Encore: S02 Ep. 2 - Jason’s Alcoholic Father

Hey, Fellow Travelers. This week we’re in session with Jason, who still carries emotional scars from an alcoholic father who tormented him when he was a child. Now married and with children of his own, Jason is aware that his parents are aging, and wonders how to navigate these relationships while also freeing himself to enjoy the adulthood he worked so hard to create. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Lari Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Dear Therapist advice column for the Atlantic.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED.
And this is Dear Therapists.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Each week we invite you into a session so you
can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help
other people come to understand themselves better and make changes
in their lives.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
So sit back and welcome to today's session.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
This week, a man struggles with guilt over how much
he should take care of his aging parents despite their
abuse growing up.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
He called us names, He told us we were worthless,
you know, like the physical abuse, like spitting in my face,
and he's just like, I don't remember that. I was
just like, okay, well, I don't even need to try
anymore because you're going to continue with this behavior and
I just don't. I don't want to be part of that.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
First A quick note, Dear Therapist is for informational purposes.
Owned it does not constitute medical or psychological advice and
is not a substitute for professional health care advice, diagnosis,
or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental
health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions
you may have regarding a medical or psychological condition. By
submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use

(01:19):
it in part or in full, and we may edit
it for length and clarity. In the sessions you'll hear.
All names have been changed for the privacy of our
fellow travelers. Hey, Lourie, Hi guy.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
So what do we have in our mailbooks today?

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Today? We have a letter about this tricky question of
what do we owe our parents as adults if they
haven't been the parents that we want it? And it
goes like this, Dear therapists, I'm hoping that you can
help me with an issue involving my relationship with my parents.
I'm forty two years old and was raised in an alcoholic,

(01:53):
abusive home. My brother and I were physically abused, but
we were verbally abused and demeaned much more regularly. The
most significant moment in my youth that haunts me is
when I was around twelve or thirteen years old and
my father snorted a bunch of mucus and spat in
my face because he thought I locked his keys in
the car, which I had not done. I was called worthless, stupid, etc. Frequently.

(02:17):
After a divorce from my first wife, I saw counseling,
which was tremendously helpful. I even took the opportunity to
talk to my parents about some of the things that
bothered me, but that discussion didn't lead to any acknowledgment
on their behalf. My father continues to drink excessively, and
my parents' relationship has not changed. I see them about
four to five times a year at my house, only

(02:38):
it's always a stressful time for me, no matter how brief.
My biggest struggle is that I love them simply because
they are my parents. That's where it ends. We aren't close,
and I don't feel a strong attachment to them in
any way. I'm very troubled by the fact that my
father was in the hospital recently with a significant health
problem that led to surgery, and only when he called
me to tell me how it went, had I realized

(02:59):
that it never occurred to me to call and see
how he was doing. It wasn't a conscious neglect, it
just wasn't even on my mind. As they are getting
older and their health is failing. It bothers me that
I have no strong desire to maintain a meaningful relationship. Worse,
the same behaviors alcoholism and drugs have manifested themselves in
my brother, and those behaviors are affecting my desire to

(03:20):
have any meaningful relationship with him. Can you help me
navigate this? Thanks Jason.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
This letter brings up such an important question, and that is,
when you have parents who've failed you in certain ways
and you don't have a good relationship with them, then
you might take distance from them as a way to
protect yourself, as a way to really not allow them
to hurt you anymore. But at the same time, you
might feel bad about doing that, because in our society

(03:50):
you're supposed to be loyal to parents and close to parents.
That it might make you feel like a very bad person,
even though that might be the healthiest choice for you.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
That's right. I think on the one hand, he's dealing
with some guilt around not being a good son, And
on the other hand, I think there's just this sadness
that people have when they realize as adults that not
only did they not really feel an attachment to their
parents when they were young, but that they're never going
to feel that, and it makes them feel a little

(04:19):
bit like orphans. He says, I love them. I'm not
sure that he even feels love. I think that's something
that he wants to feel but doesn't. And now he's
lost not only his parents, but he's lost a sibling too.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
That's right, and it raises the next question of then,
who is your family right now? And do you have one?
So let's go talk to him and find out more
about where he is with all this.

Speaker 1 (04:43):
You're listening to Dear Therapists for my Heart Radio. We'll
be back after a short break.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
I'm Lori Gottlieb and I'm Guy Wench and this is Deotherapists.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
So Hi, Jason, Hey.

Speaker 2 (05:01):
Laurie, Hey Guy, Hi, and thank you for coming on
a show.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Oh, no problem, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Just tell us a little bit about what it is
specifically that makes you feel bad when you think about
your parents, because you say that you're not really close
to them on the one hand, but you feel bad
about it on the other. Could you tell us a
little bit more about what that is.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
I think that as I've gotten older, I just I've
become very aware of the fact that I don't feel
close to my parents. I don't necessarily seek out a
relationship with them. What little relationship I do have almost
comes from a sense of a feeling of obligation like

(05:46):
that my parents, I probably should reach out to them,
but not something that occurs to me on a regular basis.
When I have things in my life that are big
monumental things or struggles or celebrations all those things, I'm
just very aware of the fact that I don't really
reach out to include them or celebrate with them that

(06:08):
sort of thing. And my dad was sick in the hospital,
and it didn't occur to me to kind of call
and check up on him afterwards, and he called me
to tell me how he was doing, and it just
kind of hit me upside the head, like, oh my gosh,
my dad was in the hospital and was incredibly ill,

(06:29):
and it just didn't even occur to me. Like I
want to say, I wasn't concerned about him, but I
just didn't have the desire, I shouldn't say that, the
inclination to reach out to keep in touch to see
how he was doing. Through that whole thing.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
You know, and when it hit you upside the head,
what feelings did that bring up when you had that insight.

Speaker 3 (06:52):
But I definitely felt guilty that he was in such
bad shape and it didn't occur to me. But I
was sad too, like I was. You know, I have
friends that have such great relationships with their parents and
I've never had that, And yeah, I was just I
was sad more than anything. I think that I just
didn't feel that sense to really kind of check on

(07:14):
him and see how he was doing.

Speaker 4 (07:16):
And yeah, guilt, but sadness for sure.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
I think the sadness is such a big part of this.
It's like grieving something that you never had. Yeah, tell
us a little bit about what it was like when
you were with your parents growing up, and tell us
what it's been like when you've been around them as
an adult.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
Okay, my dad is an alcoholic still.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
He came from a very violent and dysfunctional home in
the sense that my grandfather was a World War two
vet that had a lot of problems and he grew up.
My dad grew up in a very abusive household and
that led to a him being an alcoholic. My brother

(08:03):
and I, you know, witnessed my parents fighting horribly and
my mom smacking my dad, and my dad just being
horribly abusive verbally to my mom and just really nasty
and hateful.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
What would you and your brother do when you were
witnessing your parents fighting like this.

