If I Speak - 78: What does it take to feel safe?

Episode Date: September 2, 2025

*Get the If I Speak Baggu bag from shop.novaramedia.com* A shocking real-life incident prompts a conversation about feeling safe, trusting your gut and the politics of public safety. Plus: advice on finding friendship after leaving a conservative religious community. TW: sexual assault (at 43m) Send us your dilemmas: [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

We should open with a tapping. Hello listeners, hi listeners. That groan is Ash Sarker. Ashaka is having a morning that I think a lot of you will empath. with what has happened is that one I'm really really burnt out at the moment and I've got I've got three of my four horsemen of burnout we keep going ill I've got a cold sore and I've not been sleeping very well oh when you went three it was two five minutes ago well well we've got up one is not sleeping very well we've got up one okay shit we're really close and then we I was trying to make something work technically

and I broke my microphone so apologies if the sound quality isn't as good as normal and yeah I I'm so glad I don't live in a culture where people keep loaded guns in the house because I would go fucking postal.

Yeah, you really understand why America is the way it is when you realise that they have the easy access to guns and we're so quick you know like to anger i i dropped something this morning because i don't think i have three of the horsemen but i'm definitely overworked i've overworked myself i've overstretched myself to the empty degree but i always do that so i won't go on about it however i will say that i very much empathize with you because i was rushing around this morning doing something and i just it was

something silly like i dropped a piece of kitchen roll and that led to me dropping a knife and that led to me dropping a load of food. I was just like, ah! Why now? And the obvious answer is now because you're stressed in the first place, so then things go more wrong

because you're chaotically rushing around. But knowing that doesn't make it feel better because you're like, well, I have to just deregulate my nervous system, but that's going to take fucking 10 days of lying on a beach. I hope you've got 10 days of lying on a beach coming up. I have booked a week of holiday in mid-September.

I really just have to learn. from the point of which we're recording, like keep it together for two more weeks. And like, this is my own fault. I have been working basically continuously, like since January. Like, every time I've taken time off, I've not actually had time off. I've either been, like, working on something else

or doing Navarra stuff remotely. And I don't regret it. it felt like an important year because of book stuff and the reasons why I was being drawn back to Navarra stuff like I'm glad I did those things but I'm paying for it now and also like I don't know if viewers can see the cold sore but to me it seems like the most prominent thing on the planet you know I can't even see the coldslaw

coldslaw I can't see the cold slur I can't see the coldslaw I can't see coldslaw I can't see cold slaughter and I can't see the cold sore and I'm sat across me so it's not that it's not a prominent as you think if it helps do you have questions for me I do and you already know this because you can see into the future obviously that's what I'm talking about um okay question one you actually only know one question so favorite duet oh this question's so unexpected um this is because we started recording on my good mic and then i broke it um it's got to be something with Marvin gay and Tammy Terrell and I've already forgotten what the name of the

song is even though you reminded me of it uh well the one that I suggested it could be was you're all I need to get by I think I'm pretty sure it's you're all I need to get by can you hum it to me so that I know which one you're talking about you're all yeah it's that one I need to get by. Now I'm going to the Ritha one. I went to the Erethor one. I went to the Ritha one. It's because she does this run where she's like,

Langa Zia get me, and she was, oh, that run. Oh, it's beautiful. I saw a video of Aretha the other day singing, Touch My Body by Mariah Carey. No. And it was, yeah, she sang at like two different concerts. And it was, the thing is she does it as like a jokey thing.

She loves Mariah. She and Mariah had a great relationship. And she was doing it as a jokey. thing being like, I can't sing these lyrics. I'm a lady of church. But she's like, it's so good. I'm begging for a full version of really going, touch my body.

Like it's, oh, her voice was unparalleled. Unparalleled. Anyway, I won't ever get that. Sadly, she's dead. Question two. Can a leopard change its spots? I've never seen it happen. But I suppose it's like,

what do you mean by change its spots? what do you mean what do you mean what do you think i mean i think i think we tend to use the phrase a leopard can't change its spots in contexts of shaming and you might have some really really good reasons to sort of you know socially shame somebody right it's it's it's part of how our moral system operates but i think if instead of flipping it around from like that context of shame it Well, you know, Leopard can't change its spots, like once a wrong and always are wrong in. And instead, you're talking about you can't change this thing which profoundly marks you and defines you. I'd say, well, yeah, it's really hard, and I'm impossible to change those really, really profound things.

Like maybe you can tone it down, maybe you can sort of moderate it with other qualities, but it's always going to be there. So in that sense, I agree with it. in the other sense of social shaming, which is you're always going to be defined by the bad thing that you did. I think, well, no. A beautifully diplomatic and hopeful answer. And now on to something much more important,

Shag, marry, kill, Tesco, Sainsbury's, Morrison's. I would kill Tesco's. Obviously, correct answer. Would Shag Sainos. And I would marry Morrison's. Why would you marry Morrow's? Why would you marry Morrisons over Sainers? I would marry Morrisons for the meat counter,

decent meat counter in the Big Morisons. Yeah, I think Morrison's has the best faux, grocery sort of set up. And obviously it's taking away from all the independent butchers and bakers and candlestick makers. But it's very convenient, isn't it? But it's very convenient if you happen to live near Big Morisons. The thing about Sainsbury's is that, It's obviously not as much of a holiday romance as like Waitrose or, what, dare I say, a car, though. But, you know, you can get some, you know, you can get like a little Belazoo item.

You know, you can pick up your rose, harissa, you know, your roasted black sesame seeds. You know, Morrison's, you're not getting that. You're not getting that. But you can get your big chop. Not unless you go to really big Morrisons, that's in particular neighbourhoods where they've tailored the offering to the people who live within that neighbourhoods. also anyone listening being like why didn't you include Lidl because I'm doing the classic big three I'm not doing otherwise also Lidl would blow them out the walls we all know this let's play with the classic big three uh Tesco is always forever shit also I don't think

that little like if you're thinking about like the Shag Marikill format like little is sort of like well none of it it's it's kind of like you know the thing that I will always always come back to and maybe like at the age of 90 we're both both on our rocking chairs and we're like, do you realize we spent our lives together? Yeah. You know? It's different. Yeah.

