The False Self with Ryan Cristian

Because obviously, I've had a lot on my mind over the past two plus months, you know, it's been a while, and honestly, you know, after trying to entertain a small child in a confined space for a long time, doing something like this makes me feel kind of kind of normal again, which is, which is definitely nice for me,

in a sense. So I don't want to talk too much about my my son's medical situation, and I've sort of explained it in other places, you know, before to an extent, but thankfully, there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a little bit of uncertainty about the timeline, but we're hoping to be home. Finally, sometime

next month. So long story short, this whole experience has has changed me, you know, in a lot of ways, it's made me rethink a lot about how I approach and I guess, balance different aspects of my life, including work, of course. And, you know, pretty much everything. Um, I've thought a lot about healing, obviously. And, you know, that's part of what I want to talk about today. For the first, you know, couple of weeks, I guess, several weeks, maybe of our stay in the hospital, my son was in a

really, really bad way. And he's definitely out of danger. Definitely not the kind he was in for sure. But when he was, you know, I spent a lot of time, you know, sitting next to I'm looking at him, he was in an induced coma, he was on life support, you know, so I was thinking about him and his life, the circumstances that brought him into my life, what could happen, you know, if he doesn't make it home, or, you know, all sorts of things, and I think, you know, that's pretty normal

for any parent, in that situation. And, you know, obviously, for a lot of that time, I was obviously pretty

emotional. I mean, it's hard not to get emotional, even just talking about it again, but, you know, it was really the first time since I've had kids that I had a lot of time to myself, to just sit and think about things and reflect on life, my life, what kind of mother I've been, what kind of person I've been, and how I can be better for my kids, so that when we finally do get to go home, things are the best they can possibly be, you

know, I've heard from a lot of other parents too, that have had their children in the ICU or the, the niku, you know, that it really just totally changes, you know, how you were the kind of parent you, you want to be, because it's just such a

emotional time, for lack of a better term for it. And, you know, even though my son still has a few physical things, you know, to heal from obviously, I realized that I have a lot to heal from to, you know, not necessarily physically, and I think, you know, if we're honest with ourselves, as adults, right, you know, it's, it's pretty much true of us all, you know, life is not necessarily kind. And, you know, sometimes, you know, we distract ourselves with work, or we're busy with

kids, or, you know, all sorts of stuff comes up. And sometimes we, we forget about, you know, those parts of ourselves until we're sort of forced by the circumstances of life, to, you know, look at them and stare them in the face, right. So, for a long time, and pretty much ever since I've been writing and had any sort of platform, but really, even before then, I've avoided talking about personal life as much as possible, including why I do the work that I do and why I care about it.

And I actually get asked this a lot in interviews, you know, how did I become who I am? Why do I do what I do? And if you've noticed, I try and give short and honestly pretty evasive answers. And, you know, an example of that was actually pretty recent. I I was asked that exact question at the Bitcoin magazine conference in May. And, you know, he told me he was Mark Goodwin, he was the host of that panel told me he

was going to ask me that right before we went on stage. And I was like, Oh, I actually don't know if I want to talk about that. So I'm going to try and come up with something else say, because, you know, I, you know, I mean, part of the reason I don't like talking about it is because I'd rather that the interviews and public appearances I do be about the work and the research and not about me. And part of that is to avoid, you know, the shoot the messenger tactic when people

want to discredit something. But I also, you know, there are questions that are hard for me to answer because I don't like talking about my past, or where I come from, and what made me who I am, I don't really think it's very pleasant, I think it's actually a rather unpleasant story. So in the first part of this podcast, I won't be talking much necessarily about that

maybe more towards the ends. But what I do want to talk about and focus on today is how a lot of the tactics used by people who are abusive can be very similar to what the elites are doing to us right now. And how they're trying to engineer society in a particular direction, to make us easier to control. And I think in some way, try and make us more like them. And I think in examining those parallels, it sort of helps elucidate why they

do it, and what we can do about it. So, but now, I'd like to introduce the person who's joining me today to talk about these issues. So of course, it's a regular guest of this podcast, Ryan Christianna, the last American Vagabond one of my favorite people and independent media to talk to you, how are you doing today, Ryan?

way. If you, you know, if you try to dissect it and learn from it, you know, as much as they're terrible. And so that's something that this is, you know, like, either understand, we're going to talk about today and how we can, you know, see, in regard to the government and personal relationships, as well. So I think it's a good time for this conversation.

So, you know, definitely crazy times to live in. And, you know, I think part of the change that has to come needs to, you know, be internal change for for people to an extent,

that out as much as I possibly could. On my own, because I know, you know, if you just bury it down and don't deal with it, it's something that destroys you over time, especially if you know, you have anger and all this other stuff, it can eat away at you, and cause a lot of problems. But, you know, the more I've reflected on that particular type of abuser, and

there's a lot of resources for that type of abuse. It you know, if you look for it online and stuff, I just realized there's a lot of parallels, you know, with the powers that be the elites, whatever you want to call them. And that a lot of the tactics that narcissists abuse, or use when they abuse their targets and how the powers that be abused us there's a lot of

similarities. And I think part of that is because at the end of the day, what narcissists are ultimately seeking to do is to keep their victims and of course that, you know, they don't do this to everybody, they strategically pick certain people to do this to, or, you know, if you're the child of one, you can't go anywhere, so you're your easy prey. But essentially, what they aim to do is to keep you basically in this toxic system, and train you to essentially serve them and their

needs and neglect their own and control you. And of course, you know, we talked about a lot with the elites that it's really all about control for them at the end of the day and they're trying to control have us in ways that are just extreme and obsessive. And of course, they're doing that so that we continuously serve them and don't have a mind of our own.

So, you know, maybe that's one similarity. But the one thing that, you know, you, you and I sort of talked a little bit about before recording that, I think is a really important thing to look into here is the idea of narcissism. And I guess what I would call the false self, right? So what do I mean by that? So narcissists, tend to sort of have a split personality, in a sense, but you generally, you know, only see

one side of that self, when it's projected publicly, right? So narcissists will have a superior grandiose self, and that's what I call the false self, because they're trying to project what they want people to see about them. And then they also have an inferior, devalued sell for, you know, I guess, the real self,

for lack of a better term. And they sort of vacillate between these and trying to manage the feelings of inferiority that bubble up from that devalued self is, you know, responsible for a lot of behaviors that narcissism show and a lot of, you know, behavior that they use, that's abusive, you know, in terms of the people that they're trying to keep, you know, providing them with, you know, what, what is termed often

narcissistic supply or sort of this. These feelings and these feelings of power over people and all of that, that sort of keep narcissists, more or less stable in there. Instability, I guess, for lack of a better term. So. So the term narcissist rate comes from the Greek myth of narcissist. And essentially, narcissist was a guy that fell in love with his reflection in a lake or something like that, a pool of water, and he died waiting for the response of his reflection. He like hungering

for that response. But I think it's more fair to say that the way it is with Narcissus is that it you know, they, they hunger for how they're reflected in the eyes of other people. So a lot of times, at least in my experience, they have this

obsession with how other people view them. And they want to be viewed a very specific way but a lot of times that's very, very different than how they act privately like with their family at home or with the you know, in the relationship they are where they're, you know, abusing someone.

inherently selfish, right? They're ultimately trying to create this perception of themselves through the way other people see them. And that's so incredibly relevant to the way the government acts with us today, we gaslighting and, you know, making us feel lesser than, and I just find that this I think this is such an important topic because like I agree with you, I think that's exactly what's happening to us today.

But it's very insecure, right? Because people that have, for example, there's a bunch of accounts, for famous people that post like where their private jets go and stuff, it's publicly accessible information, he freaked out that a guy was doing that, about him. And there's other examples of, I think, Musk, and also have different celebrities, you know, someone insults them or something, and they just, like, freak out about it, and have like many meltdowns, and try and like, you

know, destroy the person that took them down a peg. But again, you know, there's a lot of a lot of these billionaires spend a lot of money and trying to create this version of themselves, that if you look into the person really isn't real, like Bill Gates, for example, right? Trying to project what a great philanthropist and altruistic guy he is, you know, when if you actually look into Bill Gates and his whole deal with philanthropy, it has nothing to

do with altruism at all. Right now. They're trying to project a certain version of themselves and mask the real self. So they're like masters at this whole false self thing? For sure.

looking at, you know, everyone else is lower than them. And I think this is sort of a taught behavior in these elite circles, especially people that are part of these, like, generational moneyed families. I think it's, you know, part of the upbringing.

possible, but they end up feeling awful. So they're projecting something that's not really them, and projecting that falseness out there and interact, having this like sort of, you know, fake interaction, that's all about this dopamine feedback loops and creating addictions in like in the brain. To want to be in that is making people miserable. And so it's basically creating this false self where everything's great, right? And then privately, it's turning these people into, you

know, feeling like their real Self is inferior. And that's exactly what, you know, is the deal with narcissist. And, you know, obviously, narcissists existed before social media. But my point here is that, you know, like I said, a second ago, this is really making it extremely common, I think, among, you know, society where social media and the internet is ubiquitous at this point.

into narcissists and or sociopaths. And for the very purpose, you were saying that it sort of creates this situation where then one, they're easier to rule and manipulate, but it makes them feel way better about who they are.

too. So you'll have like people that are like really extreme pathological narcissists, a lot of them tend to be like sociopathic, even sometimes they tend to be psychopaths, you know. And that's why I think maybe you have so many in positions of power to because there's studies right about how psychopaths and sociopaths tend to, like rise really high up the corporate ladder, they tend to be the top politicians, and all

of this stuff, too. And so, you know, people on that end of the spectrum are easy to control in the sense that you can give them stuff that over inflates their, the self that they publicly project out there, and the stuff that they want. And a lot of times what those guys want is to dominate other people, they want control, or they want everyone to think they're the best thing in the entire world. Celebrity. Right. Right. So they're easy to

control in, in that sense. And then there's people, you know, on different parts of the spectrum. But ultimately, you know, if you're creating, you know, a generation, you know, of teenagers that have had social media, since they were really small. And at the end, their brains haven't fully developed, and they're using it right, and they become wired to these

feedback loops. I think the way of manipulating them is a little bit different than say, the people on the far end of that, of that narcissist spectrum that are, you know, too far gone to really rehabilitate, in a sense.

because this is where I've been researching. But you know, you can obviously overlap with this things like the transgender movement, and how these platforms are being used to create that same dynamic where these went these young girls, primarily young girls, today, something like 70 something percent, even though that was barely exist, it was mostly younger boys before that are all suddenly filled with the idea that they're not right, that they're that they're not worth

what they are currently is not good enough. Right? And that

another cycle. You know, and for me, it's hard not to see this as something that's being done to people, not just a byproduct of malfeasance, you know, like, we're saying it's got this all this is just one big, abusive relationship?

