To Stefan Molyneux: Please Help!

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[dsayers]

http://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/38437-post-removed/

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[Josh F]

Reading this, I was frozen by the horror and terror of the history of your life.  I am so deeply and profoundly sorry for you.  Listen, you need to leave.  You are not safe.

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[dsayers]

I appreciate it, but you know, it is the past.

 

If you have yet to process it, it manifests in the present and will in the future. For example:

 

I was in situations I didn't know how to control, and that is how life goes when you are a kid.

 

This is how it goes... with negligent parents. When you're brought into this world by your parents, THEY are supposed to control your environment. And then THEY teach you how to survive on your own.

 

He hasn't laid a hand on me since I was in my teens.

 

Has he apologized for those days? Has he tried to make amends? Has he gone through therapy and the extensive work of fixing what was wrong with him? If not, then all you're saying is that once you were large enough to fight back, he decided against provoking you to do so. This actually makes things worse, not better as it indicates that he was in control the whole time and understood that it was not okay.

[Wuzzums]

Nobody should go through what you've been through. The fact that you've made it so far only attests to your inner strength. Not to mention that despite your dyslexia, you've got a very fluid writing style.

 

I can't find anything of value in your past so I strongly advice, like the other posters, that you should get those people out of your life. You also said that you would be homeless unless you live with your dad, and I can see how your decision now might be a good one. But you are seeing it as temporary, yes?

 

You mentioned a lot of failed business ventures, so I guess you're working on getting a place for yourself on a conscious level. Yet they seem to fail mostly because of your perfectionism, as you pointed out. So what you're saying is that your ideas don't fail cause they're bad ideas per se, they fail because of some of your traits. So my theory is that on a subconscious level, you're sabotaging yourself for something you did or think you did in the past.

[Chris Harris]

I am almost at a loss for words my friend... that sounds like a truly awful set of experiences and you have my sympathy. Also let me commend you for how far you have come despite the terrible circumstances you were brought up, your strength and courage is astounding.

 

I agree that you should get out of there as soon as possible since being that near to known corruption (let me just say evil) might cause you to manifest/perpetuate some of the traits you have listed. Along with that I would recommend that when your financial situation improves to find a good therapist and try to work through some of the problems you want to move past. I know these are kind of generic answers but I think a good therapist is the best person to help you in this situation.

[A__]

Oh my god. You cannot brush all that off and say you're OK with it. You are clearly not OK. I understand why you say you're completely fine with living with him but I think it's going to do more damage than you realize. You're probably a whole lot stronger than most people for enduring all that but in ways which leave you imbalanced. Yes, being with hime was worse in the past, you probably feel a sense of comforting relief now that you're older, but it's still very, very unhealthy. It's like a trap. You're paying for it with something more valuable than money. Continuing to live there is going to keep you in a stunted state. I hope you can get out of there ASAP. Can you reach out so someone in your past? Perhaps someone from the family who is remorseful about never offering help in the past, to use as an urgent stepping stone? Perhaps a friend can let you stay with them? I mean, if you can just rent a tiny room somewhere else that would be a positive change in the right direction. Get any job you can, save up to do this so you can stay somewhere else. Imagine that the place is on fire. It's burning your psyche, your identity, your mortality, your future.

[Lians]

What a nightmare... I'm not even remotely qualified to give advice on how you should deal with this level of abuse. However, I do think that leaving your dysfunctional environment is your only chance of ever getting better. You're young but the developmental clock is ticking.

 

The people you've described are not the type that would function normally for ten years. I don't know what happened to you in your childhood but I'm fairly sure your problems didn't start at the age of ten.

 

I get it, your mental fortitude is formidable and you sound like a really intelligent guy. There's one thing that you haven't considered though. Your brain has wired itself to deal with dysfunction. You may be able to control the machinery of your mind, but you can't alter its structure through will power. Ultimately, you're limited to the number of buttons you can push and you're becoming more aware of this limitation by the day. Regardless of your mental mastery, you won't be able to outgrow your environment. That's a good thing. You need your current skills to deal with your father and sisters.

 

I strongly suspect that the purpose of this thread is to reinforce your belief that you don't need people's radical advice because you're stronger than the average person. You're tough, you can deal with it. That could very well be true, but you may pay a terrible price in the long run. What if your father, like you, was toughing it out for years before he finally broke down? What about your mother? Like it or not, you are related to them by both bond and blood.

