the fighting back didn't stop the bully.
01:06:54That's right.
01:06:55Okay. And, and again, I'm not trying to catch you out. I just want to
01:06:58sort of understand things. Okay. So, so that's important, right?
01:07:03It's all good. Yes, absolutely.
01:07:04Sorry, you said what?
01:07:06Uh, uh, I just, I thought you said it's all good. And I, I can't quite understand what that means.
01:07:12None of this is good.
01:07:13Oh, uh, no, I was just trying to say that, uh, I don't feel like you're trying to catch me.
01:07:20Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Okay. I appreciate that.
01:07:22Yeah, you're right.
01:07:23Okay. So you got lured into a life of violence.
01:07:28Now, again, there are lots of options when it comes to being bullied, but
01:07:38you know, punching the kid didn't, didn't work, right?
01:07:40Cause everyone has this fantasy.
01:07:41Like I just beat up the bully and everyone cheers and, and it carries me down the hallway
01:07:45on their shoulders and I'm the popular kid forever and nothing bad ever happens, right?
01:07:51But when you engage with bullies,
01:07:53they tend to escalate because you're in a trapped situation.
01:08:00Yeah.
01:08:01Right. Because you have to keep going back and they have to keep going back and you can't get
01:08:05away. Like school is like a prison, although often with even more violence, right?
01:08:10So school is like a prison. If you're locked in with someone, it's a whole different matter,
01:08:14right? I mean, if you use self-defense, cause someone breaks into your house,
01:08:18you're locked in with someone else, right?
01:08:20I mean, if you use self-defense, cause someone breaks into your house and then
01:08:23he goes to hospital and then to jail, well, he's not coming back to your house.
01:08:30But when you're locked in with people week after week, year after year,
01:08:36you can't get away. You have to go back. It's messed up.
01:08:44Right.
01:08:45Yeah.
01:08:47I hated school for that exact reason.
01:08:49Sure, I understand.
01:08:50Being trapped with all these crazy-eyed motherfuckers who want to hurt me.
01:08:55Right.
01:08:56It was...
01:08:58You into a crazy-eyed MF, right? I get that.
01:09:01I get that. That's how it transmits. That's how it changes over.
01:09:06Okay. Now, your parents knew about your bullying when you were 12, is that right?
01:09:11Yes.
01:09:12And now, did they follow and track? Because at 14, you're getting choked half to death.
01:09:17So, it's hard for me to see, given that your parents are now fully and consciously aware
01:09:20of the problem of bullying, what happened? I mean, I guess your father took you to karate,
01:09:24and what else?
01:09:28Uh, we all just stopped talking about it, and I dealt with it in my own way.
01:09:33Okay. So, your parents are completely responsible then, because
01:09:36they should have known since you were five.
01:09:39They should have known since you were five, and they explicitly knew when you were 12,
01:09:45and was there a plan? Did they say,
01:09:47we're going to meet once a week with the principal until this is resolved?
01:09:50I need to find these kids' parents and go talk to them and tell them to stop bothering my son,
01:09:54or I'm going to sue their asses. Like, whatever, whatever, right? He's a tough guy, right?
01:09:57So, there was no plan, and it all just vanished, right?
01:10:04They never asked about the bullying again.
01:10:07That's right.
01:10:08Okay. All right. So, this is, like, unbelievably terrible parenting, just so you know.
01:10:15Appalling. Like, it couldn't be worse.
01:10:20Okay. Um, well, I, yeah.
01:10:24No, I need you to denormalize this, because you're trying to have a kid.
01:10:29So, you need to denormalize the living shit out of this stuff,
01:10:32so that you're not even tempted a tiny bit to replicate what your parents did.
01:10:36And the only way that we stop repeating behavior is we roundly and bottomlessly condemn it.
01:10:45I, anyway, I'm sorry, Steph. This is sort of difficult stuff for me to wade through,
01:10:55just remembering my history of violence. It doesn't bring happy memories.
01:10:59No, of course, and I sympathize with it. I really do. I sympathize. I sympathize.
01:11:06And I, so, I mean, I don't want to make it about myself. I chose a different path,
01:11:12but in part, I chose a different path because I grew up without a father, right? So, it's a
01:11:16different situation when you don't have a dad. Because you had your dad's image in your mind
01:11:23goading you to punch, and to beat, and to be violent, and to fight, right? Like,
01:11:28I didn't have any of that in my mind.
01:11:31So, your dad was kind of goading you on to fight, but your dad didn't fight.
01:11:38Your dad didn't go and confront the kid's parents, or make sure that there was a plan in place,
01:11:43or get lawyers and figure out what his legal options were.
01:11:48I mean, seriously, bro, if you'd gone home and told your dad,
01:11:51I was almost choked out in school today. I mean, how old was the kid who choked you, roughly?
01:11:57I mean, how old was the kid who choked you, roughly?
01:12:01Uh, I think about the same age.
01:12:03So, like, 14?
01:12:0514, maybe 15. He was so big that I think he might have been held back a few years.
01:12:11He wasn't exactly-
01:12:11Okay, so he could have been 16, he could have been 15. So, if your kid gets choked
01:12:18down by a much bigger kid, you contact a fucking lawyer.
01:12:22Because that's like attempted murder. That's like grievous bodily harm. That's some serious shit,
01:12:26right?
01:12:29And you don't do it just to protect your own kid, but the other kids.
01:12:34Like, if you have a lion loose in the school, somebody should make a fucking phone call.
01:12:43It's still- when I think about it, it's still weird to me that nobody said or did anything
01:12:49weird to me that nobody said or did anything about this kid.
01:12:52Right. Well, you know, I mean, society's designed to bully kids because that way
01:12:57they become compliant citizens, right? So, it's a lot of political power is based upon
01:13:02the bullying of children. So, there's not much incentive for government schools to prevent
01:13:06kids from being bullied because governments rely on kids being bullied and growing up to
01:13:10be compliant adults, right? So, yeah, it is- from a moral standpoint, it's completely weird.
01:13:17But from a sort of mechanics of power standpoint, it makes sense.
01:13:22Okay. So, tell me about Borderline Girl.
01:13:27Borderline Girl. All right. So, I'm just going to start from the beginning of
01:13:36the music stuff because that leads directly into it, if that's okay.
01:13:40Sure.
01:13:42Okay. So, my- one day, my dad brings home a guitar for me. He paid for it with a bonus
01:13:51that he got, and I immediately took to it like a duck to water.
01:13:55Playing until my fingers bled was the summer of 69. Yeah, okay. That's my singing audition
01:14:01for your guitar. I'm kidding. Go ahead.
01:14:04Oh, thank you. Well, I'll sing for you, too. No, probably not. So, this thing took over my
01:14:10brain, my soul, my entire life. I spent probably eight hours a day playing this thing.
01:14:18By the time I hit high school, I was creating bands and leading them and playing shows and
01:14:27stuff. So, by the time I was 19, I managed to get into a somewhat prolific local band
01:14:36that needed an expert guitar player, and I was the man for the job.
01:14:40They wanted me to move into their house with them, which it's like, hey, man-
01:14:45Do you have those long, God-given spider fingers like the Brian May full-on daddy long legs?
01:14:51I have giant Italian hands.
01:14:53There you go. Okay, got it. Okay, well, that helps. I unfortunately have stubby Irish hands,
01:14:57so for me, an F chord gave me a seizure. But anyway, go on.
01:15:01All right. So, I move into this band house, and a girl from my past, I want to say,
01:15:08I'm trying to remember exactly. I think I was 16 when I met her. I meet her again three years
01:15:16later. She comes to a house party with another guy on her arm. Now, as soon as she sees me-
01:15:23And sorry, how pretty is she?
01:15:25How pretty is she?
01:15:29I think most people would think of her as like a five or a six. Like, not beautiful in the face,
01:15:36but her body is incredible. I'm just going to say that.
01:15:41Okay, smoking body, nice legs, shame about the face. Got it. Okay.
01:15:46Yeah, exactly. So, as soon as she walks in the house, she remembers me, I remember her,
01:15:52she drops the guy's arm. She's doing the reverse Gene Simmons, just like I can make her drop her
01:16:00hand. Anyway, so then she just walks straight over to me, and for the next, I don't know,
01:16:05four hours of this house party, she's all about me. We're just face to face.
01:16:11Yeah, you get love-bombed.
01:16:14Yeah, love-bombing, exactly.
01:16:15And sexual presentation, heavy breathing, hair tossing, touching your arm, like sexual
01:16:20presentation.
01:16:22All that stuff, yeah.
01:16:23Okay, got it.
01:16:26And so, when I think about this memory, I think about how I've never experienced anyone paying
01:16:35that close attention to me, and giving me the kind of, what would you say? I don't know,
01:16:44validation? I've never experienced-
01:16:47You hove into view in somebody else's consciousness, and you finally start to feel real for
01:16:51yourself, right? Manifest, socially. Yeah, I get it. It's like being summoned back from the dead
01:16:58by an expert witchy necromancer with great tits. All right, go on.
01:17:03Yeah, okay. I'm just going to warn you, as I go further into this story, it's going to be harder
01:17:11and harder for me to keep my emotions straight. This is hard stuff to talk about, but this is why
01:17:20I'm here. So anyway, we start dating. She is unbelievably sexual. She wants to have sex,
01:17:35and she wants to have sex two, three, four, five times a day.
01:17:39Right, so she was sexually abused as a kid, right?
01:17:44That's, yes, yes. That's what I was told.
01:17:49I'm sorry?
