Paul’s 41 year-old friend talks (and laughs) about his arrested emotional development and struggle to be an adult after a childhood where he often had to parent his parents because of their addictions, mental illnesses (including hospitalizations and suicide attempts) and lack of boundaries.

Episode notes:



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Episode Transcript:



Welcome to Episode 203, with my guest Oliver Sykes. I’m Paul Gilmartin. This is the Mental Illness Happy Hour—honesty about all the battles in our heads, from medically-diagnosed conditions, past traumas, and sexual dysfunction to everyday compulsive, negative thinking. This show’s not meant to be a substitute for professional mental counseling. It’s not a doctor’s office. I’m not a therapist. It’s more like a waiting room that doesn’t suck. The website for this show is mentalpod.com. @mentalpod is also the Twitter handle you can follow me at. Go check out the website, the Mental Pod website. If there’s a specific topic you’re interested in, you can type it in the search box and articles or episodes will come up that are related to that. And that search box is not to be confused with the Amazon search box that we have on our site as well, because we’re an Amazon affiliate. I should also tell you about that because it’s the Christmas season. If you’re gonna buy something at Amazon, enter through our search portal, and then Amazon gives us a couple nickels when you buy something and it doesn’t cost you anything. But anyway, our website. We have blogs by me, by guests. There’s a forum you can join. There’s surveys you can take. There are—you can see how other people filled out surveys, revealing their deepest, darkest shames and secrets and struggles and all kinds of stuff. And you can support the show financially by going there as well.

I’m gonna share a really—and I’m not doing any surveys on today’s show. I’m gonna read a couple of emails after the interview with Oliver, but—yeah, wasn’t—just didn’t feel like doing the surveys today. I had a really, really—I don’t even know what the word would be to describe it, but last weekend, I was invited to speak at Johns Hopkins University about sexual assault, and it’s—the group that I spoke to is a resource for victims. And when they invited me to come speak, my first thought was, “Holy fuck, Johns Hopkins? They must have the wrong email address.” Apparently, one of the women on their board is a—she’s a listener to the show. Hello, Christine.

And so, my first instinct was, I was super excited to go, but I felt like a fraud. And so, we had a preliminary phone call with them when we were talking about what I would talk about, and I got honest with them and I said I feel like a hypocrite because so many years of my life, I was a misogynist. I was an objectifier. And I even had a woman say to me one time years ago—after we had had sex, the next day she said, “I felt violated by you.” And until we did the episode with Gina Grad on this podcast, I had never realized how many women and men often have sex when they really don’t want to because they’re afraid of hurting the other person’s feelings, and they give in to that person’s persistence. And when Gina said that, I suddenly realized, oh my God, I’m that guy. And I began to look back at the relationships that I’d had and the sexual encounters I’d had, and I realized that some of those might have been abusive—clearly, the one where the woman said that she had felt violated. And I immediately had apologized to her and did some real soul searching, but it didn’t get rid of that shame and the sadness that I feel that I’ve probably negatively affected somebody’s life. So, I shared this with the people at the resource group, and they said, “No, I think that’s important and it would be good for you to share that as a part of your talk.” And I almost wanted to cry because I felt like if there’s any group of people who should reject me, it should be them. And they were the ones who were paying me to come speak.

And the other thing that—where I thought maybe there is value in me coming to speak, is the fact that I have survived incest, and if I look at the guy that I became and how I treated women, I was in many ways repeating what had been done to me by my mom. She objectified me. She pushed my sexual boundaries, whatever you want to call it. And I guess—that certainly doesn’t excuse what I did, but it allowed me to talk about the subject in a larger context, which I think is what is lacking too often. We just will look at somebody being hurt and we don’t think about, why is that other person hurting them? What is driving them to do that? Is it a lack of conscience? Is it that they don’t understand? It had never occurred to me that I could be experiencing something during sex that was completely different than the woman was experiencing. And that was kind of—it was life-altering for me to—for that to dawn on me. I certainly knew that somebody could think that the sex was great and the other person thought it was mediocre, but I never realized—and this is especially true of people who were raised in households where their needs were placed behind their parents’, was they don’t want to upset somebody. They don’t want to appear selfish. They don’t know the words to advocate for their needs. And so, they silently go along with something while their soul is crying out, “I don’t want this to be happening.”

So, I went and I spoke. And a group of the people who were putting the event on and I had lunch, and it was one of the most—it was about a two-hour lunch, and it was probably the most powerful two hours of my life. Even though they were younger than me and they were female, I felt like—and I had been this guy. Being honest—there’s so many things I want to say. I told a little bit of my story with them. I shared some stuff, they shared some stuff. And at one point, I just looked at them and I said I’m sorry. I’m sorry. And they said, “Thank you for saying that.” And I was convinced, up until the minute I went to speak, that they were going to text me and say, “Don’t bother coming.” That’s how deep my belief has been all my life, that I’m gross.

And after I spoke, some women came up to me and told me how moved they were. One of them had tears in her eyes and she was just beginning to confront what had happened to her. And they were bonding with me as a fellow survivor. And I think it was so profound to me because I’m no longer a misogynist. And I felt protective of these women. And one of them in particular, she just had tears in her eyes and she started to tell me her story, and I got to just hold her hand and look in her eyes and listen to her while the tears rolled down her face. And I thought, “She trusts me. She fucking trusts me.”

And when I flew back home, something inside of me had started to heal some of that shame. It’s hard to put this into words, but I wanted to talk about this because it’s a really seminal moment in my life and—I sent them an email and thanked them, and told them how cleansing it was for me to be able to do this, ’cause I wanna do more of it. I feel like it’s my life’s purpose and my life’s passion and I feel like I have a story to tell and I feel like I tell it well. But there’s also a little part in my brain that still feels like a hypocrite, that still feels like, “They’re gonna text you and tell you not to show up.”

Paul (PG): I’m here with Oliver Sykes, who I’ve known for probably four years?

Oliver (OS): Something like that, yeah. Three or four years.

PG: It’s been tedious, whatever it is.

OS: It’s been hell.

PG: Unending.

OS: Boring.

PG: I always look around when I’m around you to make sure I’m not in the dentist.

OS: Yeah, it’s that bad. It’s gotten worse, too.

PG: I can’t believe that I’ve waited this long to have you on as a guest.

OS: I know. I finally qualify.

PG: ’Cause you got—oh no, you qualified by the time you were three years old. I’ve just been waiting until I could stand to be in the room with you for an hour and a half. We laugh about a lot of shit. I have to say, you’re one of my favorite people.

OS: Thank you.

PG: And we’ve had so many deep conversations late at night on the phone over the last two years, and you’ve shared so much of your life with me. I hope, in this interview, we can capture some of that. You’re how old?

OS: 41.

PG: And you were raised on the east coast.

OS: Yep.

PG: And your father has pretty severe schizophrenia, among other things.

OS: Yeah, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, it’s not really clear.

PG: Okay.

OS: He was diagnosed as schizophrenic at one point. But he doesn’t have visual hallucinations, so I don’t technically know what he is but he’s on a lot of medication for it.

PG: And he loses touch with reality, though.

OS: Yeah.

PG: Yeah. And did—as a—when you were a kid, it was pretty frightening.

OS: Yeah. He—well, he was a rager. He was very abusive towards my mother and his wives. He broke my mother’s eardrum when I was two in a fight. And they divorced and he was committed, and he was in a hospital for, like, six months. He wasn’t even sure if he was gonna get out, but luckily he got on some medication, Prolixin, which kind of saved his bacon. But he was hospitalized a couple times when I was a kid and he tried to kill himself at one point with meds—with pills. So yeah, it was definitely a traumatic childhood in that sense. My dad and I—he’s a very loving person but he wasn’t able to be present a lot of the time.

PG: And, from what we’ve talked about, it sounds like you could never really let your guard down around him because he would turn in an instant, and he would go from being—y’know, talk about that.

OS: Well, yeah, he was unpredictable. He—on the one, like—he leaned on me very heavily in a lot of ways because he couldn’t take care of himself. He would—he was physically violent with his wives and verbally abusive, and to me as well. He would call me up on the phone at night. He’d call me incessantly when I was a kid in high school and stuff. He’d call me, like, three or four times a night, I’m trying to do my homework, and he’s on the phone wanting attention, wanting to talk, wanting support or money or whatever it is he’s not getting. And when he didn’t get his way, he would flip out on me and say horrible things like, “You’re a rich, spoiled prince”—’cause my mother had married a wealthy man and we were living in a nice house, and my dad was in a welfare hotel in New York City. And he’d call me a rich, spoiled prince or a Jew, a greedy Jew, or, “You’re not my son anymore,” he would say. “You’re not my son anymore. I’m disowning you.” And then he would call back, like, an hour later. “I’m so sorry, Oliver. I love you so much. I’m really sorry for the things I said to you. I didn’t mean any of it. I love you.”

PG: What was that like?

OS: It was confusing, y'know? It was horrible. It was—he was—he really loved me deeply. I know he really cared about me but he was so mixed-up that he couldn’t help but act out and be verbally abusive. And he just took his pain out on me, and it was very hurtful. And I internalized all that pain and I felt—somehow felt responsible for it and felt guilty for the fact that he was suffering so much. And I took it upon myself to try and save him. I would, like—I’d bring him clothes or I’d bring him food or I’d bring him toiletries or whatever I could find and I’d go visit him in New York City on the weekends. My mom lived in the suburbs and he lived in the city. And I’d go in on a weekend and I’d bring him all these things and buy him food and try and save him. And then, by—my drinking started—I started drinking when I was ten. My drinking became a weekend thing, so I’d go into the city and I’d see my dad and then I’d go out and party with all my friends during—at night and stuff, and I’d stay at friends’ houses, and so I wouldn’t really spend a lot of time with him because it was so painful.