Speaker 3 (08:24):
We try to leave, get out of the house, you know,
but sometimes we couldn't, and so we just go into
our rooms and just try to get away from it.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
What's the age difference? He is just try three years
younger than me.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
So when this would happen, do you remember what it
felt like in your body.

Speaker 3 (08:43):
I remember always feeling tense, and I would say that
I probably I felt scared as well, because I remember
a moment when I was a teenager when my dad
was having one of his outbursts, and I remember looking
at him and saying, like, I'm not afraid of you anymore,
And so I think there was a lot of just

(09:03):
kind of fear. He just never knew when he was
going to explode. It didn't even have to be something
that we did. He could be mad at anything and
we would take the heat for it. His computer for
work wasn't working one time, and he just launched into
a tirade at us. I mean, he was physically abusive,
but he was way worse emotionally abusive. And I think

(09:28):
that's the critical piece that has led to me not
having a really good relationship because he's always called us
such hateful names growing up, and I mean he called
us worthless and horrible things for as long as I
can remember, and so there's like this big conflict between

(09:51):
he's my dad and he can say he loves me
and he's proud of me, but always have this dialogue
in the background from like, yeah, but so long, like
you told me I was worthless?

Speaker 1 (10:03):
What did it look like when he would tell you
that he was proud of you? At what point did
that happen? Did that happen in your childhood or did
that happen once you got older and said you weren't
afraid of him anymore?

Speaker 3 (10:14):
Not until I got older. I think when I got
out of high school, my brother and I both kind
of handled the fallout from our childhood in two different ways.
He got more mixed up into drugs and the alcohol,
that sort of thing. And I've always been more inclined
to achievement success, to try to establish a sense of

(10:37):
worth and value and so he started saying those things
to me as an adult, you know, after I got
graduate school, you know, after I was in the military,
and those types of things, like with each one of
those you know, feathers in my cap kind of thing,
he would say that to me. And so I feel
like I've always tried for achievement and stuff, looking for

(11:01):
that sense of worth and value. But at the same time,
when he says it to me, it doesn't it doesn't
mean anything.

Speaker 1 (11:08):
It feels empty.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
It's just a weird paradox, you know, where I'm just like, yeah,
but I don't even I don't even care if you're
proud of me.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
How was the relationship with you guys when you were kids.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
For a good part of our childhood, we definitely hung
out together. And then when I moved away to college,
the discrepancy between the way we were leading our lives
became so great that for a long time we didn't
we didn't really have any relationship.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Well, he had to bear the burden of living with
your parents by himself without you around once you left.

Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, yeah, and he's he's told me that things got
much worse for him after I left.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
Were you worried about him when you left, or were
you just so relieved to be at the house that
you wanted to just go and live your own life.

Speaker 3 (11:54):
Yeah, I was just I was so relieved is to
be out of the house and not be around it.
I kind of didn't want any part of the old situation,
and I think in part that's kind of continued up
to this day, where I tell my wife all the
time like I have PTSD from it, Like I have
no desire to go to their house. I try to

(12:16):
keep my interactions as little as possible because it just
brings up all that old stuff. That's it's painful and uncomfortable.
I was aware of the bad direction that his life
was going in, and so there was a number of
years until he kind of at least became functional. I

(12:36):
guess as an adult where we didn't talk much at all.
We talk now that you know these days, but it's
still is just not it's not the same.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Do you talk about the stuff? Do you talk about
what happened? Do you talk about your concerns for him,
the fact that you took different paths? Do you actually
discuss that stuff?

Speaker 3 (12:55):
Yeah? Yeah, Actually we talk about my parents quite a bit,
but we just have I guess two different approaches and perspectives.
He's okay getting together with my parents and drinking excessively,
and so even though he has expressed to me, you know,

(13:16):
hurt feelings and all those types of things, he tells
me that he's forgiven them and he's moved on from it.
But it's almost like it's kind of masked because he
doesn't go around them unless he's drinking.

Speaker 2 (13:31):
Have you ever approached that topic of your relationship and
how it's been impacted by this.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
He has made comments to me in the past about
how I left and it got worse for him, and
how he felt like he was always living in my
shadow kind of and he was never good enough and
he was always being compared to me.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
When something like that happens, where parents do the comparing
and they make one setling feel like they need to
up to what the other sibling is doing, the irony
of that is, instead of that sibling getting angry at
the parents for creating that situation, that sibling gets mad
at the person they're being compared to, as if it's

(14:15):
your fault for being more stable in that time, or
your fault for achieving something in that time. That you
become the object of resentment even though you're not the
one doing the comparing, right, And when you talk about
your brother having this relationship with your parents where he

(14:36):
is drinking around them, some people really are so unable
to grieve what the relationship really is, that they want
to have some connection, and so they create a way
of connecting with the parents, even if it's a dysfunctional
way of connecting.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, And we've talked about that where
I express it's difficult for me to be around them
because of these reasons, and he agrees with me. You know,
I agree with you one hundred percent. But they're still
our parents and we have to have a relationship. They're

(15:17):
our parents, and I don't have any way, I think,
to get past the walls.

Speaker 4 (15:24):
That have been put there by the way we were treated.

Speaker 3 (15:28):
And so I feel like he uses his drinking to
get around those walls and just kind of pretend like
everything's okay. And my parents do that as well in
their relationship. They just pretend like everything's okay, just sweep it.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Under the rug.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
And I'm not capable of that.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
The other thing that I think might be keeping him
there right now is that with you out of the picture,
he's number one now with them. He's the son now
that they can connect to and he can make up
for a lot of us time.

Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, yeah, I never thought about like that, but yeah,
it makes complete sense for sure.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
When you say that everybody in your family pretends like
nothing's going on. What was it like when you did
have that conversation that you mentioned in your letter and
you talk to your parents about some of the things
that were really painful for you as a child.

Speaker 4 (16:24):
So my dad had asked my brother and I to
help him with a project at the house, and I
reluctantly agreed to go.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
And my dad has just always had a horrible temper,
and he just very quickly kind of ended up in
extreme fit of anger and rage about the way things
were going. And I had my son and my wife
were with me, and my son was probably three at

(16:53):
the time. I told my parents when when my son
was born, that I was not going to tolerate the
drinking and that kind of behavior around my son, and
that if they were going to continue to behave that way,
they weren't going to see him because I wanted to
protect him from that. And so my son was there.