01:17:52Oh, that's what she told me.
01:17:55Yeah, okay, got it. So she's completely love-bombing you, and she is making you a dopamine addict
01:18:03to sex and attention. She's reeling you in. I wouldn't say grooming, because you're an adult,
01:18:09but it's kind of like that.
01:18:12Yeah, and, oh, all right.
01:18:15You know what, dear? Take what you want, right? Take what you want, and then pay for it. Hey,
01:18:20look at that. Really great sex, four or five times a day with a smoking hot female.
01:18:26I wonder if there's going to be a price. No, there's not going to be a price to this. It's
01:18:29all free. Can't lose anything. Anyway, go on.
01:18:34Yeah, sorry. So she wants to have sex all the time. This is kind of like the entire basis of
01:18:44the relationship. She's like, ooh, hot musician boy. I want to have sex with him all the time
01:18:48and make him addicted to me. I didn't know this at the time, but now that I look back,
01:18:53that's how it felt.
01:18:54Well, I mean, you're not getting any advice, right? I mean, your idiot peers are like,
01:18:59yeah, she's hot. Good for you, man. Five times a day. Go for it, bro.
01:19:02And your parents aren't giving you any warning, and there's no village elders to
01:19:07punch you in the nuts and say, snap out of it, kid. This goes straight off a cliff.
01:19:12Yes, exactly. And I did, sorry, one thing at a time.
01:19:18I, uh, it was not easy to, uh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Uh, okay. Let's get, let's continue with
01:19:30the having lost a set. All right. So anyway, so three months go by. Everyone's very proud
01:19:37that I have this girlfriend and we're all crazy in love and everything. And she breaks up with
01:19:43me out of nowhere with very little explanation. And I am, uh, I'm relatively heartbroken because
01:19:51it's like, well, now I, I don't have access to this great source of fun anymore. And that sucks.
01:19:57Wait, hang on the bullet, like just passed right past your ear,
01:20:01like the borderline broke up with you.
01:20:06Yes.
01:20:06You got an out, you got to get out of jail, free cloud fluttering down from the infinite cleavage.
01:20:11Holy crap, bro. What happened?
01:20:15We're only starting this story stuff. I'm sorry.
01:20:20Okay. But she gave you an out. She broke up with you.
01:20:25Yes.
01:20:26Okay. And so she gave you some posts, not clarity, right?
01:20:32Yes.
01:20:32Then what happened?
01:20:34And then, uh, I spent about a week, uh, wallowing in self-pity, missing a girl who I thought I'd
01:20:41connected on a deep and psychological and emotional connection with. And, uh, I reached out to her
01:20:48and try to rekindle things and she accepted. And only after...
01:20:54Sorry, what was her story about breaking up with you? Why did she, why'd she break up with you?
01:20:58Why'd she break up with you?
01:21:01See, it's hard to even tell, like, I, I still, to this day, don't even know why we initially broke
01:21:07up or why she broke up with me.
01:21:08Oh, she just said, I don't want to date anymore and that's it, right?
01:21:12Yeah, basically.
01:21:13Okay. So it's kind of sadistic, right? To get a guy addicted and then yank it away. It's,
01:21:17you know, it's kind of cruel, right? But all right. We, we understand the borderline. Okay.
01:21:21So then what?
01:21:22All right. So then we get back together and I find out that basically what she had done
01:21:30is she became attracted to another musician guy and decided that she wanted to have sex with him
01:21:36and not feel guilty about being with me at the same time.
01:21:40Sorry, I'm trying to understand this because I've never heard this before. Are you saying
01:21:43that a groupie was unfaithful? No, like, hang on, let me just, I got to jot this shit down
01:21:50because this is like revelatory. Okay. Groupie unfaithful. No, my pen just broke. It won't
01:21:57write it. It just won't write it. It's like trying to draw a square circle. It's impossible.
01:22:01Okay. Sorry, go on.
01:22:03No, it's all good. It's all good. So anyway, then after this, she has a week long fling with
01:22:12this other musician guy. And then I reach out to her and go, Hey, I actually really miss you.
01:22:19I thought that we were going to be able to hang out and, well, I just wanted to have sex with her.
01:22:26That's all it was, at least at that time. But I was also completely addicted to her and I'd never,
01:22:34I don't even know what emotional connection feels like at this point.
01:22:38Okay, now I get the psychology of it. So what happened?
01:22:42Okay. So then we get back together. From that point, we stayed together for about three years
01:22:51with as far as I'm aware, no infidelity issues or anything. Just we hang out constantly. We're
01:23:00constantly having sex. And it's like this crazy weird dream with the occasional bump in the road
01:23:11that for whatever reason didn't seem to bug me at the time where she would do something like,
01:23:19you didn't have sex with me today. That makes me sad. I'm going to go sit and cry and then
01:23:26spend the next week not talking to you because you made me feel bad. And then I'm sorry.
01:23:36I'm very sorry. This is hard to talk about.
01:23:38Yeah, I mean, I'd really appreciate it if you stopped apologizing to me. I mean,
01:23:43this is what we're here to talk about. I mean, like, if you go to a doctor and you start saying
01:23:47where it hurts, you say, I'm so sorry. I don't mean to burden you with where it's like, that's
01:23:51the whole point, right? So we could talk about, I understand, you don't have to apologize and
01:23:54I sympathize. Go ahead.
01:23:57Thanks, Steph. So I'm picking up on this pattern of behavior within the relationship over years,
01:24:07but I do nothing about it. Where essentially, not essentially.
01:24:13Well, no, but compared to your parents' marriage, this is bliss.
01:24:17I mean, your parents are fighting all the time and your mother's drinking all the time and
01:24:22your dad's yelling and frightening you and like, I mean, isn't this relative bliss?
01:24:28It was supreme bliss.
01:24:31Okay. And that's a long time for that kind of bliss to go on, right? I mean,
01:24:35some hiccups and all of that, but that was not my guess as to the next chapter of the story,
01:24:40but anyway, go on.
01:24:42Okay. So basically what she would do is I would be completely addicted to her. And then if I
01:24:54failed in any way to live up to her expectation of what she wanted from me, then she would withdraw
01:25:04sex, withdraw affection, just completely leave me in the dark, not talk to me on the phone,
01:25:10not come over to my house. And I felt this impending doom of like, oh God,
01:25:15I'm going to lose this girl again.
01:25:18Yeah. So she was sort of training you like a puppy with positive and negative stimuli. So
01:25:22when you did what she wanted, she'd reward you with sex. When you didn't do what she wanted,
01:25:26she'd withhold affection. And so she wasn't communicating you, but she was trying to train
01:25:29you like some wayward puppy, right?
01:25:31Exactly. Yeah. Okay. So this is going on for several years. And then she does the BPD thing
01:25:42where she mirrors my behavior. She changes her personality to match mine so that she can
01:25:49further sort of dig her claws into me.
01:25:51Yeah. It's mirroring. Yeah, I got it. Okay.
01:25:53Yeah. So then she becomes a musician.
01:26:01It should be stated here that her father is a musician and she had musical inclinations before.
01:26:06Sorry, did she become an actual musician or just a drummer?
01:26:10No, no. We're getting there. No, she actually did become a real musician,
01:26:19um, but, uh, she wasn't very good, but, you know, she's this hot tip who's kind of this
01:26:24blood around town. And so people want to be associated with her. And so she joins a band,
01:26:31joins her own band, not my band. And she wants to be a guitarist like me, who would have figured.
01:26:39And at this point, she's telling me things like, well, I need to spend more time with my bandmates
01:26:47because I'm serious about wanting to be a musician just like you. And so I can't be around you as
01:26:52often. Sorry about that. I immediately start thinking, Oh God, here we go again. And turns out
01:27:01that she cheated on me with her drummer from the band that she joined and needed to spend more time.
01:27:08Oh, it was the drummers. Okay.
01:27:11Always the drummers.
01:27:13Okay. All right. So he confessed to me one day when she realized that I'm suspicious of her,
01:27:23she goes, Hey, I just want to, I'm sorry. It's so serious and dark, but, uh, this guy and I,
01:27:31we, my drummer, we actually made out and stuff and I'm sorry.
01:27:36Sleep together. I mean, it's not great, but.
01:27:40Well, and then, so I say, look, even kissing is infidelity. Get the fuck out of my house.
01:27:48So then I messaged the guy and I say, Hey man, uh, I don't blame you, uh, but don't do it again.
01:27:58And then he messages me back. Yeah. So sorry about this, but, uh,
01:28:04she and I have had kind of our hands all over each other for a long time now. And, uh,
01:28:10I didn't know how to tell you, but basically he was saying she's a ho man, like your girlfriend.
01:28:15No, but, but he knew that she was your girlfriend, right?
01:28:19He did. Okay. Yeah. And so then I get back to her. You didn't just kiss, did you? And then she breaks.
01:28:28So I'm sorry. Then she does what, uh, emotionally breaks down, like she's caught, right.
01:28:37Which is inevitable, right? I mean, it's not that big a community musicians,
01:28:40particularly budding musicians. They all know each other. So.
01:28:44Okay. Very much so. Yeah. So then, uh, she decides to message me again and say, Hey, we're
01:28:51like, I'm sorry. I just want to meet up with you. I just want to express how sorry I am
01:28:57about everything. And she throws herself at you and you have sex again. And all right. Okay.
01:29:04Correct the Mundo. Um, but during this conversation, uh, when we meet up, uh, I,
01:29:12this is, uh, this is the revelation that kind of broke my mind when it comes to this stuff and
01:29:18the nature of this relationship. Uh, so she comes to me and says, yeah, I'm, I'm a cheater.