They'll create chaos, and then you'll be like, I'll do anything to stop this chaos, this crazy explosive anger, just to make it go away, whatever you want, you know, and then also at the, you know, the elites also do that, you know, will only stop. Exactly, well, ascension is is a great example. But you know, bombing all sorts of, you know, tools of the state or, you know, state violence and other or false flags, you know, will only stop this if you give in to what we are asking for. Right?

everything gets blamed on and so I was the scapegoat. I was the oldest kid and my daughter was the my daughter My sister was the golden child. And it's not like she had a great time and she didn't turn out to be a narcissist, but she also had a lot of, you know, trauma from Growing up, I think it was just different for me. So I was used to being blamed for everything, including stuff I didn't do, and just kind of constantly devalued throughout my, you know, entire childhood and adolescence, so I

was just kind of used to being, you know, treated poorly. And, you know, when it happened to me, later on as an adult, I was just, you know, it felt familiar. And, like, you know, we got weird, I guess. But when you grew up in an environment like that, you know, it's really, it was really easy to

guilt trip me. I think that was, but you know, I was made to feel bad like that all the time as a kid, and I guess it just was sort of wired in my brain differently than it is from people that don't have that experience.

it's called negging. Right. And that's a basic tactic of just making somebody else feel unsettled. lesser than so you disarm them to a degree to where you can essentially manipulate them to the point of sexuality. And it's terrible when you think about it. But ultimately, that's a narcissistic tactic. Same thing we're talking about, really, but from a, you know, for family level, or from a government

interpersonal relationships, right? And so they know that if they can convince someone, they are being empathetic, then they can, you know, I guess add another tool to their manipulation tool belt, you know,

person? And how can I use them? Right? Yeah, so anyway, going back to this point of, of empathy, you know, if they are trying to use someone, and they can act like they care about a person's feelings that can go pretty far. And if you think about, you know, even back a couple, probably not now, it doesn't work anymore. But like, for the elites, and like, mainstream media, and all of that a lot of these public figures, politicians, right, will like project that they feel

bad about something. Or they'll put out a story like look, this, this happened to, you know, this important person and you

shouldn't feel bad for them or they did something caring. So like the earliest example of this in terms of like PR, you know, manipulations, I guess the public is someone like John D. Rockefeller, the country's first billionaire who was a total garbage shaman and the way they tried to turn his reputation around was by you know, showing videos of him like giving money to like little pennies and coins to like children like look how nice I'm being

projecting empathy is, is, you know, the same overlap. So you can see that exactly the same way, like and the same time doing so in many ways that tries that the attempt is to make you feel guilty, maybe not about, like, take an example of foreign policy where, you know, showing a picture of a child, that's, you know, in a bombing, like, like Oman, from Syria, for example, you know, somewhere, then you somehow feel guilty, like you didn't do enough. And really, it's all an illusion, you know?

it, right. Feigning empathy for people in Haiti, knowing that the people that were donating wanted to help those people and then taking the money and running, basically.

false self, to the public, for sure. And I think a lot of these politicians do and but again, I think these guys at the top levels they have complete, like PR teams dedicated to shaping that false self for them or as narcissists don't necessarily.

question then becomes, do you think this person is? You will, let's just move Obama aside, do you think there's examples of people that are maybe not fully aware of how they're being used in that way, that are that are being kind of trained as a budding new narcissist in government, for example?

behavior I have to engage in to be successful. And obviously, once you get to the higher up levels of the government, or really any really corrupt organization, you're gonna get to the levels where you realize the extent of how, you know, corrupt everything is and how the people are, you know, there's a lot of theft going on and illegal activity and then obviously, you know, you only get into that world if you're Uh, down to participate in it. Right? Yeah.

COVID. And it was a flop. And a lot of what happened during COVID with the lock downs was to get us super sucked into the digital world all the time, because we couldn't go outside and we could only connect with other people by a computer. Right. So I think it was a big push. And I think perhaps they expected it that change to happen a lot faster during COVID than it actually did. Because the metaverse again was a flop

and so you have to continue and criminalizing it. How you know, Pepe, how intense that connection with the digital false self whatever becomes people to get people to want to be in the metaverse or have digital twins. And you have to at the same time make people so miserable in their real selves or in their, you know, in reality in order for that to happen. And when we talked about the metaverse, which was a few I guess it was last year. Or maybe it was the year before 20 No, I

part out loud, very gross. Yeah. But yeah, and so I think the way it started with social media, you know, first is like what we already talked about, like making people have low self esteem, because they're trying to make themselves online and publicly look the best they possibly can. And then eventually, there's this gap that they you know, they're putting all these filters on their pictures and all this stuff. But that's not how they really look, when they look in the mirror. What you're

essentially the same. It's this authoring of the real self and trying to get you to be like, Well, what I want to be my real self is that online self is that digital self false self. And I think

media, they're on it constantly. They're on their phone constantly. It's not everyone that uses social media, right. But there is a group there that needs it. Or they're addicted to the internet. And they can't live without it. So what you and I have talked about in the past and what the plan that's been on the books a long time, even before what's happening now with new Twitter is to force people to connect their internet access to some form of government issued ID and this was tried out

in the US, obviously didn't get very far. But they drew up plans for it. And they called it the driver's license for the internet. So a government issued ID is tied, probably through your internet service provider. So you can't get online without you know them knowing everything you do online because you're you know, access through the gateway to even get to the internet is everything you do online is going to be tied to that Id they're gonna know exactly who you are. Right. And that was the

ambition then. And that's what's going to happen now. So a lot of my work that I you know, I originally did for tea lab on stuff like the the web partnership against cybercrime, which is like the FBI, the Department of Justice, British intelligence, Israeli intelligence, all of the big banks. You know, it's within the WEF Pay Pal and all these other entities are there. They're very open about that being their ambition for how to end quote, unquote cybercrime on the

internet. Everyone's got to have an ID to get online. And there's been a push to in mosque is one of them before he even bought Twitter, authenticate all real humans on social media that Musk said in the tweet, yeah. But there's been a push for this elsewhere, especially among officials, for example, in Australia campaigning against misinformation, no one should be allowed to be an anonymous troll, and all of this stuff,

right? And so now what you have with new Twitter, right is this effort to and it's not just tying your government issued ID to new Twitter, the way they're rolling it out. You also have to take a selfie and upload your government issued ID and the selfie extracts it says it in the fine print biometric data and that's the run through an Israeli company.

resisting that system. And then he got mad, I was defensive, and kept countering with all this stuff, like, well, then the kids won't be able to live a normal life. And, you know, we won't be able to buy stuff that we need, and all of this stuff, and I was just like, whoa, you know, kind of blown away by that. But people, you know, like, that are sort of in that narcissist category, like the convenience, they might publicly project again, this false self, that they align with this, and that

the way they want people to view them, right. But at the end of the day, they like, what they become accustomed to, you know, like, even if even people that are against it will be like, Yeah, I'll take it because it means I can keep access to all that stuff, right? I don't want to live without that stuff. Give them

themselves, you can't possibly do fix it for them. So you know, they, they are trying to get people to to take care of them, they don't really want to do it themselves, you know. And so like they like that convenience a lot. I mean, the same person I'm talking about to refuse to stop on locking their phone with her face, but was also very against the use of facial recognition by police, even though all the big tech companies pass that facial recognition stuff on your phone

to police. But it's more convenient. Right? Right.

yourself, it will never fix the situation. So ultimately, depending on how long you're there for, it happens to everyone, eventually, you end up feeling hollowed out, like to have nothing left because you're in a relationship where you've been literally giving everything you can possibly give. At the end of the day, I mean, what you're basically giving no matter what they're asking of you or telling you they need or whatever, you're giving energy and you eventually you're just

left without anything. I mean, left feeling like you have none, and that you have nothing and that you are nothing because at the same time you're being continuously devalued for not being good enough by this person.

And he and he slowly he slowly dims them. And when she comments that they've been dumbed, he tells her that they haven't been dammed and that there must be something wrong with her, and over time, is gradually convincing her that she's insane, and making her doubt her ability to observe and perceive reality and the goal of gaslighting and by the way,

gaslighting is always done with malicious intent. The goal of gaslighting is to have it so that you no longer feel comfortable defining your own reality and You become dependent on someone else to define your reality. And that person who obviously did this to you a horrible thing to do to someone, but they did this to you with malicious intent so that they can define your reality to suit their needs and their whims.

having all these mental problems, right? I'm trying to make you think that like, they're the only ones that can help you, you know, making you feel like you have to depend on them. And at the same time, that person if they're a narcissist, or you know, also in the parallel, like the elites, right, are trying to get you to serve them. And they're trying to control you so that you constantly are serving them and giving to them.

Security Commission on artificial intelligence. And the head of that is Eric Schmidt. And Eric Schmidt's best friend for life and mentor, is Henry Kissinger, and Henry Kissinger, in him wrote a book about AI. So these are basically the people like setting essentially with a huge influence over AI policy at the national security level and beyond. Right. So this is basically how the quote unquote Deep State wants to use artificial intelligence and the stuff they say in this book is

so insane. So the overview of the point that's relevant here, because obviously, they say a lot more in the book. But they basically say, artificial intelligence can see realities that we cannot see, because it's so much smarter than us. And then in another part of the book, they say, the more we come to depend on artificial intelligence, as our personal assistants, and if you think about it, right, AI is now

creating music. It's creating art, it's replacing journalists, it's writing, fiction and nonfiction for us it's doing all of these things humans used to do right will become so dependent on AI doing all that stuff that their words, we will become cognitively diminished to the point where we become

dependent on AI. And we can't live without it. And the people that become dependent on AI that way, will no longer over a few generations be able to communicate with the people that don't oh my god, basically like that extreme of a change in people's minds basically reducing us big making us so stupid that we can't function without AI. And because AI sees a different reality than we do, and they also note in the book, AI has no morality it has no emotions, all of that if it is

there is programmed by these people. Right? So you become dependent on AI to tell you what's real and what's not. What reality is and they don't see reality like we see reality, right? So it's about people being I don't know what you want to call it transformed really, into essentially a different species where we can't perceive reality ourselves anymore in AI, that these guys program does it for us. So that was like, the same end goal is gaslighting, but taken like so far beyond the

goal. Exactly. But if the goal is to define another person's reality to suit the needs and whims of the abuser Yeah, man That's the biggest plan for AI because they claim to have, you know, write all the news stories. They can deep fake any video or any photograph they want now, and I think a lot of this is probably playing out on social media like right now because, you know, on Twitter especially, I mean, a lot of

these AI guys, you know, Elon Musk is an AI guy, right? And was behind I think, one of the cofounders of open AI for chat GPT chat, GBT is all over this Kissinger Schmidt book, all over it. And it was before its big launch. We're just like, Oh, I got to use it. It's gone viral. You know, this stuff is already happening. And in that book, which I think was published in 2020. They're basically like, yeah, AI has already basically taken over our lives, and people already can't live without it.

