Today's discussion delves into the intricate dynamics of abuse and trauma on relationships. We explore how past experiences shape responses to abuse, leading to patterns of replication or enabling. By examining the impact of early dynamics on connections and validation-seeking, we highlight the importance of self-awareness in breaking destructive cycles. Join us in challenging traditional narratives and unraveling the complexities of abuse, resilience, and healing in interpersonal relationships.
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LearningTranscript
00:00All right. Good morning, everybody. This is Sam Melanie from Free Domain.
00:04Questions from freedomain.locals.com. Thank you, of course, for your great queries.
00:09And we're starting with Hi, Steph.
00:12I noticed that some people react to the abuse of their parents by absorbing the same behaviors
00:16while others by, quote, reacting to it, slash, becoming dependent to manage the same kinds of people.
00:23What do you think is the main driver to the different reactions?
00:26Thanks for your great work.
00:29And thanks for your great question.
00:31I had to read it a couple of times to make sure I understood it.
00:34I think I have it, and hopefully this answer will make some kind of sense.
00:41Fingers crossed. We can always hope.
00:44So if I were to rephrase the question,
00:47I think you're saying that the most common reactions to being abused as a child
00:51are either to become an abuser or to end up managing abusers.
00:59And this pattern continues. Right.
01:02So a guy who is has an abusive mother,
01:07he's going to end up managing crazy women for the rest of his life,
01:10but not become a direct abuser himself in the same way.
01:15Whereas a man who has an abusive parent, say mother, may actually become a screamer and an abuser himself.
01:25So I think a lot of times if you look at sort of the modern cuck slash simp phenomenon,
01:32then what you can see is we have a lot of men who are heavily focused on over pleasing women.
01:40Right. Over pleasing women.
01:42So in general, the most common response for a man with an abusive mother and no father is for him to become a simp.
01:52Right. A simps. It's not anything to do with human nature.
01:55It's not this sort of massive frailty thing or anything like that.
01:58A simps just come from having a devouring mother.
02:02The devouring mother is the mother who uses the child for her own vanity,
02:07for, you know, these kids in my life, my kiddos, you know,
02:11they're used as sort of vanity props to increase status, to help her play the victim.
02:16They're used to extract resources from others through the state or through other means.
02:22And that's the case. So a lot of it is, are you there to serve your mother?
02:27And if you're there to serve your mother and like men, if you had a mother like this,
02:32you know exactly what I'm talking about, that her needs come first.
02:36Your needs are unimportant. And in any contradiction between your needs and her needs,
02:41her needs have to win or you're a bad person and you will pay.
02:45You'll pay either through direct violence, verbal abuse, you'll pay through guilting,
02:50you'll pay through bitter withdrawal, door slamming, rage signals, like all kinds of things.
02:57So, yeah, and they don't know how to, and this is women as a whole,
03:00they don't know how to negotiate, so all they know how to do is escalate,
03:03which is why they can't maintain relationships.
03:06And this is why they're sort of like pinballs,
03:10they're bouncing off a bunch of chaotic and destructive relationships when they're younger.
03:15And then when their sexual attractiveness fades,
03:19they just settle into a kind of haunting bitterness and rage that,
03:25which inevitably wasn't going to continue, did not continue.
03:29It's just kind of weird that people do this, but they do.
03:32So, the enabler versus the abuser.
03:37The enabler is the person who seeks out an abuser
03:41and then works to manage and to, quote, fix the abuser.
03:46And if you want to look at it, the reason I call it an enabler is,
03:51if you want to understand the practical dynamics of psychological states of mind,
03:59or neediness, just look at the resource transfer.
04:03I talked about this the other day, you know,
04:05how dare we talk about the corruption of the world
04:08when we serve and provide resources to the corrupt.
04:11So, what I mean by this is, if you look and you realize around the world,
04:17there's good women and there are bad women.
04:19All the men who take resources, time, effort, money, attention, romance, whatever,
04:26all the men who take resources and provide them to dysfunctional women,
04:32immoral women, corrupt women, all the men who do that
04:36are rewarding the corrupt and punishing the virtuous.