Little exists in a category outside the tradition. Hetchonautish, chag-maricill. Is Shagmary-Kill, heteronautive? Discuss. Okay. That's our humanities grads ask. Right. 40 marks for that.

Okay, right. You have a big intrusive thought or something like that? Yeah. I have a really big intrusive. I think it's so ambitious for someone who's burnt out because I can barely get my head around this and you're on your last two brain cells so I'm excited to see where this goes

but I'm worried that I won't be able to keep up. Oh, it may end in tears, but... Let's just talk about burnout, man. Let's explore. No, no. No, I want to talk about this. I want to talk about this. And I also want to talk about this because it's something which is really, really featuring, like, in my social world at the moment, but also I think it's such a huge part of politics, not just in the UK, but like in the US. And, like, it's such a big part of how people are experiencing the world around them that I think we need to, I think we need to crack open this walnut.

You are right. You are right. That's going to do that. So, top line question. What does? does it take to feel safe? And I'm phrasing that really, really deliberately, because I think being safe and feeling safe are two different things. PTSD gang stand up, like we all know that your emotions and your nervous system

is always telling you the truth about what's going on in the environment, right? So a few weeks ago, my best mate got physically attacked in the street. It was the middle of the day. It was a sunny, bright Sunday afternoon. She was walking along down the road. And I think she brushed past a woman who was clearly very unwell and had substance abuse issues. And so this other woman grabbed her from behind by the hair and then just started like punching her in the head repeatedly.

like it's just really really horrible and really scary especially something coming at you from behind because when bad things have happened to me from the front you know that's the direction my hands are facing that's the direction all my senses are pointed at and I feel even if I feel like overpowered or something like that I'm like oh I can I can act to to mitigate the situation in some way, or I can see it and I know what it is. But when something's coming at you from behind, I think that is just such a primal sense of fear, like a really, really, you know, this has been encoded in us from our days on the savannah, that kind of fear.

So, you know, my friend, you know, wasn't badly injured or anything like that. You know, there were people around her, like other strangers in the street who sort of like offered support and comfort. But very understandably, it's shaken her up. I actually think that she's handling it really admirably. Like, she has been putting herself in crowds and in busy places, like sooner than a lot of people would. But her hypervigilance is a lot more prominent. So she's jumpy, you know, a loud noise or the feeling of someone passing close by behind her.

It just sort of, it sets off those nervous system alarm bells for her. and I just think that that's I don't know anyone who wouldn't have those kinds of reactions she happened to choose not to go to the police about it because she was like this woman's really unwell like what's you know how the police is going to help her

and people can make different choices that was just the judgment that she came to so what do I think about this I think that you can go your whole life without this thing happening to you ever right even in london even in london which you know the far right accounts would like us to believe is you know a kind of crime riddled war zone you can go a whole life in london without this ever happening to you it's completely random like it's got nothing to do with anything she did right there's nothing that you can say oh you should have done this differently

or shouldn't have been here or you should have done it like this totally random like it could have happened to someone else that day, it could have happened to nobody that day, totally and utterly random. But obviously, these experiences, even if you can accept, hey, it was random, it could never happen, just because it happened to me doesn't mean it's representative of something wider. It does have an impact in terms of how safe you feel and how risky you perceive the place that you live as being, well, the place where the bad thing happens. I think that's just a natural part of how humans process things. And also at the moment, street crime is really, really dominating the news because the conservatives and reform are both trying to link it

to immigration. So whenever there is some kind of stranger crime, which is obviously really different from offending where the perpetrator is known to the victim, like the newspapers and both right-wing parties are deliberately seeking out where the perpetrators are immigrants, asylum seekers or people of colour. All of these things put together, of this thing happening to someone who's really, really close to me. And also all the stuff that's going on in the news, I think the asylum hotel protests are part of this picture as well because the way in which it's being framed is all about safety.

You know, the things that these protesters are saying is like, well, I don't want all these men here hanging around, doing nothing. Like, you know, the allegations of, in particular, sexual offences against, you know, girls and women in the local area. It's all framed about stranger crime and public. safety. I wanted to talk about safety in its fullest sense. I want to ask how are we made to feel more or less safe because it serves political and coercive purposes. So how is there a project to make us perceive and experience our safety in a different way? I also want to ask personally,

how do you make sense of actually existing risk as you go about your day-to-day life? How do you perceive the risks that you have to deal with. And how do you recover a sense of security after something bad happens? How do you build up your sense of safety again and your confidence to move through the world and a world where, you know, there's a lot of stimulation and random things can happen? And I suppose finally, is there a way for us to talk about public safety, feeling safe in public, feeling safe around people we don't know, without it turning into a big old reactionary mess so lots of questions here and I throw it to you to interpret in any way you want what the hell six questions all of the equally weighty ash why does it make you feel

unsafe um it makes me feel slow and like a potato because I think part of the problem with not even the questions themselves is that some of them just the answer seems obvious to me so I find it very hard to just be like, well, duh, we're getting exploited. Our sense of safety is being exploited by political actors all the time, constantly seized upon. Whereas the things that would actually make us feel safe, I sometimes think that we're displacing our sense of unsc- I think we're displacing a lack of safety onto, you know, this external boogeyman, other, which the avatar for that can be anything from migrants and small boats. to grooming gangs around the corner

and what it really is a displacement of safety and security within just like the basic tenets of citizenship like access to transport, access to housing, access to financial security and the less that we have those, obviously the more that we feel precarious and unsafe and then politicians can be like,

well, this is why you feel unsafe, well this is why you feel unsafe, this is an easy fixable thing and never easy, easily fixable thing they're even pointing at, but it's obviously much more expeditious, not expeditious. It suits them convenient to point at an external other than to have to be like, well, the economy is not actually working. And the capitalist system that we've heralded for so long is actually completely extractive.