So they're expecting this to continue. And eventually, people are going to have to say, No, I'm not gonna interact with this crap anymore. And build something else. But my point is, people have become so addicted to it, and addicted to the feelings they get from that, you know, been created through this whole dynamic we're talking about with the false self and this public projection that there's a lot of people that won't be able to live without it.

basically emulating what they are? Or is this actual? Or will it be actual artificial intelligence that just acts in that way? Because they've made it that way?

forever. I mean, it's just, it's terrifying. I mean, how do you stop something like that?

they'll they'll try and suck you back in. I mean, every time I think,

of other people have been talking for years now. But you know, I think some people you know, like I sort of said earlier, like, I've been good at seeing how this plays out on the government level, but not so great about seeing how, you know, seeing it in my own personal life, because of how I

grew up and stuff. Obviously, I've learned from that I hope, but you know, I think there's people that maybe have the opposite problem, and they're really good at seeing it in their personal life but they don't believe the governmental do it because their parents believe in the government and everyone they know is always believed in the government. I Maybe that's changing now to an extent, but there's still a lot of people that buy into that stuff. You know?

have. It's like the feeling. Yeah, I agree. But other people that like, you know, or psychologists and stuff essentially say the same thing, because it helps sort of numb that those feelings that bubble out, bubble up from the real self, right?

narcissist when they get involved with you. And obviously, you know, it's a slightly different situation when you're gonna have a child of a narcissistic parent. But the it takes time to disentangle yourself, it's not an immediate thing, at least a lot of the time. And it's not easy. But it's, it's the, it's really the only way to heal.

to help somebody that have a cold. You know, you just don't want yeah, you know, so there's Yeah, we're trying to break through that for people.

right? Because you're grown up being taught that the government is going to be there for you. And it's basically like a parent. And ever since the beginning of American history, it's been one long, steady road of progress leading to eventual greatness. Well, I mean, that's the narrative and like public school textbooks, I mean, public school, I mean, it's not real at

all. So you're, like, fed this illusion, and a lot of people can't handle the reality, you know, and even if the system, the reality is there, and the government is abusing them, they'll still hold on to that. Right. And the same is true in a in a narcissistic relationship a lot of the times because this doesn't happen with narcissistic parents, because like I said, earlier, kids are stuck with the parents. But with narcissistic relationships, there's this initial phase that starts off

this trauma bonding thing. And people tend to call it love bombing. So it's like the early stages of the relationship, and you're just showered with affection by the narcissist they're so nice to you. And they ended up they do this thing that's called mirroring where you'll like you'll say, you like something and they'll be like, Oh, I love that thing too. And they probably never even heard of it. But they like basically

become they study you essentially. Yeah. And are trying to present themselves basically is your soulmate, because there's so much like you and what's what are the odds that we're so much like each other and all of this stuff? Because I mean, it sounds like

start. And then they start doing this thing that, you know, as far as the terminology club goes, they'll call it bread crumbing, right, where basically like, you know, there will be abuse, and then there'll be like a glimmer of the behavior that was in that love bombing stage. Right, or a period of calm where they act like that person again. And so and then it'll go back to the abuse. And so you're left thinking, Oh, I can fix this

person. Or if I do, what they tell me to do, and what they're telling me to do, and I accept that I really am the problem 100% of the time, which no relationship, it's like that, you know, then that person will come back. And we can have the perfect relationship like I thought it was going to be in the beginning. And they'll just stringing you along that way for a long time. And that's essentially what trauma bonding

is in the narcissistic relationship. But you'll you know, I think the way the government does that is more with like a PR campaign, you know, they'll they'll manage it that way and be like, Oh, well, the government's on this awful thing. Oh, well, look over here. Look at the nice thing the

government's done. Or look, Joe Biden's with his cute dogs don't mind that they've eaten almost eaten a bunch of Secret Service, or that, you know, his son's insane, and they're super corrupt, and, oh, look, they hung stockings for their grandkids and all this stuff. You know, I mean,

need to project that so people see them that way, you know, it's kind of full circle.

person is no longer serving them the way they want. They discard them. But before they discard or if, you know, at some point, you know, they don't necessarily have to be thinking about discarding the person but in the individuality that they decide to they they start slowly saying, you know, behind their back, like, oh, yeah, well, the person I'm dating is actually

crazy to some people here in there. You know, it's like an insurance policy, in a sense, so they have certain people primed to be on their side when things

don't even know if I can pick one. But you know, you see it all the time with with these people too. And another thing that's really common with narcissists also is that they don't have they don't allow people in their lives, the people, they abuse to have boundaries, they don't allow healthy boundaries at all. So in the case of narcissistic parents, they see children, their children as extensions of

themselves. And so like, they don't give their children privacy at all, like so for example, like when I was a kid, I'd get, you know, my mother would have keys to every part of the house. So like, even if I was like, going to the bathroom, she could come in and scream at me. Like, I wasn't even allowed to have that time to myself, she'd go through all of my stuff. I obviously didn't keep a diary, because she looked for them, you know, searched my room multiple times a day, you know,

you're not allowed to have privacy at all. And, well, the powers that be if you think about it, they don't want you to have any privacy. Right? And if you think about it, healthy boundaries, in a sense, you know, if you think of it on the societal level or the governmental level, it's the law, right? That's what's supposed to be the boundary He's in society, you can't break the law, you can't break that

boundary that's been placed there for a specific reason. But the powers that be themselves, they break the law all the time without consequence. Right? Right. And so the boundaries are just for the people beneath them interesting.

sure that they know what's going on. Same thing, right. Like you're, you're staying with your family, it's not about like, making sure you're not doing something wrong, at least in my opinion, it sounds more like they're worried about what you might be doing, they don't want or that you might find something they don't want you to see. Or that's what it would sound like more to me, it's more inherent in security, you know, just the government. I

this case. And he had three daughters. And he gave his three daughters and necklaces, and he said, when they were little like four, five, and six, and said, You have to wear these necklaces all the time, you can't take them off, because I'll know if you take them off, and I'll see everything you're doing. You know, basically being like, they're wearing surveillance technology, and they were terrified to have them on and terrified to take them off. And obviously, they were just like

little glass bead necklaces, or something. And that has not, that's about control. That's about making them terrified of you. Yeah, and doing whatever they say, because you're, it's using fear to control people. And, you know, narcissists do a lot of that too. And one of the reasons, you know, that I have not, like I told you before we started recording, you know, one of the reasons I've never really opened up about my experiences

before is because I've been too scared. Even though, you know, I've, you know, don't have contact, really, with my parents, you know, I'm scared, oh, this, you know, I publicly talked about it, I might get back to them, and they'll say

something to me. I mean, it really won't really affect my life very much at all, especially at this point, you know, especially now because like, my sister and my dad all know, the situation, you know, they might have denied it when I was younger, but they they all we all agree now, you know, but I'm still scared. Just to say what happened to me. And the same thing to with with my ex. You know, I we broke up. Several

months ago, I was scared to say anything. And it wasn't until you know, my son was in the hospital, he was treating me like crap. He didn't even ask what he could do to help his son. And then he was, you know, trying to ruin relationships with people that I work really closely with, behind my back, including people that contribute to my site and I regularly co author articles with and not just them, I mean, a bunch of other people, you know why I've been going through this awful

experience with our child. And at the same time, this person was also trying to publicly farm sympathy and publicly fundraise off of my son's condition, even though he has never and we'll never send money. So, you know, I got I stopped being afraid at that point, because I, you know, I don't want to have to cower in fear of people forever. You know, I was controlled by fear for a long time. And I don't, you know, not feared the government, right. Like, I don't have a problem on that level.

But in my personal life, I you know, why? I had all this time to just sit there and think about my life and my kids and you know, who I am, you know, I mean, I put my daughters through hell, while I was in a relationship with this person. That was wrong with me. I should have been stronger and not been controlled by fear. But I was, you know, it's really sad. It'll always be sad for me, you know, but I can't continue to do that.

I have to stand up to the bully at some point. And I think all of us have to, whether it's the government or someone, I mean, people don't deserve to be treated that way. And I grew up feeling like I deserve to be treated that way. All right. And for me to move on, I have I just felt like I had to publicly talk about it. Because I didn't know any other way to break that fear. You know?

point for you? What was it? I mean, obviously, you have this, this very powerful, this profoundly changing moment where you're suffering with your son, and you know, you've decided to reflect on that? Is that what you think, kind of put this over the edge? Or was there something you kind of did that made you realize that you need to be different? Well, you

really bad point for that to happen. And, you know, when your son's been on a ventilator for five days, and you don't know if they're going to come home, and then you have their dad, instead of saying, How can I help? Is there anything I can do? You know, bullying you demanding stuff from you, and then threatening you. It's just, it was just too much, and then trying to trash your reputation behind your back. It's, I just, I couldn't, you know, I didn't want to have to take that lying

down anymore. I mean, it's just dehumanizing. And, you know, that whole relationship left me feeling completely dehumanized. Anyway, and I was, you know, before my son ended up in the hospital, I felt like I was really coming out of that, and then to have to go through all that again, no, I just no way.