01:29:25I'm I'm a bad, I'm a bad bitch. Uh, well, she, she didn't put it like that. I'm,
01:29:31I'm, I'm doing this thing. Okay. She says, I'm a cheater. I'm a bad woman,
01:29:37but I just want you to know that I actually truly, really only love you and only you.
01:29:43And, uh, so then I decided to ask her, okay, so how many times have you cheated on me?
01:29:49And she says, she doesn't remember. So I'm like, well, can you put it on your fingers?
01:29:56And she's going one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10,
01:30:00loses count of her fingers has to start counting her toes. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
01:30:04Okay. How many fingers and toes, 40 things we share 41. If you include the fact that we don't
01:30:12all right. Oh, thank you for that. But yes. And then, uh, I asked her, okay, so how many times
01:30:19have you cheated on me where it's led to sex? And she, she gave me a look that I will never forget.
01:30:27It's kind of like a bad, tired eye, like where she knows she's caught out in a lie,
01:30:31but she doesn't know how to cover herself. Like do I tell her right now? And she just goes,
01:30:38I don't remember. Right. Doesn't remember how many times she's cheated on me where it led to
01:30:43sex. Or she does. Oh, she does, but she just doesn't want to say it. Right. Yeah. Yes.
01:30:53So I'm fortunate at this point because I am tested. I don't have an STD. She's not pregnant.
01:31:02We're not married. Like, okay. So can I forgive this one? I don't know, but I really want to,
01:31:11because she's hot and nobody else in the world. I, I feel like is going to give me the amount of
01:31:21attention. Sorry, go ahead. Yes. Well, sex, but yeah, like, yeah, I'm, I'm so lonely in this
01:31:28world and this woman is here to make me feel like a God basically, as long as she's not cheating on
01:31:35me. Right. Okay. So anyway, I choose to forgive her and we continue with being a supposed,
01:31:49being in a supposed relationship.
01:31:50Uh, some, sorry, but how was the cheating resolved?
01:31:59Uh, yeah, essentially very, very badly. I essentially said, Oh, okay. So you love me
01:32:09though. Right. And she's like, yes, baby. And then like, let's forget about this now.
01:32:15All right. So, so we're talking about your girlfriend, but we're not really.
01:32:22No. Who are we talking about? Really?
01:32:25Oh gosh. Uh, why don't you tell me so I don't have to say that.
01:32:31All right. Paging Dr. Freud, right?
01:32:34Okay.
01:32:36What, um, what are we really talking about here? Like why would you be in, in this mindset or
01:32:43this way inclined?
01:32:48A lack of attention from my parents and especially my mother.
01:32:53Sorry, say again.
01:32:55A lack of parenting, a lack of attention and affection from my mother.
01:33:02Well, okay. Let's, uh, let's, let's dig into it. Okay. So
01:33:09why did your father marry your mother?
01:33:13Uh, they married basically as soon as they were able to,
01:33:18they met in high school and they were both extraordinarily good looking people.
01:33:23There we go. Look at that. That didn't take long.
01:33:27All right. Well, very good. So my mother was a model straight out of high school and my dad
01:33:32was a typical, you know, hockey jock. Okay. So your parents married each other
01:33:38for sex.
01:33:42Not for virtue, not for a quality of character, not for integrity, not for being good parents,
01:33:47not for being a good partners. Your parents married for sex.
01:33:55Yeah, that seems about right.
01:33:56Wait, they didn't like each other, right?
01:33:59Not, no.
01:34:01Now, come on, as men, is this that complicated? Why is a man with a woman
01:34:06who's young and attractive that he doesn't really like?
01:34:12For sex?
01:34:13Of course. Of course. Right.
01:34:17Okay. And, uh, if I'm anything like my dad, uh, he was a sex maniac.
01:34:24And so that makes complete sense. Jesus Christ.
01:34:28Yeah. So, I mean, I hate to say this is why I said paging Dr. Freud, right?
01:34:33Right.
01:34:36I shouldn't be laughing.
01:34:38Um, yeah. Yeah. That's, that's pretty rough.
01:34:46Um, so, uh, shall I continue, uh, with the relationship story or?
01:34:54Ah, well.
01:35:00Yes. Yes. Do that.
01:35:02Okay. All right. Because this becomes compoundingly more complicated and weird.
01:35:10Um, so anyway, um, we have several instances over the next several years
01:35:17where she continues to cheat on me. Then I break up with her. Then she comes back to me
01:35:23weeping and sobbing and spreading her legs. And I go, oh, okay. I guess we'll get back together.
01:35:30And we do this literally so many times that I don't, I personally don't remember
01:35:36how many times we had broken up and gotten back together.
01:35:40Um, so.
01:35:44It's so strange in the way that it ended because she became, uh,
01:35:51it psychotically obsessed with sex as if she wasn't before she started
01:35:57started playing around with ideas and kinks and she was obsessed with a K-pop band and was.
01:36:10This is so ridiculous.
01:36:13She's kind of a girl who, uh, writes fan fiction about her favorite, uh,
01:36:19celebrities and somehow she ends up obsessed with the idea of gay men having sex with each other.
01:36:28And this is sort of like becoming disturbing to me and yet I'm addicted to this woman.
01:36:36And so she's increasingly putting this stuff into the bedroom where she wants to do role play
01:36:43where she is a guy, a celebrity of her choosing, and I am the other celebrity of her choosing.
01:36:49And she wants me to play this out. Now, at this point, if we don't have sex,
01:36:55she's going to leave me, cheat on me, whatever it is.
01:36:59So it's like, well, I get to have sex with this girl, but if I don't do it her way,
01:37:06uh, she's going to leave me and cheat on me and hurt me again.
01:37:09And I'm just going to forgive her. So, hey, may as well just try and maintain the peace
01:37:14by diving into whatever it is she wants to do in the bedroom.
01:37:18So I'm just going to play along and pretend like I like it.
01:37:25Talking about this is really hard, man.
01:37:30So even outside of the bedroom, she's talking about her favorite celebrities.
01:37:37She's writing fan fiction about it. She's completely obsessed with it.
01:37:42And the obsession just grows and grows.
01:37:46I'm becoming concerned at this point because I just want to be with the girl that I met.
01:37:52The one who just matches my energy and is just wanting to, I don't know, play around, I guess.
01:38:04But it's becoming unbelievably difficult to deal with her for the only reason that we're together.
01:38:12Now, I'm just trying to make her not cheat on me by allowing her to what increasingly feels like
01:38:20a violation in the bedroom.
01:38:23She is doing things. I'm at first, I tell her I don't want to do this.
01:38:29And then I go, okay, well, you know, you want to be experimental and fun.
01:38:34And I'm, I'm with you and I'm, I have an open mind and I'm playing around with her.
01:38:41And it's getting increasingly, increasingly weird.
01:38:46And I am, I'm growing, I'm growing to feel more and more violated as time goes by.
01:38:56She starts talking about, hey, did you know that,
01:39:00did you know that when trans people, when trans women, when they get their tits popped off,
01:39:05they have to like push their nipples down so that they stay in place proper when the scars heal.
01:39:10And I go, what?
01:39:17So she's obsessed with gay sex. She wants me to play along with her sexual fetishes.
01:39:22Now she's talking about getting a double mastectomy.
01:39:28And I am very much starting to pull away because if the cheating wasn't enough,
01:39:33I actually have to start telling why does she want that?
01:39:40All right. What, uh, the surgery you mean? Yeah.
01:39:45All right. So she was so obsessed with sex and so obsessed with growing her sexual interest
01:39:59that when she became obsessed with, um, gay sex, like specifically gay men, she wanted to
01:40:07have gay sex and this is what she wanted. And I was her boyfriend.
01:40:15Sorry. She wanted to have gay sex as a man?
01:40:19Yes. Correct.
01:40:21Okay. Got it. All right.
01:40:23Was she doing drugs?
01:40:27No, no, she wasn't doing drugs. At least as far as I know.
01:40:29Okay. So listen, over the course of the sort of five years that you were with this woman,
01:40:35what did you find out about her childhood?
01:40:38Um, all right. So her dad met and her mom immediately
01:40:46picked her father as the guy who's going to give birth to their child.
01:40:51Now, the story that I've been told as to why her mom wants to have a child with this man
01:40:57is because she wants to get impregnated, have a kid and then run away. And she thought that
01:41:03she could take advantage of this guy, basically steal his sperm, have the baby and then run off
01:41:09into the mountains and just be this mother child, perfect couple who never has to deal with the
01:41:15world. Crazy shit. I know. Um, and her mom is, I mean, she, she was extremely overprotective,
01:41:29like hovering over her child at all times, pulling her out of school because,
01:41:34uh, she had, you know, she stubbed her toe or something, uh, was complaining to teachers,
01:41:42uh, about how they treated her child and her father. Um, all right, this is,
01:41:53again, I said, this is going to be difficult to talk about and I'm getting emotional.
01:41:57Um, so her father, uh, also a musician, uh, he was sent to court because somebody overheard,
01:42:08I think he was on the phone with like a phone company or a cable company or something.
01:42:12And they overheard him saying something while he was on hold and he didn't know he was being
01:42:17recorded. And some kind of interaction happened between him and my ex-girlfriend. And then
01:42:25then lawyers were called and he had to go to court to defend himself
01:42:30against accusations that he was sexually abusing his daughter.