PG: What do you think when you think back to the little kid that you were and what he had to put up with?

OS: What do I think back, as a kid?

PG: Yeah, when you look back on the little ten-year-old you.

OS: Right.

PG: And we haven’t even gotten into the stuff with your mom.

OS: Right.

PG: But just with your dad, about you having to be the parent and him being the kid.

OS: Yeah, it’s sort of—it’s ironic because it’s like, here I am, I’m a 41-year-old man now, trying to grow up and be an adult, and there I was a ten-year-old kid playing the adult, thinking I was so grown-up and mature and that I could handle all these things, I could handle the burden, and I really wasn’t prepared to do that. I had no skills to do that. I’m not a professional. I’m not a mental health professional. He wasn’t getting the help he needed. And he was on medication, he had psychiatrists and stuff, but my dad’s so smart that he thought he could outsmart all of his doctors. He never was able to get guidance from a good psychiatrist or a therapist, so he didn’t really take care of himself. And so, he’s to blame for that. But I took the burden of having to watch out for him.

PG: Did your mom ever try to protect you from your dad’s outbursts? What would she do?

OS: She did, yeah. Well, first of all, when I was little, my dad would call my mother up, after the divorce. He would call her and start yelling at her. I don’t really know what he said to her. They would argue in French so that I wouldn’t understand what they were saying.

PG: Just in case the situation wasn’t strange enough to begin with.

OS: Yeah. Well, they lived in France together, so—before they had me. So they would try and argue in French so I wouldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, but I got the gist of what was going on and I would lie in my mom’s bed while they would fight, and she would just—the screaming matches on the phone. She would put the phone off the hook sometimes so that he couldn’t call. And I would get upset. I felt bad for my dad. I really felt bad for him, and I wanted to protect both of them. I would sit there in these fights and just horribly—felt horrible for both of them. And anyway, but—so as I got older, and then my dad was leaning on me more and more, my mother tried to intervene. She would get upset when my dad would call so much. She would—sometimes she’d get on the phone and tell him to leave me alone, or she’d say, “You gotta stop taking all your dad’s calls. It’s just too much. You can’t handle it.” And I’d say, “It’s okay, Mom, I can handle it. It’s fine. Leave me alone.” And I’d get very protective of my father. And then she actually offered to have me go to a therapist when I was about 16. She’d offered a couple times. So then she took me to a therapist when I was 16 because she was concerned. She knew that this had to be having some effect on me. And I went to the therapist and psychiatrist or whatever they were and I said, “I’m fine.” And I convinced them that I was totally fine. I said, “I don’t have any problems. I’m totally happy.” And I thought I was fine, and that was it. I never saw them again. So, I mean—

PG: What did you—

OS: I was defensive. I didn’t want to let somebody in. I didn’t want to let my guard down.

PG: Yeah. Do you think it was because your guard had just crept up as that kid, that you couldn’t even see that it was up? When you went to go talk—’cause I mean, what kid being around a parent who you never know if they’re gonna say horrible things one minute—how can you not have to have a guard up? How would you numb yourself? How would you escape when you were that kid? ’Cause every kid’s gotta find some kind of escape.

OS: Yeah. Well, that’s when—I turned to drugs and alcohol when I was ten.

PG: Yeah.

OS: I remember my first drunk. I remember being on vacation at Club Med in Guadeloupe with my mom and my grandparents. And we’re at dinner and I notice they have, like, a beer machine. And I went to the beer machine and I filled up the glass with beer. Like a juice machine, but it had beer in it. I just started guzzling it. I got drunk in about five seconds. And I just remember being the life of the party. Everyone thought I was so cute, and I would—I ran around the whole—that whole week we were on vacation, I ran around with, like, 15- and 16-year-olds, smoking cigarettes and drinking. That was my first experience partying, at ten. And then, that just escalated every—it basically just became, like I said, every weekend in New York City, partying with my friends, smoking pot when I’m 13 years old. So, drinking and drugging became my escape and my relief from the whole thing.

PG: Was there an escape or a relief before that? ’Cause you had years with your dad before you started—

OS: Right.

PG: Would you—was it fantasy?

OS: I don’t know. Probably fantasy, I would say, fantasy. Yeah. I’ve always been a daydreamer. I remember—well, I was insecure. I was also a bed wetter and I was a thumb sucker and I would—

PG: Keep going. Let me get my pants off.

OS: I remember being in, like, first grade, sucking my thumb on my desk. I didn’t want anyone to see. And I had this thing where I would, like, rub my nose and my lips or whatever. It was a way of calming, soothing—self-soothing. So, but fantasy and just always daydreaming, always wanting to be older, wanting to be, like, an adult. I couldn’t wait until I grew up and got out of school. I wanted to be—I wanted girlfriends. I definitely—I became a sex and love addict at a pretty young age. I mean, I remember in kindergarten, undressing girls, and all throughout elementary school, undressing girls and getting in trouble for it. And fantasizing about having girlfriends and older women. I remember at camp one summer, I had a camp counselor—her name was Laney, and she was, like, 18 or something like that and she was just going off to college, and I was about seven years old. And she would, like, kiss me on the lips every day at camp. She’d give me a little peck on the lips. And one time, I went up to kiss her and I put my tongue in her mouth. And she was like, “What are you doing?” She’s like, “You can’t do that!” That was, like—I wanted a French kiss. I’d seen it.

PG: How did you even know what French—

OS: I don’t know what—I’d seen pornography at the age of, like, six or seven.

PG: How?

OS: My mom had a friend who—this couple—this guy, Fred Cohen, I remember. He’s an old family friend. When I was about six years old, we went to his apartment one time, and my mom and he and his wife were in the living room and he set me up with a movie in his bedroom, and it was a porno. It was Revenge of the High School Cheerleaders. And I remember sitting on the bed, watching the porno, and my mom came in and saw it and was furious. She got really pissed at him and was, like—would never let him forget it. It was—she was really upset about it.

PG: Yeah, that’s terrible for a kid that age. How did the movie turn out? Did the girls—did the cheerleaders get their revenge?

OS: Yep!

PG: I mean, I’m—I’ve gotta know!

OS: I don’t know the plot, to be honest with you—

PG: Yes.

OG: But it was pretty graphic.

PG: Yes.

OS: The cheerleaders were fellating.

PG: Yeah. So there was punishment, but it was doled out in semen.

OS: Yeah, it was interesting. That was when I first—I saw my first blowjob, was on that—is in that porno.

PG: Did you find that your—because you were saying that you were—there was a sexual kind of obsession before that. You know, when you were talking about being in kindergarten and getting girls to take their clothes off and stuff. I think that’s normal for a lot of kids. But where I noticed that I was different, and it sounds like you were different was, it was an obsession. It was like a way to soothe.

OS: Mm-hmm.

PG: And did you ever get the feeling like, I’m way more interested in this than other kids are, or did you—

OS: I was just a bandleader, you know what I mean? Like, it would—became a kind of a common—like, I remember we would be leaving class and we’d get these girls to, like, lift up their skirts and show us their privates. And like, I would always be the one egging them on. “Do it, do it, do it!” And then one time, I got caught exposing myself to a girl in class and I got yelled at by the teacher. But there were other—I remember—yeah, it was just kind of, like, I had this thing about women at a young age, I think probably because my mother and I were so close when I was very young. I was her—there may have been some emotional incest—I was her man, kind of thing, ’cause she didn’t have a husband or a boyfriend. And then there was some inappropriate things that happened with her as well with other men, when I was younger. But I remember saying to her one time—like, I went to—my dad took me to church when I was a little kid and I took communion for the first time. My mom said, “How was it?” I said, “It was smooth, like a woman’s leg.” Like, who says that at the age of five years old, you know what I mean? Like, I was obviously thinking about things that other kids weren’t thinking about.

PG: Wow. Wow. What were the—if you’re comfortable talking about them, what were the inappropriate things with your—

OS: With my mom?

PG: With your mom, yeah.

OS: Well, she—there were a few things, a few instances. One was when I was about six or seven and I was in the hospital. I had hives—I had gotten hives, and so I was in the hospital for, like, a week. And I’m in bed one night and I’m really scared and alone in this hospital room and I call my mom for comfort, and a man answers the phone. And I got really upset and really jealous. What’s he doing answering the phone? And she ended up coming to the hospital and comforting me that night and everything. And then there was another situation where—with the same man, where they were—we went to his country house in Connecticut one weekend, and they were basically having sex in the room with the door open, and I was sleeping in, like, this little fold-out couch out in the living room. And then they invited me to come into the bed with them, and they were naked and they invited me to come into the bed with them and, like, hang out with them.

PG: Wow.

OS: And—yeah, that was weird.

PG: That’s fucked-up.

OS: Yeah.

PG: That’s way more than weird. That’s fucked-up.

OS: Yeah.

PG: How old were you?

OS: I was probably seven.

PG: Wow. Wow.

OS: And then, I think I told you this story about Pelé, too. The famous Pelé story.

PG: Yeah. No, I forgot about this—the story about Pelé, Oliver. Refresh my memory. I want the listeners to hear this.

OS: Right, yeah, the Pelé story. All right, well, so there—around the age of eight or nine—before she met my stepfather, and there was another inappropriate episode with my stepfather as well, but—

PG: Do you wanna share what that one was, before?

OS: Before that? Yeah.

PG: Yeah.