And I mean, I mean, there's, you know, a lot of awful stuff that happened before them, too, you know, and I don't really need to spew all the details or anything, but it um, you know, at a certain point, people have to have read lines, whether it's in their personal life, or, you know, with the powers that be, you know, healthy boundaries are important. And, you know, for me, it's been hard because, you know, as a kid, I wasn't able to

have boundaries. So, like, being able to establish them, for me is like a lifelong struggle, or has been, you know, I'm like, a 33. So I'm not that old, I guess. But, um, it's definitely taken a long time. For me to tell people, I don't like being treated that way. Like, normally, I just take it, you know, and, you know, that's something I have to learn. I mean, we all have stuff that, you know, we've had to deal with, because of, you know, how we grew up. And, you know,

everyone's case is different, obviously. But I don't know, I mean, it's been, it's definitely been, that's been a particular challenge. And in my case, and, um, you know, having low self esteem sucks. You know, especially when you're like, working in an environment like alternative media, where so many people are not like that, and have really high self esteem.

And, you know, some of them are probably, you know, on the narcissistic spectrum a bit too, and obsessed with, you know, influencer status, where I feel like, you know, those tendencies we were talking about earlier on social media, I feel like for people that do have those tendencies, once they have a massive following, and, you know, a bunch of followers that has to go into overdrive for some people. Yeah. Want to go

ahead, go ahead. Yeah, well, you know, in my particular case, you know, I was told, when I broke up with this person that, you know, I couldn't break up with them, they told me, because this was their chance to make it an independent media by being associated with me. They, I mean, they essentially told me that they've been using me the whole time. And like, I don't

care about this stuff at all. Like, I will be very happy when this whole ID driver's license for the Internet stuffs rolls out, because I can go like, play with my kids and garden and do stuff that I actually like, you know, right and not have to report on like, Insane Clown world dystopia every day and be stuck on a screen constantly. You know, but I mean, there's people that are willing to, you know, trap someone in a relationship by impregnating them and all this stuff just to

get that stuff. I mean, it's mental and like, makes me also really think you know about alternative media. I mean, after that experience and in a different way, you know, because I always wanted to think that oh, well, people that see stuff is anti system and anti establishment are, you know,

they're not going to be like those guys. Right? And you know, at the end of the day, I think so I mean, even if a lot of people in alternative media, maybe they didn't start off that way, I think that same model that we were talking about earlier, exactly, over time, has led some people, more people than before in alternative media and independent media to really be all about the followers and the clicks and the money, the revenue model, it's definitely gotten pretty far away from,

from the truth telling and the integrity and being better than MSM, I think a lot of, you know, influencers, quote unquote, and alternative media have essentially become MSM spouting a different variety of talking points at the end of the day. And it's really disappointing. So, I don't know, I mean, I good. Well, I think also, like, what there needs to be more of an alternative media, if we're going to differentiate ourselves from mainstream media is be authentic, you know, and I think

there's not enough authenticity. I think there was earlier on, you know, if you think back many years ago to when it was sort of just starting, and I think people, you know, with time can tell, at least, you know, people that are more critically thinking can sort of sniff out who's authentic and who's not pretty easily over time. You know, because people will tell you who they are. Eventually, you know, and but I think, you know, even in the political sphere, for example, so I don't

want to dunk on on Robert F. Kennedy. I mean, I think some people can imagine that I don't like his Israel position, right. Yeah. But you know, I've met him. And he's always been really nice to me. When my son was in the hospital, he sent me an email saying he was praying I'm in that was really nice. He didn't have to do that, you know, you know, I don't think he's a bad guy. But I think, you know, whoever told him to run

for office, or it was his idea. He was given bad advice. And I think this happens to a lot of people that run for office with good intentions. They pander. I mean, someone asked me at the Bitcoin Conference, how I felt about Robert F. Kennedy. And I was like, you know, when you really love a video game, and then it's really successful, and then the company comes almost always Electronic Arts, and then they come in, they try and dumb it down so that more people buy the next game, and then they

ruin it, by trying to like make it appeal to more people. That's what happens when someone you you like or want to, like, runs for office, right? I agree, at least Yeah, that's how I feel about it. And so you know, I think if Robert F Kennedy, or someone like him, had gone into this being like, you know what, I'm going to keep authentic views, and I'm not going to pander to powerful groups and lobbies, they're just going to

be authentic and say what they really think. And even if some people don't like it, people like the authenticity because everyone in political offices inauthentic pretty much, you know, exactly that is, people want something real, because everything's freaking fake, you know? Yeah, it's everywhere. Yeah,

has an effect. And by the way I thought about that is, you know, to your point about social, independent media, and how a lot of them have kind of con gone down that same path. I think some of that's intentional people that just really don't care about money, but a lot of money might be inadvertent, you know, we're because they're in this cycle. We talked about in the beginning, that what social media does to you that you just

find yourself in this position. And now at the end, like you've been speaking about about Twitter, you know, that now you've got this model. That's, it's like this quiet killer where people didn't realize this building, and suddenly they're mixed up in this, their entire industry, have they built hinging on Twitter, ad revenue, you know, and it's like, it's, you can see, you know, that yeah, you know, it's

saying whatever. And so people can say now post any sort of thing that they think is gonna get a reaction, whether negative or positive, most likely negative, right and make money off of it. Well, I

then almost raising up this stuff that's false. And what I think is truly happening is they're creating what they've always said the independent media is, and it hasn't always been, like, we're all just in this for the money where the money is barely ever been there for anybody in this field, where it suddenly they're like creating this loop, right, totally rush for fake news, like actual fake information, and then they can point at it.

It's an old tactic of poisoning the well, right. So like the welcome be full of clean water, but you put like a dropper to a poison, and then you ruin the whole thing. Right? And they can point to that and be like that, well, all the waters gross, don't use it. So, um, you know, it's essentially the same goal at the end of the day, I think, um, but, you know, it's not just that to. So, you know, I think there's a lot of people and, you

know, this is true of narcissists. Also there's like, an addiction, in my experience anyway, to drama and conflict. If it's not there, they have to create it, because they need that fighting, they get something out of it, you know, the constant back and forth and the, and whatever. And for some people that you know, it's online, like arguing online, right? And not necessarily everyone that argues online is a

narcissist. I'm not saying that. But I think the same sort of addictive stuff that happens in a person's brain when they get likes and followers, and lots of shares. Some people get addicted to arguing constantly and online gives them you know, that the means to do that, and then you can monetize it on top of it, and then have it everywhere in everyone's face viral promoted, and all of a sudden, Twitter is just full of this toxic stuff.

it's cortisol, right? Your fight or flight you're fighting, you know, but what happens for people that are doing this, you begin to change the way your your brain works to where you're producing a different you get a plot, like a pleasure response from making people angry, and that it just it rewires your brain. Oh, that's terrifying. I mean, I think that's part of what's happening.

awesome. I made the mad and

know, and it just becomes something they stretch. Like I grew up with people that used to get, you know, they they actually would love to get in fights growing up in high school, you know, and that's the same thing. You're producing a feeling that you enjoy through that, which it shouldn't be the way that works. It should be the opposite. But you know, people change that or they're born that way. You know, I think there's something in there that has to do with exactly what we're

talking about. I'm just not educated enough on that process to speak on it. But that's interesting to me.

applies. His whole point, though, is that you get people that are, you know, they basically act in their own interest. It's the same kind of conversation we're having. And his larger point is that true leaders put themselves last. But that's the opposite of we're dealing with today, right? We're we're dealing with people that are saying, No, I need to eat first. Because if I don't, I can't lead properly, even if you have to die to do it. Like those are?

for them to think about others first. And obviously, if it's hard for them to think about others first and minor situations, in dire situations, it's impossible, right?

without you. And that's like a self serving problem. You know,

about Trump, how he's basically like the Messiah. And can you imagine the guy that's already like known for having narcissistic tendencies? And then he has followers who are like that and treating him like he's God on earth? Oh, man did that's scary. He probably loves being president.

write books about how crazy that was. For decades back.

good. But to people that aren't that, I guess for lack of a better word, like distorted, eventually, when it becomes like, so disconnected from actual reality, the way they talk about themselves, you know, you can sort of start to tell, yeah, right, because like, they don't, what their that whole false self isn't anchored in reality at all right? And so it can go to places that other people will notice is not in

line with reality. And they won't necessarily tell that person but like, they'll be, you know, people will notice, not everyone, you know, because, you know, narcissists are also inherently charming, and charismatic, what they project, right. That's how they rope people in in the first place. And they're very good at convincing you they're great, at

least for a while. Yeah, I think it's much easier for them to maintain it online, to be honest, because it's less work than having to maintain it in person, when you have to maintain it in person, I feel like it lasts less, much less time. Because online, you don't have to put that much time and energy to it. So you can perpetuate it for years, depending on the frequency, you're talking to the people you're trying to convince. You're so amazing.

but finding a path away from it. Right. So we've talked about this, the government, you know, but like, like you said, there's a lot of people that are living in these relationships, and maybe haven't even recognized that yet, you know, so hopefully, what you're discussing can allow them to see it, you know, and then give them the courage, like you have to step away from it and make changes in their life that can hopefully stop that from happening in the future. So I

just, you know, I think it's an important conversation. And I know, it's hard to talk about, so thank you for setting it up.

that. And, you know, I feel like doing it this way, you know, people can get something positive out of it.

take notes of what you experience when it happens. And you refer back to it, that it had like a record, you know, I had to do that. And it was immensely helpful. But the other thing was that I had to literally immerse myself in stories of other people that had been in relationships like this. I had to, I had to read a load of it from all sorts of different people all sorts of different. I mean, there's a whole Reddit about this, and like all different forums and

websites where people talk about their experiences. And that was really helpful and like affirming because it's like hard, especially when there's kids involved. It's like a hard thing to and,

get out of it. There's different degrees of entanglement. And so depending on how entangled you are there's, you know, that that mean, that sort of defines how difficult it is to go no contact? You know?

that's, again, that people can hear this and give them that first step. You know, that's a really positive thing. Yeah.

change. That's the whole point of this, you know, what's basically become a meme now of the deep state, the deep state is about the shadow government that really control stuff. And the elected offices are essentially fronts for them at the end of the day, right? So vote harder, it's not going to

change. So you can participate in the political circus, that is the election, and think that you're going to change the system from within by voting for guy, XY and Z. But that's not going to happen, it will still be there, it will still be the same. And the only way to free your life of the insanity going free yourself from the insanity that they are trying to impose on you is to have nothing to do with them. Period, right?