01:42:36Well, I mean, I think it's more than accusations if it's recorded, isn't it?
01:42:40Yeah. Yes. So I, I believe that these events that have been described to me actually occurred
01:42:57and this is why she ended up the way she did.
01:43:01Well, hang on. So do you know whatever happened to this court thing?
01:43:04What I'm told is that he paid a high power lawyer and just got himself clear to the entire thing.
01:43:14He, he, if let's just say if the, if the prosecution hired somebody who was super expensive,
01:43:22he just hired somebody more expensive and somehow he managed to get away with it.
01:43:29This must be a pretty successful musician.
01:43:31He's extremely successful. Yes.
01:43:36All right. But not Steven Tyler. Okay. Got it.
01:43:39No, he's not Steven Tyler.
01:43:40Okay. That's fine. We won't go through the process of elimination. All right.
01:43:45All right. Okay. So when did you find out about her childhood?
01:43:54It was a slow drip. When we first started dating, there was not much time for talking
01:44:00about childhood and we were too busy fucking each other's brains out.
01:44:02There was tons of time to talk about childhood.
01:44:05You chose not to. So when did you find out about her childhood?
01:44:09Oh, um, about four years in, I believe.
01:44:17No, no, no. I can't imagine that's true.
01:44:22Oh, I'm sorry. Uh, I mean, uh, about the court case, I learned about that four years.
01:44:27No, no. Her childhood until the court case. How bad child is it?
01:44:31Okay. Well, I, I learned about that pretty quick just by watching her mom.
01:44:37Oh, so you met her parents?
01:44:40Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
01:44:41And did her mom stay with her dad?
01:44:45They were together in the same house. Her mom lived on the upper floor in a separate bedroom
01:44:50and they didn't spend any time together. She doesn't work.
01:44:53Sorry. The, um, the father was recorded as far as we know. We don't know for sure because I'm
01:45:02sure we never heard the recording, but the father was recorded sexually abusing his daughter.
01:45:08That's right.
01:45:09And the mom stayed.
01:45:12That's right.
01:45:15So her mom is like your mom in a way,
01:45:18in that she's got a job called parent, which she's paid to do, which she's not doing.
01:45:23Yeah.
01:45:33I mean, I can't even tell you what kind of human being you'd have to be
01:45:38to hear this recording and stay under the same roof with the man.
01:45:46I can only imagine what, oh my God.
01:45:56I mean, this is how foundationally unprotected this girl was, right?
01:46:02The mother listens to a recording, which we assume based upon the court case
01:46:07is either proof of a strong indication of the rape or sexual abuse of the child.
01:46:12Mm-hmm.
01:46:14And she sticks around.
01:46:18Yeah.
01:46:22And of course, we don't know much about the court case, if anything, but it's hard to imagine that
01:46:33if the mother had not been a strong witness for the prosecution, that the dad might've been
01:46:37convicted, right?
01:46:39That's right.
01:46:40So my guess is that spouses can't be forced to testify, right?
01:46:44Against each other.
01:46:46They can't be forced to, they can.
01:46:48So again, I don't know any of the details, but one of the theories that could fit
01:46:51the facts as we know them is that the mother refused to testify against her husband.
01:46:58Well, my understanding is that she supported him.
01:47:03Right.
01:47:04No, I get that.
01:47:04I get that.
01:47:05It was like, oh, well, he's innocent or something like that.
01:47:12Listen, you wouldn't, and I'm not talking about this woman in particular,
01:47:15because I don't know her, right?
01:47:16And these are just very sketchy details, which is fine.
01:47:19But the number of women who sell their children to pedophiles for money is not zero.
01:47:31You keep paying, you can have the kid.
01:47:35Right.
01:47:36I'm not saying it's this woman, because I don't know.
01:47:38I don't know.
01:47:39I'm just saying, I actually have just read a case about this for research on another
01:47:43matter where the mother would deliver the children to the grandfather in order for him
01:47:50to molest, and in return, he would give her money.
01:47:55Right.
01:47:58So you learned pretty early on, maybe you didn't learn about the court case, but you
01:48:01learned pretty early on that she'd had a completely screwed up childhood, right?
01:48:06Yes.
01:48:10Yes, that's right.
01:48:15This is so stupid.
01:48:17I loved her for the crazy.
01:48:21Well, I didn't.
01:48:22You didn't love her at all.
01:48:23Come on.
01:48:25No, I know.
01:48:25Come on.
01:48:26Don't even try.
01:48:29Don't even try.
01:48:30It was lust.
01:48:33Absolutely.
01:48:33Come on, if she was 200 pounds or like, come on, you'd love her for her quality, please.
01:48:39Well, when you put it like that.
01:48:41No, come on.
01:48:42If she had the same personality, but was a man, would you be her friend?
01:48:46No, you'd be like, oh my God, what a nutjob.
01:48:49Good luck with all that, right?
01:48:52Yeah, 100%.
01:48:52Okay, so let's not talk about the love stuff.
01:48:56And you think the darkness is in her, right?
01:48:58Like you're saying, oh, this is dark.
01:48:59This is tough for me to talk about.
01:49:00So you think the darkness is in her, right?
01:49:04Um, no, no.
01:49:08Okay, so where's the darkness?
01:49:12It's, it's within me.
01:49:14Right.
01:49:14I know that.
01:49:15Okay, so what is the darkness within you?
01:49:21Um, lonely.
01:49:25Uh, isolation.
01:49:28Okay.
01:49:34What is the darkness within you with regards to this woman?
01:49:49You know where I'm going.
01:49:52I know, I know.
01:49:53Where's the darkness in you relative to this woman?
01:49:58Um, what's, uh, what's the term here?
01:50:05That one complex that, uh,
01:50:13all right, the relationship with my mother.
01:50:16Nope.
01:50:18It's not Edible.
01:50:18I mean, there may be elements of that, but that's not the darkness.
01:50:23Boy, you, you might not actually really see this.
01:50:25And sometimes people know it, but they don't want to talk about it.
01:50:27You might not actually see this one at all.
01:50:30I don't think I do actually.
01:50:32All right.
01:50:37Let's just go with the assumption based on the evidence that this girl was raped as a child,
01:50:41right?
01:50:43All right.
01:50:44Right.
01:50:45And how old was she when you first had sex with her?
01:50:5019.
01:50:51Right.
01:50:52How old was she when this recording occurred?
01:50:58Uh, I believe she was a toddler, like six to eight sort of age range.
01:51:06Right.
01:51:12The darkness, my friend, is that you, to some degree,
01:51:18exploited a woman who had been raped as a child for your own sexual gratification.
01:51:24That she had no boundaries.
01:51:25She was hypersexual.
01:51:26She'd been completely screwed up by her childhood.
01:51:33She didn't need another guy banging her.
01:51:35She needed some TLC.
01:51:37She needed a friend.
01:51:38She needed some care.
01:51:39She needed some.
01:51:42Oh my God.
01:51:45But you picked her off the rubble of her childhood and kind of used her for sex for half a decade.
01:51:53Right.
01:51:54You didn't sit there and say, holy crap, she had a really bad childhood.
01:51:57I know what that's like.
01:51:59I, uh, I got to pull back on this because this is not what she needs.
01:52:04This is not healthy for her.
01:52:05This is a repetition of the trauma.
01:52:10Which would have meant that I would just have to stop being with her.
01:52:13And.
01:52:14Well, no, you could have been her friend if you cared about her.
01:52:19You could have said, hey, you know, I'm no therapist,
01:52:21but talk to me about your childhood.
01:52:23And you really should probably go and see a therapist.
01:52:25And this is really appalling.
01:52:27And you could have, did you take her side against her mother?
01:52:30Like your mother is really a terrible person.
01:52:33And did you try to help her at all with her family?
01:52:38Did you try to help her at all with her issues?
01:52:40Or did you just bang her?
01:52:42Well, I'm not going to make excuses for myself.
01:52:48I, holy shit, man, nobody's ever said anything like that to me.
01:52:56I feel like a monster.
01:52:58Uh, well, if I'm unfair, I'm trying to figure out what's going on deep down in your body.
01:53:04Okay.
01:53:06So, all right.
01:53:08Okay.
01:53:09So, all right.
01:53:14I don't, I don't feel like that's what I did.
01:53:20Like this relationship lasted a long time.
01:53:25And we did connect as people.
01:53:30We shared interests, bro.
01:53:34Oh, God, bro.
01:53:35Come on.
01:53:36Did she get better or worse over her time with you?
01:53:42Much worse.
01:53:45Right.
01:53:46So, that's the empirical fact, right?
01:53:51I mean, she went complete and total degeneracy with you.
01:53:55And after half a decade with you, she wanted to saw her own breasts off.
01:53:59And I'm not saying you were the direct cause of that.
01:54:02But you were involved.
01:54:06You didn't love her.
01:54:11You just wanted to have sex with her.
01:54:13What did that do?
01:54:14I mean, and also she was sexually exploited as a kid.
01:54:17And of course, she was a kid.
01:54:18I'm not putting you in the same moral category as her father, of course, right?
01:54:22Please understand that, right?
01:54:24Yes, absolutely.
01:54:27But you didn't like her.
01:54:30Because she cheated on you.
01:54:32And she lied to you.
01:54:33And she betrayed you.
01:54:34And she broke up with you for no reason.
01:54:36And lied to you about that.
01:54:37Going to sleep with the other guy.
01:54:39And she slept with the drummer.
01:54:41So, she was not a good moral person.
01:54:44I sympathize with her.