OS: Well, when I was—yeah, when she first met my stepdad, their, like, second or third date, they’re in the living room making out, and we’re in my mom’s apartment, and I hear them in my bedroom. And I run out into the living room and I curse him out. “You fucking asshole! Get your fucking hands off my mother, you cocksucker!” Every curse you can imagine at the age of ten. So, he comforted me afterwards, she comforted me, calmed me down, whatever. And then—but then, like, a couple weeks later, he told me he loved my mother and he would never do anything to hurt us. Then they asked me for permission for him to sleep over one night. So, he slept over and I heard them having sex in the next room the whole night, and I remember screaming out to my mom, “Mommy, Mommy! Are you okay? Are you okay?” Like—

PG: Did you know that it was sex at the time?

OS: I knew it was sex and I was jealous. Deep down, I was hurt and jealous, but I acted like I was—

PG: Because he was getting her attention?

OS: Attention, yeah, and—yeah. And, well, also just—also having sex with my mom. I mean, I must have felt some sort of possessiveness over her, y’know?

PG: Mm-hmm.

OS: But I heard them having sex and I screamed out, “Are you okay?” Like, thinking maybe, like, he was hurting her or something. I heard all this moaning going on, so.

PG: That must have been pretty traumatic.

OS: Yeah.

PG: Yeah, I’ve heard many people share about that, about hearing a parent having sex, and it’s—especially if they don’t know if their parent’s being hurt or not.

OS: Right, right.

PG: I don’t understand why parents would be loud enough that their kids could hear it. How do they think that that’s okay on any level?

OS: Yeah.

PG: I’m just—I guess I’m glad my parents were frigid towards each other. I didn’t realize I was lucky. So, tell the—

OS: The Pelé story?

PG: The Pelé story.

OS: So yeah, okay, again, I don’t know—

PG: I mean, it’s not dramatic or anything, but I just—it’s bizarre.

OS: It’s an interesting story, yeah.

PG: It’s just bizarre.

OS: So, my mother had a friend from Brazil—Regina Dantes, I remember, was her name. And she was friendly with Pelé. So we get invited to go out to the Hamptons one weekend in New York, to stay at Pelé’s house.

PG: And maybe we should not be using everybody’s last name—

OS: Okay.

PG: Just for, y’know—

OS: For anonymity’s sake. Yeah.

PG: Yeah, I think use—maybe using their first names is okay.

OS. All right. I’m sorry, yeah.

PG: That’s all right.

OS: I’m revealing everyone’s identity. So anyway—so my mom’s friend knew Pelé. Everyone knows Pelé, the soccer player. So we go to stay at his house in the Hamptons one weekend. And we go out there, and it’s getting late, and my mom’s partying with all these Brazilians and they’re speaking Portuguese. My mom’s really good with languages and she picks up Portuguese right away. And she says, “Well, I’m gonna go into Rodrigo’s room,” or whatever his name was—Roberto’s room. “I’m gonna spend the night with Roberto, and you go down in the basement and play video games. Is that okay with you?” “Sure, Mom, yeah. It’s fine, yeah. Okay, whatever. Don’t have much of a choice in the matter.”

PG: Giving—putting the responsibility on you. That’s so—yeah, that—I heard somebody do that to a kid one time and say, “Do you—I won’t move in with this man if you don’t want me to.”

OS: Yeah.

PG: I was like, what are you doing, putting that pressure on that kid? But go ahead.

OS: No, so that was it. It was just—I just remember being very jealous and very angry, and it was just typical of my mom to do things like that. I think she just sought comfort—her own soothing and comfort in the arms of men. I mean, granted, she was a 35-year-old woman with needs. I don’t expect her to be celibate.

PG: Right.

OS: I mean, obviously that’s normal. And she did remarry and had a ten-year relationship with her husband. But some of the things she did were inappropriate and I don’t think she ever realized it. I don’t think it really occurred to her. And I did confront her, actually, years later. I did confront her about it, upon the suggestion of her boyfriend. I remember talking to her boyfriend about it—this guy Chuck—and saying, she did all these things with men and it was really hurtful. And he said, “Maybe you should talk to her about it.” And I called her and I said, “Look, you did some inappropriate things.” And she said—she got furious at me. She said, “You’ve been jealous of every guy I’ve ever been with! You wanted to destroy all those relationships! Fuck you!” We got into this big fight and she was just really upset about it, so…

PG: And that’s how you left it?

OS: That’s how we left it. We never really talked about it again.

PG: Do you feel like it’s unresolved?

OS: Yeah, it is. Well, it’s unresolved in me. I mean, she’s moved on. I don’t think she gives a shit, but, like, for me—

PG: What does that feel like, feeling like your mom doesn’t give a shit about exposing you to all of that?

OS: Yeah.

PG: And abandoning you in a—I mean, she doesn’t know. Some adult could have fucked you while you were—

OS: Right.

PG: Milling about at a party with a bunch of drunk people, three-quarters of whom she doesn’t even know.

OS: Yeah. Just neglect, I think is what it was. It was neglect. It wasn’t—and it was an insensitivity, and I think she just didn’t know what was appropriate. My mother’s never really known what’s appropriate. She would say things to friends of mine, like, later in life, guys out here—she made some comment about, like, getting blowjobs on some TV show, Real Sex or whatever, to my friends. And they were like, “Whoa, that’s odd.” My mother was the type of woman, like, when I’d have friends over, she’d smoke cigarettes with my friends or gossip with my friends or tell me she thought so-and-so was cute, or he’s attractive—things like that that are just inappropriate.

PG: Yeah, my mom would do the same thing. It’s like you were raised by children. You were raised by two children.

OS: Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right.

PG: I mean, I felt like when you described that thing about her getting mad at you when you said that—the times that you felt abandoned. Like, here you were sharing your pain with her, and she just—her narcissism just kicked in and was like, “I can’t take responsibility for this.”

OS: Mm-hmm.

PG: It’s probably terrifying for her to think about that.

OS: Mm-hmm.

PG: But I can’t imagine the rage and the sadness that is inside you.

OS: Mm.

PG: I know you’ve shared some of the sadness with me. There’s been a couple nights we’ve been on the phone together where you’ve cried probably the deepest cry I’ve ever heard another human being cry.

OS: Yeah.

PG: I think it was, like, six months ago.

OS: Yeah. I remember that night.

PG: And it was—there was, like, two nights in a row. And I was really happy for you, that you were letting some of that out.

OS: Right. It was terrifying, but, yeah, I mean, I’m glad I did, too. It was very painful.

PG: You wanna talk about that?

OS: Yeah, we can talk about it. I mean—in hindsight, like, it was really—I didn’t realize how profound it was. It was something like—I ended up going to the emergency room at the local hospital that night because I couldn’t fall asleep. I was so stressed out about it. And then I kind of let it all go afterwards, after I went to the hospital and everything. Like, that was traumatic, but it was like, “All right. They’re just feelings.” But, like, I don’t—I think I remember you talking to me about it, saying, like, I must have felt abandoned by my parents. ’Cause it was around the time that I was—my dad was not doing very well and I think I was going to visit him and I was really upset about that, and I was really stressed out. And I think you said that it seemed like I was maybe re-experiencing the abandonment that I felt at a very young age by my dad and my mom. I think they’re both equally—I don’t know which is more painful, my dad or my mom. I’m still trying—I’m still grappling with that. I’m trying to process this, like—what really actually happened and what the damage that was done.

PG: Maybe get the cheerleaders on the case and three of them go head-to-head.

OS: Yeah.

PG: The cheerleaders take revenge—

OS: The high school cheerleaders?

PG: On your mom and dad.

OS: Yeah.

PG: There’s gotta be a winner. My sense was, when we were talking, was that—I think I remember saying, “This is good, Oliver. This is good.” ’Cause you were feeling like you wanted to fight the tears, and I was saying, “Don’t.” I was like, “Embrace the tears. This is the pain that you’ve been trying to not feel your whole life, and this is good. This means that you’re healing.”

OS: Right.

PG: ’Cause all of this stuff is coming up. How could there not be anger and rage and sadness? And I remember you saying a lot of the sadness was that your dad is going to die someday, and that you can’t take care of him.

OS: Mm-hmm.

PG: Do you remember that? Do you remember talking about that? Can you talk about that?

OS: Yeah. I mean, I’ve come to terms with the fact that my dad’s gonna die. It was, like—

PG: ’Cause he’s not in good health.

OS: Right. He’s got Parkinson’s disease. My dad’s got Parkinson’s disease, he’s in a nursing home in Cleveland, Ohio, and he can’t walk. His legs are paralyzed, he’s in a wheelchair. And at the time, back in—I visited him back in March, and then I saw him again in August and he declined really badly. They were saying he only had a couple months to live. He was completely incontinent, he couldn’t walk and take care of himself, he was completely confused. His mind was gone. I mean, he was—the Parkinson’s was just kicking his ass.

PG: And you took him for a walk.

OS: Well, that was another experience. Yeah, I took him in the wheelchair and he fell out of the wheelchair and—

PG: You hit a crack and you dumped him.

OS: Yeah. I know. And then he said I was trying to get rid of him, and he told the nurses at the emergency room that I was trying to get rid of him. He’s got a great sense of humor, my dad. I mean, that’s the one—

PG: Oh, he was kidding when he said it.

OS: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

PG: Yeah, that’s a thing that really bound you to your dad, was the sense of humor, ’cause it—from what you shared with me, there was also great stuff with your dad.

OS: Oh, fantastic. Yeah, my dad and I—my dad’s one of my best buddies. He and I are tight. Last night—he had me in stitches last night. He was going on and on about all his sexual exploits and—

PG: Dude.

OS: Just telling me all these stories.

PG: Dude.

OS: Completely inappropriate, but it was so funny. Yeah.

PG: You think that’s healthy for your dad to be—

OS: I don’t know.

PG: Telling you about his sexual exploits?

OS: I don’t know, I think it’s funny. I don’t know.

PG: Yeah.