And it didn't even do what we said it would do in terms of, you know, you're going to get paid a fair wage for your labour. Instead, it's actually all the money is just, it's gone to the top. Sorry, there's no money left. We don't have any money either because it's all gone to like five people um and also and also just to add to that really really quickly yeah add like immigration does fit into that because one of the things i've been thinking a lot about is that like if you are an anti-immigrant voter right which which many many people in this country are i mean like

you know there's a sort of like cross-party electoral consensus and there has been for for decades of like we want less immigration that's never happened and you've had this huge government hypocrisy which is every single government comes in being like, we're going to crack down an immigration. And the numbers of immigrants go up because these governments have no economic model. So they're like, shit, we're literally going to be in a recession. Like if we don't, if we stop just adding people to the economy,

like to inflate GDP, we're going to be in a recession. So they're fucking telling people, we're going to crack down an immigration. The numbers don't actually ever go down. And instead, what they deliver is like a whole raft of measures, which make life a lot harder for immigrants, like a lot harder and a lot more miserable and also create conditions where it's basically if you're making under a certain amount of money it only makes financial sense to come here

as an undocumented immigrant because the sectors in which you can find work whether it's like deliveroo riding or like bits of the care system they're paying poverty wages so if if you've set these rules of like it costs this much to get a visa you have to have this much in the bank account blah blah blah blah blah like you can't actually work afford to work in those sectors so it's just I think that like this isn't me going and like you're not you know there's a left wing case against immigration it's it's also seeing the way in which um like these these really huge numbers of people being like added to the population is also part of the broken economic model in a way which also like completely like at the same time scapegoats those people who are coming here to make a life for themselves.

I would also say that exacerbating feelings of being unsafe in the broader sense is not just something that serves like a specific political purpose. It's something that serves a content purpose. So a lot of there's a lot of sort of content or broad generalisations about certain areas of London being more unsafe, etc. and there's often when you go back you'll find the roots of this start in like a telegram group for the far right but when you trickle down it just gets turns into something that becomes an assertion that's taken as gospel truth that this thing has happened that this thing exists and by osmosis people do believe it on some level even if they they don't have any evidence it's that because it's like this peer to peer it's the way that urban legends also spread and anyone who's read my substack knows how I feel about urban legends, which I call low-level misinformation and have a very strong reaction to. But I mean, I suppose urban legends are fables, aren't they? And they tell us something about our current. Which is funny because the urban legend I heard the other day that really pissed me off was one about women getting spiked with laxatives by a hinge date.

And it turned out that circulated like eight years ago as a, it was a Tinder date back then. Complete myth. I even emailed them met to... ascertain the veracity of this and they were like there's no one doing this but it says so much that recently spiking epidemics have become sort of the urban legend that's become an urban legend in itself this idea that there's someone going out around spiking people with laxatives for sexual pleasure like what does that say about uh what we are willing to believe and the paranoies that we have at this moment it's a feeling of you know i think there's a there's a there's a crisis upon everything from like a crisis in dating the idea that men are just predatory extractive

this fear of being spiked uh this idea of like dangerous perversions lurking under the surface there's so much and hinge being the the mechanism for that before it was tinder so much is there and it's all to do with like strangers and coming into contact with strangers anyway um but yeah so content as well you see like people who bloggers whatever who are willing to just go down and make content because they know it will get them views and they might believe some of this stuff. Some of them are really deep into it. But some of them just know what's going to get traction. And they know that fear and division gets so much more traction. So there's an amorality behind some of the proliferation of like content that feeds these narratives. But that

doesn't fucking matter because it's still sewn, sown the feeling of being unsafe, that vague feeling that there is a shadow, there is a specter, that somebody is coming. I keep waking up in the middle of night thinking someone's coming into my room. Yeah. Which is, I don't I've never had that before. And maybe it's because right now I'm staying on my own for a little bit, not for much longer, anyone trying to attack me. But I've got real paranoia that someone's come into my room. And I don't know where that's come from or when that started.

And it's obviously to do with heat and night terrors. But this feeling of like insecurity, lack of safety, even in my own bedroom has sunk in. Why? Like, where is that coming from? I mean, I've got, I guess I've got more to say on these topics, but it depends where you want me to actually take it next with your questions. Like, which question was more important to you?

They're all equally important. I love all my children equally. I mean, I think that there is something here about strangers, which I find really, really interesting, which is, you know, I think that this is a big feature of, you know, human history, the history of urbanisation, which is when you've got lots of people living together very, very densely, but also like a relatively high turnover of people, like people are coming, people are going, is that I think that that does introduce these fears of like,

do I know you? Like, you know, are you part of a social fabric where we are known to each other and accountable to each other? Like I think there are feelings of instability there. And, you know, certainly the rise of the crime genre of writing, whether it's like very sensationalist, penny dreadfuls and stuff, you know, that overlaps with, you know, the beginnings of industrialisation and urbanisation. It's a way of like speaking to, you know, those fears that we have. And I always say this all the time, which is that the line between fantasy and nightmare is very, very, very. thin and blurry and maybe it doesn't even exist you know one flips into the other all the time

and there's this really interesting thing about how you know the biggest consumers of true crime it's women so when it's like and the cheerleader was horrifically assaulted and dismembered and found under a bridge in 15 bags like the people consuming that are women and i don't think and and people have tried to simplify why that is and you know one way in which people try and simplify why that is because it's like women trying to keep themselves safe by knowing what's out there. I think that's part of it. But then I also think there is, because I think that human psychology is like, you know, not to not to come across all, she's check, but it's twisted. It's perverse. It is twisted and perverse. And sometimes there are these like fantasies

of like, you know, oh, the specialness of the victim, the chosenness of the victim. And there's this sort of like strange cross-identification. You know, I think there's also. You know, I think there's also sometimes this like flip which is like are you occupying when when you're consuming this kind of media are you occupying the position of the victim you're occupying the position of the perpetrator even like you know there's there's a vicariousness which isn't always fixed to one position or the other and and so I think that you know this this is part of the human condition the mistrust of strangers I think is is part of it and it's not about you know okay well humans just mistressed strangers, so we're always going to other people. For me, it's about, well, then

what are our options for actually getting to know people? Like, you know, what are our options for actually coming into contact with people? And that is one of the things which has become so, so degraded because of the loss of third spaces. And I think is like a massive, just like a massive contributing factor to like feelings of anxiety and these feelings of like, you know, It's either up to me to keep myself safe or, like, you know, the other part of it is, like, how gendered and fucked up it is. Like, I see this genre of, like, you know, video pop up on, like, TikTok and Instagram, which is, like, you know, a woman walking along like, tra la la la la, la.