Because it's they're not going to change. So once you realize that the system or the person that you're trying to avoid disentangling yourself from is making you miserable, is never going to change, no contact becomes the only possible way forward, ultimately.

doing much about it. It's kind of it's really the same thing. I think people, not just in the US, but really everywhere are so conditioned and used to being treated, like, like, like dirt by the government, as like, subhuman by the government, people are just used to it. And it's been normalized. Right? And it really shouldn't be

exactly. Because if you're aware, you're in abusive relationship, and you do nothing to make it better for you or your kids. You know, what good is the awareness? Right? And the same is true of the government and the quote unquote, system, the powers that be if you're super aware of how this is, that system is working to enslave you and your children, and you're doing nothing about it and going on, like, you can stay entangled to a system that wants to essentially destroy you, to

control you. Why are you not trying to end your connection to that, you know,

like, bam, overnight, right? You know, these are all things that you have to take step towards, and people have to start doing it at some point. So, you know, maybe talking about in this context of both, you know, the parallels between how it works in interpersonal relationships, and how it works at the Maker level, and maybe it can help some people realize that by looking at it in a different way, because personally, I

hadn't really noticed those parallels so much before. Um, and I felt like it was helpful to me, it was sort of like an eye opener, you know, for me, when I was like, reflecting on a lot of this stuff, you know, a few weeks ago, and, you know, hopefully it helps somebody else. And if it does, that would be awesome.

really difficult time. Because, you know, I don't, I don't have support from my parents, I don't have support from my kid's father. And, you know, it's really been, you know, you guys that have really, you know, kept things going for me, and I just,

I can't think thank you guys enough. So hopefully, you enjoyed this podcast, I know, it's a little different than, you know, things I normally do. And for those that are interested, after, you know, I sign off here with Ryan, I'll be sharing a little bit more about, you know, what I mentioned in the intro, you know, giving an honest answer to some of those questions and talking about some of those things that are hard

for me to talk about, but ultimately made me who I am. And you know, why I ended up doing what I do and why I care about truth. And, you know, what's real at the end of the day, so thank you, Brian. And thanks, everybody, for listening. All right, for those of you still listening, this is the part where I guess I get more personal than I've ever gotten, since I have, you know, developed any sort of online

platform of significance. So, you know, I wanted to have the focus of the discussion not be about me and my experience, because I think there's, you know, as I talked about, with Ryan, something much bigger to take away from all of this, but like I said earlier, you know, for me, personally, I just don't feel like I can, you know, continue living in a way where I feel like, I am afraid of two people in particular in my personal life, and it's not that I you know, I'm consciously

afraid of them all the time, but I've, you know, been held back from sharing my experience, and, you know, answering questions and interviews when I'm asked about my past, and, you know, etc, etc. because I was worried about what they might do. And, you know, the core of that is, you know, still being afraid of them. And, as I've said, on, you know, numerous interviews, I feel like when you have any sort of fear about somebody, you

know, they have power over you. And so, you know, this is, you know, part of my, you know, attempt to not have to be a factor in my life anymore. To be really open with people about, you know, some of the, you know, the questions I've been asked in the past, about, you know, why I do the work I do and why I care

about this stuff. And, you know, that I felt like I haven't really been able to answer fully and, you know, on all them, you know, other reasons that I sort of touched on earlier on in the in the podcast, so I'm going to try and not have this run too long, because this episode, I really got, you know, a little on on the long side, but I'll you know, I'll do my best to get the pertinent points across. So I grew up in Sarasota, Florida.

And my dad's a lawyer, my mom's a homemaker. And you know, I had a lot of problems with my mom growing up. You know, I have a sister who's about 14 months, exactly more or less 14 months younger than me, so about a year apart. And you know, ever since she was born, you'll see she had some we relatively minor health problems I had to go to a lot of doctor's visits, though, but it wasn't anything, you know, like what my son has had to go

through recently. And he, and my, my mom kind of used that as an excuse to say that, you know, she couldn't handle two kids. So I got, you know, she was overwhelmed by my daughter, Civilis, she was overwhelmed by my sister having a lot of doctor's appointments and being sort of sickly, at times, I don't really remember my sister being that sick. But, you know,

definitely a few things here and there did happen. But, you know, for various reasons, including that, and my mom saying that she was stressed all the time, I was basically raised by my grandparents, I got sent over there, probably at least once a week, for a couple days, until I was, I don't know, probably like 10 or 11. And, you know, sometimes like summer vacation, you know, for for months. And so, you know, I felt like, in a lot of ways, I was raised just as much by them, if not my own

parents. But my mom in general, you know, when I was home, made it very clear that she was a pretty withholding mother, I guess, and, you know, wasn't trying to think of the right way to put it, not really interested in me and made it really clear that I was sort of like the odd man out, you know, and so that kind of feeling I had from a very young age. And, you know,

sometimes it was really nasty. Like, I remember one time in the car, when I was seven, my mom was telling me that if she knew how I would have turned out, she would have made sure to not have had me, you know, like, basically saying she would have terminated them. My pregnancy, if she'd known how I'd turned out later, and stuff like that kind of messed up stuff to say, to a seven year old, but um, it got a lot worse for me around

the time I was 13 or so. And that basically happened because my mom's brother, who, you know, my sister, and I loved and thought he was a really lovely guy. You know, always really fun, did nice things for us paid a lot of attention to us. He, you know, I was having problems with my mom, because I started dating a guy that she didn't like. And so she wanted me to break up with him. And it was like my first love. So I like didn't want to so we were clashing about that, I guess.

And somewhere in there, she called her brother and blamed him for all the problems that she and I were having. And she lied about the nature of bliss problems. So she didn't say that it was because I was dating a guy or anything. She said it was because I'd gotten into drugs, which was not true at all, at the time. And little did I know that my uncle had previously had drug and alcohol issues. And so she blamed him, you know, for all of these things. And I don't know exactly the nature of the

conversation, because I didn't hear the conversation. But shortly after it happened, my mom came and bragged about it to me and bragged about how my uncle sobbed on the phone. And I don't know, it didn't really make sense to me at the time. I mean, I remember being just sort of like flabbergasted about why my mom would make up something like that, and why she bragged about making him upset. But I mean, if you if you know the lady, she does kind of seem to get off sometimes on dragging

people down and then kicking them when they're down. And a lot of stuff, you know, I remember from after this, and before this, that, you know, she had complained a lot about how how growing up, she felt like, you know, my grandma, her mother paid more attention to him than to her and that her grandmother had been the same way and that he'd been given all this attention that she'd been denied and expressed a lot of anger and jealousy about him. So I'm sure she probably picked on him all

the time. But anyway, this was the first time I'd ever heard about it. And I thought it was weird. And I didn't get why she would insert this, you know thing about drugs that didn't happen. And I was like, How does that even relate to uncle, my uncle because I didn't know about any of this stuff in his past at the time either. But I found out about it, you know, the next day and the day after, because after that, my mom had made that phone call to him that you know, the next day he was

found dead had apparently killed himself. And you know, my mom knew that I knew about the phone call. And obviously the only other person besides me that knew about it was gone. So You know, my mom, pretty clearly to me was, you know, terrified, I guess that I would tell someone that, you know, and

they might believe me. And so, you know, my mom basically started this big smear campaign about me, within the family, at the church, my family went to among the parents of kids that attended my school, and, you know, all of this stuff, saying that I, I was crazy, I was a liar, I had all these behavioral problems, I mean, just making up a whole bunch of making up a whole bunch of stuff that that wasn't true. And, you know, I did kind of try and, you know, after a year of that did act

out, because it was really unfair. And, you know, my mom did a lot of other things to try and isolate me, you know, she grounded me all the time, she wouldn't let me have friends outside of school, like I kind of go over to anyone's house ever. And a lot of, but she'd let my you know, my sister go out and do stuff. And my dad was working all the time. So a lot of times, I was alone, with her at the house, and she just did really crazy stuff, stuff that was really psychologically

disturbing. She didn't let me have any privacy. I mean, she even took the locks off of the bathroom door that I use, so that she could like scream at me when I'm using the bathroom. And like all of this stuff, that just, I mean, it seems so crazy in retrospect, but at the time, I mean, it was obviously it was obviously awful. And, you know, she basically made it her, or her mission to make me terrified of her, um, you know, which she

kind of didn't succeed in doing for a time. But you know, I wasn't going to tell anybody anyway, just because I was really close with my grandparents, her parents, my uncle's parents, who, because I just seen how devastated they were after my uncle died. And I didn't want to cause them any more suffering. And I did try and tell some people I tried to tell my dad at one point. He doesn't remember that happening.

But you know, now he believes me, after I told them, you know, more recently, because, you know, everyone knows how my mom is at this point. And I told another person in the family that later on became sort of like a caretaker to my my grandparents. And, you know, she basically swore me to secrecy and said, not to tell them not to tell anybody until after my grandparents passed away, that they wouldn't be able to handle it. And so, you know, my mom obviously didn't know about

that. So she was, you know, trying to pursue her own tactics to make sure I didn't talk. And, you know, my sister didn't know, I've offered to tell her, but she's basically told me she doesn't, doesn't want to know. But, um, you know, I've pretty much been carrying on a really unpleasant secret for a really long time. My grandparents died on. I guess, back in stage, it

was 2018. So it's, it's been a few years. And, you know, I've still sort of been keeping the secret, I guess, but not intentionally, just because, you know, I don't, I don't like talking about it. It was a really awful experience. My mom was essentially trying to ruin my life, trying to get me to kill myself, like my uncle killed himself, you know, would guide me on about that stuff and how I shouldn't be here. And,

you know, everything about me was awful. And, you know, just a lot of just a lot of really painful memories that I don't really like to look back on and discuss. And so, you know, one of the reasons that I care so much about the work that I do is that, you know, for for several years, I felt like nobody believed me about what was going on with my mom. I had one lady that did, I started from all the stress of everything going on at home. I started having like a neurological problems, like some

form of epilepsy, but it was completely stress related. And so I got sent to a neurologist who then referred me to some specialist lady that was like a neurologist psychologists, you know, had both of those specialties. And you know, that that lady knew what was going on. And she probably saved my life to be honest, because my mom wasn't going to let me leave the house. So I tried to leave as soon as I turned 18. And, you