(17:15):
I told my wife to keep him in the house
while while my brother, my dad, and I were in
a backyard and my dad and my brother just they
just started into it, screaming at each other its top
of their lungs, carrying on in each other's faces, like
almost to the point where they wanted to hit each other.
And I turned around and my son was standing there,

(17:36):
and the look on his face, his eyes were wide open,
and it's like this look of shock and fear. He
had never seen anything like that before. And so I
scooped him up and we left. My dad was very
upset that we left. He felt like we left him
hanging with the project. And you know, I just told him,
I said, I told you that I was not going

(17:57):
to tolerate that kind of stuff around my kid. I
explained to him all the things I feel like we're like,
the biggest issues for me, you know, the drinking, the
calling us names, and the big incident which I think
I mentioned to you in the letter, where I was
a kid and he had asked me to start the
car for him in the wintertime, and there was snow

(18:19):
on the ground, and I went out and the passenger
side of the car was parked against the curbs, so
I just opened the passenger door. I started the car
for him, went inside. He went out to get in
the car, and the driver's side was locked. And I
was probably nine or ten, and he went ballistic because

(18:41):
he thought I locked the keys in his car with
the keep with the car running, and he had called
trip away to unlock the car. And he's in my
bedroom screaming at me, right in my face, telling me
I was stupid, telling me I was worthless. How could
I do something so ignorant, And then he snorted like

(19:02):
a big hunk of mucus and spit in my face
and stormed out. I was watching out my bedroom window
at the triple a guy trying to open the door
to my dad's car. And I went downstairs and I
went outside and I walked up to them and I
opened the passenger door because that's the door that I used,

(19:23):
and so it was unlocked the whole time, and he
just had this like stone look on his face, like
he couldn't believe that the door was actually unlocked. And
so after this incident with my brother, you know, that
was the big thing. I told him. One of the
worst things that ever happened to me as a kid,
you know. And he responded to my brother and I

(19:44):
after the conversation by writing like a ten page letter
and it had zero.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Accountability for anything that we discussed.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
It. It was like ten pages of here's all the
things I've done for you, you know, here's all the
experiences that I gave you, here's this, that and the
other thing, and zero acknowledgment of all of the things
that we brought up. You know that you called us names,
you told us we were worthless, you know, like physical abuse,

(20:15):
like spitting in my face. Like he's just like, I
don't remember that.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
So it was a defense in a denial.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (20:26):
Yeah, that was probably six years ago. Seven years ago.
And so I've always had these moments where I've tried
to establish relationship where I've tried to be involved, where
I feel like that my parents I should be involved.
And then in the aftermath of that, I brought everything up.
I've laid it all out there for you, the big

(20:49):
things that like are so hurtful to me, and then
to get no acknowledgment or anything that was kind of
like to seal the deal for me, where I was
just like Okay, Well, I don't even need to try anymore,
because you're going to continue with this behavior. You're going
to keep drinking, you're going to keep yelling and being belligerent,
and I just don't I don't want to be part

(21:09):
of that.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
You know. Was your brother a recipient of that letter.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
Too, Yes?

Speaker 2 (21:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (21:16):
And what was his reaction to the letter?

Speaker 3 (21:20):
He thought I was junk too. He just I don't
even remember. I don't remember us being mad about it. Actually,
I remember feeling really disappointed and just feeling like, what
a waste of time.

Speaker 1 (21:30):
I just want to stop you there, because I can't
imagine that you wouldn't be angry to get that kind
of response. And just the way you were talking about
it a minute ago, Yeah, you seemed really understandably angry
that you'd been abused your whole life. You say, I

(21:51):
don't want my child exposed to this, and it happens anyway,
And then you explain to your father why you left,
and hear all of these ways in which you'd been
treated so badly, and instead of having compassion for you
or taking responsibility for what he did, he just denied, deflected,

(22:13):
quote unquote didn't remember. And when you talk about feeling
nothing toward your father now, and even feeling nothing when
you got this letter. I think that might be a
way of coping with the fact that there's probably so
much anger and so much sadness, and I wonder where

(22:37):
all of that goes. What would happen if you actually
acknowledge to yourself that you do feel something.

Speaker 3 (22:44):
I mean, I g said, I am angry about it.
I'm angry. I guess my barometer for anger after seeing
the way my dad conducts himself. I think my barometer
for anger is skewed a little bit, so maybe I
associate rage with anger. I am angry. There's no acknowledgement.
You know, angry and definitely sat.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
I hear the sadness because your voice is catching, and
I see your eyes tearing up a little bit. Tell
us first about the anger. Can you say more about it?
Because I think you're right that for you, anger looks
like violence.

Speaker 3 (23:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:22):
And what we're saying is anger is just a normal
human emotion. And what it does is it sets an
alarm and it says, wait a minute, something is not
right here. I'm not being treated well. So it serves
a useful purpose if you do something productive with the anger?

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Right?

Speaker 1 (23:40):
So can you give voice to your anger toward your father?

Speaker 3 (23:45):
I don't even have to express it because I feel
like for me to express that I'm angry, it definitely
makes me. It definitely makes me really tense and almost
like like move toward that like violent rage or I
just want to like scream or something. You know what

(24:07):
I mean.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
But Jason, the difference between you and your dad is
that you can feel that kind of rage and not
go and scream at someone, and he feels it and
he just lets it all out. I want you to
get back to what loriosity to do to try and
get in touch with that anger. But I want you
to when you're doing it, consider the fact that you're
a dad. Now. You had that moment where your son

(24:30):
is three, and you saw the look on his face
when he was exposed for a moment to that which
you were exposed to your entire childhood. So can you
extrapulate from that and knowing what it did to your
son in a moment, what it must have been like
for you, and try and talk about the anger from
that perspective.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yeah, the only way I can explain it is that
I'm very aware on a moment to moment basis. Every
day of those feelings, I can still I can still
hear him saying those things to me. And the only

(25:13):
way I can describe it is, like I tell my wife,
like I go to war every day trying to not
be just completely consumed by it, and especially having children
on my own, it's it's frightening to me to think
that if I don't stay in control, that I could

(25:38):
do something like that to them, because I just I
just look at him, and I just see how innocent
they are. And I was the same innocent little kid.
I didn't deserve any of that, and so I'm just
definitely aware of it. Takes it takes one hundred percent
focus for me to to not be consumed by those feelings.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
Another difference between you and your dad is that he
was also an innocent little kid at one point, and
he was subjected to a father like the father he became.
But what he did with all of his anger is
he turned it outward. And the reason that we want
you to talk about your anger is because if we

(26:23):
push down a feeling we are consumed by it, it
becomes even bigger. It has no air, and so when
your father would feel anger, he didn't know what to
do with it, and so he just lashed out. And
when you feel anger, you're so afraid of it, because
you're so afraid of becoming him that I think you
turn it inward. I'm not a good son because I

(26:46):
didn't call him in the hospital. Or I start to
feel anger because you know, just the way that parents
do in a normal situation, like my kid is whining
about something and I'm getting really frustrated with my child
right now, or they won't take their knob, or they
you know whatever. It is just the normal day to
day of being a parent. But for you, you start

(27:08):
to think, oh, oh, I'm starting to feel angry about something.
What am I capable of doing? So I need to
make sure I don't feel any anger because I'm afraid
of anger. I'm terrified of anger. The problem with doing
that is that you numb out what you're feeling. You

(27:29):
don't have any access to what you're feeling.