OS: I look at him, like—I look at it, like, a buddy telling me stuff, y’know? I don’t know. I guess I feel kind of obligated to be there for him. He’s got no one. He’s got my stepmother and he’s got me. And it’s like—

PG: But is it up to you to be the person who’s there for him in that sense? I mean, I understand, like, in terms of—somebody needs to call a nurse or this or whatever, but he’s also—he’s fucking married, Oliver. You—that’s the thing that always blows me away, is—I always say to you, is that’s what his wife is for.

OS: Yeah. Well, but she’s kind of doing her own thing. She’s moved on. I mean, she’s got a boyfriend. They’re married because—basically out of convenience and also because she needs the money. She gets his Social Security checks.

PG: Well, then shouldn’t she still bear the responsibility of caring for him?

OS: She does. She visits him three times a week. She’s still there. He’s not completely alone, but I mean, he can’t talk to her about guy stuff. He can’t—she’s limited—I mean, I don’t know. He still leans on me, but I—for whatever reason, I get a kick out of listening to him tell me stuff because it makes me laugh. And I’m like, maybe that’s just immature but I appreciate it ’cause I think to myself, he may not be around much longer. I wanna enjoy every conversation I have with him.

PG: My hope for you is that you can get to experience—and I know you’ve gotten better at setting boundaries with him. But my hope for you is that you can get to experience setting firm boundaries around him, and get to feel the self-love of doing that and sitting through the anxiety and your brain telling you you’re being a bad son, you’re throwing him under the bus, and getting through that, and still have a relationship with him with boundaries. ’Cause that—my take—I’m not an expert. I’m not a mental health professional, but my take on it is that you’re keeping yourself stuck in a certain area by not advocating for yourself and your boundaries with your parents. Talk about what you’ve been going through lately without—you don’t have to get specific about who it is, but the thing that you’ve been sharing with me.

OS: Which is—I’m not sure what you’re talking about.

PG: The fantasy.

OS: Oh, with the girl?

PG: Yeah.

OS: Oh, yeah. So I have a fantasy about a woman who I know from some support groups, and…

PG: Would you say “know”—when you say “know”…

OS: Who I’ve seen. I don’t know her.

PG: Who you don’t know.

OS: Who I don’t know, okay, fine.

PG: Who you are in love with from afar. And I use the word “love” with the biggest air quotes I can find. I’m looking for Goodyear to make air quotes that I can put things around—big enough to express how little you know this woman that you’re in love with.

OS: Okay. Well, yeah. So I have a fantasy about a girl that I don’t really know and I find her very attractive, physically. She’s got a way about her. The little I do know is that she’s smart. She’s well-read. I’ve been to fellowship with her on a few occasions from this support group where we go out afterwards and we all have dinner and stuff and talk. So I’ve had some conversations with her. She knows a little bit about me, just from what she’s heard me share, and that’s pretty much all I know from her, is what I’ve heard her share in meetings. I know that she comes from an alcoholic family. I think there was some incest in their family at some point, so she’s had some trauma. She’s emotionally unavailable. She remains distant from me. Every time I try to make eye contact with her, she looks away. Whenever I see her after meetings, I try to—want to smile at her, get a smile back, no—there’s just none of that. She just avoids me all the time. And she sees me looking at her in meetings and I see her, and I get really uncomfortable ’cause I feel bad that I’m projecting all this stuff on her. And I’m realizing that, after having done some writing about it, that I’m really—it’s really about my mother, in the sense that my mother was so unavailable to me and… I’m obsessing about her, I’m trying to control the situation, I’m trying to—it’s like, basically she’s withholding love from me and it’s making me really angry. It’s really pissing me off. And I’m, like, basically a little kid having a tantrum. I remember when I was a very little kid and my mom, when she would withhold love from me or withhold anything or not give me what I wanted, I would have tantrums in my room where I would kick the walls. Screaming, crying, going on and on for an hour. My mom would just leave me there and let me cry until I calmed down. And it’s similar to that, brings up those emotions. It’s that deep where it’s, like, I’m realizing—it’s also the—like I talked about earlier, the fighting between my parents. I think that I project some of the violence and the aggression, the—I’m not sure what the word is I’m looking for. But anyway, I’m seeing that in my—I’m projecting that onto my relationship with this girl, where I’m fantasizing about us being husband and wife, and I’m bringing in—it’s distorted by all the fighting that went on with my parents and it’s stirring up those emotions in me, making me very uncomfortable. It’s very layered. There’s a lot of stuff going on there. And like you said, I don’t know this person and it’s an obsession where I feel like we’re meant to be together, we’re meant to be married and have kids and it’s gonna happen in God’s plan—God’s got this great plan for me. I just need to be patient and let her work her program and I’ll work my program and we’ll both—when we’re both healthy, we’ll get together. So that’s how I have it all figured out.

PG: ’Cause last night when we talked—share with me what you wanted to do.

OS: What did—I don’t remember.

PG: You wanted to ask her out.

OS: Oh, right, right, yeah. Yeah, and I still do. I still—someone said to me—someone said, you’re depriving—I’m depriving myself of love and affection from women. And so, I’m doing that with this girl and what I need to do is to ask her out and just find out once and for all if she likes me or not, and if she does, great. If not, move on. But better to have that happen than to continue to feel this awkwardness that you feel, because you wanna ask her out but you’re not letting yourself.

PG: And my two cents, which you didn’t ask for right now but I’m gonna give it to you anyway, and I might have shared it with you last night, was what about her? Because she sounds like she feels awkward around you, the fact that she avoids your eye contact. And there’s a certain safety in a support group. That doesn’t mean that you can’t ask somebody out who’s in your support group, but there’s a certain safety that people really, really appreciate in there. And there’s an organic way I think you can get together with somebody in a support group, where you can just feel it building bit by bit by bit, but this relationship—quote, unquote “relationship” with her is—there’s no bits have been laid yet, and it would be like coming out of the blue and could make that support group, that particular meeting, feel unsafe for her or awkward for her. Do you think there’s any validity to that opinion?

OS: I do, I do. But what I’m weighing at is the—the difference between the awkwardness that I’m feeling now, not asking her out and not talking to her and not even getting—I mean—and the awkwardness I would feel if I did ask her out and she said no. I feel like I could—that would be better ’cause it would clear the air. It would be, like, “Okay, at least I know now. I don’t have to sit here and obsess about it anymore. I know that she’s not interested in me.”

PG: But you might be clearing the air at her expense, as opposed to—you know what I mean?

OS: Yeah, and I hear what you’re saying. I mean…

PG: It would be different if she was somebody that you were just bumping into at a coffee shop.

OS: Right.

PG: You know what I mean? Then I would be like, “You don’t even have to know her. Just ask her out.” But because it’s at a support group…

OS: I don’t wanna make her any more uncomfortable than she is. I guess I just wanna, like—I guess I just want her to understand me a little bit better and I feel like—like I said, I feel like she’s withholding and that’s really upsetting me. And I can’t make her love me. I mean, that’s not my plan, but I definitely—I feel some frustration, some desperation about it. It feels very desperate and I feel like I’ve hurt—I’ve been hurting her by being obsessive about it. I feel like it’s hurting her as much as it’s hurting me.

PG: Do you think there’s any validity to the thought that you’re just sexualizing your abandonment from your mom? Because all of the things that you just shared in your last four, five sentences—“I can’t make her love me.” There was two other things that you said, but it just—I couldn’t help but think that it’s like you’re replaying that. It’s so much easier to put all of those feelings on her than it is to look at the pain that your parents—that you didn’t truly get love from your parents as a child. And you do get it, but it’s kind of in crumbs and it comes with huge kinds of baggage attached to it. There’s just not really a whole lot of unconditional love from your parents. And there’s a pain, I think, with that—’cause I had to go through it with my mom—of realizing that I was used and abused, whatever you wanna call it. And I just get the feeling that with you, until you do that, until you face down that fuckin’ monstrous truth… If it’s not gonna be her, it’s gonna be another woman, it’s gonna be a better job, it’s gonna be something that will distract you from feeling that pain that you just touched into a little bit that night that we were talking about your dad. There’s gotta be more to it, Oliver. I mean, you have experienced one of the shittiest childhoods that I have ever heard. I mean, it’s terrible.

OS: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know. I mean, I’m just trying to be an adult in an adult world. It’s hard to grow up when you have all that trauma going on.

PG: Talk about the ways that you feel stuck as a kid. Where you feel like you’re still in arrested development, the development in your life.

OS: Well, I guess, like—well, one instance would be—one example would be with women, in the sense that I’m afraid to approach women, I’m afraid to ask them out on dates because I’m afraid of rejection. I’m terribly afraid of rejection. That’s why I have this obsession with this one woman. I feel like, okay, she goes to these meetings I go to and so she’s available—she’s accessible. She’s there, she’s part of my community. I should have access to her, where I’m denying myself access to other women. So that’s one area. Another area where I’m sort of developmentally retarded is work. I haven’t had a job in a while. My mother supports me financially. And I’m trying to find work right now—actually, working in a rehab. I’d like to work with other alcoholics. I think that’d be a really worthwhile thing to do. But yeah, I’m not financially self-supporting. I haven’t been my whole life. That’s kind of hard to admit.

PG: And what have you done?

OS: What have I—what jobs have I done?