know, was complicated. So, you know, I couldn't. And then I tried, I found one place I could stay, but it ended up only being for a week. And, you know, it was, it was a complicated time. But anyway, this lady wrote a letter to the college I got

accepted to. And they let me apply for college and financial aid as an independent, so I was able to, you know, still go to college and not have to worry about having to stay stuck at my parents house indefinitely, until my mom approved me going to college, if I acquiesced to, you know, various demands that I wasn't interested in him meeting. So, you know, sorry, I

got off on a tangent there. But basically, the reason I care a lot about what I do is because I got smeared all the time, I only had one adult, believe me, and I didn't meet that person until I was like, 18, and my uncle died when I was 13. So I had several years of being the only person that really knew the truth, right. And, you know, being surrounded by lies, and, you know, obviously, when you're in a situation like that, it makes

you care about the truth, an awful lot. And it makes you realize that it's, it's really important, even if you're the only person that knows that it's the truth. You know, I mean, it can be lonely sometimes, you know, whether it's, you know, something personal, like what I'm talking about, or, you know, being too early in realizing that certain, quote, unquote,

conspiracy theories are true. You know, I think because of a lot of a lot of my experiences growing up, you know, I really didn't trust authority at all, and so I guess, maybe it was easier for me to see, than most people that the government lies all the time. And, you know, to not necessarily believe people in power, because, you know, if it's to their benefit, or they have something to cover up, they'll lie, even if they're the people that are supposed to care about, you know, about you more

than anyone else in the world. Right. So, you know, but, you know, realizing that stuff, pretty young, you know, for me, I was in college about 21, or 20 years old, I'm 33 now that it was really lonely, then, now, definitely, less so. Right. And the same thing for my personal life, you know, everyone in my family knows that, what my mom is capable of now, because once I left home, it got directed and other people and now she's more

or less run out of people to, to target at this point. So you know, it can be it can be really lonely, to fight for the truth. And, you know, I guess, even though it was really hard and lonely, as a teenager, you know, I am proud that I never gave in to that, and always tried to tell people when it really happened, that I wasn't that I wasn't lying about all this stuff, and that I wasn't crazy in all of these things. But, you know, it's not exactly what I want to talk about in

interviews, when I guess that get asked about it. So, you know, I guess from now on, I'll probably just refer people to this podcast, so I don't have to keep having to keep talking about it. Anyway, so I ended up going to college, and you know, or pretty much broke off ties with my family, I'd still take calls from my grandparents who I cared about a lot, but they always tried to get me you know, back talking to my mom trying to convince me you know, she wasn't the way I knew she was and I was

trying to protect them from knowing how she was right. So you know, it was hard to really have much contact with my family for a long time and I really didn't have any contact with them at all until I was I don't know about the time my daughter was born was just, you know, the end of 2017 So anyway, I went to college I didn't have a great social experience there either because I was really after growing up around my mom really tired of some this superficial fake stuff

because you know her, you know, false self like, you know, this podcast has been talking about was projecting sort of this superficial social, I mean, a lot of people around Catella was fake. I heard people comment on that on occasion, but you know, it was this kind of like larger than life social personnel.

Lydian partying and all of this stuff. And I was really turned off from that in college and the college I went to was full of mostly rich kids, and I was probably the only one there that was on like 100% financial aid and didn't really have money to spend on, you know, whatever. So, you know, it's definitely kind of a black sheep there, for sure. I mean, I did get, you know, didn't take a lot of great courses. And I learned a lot on the academic side of it, had to do a ton of writing, which

obviously has helped me now. And that's probably why I can, you know, write relatively complex pieces pretty quickly, because I had to do a lot of that in college, like, the school I went

to was really writing intensive, I guess. But anyway, you know, I just got really fed up with how things had played out for me, and I sort of blamed a lot of it on, you know, stuff I noticed culturally about the US, I just assumed, because of all the people who'd been around really my whole life that pretty much everyone in the US was, you know, superficial like that and cared about all this fake stuff. And nothing was really real, there was no, there was nothing like authentic is how I felt a

lot of the time. And, you know, around the same time, I also started getting really sick. And I went to I tried to go to a couple doctors, and they were like, you're fine. There's nothing wrong with you. And I, like knew something was wrong with me. So, you know, I got to a point where I was so miserable. I was like, Well, I can either stay here and be miserable and probably, you know, stop at wanting to live for real. And do the thing I promised myself I would never

do. You know, which, because I felt like it was like letting my my mom win. Or I, you know, I go somewhere else and live a totally new life. And so that's when I decided to move to move to South America, I sold the little stuff that I had. And I, you know, just pretty much left everything behind. And I went to live and work in Peru, I worked on a farm in the middle of nowhere. But the closest major city in Peru was Cusco, where

Machu Picchu is for those that don't know much about Peru. And you know, I worked there for a while and helps a lot with the, the issue I was having, which was mainly digestive related. But I you know, it took me a couple years to figure out exactly what was going on. But, you know, I had, there was no electricity where I was working, you know, there was a generator, but it was turned on once a week. And you know, it was a lot of hard manual labor and stuff. But you know, I feel like it was

pretty good for me. But eventually I ended up butting heads with the lady that ran it even though we got on cut along a lot. But you know, she'd been isolated for like many years up there on this mountaintop and was kind of ornery and developed a drinking problem and it was just really hard to to stay there. And so you know, I ended up leaving and going to Cusco because I didn't have any money really to go back to the US I mean Peruvian currency and doesn't isn't worth as much at

least it wasn't then as the as the dollar. So I definitely couldn't afford to go back to the States. So I worked in Cusco and food service for a couple of years. And you know, I made some friends and life was all right. Until this one week when you know, everyone was busy and I didn't know what else to do. So I went for a walk on this, this park that wasn't probably like,

you know, five minutes from my house up hill. And you know, I'd been there before and stuff but you know, this time, I shouldn't have gotten there alone and I was sexually assaulted by a Peruvian guy. And it was probably the only time in my life where I really felt like I was gonna die. But you know,

thankfully I did it. And you know, made it out alive but obviously traumatized from the experience and I decided, you know it, I was still going to be stubborn and try and stay in Cusco but then the guy that did it, found out where I lived and was like walking in the area where I lived and that was really unsettling to me. And so my best friend at the time at the restaurant I worked at was a Chilean guy and he said you know she likes not like this. Why don't you come try and give

Chile a chance. And you know I did he introduced me to one of his friends from college that also had done you know farm management stuff in the past and you know he connected on Some said maybe he can help you find something to do. And, you know, that's how I ended up in Chile. So once I got to Chile, things were rough for the first two years for me economically, even though Chile was definitely a much better, safer place to live

than Peru. And once I started writing, I was able to at least make enough income to live off of, I started writing as a profession about two years after I got here. So that's around like, the last half of 2016. And roughly a year later, my

daughter was born. And during my pregnancy, her dad got involved with this new agey religion that I wasn't interested in being a part of, and things for us got progressively more complicated, and also progressively more unequal to the point where I was pulling way too much weight in terms of my domestic workload.

You know, I was doing pretty much 100% of childcare, I was also the breadwinner, winter and there was a lot of inequality in our relationship and really, no way to communicate about these things effectively. And on top of that, these, you know, spiritual differences made it really hard to continue in that relationship. And so I ended it around the time my daughter turned two, and a few months later, you know, the whole world turned upside down with COVID. And my last child care pretty

abruptly and not long after that. The really intense lockdowns in Chile started which honestly were a lot more extreme than the lockdowns implemented in most parts of the West. And I've talked about this on, you know, past interviews, and in a previous podcast. So I was already before all of this feeling, kind of overwhelmed with work. And you know, with COVID happening, work was even crazier for me, because, you

know, there was so much going on. And it seemed like I had to research so much and urgently because so much enormous stuff was happening globally, every day, and everyone was trying to scramble to figure out, like, what's going on what's going to happen next, you know, and so on. And then on, you know, on top of that, I had to juggle, you know, trying to write and

produce all this stuff with zero child care. And, you know, trying to write why a spunky two year old is in the house with me, and, you know, we can't go anywhere, because everything's locked down. So after about six months of this, I started talking to the guy who was alluded to earlier in this

podcast, who is my son's father. So after asking me a lot of questions about who, you know, myself, and about my life, he framed himself as being the perfect complement to everything I lacked at the time, and really is the polar opposite of my daughter's father, you know, promising he would never be like him, talking about how great he was with kids, how he would offer exactly the relief that honestly, at that point in time,

I was really desperate for. And I think, in retrospect, if I hadn't been so worn down and desperate and isolated, I would have thought a lot more about the situation, before inviting him down to visit us in Chile, or, or, you know, may not have even done it at all. But I was and in this period, you know, I

can find it a lot in him. I told them a lot about my past my parents how all that had affected me things that had happened, you know, after I left home, and he acted like he was really empathetic, really cared, that he thought I was so wonderful, and that we shared the strong connection. And there was this, you know, element of destiny to the whole thing. And

so he came down at the end of 2020. And, you know, for the time he was here, it was really nice for both me and my daughter, because, you know, we finally weren't alone. And, but during this time to you know, he would talk constantly about how I had to get away from Chile, I needed to escape, things were only going to get worse and worse. The people were awful. Everything about it was awful, and you know, made me

feel really afraid to stay over time. And he also told me that his country, the United Kingdom, you know that things were in as bad as they were in Chile, that my daughter could go to daycare over there, things were still open and life would be better. And, you know, when I agreed to go with him to check it out, he told me things like Oh, I feel like I'm saving you. You know, since he essentially made it clear that he felt that like if I stayed in Chile, it was essentially a death sentence for

me and my daughter. And you know, the exact day I left my home and was due to fly out of Santiago, which is to lace capital in about nine hours north by car from where I had been living. That's when everything started to change. And of course it's right when I basically given up a lot of my

independence in my life. You know for him and you know that night we were staying in an airport hotel, and I had said something, I can't really remember exactly the words, but I know, I was basically angling for some sort of show of

emotional support from him. Because I was I was feeling, you know, jittery and insecure about having left everything behind for, you know, an indefinite period to go somewhere new, you know, with my kid until and, you know, it was just, you know, was I basically just wanted a hug, you know, and whatever I said, you know, elicited the complete opposite type of response I had been hoping for, and instead, I got just this explosion of aggression, verbal abuse, just telling me what a garbage person