01:54:45But she was not a good moral person.
01:54:46We can only love virtue.
01:54:48It's all we can love.
01:54:50And while I sympathize, of course, with all of her trauma,
01:54:52she sure as hell was not a virtuous person.
01:54:57So, you kind of loved her.
01:55:01So, you used her for sex.
01:55:04Now, I'm not putting you in the same moral category as her father,
01:55:08but it's not the total opposite behavior.
01:55:12Right.
01:55:15And that's why she got worse.
01:55:20All I have to offer is my body.
01:55:25I am a piece of fuckable meat.
01:55:30Yeah.
01:55:31Men don't care about me.
01:55:32They only pretend to care about me.
01:55:34The funny thing is, you had this whole tale
01:55:37of being hard done by by this woman because she lied to you.
01:55:41And you said, I was the victim.
01:55:42And I was the victim.
01:55:43And this was terrible.
01:55:44And it was so bad.
01:55:45And I was so hard done by and so hard.
01:55:47You lied to her about the whole fucking thing.
01:55:54Because you were there for the sex.
01:55:56And the fact that she was defenseless and had no boundaries
01:55:59and had a nymphomaniac sexual compulsion
01:56:02based upon being probably raped as a child
01:56:05was fine with you.
01:56:07That was a plus.
01:56:12Now, that's the darkness I'm talking about.
01:56:16Okay.
01:56:17See...
01:56:22I'm...
01:56:24Okay.
01:56:24You were there for the sex, primarily.
01:56:26And the sex was available to you because of the wound left by the father.
01:56:32Right.
01:56:33But...
01:56:34So you were exploiting the wound left by the father to get sex.
01:56:41I'm not saying it was conscious.
01:56:44And if I'm just unfair or wrong, absolutely tell me.
01:56:48Push back and maybe I'm being completely unfair here.
01:56:52But it seems to match all the facts.
01:56:53And I'm happy to be corrected.
01:56:56Okay. So I didn't know about this until four years in.
01:57:00Nope.
01:57:02No, you didn't know about the court case.
01:57:04And that's because you didn't ask.
01:57:08Oh, now you're blaming her for not telling you
01:57:11in the same way that your parents blamed you for not telling them about being bullied.
01:57:17But the evidence was clear.
01:57:19Of course.
01:57:20What did I say?
01:57:21You said she's compulsively sexual.
01:57:22What's the first thing I said?
01:57:23She was sexually abused as a child.
01:57:26Everybody knows this.
01:57:26It's common knowledge, right?
01:57:31Yes, absolutely.
01:57:32So you knew she had all the symptoms of significant
01:57:36and probably quite rampant childhood sexual abuse.
01:57:40You knew that from the beginning.
01:57:42And you knew about her childhood in the first couple of months.
01:57:46Now, did you know all the details of the court case?
01:57:48No, it doesn't matter.
01:57:49But you didn't ask.
01:57:54But you knew, you showed all the symptoms.
01:57:55Like what was I saying earlier?
01:57:58What was I saying earlier?
01:58:00If your girlfriend got beaten up at a party, you'd know the difference, right?
01:58:06Yes, the difference in her behavior after.
01:58:08So her nymphomania and sexual compulsions arise out of a loving,
01:58:13happy, healthy childhood with great protection from her father?
01:58:19No, not at all.
01:58:25And you knew all of that.
01:58:27Don't give me this four-year bullshit.
01:58:29That's a cope.
01:58:31You knew all of that almost from the very beginning.
01:58:35It should be stated here that she didn't even know it until
01:58:39it was revealed to her at that moment, at the four-year end period.
01:58:45I just said, don't give me the court case,
01:58:47and you're now going right back to the court case, bro.
01:58:50Okay, fair enough.
01:58:52At least acknowledge that I said something and don't pretend I didn't.
01:58:56I may be wrong, but I'd still like to be heard.
01:59:00All right.
01:59:01It's not about the court case.
01:59:02Your court case is your technical excuse in the same way your parents would say,
01:59:08well, you know, we didn't do anything for the first seven or eight years,
01:59:11but hey, he didn't tell us.
01:59:19So you knew she was messed up the moment you met her?
01:59:24You knew that she was messed up the moment you met her?
01:59:27Yes.
01:59:28Right?
01:59:29Yes.
01:59:30And you didn't do much to inquire as to why?
01:59:34Because then you would have had to change lust into empathy,
01:59:39which is what would have helped her.
01:59:42Right.
01:59:43You didn't want to interfere with the lust,
01:59:45so you didn't ask much about her childhood.
01:59:48Because you knew what the answer was going to be,
01:59:51and you just wanted to keep fucking her rather than have some empathy
01:59:54for her suffering as a child, which is kind of what she needed.
01:59:59Yeah.
02:00:02Man, I really feel like a monster right now.
02:00:10Look, we all do bad things.
02:00:14Right?
02:00:15Nobody's perfect.
02:00:16We all do bad things.
02:00:20Yeah.
02:00:21So, but we have to be honest with ourselves, right?
02:00:24Yeah.
02:00:28Because the funny thing is, right,
02:00:32you said as a victim,
02:00:35about you described yourself or portrayed yourself
02:00:37or brought yourself forward as a victim in this relationship.
02:00:42Yes.
02:00:44Which is kind of a lie.
02:00:46Not a total lie.
02:00:47I've been lying to myself.
02:00:54But if you'd said to me,
02:00:55if you said to me,
02:00:57you know, I fell prey to the sin of lust,
02:00:59and I exploited a woman whose sexual defenses had been destroyed
02:01:02by being sexually abused as a child,
02:01:05and I just had a lot of sex with her and didn't inquire as to her childhood,
02:01:08because I didn't want to know,
02:01:09because I just wanted the lust.
02:01:10I wanted my gratification at the expense of her mental health.
02:01:15I'd be like, damn, this guy's got it going on.
02:01:17That's some honesty.
02:01:22Did you help her mental health?
02:01:31It got worse and worse and worse.
02:01:35And you sort of have this odd thing
02:01:36where you're like putting yourself at a distance and saying,
02:01:38well, you know, she got into this strange stuff
02:01:40and kinky stuff and weird stuff, right?
02:01:44Like you're not a huge participant in all of this.
02:01:47Like you're just observing this like it's a movie you have nothing to do with.
02:02:00I mean, what I hear is,
02:02:02what I hear is,
02:02:04well, she started out with me,
02:02:07you know, kind of promiscuous and untrustworthy.
02:02:09And then after five years with me,
02:02:11she wanted to hack her own breasts off.
02:02:12And yet you feel like a victim?
02:02:24Like she just did bad things to you
02:02:26and she was cray cray and geez, bro.
02:02:37You're using her like the other men
02:02:39and you say, well, she betrayed me.
02:02:40It's like, well, you lied to her.
02:02:41You told her you loved her, right?
02:02:42Which was a lie.
02:02:44You could have cared about her.
02:02:45You could have been compassionate with her for sure.
02:02:46I understand all of that.
02:02:49But you didn't love her.
02:02:53Because she was too wounded and broken.
02:02:57So, how do I redeem myself of this?
02:03:02Well, let's talk about,
02:03:03I mean, this is why there was a kind of primal innocence here in a way, right?
02:03:10Which is you're like,
02:03:11my loneliness is the darkness.
02:03:13It's maybe something Freudian.
02:03:15And I'm like, remember I said,
02:03:17like, maybe you really don't know this.
02:03:24Because, you know, bro, you might have a daughter.
02:03:27And when you have a daughter
02:03:29and you watch that daughter grow,
02:03:30you will understand that your ex-girlfriend
02:03:33did not come with the Barbie figure and the plain face.
02:03:38She was birthed from nothing to where she was.
02:03:40And what she went through to end up where she was,
02:03:43was hell itself.
02:03:47Right.
02:03:48And you, in a sense,
02:03:51there's a wounded woman on the road.
02:03:54She desperately needs help.
02:03:55She needs someone to call 911.
02:03:57She needs someone to bind her wounds
02:03:58and you steal her fucking wallet and move on.
02:04:03You used her.
02:04:04Now, of course, people will say,
02:04:06ah, yes, but she used him too.
02:04:07And I get all of that.
02:04:08I'm not saying it's totally one-sided, right?
02:04:10I'm not saying she, you're both adults.
02:04:12I get all of that.
02:04:13But I'm talking to you, not her.
02:04:19Because I'm telling you, man,
02:04:21this story, the way you tell it,
02:04:24would make almost all decent, compassionate people
02:04:28run for the fucking hills.
02:04:29And it's going to keep you isolated from quality people.
02:04:31Because you need to take ownership for what you did.
02:04:33Now, you were a young man.
02:04:34I get that.
02:04:35You were untutored.
02:04:36I get that.
02:04:36She was hot.
02:04:37I get all of that.
02:04:38I understand that there's mitigating factors.
02:04:45Yeah.
02:04:45But the question is not whether there are mitigating factors.
02:04:48The question is not, can you make excuses?
02:04:51The question is one thing and one thing only.
02:04:54What does your conscience say about your actions?
02:04:58What does your conscience say about this?
02:05:02It doesn't matter what I say.
02:05:03I could be totally wrong.
02:05:04It matters what you think very much deep down.
02:05:10You knew that she'd had a completely screwed up childhood.
02:05:14You didn't ask her about it.
02:05:18You didn't try to help her.
02:05:20You lied to her.
02:05:22And you had sex with her body,
02:05:25knowing that her sexuality was largely a compulsion that resulted from rampant,
02:05:30probably rampant, childhood sexual abuse.