PG: No, for financial—how have you—

OS: Oh. Well, I rely on money from my mother, so…

PG: And do you feel like that makes it more difficult for you to draw boundaries with her, or to—like it takes the option of cutting contact with her… Have there been times when you’ve thought to yourself, “If I didn’t need money from this woman, I would not be contacting her,” or… I mean—

OS: There’s times—yeah, there’s times when I’ve just had enough of her. She can be controlling. She does things like, when I go visit her—she lives in New Mexico—when I go visit her, it’s like, “Well, you need to shave,” or, “You need to put on some nicer clothes,” or, “You put on weight. Why aren’t you running?” Or, “Why aren’t you dating?” Different things to shame me, and those things really irritate the hell out of me. And there’s times where I’m like, why the hell do I even talk to my mother? I’ll call her for approval for something, like, I’ll be like, “Mom, I got a job interview.” “Oh great, but you don’t wanna do that.” Or, “Mom, I’m taking piano lessons.” “Oh, well, how much is that gonna cost? You can’t afford that.” “It’s 20 bucks, Mom.” “Well, yeah, that’s—you shouldn’t be doing that.” Whenever I wanna share something, some moment of, like, joy with her, it’s like, a lot of times, she shoots it down and it really irritates me, so there’s times when I’m like, I wish she would just fuckin’—sometimes I’m like, I wish she would just fuckin’ die so I could inherit her money and not have to deal with this shit anymore. So that’s sometimes where I go with it. But I mean… Again, I don’t know, it’s tough—

PG: How old do you feel when you talk to her on the phone?

OS: I feel like I’m about 14.

We’re gonna pick up in a second in the conversation with Oliver, but I just wanted to give our sponsor some love. Our sponsor this week is Audible. They have—if you’ve never checked out an Audible audiobook, you are missing out. Unlike streaming or renting service, with Audible, you own your book. They have over 150,000 titles to choose from, from fiction, non-fiction, best sellers, any category that you can think of. And I have one to recommend, a book by Walter Isaacson called The Innovators. It’s about the history of the digital revolution, from its first inkling in the 1700s until today, and it is fascinating. It’s the most entertaining history lesson you will ever get. Anyway, Audible has free apps for iPhones, Android, and Windows Phones. The My Library feature lets you access your books anytime, even from your phone. They have chapter navigation and annotated bookmarks. I could go on and on. It’s an awesome, awesome product. So if you want a free 30-day trial, go to audiblepodcast.com/mental, and that way they’ll also know that we sent you and maybe they’ll advertise with us again, which, of course, we would love ’cause we love when we have good products on the show. Again, go to audiblepodcast.com/mental for a free audiobook and trial.

PG: You know, you used the word “irritate.” Do you think it hurts? Do you think it’s more than irritating, or is it just—is that as deep as it goes, is irritating? ‘Cause as I listen to you share the things that she says, I feel hurt. I feel hurt for you. And I think the listeners hearing this episode—some of them are, like, clutching their hearts, like, “God, that’s so painful.” That’s so… Not that your parents did anything intentionally cruel. I’m sure they had terrible childhoods and weren’t taught tools, but some of the things that they do and say are just fuckin’ mean, Oliver. They’re just mean.

OS: Yeah. But I mean, I don’t feel like it’s gonna do me any good to sit here and point fingers or blame or any of that. I mean, I feel like I have—at some point, I have to let go of that stuff.

PG: That’s not what I’m suggesting. What I’m suggesting is that you feel it.

OS: Mm-hmm.

PG: Is that you feel it. And when you start to go obsess about such-and-such, try to bring it back to that place of, “What am I feeling right now? What is the feeling that I’m trying to avoid by…” You know, maybe it’s sadness. You know, that night that you were crying on the phone when we were talking, you were so sad. And I was like, “Oliver, this is awesome that you are sitting and you’re not running from that sadness.” Who wouldn’t run from that sadness and that pain that you have inside you?

OS: I think—I mean, so much of what I was experiencing that night on the phone with you was really, I mean, was about the pain and it was, like, the pain on a primal level. And I remember saying to you, this is, like, a primal scream. This is, like, wailing. This is—

PG: It was.

OS: Really, really profound, like, really painful stuff. But it also—it put me in touch with the amount of love that I feel for both my parents—especially my father, like, the amount of compassion that I have for him because… Yeah, he did some horrible things, but he’s suffered his whole life. He still suffers, and that’s one of the reasons that I really feel compassion for him and that’s one of the reasons why I do spend hours with him on the phone and entertain his fantasies and his craziness, because I feel so much compassion for him and what he’s gone through.

PG: What about the idea that they’re not mutually exclusive, your compassion for him and your compassion for yourself? They can both be there at the same time.

OS: Sure. Yeah.

PG: You don’t have to throw him under the bus to feel your pain.

OS: Sure. Yeah, I mean, I don’t—I feel like I am in touch with my pain. I don’t know—I don’t think I’m denying it. I think I just—I mean, I feel like I’m at a point of where I have enough self-care that I don’t let my father run my life or my mother run my life anymore. I know I have enough healthy—I have healthy boundaries and enough spiritual growth to know myself as a man and to know that I am standing on my own two feet. I’m working really hard on myself to become an adult and to have healthy relationships with people, and I’ve seen a lot of growth in the past few years. Since I’ve known you, I mean, I have grown a lot.

PG: I’d say a huge amount. I’d say a huge amount. Do you feel like I’m pushing you too much?

OS: No, I totally understand where you’re coming from. I’m not trying to be defensive. I’m just trying to explain, like, where I’m coming from with it, though. It doesn’t—it’s hard for me to talk about this stuff, but I do trust you and I know that it’s important that we talk about these things, like, I’m glad—I value the fact that we can talk about these things and I know that you care, and that matters a lot to me.

PG: It’s hard to watch because you’re such a sweet guy and I enjoy your company so much, that when I see you being hurt, it—and not being compassionate to yourself, when your compassion for yourself is the last on the list, it’s hard to watch. It’s hard to watch somebody you love not love themselves, and that’s how I feel sometimes when I’m around you, is that it’s hard to watch you put yourself as the last person on your list or towards the bottom. Does that make sense?

OS: Yeah, yeah.

PG: And so I think if I get pushy about wanting to try to tell you how I see it, it’s just my—that it pains me to see that sometimes, but the… I’ve seen you become such a different person than you were, than you were two years ago. What do you feel—tools you’ve learned in the last two years that you can break out now when you feel like the shit’s starting to hit the fan or you’re getting really uncomfortable.

OS: A few tools. Well, one would be daily prayer, which is something that you and I discussed and you really helped me with, was to really open up to my higher power and really just tell my higher power how I feel and ask for that support that I want that maybe I don’t get from my parents. I ask for that from God. So I’ve really developed and cultivated a relationship with my higher power over the past several months where I’m talking to God every day. In the morning, get on my knees and pray.

PG: And sometimes yell.

OS: Something yell, and yeah—

PG: Just talk. Just talk to the universe. Yeah.

OS: Yeah. Also, meditation. Someone in my support group suggested that I meditate, and I’ve been known about—see, the thing is, I’ve been sober from drugs and alcohol for almost 20—it’ll be 20 years in December—on December 17th, and I’ve known all this time about the tools that are available, like prayer and meditation, and I let—I think my pride has prevented me from using those tools, and fear, too. I think—I have a lot of fear about, am I being judged by God, and also with meditation, about fear of being alone with my thoughts and alone with myself. It’s really scary—

PG: Your feelings.

OS: My feelings, yeah. But I do it more regularly. Another powerful tool for me is writing. I’ve realized I’m a pretty powerful writer when I really get my thoughts out on paper, on the computer. I can really—I really grow from that. It really saves me, makes me—helps me connect with myself emotionally. And then also, just, like, hobbies and stuff. Like, I started taking piano lessons and that’s been therapeutic—

PG: Those are gonna be expensive, aren’t they?

OS: I forgot to mention earlier, yeah. My mom’s against that, but whatever. Fuck her. And then, well, therapy. That’s been another really powerful tool for me. Therapy is really—I have a great therapist who I’ve been seeing for seven years who’s gotten me through a lot of stuff, so…

PG: The other thing I’ve noticed a difference in you, too, is you’re more proactive in seeking employment, working more hours, and… You used to go through this thing where you would think about how you didn’t wanna go into work, you would try to work yourself up into going to work, and then you wouldn’t work that day and you’d stay home and watch TV, and then not be able to enjoy watching TV ’cause you were beating yourself up about the fact that you didn’t go to work.

OS: Right. I know, I know. That was horrible. I remember calling—I’d be feeling so bad about myself. I remember calling and being like, “Paul, I don’t know what to do. Like, I’m terrified to go to work but I know I need to do something, but I don’t have the financial pressure because I’m getting money from my mom…” And so, that’s hurt me, in a sense, to be getting that money. It’s hurt me. I think it’s held me back, but… I remember when I wouldn’t work, you would say, “Well, why don’t you just enjoy the day and do some self-care and actually be thankful?” And I—that helped me to—I would do things, like, go for a hike or go for a run or take myself to a movie or do something for myself. So when I—I’m just trying to find, like—I’m trying to practice good self-care. I think that’s really vital for someone like myself who’s got these issues and struggles with self-esteem, and take care of myself. To do something proactive, like go work. That’s like a—that’s a real achievement for me sometimes, y’know?

PG: Yeah, and to practice self-care if you are gonna take a day off. At least make something out of it. It always struck me, when you would decide not to work but also not to do self-care and just sit and beat yourself up, it’s like there’s something that comforts us—’cause I do it, too—about find—what would be the way I could fuck myself the most today? What would be the way that—’cause it’s almost like there’s a war in our brain that’s like, “You’re a piece of shit.” “Well, maybe you’re not!” “No, you’re a piece of shit.” “Well, maybe you’re not!” So if I don’t go to work and I don’t do anything, I know I’m a piece of shit and the argument’s over. It’s like a way to silence the back-and-forth in our brain, if we can—but it’s such a—it’s just such a terrible way to end that argument, instead of doing it some other way.

OS: Mm-hmm. Well, I think it’s just, like, asking—it’s like setting yourself up for failure, y’know what I mean? It’s self-sabotage, which is something that I’ve kind of realized I do. That’s a hard thing to admit, that I get in my own way and I shoot myself in the foot.