Speaker 4 (27:34):
Yeah, yeah, I would say that's pretty accurate.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
Yeah, So imagining yourself is that young child, that moment
when he spat in your face. To take a concrete example,
tell us about how you might have felt right, then
tell us about the anger.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Then that particular instance has so much wait for me.
It haunts me because I just I can still picture
myself sitting at my desk in my bedroom and just
I feel like humiliated.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
You were humiliated, He humiliated you.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
I just can't think of a more vile thing to
do to disrespect somebody and the spit in their face.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
But you're laughing, and I think that that's how you
manage your anger. And what we're trying to do here
is to let you feel your anger and see that
it's not as scary as you think it is. Yeah,
but actually you will get some relief from this, right.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Can I ask you, Jason, if you were able to
travel back in time and inhabit you're nine year olds self,
however old you were at that time, and respond to
your dad from that place forgetting for the moment that
you were small and you could have just hit you.
But what would you have said to him if you

(29:03):
could in that moment?

Speaker 3 (29:08):
How would you say? I'm just a kid. You know,
I'm just a kid, and I made a mistake and
I don't deserve to be treated like that.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Okay, first of all, you didn't even make a mistake,
which is part of why this one sticks out for
you that much. You actually didn't make a mistake. You
didn't want to go into the street because you're not
supposed to go into the street, so you open the
door from the sidewalk side, as you're supposed to be
as a child. But if you want to tell him,
if you wanted to tell him off, because you're inhabiting
that body as an adult, so you can really tell
him off in terms of what he's doing to you,

(29:41):
What would you say to him?

Speaker 1 (29:42):
Then?

Speaker 3 (29:43):
How could you treat your child in that way? How
can you treat a kid worse than you would treat
a stranger in the street.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
What I'm hearing from you is a very calm, rational
adult responding to that kind of violent, abusive outburst. And
I think what guy is saying is, what do you
think a kid's anger would look like if they felt
free to express it in that moment? And I have

(30:14):
a feeling it would go something like this, I hate you,
I can't stand you.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
Yeah, yeah, I guess I just didn't want to say that.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
I guess why not? I guess because I can't imagine
saying that to somebody I loved you, know, and that's.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
Part of what inhibited you so much that you when
you were a kid. You love the parents you have,
no matter who they are. You hate them in certain moments,
but they are parents, and they're the ones that feed
you and clothe you and protect you supposedly, so you
do love them. There's a trap there. It's very difficult
to hate them. But there's a part of you that feltics.

(31:00):
I feel, like Laurie said, I hate you. There's a
part of you that felt you are a terrible, terrible father.
It sucks that I ended up with you, of all
the fathers. There's a part of you that wanted to
say those things, that thought those things, that never gave
them voice, never allowed himself to even in his own head.

Speaker 3 (31:21):
Probably I definitely have thought that as a kid, for sure.
I think as an adult I hadn't necessarily felt that outward,
like I hate you sort of thing. I think that
hate component has just kind of aged into apathy now

(31:41):
where I'm just I don't necessarily hate him, but I'm indifferent.

Speaker 1 (31:48):
Did you feel indifferent when you saw your son's eyes
bug out and he had to see your father's rage,
or did you feel something else.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
No, I was very angry and protective.

Speaker 1 (32:07):
If you could give voice to that anger, what would
it sound like?

Speaker 3 (32:11):
This is a good exercise giving voice to anger.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
It's very difficult, Yes, when you've loved it for so long,
it's very difficult.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Yeah, I guess in that moment, I just I was
angry and afraid for my son.

Speaker 1 (32:28):
If you could directly talk to your father, meaning in
that moment, if you could express your anger in that moment,
what would it have sounded like? Unedited?

Speaker 3 (32:37):
I probably would have said you, sob how dare you?
I told you that I would never tolerate this and
you will never see him again.

Speaker 1 (32:50):
What is it like right now talking to us about
your anger?

Speaker 3 (32:56):
It's difficult because I've always associated it with such a
negative thing, and so to constructively address it, talk about
it in a productive way, it's very difficult. It's foreign,
Like I'm I don't know what to do with it.

Speaker 1 (33:16):
You know, what do you do with your son's anger
when he gets angry?

Speaker 3 (33:22):
I just try to try to talk him down, you know,
get down their level and just try to de escalate,
you know, let him know that I love them.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
What would it be like if when your son is
angry about something to be able to say to him,
I know, I can see how angry you are. I
get it. I know how angry you are. I know
you really really want that third cookie. Have you ever
been able to just really validate his anger or you

(33:54):
more about Oh, don't be so angry, or it's okay,
I love you. Happens between two of you around anger.

Speaker 3 (34:02):
I have those moments. We have three more children too,
so we have four total, and it's very busy, so.

Speaker 1 (34:10):
I'm sure some anger comes up amongst the four.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Yeah, when we have those moments, it just it makes
me feel it makes me feel so so good, so
full that I feel like I'm helping them. I'm helping
them to understand their feelings. I'm validating them and letting
them know that it's okay to feel that way, but
we're going to try to work through that constructively. And

(34:37):
those moments, I mean, can't do it all the time.
That's why parenting is so hard. But those moments, it
just it makes me so happy where I'm like, I'm
proud of myself. That's the kind of treatment that I
would have wanted.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
This is your way of correcting what you and your
brother got So it's your way of healing the universe
by doing the correction that you never were given. Because
I think, I think, Jason, that you really grew up
confusing still do anger with uncontrolled anger. All anger you

(35:10):
saw was uncontrolled. It was rage, It was belligerent, it
was belittling, it was mad in all the way anger
can be. But there's anger that is instructive and constructive
and a part of daily life, when it's controlled, when
it's management, it's understood, and that is anger that is

(35:32):
legit and important, and you need to make a distinction
between them so that you're not afraid of that kind
of anger. I did want to ask about your mom
because she's a little absent for me and all of this.