02:05:34She wasn't healed.
02:05:35She wasn't whole.
02:05:36She wasn't better.
02:05:37And you found her as a young woman who was messed up.
02:05:41And you left her as a woman on the verge of psychosis wanting to cut her breasts off.
02:05:46There's no appealing to hormonal stupidity on this one.
02:06:11It doesn't matter what appeals you make to this, that, or the other.
02:06:16You're the one who has to live with your conscience, not me.
02:06:18We're just flying past each other, right?
02:06:20Now, you have to open yourself up to your conscience.
02:06:24Now, if you start making excuses, your conscience will escalate.
02:06:31So, you just have to say, with regards to your conscience, you say,
02:06:36I am here defenseless.
02:06:37Give me the case for the prosecution.
02:06:42Give me the case for the prosecution.
02:06:43Now, you'll want to ward off that prosecution, right?
02:06:49Because your conscience is trying to get you to connect with people.
02:06:52And the more you lie to yourself, the less you can connect with people.
02:06:56So, when you say, gosh, I was a victim in this crazy bipolar girl, and she started off
02:07:01hypersexual, then she betrayed me, and then she got into gay sex, and she wanted to cut
02:07:04her breasts off.
02:07:04And I'm like, yes, but you're part of this.
02:07:08You're related to this.
02:07:09You're causal in some of this.
02:07:10So, I honestly have never heard this idea about how this has all gone down.
02:07:25Sorry.
02:07:28My conscience about this was very clear for years.
02:07:34And now that I'm hearing about it in this way, it makes me feel so utterly stupid.
02:07:40No, no, because listen, I could be wrong.
02:07:43If your conscience was clear, I'm perfectly happy to hear that case.
02:07:49So, don't assume just because I'm saying something that I'm right, that this is a
02:07:52case, right?
02:07:54And the case could be false, right?
02:07:56Sometimes people get prosecuted, and the case against them falls apart.
02:08:02This is a case.
02:08:03So, tell me how your conscience was clear.
02:08:06What was the case?
02:08:07It really felt like I was just trying to be with her.
02:08:12Okay, so let me put it.
02:08:16So, this sexual relationship was, I'm just telling you this.
02:08:23I'm just telling you the facts.
02:08:24She was the one who instigated all of these sexual interactions.
02:08:30And part of the rule for our relationship at that time was, you must have sex with
02:08:37This is her talking.
02:08:38You must have sex with me, or I'm going to emotionally blackmail you and kick you out
02:08:43of my life.
02:08:44Okay, so she was kind of like a sexual terrorist.
02:08:48Yes.
02:08:48So, she threatened you to have sex with her.
02:08:52Oh, yes.
02:08:54And so, this is the part of the story.
02:08:54You don't think that's pretty fucking disturbed?
02:09:00I absolutely do, Stefan.
02:09:02And you did at the time, right?
02:09:04That's seriously fucked up.
02:09:07So, this kind of, I got a new job at one point, and I had to be up very early in the morning,
02:09:17and she demanded that I was, and when I say these words.
02:09:21Hey, I get it.
02:09:21She's a sexual addict.
02:09:22I got it.
02:09:24No, no, no, I'm being specific about our time schedule.
02:09:28She was like, you must hang out with me.
02:09:31We have to be together.
02:09:32Yeah.
02:09:33And regardless of what time you have to wake up in the morning, regardless of what you
02:09:38have going on in your life.
02:09:39Okay, yes.
02:09:39She was a sexual addict.
02:09:43So, I actually didn't want to do this.
02:09:51I didn't want.
02:09:54Oh, my God.
02:09:57There was about a period of two years.
02:09:59You had semi-consensual sex.
02:10:04You were threatened into having sex.
02:10:09Right?
02:10:10I didn't want to do it, Stephen.
02:10:11No, I get it.
02:10:12I get it.
02:10:13It's kind of creepy and looming, and your instincts were, this is A, dangerous, B,
02:10:18completely fucked up.
02:10:19This is coming out of a very dark, bad place, right?
02:10:24Yeah.
02:10:25And did you say to her at any point, tell me a little bit about these sexual compulsions,
02:10:29what happened in your childhood?
02:10:30Did anything inappropriate happen, or when did you first get these sexual compulsions?
02:10:35Basic, you care about someone's stuff, and you want to find out about them.
02:10:40I did ask her, and it was kind of a whirlwind of emotions, where she was telling me these
02:10:47stories about how her first boyfriend she found when she was 15 or something, and he
02:10:54was a bit of a sex addict as well, and this was very emotionally traumatizing for her,
02:11:02and I didn't want to push her to do anything that she didn't want to do.
02:11:06What do you mean, pushing you to have sex when you don't want to?
02:11:10Yeah, but I figured at the time, hey, I can take it.
02:11:15If this is what it is to make the relationship work, I know, it's so stupid.
02:11:21This is why I'm so angry.
02:11:22Well, there's a lot of trauma here.
02:11:24But you're not a victim, alone.
02:11:28No, of course not.
02:11:28You also victimized.
02:11:33My god.
02:11:40I feel so stupid.
02:11:42Well, tell me what you mean.
02:11:43If stupid is not a feeling, what do you feel?
02:11:47Stupid is a judgment, right?
02:11:49I feel like I should have known that this wasn't just, hey, I'm a crazy, horny, young,
02:11:59teenage girl, let's go and fuck forever.
02:12:04I feel stupid for not knowing that she was in so much pain, or if I did, then I ignored it
02:12:13because I wanted to escape my pain as well.
02:12:17Well, I mean, again, there's sort of mutual exploitation here to some degree, for sure.
02:12:21I mean, did she ask you much about your childhood?
02:12:28I was still trying to unpack it when she was asking me.
02:12:32I didn't really-
02:12:32Sorry, did she ask you much about your childhood?
02:12:38Yes, and I didn't want to talk about it much.
02:12:42Okay, and she was okay with that, right?
02:12:45So, you all basically pretended you didn't have a past and then found out you don't have
02:12:48a future.
02:12:49That's inevitable, right?
02:12:51Right.
02:12:52Okay.
02:12:54So, you were both avoiding pain by using each other?
02:12:58Right.
02:13:00Except you ended up married and she wanted to saw her breasts off.
02:13:04So, you got the better deal.
02:13:10I'm not going to feel guilty about getting married to my wife.
02:13:16No, I didn't make any suggestion like that.
02:13:18I'm just saying of the two, she came out much worse off from your relationship with her,
02:13:24which indicates who did the more damage, right?
02:13:32Honestly, I don't-
02:13:33No, come on.
02:13:33If there's two cars in a car crash and one can drive away and the other one can't,
02:13:37which car got more damaged?
02:13:41The one that can't drive away.
02:13:42Right.
02:13:43So, she is completely messed up and you're married.
02:13:47Now, I'm just saying that's an indication of who did more damage.
02:13:53Or, and you know, come on, you know that promiscuity for men
02:13:57is not nearly as bad as promiscuity for women.
02:14:02Yes, yes.
02:14:03Right, because we're designed to repopulate the planet in the event of the
02:14:06pretty common male die-off, right?
02:14:10Yes.
02:14:10So, promiscuity for women is much worse than promiscuity for men.
02:14:14That's right.
02:14:16And she slept probably with hundreds of people and she certainly slept,
02:14:20you said she ran out of fingers and toes, so dozens of people when she was with you, right?
02:14:25Yes.
02:14:27And, you know, that's terrible, right?
02:14:30For women.
02:14:34Oh my god.
02:14:37And you didn't say, honey, listen, you know, all due respect, I really care about you.
02:14:41You got to see a therapist.
02:14:42Like, you're gonna, you're gonna fucking looking for Mr. Goodbye.
02:14:45Some guy's gonna lock you in a windowless van and disassemble you in a forest.
02:14:49Like, you've got to stop.
02:14:50This is incredibly dangerous.
02:14:51You're gonna get a stalker.
02:14:52You're gonna get a psycho.
02:14:53You're like, you have to stop.
02:14:56Like, this is, this is incredibly dangerous and you're destroying your ability to pair bond.
02:15:02Like, you got a long life to live on this planet and what's gonna happen when you're 40 or 50
02:15:07and your looks are gone and your body's sagging and like, what are you gonna do?
02:15:10This is, this is like, I care about you and you're heading in such a terrible direction.
02:15:16I will work night shifts to help you pay for therapy.
02:15:19You, you have to stop.
02:15:27My god, I am a monster.
02:15:30Um, I, I, I, see, monster is a way of avoiding your conscience by giving yourself a label
02:15:35that's hard to believe, right?
02:15:36You're not a monster.
02:15:40So you're just, you're just saying that in order to ward off your conscience.
02:15:43All right, I cop a plea.
02:15:44I don't want to hear the charges.
02:15:46I, I'm, I'm pleading out.
02:15:47It's like, no, no, you got to hear the charges because your conscience wants to be hurt.
02:15:51Because if you just plea out, then you don't hear the charges and they will cut as they do.
02:15:55And every, every man who's exploited a woman in this way has to face this, this, this trial, right?
02:16:01So you just want to stop hearing the charges by jumping a monster, right?
02:16:04And I, I understand that.
02:16:05I don't, right?
02:16:07Don't.
02:16:07Because you need to confront this lack of compassion within you because you want to
02:16:11be a father.
02:16:13I do, I do, um, um, okay.
02:16:21What if you were to contact her and apologize to her?
02:16:25I'm not, I mean, I know you're married and contacting exes and all of that.