PG: Why do you think we do that?

OS: I don’t know, exactly. I mean… I think that sometimes it feels like sitting in your piss as a kid in your diaper. You get—your shit—you get used to that feeling—that uncomfortable feeling becomes familiar, and it’s almost like putting on a dirty diaper or whatever, and just enjoying it for whatever reason.

PG: No, I could see you sitting in a dirty diaper, but putting on a dirty diaper? I gotta blow the whistle on that one and say that’s not good on any level. Sitting in a dirty diaper, at least the first five seconds was warm. Putting on a dirty diaper, it’s cold out of the gate and it smells.

OS: I don’t know what made me say that. I guess I was just—I think I was fantasizing about wearing dirty diapers. It was like—brings back fond memories or something.

PG: Seriously?

OS: No, I’m kidding.

PG: Gimme some snapshots from your life. Childhood, adolescence, adult life. Anything that you think would give the listener a better peek into your soul. Could be something funny, could be something embarrassing, something horrifying, something painful. Something where a light bulb went off in your mind.

OS: A snapshot of my life.

PG: Yeah.

OS: Interesting.

PG: Something that’s hard to share.

OS: Something that’s hard to share, yeah.

PG: Something you want people to know about you, something you don’t want people to know about you.

OS: I guess—I don’t know, I think a telling moment in my life was when I was—okay, well, basically I’ll backtrack. When I was in college, I was dating this girl, this beautiful girl Cathy. She was Chinese.

PG: You wanna give me her last name?

OS: No, I’m gonna protect her.

PG: All right.

OS: But she was a beautiful girl and we had a pretty intense relationship for a couple years in college. And then I went abroad, I went—well, what happened was I cheated on her, okay. I cheated on her in college.

PG: Is that what we call “going abroad?”

OS: Before I went abroad.

PG: Okay.

OS: I was a—yeah. Anyway, so she found out that I cheated on her, but she didn’t break up with me. She stayed with me. And I went away to Europe for a semester in Paris, and… I spent the semester in Paris and she flew me back to school one weekend to visit her while I was away and I ended up going out and doing drugs, doing cocaine all night, and came home to her at 4 o’clock in the morning, wanting to have sex. And she had to get up for class, had a test or something the next day and I just totally bailed on her, doing drugs. She paid for me to visit her. And so she pretty much decided at that point that she’d had enough of me. And so when I’m getting ready to come back to school after my semester abroad, she breaks up with me, like, the week before I come back. So I come back to school, and I realize she’s met this other guy and she’s moved on and it’s over, it’s really over. And I was so heartbroken, so distraught. I remember just crying and crying. I remember calling my mom and being like—getting really upset on the phone and saying, “I don’t know what to do. I love this girl and she left me.” And my mom was—and it hurts, it hurts really bad. And my mom was like, “Well, that’s life. You can’t feel the joy in life without feeling the pain. That’s part of the human experience.” And I realized that was really profound for me ’cause it was like—that was the first time—I’d had my heart broken before but that was the first time I really sobbed like the night I sobbed with you on the phone about my dad. It was like that—feeling that loss, and that grief was so palpable. And acknowledging that I was a human being, that I’m having this experience and, like, honoring it. So that was a profound moment.

PG: It sounds profound, too, because it sounds like your mom saw you, heard you, and felt you in that moment, like she was there to—

OS: She really did, yeah.

PG: To be your mom in that moment. That must have felt incredible, even though it was painful.

OS: Yeah, and I realize now, like, she was really sharing from the heart with me. It was like I was witnessing my mom’s wisdom and my mom’s experience, and we were just two human beings communicating on a deep level.

PG: What would you think about, the next time you saw your mom or talk to your mom, recalling that conversation and telling her how much that meant to you? And how close to you—how close to her you felt, and that you long for more moments like that, because you felt—whatever it was, you felt safe or heard or seen, not judged, comforted. What would you think about that? Is that something that would make sense? Would that be uncomfortable? Would that—

OS: No, no, that would be great, actually. That’s nice—that’s a nice idea, to do something like that, to really express to her…

PG: ’Cause I think that all—even the most fucked-up relationships—I’m talking about ones that are salvageable, not where they’re super—where there’s nothing to salvage. I think they all probably have a moment or two where maybe that could be the anchor point to build on. One of the things that I do with my wife that I need to work on is, I’ll forget to preface something with something nice. And she’ll say, “If you just told me that you loved me before you said that critical thing, I could have accepted it.” But it’s just—and I’ll think back and I’ll go, “Yeah, why couldn’t I have taken the time to recognize what’s…” We can say almost anything we want to say to somebody if we can just find the right words to do it, and it doesn’t have to be—doesn’t make it dishonest. I think we just gotta remind them that—what we do like about them. I don’t know.

OS: Well, the last time I saw my mom was in New Mexico visiting her. She lives in Santa Fe. And I was there in September, and we were outside—we’d gone for brunch at a restaurant and we were outside having a cigarette in the parking lot. And of course, my mother gives me cigarettes, which is not good, but she’s an addict, too. She actually paid for a tattoo that I got, too. She—I was—it was hilarious. I mean, I go visit my mom, I come back to L.A. hooked on cigarettes and a tattoo on my arm. Like, that’s the opposite of what’s supposed to happen when you go visit your mom. But we were having a smoke in the parking lot and I just said to her, I said, “I just wanna thank you for your support, for what you’ve done for me.” ’Cause like I said, she still supports me financially, and she’s enabled me to stay in L.A. and pursue my dreams as an actor and a filmmaker. And she has made that possible, so I think, aside from the terrible things she’s done, she’s also shown me that she really does love me and wants to support me. And I just let her know that. I just said, “I wanna say thank you. I really appreciate it.” I don’t know if it meant anything to her or not. I think—I hope it did. I mean, I don’t really always know with my mom. I feel like we kind of speak two different languages sometimes. I kind of feel like I don’t always know—

PG: Sounds like her moods, kind of, really vary, too.

OS: Yeah, and she’s just—she’s very pushy and she’s very controlling and stressed out all the time and in a hurry. I was at a—

PG: She sounds wonderful.

OS: No, she is, though.

PG: I know, I’m kidding. I’m kidding.

OS: No, I know. Look, she’s got her own issues—and I heard someone say at a meeting today, like, one of the signs of a civilized man is not being in a hurry. That’s kind of an indication of—being civilized is not being in a hurry. And I think about my mom and she’s always in a fucking hurry. I don’t know what the fuck—why doesn’t she just slow down and, like, relax? I wish she could relax. I feel bad for her, too. That’s another indication, like, where I feel bad for my mom. I feel bad for my dad. I don’t understand why they have to be so hard on themselves and have to suffer so much and I wanna ease their suffering.

PG: It sounds like they’re driven by—they’re both driven by fear.

OS: Yeah.

PG: I mean, I think we all are. I heard somebody say one time that—two things that drive us: fear and love.

OS: Well, yeah, I mean, I would agree with that, yeah.

PG: Anything else you wanna—any other snapshots you wanna share, that…?

OS: I had a nervous breakdown when I was about 25 where I was hospitalized, diagnosed as bipolar. And that was probably the worst experience of my life, but another huge turning point. And that was very traumatic but I pulled through and, with a lot of support, I’ve gotten to where I’m at now, where I’m a lot healthier than I was 10 years ago.

PG: What do you remember about the hospitalization and what do you remember about leading up to it? What—

OS: What happened?

PG: Was it voluntary or involuntary?

OS: It was voluntary, yeah.

PG: What led up to it?

OS: Well, it’s complicated. I mean, I don’t really—I don’t know all the reasons for it. I mean, some of it was just—

PG: What were you feeling? What were you thinking? I mean, you can just take it from an hour before you got—

OS: Right.

PG: Before you went in, what were you thinking or feeling?

OS: Well, I was—

PG: Or doing.

OS: Well, I’d been in a meeting and I’d spoken at a meeting. And it was, like, a young people’s meeting in Hollywood. And I remember talking, being really honest about my—trying to be really honest about my experience, strength and hope, and very vulnerable. And there were people sitting there, laughing at me in the back, and I kept looking over at them, looking over at them, like, what the hell—what are they thinking? What are they doing? Like, getting really paranoid. And I felt—there were some really aggressive people in that group. There were some really aggressive Hollywood kids that I didn’t trust, and they made me really uncomfortable. And I shared from the heart. And then I left that meeting and I went home, and as soon as I walked into my apartment, I thought, “Holy shit, someone wants to kill me. These people are gonna try and kill me.” I went into my bathroom, I locked the door and got on the bathroom floor, and I was terrified for my life. And then I called my dad and I said, “Dad, I’m worried people are going to kill me.” And he said, “Oliver, go to the hospital right now. Go to the emergency room.” ’Cause he’d experienced his own thing. I went to the emergency room and I just remember, my dad calling the emergency room and they said, “You have a call from your dad,” and I took that call in the emergency room and I was, like, so grateful that my dad was there for me. And it was like—this is probably why we’re so close, is because when I went through my shit with my mental illness stuff, like, he was there for me unlike anyone else ’cause he knew what it was like to lose your mind. And he was there for me, like, every step of the way. So for that, I’m really grateful.

PG: That’s beautiful. It must have felt really nice, too, like that moment that you had with your mom, where it’s like, they both showed up and you were able to be the kid. That must have felt really soothing, even though both of them were—you were in pain and feeling fucked-up.

OS: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean… Yeah, I felt seen, I felt heard.

PG: It’s funny, so many parents think they gotta earn a shitload of money and get their kids into the right school system, and all that stuff is certainly important, but just listening to your kid—just being quiet and making eye contact with them or just holding their hand or just not judging them. Letting them make a mistake that day and saying, “Hey, maybe we’ll try to do better next time.” It’s—

OS: Yeah.