Speaker 3 (35:45):
He's always been very verbally abusive to her and demeaning
and belittling and controlling, and my mom told her when
we were younger, you know, I stayed with your dad
for you guys, and we used to joke and say, well, thanks,
you didn't really do us any favors. But she's still

(36:07):
even now we're grown r out of the house, like
he's still the same, and she's just okay with it,
and she just kind of shrugs it off, like, Yep,
that's your dad.

Speaker 1 (36:22):
Is that what she did when you were young and
he would yell at you or physically hit you? What
would she do just that's your dad? Or would she
comfort you in any way?

Speaker 3 (36:34):
I don't really have any kind of memory of her
sticking up for us or intervening or comforting us in
those moments. I honestly, I don't know that I have
any memory of that.

Speaker 1 (36:49):
And did you feel anger towards your mom for not
being able to acknowledge anything that happened in your childhood?

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Yeah? But I think I guess for me personally, I
feel like the bulk of the damage, per se was
was that my father's hand. So I guess I've just
I've unknowingly kind of focused there.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
You said, Jason, that it's a war you fight every
day with these memories that you still hear his voice, right,
Like these are real like post traumatic you were in
the military, you know that is you know post traumatic
kinds of symptoms. What's the war that goes on in
your head?

Speaker 3 (37:34):
I am constantly trying to counter that dialogue with No,
you're not worthless, you're not stupid, You're not ignorant, like
you don't need people to say that you have value.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
You'll still now trying to convince yourself that you have worth.
That is that a war that you're still having in
terms of your own self esteeming or on self worth.
You've obviously you're married, you have full kids, you sound
like you're doing a great job with them. You said
you had achievements and accolades, but you're still fighting that
war of the fact that it means something.

Speaker 3 (38:14):
Yeah, I definitely I got to a place where I
was trying to do so much that I was starting
to get burnt out. And that's where I started to
I feel like, be a little bit more constructive with
my narrative with myself. And my wife is great. I
talked to her about all this stuff, and we have
a great relationship and it's one hundred and eighty degrees

(38:37):
from the kind of relationship that I was shown growing up.
And even though I know I'm blessed, I have so
much and everything is going well, I feel I'm very
aware of like I have to really really work at
every day being comfortable with where I'm at and acknowledging

(39:01):
my wife and my children and how I'm blessed and
I have value as a father and as a husband,
and that those are the things that really matter, and
all the other stuff doesn't.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Lourie said earlier that sometimes when you try and put
the anger aside, it's by numbing. But often when you numb,
it numbs. Generally, we're not very good with that kind
of anesthetic. It's just a general anesthetic. It numbs the
good stuff often. Two. Are you able to take in
easily enough the reality of your new family, the warmth

(39:35):
of it, the joy of it, the relationship with your
wife that you've said is so different, the relationship with
your kids that is so very different than the one
your parents had with you.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I would say no, in a way, it's hard for
me to, I guess, relax into that and just be
okay with it. I still have a hard time just
sitting still. I still have a hard time, for any
length of time just sitting on the floor playing with
my kids, like I have to stay busy, and I'm
aware of it, and I'm aware of the thought in

(40:09):
my mind of my family is so great. Why can't
I just relax and just settle into this and just
be perfectly okay?

Speaker 1 (40:21):
The thing about growing up with trauma is that when
you're finally out of jail, so it feels like you're
in jail growing up, and then you're finally released, and
now you have this family where you feel like there's love,
there's warmth, there's space for emotions, there's a respectful way
of interacting with one another. There's also a sense of

(40:42):
unreality to it, like is this real? Is this going
to last? Will this go away at any moment? And
that sometimes can prevent us from just being present in
it and enjoying it, because in the back of our minds,
it's like, is this really happening? That sense of I

(41:04):
don't know if this is going to be here tomorrow,
even though you have no reason to believe it it won't.
Are you experiencing any of that?

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yeah, yeah, it's it gets better with time. But I
know There's been plenty of times where I've had conversations
with my wife where I've always been kind of hesitant
to take time for myself, and I say to her like,
I would just feel guilty. I would feel guilty if
I'm doing this and you need me to do that,

(41:34):
or something like that, and she's.

Speaker 4 (41:37):
So accepting and just you need to have your time,
you need to do this.

Speaker 3 (41:40):
It's okay. I want you to do this, It's okay.
And I'm I've been very hesitant to make space for
what my needs may be because I'm afraid, Well, I
don't want to. I don't want to take too much time.
I don't I don't want her to be upset. I
don't want I don't want this to end. This is great.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
I think what you're talking about is that it's very
uncomfortable when somebody sees you when for so long you
haven't been seen, and you don't trust it. It feels
so foreign to you. My needs matter? And am I
going to be perceived as selfish if I take her

(42:22):
up on this? What's the catch? How is this going
to get turned around on me? Because there might have
been times in your childhood where the moment you let
down your guard, the other shoe dropped, and so you
can't really trust this that, Oh, she wants me to
take time for myself. But then is she later going
to come back and say she resents me for it.

Speaker 4 (42:43):
Yeah, that's pretty much it directly.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, if you did take time, what would you do
with it?

Speaker 3 (42:54):
I used to have a lot of hobbies, but since
we've had kids, I don't really have much time for anything.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
What were your hobbies?

Speaker 3 (43:02):
I used to mountain bike quite a bit, play guitar.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
So when your wife says, go take some time, what
prevents you from getting on that bike?

Speaker 3 (43:12):
It's like, all right, well, I already spent so much
time out of the house working and you were home
with the kids the whole time. I feel bad if
I'm going to go take a couple hours to go
by myself and do something when I've already had time
away from the family.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Can I offer your wife's perspective? Sure, I'm guessing that
her perspective might be you've been working so hard to
support us, and everybody needs a break, and you would
probably even be more relaxed and joyful and playful and
present if you could unwind a little bit. And so

(43:53):
not only does it help you, but it would help
me and it would help the kids if you would
go spend a couple hours on that bike.

Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah, I'm laughing because I've I've heard pretty much that
exact thing.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
Yeah, and yet you resist it still.

Speaker 3 (44:10):
Yeah, Yeah, it's that message.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
You said, there's a war going on every day. It's
the I don't deserve.

Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah, for sure, maybe the realization that hasn't filtered in
yet that the war is over.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
That's a good point. I never thought about it like that,
And if you did, if I did, I have a
change everything. It would create a lot of space for
a tremendous amount of joy.

Speaker 2 (44:43):
Oftentimes people feel in your situation where the war will
be over to say this area indelicately, the war will
be over when they're dead.

