Dylan Lawrence Moore

They're supposed to be straight?!?! Jesus Christ I never realized that was a sign of being scarred!

Joel, I think you've demonstrated an incredibly important point here. Even if the mother/parents has the receptivity of a brick, and even if you know that nothing you're going to say is going to change or impact her, the very fact that you let the child know that his suspicions are correct (i.e. that it's not okay for someone to hit him) is HUGE in the child's point of view. You have officially proven that the entire universe isn't conspiring against him and that he himself isn't necessarily the problem. I think an action like this may be the fuel/inspiration for this boy to break free from his abusers in the future.

That's a really sucky situation to be in. Watching someone be abused and having no control over it. I really sympathize. I grew up in a similar situation between my mother and my father, and I have to tell ya, it really really sucks. I'm guessing there's absolutely no way that you can gain custody through the court system or you would have done so already. However, I think it may be worth checking with your local state laws (or whichever country you're in) and see what age a child has to be for them to decide which parent they want to stay with. I live in Washington State and I remember when I was 10 years old my dad telling me that when I was 12 I would have the ability to choose which parent I wanted to live with (don't know if that's true but that's what I remember him telling me). It really hurt me a lot that he never followed up/never was able to follow up on this. But it may be best for all parties involved if you could claim custody over him, providing he wants to, and it looks like he does, at whatever age that's possible where you live. My mother would continuously punish me for things my father did or said or what she could figure out from the things I had or the things I said. I became very, very secretive towards my mother at a very young age because I knew that she was constantly looking for some reason to "discipline" me. Anything I said, anything I did, and any emotion I expressed she would use as a tool against me and I learned how to shut up and not show any emotion. Eventually she started yelling at me because I wouldn't show any emotion and I wouldn't tell her anything. Often she would just make things up and make me responsible for them. I hated this but it was better than her knowing what I was actually doing/thinking/feeling--I guess for at least the reason it took more energy and effort to make it up. My dad didn't explicitly sit me down and say this (I was allowed to go to his house for the weekend every other week), but he managed to get the point across to me that I needed to start keeping things secret and that I needed to figure out how to lie (obviously, I also figured this out through punishment). Whenever I went to my dad's my mom would give me orders on all the things I needed to do and not do while I was there and, mind-slave that I was, I thought I was bound to the orders even when my dad would repeat "My house, my rules--you can do whatever you want here" to me over and over again. He eventually had to trick me with a sophist tactic in order for me to start "disobeying" and lying to my mom. Luckily, it worked and I was able to spend a few days a month for several years at a house where I could unwind and feel safe. I got so good at lying I would build algorithm stories. By that I mean I would have my original lie to my mom, then I would think of all the things she would ask me about this original lie, then think up answers to each of these questions, then think of all the questions she could ask from those potential answers, then answers to those questions, and so on. The reason I bring this up is I want to be able to give you some reference from someone who has experienced something very similar to what you're describing about your son (assuming you didn't experience it yourself), and that YES, teaching your son to lie to his mother in order to protect himself is OKAY and maybe even a GOOD THING. For now you may be the only emotional outlet and safe haven in the war zone which is his life. It's vitally important that he's able to have honest conversation with you, even if that means learning how to be deceitful to his mother for self-preservation. So yea, I would really look up the age at which you can change custody and start working toward it and planning on that. Sounds like it would be the best option for all three parties.

When she exploded at you while your son was in earshot, did she make you feel small and have control over you? When she says things like "There's reasons you should lie about these things" and "Do you have any idea how much I put into Santa for him?", why do you feel the need to explain yourself? Have you thought about putting the ball back in her court by responding with something like, "Okay, and those reasons are...?" and "Can you explain what the amount of effort you put into something has to do with the truth?" I understand your concern that you're worried that you might cause more problems for your son by challenging his mother, and I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of the real situation you're dealing with, but what I felt from reading your post was, "Man, he needs to stand up to that bitch." I think you 100% did the right thing by telling him the truth and apologizing for not doing it earlier. I don't know what sort of secrets need to be kept from mommy dear (I certainly had to keep many from mine), but am I correct in my analysis in that what you fear is the mother retaliating against your son for your actions? If the answer is no, I would say tell him all the truth you can and stand up to the bitch and don't soften any blows. If the answer is yes, then I think we need more details. Thank you for posting and sharing. Keep us up to date how things progress.

You can't passively "do nothing" in this case (and I would argue in any case). Short of someone or something interfering with you, you can only actively choose to kill 5 people or actively choose to kill 1 person. Standing there, walking away, and talking on your phone are all equivalent to actively choosing to kill 5 people.

My cousin took an online English course a few months ago. He was computer illiterate enough to require my help to navigate the website. We clicked through a little bit to find the lesson's first vocabulary test. Amongst this list was the word "hypothesis". The definition? "A guess you make then prove." Ouch.

You guys are at least in different countries, right?

Dare her to read "The Origins of War in Child Abuse". My view of primitive tribes has never been the same after that one. Oomph. Replace "rape" with "free love" and "stealing" with "sharing" and they magically turn into Utopias. Yea. A fascinating point that sticks out in my head from that book was I think in the chapter about tribal societies. DeMause makes a very interesting point that modern economics was impossible in tribal life because the tribe would attack and usually kill anyone who saved resources. Without the accumulation of capital, there is no possibility of investment, which means there cannot be any economic development. Therefore, no one can save anything because no one trusts each other. Fine system there, I must say.

I've started poking around it, but the majority of my School Sucks Podcast experience comes from what gets played over at Peace Revolution Podcast. In which case, I must add that if anyone is interested in School Sucks Podcast to check out Peace Revolution Podcast as well.