PG: Or, “I know you’re hurting. I’m here for you.” It’s—I think—that’s easy for me to say ’cause I don’t have kids, but…

OS: Just to be present for your kids.

PG: Just to be present for your kids.

OS: Yeah. Let them know that you care, yeah. I mean, I’ve always known intellectually that my parents care about me, but I haven’t always felt it, y’know?

PG: I think you just described 95% of the population, how they feel about their parents.

OS: Yeah.

PG: Yeah.

OS: Well, I won’t—you want loves?

PG: Yeah.

OS: I’ll just—I’ll do one, like, short ones. All right. Well, I love hugging and kissing.

PG: Hold on! Let me go contact the news stations, ’cause that’s a first! That’s so unique! I hope your next one is that you love kittens.

OS: I love food, I say. I’ll tell you what my six loves were. I love attention, I love laughing, I love hugging and kissing, I love the… I love food, I love movies, and I love friendship.

PG: We’re gonna end with this. I love you.

OS: Okay.

PG: I love hanging out with you, I love laughing with you. You make my face hurt sometimes, we laugh so much.

OS: Right.

PG: I love Wednesday nights, going and sitting at the Mexican restaurant, and you get your crunchy tacos and I get my enchiladas—although, now I’m getting the crunchy tacos ’cause they’re so good—and laughing with you. And going back and forth between laughing and opening up about serious stuff that’s going on in our lives, and that, to me, is the hallmark of a friendship. And I love that about you and that I love that I get to experience that.

OS: Well, the feeling’s mutual.

PG: Thanks, buddy.

OS: Thanks, man. Thanks for asking me.

Many, many thanks to Oliver. Before I take it out with some emails that I got, I wanted to remind you guys about the aforementioned ways of supporting the show. I told you about the Amazon search box on our website. You can also support us by making a one-time PayPal donation or becoming a recurring monthly donor, which is huge for keeping this—the podcast going. I really, really appreciate those of you that support it in any way you can. You can also support us non-financially by going to iTunes and writing something nice, giving us a good rating. That helps boost the visibility of the show. And you can support us by spreading the word through social media. That really helps, so… Every little bit helps.

All right. Let’s see. Which one do I want to read first? This one—I’m gonna read this first one. It is from a guy who calls himself Nick, and he’s a vet, war vet. And he wrote to me—it’s kind of a back-and-forth, and he writes:

“Holy shit! I just listened to Episode 200 and I finally don’t feel alone, although still misunderstood. Clint Malarchuk’s experiences and thoughts and illness sound exactly like me. Granted, I didn’t shoot myself in the head or have my throat slashed by an errant hockey skate, but having grown up in a dysfunctional home, serious brain injuries, and being deployed with the Army as an airborne infantryman, my thought processes have all followed the same path as Clint’s. I’ve been lucky enough to not turn to self-medication and I’m trying to seek help, but having heard Clint’s story scares the hell out of me because I can see in him what I can become if I don’t handle my shit. I’ve hurt my wife and two-year-old son emotionally and physically because of my illness, but I cannot find the right help. The VA is just shy of fucking useless and no other doctor I’ve seen can figure out what the hell’s wrong with me. I need some fucking help, and finally hearing Clint’s story shows me that I’m not alone and that there is help somewhere if I keep trying. I just hope it doesn’t take me shooting myself in the head to get it.”

And so, I wrote him back and I said:

“Nick, thanks so much for your email. I’m so glad Clint’s episode struck a chord with you and that you realize you’re not alone in what you’re feeling and where you’ve been. And I’m so sorry that the situation with the VA is frustrating to you. It’s one of the things that people who don’t have mental issues don’t realize, is that when we do finally ask for help and it’s half-assed or incompetent, it makes us even more hopeless. So don’t give up.”

And then I asked to hear more about his story. And so, a while later, he got back to me and he wrote:

“Paul, I’m sorry I haven’t gotten back to you. Things have been rough. So wanted to know more of my story. I grew up with my mom, who worked to support the whole family, so wasn’t around very much, and when she was, she was taking care of housework despite having an unemployed live-in boyfriend. He didn’t do anything to help out except maybe the occasional minor repair, and even that was half-assed. He did, however, emotionally and physically abuse my brother and I.”

Oh, so he did pitch in.

“So we learned very quickly to rarely be seen and never heard. My biological father wasn’t in the picture because he’s serving a very long sentence in prison for kidnapping and chaining up a young woman in his basement and tormenting and sexually abusing her. I once thought about reconnecting, but have given that up since finding out that he refused to acknowledge my brother and I as his kids and finding out that all his appeals that he’s filled have been on grounds of mishandling evidence or mistrial. He’s never tried to show remorse for anything he’s done. I’m pretty sure he’s a sociopath. I managed to go to college and then joined the Army to escape my life, I guess hoping that by removing myself from the situation of my whole past through education…Removing myself from the situation of my whole past through education and the Army gave me peace.”

There might have been a typo in there, I’m not sure.

“Strange, I know. I served five-plus years as airborne infantry deployed—deploying to Iraq in the middle of the surge. I remember once, you mentioned getting giddy during turbulence on an airplane, hoping it would go down. I hoped and prayed every time I jumped out of the airplanes that my parachute wouldn’t open. And I tried to find the IEDs while in Iraq, even going straight up to them and kicking them to see if they were live. I wished so bad that I wouldn’t live to see the next day, but for whatever reason, I’m still here. Now I’m married and have a son and I love them both more than I ever knew was possible. But because of my past, I’ve become what I hated and feared as a child. I’ve emotionally abused my wife, flirting with physical abuse at times. Our arguments and fights have no doubt scarred my son, and I face divorce if I lose control again. I don’t blame my wife at all. She’s looking out for her and our son’s best interests, but I’ve gone to more than a handful of psychiatrists and probably the same amount of psychologists inside and outside of the VA system, to be diagnosed with everything from bipolar to depression to PTSD, TBI and damn near everything in between. The VA tight-walks the line of uselessness and, despite being diagnosed with PTSD by their own damn psychiatrist, they have cancelled and rescheduled the start of my PTSD therapy yet again. I’m looking at damn near two years of this comical dance with them. I finally found a psychiatrist who seems to have landed me the right meds to stop and control my most dangerous fault: rage. But of course, I have to pay for decent head doctors out of my own damn pocket because the health care system seems to view them differently from other doctors, so most insurance doesn’t cover them. I’m also going to admit myself to an inpatient program at the beginning of the year, hoping for more comprehensive evaluation and treatment, again paid out of my pocket. This is tens of thousands of dollars I’ve had to pay myself when I’m supposed—I’ve had to pay myself when I am supposed to be getting free and complete health care from the VA. I’ve come to a point in my life where all I want is my family—a healthy and happy family and to stop the cycle of my past. It’s so damn hard to be a good father and husband when the only role models you’ve had were, at worst, a sociopath and, at best, emotionally and physically abusive. I don’t get any help from the government that I fought and risked my damn life for, never mind that there was also the selfish hope that I would die. Not to mention, who the fuck am I going to talk about this with? The reactions I get from any head doc when I start to tell them my story is the poorly-veiled expression of, ‘Damn, he’s fucked-up,’ and any of my friends from the military don’t wanna hear about my feelings and shit concerning war because it’s weak to show that it affects you, and none of my friends outside of the Army can relate to that. And I’d wager that none of my friends from either have a biological dad who’s sincerely fucked-up, so needless to see—say, I feel very alone in a dark world.”

And I put—I just connected Nick to Lee Thorne, who some of you remember from two years back. He’s the father of podcaster Jesse Thorne, and Lee is a Vietnam vet who does a lot of work, not only on himself, but also in trying to help other vets. And so, hopefully they’ll be able to connect, but man… I’m sorry if sometimes the stuff I read on here is so dark and depressing, but… There is an epidemic in our country of avoiding sadness at all costs, and shit just gets worse. And I feel like we need to talk about this stuff. We need to talk about it. But I’m sending you some love, Nick, and thank you. I’m always so touched when a vet reaches out to me because—I don’t know, I guess I just—I always feel like what they go through is so beyond the scope of anything I’ve ever experienced, that—I almost feel… This is kind of fucked-up, but I almost feel like a little kid having a professional hockey player walk up to them, you know what I mean? Like my issues are minor-league and their issues are major-league, which I know is probably not the case but that’s just how I feel. And I think also, too, because I’ve—I can get a little—embrace my feminine side on this podcast, and so I think I’m always a little surprised when some macho shoulder—soldier is listening to the show.

This is an email that I literally got a half-hour ago. And I’m gonna change her name and the country that she lives in ’cause I haven’t had a chance to ask her what name she would like to me to use, so I’m not gonna use her real name. But we’ll just use her initial, and it’s “R.” And she writes:

“Right now, I am 16 years old. I am alone in my small bedroom that is filled with rotting food and half the kitchen’s cutlery set. It’s a quarter to eight and no one is home. I’ve never received any professional help and what I’m about to tell you—for what I’m about to tell you. I’ve wondered if my life would seem less bleak and dull if I did, but I will explain to you now why this is. I’m Asian. Specifically, I’m South Korean.”

She doesn’t live in South Korea, though.

“This is important because even though my physical appearance is of Asian ethnicity, there have been many, many moments in my life where I believed being white was better. I’ve encountered many moments where racism was thrown at me. At the time, I never knew. I just thought I was hated for being me. There’s so much to say, I don’t know where to start. I guess I’ll make a list where most of my problems lie. One, I was exposed to graphic pornography by my older brother from the ripe age of four. I believe I was sexually abused as well, but I can’t confirm. Today I confuse kindness with attraction, and I lost my virginity to strangers on…”

I always forget how to pronounce this. “O-meg-a-lee?” “O-meggle?” O-M-E-G-L-E. It’s a video chat thing. I think it’s kind of like Chatroulette.