Speaker 3 (44:53):
Yeah, I thought about that.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Yeah, but you've already disconnected from them to a substantial agree.
You keep the visits minimum. They come four or five
times a year to your place, so it's supervised. You
have the option to ask them to leave. If they
misbehave the first hint of a war erupting, you would
probably toss them out so you wouldn't have to be

(45:15):
exposed to it. So you've already taken the steps to
end that war or your exposure to it, and to
create such a different reality with your family. And you're
not getting the joy because when you said it, you
said that would create so much space for joy, which
means there's so much space for joy that you're not experiencing.

(45:38):
That you could.

Speaker 1 (45:40):
Yeah, And I think what's taking up some of the
space is this internal conflict you're having Jason, about what
do I owe my parents at this time in my life?
What is my responsibility to my parents, even if they

(46:01):
were not able to be the kinds of parents that
I needed? Yeah, and how do I balance that with
not going back into the war zone.

Speaker 3 (46:13):
That's a good way to describe it. I definitely feel like,
what are my obligations? I guess, what're my responsibilities? What
do I owe them? But because of where I'm at
with the whole thing, my wife says like, when they
come over it changes me. I'm definitely I'm on edge,
I'm on guard.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
What does happen when they come over and they're in
your territory and your wife is there, so you have
that support and she knows exactly what's going on, so
she can be there to kind of you know, you
can give her a look, she can give you a look.
And does that happen for the two of you?

Speaker 3 (46:49):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (46:50):
Yes, So you have that kind of you're scene. You're
not like the child who feels completely isolated in the
experience and alone and helpless, but you have your wife
who can give you that look like, oh, my goodness,
your parents just did that and they just said that, yeah,
So what is that like? When they come over and

(47:10):
they're on your turf.

Speaker 3 (47:12):
That's usually the only way like I see them, simply
because I can control the circumstance in some way, like
we don't. We don't have alcohol in the house, and
we usually try to encourage them to visit earlier in
the day because my dad can. Usually he's usually fine
up to a certain point, but he's been here deep
into the afternoon, and then the switch flips and you
can tell that he's getting thirsty. Even though I've controlled

(47:37):
for those variables as much as I can, I'm always
on edge. I'm always on guard. But if I'm honest,
when they come over, it's they're usually fine. Now I
mean they because he's not drinking. He's fine, and my
kids love to be around him. They're always pleasant when

(47:58):
they're here. But I, for whatever reason, can't. I'm not
comfortable letting down my guard even though I've controlled for
those variables that lead to bad things.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Is there a part of you that wishes that the
grandparents that they are to your kids could have been
the parents that they were to you. Absolutely, So we've
been talking about anger, and I think that's where the
sadness comes in, where you can see the potential of
what things might have looked like, but you didn't get it.
And even as an adult, you haven't gotten that acknowledgment

(48:37):
or that apology from them.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:41):
Yeah, I've struggled with that as well. Do they owe
me an apology?

Speaker 5 (48:47):
Like?

Speaker 3 (48:47):
How do I move forward knowing that that may never come?

Speaker 1 (48:52):
I think you know the answer to the question of
whether you are owed an apology. The answer is yes,
you are an apology. You can't get reparation for the
time spent as a child where you were treated that way,
but at the very least, an acknowledgment, an apology, something

(49:12):
that says I know that I did this to you
and I am deeply, deeply sorry. But I think if
you wait for that, that if you still hold out
the hope for it, the war won't end, you know.
I think the war ends when we let go of
the hope of having a different childhood, and you think

(49:34):
that waiting for the apology is leaving you in that
limbo of still hoping for having a better childhood, meaning
you know that you can't go back into childhood, but
there's something about the apology that helps with that. Yeah,
And I think that where you are going to have
to go with that is into some grief work around

(49:57):
the childhood that you actually did have and around who
your parents are and what their limitations are. And that's
very different from numbing yourself from those feelings, okay.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Because because that's why your God is up when they visit.
It's not so much so you're ready in case dad
loses his temper. It's so that all the feelings you
have that come up when you see them actually behave Okay,
when you see your kids connect to them, then it
brings up all these feelings about what they did to you,

(50:34):
what your dad did, what your mom didn't do to
protect you, what they're giving to your kids now that
they never gave to you. It brings up so many
feelings that you have. That's why your God is up
not for the attack, but from the attack from within.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
I also think that when you see your parents act
in a way that feels good, that there is a
part of you that is still hoping that they're going
to see something that they haven't seen before about the
way that they treated you and the better behaved they are,
even though you want that and you want that for
your kids, that somehow it's gutting because there's a there

(51:20):
there in some way you can see that, but they
can't quite get to the place of saying, I'm really sorry,
I see what I did. And I'm talking about both
of them, your mother and your father, And so there's
that paradox of it's great that they can behave themselves
around my kids. It's great that we can have a

(51:42):
pleasant enough time, but that brings up that hope and
if they can do that, maybe they can apologize, and
when they don't, you get devastated all over again.

Speaker 3 (51:53):
Yeah, I definitely think that tying into that is every
time my mom or my dad tries to kind of
make me feel guilty for like we don't see you enough,
that narrative starts where I'm where I'm just like, you
don't understand, like if you just apologize, if you just

(52:13):
acknowledge this, you know.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Do you ever say that to them? Do you ever
tell them you know, I think that you don't understand
the reason that I don't see you as much as
you would like.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
No, I haven't not from that angle, I mean, I've
told them, you're welcome to come over to our house
whenever you would like, just let us know you want
to come over. But in that regard, even if we
invite them, they don't carve out a lot of time
at all. Their schedule was packed and they rarely have time.

(52:51):
So it's that weird thing where they're going to try
to make me feel guilty for not coming.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Is the schedule the deed packed? Is it that an
hour and a half drive, an and a half drive back,
a few hours over there, and that's already a lot
of hours without drinking for your dad. Often what happens
with alcoholics is they don't want to be that far
from a drink, and too, if they can't drink at
the old place, which I think they are not allowed to,

(53:18):
and they know that, then coming there is difficult because
it's being dry for way longer than they he would ordinarily.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
Yeah, I think so for sure, because I know if
they go to my brother's house, who's about the same
distance from them in another direction, they can visit there
for a lot longer. But my brother drinks and lets
them drink, and right, so I'm sure that's a huge
part of it.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
Yeah, does he a brother visit? Does he have a family?

Speaker 3 (53:44):
Does he visit visit us? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, he he
comes here not that much. In fact, the last time
he came to visit, they came in the morning and
he brought a beer with him and was drinking nine
thirty ten in the morning.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Did you feel comfortable with that?

Speaker 3 (54:09):
It concerns me for sure.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
Have you and your brother ever discussed his alcoholism and
has he ever gotten treatment for it?