 

I obviously can't tell you what to do, but I'm going to give you some practical advice for coping with the pain. I'd venture to guess that your body is a mess. Start working out. This channel and this thread are a pretty good starting point. Digestion issues? Don't diet. Eat healthy and avoid inflammatory food. Here's an excellent resource on the topic. Hyperactivity? Practice mindfulness techniques. You can even start a journal when you're more comfortable with relaxation. Watch Stef's Bomb in the Brain series. If you get out of your current situation, save up some money and look for very experienced therapists. Your case is pretty severe, so you'll need an expert to help you work through your history.

 

I hope Mike can somehow push you to the front of the call-in queue because a conversation with Stef can be enormously beneficial for you. I'm really sorry that you live in a world that allows such things to happen to a helpless child. Everyone turned their back on you and the isolation that permeates your story is heartbreaking.

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[Lians]

One of the tragic things that often comes out of abuse is a disconnect between the body and the mind. You retreat in your mind while your physical body is getting tortured and you learn to associate bodily sensation with weakness:

• "My body is flawed for experiencing pain but my mind is strong enough to ignore the unpleasant feelings. Hooray for willpower."
• "I want to eat healthy but my body craves unhealthy food and keeps gaining weight regardless of what I eat. I need more willpower"
• "I couldn't achieve my exercise quota for the day and that means I'm bad, and by extension, my body is also bad for being so weak. I need more willpower."
• "I hate myself for blushing when people talk to me. Why can't my body stop giving away my thoughts? What's wrong with it?"

If you look carefully, you'll see this pattern all over the place. Judging from your experiences and the language you used to describe them, this is very much the case with you as well. You speak of conquering your problems as if you're at war with your body. Tough luck, your mind doesn't reside in an ethereal and eternal soul; it's a product of your physicality. You either learn how to work in tandem with your body or you're in for a whole lot of trouble.

 

How you do that depends on your personality and your needs. Body work (sports, exercise, dancing, yoga) is what helped me stay in touch with my body. Practising mindfulness mediation can help you gain more compassion and understanding for your physicality. Treating yourself to your favourite food and doing things for the sake of physical pleasure (massages, aroma therapy etc.) can be a good starting point. Very often, we do things for our minds with the goal of pleasure or improvement but we neglect our bodies as if they don't matter.

 

Try to get more in touch with your body while you're waiting for a chance to speak to Stef. You'll be able to get a whole lot more out of the conversation if you're less disconnected from your experiences.

 

Switching gears, I'd like to ask you a few questions: What do you think is your father's excuse for what he put you through? What does he tell himself when the inevitable guilt of his wrongdoings resurfaces? I'm asking you this because I get the feeling that you filtered your story through your father's perspective rather than your own genuine experiences. "The boy went through hell, but he sure is tough. I guess I didn't do such a bad job after all. I shouldn't feel so bad because he's a functioning human being." Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but I sensed some guilt for what happened to your mum from the way you presented your story. "If only I didn't go to bed that night," kind of thing. Does your father know about what you saw/heard that night? These are just some things to consider and you can discard them at will. You obviously don't have to share anything that makes you feel uncomfortable.

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[Lians]

To me, issues of self-knowledge are not about understanding the reality of the situation. That's necessary but not sufficient. Understanding the causal chain of events that lead up to a specific issue is where real progress is made because it gives you information about how to prevent recurrence in the future. You don't feel pain because you burned yourself, but because you don't want to burn yourself in the future.

 

Why did you, as a kid, assume responsibility about what happened to your mum? In other words, how did that guilt end up in you?

 

I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but your answer to my first question is an explanation, not an excuse. It's about his history, not yours. If he hasn't apologized for his behaviour and provided restitution for his wrongdoings, then he must have an excuse for not doing that. That's how human beings operate.

 

I understand that this may be too abstract, so I'll give you an example from my own history. I've heard stories of my father getting really drunk and crying about what he had done to me and how he shouldn't have succumbed to his dysfunction. His excuse with regards to me was the following: "You turned out better than me, you're very strong and you can take care of yourself. There isn't any need for me to do anything. If the abuse turned you into a strong man, then it must have been worth it." If he didn't succumb to his dysfunction, he wouldn't have harmed me. That's a factual statement, not an excuse. An excuse is a justification for a wrongdoing. What's your father's excuse? Why isn't he on his knees, begging for your forgiveness?

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[Lians]

I edited my previous post with some additional thoughts while you were typing your reply. Have a look at it.

 

I felt that people were blaming me for not saving her, and that I deserved the blame and would accept the blame...

 

For now, let's ignore the logic of you being a child and not having control over adults. What if your perception was correct? What if people did blame you, a helpless child, for what happened to your mum? What does that say about them? As a child, you wouldn't know what to make of the whole situation, so you'd have to take your cues from the adults around you.