“I lost my virginity to strangers on ‘O-meg-a-lee’…”

I know I’m not pronouncing that right but I don’t know what the pronunciation is.

“Because I wanted to feel the artificial love through sex. I was 12 at the time. These are the only thing I’ve ever known. Two, my parents had an abusive relationship together. Today they live in the same house but never speak or look at each other.”

Are you sure you’re not thinking of my parents? Oh, that’s right, my dad’s dead.

“This has happened for about two years but they haven’t had a divorce because it would cost too much money to live separately and they’re afraid of what others would think. Three, I’m aware that I’m destroying my body through self-mutilation and starving myself. I’m aware that I could be diagnosed with anorexia nervosa, binge/purge sub-type. I do not want help. I’m sorry, Paul. I want to explain it all, but for the life of me, I cannot remember such explicit details. I’ve thought it over so many times and created such theories and cures that the memories have become dull. I am not as horrified by my past as I have been before, but it’s made me awkward and a dysfunctional person in society because I don’t know what normal is, so I try to imitate others. I’ve lost touch with myself and others and trust is virtually impossible for me to know. I can explain it to you properly and fully if you have an interest in knowing, otherwise I’d like to leave it off like this. One day I’d like to be a guest on your podcast. It’s a one-in-a-million but it’s not impossible, right? I promise I can be fun. If you give me coffee and caffeine, I’ll be a riot of laughter.”

By the way, I get emails sometimes from kids your age that offer themselves to be guests on the show, and as much as I would love to record you, I won’t record anybody who’s under 18 unless I have explicit permission from their parents. Anyway, continuing on.

“I don’t know what I’m trying to achieve from this. I guess a sense of touch. I don’t know. Have a great day, man. You deserve it. Fuck, what am I doing? This is idiotic. Sorry. I want to say so much and express so much and be angry, but I can’t get fucking angry anymore. What the fuck is this? I honestly lost touch in myself and I leave things half-assed because I don’t want to disappoint anyone. If my hardest is only so little and I’m such a fucking hypocrite and I’m so annoying, and I leech off any attention I get because I haven’t felt properly acknowledged from when I lost everything. Oh God, what am I even saying? You won’t even read this. Ha ha ha, Jesus fucking Christ, I’m a mess. I’m a mess. I literally cannot form words to explain how I feel, when maybe three years ago I could have perfectly formed words to tell exactly how I… Ugh, so sorry. I’ll stop here. I’m rambling.”

And I wrote her back and said:

“I’m so sorry you’re experiencing such trauma and feel so much pain and hopelessness. You are most definitely not alone. I just literally finished emailing another 16-year-old whose self-loathing is every bit as unfounded as yours.”

And I’m going to read her email after this one.

“Most of us are a mess. I felt like a mess five or six times today. I couldn’t trust my mind. I felt a sadness and emptiness I couldn’t explain. I was second-guessing everything in my life. But I’ve been around long enough to know it’s probably just my brain doing what it does, fucking with me in some perverse attempt to keep me alert and safe while ironically making me spaced-out and anxious. None of these activities you are engaging in are who you are. They are how you are trying to cope in the wake of abandonment and abuse. Inside you is a sensitive little girl that was forced to hide because it wasn’t safe in your house and she’s afraid to come out and be vulnerable. Healing from abuse takes time. There are days when I just wanna be held by a mom and cry, or I wanna live in bed for the rest of my life. But bit by bit, I’m getting better because I started to open up about the abuse I experienced and you can, too. You can heal. I know trust is hard when your trust has been shit on time and time again. And as ironic as it sounds, trust me. I have no reason to lie to you. I have video games to play. I have documentaries about serial killers to watch. I have walls to stare at. I have feelings to stuff! I am a busy guy. Remembering explicit details of your abuse is not necessary to begin healing. Finding someone safe to talk to like a therapist and talking about what you’re feeling is where to start. They help you find ways to substitute healthy behaviors for unhealthy behaviors. The bad news is, it takes a concerted effort, time, and patience. But the good news is, you’ll slowly begin to feel less alone the longer you do it. Eventually you’ll feel self-love, and the unhealthy behaviors won’t have the same compulsive pull. And there will be bad days mixed in, but you’ll bounce back. Healing doesn’t mean we don’t fall down anymore. It just means we have the desire and the tools to get back up. And I hope you change your mind about wanting help. Nobody is ever excited about getting help. And some point, though, it just becomes less scary than staying in pain.”

I think we’re all sending you some love.

And then, this last one that I wanted to read is—this was from—I think you remember, we read her—well, let me just read her email.

“Hi, Paul. First of all, congratulations on that article in The Atlantic.”

Oh yeah, I wanna send some major thanks to Amanda Bloom, who wrote a really nice article in The Atlantic that came out today. And I’ve just gotten such nice support from people who read it, and thank you, thank you, thank you. She writes:

“I was so surprised to see it. I hope it brings new listeners to the podcast. This is kinda dumb, but I really need some advice. You’ve read some of my surveys on the show before.”

She calls herself “Fuckface,” and she writes:

“I don’t know if you can go back and re-read those or if you remember anything from my surveys, but if you do, I guess you might have a little backstory, but—”

And then she puts in caps:

“BUT PLEASE DON’T IF IT’S TOO MUCH TROUBLE. To recap, I’m a 16-year-old recently-out lesbian who is struggling to become more masculine so that my outside can look the same as I feel on the inside, which is surprisingly hard when you have no money. I have very few friends and even fewer close friends. I’m not even really sure if I have a friend that most people would count as close. I’m not even really sure what normal is. I’ve never been in a relationship, I’ve never kissed anyone, I’ve never even held hands romantically with someone. I feel so ashamed, embarrassed, and alone. I’m in my school’s GSA, but the only lesbians I know are two friends of mine that live in New York City. There are a few bisexual and pansexual girls that I know, but I don’t think there’s a chance of me getting with them. My closest friend is this gorgeous bi girl, but I know she can’t possibly feel the same way. She even complained to me about how she wants to date a chick but there aren’t any options. I know getting people to like you is all about confidence and I’ve been getting exponentially more confident, but it’s barely made a difference. I have a few more distant friends and I actually feel like I’m more distant from my friends in general. I’m happier overall, but when I suddenly realize what a loser I am, it makes me feel really shitty. Sometimes I feel paralyzed with the fear that I will never be able to kiss another human being. I worry about what happens if this goes on forever, when I’m 20, 30, 40, and I’ve still never been in a relationship, still never kissed a person, let alone lost my virginity. I feel if I’m 30 and still have never had my first kiss, I’ll have no one else to turn but suicide. I’ve never once genuinely felt suicidal but I can imagine being so in that situation. I mean, you can’t redo life. By then, I’ll have wasted all of it anyway.”

Anybody who’s 30 and is over right now is laughing and offended at the same time.

“I feel like something is wrong with me. I just want one person to like me a lot. I just wish I could hold someone. What should I do? Fuckface.”

And I wrote:

“Thank you so much for your kind words and opening up, and what you wrote isn’t dumb. It’s fucking beautiful. And of course, I remember your survey a couple of episodes back. It really touched me. You sound like such a sweet and empathetic kid. And who can forget the nickname ‘Fuckface?’”

“Hey guys, remember Fuckface?” “No, I meet so many people every day who call themselves ‘Fuckface,’ they just blur together.” This year’s most popular baby names: Baker, Sophie, and Fuckface.

“I think what you’re experiencing is the pain of being an unique and sensitive person, coupled with a brain that likes to ruminate and extrapolate. Also, you know who experiences sexual frustration and loneliness? The entire fucking planet. Sure, some get some reprieves now and then but mostly, behind every closed door, is tears or jerking off.”

Or both, which on the show, we like to call “mastur-sobbing.”

“They really should remind you of this when they issue you driver’s licenses. I’m not gonna try to minimize how hard it must be to be LGBT in our society, but I do know that if you keep opening up, seeking help and support, and giving help and support, you’ll soon find yourself connecting with people who love you exactly as you are, and both they and you will embrace what is unique about you. You’ll be grateful for the challenges you’ve faced because it will teach you lessons that will help you in other areas of your life. And those things, those spiritual things, will radiate a loving, confident vibe that will attract people. None of this is to say you’re not radiating that already, but it sounds like you’re really beating yourself up a lot and projecting into the future. You’re already being forced to develop tools to cope that most 40-year-olds don’t have, especially cisgendered, straight, white guys. You feel powerless, insecure, and afraid. You’re convinced your future is doomed. You’re being tested as intensely as someone battling addiction. You’re getting the experience of bottoming out on crack without having to take a single hit. You are getting crackhead self-loathing without having to spend a dime. Fuckface, you are saving money. But in all seriousness, you’re actually ahead of the game, even though you can’t feel it. You’re feeling the pains of growing into your skin. Take care of your spirit and the rest will fall into place. And a good place to start might not be calling yourself ‘Fuckface.’ Although, it has a certain ring to it, and it’s pretty endearing.”

Thank you so much for your support and your emails and your letters… Letters? I’ve never received—actually, I have received a couple of snail mail letters, so I stand corrected. Your emails and letters. And I hope if you’ve listened this far into the episode, you got something out of it. And I just hope anybody out there that’s feeling stuck, tomorrow is the day, or tonight is the day you pick up the phone and you ask for help. A good source is helpguide.org. Check that out. They got a huge, huge listing of resources. But most of all, just remember you’re not alone. You’re not alone in any of this, and there’s help if you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone. And thanks so much for listening.