The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - 405. Anatomy of an (almost) School Shooter | Aaron Stark

Episode Date: December 14, 2023

Dr. Jordan B. Peterson sits down with public speaker and mental health advocate Aaron Stark. You might recognize Aaron’s name from his deeply impactful TED Talk, “I was almost a school shooter.” They walk through his life story and discuss the all-too-real result of deep parental trauma, the psychology of abuse that shapes self loathing and self harm, the drivers that nearly pushed Aaron from victim into monster, and the real, tangible act of kindness that saved lives. Aaron Stark was almost a school shooter. As a dark and destructive teen, Stark almost committed a terrible attack. Today he is a happy father of four, and he wants to do all he can to help anyone on that path to find a way into the light again and to see that they matter. After watching the news coverage of the Parkland school shootings, Stark wrote an open letter, “I was almost a school shooter.” This was sent to local news 9KUSA in Denver and was the feature story on “Next with Kyle Clark.” This story gained national attention and over 17 million views in a very short time, which propelled him into a life of activism for mental wellness awareness. He has been featured on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC and has published an article in the Washington Post. These features were followed by his viral TEDx talk, “I Was Almost a School Shooter” that currently has over 14 million views and is shown in schools, colleges, and universities, all the way up to the Dept. of Education.  - Links - For Aaron Stark: Instagram https://instagram.com/aarongstark79?igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA== Facebook https://www.facebook.com/aaron.stark1313?mibextid=eHce3h Youtube https://youtube.com/@aaronstarkauthor?si=1uJFYkVDysFuWETz

This podcast contains graphic discussions about abuse, violence, and self-harm. Sensitive content may not be appropriate for listeners under 18. Hello everyone watching and listening. Today, I'm pleased to be talking to Mr. Aaron Stark. You might recognize him from his TED talk on YouTube, which has got about 30 million views. Aaron went to some very dark places when he was a kid and a teenager and came from some very dark places. At one point in his life, he had formulated very detailed plans that related to shooting up a school. And he decided not to do it. And what we're talking about, what we're going to talk about is how he came to make those plans,

let's say, what the rationale for it was in the cause of those plans, and then also why he decided to back away from the precipice and what the consequence of that backing away has been. So, Mr. Stark, you turned your life around. Yes, sir. Okay, so let's go back to when it wasn't turned around. Now, you've been touring around and talking to people for how long have you been in the public eye?

About five years. About five years, how old are you now? I'm 44. Okay, and so, well, why don't you just tell us the story and then I'll start delving into, well, the details. Well, so I was almost a school shooter when I was really young. My I went through a really violent aggressive family. My first five years are like living in a Stephen King movie. My birth father was most violent and a brave person I've ever met. Beatings and rapes and just violence

and aggression the entire time, running from him for cross state to state, trying to get away. Well, my mom finally escaped him, got with my stepdad and went from Stephen King to Scarface, so it went from white extreme violence to crack cocaine and crime. And you were about six? I was about five or six at the time, yeah. And I had an older brother who's two years older than I was. And so we were very nomadic. I went to 30 or 40 different schools.

We were constantly moving from state to state, running away from the cops to the social workers or counselors or anybody trying to intervene and lived a very nomadic lifestyle and went from early on being a really shy sensitive sweet kid to like reading comic books and superheroes and that kind of stuff to in my early teen years really adapting that to the way to survive was I'm gonna be the aggressive one. I knew I figured out early on that I was the dirty one, I was the nasty one, I was the worthless,

I was the outcast, I was the one that was pushed off. Early on meaning win. Six, seven years old. That my older brother, You were assuming it was you? Oh yeah, it was me. Yeah. My older brother, too, is older than I was

because of my family dynamic He had a lot of responsibility. He had to be an early man of the house really early on to the extent where he had at 12 years old had to handle The sheriff throwing all of our stuff in the front Milan and evicting us one parents are getting drugged out and drunk at the bar And we can't find him for days and he has to find us a place to stay and I was the response How much older than years he two years so he was And I was the response to him in 10 years. How much older was he? Two years.