 

Here's something you may or may not know. Dissociated people tend to provoke their repressed feelings in those around them. What if your father's guilt somehow ended up in you? He had infinitely more control over the situation. It would be natural for him to feel guilty. By placing his responsibility on you and beating you, he could relieve himself of that guilt. You see, he tried killing himself for the first time after your sister's confession. In other words, he could no longer blame you for what happened. You say that you viewed your dad as a superman. Is that the behaviour of a superhero or a coward?

[Stefan Molyneux]

It is just terrible, what you experienced, from every conceivable angle, and in almost every possible circumstance, this is about as terrible a set of childhood experiences as can be imagined, you have my very deepest sympathies for everything that was inflicted upon, and for the absolutely appalling family circumstances that you were born into.

 

The process of overcoming such a history is quite long, and complicated, and different in some ways for each person – what has helped for me has been a very clear moral delineation of the evils and the evildoers who surrounded me, that has been the basic defense that has kept me safe as an adult, and allowed me to never have anyone like that ever again in my life.

 

Unfortunately, the society addicted to spanking children becomes all sorts of "forgiving" when dealing with parental wrongdoing – it is rank and vicious hypocrisy, but the nonsense called culture can only survive at the expense of children, so it should not be too shocking.

 

I'm sorry for your past bad experiences with therapy, I've done a podcast on how to find good therapist that might help at least of my thoughts on the matter, but I do think that a therapist skilled in dealing with extreme childhood trauma would be a great place to start, and good sounding board to help cool down a brain that sounds permanently wired up with an entirely understandable fight or flight mechanism.

 

Again, my deepest sympathies and best wishes, I'm so sorry for what was done to you.

 

Big hugs.

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[Lians]

I just wanted to mention that the mindfulness book I recommended (you can get it as an audio book) is the product of a lot of scientific research and the techniques it outlines are rapidly gaining popularity amongst therapists here in the UK. Matter of fact, UK's National Health Service (NHS) refers people with severe mental health issues (people beyond talk therapy or medication) to mindfulness programs. The book references a lot of the studies, but you can have a look at this article and the NHS mindfulness page for a quick overview. Mindfulness practice might be able to curb the effects of your mind's permanent fight-or-flight state. You can also use the techniques as a stepping stone to Stef's Real Time Relationships (also available as an audio book) and the approach it outlines.

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!

[Lians]

For sure man! Yah, I really do plan on checking it out and I appreciate the recommendation. Thanks for all your help actually. You spent a bunch of time replying and I appreciate your time.

 

No problem! I tried to give you some perspective, but it seems like you've already done plenty of work yourself. I suspect that your next steps will be emotional rather than intellectual. Keep up the good work and make sure you absolutely feast on this show's content! Philosophy has helped me tremendously in my life and it can sure as hell help you.

[A__]

I wanted to clarify my previous post. I meant, I don't want you to feel a constant, uncomfortable anxiety about escaping your living situation, just that you not lose touch of that useful emotion. It can summon a sense of urgency the moments you need that motivation most to overcome an obstacle to that goal. In other words, like a metaphoric key that helps you unlock your dependence upon your dad. By the way, you've got great communication skills and you come across as very level-headed.

 

I don't care what my dad thinks of me, so when he talks crap, it literally does not affect me at all. It is almost comedic, like I feel bad for how stupid he looks in my eyes. When he yells, which is actually somewhat rare, it stops very quickly and again, I just look at him like he is stupid. Why I look at him this way, I think is just because of the lack of respect I have for him. But I feel that being here will give me the best time and opportunity to succeed and start the life I want while if I get a crappy job that takes up most of my time just to pay for a small room and to support myself, then I will have such a small amount of time to heal my wounds and work for the future. Right now, I am only choosing what I see as the best option, but when I am ready to leave, I am gone and there is nothing he or my sisters will be able to do to stop me, and the only thing they can do is to keep on improving their own lives/personal issues to have an attempt to stay in my life at all when I am gone.

 

No person can be completely apathetic about their dad, no matter how bad a dad may have been. Of course we all care, we wish things could have been less abusive at the very least. Just being in his presence is a constant memory of the past no matter how much you compartmentalize it, and (even if subtle) the genetic similarity visual can have an effect.

 

Lians gave great tips. Reading his posts reminds me that this website is truly unique, an oasis. I'm so glad you've found this place, that you'll work toward more improvement (especially the good therapist part) and I wish you the best.

[Randanza]

Thankyou to all that helped! Very much appreciated!