04:39And then they have the nerve to say,
04:41gee, women seem to be kind of crazy.
04:44It's like, well, if you take your scarce and precious resources
04:47and pour them into crazy women rather than sane, virtuous women,
04:52well then, you're not part of the problem.
04:56You kind of are the problem, right, in many ways.
04:59Now, I say this again with all humility.
05:01I've gone down that road of providing resources.
05:04Because if you've grown up with a crazy, needy, bullying mother and no father,
05:15which is usually the case,
05:17or if there is a male figure around, he's kind of the same as you,
05:21so he doesn't provide you any guidance except in the wrong direction.
05:24But if you've grown up with one of these crazy, needy,
05:28hanging by the fingernails women, right,
05:31hanging by the facts, not hanging by the fingernails,
05:33the overwhelms, the barely holding it together and desperate and hysterical
05:40and in a constant state of alarm and hyper-excitement
05:43and staggering from one problem slash disaster to the other,
05:47if you've grown up with one of these kinds of women
05:49and you've had no choice about having to serve her as a child,
05:52then when you become an adult,
05:54when one of these kinds of women comes into your purview,
05:58comes into your life, it's almost irresistible.
06:02It's almost irresistible.
06:04Of course, you know, sleeping with a woman who is kind of like your mother
06:08is pretty incestuous, obviously.
06:11I mean, it's understandable in terms of patterns and copying throughout her evolution,
06:15but it is kind of incestuous, of course.
06:18So often if it's an opposite-sex parent, right,
06:22so you think of the woman, the girl, she grew up with a father
06:27who was chaotic and maybe a drunk and constantly getting fired
06:32and sentimental and teary-eyed and volatile and so on,
06:38so she has to manage that, right?
06:40She has to manage that as a kid.
06:43So then when she gets older,
06:48she comes across a man who is chaotic and sentimental and aggressive
06:54and manipulative and self-pitying,
06:56and she feels this irresistible urge to take care of him
06:59because that's how she survived as a child, right?
07:01If you've only survived as a child because of a particular strategy,
07:06that strategy is overwhelmingly attractive as a young adult, right?
07:13I survived by appeasing and trying to work with
07:18and being willing to serve the vanity of a needy, violent, chaotic mother
07:25who did not think of my needs first and used me as a vanity prop, right?
07:32So when I would run into women like that,
07:36it's like a gravity well.
07:38There's this almost irresistible, almost, right,
07:40almost being the philosophical part, almost irresistible urge.
07:44And for those of you who haven't had this experience, fantastic.
07:49I'm pleased. I'm really pleased.
07:51But you want to think of it like this
07:54if you grew up with this kind of needy parent who exploited you.
07:58You got to think of it like this.
08:00So when you're a man and you grew up with this kind of mother
08:05and you get out into the world, there's this dating pool.
08:08And the dating pool is full of some, you know, secure, happy, content women.
08:12And the world is full of chaotic, needy, hanging by the skin of their teeth,
08:17hanging by their fingernails women who desperately need, quote, need you, right?
08:22So the way that it works in the man's mind,
08:26and I'm sure this is true for the women with the chaotic fathers as well,
08:29is like this.
08:31You are a lifeguard and you are guarding a giant lake,
08:38the swimming area of a giant lake.
08:41And there are two female swimmers, right?
08:47You're a male lifeguard.
08:48There are two female swimmers in the lake.
08:50Now one of the female swimmers is going back and forth confidently
08:57using her front crawl.
08:59And you can hear little snatches of her humming.
09:02And she's muscular and glistening and oils with butter fat or I don't know,
09:09whatever people say.
09:10It's not that cold.
09:11But she's totally comfortable in the water.
09:13She swims like a fish and she's contented doing well.
09:18On the other hand, you see a woman who is screaming at the top of her lungs,
09:24such screams undercut only by her head plunging underwater.
09:28She's screaming out that she has a terrible, terrible cramp,
09:31that her foot is bleeding, that something's biting her in the water,
09:36and she's going to die.
09:39Understand, this is what the dating market is like for traumatized
09:44and exploited man boys.
09:47Putting myself in that category in my 20s, putting myself in that category,
09:50not above any of this at all, at all.