So he was 12, I was 10. And so he was just another kid going through abuse to say my I was. But he had to, I was a responsibility. He had to take care of. So while he was children, all the responsibility, I'm like the burden. And so that was kind of the identities we adapted.

He was the one that took care of everything. I was the one that was the broken thing that needed to be taken care of all the time. And as that grew older, I became more and more toxic going into my early savings. Why do you think there wasn't enough responsibility also for you? Like, why do you think the rules between you and your brother

had to be split that way? I don't know if they had to be, but that's just kind of the way they ended up being. I, I, the, um, he, just because of our personalities, he was more of a hands-on kid. He was, well, he's a little like two. Well, he, he, he was a gear head too. His, his likes were more, were more physical.

He liked doing things like building things, taking stuff apart, fixing cars, stuff like that. I was more intellectual. I liked reading and loved. I, I would read like the Bullfinches mythology textbook when I was four years five years old. My first book report was on Stephen King's misery when I was in kindergarten. And because I read really early on super early. I was reading full books by the time I was five years old. And the so I was I would suck in information.

So that was my escape. My escape went all the crime and the violence and people beating each other and digging through crack rock for crack rock behind me was going on. I would have my nose dug into an X-Men comic book. My brother would be into taking part to skateboard, putting a skateboard back together. So he was more re-entituting practical things,

practical things in the world. And so when, as that girl, he was the one that had to do like, well, the the world. And so when as that girl, he was the one that had to do like, well, the car's broken and Jake's gonna try to fix it. That this, this thing's busted. Jake's gonna fix it. I didn't fix anything. I was off to the side reading a book. I was out like I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't, I wasn't utilitarian to the, to anything. Okay. So you said you were a sweet kid, but that's things started to change. Well, maybe about when you were 10, if I got that right. Oh, earlier, I'd say 7, 8, 9, yeah, I, because of the way that we moved, we were constantly moving from Colorado to Oregon back and forth.

And this was the late 80s. So it was before the age of the internet was really easy to make up your entire personality and make up a whole new identity. So my parents would get a job in a house out here in Colorado and then get evicted, lose their job, move to Oregon, lie about their entire resume, lie about their entire history, get in an entire new house and everything, and then washrooms repeat every couple of months. And so we were always moving back and forth. And they were doing that so that their scams could continue. It was either their scams could continue or they would evade accountability. They were trying to use it. So that sort of behavior is generally, generally, rarer among women.

You said your birth father was a particularly nasty piece of work. And so did you have, did you have any sort of quality relationship with your mother or your father? At that time, yes. Early on with my father, yes, my mom at that time was much more like Linda Hamilton from T2. Okay. Oh, yes.

From Terminator. She was the survivalist mother who, like to the point where when my father was still violent and chasing him around, we were bouncing from battle woman shelter to battle woman shelter to get away from him. And my mom would have things like safety words. So if we were out about, if she just said the word pocket in conversation, that was a safety tag. So she could be at the grocery store and I'm like, oh, two and a half years ago, pocket. If that worked him out of her mouth, I was to grab the back pocket of her pants and we need to get out right now.

Then my father was in insight, there was a trouble. We need to go now. We need to move. And so it was that kind of survivalist. And that was the first five years of my life. First five years of my life. So why do you think your mother stayed with your father during that five year period? During that five year period, I think that from my stories that I heard, he was a Vietnam vet.

And when I was, when he left to go to the war, he was a good guy. When he came back, he was kind of a monster. Oh, yeah. And so that war, he was a good guy. When he came back, he was kind of a monster. Oh, yeah. And so that was, I guess they were together. I wish he with him before he went to Vietnam. She was. Because she already established. She had already established a relationship with them.