I was, and just telling me, you know, since it was all directed at me about how I'm awful, you know, and I tried to de escalate it, I was really taken aback that what I had said, had, you know, provoked this response, and there was just no way to convince him to stop. You know, I was like, trying to do anything to get, you know, saying, like, Let's calm down, you can, we can talk about what's upset you when we're both more calm, and like, let's not do it this way. We're traveling

and all this stuff, and none of it worked. And you know, it, you know, I got really upset, obviously, because it went on for like, a really long time. And it was at a time where I felt really vulnerable to and, you know, I couldn't, we couldn't even talk afterwards, I was, I was so upset. And then afterwards, you know, he gave me you know, a hug, but he did apologize, and then started blaming my stress for his

outburst. And, you know, I tried to rationally this, rationalize this and some similar outbursts, and, you know, weird behavior that happened during the rest of the trip to the UK, as him just being stressed by traveling, or maybe he felt a lot of pressure about being responsible for, you know, us now, because he'd been a bachelor for so long or something, you know, but, you know, over time, it became pretty clear that that wasn't

the case. So, you know, once we got in the UK, you know, it was true that I could take my daughter to a daycare, but pretty much everything else was closed, and where he was living was not as accommodating for us, as he had described. And it was also, you know, pretty much impossible to rent anything else anywhere, because he didn't really have an income or like papers to show to justify renting. And I'm been living in

Chile for a long time. So I don't have that either. And, you know, like, even though the lockdowns in the UK, I don't, you know, they weren't as bad as Chile is the situation there was still really unpleasant, and I wasn't really sure I wanted to stay long term. And, you know, which is what he had hoped for. And it was pretty clear that he was really bothered and stressed by the fact that I, I didn't really seem to like it in the UK

more. And, you know, during this, this time, when we first got there, I also learned that my Chilean bank accounts didn't work in the UK. So I started having to send my money to his bank account, which he would then use to pay for things over there. And that was the start of a very unfortunate, slippery slope that eventually led me to not having control over my money. You know, what it was spin on. It was time, you know, I couldn't buy anything without him knowing about it. And a

couple of weeks after we arrived, I got pregnant. And from that point on, things started to go dramatically downhill. And some months later, you know, he said something about if I hadn't gotten pregnant with my son, he was afraid that I would have just gone back to Chile. And so, you know, there's a part of me that thinks maybe he wanted me to have a baby to keep me in the UK, because, I mean, he knew in detail how hard it had been, for me, you know, back in Chile, to

to juggle one kid on my own as a single mom. And, you know, I guess he might have known, I would have been much less likely to leave if I meant having to, but you know, I don't really know for sure, but, you know, definitely something I've thought about. So my, my second pregnancy was really, really difficult compared to my first especially for the first couple of months, it was a lot of puking. I felt sick all the time. I had really low energy and brain fog, but I had to try

and keep working. And a big part of that was because the UK is just so much more expensive than Chile, that I really couldn't afford not to work and, you know, he had no income he was contributed, contributing very occasionally to my site. And so, you know, it's my income anyway. So, you know, I was paying for all of our shared expenses and Honestly, who knows what else

because I didn't have access to his bank statements. And you know, he treated any attempt on my part to look at those statements is me not trusting Him enough and became a big argument that, you know, being super sick and from pregnancy and all that I didn't really want to want to have. And, you know, it was during this time that this, there was a pattern of abuse that started to emerge, he would say that I was emotionally disconnected from him. And he would get really

angry and be really aggressive and nasty. And he went on, let me deescalate the situation or let me have any boundaries. And he would keep going and pushing and pushing and pushing, until I would break down, at which point, he gives me a hug, act like he was empathetic again, and then tell me that, oh, how good it was that I was now showing an emotional response

and that I was connecting again. And so you know, in reality, I wasn't disconnected, I was just feeling really ill from pregnancy, a poorly supported by my partner, because I was also doing all the domestic stuff still, like cleaning and laundry and all that stuff, you know, doing that solo, and I was also without a support network outside of him, because I had, you know, just arrived to a foreign country where he was the

only person I knew. So you know, but what he was doing here was trying to push me to react so that when I'd cry and break down, he'd not only reward me with the affection I wanted, and which he would normally withhold. But he would also tell me that, you know, me crying, after he would explode like this was a sign that I had severe depression, and that I was mentally ill. And I needed to lean more on him and listen to

him more, and do things the way he wanted. And, you know, he tried to give me the impression that only he knew how to help me. And, you know, I was already totally isolated by being over there. So, you know, I didn't really have anyone else to help me anyway. And it was clear to me pretty quickly that the things that would set him off or anger him just made no sense most of the time, and it left me walking on eggshells really

quickly. So one of the biggest early explosions came after a night where I had tried to turn on white noise to block out his really loud snoring, he had a cold at the time. And, you know, I'd known people in college and you know, in high school, even that it used like white noise machines to sleep better or block out noise like in their houses or in, in dorms. And I

thought it was like a normal thing. But after like two minutes, he woke up, he was really angry and started accusing me of trying to hurt him, and trying to torture him. And he went on like this, not just that night, but like for for several days. And he even went so far as to accuse me of trying to use CIA MK Ultra torture tactics and denied the fact that I could have not known how much this would upset him and how awful it was to turn white noise on to block out his

snoring. And I, you know, I don't know a lot of these freak outs, you know, they happened in front of my, in front of my three year old daughter, including one time he over this white noise thing, he threatened to kill himself, he said I was

trying to kill him. And like all these horrible nasty things you would never say in front of a child, especially one that young, and, you know, after this, there would be you know, there would be these explosions like that, and then there'd be lols, you know, but the whole experience on top of being ill pregnant and no longer in control of my own finances, left me feeling trapped. And, you know, I felt that way pretty

quickly. And that was really hard because I'd had that same sensation living at my parents house as a as a teen with my mom, except that this time, my daughter was trapped with me too. And, you know, by this point, pretty much all the positive aspects of the relationship that had been there at the beginning, had had disappeared and, you know, even in conversations in conversations, he would constantly just talk about himself what he was researching

what he wanted to do what he needed. And, you know, anytime I tried to contribute to the conversation, he just looked at me like with disdain, like I was irritating like I was meddling in his conversation or I was saying something stupid. Unless you know, I was telling him that he'd done something well or you know, was stroking his ego so it just left me feeling really, you

know, belittle like, like nothing. And you know, it was also during this time I found out that um, And what he had said about the ease of getting residency in the UK was also false. And so of course, I needed residency to get a bank account and regain my independence over my finances.

And because he had not told me some things I needed to know, when I came into the country by this point, I realized when I went to look into it myself that the only way I was going to be able to get residency was if I married him and pursued a spousal visa. And he had, of course, been pushing for that as well. But given how things had been playing out, I like really

did not want that. So about a month and a half, before I ended up leaving the UK, and I was there, probably about six months in total, we were traveling to London, and he got really stressed during the trip and had this, you know, same type of huge explosion in our hotel room again in front of my daughter. And it was just awful. I mean, it was like two to three full

hours, if not more being screamed at. And, you know, I took my daughter and went down to reception after a while while I think he stormed out of the room, and then I didn't want to stay there for him to come back. And so I bought a separate hotel room for me and my daughter. So she could at least sleep because I didn't know how he'd be if he came back. And was just really,

you know, unsettled, obviously. And, you know, I told him, We were staying in a separate room, and he texted me and he said he was leaving, he was going to go back to Cardiff, just hours from London where we were living. And so that means he left me and my daughter all alone in London with no money, I'd spent my cash on a hotel room trying to get space somehow to try and deescalate stuff. And, you know, I contacted, I didn't know

anyone in London or the UK. I mean, I tried to contact people through work, desperately trying to find a way to sort of fix this really messed up situation. But you know, around five or six, and he texted me saying he was back to let them know what room we were in. And now than we hired him a car to drive us back to Cardiff and canceled all the the plans that led us to go to

London in the first place. And you know, after this explosion, he was able to recognize he had been wrong when he promised to go to therapy. But then when push came to shove, he didn't want to find a therapist. It's kind of dragging his feet. So I tried to set him up with one that a friend had recommended. And he said the first session went really well and did really great. And then after that, you know, she he said she turned out to be crazy and was doing all this weird stuff and didn't want

to go back. And you know, it was all my fault that it had gotten weird, but I've never worked with the lady. I was just, you know, trying to find somebody to help them since he wasn't going to do it himself, I guess. And, you know, I also later reached out to her and asked if she had done what he had accused her of. And she said she hadn't. But you know, I don't really know. I just know that he decided I had been so wrong and awful to have

recommended her. And every time I mentioned after that, that he should consider therapy again, he would angrily bring this lady up as a way to shut down the conversation. So after this event and a few other blow ups that were slightly minor than that one, I started having concerns about my daughter's peer group at her daycare. She was with, you know, other kids

her age. So other three to four year olds, and one of the girls her age and this girl's brother, were apparently pulling on the pants of other kids and like touching their underwear, underwear and they called it the nappy or diaper game. And I didn't really like that my daughter had tried to play this game at home with me. And there were some other things going on. That I had noticed, you know, my daughter's behavior reflecting, you know, from the school and I was like, You know what, I think