And she's, like, holding hands of the man who's, like, his eyes are swiveling everywhere. It's, like, my job to keep her safe. Like, it's a fantasy about gendered roles and, like, how that relationship works. So sorry if that was super duper garbled, but that was just to sort of pick up on your point about strangers and think about, like, what's the truth in it? What's the sort of confected element of it? I find this to talk about, like, loss of third spaces is so fascinating

because I think, obviously, we've lost stuff like community centres, that's a pretty clear one, or, you know, local ledger centres. But there's still a lot of third spaces that exist. coffee shops, pubs, pubs on the rise among Gen Z. But the number of pubs is going, like, pubs are closing. The pubs are closing, and I'm not saying there isn't some third spaces being lost, but I'm also not saying that in lots of areas, those third spaces don't exist. I think what has changed as well that has talked about less is people opting to use them,

or when they're in them, they're maybe not interacting with the strangers. It's like the community that would have frequented the third space, I think 20, 30 years ago would have been tight-knit and more long-term. Now it's more iterant. So you get third spaces that come in and out of sort of fashion and use with like a population that is not so used to interact with a third-da. And because a lot of them are, we now do a lot of our socialising online, I think there is a fear of strangers and a fear of interacting,

which is why I think it's really interesting. look at like the rise of pubs among Gen Z, then they've gone back up in popularity when they offer an activity. I was doing a great article in the FT the other day that when they do things like karaoke or bingo nights or board game nights, Gen Z love a pub if there is a stimulus beyond simply drinking and talking because it gets them interacting. And I think people do long for that connection. There is a shift back to that. So I know that third space has disappeared, but I'm also saying some of them haven't. And some of it is down to behaviour. So, So when I go into a third space now,

I do try and talk to people that I don't know because that's like part of the point of it. Whereas before it was like, I'm going to this space. I'm expecting someone to talk to me, but they're not going to. You have to not be afraid of the world outside. There's an interesting thing,

which is like I think that norms around this have changed, which is it used to be that if you're at a pub and you sat at the bar, it meant you wanted people to talk to you. Yeah, you want to chat. You're open to people talking to you. And I think that some of the cultural norms around that have shifted

like because of heightened awareness of just like how yeah oppressive unwanted attention like particularly as a woman can be and it's made people feel more inhibited about striking up conversations with strangers like I think that there's been like some real overcorrections and one of those overcorrections has been sort of interpreting every unplanned interaction as an unwanted one or an unwelcome one or an entreeks. intrusion of some kind. And so I think that's why, you know,

Gen Z needs the excuse of like the bingo night, the board game night, the karaoke to be like, okay, we can interact because like here's this thing. Like it used to be that you didn't need that. You would just be like, if you're open to talking, you'd sit at the bar. I'm not sure if there's ever been an equivalent for that in non-alcohol spaces.

So like coffee shops and that. I don't know if there's been the same sort of like social norm of like if you sit here or you behave like this, it means you're open to be. spoken to and that's maybe something to think about like again particularly when it comes to like changing demographics where like not just because the rise in Muslims were everywhere but like also like the rise in non-drinkers um like you know that is also something to consider which is like in the pub at least there used to be a social script for here's how you talk to new people you sit

the bar like i'm not sure if the same thing exists in spaces which which aren't built around alcohol And it takes time for those norms to emerge. It takes time to create them. I suppose, like, I do have a question for you about actually existing risk or, like, maybe not actually existing risk. How do you deal with feelings of unsafe? And when do you feel that? I read a book really recently, which I've probably mentioned on here, and I've definitely

written about called The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. And it was one of the most clarifying and interesting books I've read in recent. memory and it is all about this very subject it is about the feeling of being unsafe and how to separate perceived risk from actual risk and de becker basically says that a lot of our paranoia and worrying is for nothing and that it black that if you spend all your day walking about looking for the risk looking for the lack of safety you are actually blanking out the gut intuition that will guide you when you really are in danger. And he covers everything from, you know,

ascertaining when a threat should be taken seriously to when you are under attack in some way and how to listen to your body. And he says, this is not a foolproofing, but he says our body is a huge, like on our intuition, our internal systems have evolved to be these amazing predictors and even though we drown them out with, you know, muffling our senses, whether that's with our phone,

or headphones or whatever those evolutionary instincts are still there and the paranoia that has arisen in modern culture muffles them as well rather than actually enhances them and that took a lot of weight off my mind I mean I think I've been quite lucky through life because I've never, I'm not saying I've never felt unsafe because I have but I don't think I've ever been one

to be scared without due cause and I think that's a very lucky place to be in because a lot of people grow up feeling a constant fear and I didn't feel that

like I've said in my writing I don't walk through the streets at night with my keys in my fingers I don't think every man approaching me is going to attack me I wouldn't walk through a dark park but I don't necessarily think that there is a danger lurking in there

do you know like the risks that I feel every day are the ones that there are very clear and obvious reasons to feel so if I do get an alarm bell from say a man masturbating at me on a bridge there's a pretty obvious reason why that's happening most of most of my alarm bells are going off um like I had one recently that I won't talk about too much but it went off and the person that it went off about turned out to be a very dangerous individual very dangerous and I was like okay, intuition works. There's someone else that I met. I had a very bad feeling.

I just, from the way that they were crossing boundaries, the way they talked, the way they moved through the world, also turned out to be a dangerous person. But most of my risk comes from stuff like, I don't wear my bike helmet enough. That's an obvious fucking risk. Where your bike helmet? I will at some point.

It's not with me at the moment, I don't think. Actually, it must be somewhere in my house. It's got to be somewhere. But that's an obvious risk, right? Or special ones, you have full permission to bully Moyer up, the bike helmet. I feel really strongly about this. Your brain is so precious. It's so, so precious.