Speaker 3 (54:18):
No, He's had a history of drug overdoses before he
was impatient when he was a senior in high school.
I think for attempted suicide. He smokes marijuana regularly, drinks regularly,
And I've asked him why do you feel the need
to do those things? Like why do you feel they

(54:38):
need to drink that much? And he's you know, professed
like you know sometimes where I have a problem, I
drink too much or I probably need to cut back.

Speaker 4 (54:47):
And he's aware.

Speaker 3 (54:49):
That he has a problem, and then he tries to
get better and then he goes right back to it.
You know.

Speaker 1 (54:55):
After the suicide attempt, What was your parent's reaction to that?
Did that serve as any kind of wake up call
for them.

Speaker 3 (55:04):
He has told me that after he got released, that
my mom took him to a bunch of different counselors,
and that the counselors had kind of presented to my
mom some of the reasons for why he was having
these behaviors, implying that it was outcomes from our home life,

(55:27):
you know, that sort of thing, and my mom didn't
like it, so she'd take him to another counselor another counselor.
He went to four or five different ones because from
what he tells me, my mom wasn't getting the answers
that she wanted, which was that he had a serious problem.
From what he says that they were pointing out that
it was an outcome of, you know, my dad's drinking

(55:50):
and that kind of stuff that has led to this,
and she didn't want to hear that.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
I think maybe he doesn't understand that the war is over.
I that as an adult, he can go get treatment
and he can go understand some of these things better,
so he can understand himself better and what's holding him
back from really being present in his life. So I
think both of you kind of came out of the

(56:17):
war shell shocked with tons of PTSD and you still
don't understand what it means to be out of the
war zone.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
It's interesting because you're trying so hard not to be
your dad and he was trying so hard not to
be his dad. I think that you personalize the fact
that he can't apologize to you, But in his mind,
I think he truly believes I was such a better
dad to my kids than my dad was to me,

(56:53):
and he probably feels like he's not getting any credit
for it, and that's why he defends himself so much.
And also the shame that comes up when he realizes
I actually was like my dad in a lot of ways,
and he has so much shame around that that he
just can't acknowledge it himself much less to you. That
doesn't excuse any of his behavior, but it might give

(57:19):
you a different kind of framework to think about why
he had to write the ten page manifesto to you,
why he can't acknowledge the effect that his behavior had
on you.

Speaker 3 (57:31):
Yeah, I've thought about that. As much as I want
them to own it and acknowledge it to me, I
can see how that would be very difficult.

Speaker 1 (57:46):
What I'm saying Jason, is that it's hard to acknowledge
to somebody else what you won't acknowledge to yourself. And
I don't think that your dad can hold on to
anything that happened from your perspective, because he feels so
much shame. He feels so much like I trade so
hard to get away from being my father, and when
you bring this up, he thinks maybe I was like

(58:10):
my father in these ways. And I don't think he
can acknowledge that to himself long enough, if at all,
to be able to acknowledge that to you.

Speaker 3 (58:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:22):
Yeah, what you're talking about is intergenerational trauma. That we
have an emotional inheritance. Just like we have a genetic
inheritance with our DNA and our physical characteristics, there's an
emotional inheritance too that gets passed down from generation to
generation until somebody puts a stop to it. And it

(58:42):
sounds like you are that person in your family doing
that for the next generation. And while you're doing that,
you're having some conflict about what does that mean to
do that and also be a good.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
Son suggesting We do have some advice for you, and
that advice comes from the following place We spoke about
intergenerational trauma, and we really see it in your family.
Your grandfather had World War II, your dad had the

(59:18):
residual of World War Two that his dad brought home,
and that was his own war. And then you've had
your own war with your dad. And what we are
so impressed with is the remarkable job that you've done
and making sure you're the last one to deal with

(59:39):
the war. Because you've done a masterful job of finding
a way to end the war and to protect your
family and even to protect yourself. You can have your
parents come and visit in a way that's safe because
it's for limited amounts of time, it's earlier in the day,

(01:00:02):
but they can be there for your kids. They can
have grandparents and you can even see them in action
with all the difficult feelings that brings up. And it's
not just that you've stopped the transmission of the intergenerational trauma.
You've really done things in a radically different way. Your
brother's drinking at nine point thirty, and you've had to

(01:00:24):
come such a long way in order to make sure
it stops with you. But you have, and we're not
sure that that part has really registered with you yet
because you're still at war with your feelings. So peace
time is here and you're not enjoying it because you're

(01:00:45):
still living the war. And so what we'd like you
to do this week is we'd like you to come
up with the ritual that symbolizes the end of the
war for you. When we were talking about that, one
thing I thought about was that iconic image of the

(01:01:07):
sailor in Times Square kissing that lady. You're smiling, you
know the image, and we were thinking maybe you and
your wife need to replicate that image or do something similar.
But really, just as an example, we want you to
come up with some kind of ritual in which you
and your wife know that you are celebrating the fact
that you've ended the war and you've done it really successfully.

(01:01:29):
We think despite the war, you're still act with your feelings.
So that's one of the tasks we'd like you to
accomplish this week, to talk with your wife, think together,
and really come up with a ritual that would be
symbolic for you to imply the war's over. I want
it for myself and for my family, and I'm going

(01:01:50):
to enjoy it because we are living in peace.

Speaker 3 (01:01:55):
Okay, I like that.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
And then because we feel like the war that you're
still waging is the war with your feelings and specifically anger, sadness,
and grieving, we feel like that the price that you
pay for the war with your feelings is that you
do cut off joy, and so we want you to

(01:02:19):
end that war as well. And one way to do
that is to start really getting in touch with those
feelings and the way that you did in our conversation today.
But what we'd like you to do is we'd like
you to write down three incidents from childhood that were
painful for you, and then we'd like you to make
two columns. We'd like you to make an anger column

(01:02:41):
and a sadness column, and we'd like you to write
down in great detail without editing yourself, like earlier when
I said, what would that young boy say when his
father spit in his face? And I said I think
he might say I can't stand you, And you said, oh,
I could never say that, but the little boy was
probably feeling that. And so we want you to write

(01:03:04):
down in the anger column and in the sadness columns,
in great detail, what that little boy might say, and
it might help you to think about if you did
that to your kids, what might they be feeling? And
that will get you closer to some of those feelings
that feel so scary to you. They feel like the enemy.
Anger is the enemy because anger looks like emotional or

(01:03:27):
physical violence. Sadness is the enemy because it brings back
all those memories. But what you don't realize is that
there's also the sides of anger and sadness that are
very healing and very liberating. And we think it'll be
quite a relief for you to finally be able to
have access to those feelings. In that spirit, it will

(01:03:50):
help you to enjoy the post war era that you're
now in. And so what we'd like you to do
is we'd like you to spend two hours a week
experiencing the joy that comes with the end of the war.
And for you, that might be mountain biking, it might
be playing the guitar, it might be any of those
hobbies that are truly just for you. How does that

(01:04:14):
sound to you?