Who was then damaged by the war? She was then damaged by the war. Came back and was completely a monster and was just violent. Got into, he was epically violent. What was he hurt physically? Do you know during the war? He wasn't hurt physically during the war. I don't think, I know he was hurt physically during the war?

He wasn't hurt physically during the war. I don't think, I know he was hurt psychologically during the war. He stood wide, you know what happened? He was a gunner on a ship. He was one of the ones that would load the bomb, the ammunition to shoot up off to Indicambodia. And he was on the ship and one of his best friends got his head taken off right next to him. Just the ammunition was blew as best friend to weigh right next to him. Just the, I mean, she's blue is for best friend away right next to him. And that messed him up.

But that wasn't that pales in comparison to the trauma he suffered from his family. My father from his own family was circumcised at 15 years old. Okay. So what does that mean exactly? He they circumcised him. They cut off the force going of his penis at 15 years old because they caught him masturbating. I see. So that that's the just an example of the abuse that my father went through.

So that's, abuse in my opinion is generational. Yeah. It's trauma that rolls downhill. And that both, from both sides of my family, there were giant boulders of trauma that were rolling downhill. From my father's side, there was that, from my mother's side, I had a pedophile,

great-grandfather, a pedophile, uncle, rapist, that there was a lot of violence and aggression on both sides. And a lot of terrorism. Lots of alcoholism, mental disorders, lots of personality disorders, a lot of drug abuse. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, well, patterns of behavior are imitated, right? Consciously and unconsciously. And what that means is that if there is a pattern of pathology and a family, it will echo down the generations until someone digs into the underbelly of the problem, sorts it out and stops it. And then at least in principle, that'll stop the intergenerational transmission. There are genetic predispositions, but they're complex, so you can have a genetic predisposition to depression, which would mean that you're likely to be higher in the trait neuroticism,

which is a trait associated with negative emotion. There are also heritable tendencies towards anti-social personality. So if you're extroverted and disagreeable, and even worse, if you're extroverted and disagreeable and even worse, if you're extroverted disagreeable and unconscious, if you take a pathological turn, you'll tilt likely in a criminal direction. And some of that has a heritable element too. It doesn't mean that wrongdoing or the proclivity for criminal behavior is heritable precisely. It means that we inherit different patterns of traits that predisposes to different categories of temptation.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah, the way I presented to my family is that we are taught different languages of how to express our different emotions. And if you're vocabulary of emotion, expression is violence and aggression, that's the language you're going to teach everybody else. Yeah, well, it also language you're going to teach everybody else. Yeah, well, it also means that you don't know the alternatives. Precisely.

And so it's really hard to express yourself in a comrational manner. If only the only language you speak in your head and outside and in your world is violence aggression and toxicity, it's really hard then to express. Yeah, well, it's also difficult for people who are temperamentally more aggressive to learn how to integrate that aggression in a socialized manner. So if you have a small child who's extroverted and disagreeable, they're going to push you and they're going to test constantly.

And now if you take a firm tack and you're sophisticated, you can help those children become socialized and competitive in which case their proclivity to push can be well, usefully channeled into competitive victory, let's say. But it's hard to do that, especially if the kid is particularly pushy. And I see that proclivity to push actually manifest itself in large scale from my estimation, from what I've seen doing what I do. And kids who are in that dark place, they're in that gray area of depression that might fall into the dark even further that are trying to reach out for help. The people that reach out to help too, they're going to test, they're going to push. Yeah, really.

Are you a real live bunk? Are you lying to me like everybody else in my life said they were here for me and then they disappeared right into the heart. So they're going to really test and test and test until you prove consistency. And so that proclivity to test, if you don't address that early on, it just sprouts and grows until one of the main trails turns into a main defense mechanism and lifestyle that you're gonna You're gonna push and be aggressive to everybody until you can see that one person that actually can stand Yeah, well people can people who have been betrayed and rejected

sufficiently Can get to the point where they won't make a boy with anyone, right? There was there's research conducted I can't remember the people who did it on children who were separated, very young for too long from their parents. And they go through a period of protest that's very intense to begin with.

Of course, they're distressed about being separated and then the protest behavior decreases, but it'll emerge sporadically. And then that'll decrease. And once the protest behavior has been eradicated completely, it's very difficult, even if the parent comes back to reestablish contact. The children put up a barrier, which is akin to the barrier that you're describing, that's very difficult to pierce. And as you said, what will happen to the children who abandoned

is that because they've been betrayed repeatedly and deeply and hurt very badly, is they will test like mad to see if they can break the bond, to see if it's reliable. And that can actually get to the point you see this in conditions like borderline personality disorder, where the person will test everyone so completely that no one can actually put up with it. Yeah, and I see that quite a lot. And I think that the more we can, that's the advice that I give when I get doing my talks is to be that I live in the normal in the ocean of chaos in person. That person is everybody, and when I was in that spot, everybody in my life thought that I was either a monster or a project. You either wanted to fix me or you were afraid of me. And if neither one of those were a person.

And so, you know, a project is often something that people undertake for their own self-glorification. Precisely. And if I'm just a mark on your checklist and I'm not actually, I'm an activity to you. I'm not a person you're engaging with an irrational response and listening to my, and having a rational, reasonable discussion and discourse. I'm an activity under checklist and that means that I'm automatically under you. When we write activities and we're doing things, that activity is a thing we are doing. That's the toxicity of pity. The toxicity of sick. Immoralizing. It is.

It is. And the thing that my best friend did, and he's still my best friend of this day, was he was the one person that saved my life by treating me like I was a respectful person that deserved that. When did you meet him? I met him when I was 10. Okay, so did you have friends before the age of 10? I, not really.

Well, I've heard with an itinerant lifestyle. Yeah, yeah, I didn't have any real connections. And then even after that, once I, once, once they slightly stabilized in my teen years, the moving it out slowed down a little bit, and stayed places slightly longer. I didn't really gather friends. I got what I called disaster groupies. There were people that wanted to kind of live by a curiosity through my darkness because they didn't really have anything like me in their world. So we were there was a bunch of that like a group

of outcasts. Yeah, it was a bunch of bunch of around kids. Yeah, so maybe one or two others that had a similar kind of background because it was looking back was a group of outcasts? Yeah, it was a bunch of, a bunch of around kids. Yeah, so maybe one or two others that had a similar kind of background, because looking back was a bunch of depressed kids trying to navigate to depression without any adult supervision. But it was, in reality, what was going on was there was a house that one of my friends at,

one of my classmates at school, his dad paid the rent, his dad bought all the food but his dad didn't live there. So it was just my 16-year-old friend and his little brother that stayed there. And so that turned into just a block house for a bunch of kids. Right. And so that was, everybody else was there. There's no guidance whatsoever. And so that turned into where all the other kids had houses and had families and could go there.

They were rebelling. They were trying to find their own way. These are all the other kids in the group. Yeah, they were like, we're belling and stuff. I didn't have a house to go back to. I was going to go back to sleep in the field behind Casa Benita and Denver. I was going to go try to steal free samples out of the grocery store and invade my criminal family. If I did hit my family's house, it

was to grab a couple of little bit of clothes so I could, yeah, before the violence started. So I wasn't going home to any stability. I was going to go live on the streets and I was going to go try to survive. They all got to go home to their houses. And so you were in this rig like neck deep and they yeah playing with it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. They were, they were playing it with it. I was living it fully. And that, that kind of, they were like pushing you further off on the edge. It was like a real life reddit for them. It was like, like-

Reagating rewarded, so to speak, for your more- Yeah, the darker parts of your personality. Yeah, rewarded, so to speak, in a social sense, where it's like, it turns into like a party favor, almost, like, let me tell you the craziness of what happened to my specialty. Yeah, yeah, a friend like that who was extraordinarily comedic and he was probably the funniest

person I've ever met in my life and it got at one point it got to be a burden to him because that's what people expected they expected to be on and funny all the time. Yes, yes. Yeah, I've had that time where I'm at a party and like, oh, tell me what craziness your family went through today. Like, I don't want to talk about it, dude, I got cuts in my arms from it. Like, I don't want to talk about this pain right now. Yeah. But it would turn into the, to the, to the fiction. But so when we're talking about that, that, that leads into the toxicity of what fed my own anger, toxicity, and depression, with going into that spot, because I, by that point, when I, that was, I started doing that when I was 14 years old. Okay. What year is this?

that one, I was 14 years old. Okay, what year is this? I was 14 years old, I was born in 1979. So we're talking 93, 93, 93, okay. Just to place it. Just to place it. And you're in Denver at this point? Yep, Denver and 14. 14 years old.

That's when I finally left home because I couldn't deal with the violence and the crime and the beatings constantly. And watching my mom stab my uncle in the gut with a doorknob. If you take a part of doorknob, the inside gear parts, that pointy, yeah, that makes a very dangerous weapon.

Don't ever stab someone with it. And so just violence like that constantly, like what does constantly mean? Like living in that fight or flight response every minute of every day. How often did you see events that were violent and your house? Three or four times daily.

And what kind of violence? So the point where here's an example, I'm sitting in my bedroom and I, nobody had seen that I came home from school or I think I was working a day job. I think it was 15 or 16 of the time. I walked in, sat down on my bedroom, nobody heard that I was home.

I picked up the game controller was playing PlayStation for a second, heard a rumble outside my bedroom. And I stand outside and my stepdad has my mom up against the wall by her throws, dangling through two feet off the ground and she's he's choking her. And so I immediately grabbed him. I'm large. I just hit head puberty so I was big. I was getting into my body grabbed him slammed him into the microwave broke the microwave pushed him back,

slammed him into the fridge broke the fridge pushed it back into the back wall then I had him by his throat up against the wall choking him. And now my mom is smashing plates over the back of my head for me to drop him. She's attacking me because I got into the fight. So I drop him, go back to my video game, pick up the game controller, keep on playing. Nothing happened. You go from zero to 60 instant.

Right, right, right. And then go back to nothing and do that four or five times a day. And at the drop of a hat, stuff can go wrong. And at the same time dealing with my parents, their method of discipline or any kind of control was to threaten the absolute worst possible thing. Right. That's not a discipline.

I'm gonna beat you terribly. I'm gonna beat you terribly. I'm gonna kick you out. You're gonna be out of here immediately. And then five minutes later act like nothing happened. They wouldn't follow through with any kind of punishment, but act like nothing happened in that conversation at all. And we were just having a good day.

And so- What have you ever disciplined in a manner that you regard as vaguely appropriate? No, never. And when I was a kid, they had lost the ability to parent me by the time I was 12. I didn't, they, how are you going to tell me to be home by 10 o'clock when you're digging through the crowd,

the cover for crack or I can front of me? Yeah. Because they didn't think, they didn't want to hide anything. So they did it all right, front of me. They would pull out the, they kept the flatters. So why didn't they want to hide anything? That was just my mom's philosophy. She just didn't, didn't believe it, hide it.

So that's like a warped form of honesty She yeah, she would pull out the electric skillet with the water and the vials and the baking soda and I watched her rock up Crack right for me. I learned how to do it when I was five or years old I took crack to school as a so-and-tell for one of my school That's not generally a very good. I know it is right But that would also indicate how much you didn't know how strange what was going on your family actually was. And it was part of what built into me that help was a peril that reaching out for help was a danger.

Okay. That it was that it was because I when I would do that when I would I took crack rock school and then the next day route we moved out of state. And so as as another example, I was really I was very unkempt, very dirty, very smelly. I was never had clean clothes. I never had clean clothes. I never changed my clothes. I would constantly be filthy. And there was one school I went to.

I must have been 9, 10 years old, really. And I went to the school, and on the walk to the school, I actually defecated him. I kept on going. I cracked my pants, kept on going to school. And so I went to school school spent the entire day there The next day I go to school and there's a box of stuff for me, okay? The teacher brought a box of stuff. They brought clothes and books and coat and all these new schools Yeah, I take it home and I show my mom like hey check this out. I got all this stuff

Yeah, the very next day we're out and moved away because that's the sign the teacher got too close that someone's invested in too fast And we need to go so I see it turned into a danger signal that if I'm, if I'm, if I'm, the fiery stuff, someone's attending to you. If I restel for help, that meant that the police might get involved, my parents might go to jail, my brother might go to foster care, I might go to foster care, all because I tried to get help. All right, right. So, so, okay, so let's go back to between one and five. You talked a little bit about your mom and your dad.

You said your dad was particular, the damaged in Vietnam. Your mom had established a relationship with him before he went. So imagine she felt somewhat beholden to him. And also I would imagine maybe she loved him. Certainly she would have felt sorry for him when he came back because he was so damaged.

And so how did they, how did the two of them spiral into the trouble that they had? And then when did you and your brother come along? So when they married they were married. They did get married. They were married. By the time I was born The extreme violence had already started so I'm not sure about how that spiraled in I have memories early on of my father sleeping on the On the couch and my mom realizing he's finally asleep So she picked up a two by four and beat him bloody, beat him almost till he was dead,

because she tried to escape. And she went, so she beat him and did it. How old do you think you are? I was four. And you can remember that. I remember him laying on the couch and her over him, slanting into him with a two by four. I remember that.

And then us going. And then he found us and the okay you left buddy found he found us and and he would chase us down. So there was a there's a why there's a distinct memory I have of us and a battle woman shelter me and my mom and my brother were living in a battle woman shelter and me and my brother's playing outside. Okay. And a car pulls up and my dad kidnaps me and my brother takes us kid commences me particularly to get into the car. Pretty sure my brother just followed us. I just get in the car because my dad. And so he takes us and then calls

the batter woman shelter talks to my mom tells my mom that one of us are dead and the other one's going to be dead. If she that he he she doesn't show up at this restaurant to meet him. And so she against the protestations of the bad woman's elder, of course, she goes there to meet him at this restaurant. And when she gets there, and I know the story, both from vivid recounts from her, from the story and from news clippings that we had growing up. So she gets to the restaurant and he's there and he pulls're arguing and he flips the table over in the argument and pulls out his classic weapon,

which was a cross-shaped, X-shaped tire. That's what says, that was a- Oh, oh yeah. So he picked that up and went to go hit her with it. And right then, everybody else in the restaurant pulled out guns and pointed them at him because the battle with a man-child they're called the head

filled with undercooked police officers. And so I had had a news clipping when I was a kid and my dad getting lead out of a restaurant with shotguns at his head. Are your mom and dad still alive? My mother is. My father, I don't know. And my stepdad died in 2015.

Do you still see your mom? No, I haven't spoken to her since I came out with my story. Last time I talked to my mom, I had just left a live TV show appearance in Denver. I was having a really good moment. I just was on live TV for the first time. Took my daughter with me just to see a TV studio, so I was having a cool little time. How many kids do you have?

Four kids. How old are they? 23, 20, 16, and 12. The two older, my step, 16, my mom. How old are you? 13 years. 13 years. And how has your marriage been?

Great. Fantasy. Yeah, yeah. I am as happy as can be. And I successfully broke the cycle. My family doesn't have any of the trauma that I went. OK, good. Well, we'll get into how you did that.

OK, so now back when you're little, your mom and dad are in a very violent relationship. They're married. Your dad obviously wants you guys around for some reason. I think it was more to control her. I didn't think I had anything to do with us because once we were gone, he didn't care. He never came to contact.