It is. But see what I mean, that's a risk. Or walking down the street, looking at my phone by a road. That's a risk. That's a clear risk. My phone's probably going to get snatched. So when I'm doing those things, I feel pranged and nervous. But those are risks that I knowingly have undertaken.

whereas okay so the other day I was at a bus stop and there was a man and he was clearly both very drunk probably quite unstable and he I walked by the bus stop and he I made the mistake of smiling at him because I'd just come off like a good date so I was in a good mood and I smiled at him and he started talking to me but I just ignored it because I was like okay do you not engage with this person then another couple walked by and he began shouting abuse at them and then he squared up to the man and then he started throwing his can and i was like okay this is a clear escalation in behavior now there is an obvious threat so everyone at bust stop moved away he hadn't done anything fully yet where he like punched anyone there was no no one else wanted to escalate it further like

if i think he'd been challenged actively he would have engaged in full physical behavior but as it was he was just very drunk and throwing around threats but we all just moved away and didn't make eye contact because that is the, that's what you do. Like until there is more, until there is an escalation of behavior, you mitigate it and then you get on the bus

and then you drive away. And something Gavin DeBacker talks about a lot is like assessing the appropriate reaction to something, assessing what to meet a threat with. And there's a really interesting bit where he's talking about, do you want justice or do you want to be safe? And those two things don't always align.

So I think I probably mentioned it before, but in some cases, for example, in domestic abuse cases, then, you know, a lot of the time women are told, get a restraining order, that'll sort it out. One, it won't because it's a piece of paper. When someone is abusive and controlling, their abuse and control does not stop with a piece of paper. The piece of paper, in fact, is sometimes a red rag to the bull

because they see that as a public humiliation. They see that as a public defiance of the control, which is why things like refuges are so. important for women or anyone who's been subject to domestic abuse because the thing to do is remove that person from the sphere of control. They, the person doing the control and the perpetrator needs to not know where they are. They need to not know what they're doing. They need to be removed quietly from the sphere of control.

But often we're pushed to get justice, which is like, send that person to prison, get a restraining order to do all these things. In a just world, yeah, those things would work. We don't live in a just world. We live in a world, a patriarchal world where mechanisms. of domination control and public status have such power. So the shutting down of refuges, you know, the defunding of the police, obviously, when people talk about that, they're like, that's going to be contributing to domestic abuse rates

or the proliferation of domestic abuse. No, it's the shutting down of refuges. It's the removing of these routes to care. And I know that you're like, you know, we shouldn't defund the police or whatever, but I think that can co-exist with what I'm saying, which is that often, these these ideas of like justice and what we think is a just response is not what's going to equal a safe response i mean i so there are so many ways to go with this um okay so i think the first thing is that like i think that all like from from my knowledge of like um domestic

violence stuff i mean i don't want to go it's like too much into it about why why i know about it Part of it's because my mom's a now retired social worker, so this counted as like dinner table conversation. But there are the reasons to is that one of the things that stops men offending or is a causal factor in the periods in which men aren't offending is that they're more scared of something worse happening to them. So police, prison, punishment plays a role in that. It depends on the perpetrator. No, but it's one of the most common things. It's just like that's what the studies show. And one of the things that the study show is that that is that the work of really intensive

rehabilitation, particularly for domestic abuse users, has a very, very low success rate. I'm not saying that there's no reason to like look at that or develop that more, but it does have a really, really low success rate. And if you're thinking about women's safety, not just in terms of like this particular victim needs a safe place to go, but you've got, you've got an abuser, like who after having abused one person is highly likely to move on to someone. else you know like simply being like fill up the refuge is like that's one part of the response and it's important but I also think that fear of punishment is is important I mean

prevention is better than cure and one of the things that like we've shown is that prevention is is easier than cure so like dealing with um you know the sort of like cultural misogyny that like exists in our society identifying like risk factors in terms of men who are likely to abuse often because they've witnessed that um like in their own homes and their upbringings and and dealing with it then like those are really important preventative measures I just think I just think punishment also has has a role and that the the literature backs this up I think it's only only the punishment removes the perpetrator though because the thing as they get out, if you just give them restraining order, like the other studies that Gavin De Becker's

quoting in his research, which are really compelling, is that the rates of sort of like offending goes down for a bit and then they shoot back up. So after a year, most of those restraining orders are broken. So when I talk about like, you know, I don't think things like restraining orders work, I just don't think they work. And when I talk about this idea of like we focus so much to the castor response, honestly, like it's all or nothing. You either lock them up for life or you find on the way to deal with it, because once they get out, they are back on that trip. I just think that, like, I've never heard any single approach, which fills me with confidence that this is the way to deal with domestic abusers.

Like, you know, I'm not saying that, like, it has to be punishment. The thing I'm saying is that I'm really, really skeptical of non-carceral responses. Because they seem to me to be, like, led by the ideology of the thing that they want to work, rather than does it work? But we can move on from that and maybe thinking about like safety and risk. My sense of self as a person is that I am someone who has a very low tolerance for risk

and I think of myself as someone who's really, really drawn towards safety and security. And something that my partner says is, are you fucking deranged because look at your job like look at your job people want to murder you all the fucking time um like i've had to deal with lots of like not just death threats but you know things that have happened in person as well um and the fact that i continue to do the job and enjoy the job and find a great deal of meaning and personal fulfillment from it i haven't worked that into my sense of self because in my heart i'm like well i'm just such a risk averse person and then as my

partner says is, you know, save it, sister. He doesn't, he doesn't buy it one bit. So there is a big contradiction there. For the most part, I'm not, it doesn't make me paranoid. A sign that I'm stressed is that I have dreams of being chased and hounded in the far right trying to get me. And like, you know, I've got to try and keep myself or people that I love safe. And, um, And I get sleep paralysis quite a lot. And I think part of why I get sleep paralysis is that I'm also really good at lucid dreaming. And so I sort of think the price you have to pay for that asleep paralysis. And I remember once this was the first time I got really, really, really terrible death threats.

Like this was the first time it was really overwhelming. It was 2016. And I got sleep paralysis and I remember it was like sort of thinking there was this like neo-Nazi guy in the room. And I remember thinking that he was crawling up the bed, like, up my legs. And, like, if he got to my head, I was going to die. So clearly, like, that experience of, like, dealing with lots of violent imagery, like, has an impact on me psychologically. But generally doesn't have a huge effect on my sense of safety out there in the world. And I think that I'm pretty good at dealing with risk and making assessments of safety really,

very quickly, you know, the other thing is like, I think to be a woman is to live under the shadow of rape in some way and to feel like it is your job to wrestle with the specter of rape. Sorry, I should have said trigger warning for this part, so trigger warning for this portion of the discussion. And sexual assault is also something which, like, is part of my history, it's something which has happened. And I'm still, like, you know, many, many, many years later, I still experienced that as a sense of personal failure, as a sense of I grew up knowing about, like, all these risks and all these dangers.