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
That's a lot, but I'm looking forward to it. Yeah.
I like the analogy of peacetime and then in the war.
I think that resonates with me pretty significantly.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
So, yeah, there's one more thing that I left at,
which is that as you're getting in touch with your feelings,
you will get closer to your truth. And that's a
really positive development because when your mother then sends guilt
to you, or your father sends guilt to you, first
of all, just because somebody sends guilt doesn't mean you
have to accept delivery. I want you to remember that

(01:04:50):
you don't have to sign for the package. And the
other part of that is you can say your truth,
which is that mom dad the reason and that we
don't get together more. The reason that I don't come
to your house is because we have a lot of
stuff between us that's not been acknowledged, and I find

(01:05:10):
it really difficult, and so I found a way to
spend time with you that works out well. When we
do it the other way, it doesn't work out too well.
And if there comes a time when you're willing or
able to acknowledge some of the things that are still
in the air between us, that might make it easier
for us to get together in a different way. So

(01:05:32):
if you are open to that, I'm here, and if
you're not, I'm glad to see you in the way
that works for all of us. Okay, we don't know
if that conversation will happen this week, and we don't
know how often the guilt is delivered to you. But
if it does, and that does happen this week, and
you're able to say that, we'd like to hear how
that goes as well. Okay, And if it doesn't happen

(01:05:55):
this week, we'd like you to have that in your
back pocket for the next time the guilt comes to
your doorstep.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
Okay, sounds good. Thank you guys so much. I can't
tell you how much I appreciate your time.

Speaker 2 (01:06:08):
You're very welcome. I think Jason is going to do
everything we suggested. He seems like someone who does that,
who does his best at most things, and so I'm
sure he's going to do it. I really hope he

(01:06:30):
does it in a way that allows him to get
the emotional experience and the emotional benefits that we're so
much advocating for.

Speaker 1 (01:06:38):
And I think creating a symbol of the end of
war that comes from him is going to help him
have a framework around the work that he has to do.
So he's doing some things this week that I think
are going to be very helpful for him. And I
think that they're going to set the stage for a
continuation of the work that is going to help him
truly live in peacetime.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
You're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after
a quick break.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
So, guy, we heard back from Jason, and let's see
if he was able to take some steps to end
the war.

Speaker 3 (01:07:27):
Hey Lourie, Hey guy, it's Jason. Just wanted to check
back in with you guys and follow up after our
conversation from earlier in the week. It's been a crazy
week for us here. We actually were in the process
of moving this week, and my wife's grandfather died suddenly
in the midst of all of that, so we had

(01:07:49):
quite a bit of big family stress going on this week.
But be that as it may, I was able to
still accomplish the tasks that you assigned me. The first one,
you know, getting together with my wife and kind of
coming up with a way to celebrate peacetime. I think

(01:08:10):
it's just been really beneficial to kind of begin my
day connecting with her and just kind of reaffirming the
fact that the war is over and it's peacetime now.
And I don't know if it was your intention or not,
but you kind of gave me a new mantra that
I've been able to kind of fall back on and

(01:08:33):
use that, especially during the stress of this week, that
I can constantly remind myself that the war is over
and we're in peacetime now. In writing out experiences from
my childhood, it's interesting to me that the hard part
for me is to still be completely honest to the feelings,

(01:08:55):
kind of how it was when we spoke the first time.
How it was hard for me to actually be able
to verbalize things such as I hate you and that
sort of thing. Even even though it's not being verbalized,
just still depend to paper. It's still difficult to kind
of give life to those feelings. I don't know how

(01:09:15):
to describe it in your way. But nonetheless, I feel
like it's a practice that I'm going to continue to evolve,
reflecting on things when they when the when events and
memories pop up that I can I can sit down
and write them out and journal it, so to speak,
and really try to to kind of give life to

(01:09:37):
those feelings in a safe way writing it down in paper.
I didn't have an opportunity to actually speak to my
parents about, you know, talking with you guys, the podcast,
that sort of thing. But my mom did come over
to help us watch the kids a little bit to
help us pack while we were dealing with this move,
and it was a good visit. Obviously, we were under

(01:09:59):
a lot of stress and I was really tired, but
I think I was still able to kind of enjoy
visiting with her, knowing that I, kind of, like I said,
had that monstra to fall back on. The war's over
and it's peacetime now and so I can actually just
try to enjoy things as they are. So yeah, it's
been a rough week, but it's been a great week.

(01:10:21):
And I honestly think that this week would have been
substantially more difficult if I hadn't had the blessed opportunity
to speak with the two of you prior to the
events unfolding. So I cannot convey my gratitude enough for

(01:10:42):
how thankful I am for your guys insight and for
the time taking the time to speak with me and
kind of to deal with some of these issues. I
can't thank you enough. I appreciate everything you did for me,
and I wish you guys both the best moving forward.
Thanks again.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
So first I really want to offer our condolences to
Jason's wife. It's really interesting that we gave him this
assignment about the war being over in a week where
they have to move the grandfather dies, but even more
proof of how well he took it to heart, that
he was able to persist and do those tasks during

(01:11:27):
this very difficult week and really take in this idea
of the war being over. I think it's a great
mantra for him. He has a military background, but I
do think it's a great simple way to remind himself.
He probably says it to himself many many times a day,
and I'm glad he does. I'm really glad that worked
for him.

Speaker 1 (01:11:45):
Yeah, he had an incredibly stressful week, but I think
it's easier to get through the stresses of life when
you're not in a war. And even when his mother
came over, which normally could be stressful, he had a
nice visit with her again, because not only is the
war over, but he was the one who got to
declare it to be over. And that's an important piece

(01:12:07):
because when the war's internal, it's always in our power
to end it. Next week, our fellow traveler struggles with
the heartbreak of infertility and pregnancy loss.

Speaker 5 (01:12:21):
I had a really, really, really hard time without loss.
I was probably a month out from surgery when my
brother and sister.

Speaker 1 (01:12:29):
In law announced they were pregnant.

Speaker 5 (01:12:30):
It really kind of sucked the air out of me,
and that really caused like a big friction and my
relationship with my brother and sister in law because I
just didn't want to be around them.

Speaker 1 (01:12:42):
Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
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Speaker 2 (01:12:58):
If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Big O Smooth, email us at Lorianguy at iHeartMedia dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns
are Dorit Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison
Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Couric.

Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
We can't wait to see you at next week's session

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
Dear Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio