HealthyGamerGG - Why People Don't Like You

Episode Date: October 4, 2020

Stream Schedule: https://www.twitch.tv/healthygamer_gg on Twitch. Youtube: https://youtu.be/s5cjlHMkOUM for VoD Archive. Support us at https://ko-fi.com/healthygamer if you enjoy our content and would continue helping making it accessible to everyone! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeah, so thank you very much for coming on today. Yeah. Can you tell me, what do you go by? I mean, there's like the username I do use for a Discord right now, which is King Duck, but I'm good with Aaron too. Aaron? Aaron, yeah, yeah. I mean, do you want me to refer to you with your royal title or Aaron is okay? Okay, go both ways and go King Aaron, but.

King Aaron. I'm just good with King. Or no, Aaron. King is fine. No, no, no. No, no. You don't need to say Dr. You can just say King.

And I see you have Sam as shooting something on your wall. Oh, yeah. It's actually my brothers over there because I've room with him, but I also like Metroid, so it works both ways. Yeah. Let me ask you something. Like, why aren't there any new Metroid games? Am I, if I just missed something or is there not been like a new

Metroid game in like a decade. It's supposed to be like Metroid Prime 4, but they had to delay it for a while because of something about restarting development for it. Interesting. But I am waiting on it. Yeah, because like there's like the last Metroid Prime was on like GameCube or something, right? It was on Wii.

It was like 2007 or something. Oh, there was a Metroid Prime on on Wii. Interesting. I didn't know that, but still. Okay. And Aaron, what are we talking about today? Well, I think the title says trust issues But yeah

Yeah, I mean The title can say whatever it wants to But what do you want to talk about? You want to talk about trust issues? Yeah, I got some other little things I tried to write them down and all that But mainly trust issues. I see you have some stuff written on your wall over there.

Oh, yeah, these are Yeah, these are the homework that I am very far behind on. But hey, it's worth the effort that I at least tried to put something up. Yeah, it is. I commend that, dude. It can be easy to fall behind. But remember, meet yourself where you're at, right?

Yeah. Okay, so you said trust issues. So tell me what that means. Um, hard for me to put 100% into words. Well, I try to at least, but I guess it's just more so. I used to think it was like other things like anxiety or depression. or stuff like that, but I kind of noticed that they all seem to have roots and what I think are, like, trust issues for me with, like, the easiest example I can use right now,

because I was actually interested in doing the coaching program and all that, but I noticed I kept chickening out before doing it, because I was just like, I didn't, was a little too afraid to, like, share anything about that, which is really ironic now that I'm, like, in front of what, I don't know how many people are in this chat right now, and I'm just like, I try not to pay attention.

Yeah, isn't that funny? Yeah, it's got me a bit nerve wrecked, but hey, I was just like, fuck it, let's do it. Okay, awesome, man. So let's talk about that for a second. So you said you kept chickening out. What does that mean? I just, like, I remember I was just like looking at it and it's hard to describe it exactly, but I just kind of like, something with me just kind of like a resentment or angry feeling kind of just like hit me.

I was just like, I don't know if I want to share anything that personal with people or something. Okay. So you said anger or resentment hit you. So props to you for recognizing what that is. Right. So the first thing I want to say, Aaron, is like, that's actually pretty impressive. Because I think a lot of times when we chicken out or resist things, we don't really understand like why we're chickening out or why we don't want to do something. We just were like, yeah, I don't want to do that. And then we just start going back. Right. And so what were you, so when you, so you signed up for coaching or you all signed up?

I tried to sign up. It's what I'm kind of more so saying. Okay. And then when you would try to sign up, what would you, you said anger or resentment? Like, what would you be angry about? Um. Do you remember your thoughts? I don't 100%.

remember to be honest. I just remember that I was just like maybe it was even so much anger. I just didn't feel comfortable about doing it. I just felt what made you uncomfortable? Like those people wouldn't like care or something like that or that I just get zoned out or something. Those people are trying to talk something because I'm a little broke right now so I was only be able to do the group meditation or group might I say meditation group therapy. Okay. coaching got it okay yeah i mean we get that a lot of people are broke so we offer you know support for people as best as we can yeah yeah i'm not trying to like insults you guys or anything but no no i i i

understand i i didn't i didn't take it as a personal insult it was more just to let other people know that like we understand that our primary audience probably doesn't have a job or not i mean i that that's sort of unfair to our audience. I think a lot of people do have jobs, but we recognize a lot of people don't. And so we try to do what we can. And so you said that you were afraid that those people wouldn't care. Something like that. It's or that I might just get like zoned out. What does that mean zoned out? That like other people's like other topics. And I apologize, this sounds a bit egoistic or something, but that I just kind of get zoned out everybody else's points would just be more interesting.

Okay. That other people would be more interesting than you. Or just like, see, like, for a good part of my life, I've always had a very, like, naturally quiet voice, but not very loud. I just, all that. So I've always had trouble kind of having a higher or more raised voice, a mouse voice, if you want to call it, or something like that. where I just don't talk very loudly.

Okay. And so what I'm hearing you say is that growing up, it sounds like it was difficult for you to be heard. Maybe, yeah, kind of. How so, kind of. What, what apply, what's right about that and what's off about that? I definitely had points where I was like heard out or I was able to give my kind of input on stuff like that.

But sometimes I'd like, sorry, give me a minute, I'm just thinking. Good. Just sometimes, I'd probably just get like, I actually don't want to order it. I really don't. I'm trying to think my best year, but. That's okay. Don't worry about it, man. It's all good, Aaron.

So do you kind of feel like other people's issues would take precedence over your own? if you were in a group setting? Kind of, yeah. Or it's more so, it's a little bit of that, but it's also a little bit of that. I feel like I wouldn't want to, like, believe that my own issues or problems I deal with are more important than theirs.

Interesting. Sure. So what I'm hearing you do there is zone yourself out. Yeah, I possibly say that, yeah. Like, right? Because you're kind of saying, well, maybe I'd get zoned out. maybe people wouldn't care. Maybe I'd have trouble being heard

because you talked about your voice and how you have a mouse voice. And then you're doing something kind of interesting, Aaron, because like when I repeat back to you what you said, then you say, well, maybe it's because, like, my issues aren't actually as important as their issues. Or I guess maybe it's also I just don't want to be rude and think that, like, whatever I'm putting up with

or whatever is more important to another person. Uh-huh I'm going to toss out a word Value Value What I'm seeing here is an issue of value Like what I'm hearing you say Go ahead

No no no go ahead I'm just I don't know what I'm doing Okay Yeah so I'm just going to toss that word out We'll dig into it down the road If it feels applicable Okay Can you tell me a little bit about

what growing up was like for you, Aaron? Well, I suppose I've had a little bit of an definitely out of the ordinary, like, first, I probably say five years in my life or so. Due to, like, my parents' occupations at the time, I was actually born over in Thailand in like a small country area in that place. And then after that for probably the first few years, five years. years of my life, I think. I lived basically all over the Asian continent, kind of switching every six months to a year or so. Mainly, though, I lived most in China. And then after that, I moved, my family

moved. We were kind of like, my parents basically did missionary work, right? So like, he basically moved. We were broke when we got back in America. So we basically went to go live with my grandparents, and my relatives when I was only lived there for about a year, a year a half. To that, I moved to Las Vegas because my dad got a job there. And basically lived there for since I was seven until I was about 19. And now I'm in college, you know, here up in Reno, another place in Nevada. Okay. And so what kind of job did your dad get in Las Vegas?

Yeah, it passed. Okay. So your dad's a pastor, so? Yeah. Well, not anymore, but he used to be a pastor. Okay. And so what was it? Yeah.

Oh, sorry, I didn't cut you off. No, go for it. My dad now does accounting or finance stuff. Okay. And can you tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up with a pastor as a dad? Um, I mean, pretty fine, I guess. I mean, my parents were very religious people, but... They still are.

They still are, but not in the traditional sense, I suppose. When my parents, like, did a lot of missionary work, they got really, like, screwed over by people in their own community and all that. How so? So, I don't know, basically, I like to put it, some religious people can just be assholes and all that. My parents were not those kind of people, but unfortunately, there were many who were jerks to them. And it's kind of also part of the reason they stopped doing missionary work. And then when my dad became a pastor at a church in Vegas, the church he worked, it kind of treated him like dirt.

So how so? Um, it kind of like, at first it was kind of like fine for him working there. But then they basically started to just ignore him a lot and just kind of like not ever listen to his ideas or something like. It basically traded him like dirt, basically. And yeah, but parents are still religious. It's just that they also have a lot of resentment towards the people in the actual community. Blame the people, not the actual thing itself or religion itself kind of deal. I realize I'm going up a tangent that's not even about me, but.

Really? Interesting. Is it? Yeah. I mean, you're going off on a tangent about resentment, having a small voice, not being listened to, and not being very valued. What do you think about that? I'm not 100% sure to be honest. Yeah, it's kind of weird.

I'm not sure. I myself am not sure what to make on it. I just think they're just remarkable. parallels to the language that you use. Maybe it's just, you're just, it's like top of mind, so you're using those words. But, you know, you said things like your dad wasn't listened to. He was treated like dirt. So what I'm hearing is like almost that your dad could have had a mouse voice. And your dad seems to have resentment.

Well, that's actually kind of somewhat true. My dad is also, I think I get it from my dad because my dad also is a very quiet boys too. I think you get a lot of things from your dad, bro. So what was it like growing up with... So it sounds like your parents are like you respect them a lot, actually. Like, it sounds like you think they're very good people. I definitely do.

I love both of my parents very much. Both of them, especially growing up, had pretty rough lives. So that's why I'm like... And of course they have their own problems because of that, but at the same time, they really wanted, because of their own rough growing ups, they really wanted, for me and my two younger brothers, have tried the best they can to give us a good life.

And how'd they do? Pretty good. I'd probably only, it's hard for me to be 100% honest about this, but I swore when they come on the stream, I'd be honest about it, full one. Okay. Especially with my own, my dad and all that.

My dad had a, okay, so a little quick backstory about this, because the last thing I want to walk out of this is people thinking my dad's an ass because he's not. He's a good person. It's just. I hear that. Basically, when my dad grew up, he grew up with a family that fought a lot because I think he put up with a little bit of child.

because his parents were both a nurse and someone else who was a truck driver who was just jobs that were basically out of home a lot, a lot, a lot. And because of that reason, he and his parents fought a lot and never got along ever. And because of that reason, as he grew up and all that, he kind of did develop some pretty bad anger issues and all that. yes my dad's a really great person and I love him and respect him very much but at the same time some of his ugly issues he puts up with anger would sometimes show themselves how would they show themselves um just a lot of like short-term anger sometimes if he was already in a bad mood he would just blow up and yell a lot or get really angry what do you get angry about i don't know it's

my dad's always had a kind of of a philosophy on like life of just sometimes life is tough and you just got to put up with it which yes holds a certain amount of value i think at least but so i don't know Aaron now I'm i'm I'm going to use the word confused but i'm not really confused so i'm confused so you I asked you have what would his anger you said he had anger issue shoes and then sometimes you would blow up at you and then I asked you like what would that be like and then you said he has a life philosophy where he tells you to put up with crap I guess that makes no it makes a lot of sense it's just you're skipping a couple of steps so can you fill us in like does anything kind of stick out in your memory about just paint us a picture of what it was like

I guess I think it might be better if I gave some like specific examples. Beautiful. Let's see if I can think of one. I remember one time we were, we were, we went out to go see a movie and all that. And my dad, I think, was already having a pretty, like, rough time that week or something like that. I don't know the whole story. How would you know that he's having a rough week? Kind of from what my mom would tell me.

What would she say? My dad was, well, my mom would be like, oh, he had some bad thing, his job or something happened like that. Like, as I was kind of saying before, he did put up a lot of resentment in jobs and stuff like that and just people being jerks to him or something. And so my dad is... I want to just jump in for a second, sorry, to derail you. Yeah, go ahead.

So it sounds like your mom would sort of rationalize. or explain why your dad was being the way that he was? Kind of. Yeah, I'd probably say. Okay. Keep going, please. Anyway, we came back from the movie, and then, like, I don't remember the, I don't 100% remember what caused it or whatever.

But I just remember, like, we were leaving the movies, and my dad just got really pissed off about something. And then when we got in the car, we were driving back, my dad just kind of went on a angry rant the whole time, kind of having this whole just do it for a lot, the do it kind of thing where he was just saying like, if someone asks you to do something, if something like is tough, it doesn't matter, just do it, just do it all the time, just put up with it, handle it or whatever. Man up.

Yeah, man up. That's the way to describe it. Yeah. sometimes I think that man up is the male equivalent of when people tell women to like go into the kitchen and make me a sandwich kind of thing it's like the male equivalent of like what we tell men that is demeaning and rough is to man up I'm kind of in agreement with that too it's just

and so who was he talking about like when he wouldn't say that kind of thing she just, you know, man up. I think in a way he's kind of trying to say that to both me and my siblings, because my two brothers were with me too in the car. We were all just going back or something from the movies. Were there times? So it sounds like he was speaking more generally. What was, as you said, ranting?

So do you remember if, I mean, it doesn't sound like it was, like it sounds like you were the audience, but it wasn't directed. towards you. Like, it wasn't like you had done something or hadn't done something. I mean, in the past, as much as I'd like to say, this never happened. This was the only case of this happening. It's happened before, right? I'm getting really angry. Sometimes some angers have been directed specifically to one person. Towards you? Sometimes, yes. Sometimes I'd butt heads with him a lot because he had a very kind of tough manned up policy, or not policy, like just kind of idea.

Policy is fine. I think it's an appropriate word here. Well, I've always been like both have a quiet voice and I've generally been a very emotional person. What does that mean? I don't know. I don't really know what exactly caused it or if it's just something that's genetic with me or something, but I've always been very a sensitive or emotional kind of person. What does that look like? I cry easy.

Well, I try not to cry, but I do tend to cry pretty easily. To give like kind of a video game example, I'm like, I'm literally terrified to play like five nights at Freddy's or something like that because the stuff freaks me out immediately. Okay. Like I just panic a lot. Okay. What is it that makes you cry? I'm Can you share an example of this?

I'm trying to think. I guess just generally I'm pretty optimistic about a lot of things and I really hate it when I see people like in pain or always like fighting or yelling

or something like that a lot and it can sometimes make me just like freak out a lot and I never take a fun to it. Mainly drama I probably see drama. Anything that happens with drama-related situations. You're very good with words.

Okay, so it sounds like drama affects you pretty heavily. Yeah, that's why I really try to avoid it. But unfortunately, life is not always so nice with those kind of situations. Has any drama been going on recently in your life? Recently. Surprisingly, even with everything that's happening with COVID, Not too much, actually. Okay.

So is your dad... Sorry, go ahead. No, go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. So has your dad ever... Has there ever been a situation where he was kind of telling you that, you know,

you need to man up or you're too sensitive or anything like that? And you have to give me a second to think of a specific example, but I can say there has been situations like that. Yeah, okay.

Can you tell me a little bit of, bit about your mom? My mom. I do want her life story? Sure. My mom's always been a very hardworking kind of person. You know, like there's the term workaholic or something like that. My mom's always been a pretty big workaholic. She's always trained to be best. And I kind of get it because my mom grew up in a very poor, family. She was from like parents who basically didn't even like bear just barely finished high school and got unfortunately stuck with like a teen pregnancy and all that all that yucky stuff and all that. And basically with her her parents were living off like my grandpa from my mom's side of the family went to the Navy and they were basically living off whatever money for that was coming from

which was not a whole lot. So she kind of grew up in very broke areas. But my grandparents did try very hard to raise her well, and I also immensely respecting the grandparents a lot for a lot of the crap they went through too. But I think it's because of that reason that it's why my mom's such a big workaholic kind of person because it's my honest belief that she's just really trying to,

I don't describe it, but like, work her hardest to improve. or not improve. Do good, I guess. How does it feel to be the recipient of her effort? Actually, not really, it's not good or not bad. It's just kind of, all right. I've always, like, I don't want to devalue, like,

what she's had to put up with and all that, but it's just been more of a, like, yeah. Okay. And so how are you holding up, Aaron? I'm a little nervous. I'm not going to, I'd probably say this is probably the biggest amount of people I've been in front of. Are you in front of people?

Kind of because there's Twitch chat. Love you guys. Are you looking at Twitch chat? No, no, no. Okay. I'd probably get a little too panicky. Sorry, guys. Yeah, I try to ignore Twitter chat as best as I can't.

Just while I'm talking to someone. The rest of the time, I love them. I mean, I love them anyway, but I just can't give them my attention all the time. Twitch chat's amazing. Love you guys. So, hmm, so I'm not really understanding. So like when you say you have trust issues, what does that mean? I'm like afraid that trying to like even talk about more personal stuff or even it's gone to the point where sometimes I just try to talk about normal stuff that, um, it's going to come back to or like, I'm going to get like betrayed by someone or whatever or backstabbed.

you're afraid of betrayal or something like that yeah have you been betrayed before oh yeah can you tell us about that um well as much as I'd like to say it was only one time I've had it happen to me a good amount of times so

can you share one with us um I when I was in middle school I think it was. I was not very good at picking friends. I just kind of like, because of my kind of meek nature and all that, I wasn't like, I trusted people way too easily easily. I kind of was like a little gollible about it or whatever. I'd just be like, oh, you're cool. I let you have the same interest as me. I'll be your friend without even knowing who you are. And I met this one person, I won't give names obviously, but. but just one person who I'd befriended pretty quickly because I got along with him really well. And I was friends with him for a while, and I still tried to stick through, even though when I was starting to meet some of his friends in a friend group and all that, they were kind of assholes. And I was like, but he's not like that, kind of had that mentality.

And then I remember one day I had kind of like, this sounds kind of really silly, but it was very personal to me at least, but I used to collect cards a lot, like, Uygo cards and stuff like that. I was in that geeky stuff. And I had a collection that I had built up over several years that was very kind of like, at this point it was almost like a hairlone to me, which is kind of funny. And I remember when I was, that friend of mine had asked to borrow the cards for one day or whatever. And then he stole them from me completely, which in the end, it's just cards. But I guess you could say in a way to me, it kind of felt a bit more than just U-Gi-o cards

because I had spent so much time collecting them. And they were very, like, at least to me, they were kind of important. Yeah. And when you say stole them from you, generally speaking, when people steal things from you, sometimes people have some kind of recourse, what did you do? get to can you tell me more like so you said i want to borrow them for a day and you said sure i was just i kind of trusted him so i was just like go ahead and then what happened it was the next day and i'd come back to him to ask him for the cards or whatever right and to my

surprise he was hanging with this group of friends and he was showing off the cards and i like yo can i have my cards back and all that and he's just like he kind of just shot me kind of a blank look and be like, these are my cards. Yoin'amai now. You know what I mean? And I kind of like got really a little upset about it. I'm like, I'm pretty sure those are my cards because there were some stuff about them that were. They were my cards.

I could have confirmed for sure they were. And a lot of arguing between me and him about it. And then eventually I kind of just, I kind of broke into fucking tears about it. And yeah. Just not fun. And do you remember how you felt? Like, I can imagine there are a lot of reasons that you would break into tears. Or what thoughts you had going through your mind?

No, it's just, I just felt like it was, in a way, the first time that I'd ever been, like, really backstabbed like that. But at the same time, I can't word it. Exactly. It's just like, so that was like middle school and all that. And before that, when I was in elementary school, I had a really rough time through elementary school. I didn't really have many friends or anything like that. And I was bullied quite a lot too.

What were you bullied for? So this, like I said, I had this situation where when I grew up a lot of the foreign countries before I came to America, I mean, I'm a little I have a little bit better now, but I flub up in my speech a lot because when you're, I kind of believe that like when you're in like a foreign country, especially at a young age, and you're just in vicinity of a lot of different languages, it can sometimes like mess with your mind as you're trying to learn. I don't know it. I only know English. Interesting way to explain it. Yeah. So I've always had like a, I don't know if you call them speech deficiencies or something. but my words, my grammar, structure of how I try to speak and all that don't always come out very coherent.

And I kind of got picked on that a lot. I also just generally had other customs that were, as I like to call, not American, that I got to. I can't think of any. I just know it was like something as that. More than anything, though, I was, right now I have to consider myself a pretty big introvert, but when I was a kid in elementary school, I was a very extroverted person and also a very justicey person.

I don't know how you'd word that. Righteous? Righteous, yeah. I'd never liked seeing like, when kids would play around during recess or something like that, I never liked seeing people get, you know, picked on or treated like dirt or something like that. So I'd kind of be an asshole

if I saw someone else being an asshole. So I can remember. Okay. No, go ahead. No, no, tell me. Like, basically, like, you know, people play games or something and be waiting in line. And if I saw someone getting, like, treated like shit or whatever, I'd basically fuck with the game themselves. Let me tell you, that did not make me very popular.

Because I was, like, the kid who came in and basically ruined the game because they were being jerks to someone. And then, so it sounds like you pulled agro. pretty much I basically became a wow tank in a way where I just like and unfortunately that came to my dismay as

it got kind of pretty bad to the point where I pretty much in elementary school had three friends and then if it except with the exception of three friends I think everybody at least in my grade in the skull hated me and kind of just wanted me to not exist

and I'd get bullied a lot more verbally, but definitely a few times, you know, if I'd be walking around a racist, someone would throw like a dodge ball, I mean, conk me in the back of the head. How did you feel about yourself? Not very good, obviously. I don't know. I mean, for me, it felt like I tried to do the right thing. I tried to, like, help the people who are getting treated wrongly,

and now I'm basically being hated by everybody for it. it was a really hard time. I think it hit me the most when I was like in third grade because I had a point in third grade where I was, we were playing one game and I tripped over a backpack and broken my arm. And I was like trying to go to the nursery and I was trying to talk around to like kids and all that. Or like, hey, can you help me out? I don't know why my arm's broken.

By the way, I was in tears while this was happening. And people kind of just blew me the hell off. They just... kind of ignored me or i mean they could clearly see me i was holding my arm like this and it was like bent like in a u shape it looked fucked up but uh yeah nobody really tried to help me with that situation and i kind of just by myself walked up to uh the nurse's office to get that shit figured out but i remember it out but you're right what hurts about that kind of a lot of things with my own dad and all that

I never really fully believed in the man up thing because I don't know it just never sat right with me that sometimes in life you just want to like curl up but

when you also have to just put up this man up kind of thing it sucks just as much Aaron you know what I think hurts so much about that you know why you have to man up? Why? Because no one else is going to. Because you're alone. When you've broken your arm

and you're crying and clearly something is wrong. We think about manning up is a good thing. Right? Like if you walk down the street and you're like, yeah, like I manned up, I overcame my difficulties, I conquered the pain and I walked to the nurse's office myself. It's a story of trying off.

but in yours it's like a story of abandonment. I definitely felt like that. I felt like that I was being left all alone. Yeah. So when you get hurt, who's there for you? Kind of just me. Yeah. I can almost kind of see that because I remember after that point in my life,

anytime I'd ever get into some sort of injury or just hurt myself or tripped, you know, I always have like this strange reaction where I just immediately get up, brush it off, and be like, it's fine, don't worry about it. So now we get to trust issues. So Aaron I asked you earlier, what do you mean by that? Can I try to give you an answer? Sure. I have trust issues because there have been a few times in my life or maybe even most times in my life when I've been really, really hurt. No one has been there for me. and so now I don't know how to rely on someone to be there for me when I'm hurting. So maybe the reason that coaching is hard is because that's a place where you know you're going to hurt

and it's really hard for you to trust someone to be there for you. And so you chicken out. Because signing up for coaching is letting someone borrow your UDU cards. And I don't know if I'll get them back. Absolutely. chicken out. Right?

No, no, no, no. Mine cards. Here you go. No, no, no, no, no, mine cards. I mean... There's more to the story, by the way, but let's just let you see what resonates about that. You're buying what I'm selling or not a good fit?

Probably say halfway. Some of it I do agree with. Some of it I don't. Totally. So we actually... It's because we're only halfway there. Ready for the second half? Sure.

Yeah. So when you get abandoned by it's school, when someone takes your Ukio cards, what happens when you go home? No, I think I have the answer, but I don't like it very much. Damn right, you don't. Because I just try to fight it toughly

and just be like, well, that sucked. Just move on with it. Tell me what happened. The day that you broke your arm, what happened when you went home? Don't give me conclusions. Tell me what happened. Do you remember? Well, it was first because I went to a nurse's office. At first, they kind of thought it was something else or whatever. They didn't think it was my arm was broken or whatever. Who's the day? The nurses, the school nurse, whatever. And they had a, they called my parents

and I went with them to the hospital and you basically got the confirmation of his broken arm and all that shit. And I mean, there's not much else to that story. That's just kind of what happened. Do you remember what your parents said or did? It was kind of weird. Well, not weird, but they were definitely very sympathetic about the situation. They just, like, that really sucks.

Yeah, okay. What about the Yu-Gi-O cards? Not so much, yes. Because I guess to most people's eyes, it just, and I don't even blame people for. it but to most people it's just cards it's like this materialistic thing that doesn't really matter really so what did they say or do erin did they i don't remember they i don't think they even know exactly i don't know if i ever told them i could i could not be remembering it but okay

why don't you think you told them yes it just didn't think it matter you didn't think it would matter. You didn't think it would matter. Or, well, not matter, but like... You didn't think it would make a difference. Or just generally be important. It wouldn't be important to them. What do you think your dad would have said if you had told them? Not what do you think now? What did you think back then?

What do you think you thought? I would have thought that, like, my dad would have probably just said, like, that's just kind of how assholes are and you shouldn't, like, trust him. and that's why you just got to be careful trusting people. Policy of man up. What do you think? Yeah, sort of.

I think. But I'm hearing that your parents were actually quite sympathetic to you that they wouldn't have just told you to man up. Maybe they wouldn't have seen the value, but yeah. A lot of my own dad's more man-up-y kind of things

would come more so whenever he's angry or something like that. It was always so weird because my dad was always a very wise and usually pretty chill person. It's just, it's almost like whenever he got angry, he would become like a different person in a way. Where he was just angry, quick to just emotionally fire off or something like that. Well, my dad, who whenever he was like calm or something like that would just be this really awesome guy generally. just give some good life advice and all that. Yeah, it sounds like you, like I said earlier, you love and you respect your parents a lot. Do you protect them?

I'd probably say so, yeah. I don't, be honest, this is probably like the first time I've been honest talking about any issues, except for like other members in my family. It's probably the first time I've ever talked about any issues I've had with my dad or anything like that. How does it feel to talk about it? A little relieving, I guess.

Guilty? I also feel a little guilty, because I'm like, in the back of my head, I've kind of got this fear. It's like, I'm worried, like, that my dad may not react nicely if he ever, for whatever unbelievable reason if he found out about this or something like that, that he would not react very good to it. How would he react? Pretty badly. My dad's not very good about criticism.

He does have a bit of pride with them or a bit of an ego. When you say not badly, what do you imagine he'll do? It could go two ways. In the past, at least, he's always reacted two ways, which is either get really angry about it or yelling about it, or sometimes my dad's just sometimes locked himself up and hit away in a room somewhere and just kind of like wouldn't be honest about his emotions.

I've always kind of had that issue with him because sometimes if we ever offered him something, we didn't agree with him or whatever, and then like, oh, we don't think you're doing this right. He would get very emotional about the situation and just hide off somewhere. So, Aaron, I made a little mistake. I glanced over at Twitch chat for a second, and there's one thing that popped up. Can I share it with you? I just saw literally one message.

And then you were talking about, you know, we were saying like, okay, what would your dad, you know, how would he react? and then you were describing what you're doing someone Twitch hat was like, tell him to man up. He doesn't take criticism well. He goes, hides away in a room. Tell him the man the fuck up. It might be slightly effective, but it might also not turn out so well. I think it's just that's why Twitch has great.

Okay, Aaron, so I'm going to share a couple of thoughts with you. I think So I'm going to sketch out a few options. Oh, actually, hmm. Can you tell me, actually one, excuse me, one last thing. So you mentioned that earlier you felt like you had anxiety and depression, but then you later realized that those are trust issues.

Like you said that at the very beginning. Do you remember that? Yeah. Can you tell me what you, like, tell me about that. What do you mean by anxiety? What do you mean by depression? And how did you decide that those are trust issues instead of anxiety or depression? Or trust issues were at the root of your anxiety and depression?

I so much think of the root, but I'm not even 100% sure myself for all the other. Sure. Sorry, go ahead. You go ahead. Okay. I know for a good amount of my life, I've had really bad social anxiety. I'd have a hard time talking to people. And I also have really bad depression where sometimes I get into really bad mental ruts,

have panic attacks, you know, the fun stuff. Okay. How long has that been going on? Probably since middle school or so. Ever since the U-Gi-O cards? Not just that. I'd probably more so say since eighth grade. grade, which was a little bit after.

What happened in eighth grade? I kind of became, after that whole incident, it happened, I became even more kind of like, insecure, I guess, about not knowing who to trust or whatever. It sounds weird. It sounds like weird, but it actually kind of made me more, like, wanting to find a good friend that I could trust.

You know what I mean? Which made me all for, which actually kind of backfired and it may be become even more gullible for relationships. or friendships. I remember I had worked at a cafeteria A job at my middle school and all that. And there was a group of people that hung out there a lot.

No, not a group of people. My coworkers are at the cafeteria aid. And I was just kind of so desperate to get a friend that I started trying to befriend those people in there. They were not very good people. That's the foreshadow. But what happened?

They kind of made me peer or more so peer pressure with me, I guess, and to start stealing stuff from, like, food stuff from the cafeteria area. I don't ever think stuff like stealing or whatever is good or anything like that, but I was just so afraid that, like, that word does come back, the feeling of getting abandoned or betrayed or something like that, that I just was willing to steal pretty much. I remember at that time

I remember at that time I really my brain really tried to justify it being like it's okay to do this because well the lady who's in charge of us is an ass but in reality what I was doing was not right and I kind of felt really awful about it all the time I also

sorry if you wanted to make it I also had a pretty good friend of mine at the time once again I won't say names and stuff but she was a good friend of mine, but also had a lot of issues with her own family and whatnot. And I really tried my best to be a good friend of her and all that. But eventually she started having a crush on me and all that jazz, and I just didn't want to really be in a relationship,

and it caused a lot of drama because of that situation. Are you comfortable with... Your sexuality, Aaron? Yeah. Okay. Oh, I'm very much straight. Don't worry. Just at the time, I was like, had so many things going on in my mind at the time that I couldn't like.

Did you hear me ask about what your sexuality was? No. Sorry. I'm just, I mean, I know that's not what I asked. What I was wondering is what you heard, but I think it's just tape. I was just curious if you felt comfortable with it. Yeah. Whatever it is.

Hmm. Okay. I'm going to share a couple of thoughts. Okay. So, Eric, I get the sense that, you know, a lot of what we've been talking about, we're like halfway there, right? So that's what I've been feeling from you, is that they're really the closest that we've ever really gotten to being 100% there was,

I don't even remember exactly what we were talking about, but there was one point where you said, that hurts. And I think it was something a very, about having your arm broken or, oh yeah, like that you were, that manning up is, I think the closest that we got to it was manning up is necessary because you're alone. Like manning up isn't a good thing. Manning up is a like, you're sensitive, you're extroverted, you're looking for a connection, you want friends.

And when life teaches you that all of those things fall apart, like manning up, is the only option that's left. That's the closest, I think, we've gotten to, like, something that you really resonated with. What do you think? I agree. I probably have deeper stuff. It's just when we go, it's kind of that thing,

you go deeper into the person's psyche, and it becomes a bit more not pleasant, kind of dark. Yep. So we're going to do that now. But I'm going to do it in a way where I hope it'll, I'm going to do it with your intellect and not your emotions. If you get emotional, that's cool. You're welcome to cry if you feel like it.

No big deal. I'm going to purposefully not ask you about that stuff. I'm going to point out, huh? I'm fine if you want to push. It's just, yeah, I probably will get more emotional about the situation. I don't think you're actually going to get more emotional if I push. And I'll explain to you why in a second. Okay.

So let's start with parallels. Actually, hold on. Can I just think for a second? Yeah, go ahead, go ahead. Let me think about how to. Okay. Here we go. Okay, so you're allowed to dispute any of this stuff, okay?

So are you feeling nervous? It's not, it's like, you're not going to cry, man. Don't worry about it. It's going to be fine. You're going to be good. Okay. So I'm going to start with some parallels. else. So, you know, we talked about anger and resentment is what you felt when you kind of

thought about signing up for coaching. You said those people wouldn't care. They would have zoned you out. They wouldn't have listened to you. You also said that other people's problems may have been more important than your own. Who are you to monopolize? You doing okay? You seem nervous. Yeah. Okay. I'm always nervous. Okay. So that other people's problems may be more important than yours. So there are like actually a lot of really interesting parallels with like what you chose to share about your dad. So I'm not saying that you guys are like clones of each other or anything like that. But it's just when you talk about your dad's experiences, like all that shit is still is there. So, you know, being betrayed by the church, sort of not being taken seriously when he

had opinions, being taken advantage of, you know, like working really hard in like parts of Asia and then it sounds like not really being, you know, recompensed appropriately, being taken advantage of, getting his U-Gi-O cards taken away, you know, not being valued, potentially having a mouse voice himself, feeling anger, feeling resentment, sort of telling himself that he needs to man up because there's no one for him. Like, I don't know if we're talking about him or you. Like, the point is that, like, for whatever. reason in this conversation, which could just be an outlier of coincidence, there are a number of remarkable parallels between you and your dad. Now, I'm not saying that you guys are the same. I think

you guys are actually very different. No. I'm sorry, go ahead. Yep. Go ahead. Um, I'd probably, I kind of do somewhat agree that I do share some similarities to my dad, just kind of overall personality and whatnot. Okay. As I say that. Okay. So the next thing that I just want to talk about more generally is we get a lot of conditioning from our parents.

We get conditioned in ways that we don't even realize. And like they teach us like how to react and respond to situations. Sometimes it's a rant in the car on the way home from a movie. But oftentimes it's like little subtle things. Like making justifications or. rationalizing why bad things happen to you, or giving people excuses out of a sense of compassion or understanding for mistreating you? Would you say your parents do that,

that you give, that they give people a pass based on an attempt to be compassionate or try to understand their situation? It's somewhat, yeah, I kind of say that. I mean, the parents were always both the, they were very tough luck people. Like, they cared. and they really wanted to help me out, but they were also very tough on me and my siblings. It kind of gave us a sense.

I feel like while they did try their best to let us be unnaive about a lot of the bad things in the world, they also were trying to very quickly get us ready. Okay. So do they teach you how to, that's actually different from what I was expecting to hear. Did they teach you how to not trust? More kind of like, talk. that like that you kind of have to be careful with some people like good there are good people legitimately but if you're not careful there are definitely people who do awful things for no reason

okay okay so i want to just table this idea of like conditioning so i think we get a lot of conditioning from our parents so i know like one example for my life is that my grandmother used to like freak out and be paranoid about like certain kinds of mildly dangerous activities. Like if I was waving my stick around, like a stick around, if I was playing outside with a stick and I was waving it around, like she would be afraid that I'd like poke my eye out. Which is like theoretically possible. You know, but in the grand scheme of things, a lot of kids play with sticks a lot of times and most of the time, most people have two eyes. So like it happens quite rarely. And then what I realized some time ago, my wife points

this out to me is like I do the same thing where it's like I just have this automatic reaction when I see my kid running around with a stick and I'm like oh my God don't like put the stick down don't run no running with sticks there's no rule in the house no running with sticks and and you kind of do it like really automatically and you don't even realize that you're doing it but there's a lot of stuff that we do which we'll get to in a second I think there's a lot of stuff that you do which is kind of interesting which we don't realize because we were taught Now, on a surface level, this could be not trusting people. It could be the idea of manning up.

It could be don't let yourself be a sensitive person. It could be, you know, you really have to advocate for yourself because no one, like, like when your dad says you have to man up, what I'm also hearing from him is that like there's no one in this world for you except yourself. You can't trust other people. Like I can imagine that if I listen to one of his rants, I would hear that message underneath it. Mm-hmm.

So, yeah, go ahead. No, no. Okay. So the next thing that I want to get to is, like, halfway. So most of the things that I'll present to you, Aaron, you'll say are halfway, which is like completely reasonable, right? Because, I mean, what are we going to figure out in an hour? I mean, if we're halfway, like, that's pretty good.

And so at the end of the day, I feel like there's always something kind of like missing, right? Like, it's not a complete picture. There's something that's a little bit off. And what I want to get to is defenses and justification. Throughout this conversation, there have at least been four or five times where I've heard you make excuses for other people. So, like, there are times where you'll defend your dad. You did it really explicitly. There are even things like, it's interesting because when you start talking about your mom and your dad,

the first words that come out of your mouth is they had really bad upbringings. and you tell us about their upbringing. And it's interesting because what you're doing in that moment is you're laying a foundation for protection, defense. And I would almost say forgiveness, but I don't think forgiveness. And I think that's part of the problem is that like you give them excuses preemptively because you're like a compassionate and understanding person. Oh, like mom is a workaholic. Like I think there's another shade to her being a workaholic. There's a dark shape to her being a workaholic.

Right? Because workaholic is not like a positive term. But like we hear you protecting at the beginning. And then we hear like a workaholic and then we never hear the downside. And maybe there isn't one. Maybe I'm, and that's for you to figure out. But like, yeah. If I can make a slight comment, right?

Yeah. Yeah. My mom does have bad workholes. and because that she very much easily stresses her out herself out a lot. She can become very emotionally stressed about situations. Yeah, sure. So I think I think there's even something left unsaid there, which is like, what does that do to you? Which I don't know that we need to get into right now.

But like, it's interesting because you kind of like, you set this story of like, here's their excuse. here's like sort of a a bland but authentic representation of like something about them that is like difficult or challenging like workaholic anger issues but then we don't hear anything about you

like there's no like because and that sort of makes sense I've sort of asked you or given you an opportunity a couple of times which I'm not trying to paint your your parents to be bad bad people and like there's a fork in the road there like either your dad like yelled at you and was abusive but it doesn't sound like he was like that Sounds like he was a pretty good guy. It sounds like he was a good dad.

He tried really hard to teach you important things and, you know, cares about you, loves you very genuinely. Like when you broke your arm, he didn't blame you for it or anything like that, took you to the hospital, was sympathetic. Sounds like a good dad. And so at the same time, in all of your stories, Aaron, I'm not sure if there's nothing really there or you're kind of skirting around some kind of negative space. I probably could say, without me even being. aware of it that I might be skirting. Might be, right? So we don't know because that's a hard hypothesis to falsify.

So this is like one of the downsides of like doing this kind of formulation or like what a lot of therapists will do is like I can say something to you that you can never disprove if I choose to believe it. Right? If I say like, oh, you're just like it's really, really suppressed. And then I keep on asking you questions and we never get there. And I'm like, oh, it's just, it's just really deep down, man. it's really like how do we know?

So that's just something for you to think about. But I do think that there's enough of a pattern here. So then you also kind of said like you also rationalize your flubbing up of language, which is really weird. And you're like, I kind of misspoke. And I think it's because when kids grow up bilingual, like whatever. So that actually is the most telling to me. This is why I think there's negative space there because sometimes kids language development is just like,

it just takes time. Like, kids are different. People are wired different. They have difficulty with language. And what I'm hearing you do there is try to come up with a rational explanation for something that was hurtful. Like, it hurt to be made fun of. And you had to come up with a reason. Like, so that, like, if you could make sense of it, it hurts less. It's not that there's something fundamentally wrong with you. It's that you happen to grow up in this circumstance which tampered with your language. and so like the reason they made fun of you is kind of invalid because you have this excuse because you grew up in this particular situation and it just hurts less if you have a good

reason for what happened to you you seek explanations for deficiencies and then like there's this weird thing that you keep on doing with the yugio cards which is that you're like yeah like i wouldn't even blame them if they thought it was stupid like you say that it hurt me and then you also just like go back and watch the video, but you talk about how like it's okay for people to not take you seriously after you put together this Yu-Gi-o collection, some dude borrowed it and then like didn't give it back to you. And there's a part of you that's like, yeah, that's clearly hurtful.