09:53So as a lifeguard, if you were to swim past the drowning, bleeding woman
10:00and you were to go and chat with the healthy, strong swimmer,
10:08that would be appalling, wouldn't it?
10:11How can you, as a lifeguard, swim past the drowning, bleeding woman,
10:18screaming out for aid, which it's your job to provide as a lifeguard,
10:23how on earth could you possibly swim past the drowning woman
10:28to go and chat with the healthy, happy, strong swimmer?
10:33Of course, the healthy, strong swimmer, the question would be in this analogy,
10:36why would the healthy, strong swimmer not go to the aid of the woman
10:41who is claiming to be bleeding and drowning?
10:45And if asked, the healthy, strong swimmer,
10:49the Pearl Davis, perhaps, in this analogy, because she's an athlete,
10:53the healthy, strong swimmer would say,
10:55the woman is not bleeding, she's not drowning,
10:59she's in fact in three feet of water, she could just stand up and be fine,
11:04but she wants attention and resources,
11:06and she wants sympathy and attention from the lifeguard.
11:12She's not drowning, if you lift up her feet, she's not bleeding,
11:16it's a lake, what really is going to be chewing on her feet?
11:20I guess there are some freshwater sharks in Nicaragua,
11:22but let's stay within the confines of Northern Ontario,
11:26what's going to be, maybe a snapping turtle, but it's kind of unlikely.
11:30So, she would say, that woman is faking it,
11:35she could stand up anytime, she's putting on a show,
11:38she's putting on an act in order to get resources,
11:41and the strong swimmer would look at the woman who's faking it
11:44and say, this is gross, A, it's gross, and B, it's super gross
11:48that men just flock to her, like what is wrong with men
11:52that they can't see that the screaming woman is not bleeding,
11:57not drowning, just faking it.
12:00But if you genuinely, as the lifeguard, believe that the woman
12:06is drowning and bleeding, then you've got to go rescue her.
12:10You couldn't just turn up the volume on your headphones
12:14and ignore her, or swim past her to the strong, confident swimming woman.
12:20You have to help her, and you understand that men,
12:25who as boys were exploited by hysterical mothers,
12:29are lifeguards on the shores of the estrogen lakes.
12:34We are lifeguards, we are trained to rescue and provide resources,
12:39time, attention, and money to drowning women.
12:43And women as a whole have a couple of choices
12:46when it comes to attracting a man.
12:49Women as a whole have a couple of choices
12:51when it comes to attracting a man.
12:53One is the hypersexual route, and one is the damsel in distress route.
12:58The other, of course, being the strong, confident swimmer,
13:02the strong, confident person.
13:04And every time, again, I say this with all humility,
13:07every time a man puts himself in the position of providing resources
13:14to crazy women, and I have sympathy for the crazy women,
13:17they were raised badly too, but I'm just talking about as men.
13:21Every time we provide resources to the crazy women,
13:26we are starving the virtuous strong women,
13:28we are providing resources, time, attention, money,
13:31sexual favors, and romance, and possibly even families and children
13:37to the crazy women, you can't complain about that which you subsidize.
13:43I mean, you can, but it's ridiculous and corrupt to the core.
13:49You can't complain about that which you subsidize.
13:51And I think we've all had that fork in the road, haven't we,
13:54where there's been a sane, healthy, I can think about this in my 20s,
13:59not crazy, but certainly under-functioning.
14:01Under-functioning is a big problem.
14:03A woman with big dreams who just wants X, Y, and Z,
14:07and is, but not, that was my particular weakness,
14:11was women with big dreams who just needed some help getting there.
14:17So this would be, gosh, what was it, one woman who wanted to be,
14:21she wanted to be an actress, wanted to be an actress,
14:24but she felt she needed to get her teeth fixed.
14:27So she got some adult braces, she got her teeth fixed,
14:31and she'd met a woman who said, oh, if you wonder,
14:33she was a woman who was an agent, and she said, oh, I want to be an actress.