And it didn't get into my head well enough. And I failed, right? I failed that I did stupid things, like, you know, in these ways. It's my fault. And it's so, I mean, one, it's bullshit, like, you know, just to say that that internal voice of victim blame, which I think is really, really common for lots of people. It's lying to you. Like, it's lying to you.

Like, and part of the reason why I think that voice kicks in is because it's part of the illusion of control that we all feel that we need to have. We all need to feel that we're in charge of our own safety in order to exist in a world, which is chaotic and random, bad things can happen. and the flip side of that that coping mechanism of like oh i've got some degree of control over this is that when something goes wrong you really really blame yourself and then of course there is like the wider control context of misogyny and victim blaming and all the rest of it but i think that i do think that it's part of the flip side of this control um but interestingly

it hasn't affected me in terms of high feel in public like like like if if i'm out and I'm like interacting with like men or like you know I've gone dancing or something like I'm not I'm not anxious about it the anxiety um kicks in terms of spaces of real intimacy where I've got this really overwhelming freeze response and like I'm having to deal with like a nervous system that's like ah someone's very very close to you time to like shut down time to freeze up like you know we know what this is like and that's very different from I feel scared or I feel unsafe or I have an image in my head of the bad thing that's happening. It's actually completely bypassed the level of conscious thought.

It's my nervous system is responding in a way which is completely inappropriate to the situation and completely inappropriate to what it is that I want to happen. And for a really long time, my way of dealing with that was to just try and like willpower through it. you know when I'm confronted with something difficult I tend to have two responses one is we put that in the box marked never look at it

and the other one is okay it's time to be like a bull it's time to be like a bull and just like use all your muscle and like brute force your way through and unsurprisingly neither repression or brute force worked with this thing which is

your nervous system doesn't believe that you're safe right and it's moving quicker than your brain it's moving quicker than your consciousness and the thing that like I had to do is like invite a conversation around like safety and going okay what's it take for me to feel safe how do I feel safe with my partner like how do we talk about this together and sort of invite invite the idea that you know because because it was so like I said like happening at the level of unconscious to go like, okay, like nervous system going crazy. Like, that's because it doesn't feel safe.

And then inviting that as a conversation with my partner was really, really important. And I think that this does sort of take us to the next thing which I want to talk about, which is like, how do you recover a sense of security and how do you recover a sense of safety? I think for me, because like repression and brute force are my ways of dealing with something, in order to recover a sense of safety, sometimes I have to say the sentence, I feel unsafe, which is something which I hate doing, hate doing, not part of my sense of self, but I think has been really important. When do you say I feel unsafe though? What are the occasions?

Well, it's, first it's going, if I'm having a freeze response, right? If I'm having a freeze response and I'm feeling like dissociating, rather than just going like fucking idiot, like punch through, go, okay, my nervous system. feels unsafe and it's not about going and that's because the situation is unsafe it's about going my nervous system feels unsafe and it needs attention my nervous system needs attention and it needs like soothing and then and just by acknowledging like my nervous system needs some soothing and often the things that it takes to see that are really really simple like for me it's often like laughing like having a laugh with my partner like and he's a funny motherfucker when he wants to be

is that that's a real like when I freeze up often laughter is the thing that's needed in order to like get me to like enjoying intimacy is to like have that have that fun so yeah I mean that tends to be what it looks like it tends to be going my nervous system feels unsafe it needs to be soothed

and identifying the things which soothe it I'm trying to think if like I've ever had to recover after bad things have happened I just don't think I have I think I've been too lucky in my life. I've not been personally attacked. I've not been

sexually assaulted in a high level way. I think everyone has been low level sexually assaulted. But mine's just been, you know, telling someone to... So what a horrible laugh that is. What a horrible laugh that we say these things and we're like, well!

I'm just thinking of, you know, man groping you on the bus or getting groped in the corridor or, you know, having to say no, a few too many times, but eventually they do stop. But I just, the traumatic things that I, that I deal with are far more about not my safety, other people's safety.

Someone said to me when they were angry at me that they, that they didn't feel safe around me. And this person then proceeded to like scream and yell at me. And I was like, the fact that I'm sitting here, like, talking so slowly and that you say you don't feel safe because I am they felt like I was being like quite mean um in like a pass ag way and then proceeded to like scream and yell at me about something else and I was like our definitions of safety is so different because when someone was and it was really really like a learning moment so I was like for them feeling unsafe is uh feeling like this person hasn't got that back and for me feeling unsafe is if someone screams at me like that was when I was like

oh well maybe I do actually feel unsafe but that's crazy but I didn't even want to say that I felt unsafe because I think that's such a it's such a weighty statement I just didn't feel comfortable and I think there is also we also mistakes sometimes discomfort

with a lack of safety that sometimes conflated a bit but who am I to judge other people's sense of safety actually do you know I will judge other people's sense of safety some of you are fucking overusing feeling unsafe and projecting and that you can examine your own behaviours first.

Well, I think that there is like where responsibility lies for your safety. And maybe this is sort of our like, let's bring it home. It's like, you know, where does responsibility lie? I think it's different in different context. But certainly when I'm feeling, shall we say psychologically unsafe, right? So, you know, I don't feel comfortable around this person. I don't feel at ease or all the rest of. it is that, you know, that other person can only be 50% of the dynamic.

Like, that is like the most they can be responsible for the dynamic is 50%. And I think that that's important because I think that we so much desire for someone else to be responsible for our safety. And I think that this is kind of maybe part of like a broader a conversation about infantilisation that I think that we've been having in various different ways on various different episodes. But the only people who truly can outsource responsibility for their safety to other people, it's children. Like, it's children.