And you even said like they mean a lot to me. But then you also have this weird responsive dialogue of like, I wouldn't blame them. Like I didn't even tell my dad because like he wouldn't understand and I wouldn't blame him. there's something really actually like this is a strong word but I can't come up with another one cancerous about that process there's something like that really rubs me the wrong way

and this is where I think you said this kind of beautifully you said you know like you wanted more friends and then like so your solution your antidote to the problem actually became like a bigger problem and I think I think that That's what this weird rationalization thing is. I think that's why it's like hard for you to articulate some of this stuff because something in your mind, and I suspect your parents, you learned this from your parents, you learned how

to justify things, you learned how to rationalize things, you learned how to invalidate your own experience or even set it aside because of all of these other factors. You don't have to feel hurt. It's not like you were actually incompetent. You flubbed up your language because you grew up in a different country. Oh, like your mom being a workaholic and stressing things out and like not reading you a bedtime story or whatever, because I suspect there's something of that line in there. Because she was a workaholic, you understand she was a workaholic, and it's because she's a workaholic that what she did to you doesn't hurt. It's not her fault, and that means there's nothing wrong with you.

Right? Because if she doesn't have an excuse, then the way she treats you hurts way more. If she had a wonderful upbringing and she made you feel a certain way and you don't have a way to rationalize her behavior, then that feeling becomes truer. And now we get to like the last thing, which is possibly the most helpful and possibly the most incorrect. which is that I think there's a possibility that this whole thing about feeling righteous and tanking agro is back.

I don't think they disliked you because you ruined games. I think you were deathly afraid that they fundamentally disliked you and so you might as well do something that gives them an excuse to feel about you the way that they do. Because if they dislike you and you don't fuck up games, then you're just a terrible person. But if you screw up games, then you give them an excuse to dislike it. And then it

hurts less. I don't think they treated you like crap because you screwed up games. I think you felt like crap, which is why you acted out in such a way to, like, give them a reason to feel that way about you. It's almost like self-harming myself, I guess. Absolutely. Because if you can give them a reason to dislike you, then there isn't fundamentally something wrong. There's a reason. There's a rationalization. There's a justification for you having no friends when you screw up all the games. but if you have no friends and you're not screwing up games, boy, is that hard to sit. So it's almost like I'm trying to like run away from the true feelings because maybe like I'm afraid of them or something. Yeah. So I think the feelings are there. You're trying to come up with a justification for outside people so that they can feel a particular way about you.

Because if you give them a reason, like just think about this, right? There's two scenarios. One is that. that everyone's school it hates you, and you're not doing anything wrong, that hurts. Boy, does that hurt. And then the second option is everyone hates you, and it's because you always ruin the games. It's like literally why kids act out, right? Like when people feel unloved,

they start doing things that are almost like self-fulfilling prophecies. And this, I think, comes down to value, where it's somewhere along the way, like, I don't think you, and it's bizarre because I do hear you valuing yourself. It's not standard. I don't think it's like an all the time kind of thing. But somewhere along the way, I'm hearing notes of just like your sense of your own value is like, I don't know what you think about yourself. I think the, I'm just trying to think in my head about it.

But I think it's like, I feel like I value myself, but I still feel like I value a lot of other people over me. Yep. Kind of like that. Like, I still have this value about myself, but there's, I feel like maybe not even so much value, but just I feel like there's more importance to others around me to me. But it can become really toxic really quick. I realize this. Yeah.

And either way can become toxic, right? Because if you don't value other people enough, then you can become narcissistic. But in your case, I would just start, honestly, Aaron, I would. would start by being careful about giving other people justifications and excuses. Because something interesting happens there, which is like, if you give someone a reason to behave a particular way against you, you can never forgive them. Because it's not their fault. Your mom was a workaholic because she grew up in these circumstances. It's not her fault that she did X, Y, or Z. And we haven't been able to uncover what the X, Y, or Z is. It's not your dad's

that he's like angry and resentful because the church did this to him and he was betrayed yeah can make a quick note yeah i'm just saying this because i can feel them happening to me but every time like i feel like i'm just noting them as i'm kind of feeling them as they're coming but i'm noting that i like every time it seems that like to someone who i do actually care about whether they were right or wrong I feel like this immense amount of like emotional pressure to say something to defend them. Yep. You're damn right. You do.

You just mentioned there like X, Y, Z about with my mom or something like that. And I felt like this immediate feeling to be like, well, this or well, that or something like that. Yeah. Good. So good. So let's, so I think that's, that's why everything has been 50% correct. because that impulse that you have prevents you from seeing the rest of the picture. So the question is, why do you have that pressure?

Where does that come from? Sorry, I'm trying to really think this. Good. Think about it. We may not get there. This could be as far as we go today, which is plenty far. It feels like I know there is something that causes that feeling with me, but I... That's okay.

I have a hard time trying to remember or think of what it is. That's perfectly fine here. I think this is good enough. So I think it's awesome that you even caught it in that moment. Right. So the more that you catch that reaction, it's kind of like that reaction starts in your subconscious and digs its way to the surface of your conscious mind. and what you have to do is first of all you have to realize it's happening and then what you can start doing is the more you catch it

then you can start the process of like following the tunnel back down underground like you're going to see what is it that evokes in me a need to defend my parents I think I got it kind of maybe that was fast okay I think I might have an idea to it Go ahead. I think it might be a feeling of fear. Of what?

A fear of like, it could potentially be someone getting me angry at me or someone or something. Or a fear that I'm going to mess up someone personally as their life or just them as a person in general. That you're going to mess someone up? Kind of. It's like, so I'll try to rationalize it with like my parents or something because they're the one I keep seem to defending the most, right? I had this like fear that like, and it's really irrational, but like if I don't give some kind of defense, if I don't like protect them in some way, that they're just going to like awful people or that they're just going to be. or that like if in any weird case my parents find out or something like that that they may not react very nicely to it it's this kind of feeling of being afraid about it

yeah i understand that you're afraid of something so i think that's a step closer right but if you didn't defend them what would we walk away from this conversation thinking about your parents? That they were abusive and they were not. And why is it really important for us to not believe that? Right. You're trying really hard to make sure we don't think that. Because it's, for me, it's just like these really mixed feelings. Sure. So Aaron, let me ask you the question in another way. Yeah. Let me just think about how to phrase this. Yep, go ahead. So, you know, there's a good quote from one of Shakespeare's plays. I forget which one it is,

where he says, Me, Doth think he protests too much. I think I may have butchered the quote. Do you know what that quote means? That that person says too much, maybe? So that he refutes it too strongly. So like the things that we refute too strongly, like if I'm out on a quest to make sure that everyone understands

that I'm really, really smart, what do I believe about myself? That you're smart? Nope. The opposite. Oh. That you think you're really dumb. Yep.

Or I'm afraid that I'm really dumb. And if I can convince the rest of the world that I'm smart, I don't need to worry about it. And so if we extrapolate out to you, I think one of the things that you really struggle with is that sometimes it sounds like your parents really didn't treat you very well. And that you felt hurt. And you're sensitive and you cried.

And that you feel really, really bad with the idea that they aren't good parents. And so, like, you have to make sure that everyone understands. And it's kind of like the other way I can ask you is, like, who are you trying to convince us or yourself? Maybe myself. And the truth of it is that I don't think you had all bad parents. I think your parents, like I said at the beginning, it's clear. me that you love and respect your parents and they try to really do their best and they've really adapted to changing circumstances. And I think that you have feelings towards them in which

you felt really, really abandoned. I think it's kind of interesting that you were in middle school and something you cared about a lot and something that valued to you, you didn't even mention to them. And I think the reason you didn't mention it is because maybe you knew how they would react. Okay. Can I be honest? Can I tell a story about my dad that I was too afraid to tell it at first? Because I was really bent on trying to do that rational thing, the protect thing. Sure. I was a little tough about not telling it first. I think it was like the time it was actually not too long ago either. It was probably about at least two, three years ago or so.

But it was probably one of the times I've seen my dad get the angriest. And the worst part about the situation is that I didn't even know why he was. angry. Like, I never found out the reason for why he was angry. But I remember it was like later at night, 9 or 10 p.m. And, um, sorry, uh, I was just relaxing and all that. We were all fine and all that stuff. And then my parents supposedly were out on a dinner date together, which sounds nice. But, uh, I remember I never really went out to see what happened. after the aftermath of everything. But I just remember that when my parents came home,

my mom was, my mom was panicking a little bit and freaking out. When my dad gets really angry, my mom will probably try to be stuff like go, stop, stop, hey, what are you doing? Don't know, kind of like that. And basically what had happened is that my dad, I want to say, oh no, crap, I caught myself. I started doing the rational judgment. but I just remember my dad came into the house and started just smashing things,

like materialistic things. I mean, it was pretty bad. He'd basically knocked down all the picture frames we had. He like broke our TV. He just started, I could hear it too. It was just a lot of glass breaking and all that. And he was just basically going ham everywhere. Sorry, I'm a little.

It was terrifying. It was terrifying for me. terrifying from my brothers too. I was trying to calm them down in the situation because we didn't even know why he was angry. We were too afraid to literally leave the room or our room, right?

But for some reason that night, my dad was just really pissed off. And his anger was like to the point, like I said, he broke TVs, he broke his face, and we even had a sliding door to our backyard and he shattered that thing. And I think

if I can fully say without trying to rashly judgment. That plus just many of the other times is me growing up and all that. Sorry. I kind of had this big overwhelming feeling like essentially saying this shit again. Do you know what I mean?

Where it's just like, I've seen my dad get so many, angry so many times through my life. that just hearing them get angry again and also it'd be one of the worst times too I was just kind of fed up with it

I almost wanted to fight my own dad and stuff like that and start trying to do that really stupid man-up thing but I know I'd just lose that battle if I tried to do it and I was just so upset with him I just didn't know what when you get sometimes this really emotionally upset

and whatnot sometimes he won't even fucking tell us what it is. Sometimes he'll just get angry and one night he'll just be just gets in a pissy mood like that one night and break a lot of shit and then the next day he'll try to rationalize it and be like, oh well, just this thing or that thing without telling us the reason he was even angry in the first place. It's like I just had a fight. What was especially scary about that is my, at that point, I think it was a fight

between my mom and dad more so. But at that point, when we were talking the next day, because my dad was trying to talk and tried to rationalize the situation for him, he almost threatened, or, like, was on the verge of divorcing my mom.

And that really fucking hurt when I heard that. And I just, of course, there's a certain amount of me that wants to defend my dad, but holy shit, he's done some bullshit to me and my sister, my younger brothers, who I do very much care about. that just makes me want to be like,

why the fuck haven't you gotten your shit figured out when you're like 40-something years old? Sorry. Why do me and my siblings have to put up with your angry tirades? Our whole life, when we already have our own shit going on, just feels really unfair. I'm already putting up with shit in school and all that

and having all these issues with trust issues and stuff and sometimes I don't know if you're just going to blow up at me or something. Or for doing something I didn't even take that. Was that wrong? Just really fucking sucks. Sometimes it does feel like, as much as I love them, I feel like I'm sometimes living with a ticking time bomb. That at any moment, will fucking explode in my face by doing something, me doing something that I didn't even think would cause it to blow up. I may miss the mark here a little bit, but is there a part of you that wonders, why do you do this to us? What do you mean by that exactly?

Like, is there a part of you that wonders, like, why your dad does this to you? Like, why are you this way? Like, kind of along the lines of you're like 40-something and why can't you have your shit figured out? Because we're struggling and then you're piling this on top. Like, why do you do this to us? Why can't you just man up? Okay, so, Aaron, how do you feel? I feel kind of tight, to be honest.

Tight? type, maybe a little relieved. I don't know. I'm a little... It's fine to feel tight. You don't have to feel relieved, bro. I just felt like in that little moment there, I kind of just like,

instead of just trying to rationally judge something, I almost didn't. Yep. Then look what happened. What did you find underneath? A lot of shit. Yep. A lot of shit.

So, Aaron, if for those of people who are watching, this is what getting underneath. your defense mechanisms looks like. There's a lot of stuff swirling around inside urine. And I don't know how to say this, bro, but if you have a ticking time bomb for a father, you might have trust issues. What does that mean?

I don't even fucking know what trust issues means, but I'm pretty sure it means some amalgamation of Yu-Gi-O cards and ticking time bombs. And whether trust issues is a ticking time bomb. Who's the next friend, who's going to take your Yu-Gi-O cards away. I can start this coaching process, but what happens week three,

week four, week five, when they start posting all my dirty laundry over all of my social media? There may be all kinds of fears, but it sounds like trust issues to me. I think that's a good way to put it. And Aaron,

you don't have to feel great yet. I mean, I think you just, you know, you jumped into the sewer, so you're not supposed to feel clean. But the good, huh? Yeah, I'm just saying you're like, yeah, you're kind of... Yeah. And at the same time, I think you should give yourself a pat on the back

because, like, I think that stuff has been... You've been carrying that shit around, bro. You've been carrying it around for... It sounds like 19 years. I don't get much of an opportunity to really talk about. And I think it is some of that just kind of man-up philosophy that has been kind of almost ingrained in my brain against my will pretty much.

Yep. That's what we call conditioning. And I think there are other notes in there, flavors. I'm going to describe your emotional experience like a wine. There's a sense of powerlessness to be sure, a sense of wanting to stop it, huddling in your room with your two brothers while there's chaos downstairs and wanting to go down and putting a stop to it. Knowing on some level that there's a lot of hurt distributed amongst a lot of people, and he's the cause of it. That you blame him for it. And then there's the guilt for feeling all of the above. And I think I also just feel a lot of guilt when those situations occur, that I could have done something, but because of just legitimate fear and my fear of confining the situation or whatever, that I feel a lot of guilt from that because I could have been,

done it, but chicken out. And then I promise myself, I swear, next time if something like this happens again, I'm really going to actually do it and like actually try to, you know. Next time it's going to be different. And then it never is. And it feels really shitty.

And so when you're someone who promises yourself next time, I'm going to be stronger. And next time rolls around. and you aren't stronger, what do you start to think about yourself? I'll never be better.

Hey. So I said some time ago that this smells like value to me. There are people more important than me. Why would my shit? Why would it be fair to monopolize a group with my shit? But it's not that they're worth more, and then you've got to be careful because you were raised by missionary parents.

So there's also like a very positive aspect of like putting yourself last and putting other people first. You've got, it's a tricky cocktail that you have there of being very disappointed in yourself and not, and thinking that you're a weak person deep down. For the few people who are like friends of mine and whatnot, because I've basically put up with a lot of crap and not being valued very much, right? I've always tried to, at least with friends and stuff like that, to try to really treat them very well. Which, it's great in all, but sometimes with friends, like, if a situation arises where I don't agree with them or I think that there's something wrong or whatever,

I kind of just don't confront it, really. It's a hard thing for me to understand, but in those situations, I don't end up. saying anything to them. Okay. So I think that's a different... I mean, in a sense, it's the same can of worms, but in another sense,

I think it's a whole different conversation. Yeah, yeah, obviously. You know, so I think that, like, there's the same notes there about, like, what are you afraid in terms of their reaction? I think we've sort of hit on, you know, pieces of it, like a fear of how they're going to react, a fear that they're going to abandon you,

a fear that they won't like you. And then I think the challenge, the challenge, the real damning thing about that, Aaron, is that over time, that fear will create the wrong set of friends. It'll create, you'll attract people who like to be friends with someone who they can bulldoze over. They're going to be narcissistic. Like, there's a reason why, like, people who are very dependent end up with people who are narcissistic. One person thinks of themselves is very awesome and the other person thinks of themselves is very shitty. One person thinks that I'm better than the rest of the world and one person thinks that I'm

less than the rest of the world. And then they get together and it's a match made in heaven or hell. And so in your case, I think you've taken a first and very important step today, which is just in realizing what you feel, recognizing one defense mechanism, which is your tendency to make excuses for other people. And when you start, doing that, look at what comes up. And ultimately, your road to confidence is going to come that way. It's not making excuses for other people. It's bringing up all of those feelings, recognizing those moments where you feel powerless, and then forgiving yourself for them. Recognizing that you have worth in spite of your failure. And right now, all you see,

you don't even see it, but subconsciously, the way that you think about yourself is that you're a failure. Because you promise to yourself, and this is something that we do, man. We make promises to ourselves when we feel weak that tomorrow I'm going to be stronger. We make a promise based on a fantasy. We make a promise based on a hope.

We don't meet ourselves where we're at. We tell ourselves that we'll be better tomorrow. One day I'm going to climb that mountain. And then you wake up the next day and you look at the mountain, and every day that you tell yourself you're going to climb the mountain is a day that you don't take a step.

Every day you tell yourself that I'm going to be better tomorrow creates a karma. It's a cause that creates effect. It's a seed that bears fruit of shame. Every time you promise yourself, all you're signing up for is to feel less about yourself

when you fail. And if you really want to feel better about yourself, swim in the sewer. Let those feelings come out. Acknowledge them for what they are. And recognize as I think you're capable of doing that, like those moments don't define you as a person. That you are far more than those moments of weakness.

And that there are moments of strength. There are moments of goodness. There's genuine caring. And while you may attract the wrong kind of friends, if ever you find a friend who treats you the way that you treat them, that's going to be wonderful. That you're capable of having amazing friendships. I have someone who definitely do respect immensely.

But a while ago, I mentioned, I said I had three friends in elementary school. One of those friends, it's still probably one of my closest friends today. and it's I think it's because of that I've been friends with them since like fourth grade or something like that and I think it's just because I feel like he didn't ever really care about like whatever kind of shield I was putting up or whatever

but really cared about me and let me be comfortable around him whenever yeah so I just wanted to mention that because I can somewhat agree to that yeah So, Aaron, just very concretely going forward. One thing is, if you want to learn meditation today, I'm happy to teach you something.

Second thing is that, you know, I think if you're a university student, you may have some kind of counseling services available through your school. I'd encourage you to at least consider those. And the last thing is that I'd encourage you to sign up for coaching if, you know, if you feel like it. I don't think it really matters. You can start with one or the other. I'm not, you know, if you really want to work on depression or anxiety or something like that, then certainly a mental health provider is more appropriate. But if you want to work on what we did today, which is noticing things about yourself

and uncovering a little bit more about who you are, then I think coaching is sufficient or you can do therapy. The last thing that I want to say is I know that a lot of people feel like, you know, you kind of mentioned some reservations around group, which is that like, oh, my issues, like it's my issues or their issues, right? It's like, I don't want to take time away from other people who have more important things than I do. I don't want to monopolize the time. Here's what people fundamentally don't get in group. Do you know why stream is successful, Aaron?

I think. Yeah, what's your understanding? Actually, I take that back. I actually don't really know. So, like, let me put it another way, okay? So how can I have a conversation? with one individual and why are other people even watching? We're talking about your issues. Because maybe some people can relate. Absolutely. So here's the wild thing.

We all share the same issues. So the real thing is like I wouldn't, I mean, whether you do group or individual or whatever, but like, I mean, someone in here was kind of saying, last meeting he said like, this guy is me. Like this is me. Like there's someone out there who's listening to you right now and this. saying to themselves, this is me. You could be listening and they could be in the conversation and the result would be the same. And so don't worry about that stuff. Like share what you have to share

and other people will learn from it. And whether it be friends or coaching or whatever, your Discord group, your gaming group, you know, do stuff together because you're not in this world alone. Aaron, you're an empathic guy. You're an emotional dude. And I don't mean that in a bad way. you're an understanding dude you're a caring dude you look at the best in people sometimes to the fault of yourself but i think you have the capacity within you to see the best in other people that capacity too can work against you can become maladaptive but overall i think you're a gift to any friendship and let the friends you meet in the future be a gift to you and if people if your friends are going to abandon you if they step out a lot of

line and you call them out on it, let them abandon you. You'll also find people who will be grateful and say, hey, thanks for pointing this out to me. I didn't realize I had that problem. Thanks for letting me know. I'm going to work on it. And by the way, thank you for improving every future relationship that I'll ever have because now I'm aware of this. Some of them will get butt hurt and will leave, which is fine. So like, you want them to go. Because I don't want those kind of things. Some people abandoning you, you should send them a thank you card and flowers, because that's the best thing that they could do for you. Thoughts, questions, meditation?

I'm not sure. I've got a whole lot of things in my head at the moment. Okay. I'm good to do meditation now. That's all right. Sure. Okay. I think about what mediation. can illustrate because I think you kind of did it all. I mean, you did something really good. There was that moment where you caught yourself about to defend, and then you didn't give into it. And that's when I think you really sort of struck gold within yourself. So I'm trying to think about a meditation technique to catch.

The only things that are popping into my head are pretty trolley. Let me just a second. I think they're really not going to be. There's just no way that they're not going to be. get taken out of context. So I'm trying to think of just a particular way to notice a reaction within yourself and to not. So what's something? Okay. Actually, I've got a good one. All right. So naturally. So I'm going to teach you something called kumbok and rechak. So kumbok means breath retention. Rechuk sort of means breath retention too, but there are two kinds of ways that you can

hold your breath, if that makes, this is going to sound kind of weird. But there are two points at which you can hold your breath. One is after inhalation, and one is after exhalation. If you think about it, those are actually two different, both of them qualifies holding your breath, but they're actually like different. Does that make sense? Because one, you've got a lung full of air, one, you don't. So this is what I want you to do. We're going to do kumbak and rechuk with, um, about five seconds of inhalation and exhalation, and five seconds of kumbuk and five seconds of recheck. Generally speaking, breath retention practices are a little bit more advanced and also a little bit more dangerous. So if you have any negative reactions during kumbok or retchak practices, just stop and don't try to do them again.

No big deal. With me? Yeah. Okay. So what we're going to do is breathe in for five seconds, hold for five seconds. Breathe out for five seconds and hold for five seconds. And what I want you to do, Aaron, is don't. So do the breath practice.

But what I really want you to do is pay attention to the rising wave to not do some part of practice. So as you breathe in, yawning is fantastic, actually. So as you breathe in and you hold your breath, you're going to notice for the first second, you feel completely comfortable. And then as the seconds go on, you will start to feel a rising sense of discomfort. And then as you exhale, you will feel a sense of relief. And then as you hold your breath, you may feel rising discomfort. So what I want you to learn how to do is to pay attention to the rise and fall of discomfort within you, to notice it.

Because what you did today is as you're going about things, you're going to have certain feelings, and those feelings will evoke thoughts of wanting you to, like, defend other people. And if you defend other people, it's going to be, like, breathing out or breathing in. You'll feel this immense sense of relief. So I think a lot of people will get a benefit from learning how to tolerate and not give into a rising sense of discomfort from within. we think about so many things whether it's exercise eating a vegetable that you don't like going to class thinking about going to class and all of the escapes that we give ourselves all of the defenses that we let ourselves engage in that allow us to escape from discomfort good yawning is good

oh sorry I don't let me yawning a lot maybe you'll fall asleep okay so all right so all right so sit up straight, eyes closed, and then begin the breathing practice. So in, two, three, four, five, hold. Two, three, four, five. Out. Two, three, three, four, five. and hold. Two, three, four, five. In, two, three, four, five. Out, two, three, three, four, five. Hold. Two, three, four, five.

Out, two, three, three, four, five. And hold. Two, three, three, four, five. In, two, three, four, Five. Hold. Two, three, four, five. Out. Now continue breathing. Let yourself breathe comfortably for a moment. How does it feel to breathe normally? A little better. That was hard, isn't it? So just notice that. Notice that relief. Notice how difficult it is. Notice letting yourself go. You're going to tweak it a little bit. We're going to do four seconds, okay? So in, two, three, four, hold. Two, three, four. Out.

Two, three, four. Hold. Two, three, four. In. Two, two. three, four. Hold. Two, three, four. Out. Two, three, four. And hold. Two, three, four. Free breathing. Eyes closed. Let yourself relax. And now I want you to try to do anywhere between one and three rounds on your own. Let yourself come back. How do you feel? I kind of feel like a lot less panicked.

Kind of feel more calm. Good. So we're here for, man. So if you want to continue working on those feelings, those emotions and things like that, and you can return to this practice to let those feelings come up. Don't tank that agro by giving people excuses. Just let, take that DPS. and then breathe through it.

Then you'll heal yourself up. And you'll feel hopefully like you do now, which I imagine is a little bit tired, a little bit spent, a little bit calm. I do feel tired. I do feel tired, actually. Yeah. This is work.

It's not just talking. It's work. You should treat it as such. Sometimes people, like, especially by patients, will be like, oh, hey, like, do you, Can we meet like after hours or on the weekend? I'm like, no, man, this is work. It's part of your workday.

When you're off on a week of vacation, you don't come to therapy. Take a week off. It's work. It's not an indulgence. It's work. Good luck to you, man. Yeah. Thank you.

Take care. You too.