14:37And the woman said, oh, yeah, well, you should definitely give it a shot
14:40and take some acting classes, do some regional theater,
14:43you know, you can do volunteer theater, see if you like it,
14:45see if you have a connection with the audience, see if you're good at it,
14:48and that way you can come in with some kind of resume
14:51when it comes to trying to do auditions or doing auditions, right?
14:56And so this woman ended up, the woman I knew, she ended up going,
15:01she got her teeth fixed, but she never actually quite got around to acting.
15:06And then she went back to this woman, that's so embarrassing thinking about it
15:11so many decades later, but she went back to the agent and said,
15:16hey, remember me from a couple of years ago, I got my teeth fixed, so I'm ready.
15:22And the woman, of course, said, well, okay, I guess that's good,
15:27but have you actually done any acting?
15:29Well, I wanted to wait until my teeth were fixed.
15:32And she's like, I don't know if you can act, I don't know if you like it,
15:36I don't know if it works for you.
15:39Anyway, so it was one of these interactions where the gap in expectations is so wide,
15:48and this was not a kid, right, the woman I knew, she wasn't a kid.
15:52The gap, the expectation, the gap was so wide that it was like,
15:57it's the awkward pause where you don't even know what to say.
16:00You know, it'd be like somebody, I don't know, emailing me and saying,
16:03in their 30s, right, emailing me and saying,
16:05I want to be the co-host for your philosophy show.
16:08I'm like, oh, have you studied philosophy?
16:10No, but I did take some voice training.
16:13And it's like, well, I guess taking some voice training is fine, I have,
16:17but you haven't studied philosophy, you have no experience, you have no resume,
16:22and I'm not sure why we're talking.
16:25Like, again, the expectation gap, it's like me going to apply for a job as a neurosurgeon, right?
16:32I have a podcast.
16:34Really, on neurosurgery?
16:36No, philosophy.
16:38Like, maybe I'm missing something, but why are you here?
16:42Like, I don't understand what's happening.
16:45I don't understand what's happening here, right?
16:48So, who did I give my resources to?
16:52Anyway, it wasn't a long relationship, but it was not a wise relationship, for sure.
16:56So, in general, if you're a man who grew up with an abusive father,
17:02you're likely to end up mirroring your father,
17:04but if you're a man growing up with an abusive mother,
17:07or a girl growing up with an abusive father, you're likely to be an enabler.
17:11I mean, the other thing that I would say is that,
17:15yes, sorry, just back to the simp thing, because it's really big on the internet these days,
17:19men getting mad at simps.
17:21It's like, okay, well, who raised them, right?
17:24Who raised them?
17:25Well, the moms.
17:27So, simps are produced, to some degree, by devouring mothers and absent fathers.
17:33Ah, yes, well, but it's the family court system.
17:35I get all of that.
17:36I get all of that.
17:37I really, really do.
17:39Blame the system, blame the environment, blame this, blame that, blame the other, for sure.
17:43But then you're saying that virtue is impossible until the world becomes perfect,
17:46but the world cannot become perfect unless virtue is achieved.
17:49That is the major problem.
17:51We're blaming environmental factors, and there are environmental factors.
17:53Absolutely.
17:55But blaming them means that nobody can really take full moral responsibility
17:59until the world becomes perfect.
18:01Men can't choose good women until the family courts are reformed.
18:06It's like, well, so then you're never going to have a good world.
18:10You're never.
18:11I mean, just give up.
18:12Give up on lecturing anyone.
18:13Give up on morals.
18:14Give up on virtue.
18:15Give up on exhortations.
18:17Give up on criticism.
18:18Give up on blame.
18:19Give up on holding anybody accountable,
18:21because there are these environmental factors that mean that virtue is impossible.
18:25Okay, so then give up on it,
18:28because if virtue is impossible because of environmental factors,
18:31but environmental factors can only be improved if people become virtuous,
18:35then there will never be any such thing as virtue,
18:39and you're just nagging people to try to become unicorns.
18:43Damn it! You need to be a unicorn.
18:44If you're not a unicorn, you're just a terrible person.
18:47Well, that's just abusive.
18:49Abusing people while also saying the environment is deterministic,
18:55morally exhorting people to become better
18:57while saying that the environment dictates morality
19:01is just brain-twistingly revolting and abusive as a whole.