And part of being an adult is removing yourself from things or soothing yourself or confronting someone else and making the judgment of how to do that. And by confronting, I don't mean, you know, like necessarily fighting and overpowering and dominating. Sometimes it's like, this dynamic feels really weird for me or like, actually this thing that you're saying is it's, it's landing with me in a way which is quite hurtful. Like, you know, part of this is about, you know, when you feel psychologically unsafe. And it's a phrase that I'm using which can encompass, you know, discomfort to other things, like, 50% of the responsibility is yours. And that responsibility might be expressed in terms of leaving and going,

I can't, I can't be in this, there's nothing I can do. Or it might be expressed through, like, being able to self-soothe, or it might be expressed through communicating. But I think that that's something which is missing from lots of the stuff about, like, well, you know, I feel unsafe. It's like, well, what's your 50%? You know, what's your 50%. You know, what's your 50%. I think that's different from, I guess, like, you know, the randomness of like bad things that can happen through living in the world. You know, of course, we've got things that we do to try and keep ourselves safer. You know, no dark parks, right? But bad things can happen. Like I said, my best friend was on a busy street, middle of the afternoon. And the acceptance of

risk, the acceptance of the unsafety of the world, I think, ironically, can make you feel safer. That's what Gavin De Becker's saying. I really think people should read that book if you have issues around safety and wanting to look out for everything. And I know that being online heightens those

because we look for danger on every corner now. And there's so many things we're aware that can happen. But it's like plane crashes. The probability is very low. And if you spend your life looking out for it you're going to miss all the other stuff both the good and the bad like your flight like your flight like your flight we need to solve some problems ash we do this is i'm in

big trouble if you are in big trouble tiny trouble medium-sized trouble email us at if i speak at navaramedia.com that's if i speak at navaramedia.com do you want to take it away? I feel I've been talking too much so I want you to both read it and give the first response. You haven't been talking too much also can I remind you

one of my mini resolutions also when we get to fucking proper September hours I want us to do actually I'm not going to spoil it next record I've got an idea for an episode let me write that down

okay you haven't been talking too much also what I was going to say is some of the feedback obviously we get is that I talk too much and that I talk too much about myself and my problems and blah blah and I think it is good

that we are doing more episodes about bigger issues and sometimes it's really good practice for me to listen a bit more so I appreciate that I think you're too harsh on yourself but we can save that for another day I am too harsh for myself

but we never get reviews about you talking too much so I have to listen to them um right special one send in your reviews about me talking too much please don't do that two negs don't make a right right hi moira and ash thank you very much for the podcast it's wonderful and i always look forward to new episodes my dilemma is about friendship i was homeschooled from grades four to twelve yeah we got a north american up in here um i was homeschooled from grades 4 to 12, and raised in a context where my only real social outlet was the conservative evangelical Christian church when my father was pastor. My only friends were either other kids

at church or other parent pre-approved boys from an informal homeschooling group. For years, well into university, this was not a problem for me. In my mid-20s, however, I began to question and then lose my faith, which led to a huge reorientation of my worldview and politics, away from the conservatism I'd been taught and toward the left. My friends, all church kids like me, did not have this huge shift in worldview. They're pretty much all the same people as they were before. And so in 2016 and 2017, as I voiced my alarm about Trump and the overt fascist and racist rhetoric and policies coming from the US, I was flabbergasted and felt betrayed when they made excuses for him and for the Republicans. Over the course of the first Trump administration, I

gradually stopped contact with these former friends out of the sense of betrayal and mistrust. I tried and failed to make new friends in a variety of context, so now I spend most of my social time with family. Did I fuck up? Should I have stayed with these people even now, even now our values are so different? I will keep trying to make new friends, but I'm struggling to understand for what extent my current loneliness is my own fault, or whether this is just a result of the situation my parents placed me in. Thanks very much from Canada, special on. P.S. Go to therapy about this as an acceptable and complete answer. Lowell, thanks. Canada! We've got a Canadian listener. You're our friend, the special one.

What do you reckon, Moia? Why do I have to start? I read it out. Because I want you, I want you to talk more, because I feel I've dominated this episode. That's my judgment. Well, I've said you haven't, and I want you to dominate some episodes, so you have to start. I just read it out. Here's your go. You stuff. Oh, okay. What do I think? So your question, one of your questions was, is my current loneliness, my own fault, or is this just a result of the situation my parents placed me in? I think the fact is that your current loneliness is your responsibility because you're the only one who can change your situation and can move in a new direction and to move towards people and community, but I think it's fair to sort of identify the origins of it as being homeschooled and having a very, very narrow social pool of people to draw from,

in which your parents were very, very dominant. Because part of being a teenager, I think, is about forming a social world which is separate from your parents. It's about sort of, you know, rehearsing that independence from your parents. And, you know, That can be a very painful process, both for the parent and the child. But I think that that's an important part of development. And I think what you're saying is that that didn't happen for you. You know, your dad was the pastor. You know, your dad was the guy in charge, and your parents were picking friends for you.

So you never got to experience that really important social process of I'm creating a social world of my own, which is separate and independent from my parents. Like, I think that that is really, really inhibiting. And it maybe meant that certain muscles didn't get used or didn't get worked, didn't get an opportunity to grow. And now you're, you know, you're asking a question which I think is really normal and really natural, which is, you know, can I stay friends with people that I've got really different values from?

I mean, you say betrayed. I would caution you against interpreting things as betrayal. You know, I would encourage you to question that a bit. I think it's perfectly fine to go, well, look, I share really different values from these people and it's going to be hard for me to maintain a close friendship. But I think if you experience that as betrayal and mistrust, I don't think those are fair expectations.

expectations for you to have with other people, right? They've got, they've got different politics. They have a different world for you. You went on a political journey in a particular direction and they didn't. You know, in a way, you're the one that changed. I'm not saying that you betrayed them, but it's interesting that you're experiencing their lack of change and their sort of, you know, the consistency of their like conservative upbringing with their present beliefs as a betrayal when you're the one that's changed. I think that there are things that you can do and I think that it would be politically good for you and I think it would be socially good for you, which is thinking about your politics, not just a set of beliefs that

you hold, but as a set of things that you do, I think that one of the things that the left really needs, and it's not just the left that needs this, I think people need this, is human connection, human connection being brought into a community of people through the application of your politics. So it's not just about what media you consume or the media that you share or just go into a protest where you go and you sort of are part of a crowd and you go home. What are the forms of political activity local to you that will bring you into contact with other people? Because, you know, a huge part of my adult life. You know, and the friendships I have and the job that I have, I mean, you know, I kind of locate like the catalyst for a lot of that is like 2010. being a student, participating in an occupation of my university.