02:16:28I get all that complication as a whole, but just as a mental exercise, do you have any,
02:16:31like when, how long ago did you break up?
02:16:34I would have been eight years ago, eight years ago.
02:16:38And have you heard of anything, anything about her since?
02:16:44Um, only, uh, things that have been sent to me by friends who have kept tabs on.
02:16:52Okay.
02:16:52So what have you, what have you heard about?
02:16:55Uh, I know that she moved away to the other side of the country and doesn't talk to her
02:17:00parents anymore.
02:17:01And, uh, has gone through with the top surgery as far as I know, not the bottom surgery,
02:17:07uh, but is lonely and writing internet fan fiction.
02:17:13Okay.
02:17:13That's all I got.
02:17:16And, uh, I assume that she had a, you said she had a great figure.
02:17:21So I assume she had attractive breasts.
02:17:24Breasts.
02:17:27Well, I like, I, I, I, I just liked the way she looked.
02:17:31She had nice breasts.
02:17:33Yes.
02:17:34Okay.
02:17:34So, so part of the mastectomy might've been to, to, to cut off the addiction, to control
02:17:41the addiction, to, to reduce her attractiveness so that this compulsion and being used in
02:17:46this way was less agonizing.
02:17:49Well, it seems like her activity regarding, uh, well, pursuing the idea of being a gay
02:17:58boy is such an obsession for her that is, she's still obsessed with it.
02:18:03She's like her, her fiction about this topic.
02:18:07Okay.
02:18:07Sorry.
02:18:08I, I don't want to, I mean, that's probably a very, a very bleak place to go, but obviously
02:18:14she's not improved.
02:18:15No, she's only ever gotten worse.
02:18:17Okay.
02:18:19Okay.
02:18:20And, and, uh, you know, as, as a young man, I mean, obviously you couldn't save her, right?
02:18:25I mean, that's not right, but, but that didn't mean that you had to use her as she had been
02:18:30used in the past.
02:18:33Right.
02:18:35Now, just to be clear, she wanted to use me as well.
02:18:38I'm just pointing, just pointing that out.
02:18:40Well, again, I understand that, but what does your conscience say?
02:18:46My conscience is telling me that I know that I screwed up big time by even getting into
02:18:56a relationship with this woman in the first place, and I should never have done it.
02:19:01It makes me feel horrible that her life turned out this way.
02:19:07And I couldn't, I didn't help her.
02:19:11No, you harmed her.
02:19:12No, no, it's not that you didn't help her.
02:19:14I didn't help her.
02:19:15I didn't know her.
02:19:18But by continuing to use her for sex, when she obviously is clearly has a very disturbed
02:19:24and dysfunctional relationship to sexuality, you were exploiting a wound left by her father,
02:19:30most likely, right?
02:19:32Right.
02:19:33Most likely, right?
02:19:36Right.
02:19:37And now she's like, oh, great.
02:19:39So all men do is use me for sex.
02:19:41That's all I'm worth.
02:19:42It's all I'm good for.
02:19:49So I should reach out to her and apologize.
02:19:53Well, no, I don't know.
02:19:55Your responsibility is to your marriage.
02:19:57So I'm just, as a mental exercise, and also she may be at this point so disturbed that
02:20:02it would be toxic.
02:20:04I don't know.
02:20:05It was just sort of as a mental exercise.
02:20:06It might be something you could write the letter and burn it.
02:20:08You could do it in your mind.
02:20:09I mean, I don't know about contacting her because it sounds like she's in pretty,
02:20:13an even more messed up place and who knows how that would play, right?
02:20:17And also, you know, she's already cut her breasts off, right?
02:20:21So it's not like there's a return journey from that, Mr. Frodo, right?
02:20:25As the meme goes, right?
02:20:27So I don't know.
02:20:29I mean, probably not, but it may be worthwhile as a mental exercise.
02:20:34Okay, so I'll just point out here that I have never blocked her on any medium.
02:20:43I haven't reached out to her, but I made a point of allowing the methods of communication
02:20:48open.
02:20:49She has called and left me drunken voicemails at three o'clock in the morning.
02:20:54She has sent me...
02:20:55Sorry, as recently as when?
02:20:57Uh, this was probably five years ago, maybe.
02:21:02So what would your conscience direct you to say to her if you could speak to her without
02:21:06repercussions?
02:21:08Like it wouldn't stimulate any stalky behavior or 3am voicemails or her contacting your wife
02:21:15or like if you could speak to her with no repercussions about anything that you regretted,
02:21:19what would you say, do you think?
02:21:21Like talk to me as if I were her.
02:21:24Okay.
02:21:27Oh, I really did have a wonderful time with you.
02:21:34We shared so many.
02:21:35Okay, how about we don't start with lies?
02:21:39Okay, like seriously, bro, you got to get out of this Hallmark bullshit.
02:21:42You did not have a wonderful time with her.
02:21:45Oh.
02:21:46Because the whole thing you said was I dated this borderline, which is the worst time of
02:21:51my life, you said.
02:21:52Okay, so let's try this again, but without, can we just unbullshit it if you don't mind,
02:21:56right?
02:21:58Fair enough.
02:21:59All right.
02:22:03What do you regret?
02:22:10I regret...
02:22:14I regret not treating you the way you should have been treated.
02:22:22With...
02:22:29With the kind of respect and love that you've never been given.
02:22:37And...
02:22:42I can't believe how I...
02:22:48It...
02:22:49It...
02:22:51You're such...
02:22:56You're such a beautiful person.
02:22:57No, no, no, stop it.
02:23:00Stop going to sentimentality.
02:23:04What do you regret?
02:23:07And she's not a beautiful person, she's very much messed up, which we can sympathize with.
02:23:14What do you regret?
02:23:15Don't go to sentimentality.
02:23:17Okay.
02:23:19As I've said, this is very difficult to talk about.
02:23:23Um...
02:23:25But you need to clean the nest.
02:23:26You've got a kid coming, hopefully, so you need to clean the nest, which means
02:23:29this kind of honesty.
02:23:30So go ahead, sorry.
02:23:32That's...
02:23:33That's why...
02:23:34Thank you so much for talking to me.
02:23:36You're welcome.
02:23:37Um...
02:23:39I deeply regret the way I treated you.
02:23:44With my own selfishness.
02:23:46Believing that I was some sort of...
02:23:50Genius musical sex god, when all I was was a pig.
02:23:59I...
02:24:00Could have tried to help you, but I didn't.
02:24:05For years, I let this happen.
02:24:09You didn't let it happen.
02:24:12I made it happen.
02:24:13Thank you.
02:24:16And I did nothing to stop it.
02:24:23And you also did things to accelerate it, right?
02:24:26Exploitation.
02:24:29I ruined your life.
02:24:31No, that's too much.
02:24:33Okay.
02:24:33That's too dramatic.
02:24:34That's too sentimental again, right?
02:24:38I mean, she's ultimately in charge of her life,
02:24:41but you did continue a pattern of exploitation that she'd experienced from childhood, right?
02:24:47Right.
02:24:47But this is too strong.
02:24:49I ruined...
02:24:50Again, that's back to sentimentality.
02:24:51We have to be precise, right?
02:25:00It's my fault.
02:25:04What's your fault?
02:25:09It's my fault that...
02:25:12She ended up worse off after the relationship and went...
02:25:16And when it began...
02:25:17You contributed.
02:25:18It's not your fault.
02:25:19She made choices too.
02:25:21Okay.
02:25:22Sorry, go ahead.
02:25:25I'm sorry, man.
02:25:25I'm...
02:25:26No, because if you make the case too strong, you can just dismiss it later saying,
02:25:29well, that's not true.
02:25:30And then you can get rid of the whole thing.
02:25:31You need to be precise.
02:25:33She made bad choices.
02:25:34You made bad choices.
02:25:36She was an addict.
02:25:37You exploited the addiction.
02:25:40You were an addict.
02:25:41She exploited the addiction.
02:25:42You both made bad choices.
02:25:44But she's not a shadow cast by your choices.
02:25:46She's her own being.
02:25:48Because if you reduce her to just a shadow cast by your choices, that's dehumanizing her again.
02:26:01I allowed my demons to grow so strong in my heart.
02:26:08And you ended up being the victim of that.
02:26:12You were the victim of that.
02:26:13And I did it.
02:26:14You did not allow the demons to go.
02:26:15I mean, I know we used this analogy before, and I'm sorry to be such a nag.
02:26:18I really do apologize.
02:26:20You can't cast it off on demons.
02:26:21It was you.
02:26:24And, you know, you had your bad childhood, and you had your exploited parents, and your
02:26:28parents would get together for sexual reasons and so on.
02:26:31So I sympathize with all of that.
02:26:33But it wasn't just I allowed the demons to do this to you.
02:26:36That's not taking ownership, right?
02:26:41I mean, I know it's tough.
02:26:42This is a new language for you, right?
02:26:43And I sympathize with that, too.
02:26:49Thank you for bearing with me.
02:26:50Sure.
02:27:00I failed you.
02:27:05I did you so wrong.
02:27:12I—it's my fault, man.
02:27:20What's your fault?
02:27:25That I didn't—I didn't even tell her how screwed up it was, what she was doing.
02:27:40I just made her feel bad.
02:27:42I just made her—I just made her regret it.
02:27:47By—by exiting the relationship and getting back together over and over.
02:27:58I was so stupid.
02:28:00No.
02:28:03I'm really—
02:28:13I hurt her.
02:28:17I took advantage of her.