19:06I mean, other environmental factors, sure,
19:08but it's your choice as to whether those environmental factors make you worse or better.
19:13I'm a better parent because I was abused as a child.
19:16I'm a better husband because my father left.
19:18I mean, not just the family, certainly not just me,
19:22but the entire hemisphere.
19:24So, yes, I'm a better person because hardship makes you better
19:30or hardship makes you worse.
19:32Anyway, so I chose to drop tens of thousands of dollars on talk therapy,
19:41and I chose to journal, and I chose to really strive to understand myself,
19:45figure out what made me tick, and then when the right woman came along,
19:49I was ready.
19:51I mean, you understand that virtue is an extreme sport you better damn well train for
19:56or you're going to get toasted.
19:58You're going to lose and lose big and lose bad and lose hard.
20:03So I just wanted to mention that.
20:06Now, another reason why people end up emulating their abusers
20:10rather than managing them or becoming virtuous themselves
20:14is if you envy the power of the abuser,
20:18then you will likely become the abuser, right?
20:22So to manage an abuser is to say the effects of abuse are bad.
20:25I got to work to minimize, and that becomes a bad habit that follows you.
20:28It's a good habit as a child becomes a bad habit that follows you as an adult
20:32and puts you in the position of the lifeguard who has to save the pretend drowning woman.
20:37Oh, but what if the woman really, really is drowning?
20:40What if the woman really is drowning?
20:44Then don't you have to go and help her?
20:48Why?
20:50I mean, that's the fundamental question.
20:53And it's a fundamental question to me too.
20:56If you see a woman suffering and you're a noble, heroic, white knight of a man,
21:01don't you have to go and help her?
21:04Don't you have to reinforce what's best about her
21:08and help manage her problems and catastrophes and so on?
21:13Well, that's just being a slave though, right?
21:15There'll always be dysfunctional people in the world.
21:17And you have to take the long view on dysfunction.
21:19If you reward dysfunction, you get more.
21:21If you don't reward it, you'll get less.
21:24And you're not helping her, by the way, just so you know.
21:27If a woman is floundering around, or a man.
21:31Let's just talk to women.
21:32If a woman is floundering around and you come and you give her resource time,
21:35attention, money, and so on, you're not helping her.
21:38You're paying her for being screwed up.
21:41You're rewarding her for dysfunction.
21:44It's not about managing her.
21:47It's not about helping her.
21:49It's about managing your own feelings of anxiety and fear of attack
21:52when being in the presence of female chaos.
21:55That's all. That's all it is.
21:57You're just managing your own anxieties from what happened to you as a child.
22:01You're not helping her. You're not helping you.
22:03It's just being around a chaotic female.
22:06You can't tear yourself away, but then you have to manage your anxiety
22:10by, quote, helping her.
22:12But you're just exploiting her to manage your own anxiety.
22:14You're not helping her.
22:15And you're rewarding her in the same way that men rewarded your mother
22:19for being chaotic by giving her attention,
22:22assuming she was reasonably attractive, and so on.
22:25And the other thing, of course, is that the concept of mutuality,
22:29like a mutual exchange of benefits,
22:32the concept of mutuality is incomprehensible to exploited people.
22:39It's a one-way relationship.
22:41The woman's chaotic. You give her resources.
22:43The chaos does not get resolved. In fact, it often spreads.
22:47And then when you are down and need time, attention, resources, whatever,
22:56the woman is not available.
22:58In fact, she might even roll her eyes and scorn you.
23:02So it's not mutual.
23:04And if it's not mutual, it's corrupt.
23:06Even when it's corrupt.
23:09So, yeah, if you envy the power of the abuser, then you will become an abuser.
23:13If you want to manage your own anxiety about being around an exploiter
23:19and an abuser, then you will end up spending the rest of your life
23:23managing crazy people and getting hollowed out yourself.
23:27So I hope that helps. Let me know what you think.
23:30And I'm happy to get more questions.
23:33If you find these segments helpful, interesting, useful,
23:38if you could let me know, I'd appreciate that.
23:41And if you could support the show, I would appreciate that as well.
23:44If not more, freedomain.com. Bye!