Without that, I wouldn't have met Aaron Bustani. Without meeting Aaron Bustani, I would be part of Navarra Media. Without being part of Navarra Media, I wouldn't have loads of the friends that I have. I wouldn't be doing this podcast. I wouldn't be friends with Moyer. Like, you know, that's my sliding doors moment. And many of the people who I'm friends with, and not just, you know, very close friends with, but like we live really close together.

I met them at UCL Occupation 2010. bang bang, bang, bang. So I think that these political spaces, experiences of organising together, struggling together, it brings you close to people. And I think that this can be a way of you finding new friends and experiencing a social life separate from your family. Because you're saying now you spend most of your social time with your family. I think that that's, you know, it's lovely to be close with your family. And that's a beautiful thing. But you need to work the other muscles. And I think the thing is, is that you didn't get a chance to work those independent socialising muscles as a teenager and you're not getting a chance to work them now. So you need to

find a way to do it in a way which brings you into contact with people who, you know, the thing that you developed independently of your family was your politics. You know, that seems to be what you're saying. And that can be a part of how you make friends as well. What do you reckon? I'd like to know which family. Is it your parents still? Are you spending lots of time with the people that you resent most I'd like to have more details about what you did as your friend making enterprises

like what did that look like why are you looking for these friends I think that would help I think Ash is so right when she says that looking for localized political spaces where you can find

like-minded people as one I think there's a couple of key questions which is part of the ones I've just mentioned like what are your values now because you said your politics more left

What are your values? What do you actually value in people? What do you want your relationships to be built on? Obviously, politics is something you can find commonalities with. But also, what else do you have an interest in? What other things? You know, there's no point me trying to make friends with someone off their face with on K in a club that I go to

because probably we're not going to have the same interest at this stage of life. Whereas if I'm talking to someone who I'm at a reading group with and we're really getting on and enjoying talking about this book, we're probably going to get on way better. We're probably going to have something in common that we can build a friendship of. Just like you have to go where your values are reflected

but also like your interests are reflected. You have to go into the spaces which you enjoy and find the people who are also enjoying them because that's where you're going to find the most commonality at this age. It's not like university where you'll get thrown together and you just kind of make friends somehow

and end up with this thing or like school like you experienced where you're all in this group and you're all thrown together and you just make these friendships, which can endure for years and years and years, even if they were bored initially at proximity, because then you get familiar and you know someone's character and you can grow together, but you grew apart from those people.

I'm going to say something really rogue. I think you should go travelling. I think you need to get out of where you are. I think you're someone who's looking for some border horizons, and I think even two weeks away with a little backpack somewhere new where you can go to hostels and you can meet people. and you can build your social confidence by talking to them, realising that people want to interact with you

and that you'll have an interesting thing to say, I think that would blow your mind in terms of opening up your horizons a bit more because you've opened up your political horizons to alternative perceptions of what you go out with. I'm not even saying it's wrong or right. Obviously, I'm a lefty, you know where I stand, but you're someone who seems to want to open the horizons up and yet you're stuck where you sort of started, it seems,

with family and a lack of friends. And I think that's what's also causing the loneliest. You don't have anyone to explore these horizons with, whereas I find somewhere like traveling could be amazing for busting open your preconceived notions about yourself, but also feeding that itch to see something new, to talk about something new, to meet new people, and realize you can rub along with people in all different contexts.

The last thing I'd say is there's so many in North America stories of former people who came from evangelical backgrounds who've now gone left or have lost their faith. You should also try and find some of them to talk to and about this experience and how they've navigated it and you'd probably find some good friendships there too. But I think your main thing is you need to get out of the environment you're in for a while. That's what I'm really getting from this letter.

It feels stuck and stagnant. And I think you need to break out of it in some way. there's also something which you can contribute from your evangelical background to left-wing organising books one of the best organising books ever written it really is like if you want to build an organisation of some kind read this book it's the purpose-driven church I was reading hotball this morning about labour traditions and how much labour traditions in Britain faith driven whereas in France they're way more secular the famous thing of the Labour Party owes more to Methodism and it does much. Exactly. It was really, it was a very interesting essay. Yes, I

woke up this morning and read an essay on labour traditions. It was a very short. It was a short essay. It wasn't like a long one. That's a, that's a cry for help if I've ever heard of. No, it's a show that I'm actually trying to, it's a book of, it's just a collection of Husborn's essays and they're small and they're good. Do you know shoemakers are like, well, disproportionately, I'm sure you do know this. Disproportionately radical. They were considered the radicals of all the artists and trades.

I didn't know that. Yeah, shoemakers would always show up as like the leaders of the most radical factions. And Hotspaw was trying to work out why in this, in this, in the essay I read the other day and what it had to do with it is often because they were the most literate.

Yeah, really, really interesting. Anyway, less of Hobsbourne. More that, uh, in a special one. Loneliness is hard but I think you need to bust out of your rhythms and I think you need to open your horizons and that could start maybe locally but I genuinely think you need a trip whether that's a two week whether that's a six month whatever it could just be over the border to America it could be somewhere else I think you need

to get into a new environment and experience yourself there and get your confidence back. What I'd say about travelling because I've seen this happen with with somebody in particular that I can I can picture them in my head is that travelling is really really good for experiencing that you've got these social muscles and you can use them. It's a really, really bad substitute for community. So see it as this is a chance for you to work these social muscles. But the job of community building, even if it's not in the place of your origin and the place where your family still are, like it has to be in a place where you feel like I want to put down some roots here. Yeah, I'm seeing as a circuit breaker as a Kickstarter, a catalyst. It's

something to get you back into that sort of like mindset of I can do this and I have these muscles and I, and maybe you'd come back and you might think, okay, I'm going to move somewhere else and I'm going to build a community somewhere else. Maybe it's not where you are right now. I don't know. But something, things to think about. Wise. Why is wise words? Right. Let's wrap this up. All right. This has been, if I speak, I've been burnt out and ill. I knew you've been. Who have you been. I've been Moia Lothie in McLean, I couldn't think of another thing quickly. Bye.

Bye.