I'm gonna try and put her somewhere else. And there was this other school closer to where we lived. And there were some neighbors who had their kids there instead, it was really good. So it's just kind of seemed logical, you know? So he said he would do that for me, because I had a lot going on, and he would enroll her there. And, you know, after a few days, he said, I asked, you know, so is she going to go? Have you heard from them. And he said he hadn't gotten a response to the

first email he'd sent. So I asked if, you know if he was going to do it, if he could just walk down to the school, it was like less than five blocks away and talk to somebody in person so I could get my daughter back in childcare, you know, sort of paying for sitters hourly, it's like a big cost difference, you know. So anyway, his response to that was that he would send them

an email that they wouldn't ignore. And so it turned out that that email he had sent said that we needed immediate Child Care because my daughter had had to leave her other daycare due to a, quote, sexual situation. And the new daycare did respond immediately to that. But they asked for more details. And he essentially told them that the previous daycare had not just allowed but had instigated and promote that the children their touch each other's private parts, and that this was the

nappy game. And so the new daycare quickly involved, the police and social services and a complaint in investment was filed and investigation was opened against the old daycare based on a warps narrative that did not fit at all what had originally prompted me to take my daughter out of school, because as far as what my daughter had told me, and what I had observed, this was two kids at the peer group doing this

without any sort of sanctioning from the daycare itself. So instead of owning up to the fact that he had kids that exaggerated the situation, he doubled down and basically decided to accuse my daughter's old daycare of being a pedophile and grooming enablers without evidence for it, and just totally lost it when I didn't want to lawyer up and go nuclear when we didn't have evidence for allegations he had made via email. Because, you know, courts a little different than just

blogging or publishing stuff online. So or on Twitter, you know, so to make what he felt he could use as an evidence, he got my daughter after several coached attempts to say on camera, a version of events that more closely supported his narrative. And he said that I had to support this, or I too, you know, was a pedo enabler, and I wasn't protecting my own daughter from paedos. And, you know, all of this stuff, and I

was already pretty worn down by that time anyway. So um, so Social Services launched an investigation into my daughter's previous daycare, and they came up with nothing. So they dropped by our house unexpectedly one day and spoke to him one on one, and then to my daughter, one on one, and then they interviewed

me with my daughter. And when I hadn't said to them what he had wanted me to say to them, because he was apparently listening outside the room, we were in a he just completely exploded at them and me, and he yelled, and yelled, and kicked them out of the house. And a day later, one of the social services people who had been there contacted me by phone, because she asked for it when she had interviewed me at the

house. And she asked to speak to me because she and the other girl had noticed that my three year old didn't react at all, and he had his meltdown leading them rightfully, to believe that this happened regularly in front of her. And I did speak to this lady afterwards, because, you know, by this point, I felt not

just completely trapped. But I felt like this situation that had been created over my daughter's, you know, daycare, was just spiraling out of control and could potentially turn into major legal trouble and just was getting worse and worse, and all the complete refusal on his part to take any accountability, or have like, just no ability to de escalate at all, which he you know, shown numerous times before this, it just made it clear that this was not a sustainable situation.

And, you know, I had to get out of it. And, you know, not to mention the fact that I was just completely miserable, and had really started to become scared of him when he was angry, because it's not like it got any better, you know, it just got worse and more aggressive and constant, you know, over time. And it was just, I'd never been scared like that and it

relationship before. And so to make a long story, short social services, ended up coming by a few times, and I don't tend to our relationship more and reach the conclusion that if I didn't leave him in the UK, by extension, because to stay there, I'd have to marry him. They would plan to take my daughter and my son once he was born into protective protective custody because of my ex's behavior, and it's obviously an

unacceptable outcome. So I obviously had to go. And the problem was that I didn't have money to buy a plane ticket, because I would have to go through him to access my money. And then he would know I was leaving. And I was scared to tell him I was going to leave because of everything that he had done to try and keep me there. And thankfully, you know,

a couple of friends intervene. I bought my plane ticket. And I told my ex I had to go back to Chile because I was worried about the social services stuff, and I didn't have any other options. And he said he was planning to sue social services and that I could come back when he won. And I told him I would so he acquiesced and I was just, I was just terrified of a confrontation of him and me alone in the house about me leaving because I wanted To him didn't want to be with him

anymore. I just felt like I was too scared to do that, at the time. So in in late August of 2021, I got, I got back to Chile after all of this, and my son was born about four months later at the end of December. And in that time, you know, I did tell my ex from a safe distance that I have left to get away from him, and I, you know, how I really felt about my experience

over there. But shortly before my my son was born, he claimed that he knew that he had been wrong, that it had been his anxiety, that his decade long use of Prozac and some dosing problem with another medication he took daily, were to blame. And that if he sorted it out, those things out, you know, everything would be the way it was meant to be. It wasn't him,

it was the meds, right. And after a few months of grappling with a newborn baby into four year old while also trying to rebuild my life and Chile and having a book deadline for you know, my book that came out last year, I gave him another chance and received him here again, and in Chile, because I wasn't going to leave here, you know, I didn't want to lose my financial independence again, on and, you know, not unlike the time we had spent in the UK, it was just a disaster, and more of the same.

He was constantly trying to bully me into leave into leaving Chile again. And all I was saying is that I can't commit to a move right now, because I just had a baby, I have this book deadline, you know, wait till the end of the year. And, you know, that wasn't even enough. So I sent him home like less than three months later. But again, I got, you know, it was winter. And it was I got bogged down and overwhelmed by trying to juggle the kids, my looming book deadline on top of regular

work maintaining a household by myself. And, you know, also after years of being told that absolutely everything and the relationship that had ever happened was my fault. I thought if I could just try my absolute hardest in the relationship than it could work. And I think a lot of my reasoning here was

partially relate related to stress. And partially related to this strategy that's detailed earlier in this podcast, bread crumbing, where a narcissist can have fleeting moments where it seems like they're rational or willing to take accountability for something, which makes you think they can be reasoned with,

in that you just had to do everything they asked you. And then things can work out, you know, and I think a lot of it too, was just the emotional pain of not wanting to be a single mother forever and wanting my son to have a father, you know, like, I felt like I had to give him as big a chance as I could for things to work out. Because, you know, once, once you're a single mom with two kids, it's not like, you know, two kids with two different dads, it's not like you can ever expect to

date again. So, you know, I felt like I had to be completely sure about him. And, you know, since narcissists are so good at sowing doubt, playing on your empathy and emotions, you know, I felt like I could, you know, maybe it was, I could do things that would make it better. And it would turn out different this time, you know, and, I mean, I really should have known for my experiences at this point that that's not how it was. But

anyway, he came back last September, about a year ago. And things were mostly, you know, they were better than they'd been before, at least, you know, and they were manageable until, I guess, early January. And in early January, my daughter had gone to her father's house, and told him that my ex had been hitting her when I wasn't around, and her dad had told me

about it by phone, and I told my ex about it. And all three of us felt that she had probably set it for attention because she hadn't seen her dad in a while, because he'd been kind of unavailable. So my daughter did get in trouble for not telling the truth. And you know, you know, also for telling a lie

that could have serious repercussions. But honestly, my ex just went so far beyond and punishing her to the point that he became like obsessed with punishing her, and was doing things like isolating her and not letting her play or interact with her brother not letting her talk to me about what she was coloring or doing or thinking are just normal things having panic attacks and anxiety attacks because she might be

naughty during the weekend and all of this extreme stuff. From the time my daughter said this to her dad, which was early January. It went on until the end of March when I kicked out my ex for the last time so that's almost three months of this going on every day at home. I had a sitter quit over it because it was just so extreme and during that time, I want to he wouldn't let me have a saying and how He treated her, I couldn't say anything about it at all without risking a giant

explosive fight. And in public, I mean, it was obviously a different story, because he portrayed himself as super stepdad. And, you know, but even people I know really well, here that knew him too, they can tell that something weird was going on between him and my daughter. And, you know, when I did break up, did break up with him. And, you know, it was about my

daughter, it was about how he was treating me. He was the reason he gave us to why I shouldn't break up with him didn't have anything to do with wanting to be in a relationship with me, or caring about me or caring about his son, it was about how my relationship was his, quote, chance to make it an independent media. So he essentially admitted that he'd been using me, you know, honestly, probably had been from

the beginning. And, you know, given what I experienced with my mom after my uncle's death, and how the, the abuse with her escalated, when she was afraid that I was going to out her for

what she had done. To my uncle, you know, part of me worries that maybe that's what my ex had been doing with my daughter, and maybe she hadn't been lying to her dad, but I'll honestly, you know, that's something I'll, I'll never know, because I'm not going to ask bring it up to her again, you know, like this whole

to be behind us. But you know, as far as you know, relates to my accent, you know, I did eventually put my foot down, and I sent him away, because I could see history repeating itself, I felt like my daughter was starting to relive, you know, my childhood, I could see, you know, what she was experiencing, it was just like watching four year old five year old me, you know, and I just did not want that for her at all. Because I

just know how, how painful it is. And I feel like my most important job as a parent is to stop that, that cycle of abuse from continuing, and I am honestly embarrassed and ashamed to talk about it, because I can't, you know, it's embarrassing and awful, that it took me three months to do something about it, I should have done something way sooner.

But you know, you know, you haven't been in a relationship with a narcissist, and maybe you don't, but relationships like that are really hard to break away from, they reduce you down to almost nothing. They fill you with self doubt, it leaves you weak, you know, like paralyzed in a sense. And I guess if I can think of one positive thing from having to live that experience,

it's that I understand my, my dad a lot better. Because, you know, for a long time, I never understood why he didn't leave a relationship where someone treated him poorly, and where he was miserable, and his kids were miserable. But you know, I was him in my last relationship, especially those last three months. So you know, at least least I understand him

a little more. So I'm so here I've tried to give, you know, as succinct summary as I can really about my experiences with narcissists, how it's affected me and my family in the long struggle that I've had as a result with self esteem, with boundaries to stick up for myself, and how important the truth is, because, you know, like I said earlier, you know, I got, I basically had my mom launched a giant smear campaign

against me when I was a teen. And that sort of repeat has repeated itself while my son has been in the hospital with my x and my my son's father, who couldn't even be bothered to ask how he could help or support his extremely sick child, and who fundraised off of my son's condition acting like he was involved with us when he wasn't, and I had no intention to send any of that money here, spent his time privately smearing me behind my back to work colleagues, people I've worked

closely with contributors to my site, people I've co written articles with, and people he knew were supporting my site, via my website and so on, while publicly taking credit for work he didn't actually do on my book and using it to promote his new website, and then also trying to create the public impression that we were still together, because it benefited him. And because he knows I don't like drama, and I don't like conflict, and that I was unlikely to say anything about

it. But I did say something about it on Twitter, eventually to set things straight that he wasn't involved. And since then, he's made it very clear that he plans to put out some sort have crazy hit piece on me or whatever. And I honestly don't want to live with fear or worry about what the what this guy what his narrative is about me now or what he has to say about me, I just want to move on and spend time healing with my kids

and not giving him any thought. So, you know, if you happen to care, I've left supporting evidence for what I've said about this in the show notes. But this is the first and only time I plan on speaking about you really any of this stuff because as I said before, I'm talking about this now to heal. I'm not planning on talking about it again. And in the

event. You know, that me having told my story helps someone realize that they're in abusive relationship or had, you know, an experience similar to mine, you know, if it helps them then it's worth it to so. You know, thanks for taking the time to listen to me and my story.