02:28:22And I allowed myself to believe that I was the victim of her.
02:28:29Which, yeah, because you also—you attacked her reputation, really, I assume, in countless
02:28:34conversations since then about this crazy girl who was borderline and ruined your life,
02:28:38and how sad it was, and, you know.
02:28:42Rather than saying, yeah, I—I chose to sexually exploit a pretty damaged woman.
02:28:47I mean, it's hard to say.
02:28:49Like, it's hard to say how much consent there is in an addict.
02:28:59Sorry, just allow me to have a glass of water here.
02:29:09Okay.
02:29:13How's that for a start?
02:29:15No, that was very good.
02:29:16That was very good.
02:29:16Well done.
02:29:17Well done.
02:29:18And, you know, obviously this is a, you know, a lot of journaling conversation.
02:29:22I'd be a big fan of talking to a therapist, and not because there's something, you know,
02:29:26terrible and toxic about you, but just because you—you grew up without empathy.
02:29:33Right?
02:29:34And so empathy is going to be a challenge, right?
02:29:40I mean, if I grew up without speaking Japanese, I gotta learn Japanese.
02:29:43It's gonna take a little while, right?
02:29:44And I'm not saying it's as bad or as hard as Japanese.
02:29:47You obviously do have empathy, which is what I was probing for.
02:29:49Like, can you connect with some of—some regrets, right?
02:29:53And all of that.
02:29:54And you could, and you did, so that's wonderful.
02:29:57Like, good for you.
02:29:57Well done.
02:29:59But you're gonna need to really, really empathize with a child.
02:30:04And if, you know, one of the things that blocks empathy is guilt, particularly hidden guilt.
02:30:10And, yeah, she did wrong to you, and you're aware of that.
02:30:16You did wrong to her.
02:30:20I did.
02:30:21And you enabled her addiction.
02:30:25You fed her addiction.
02:30:26You mirrored her addiction.
02:30:28You know, like, you said, oh, she mirrored me.
02:30:31It's like, well, you became a sex addict too, right?
02:30:33You mirrored her.
02:30:34And I'm sure the sex was, you know, physically pleasurable, but, I mean,
02:30:38there was a coldness and a distance there.
02:30:41I mean, didn't you just look into her eyes sometimes and see these dead glass beads?
02:30:47Um, at the end, especially, yes.
02:30:50Yeah.
02:30:52But you knew it was a compulsion for her.
02:30:56Yes.
02:30:57It wasn't like, I feel so connected, I feel so close, I feel so loved and safe and safe.
02:31:03And secure and loving.
02:31:05It was a compulsion, right?
02:31:08Right.
02:31:08Right.
02:31:09Right.
02:31:10So, I mean, you used her addiction for sexual gratification, and that's tough, right?
02:31:14Because it fuels the addiction, right?
02:31:16And you're not getting to the root of why it's occurring.
02:31:18It'd be kind of like if I played along with your victim narrative here.
02:31:23That would be a way of keeping your conscience at bay, which is to say,
02:31:26keeping your empathy at bay.
02:31:29Which is not going to be good for your wife and your future children.
02:31:33Wow.
02:31:36All right.
02:31:37I'm calming down now.
02:31:38I think I'll be able to talk a little bit more.
02:31:41No, that's fine.
02:31:42I mean, that's really the most of what I wanted to get across.
02:31:48And I say this with sympathy.
02:31:49Like, you're not a monster and so on, right?
02:31:51You've done some bad things.
02:31:52We all have, right?
02:31:54But so, I don't want you to go to some opposite extreme.
02:31:57I should not, I cannot get out of bed.
02:31:58I am the devil incarnate.
02:32:01Like, you were young and untutored and traumatized yourself,
02:32:04but you ain't a victim, brother.
02:32:06You did some bad stuff.
02:32:07And, you know, we have to fight.
02:32:08Like, we all do bad stuff.
02:32:10We have to find a way to fight through that and commit to virtue and empathy and kindness.
02:32:16We have to find, even though all of us, and particularly, you know, us,
02:32:20the, I mean, you're younger than me, but, you know,
02:32:22that kind of the fucked up generation that had no tutoring.
02:32:25We don't have a God.
02:32:25We don't have a church.
02:32:26We don't have mentors.
02:32:27We don't have parents.
02:32:28We don't have teachers.
02:32:30We gotta figure all this shit out for ourselves,
02:32:32which means there's a lot of fuck ups and a lot of progress.
02:32:37Right?
02:32:37So, you know, you're a child of boomers, right?
02:32:41And boomers are notoriously, they don't give a shit about training their kids or parenting
02:32:46their kids.
02:32:47They're hedonists.
02:32:48And so, you became a hedonist.
02:32:49And hedonism comes at a great price.
02:32:51I just did a show about this.
02:32:52You should check it out at FDRpodcast.com.
02:32:55But so there has to be a way that you say, I did bad things.
02:33:00I'm not a bad person.
02:33:01Right?
02:33:02Because once you define yourself as a bad person, then you can't escape it.
02:33:04It becomes existential.
02:33:05And then your parenting gets screwed up and you can't be a good husband.
02:33:08Right?
02:33:08So how do you do it?
02:33:09Right?
02:33:10I did bad things.
02:33:12Like, you know, if you have bad health, if you have bad habits of health,
02:33:15it doesn't mean that you're going to be sick forever and ever.
02:33:17Amen.
02:33:17I mean, in terms of like, if you smoke for a while when you're younger,
02:33:20it doesn't mean you have to keep smoking and get lung cancer.
02:33:22Right?
02:33:22You can say, yeah, I was a smoker.
02:33:23I stopped smoking.
02:33:24I did bad things health-wise and I can do better things now.
02:33:28And, you know, there was this innocence for you because you didn't know.
02:33:32Right?
02:33:32Now you did know unconsciously.
02:33:34Right?
02:33:35The way that you know is what you avoid.
02:33:36Right?
02:33:37So of course, if you want to get to know someone.
02:33:40Right?
02:33:40So I wanted to get to know you.
02:33:41So what's the first thing we talked about?
02:33:46Sorry.
02:33:48Well, yeah.
02:33:49So you were asking for, so we talked about, we talked about some of the current issues.
02:33:52And then we talked about childhood.
02:33:55And we did like two hours on your childhood.
02:33:57Right?
02:33:57Which is small.
02:33:58It's a tiny slice.
02:33:59Right?
02:33:59You've had this woman for five years.
02:34:00Of course, you had two hours to talk about your childhood in between like compulsive
02:34:05Adderall bangathons.
02:34:07And so it's in the avoidance that the danger is.
02:34:13Right?
02:34:14So you knew she was messed up.
02:34:15You didn't really want to ask about her childhood.
02:34:17Now you catch yourself.
02:34:18Right?
02:34:19This is where our conscience is.
02:34:20So the devils, if you want to say that.
02:34:22Right?
02:34:22The devils within you want to avoid her childhood.
02:34:25And so that's where you have to go.
02:34:28Because if you had found out that she had been viciously and repeatedly and brutally
02:34:34raped as a child, your sexual desire would have dried up and would have been replaced
02:34:40with compassion.
02:34:42So you avoided that knowledge.
02:34:45And it's in the avoidance that our conscience is.
02:34:48So you say, oh, shit, I don't want to ask you about her childhood.
02:34:51She's got some very strange behaviors.
02:34:53Everybody knows childhood has a big effect on the personality.
02:34:56And you met her when she was only a year out of childhood.
02:34:59So she's very strange.
02:35:00Let me ask you about her childhood.
02:35:02Right?
02:35:02And then you say, well, I don't want to, because it's going to interfere with my sexual
02:35:04gratification.
02:35:05It's like, okay, well, then there's your next five years.
02:35:09So it's in the avoidance that we need to most look.
02:35:15And just, you know, personally, for me, I'm absolutely positive.
02:35:19My mother went through horrendous things as a child, sexually and so on, the war and
02:35:23all of that.
02:35:24And there were a bunch of men who had sex with my mother, right?
02:35:28A bunch of men who dated her and had sex with her.
02:35:30And nobody tried to help her.
02:35:32And she just got worse and worse.
02:35:33And then she lost her mind.
02:35:37So I don't just come out of this out of nowhere.
02:35:40Like, this isn't just blindingly obvious.
02:35:42Like, I had to live this for decades.
02:35:44And then by the time, like, after all the men had used her, then by the time I became
02:35:49old enough to try and help her, she was too far gone.
02:35:55I just have to give you such a heartfelt thank you for talking with me about this.
02:36:02You are very welcome.
02:36:03And I'm afraid I will have to jump off.
02:36:05I've got to get a little bit of food.
02:36:06I have another call shortly.
02:36:07I've scheduled things sort of back to back.
02:36:09Will you keep me posted about how things going?
02:36:11Will you keep me posted about how things going?
02:36:13And will you accept a big hug for me and promise me that you won't just lay into yourself
02:36:18as some bad guy, right?
02:36:19But just accept that, you know, you, like everyone, made some mistakes, were untutored,
02:36:23did some wrong.
02:36:24And you've got to commit to do better and be open to that in the future.
02:36:29But not just, you know, lay into yourself and, you know, feel bad or whatever.
02:36:32That's helpful.
02:36:33But just promise me that.
02:36:35And if you'll drop me a line and let me know how things are going, I'd really appreciate
02:36:38it.
02:36:39I will.
02:36:40Thank you, Steph.
02:36:41All right, brother.
02:36:41Thanks.
02:36:42Take care.
02:36:44Bye.

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