Most definitely yes. It was like a mini version of what she did before her period.

My last girlfriend had extreme hormonal issues that were near relationship-destroying each month before her period. It was so bad she called it Weltuntergangstag (Something like "the day the world goes under"). She demonstrated the same astonishment that I felt the days after this; specifically that each month she didn't realize what was going on and thought the whole world was against her, only to snap out of it a day or two later and be surprised that she didn't realize it was her period/hormones. Every month she would vehemently apologize to me a few days after the day, but she also expected me to give her slack for turning into such a crazy bitch. I started off being overly understanding to allow for her hormonal imbalance, but her expectation of "being put up with" slowly crept into times of the month where she wasn't having her period (although never to the extreme as the crazy bitch day during the month). Eventually I found myself being controlled by a bad attitude. To contrast this, she began researching herbal remedies to help regulate her hormones and found one that she said had the most powerful effect she had every experienced in alleviating her hormonal stress during her period. The stress didn't go away, but the crazy bitch level dropped significantly. However, the creeping control continued. We eventually broke up but have stayed in contact, and she just reported to me that for the first time since she can remember, she didn't have her Weltuntergangstag. Apparently the herbs had finally caught up with her. Long story short? Hormonal imbalance due to menstrual problems may suck, but it's not fate. There are simply and cheap ways to deal with it that are incredibly effective. Having empathy for someone for having menstrual problems is one thing, but allowing them to control you for it and be an asshole, especially when there are cheap, easy, and effective remedies available, is bullshit. It's obviously hard for us men to understand what it's like to have a crazy-bitch cycle, so the more empathetic of us try to give the girl as much room to get better as possible. I think the problem arises where we don't understand the boundary between "being sick" and "using being sick to get what I want". For the women reading this who are dying to know what the herb is (and the men with women in their lives who are also dying to know), it's chaste tree berry. Apparently the tincture is the way to go. I think my last girlfriend has moved on to taking several herbs regularly (some sort of "period tea"), but the one she swears by is chaste tree berry. I know she's at least passed it on to another friend who has severe (i.e. relationship-destroying) menstrual problems, and this friend has also reported immediate and effective results. If anyone is interested I can ask her about the other herbs she's taking.

I did some German subtitles for the Ultimate History Lesson and I had a really good experience using the program called Aegisub. The only problem is youtube doesn't support the files Aegisub exports, so you have to embed the subtitles before uploading to youtube.

Hey John, have you found any interested podcasts in German? I can't seem to find any for the life of me.

My favorite is the "in my opinion" part. That way if you call her out on her bullshit, she can make you out to be the asshole for getting upset about just an opinion. Until, of course, you say something very true and real, in which case it will suddenly become your opinion.

About time!

I still do Shinto prayers. They're great! They really make me more relaxed and alert.

I bet they wouldn't have sent you emails if you had called the game "Grammar Communist". I wonder if they send emails to WWII FPS game-makers that allow you to play as the Germans, too.

Your post made me smile. Nothing like pointing out how small someone's balls are when they're masquerading around like they're monstrous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA_trUrPQbI

She still looks like she's staring at the computer in her mugshot. Yeesh.

As someone who attempted to learn three different languages and failing miserably (Japanese, classical Greek, and Sanskrit) then finally learning a fourth (German), here is the simplest pieces of advice I can give: Actually having the words come out of your mouth is more important than you understanding them. If you try to understand before forming your mouth around the words, you will teach yourself to hesitate before speaking. Speak first, understanding will come later. Speaking how people speak is more important than speaking how it is written. If you learn to speak from how things are written, you won't understand anyone and you will contribute to your hesitation before speaking (thus no one will understand you). Just say what people are saying, the grammar will come later. Remember phrases and words by thinking of similar nonsense phrases in English. This is the best way to remember vocabulary. For example, a well-known way to remember the Japanese word douitashimashite ("you're welcome") is don't touch my mustache. If you feel like an idiot when speaking, that means you're making progress. Seek these moments out instead of shying away from them. Good luck! -Dylan

Just to add something to this point, the frowning upon left-handedness goes far beyond the Christian/Abrahamic world. In Buddhist traditions the left hand is considered impure and children are generally corrected in Asian countries as well. This is interesting for whoever mentioned that Europeans languages write left-to-right. Traditionally Chinese and Japanese writing goes right-to-left. Also in Africa (I don't know in what parts or how large of an area), in areas without toilet paper, you wipe your ass with your left and hand and eat with your right. Thus your left hand is literally unclean and it would be an insult to touch something sensitive with it. Anyone know anything about other cultures?

In my whole life, whenever it was announced that a "celebrity" died, I never cared any more than someone pointing out some person I never knew in the obituaries. As per usual when it comes to recent events, I discovered Robin Williams death by checking out the podcast list on FDR and felt my stomach sink. He is the first celebrity--a person worth celebrating--who hit me with an emotional hammer upon news of his death. Thank you Stefan for the analysis and your tribute to Robin at the end. -Dylan

I already did the search function and came up with a bunch of stuff about anger. I was hoping for a particular recommendation, as I prefer to hand off podcasts that I've listened to myself. I'll just have to poke around then. My understanding of anger: a self-defense mechanism against evil, or to put it in less violent situations, a self-defense mechanism against those who would steal your energy.

Can anyone refer me a good podcast where Stef goes into the importance of anger and that it's healthy? Particularly one that casts aside the bullshit notion that any anger is unhealthy. I know someone currently in a relationship who is being continually pissed off by her partner then told she has an anger problem. I think she may be receptive to a Stef podcast on the subject. Thanks!

And here I thought you were quoting something out of 1984. Silly me.