I never had any time where dad tried to reach out. I never had any of those loving conversations. I don't have any loving memories with my father. The very first memory I have of my entire life, where I start my life, is me laying on my bloody mom's body looking up at my dad's cream, you know, and you just killed my mom. Oh yeah. That's where I started. That's not a good fun. That's yeah. Alfred Adler, a famous psychologist, he believed that those first memories in some ways are determinative, like that they sort of set the frame. And so that's a hell of a first memory.

Yeah, yeah. Now you had your older brother, did you have a relationship with him? I did, we were pretty close, Corona. Okay, so you had a male role model in the house who wasn't completely pathological. Do you see your brother? I haven't talked to him since I started talking about it,

but that side of the family attacks me not because I'm saying something's not the truth, but just because I'm talking. Because I, and your brother as well doesn't feel that that's appropriate. Because I'm, because I'm making my mom cry. Because I see, and so he feels that's inappropriate in relationship to your mother.

Does he still see your mother? I believe so. Yeah, I don't know. I haven't spoken to any of them. I haven't spoken to that side of the family in five years. Five years. Okay, I don't know. I haven't spoken to any of them. I haven't spoken to that side of the family in five years. Five years. Okay, so when you're little, how do you survive between one and five? You have your brother, so that's comic books.

Okay, and you said that you were very early reader, so you escaped into the world of fiction and reading. Yep, so comic books and the books. Did you do well in school? So I tested off the charts and I test. Did you pride yourself? Any of my assignments. Okay. I never did. Well, that's

not surprising. Yeah. Well, first of all, that's not all that a typical for smart kids, but you lived in a pretty chaotic environment. So it would have been quite surprising. How do you manage to buckle down and do your work? Did you pride yourself on your

intellect? I did. I did. I would carry around both into the mythology with me all the time, or giant stacks of ex-men comic books, or the complete works of Shakespeare, and just read voraciously. And I loved doing like oral reports and book reports. And when I was in high school, the one at the final high school in North High in Denver, the only two classes I ever actually attended were English class and choir class. I would skip every other day, and I even failed those classes

because of attendance rules once you miss four days, you failed the semester. And I would only attend class once every three weeks or so. But the classes I would go to were English class and choir. And why choir? Choir because I think that actually has a superpower when it comes to kids who are depressed. Did you say? I did. I still do. I still love seeing you. Oh. And I was in statewide choir,

in a C.D.Y. choir, in 16-person ocapelic choirs. I would always go whenever, all the schools I would go to, I would go to whatever the advanced choir was and try out for it. Because that's what I wanted to do. What did they make of you in the choir? Because you said you were like an unkempt kid. You're very badly. The dirty like. dirty teachers always put me in. I went to Oregon one time and I managed as a freshman in high school to, through a try-out, make it into the senior ocopel choir. That was just a 16 person ocopel choir only for seniors. And I was a freshman.

So you have literature and music to save you? Yep. Yeah, did you listen to a lot of music? I did. Lots of songs. Over your favorites. I, I, I, I'm very eclectic. I like a wide range. Back then it was, I liked a lot of oldies. I liked, I really liked the 50s music. Yeah. Listen to a lot of like, but you're positively.

Yeah. Yeah. Listen to a lot like Buddy Holly and that kind of stuff and the other La Bomba soundtrack. Yeah. That a lot. Um. And then I didn't really like the 80s style music, the poppy kind of stuff, I didn't really like that, but I got into a metal when I was older. So the Nine-inch Nails, Downward Spiral albums, pretty much an autobiography. Like that's pretty much how my life was going at the time. And so when I was a teen, it was Nine-inch Nails,

Marilyn Manson, Pantera tool, that kind of stuff. Right, right. So the dark end of the metal spectrum. Yeah, right. But when you were intelligent, end of the metal spectrum. Yeah, right. I wasn't really into the death metal screaming anger kind.

I was into the stuff that was talking about the emotions. I liked singers that have heart. So like Creedence Clearwater Revival. Yeah. Some of the more, when you sing it, it feels like it's digging in your soul. Yeah, yeah, they're great. Their music is aged too well. Two Creedence Clearwater.

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, so one to five, you had no relationship with your father except one that was extremely negative. All you saw from him was violence. You had some relationship with your mother. Do you think your mother loved you? Yeah, yeah.

That's where the only time I have good memories with my mom is during that time. The best memory I have with my mom ever is sitting watching Willy Wonka's chocolate factory and singing every single song. And I knew every word to that movie. So I would sit there and sing the entire movie and we would go back and forth with the songs.

And that was the best memory of my childhood. That's that's the highlight of those years. And are you during that time one to five? Are you playing with any kids? Are you playing with your brother? Do you remember any play? No, no, no, not really any playing. Just just reading. I wasn't much of a player. Everybody else we go on play and I'd sit with my couple with my books. I was so you okay. So you were you were now let me ask you some questions about your personality. Totally. Okay. Introverted or extroverted?

Then or now? That's change day. Were you introverted before or were you just afraid of people? That's a good question. I don't think I was afraid of people. I think I was, well, back then I was, because it took a while for me to burn that out of myself. When I am my teen years, I think that I lost the ability

to get embarrassed or ashamed or afraid of anybody, because when I was a kid, I made fun of myself more than anybody else did. No, yeah, that's pretty true. Very self-deprecating. Yeah, that's a good trick. I had a better fat joke than you did, better insult me, and so on.

Yeah, well, be surprising to me if you were introverted as a kid because you appear to be very extroverted. You smile a lot. I think quickly, I don't think that a, I don't think introverted would fit, but I don't, I wasn't extroverted. I was, I would, I kept to myself pretty much, but I liked the arts.

So, right, I wouldn't do so. Okay, so maybe what happened was that your interest in literature, let's say in the arts was so strong that if you had to choose between being with people and reading, you picked reading. Yes, yes. Because I wanted to learn more stuff. I want to, I like to, I, even now I'll be walking listening to, I just finished Lawrence Krauss' book, Edge of Knowledge,

which, and so like bleeding edge physics and science and philosophy, your podcasts. I listened to a wide range of topics, and I try to get the entire spectrum of opinions. So I'll listen to the farthest left, someone in the middle, all different sides of the topics, and try to see the whole side of it. And yeah, so these days I'm just, I'm all over with it.

But I don't think the back then I was introverted. I think you might have hit the nail in this one. Yeah, well, you're more very old tentative people. Okay. Are you compassionate, politer, toughened, and stubborn? Yes. Which one? Yeah, but if you had to pay.

So in general, I would think I'm compassionate, and polite, however, because of the survival mechanisms and the, the where I had to live a long time, I can turn on that hard note pretty easily where I, I, I can easily cut people out of my life. I can easily decide that you, that it's done and you are, you're hurting way more than you're good. And I've given up, my philosophy these days is I give up too much time in my life to people that hurt me.

So I just don't do it anymore. And so these days, you're... Are you likely to be taken advantage of or not? No, not now. Not now. Not now. I don't think so, but I can't say no because I might have been.

Yeah, okay. You said when you were in school, you never did your assignments. Now, there are obviously situational reasons for that. Are you a conscientious person, dutiful, orderly, industrious, or more easy going? Kind of half and half. I tend to go,

my wife is the one that does all the planning. So that's the best way to put it. When I'm doing my events and stuff, my wife sets up the planning, make sure I have my time. She'll do the scheduling. that does all the planning. So that's the best way to put it. When I'm doing my events and stuff, my wife sets up the planning, make sure I have my- She'll do the scheduling. She'll do the scheduling. I handle the material of it. Yeah.

And the, I'm ordered detailed about certain things, but I'm very non-materialistic, very, very non-materialistic. Nothing in my world matters physically. It's all about experiences and it's all about memories. So like, I've had, at more than five times in my world matters physically. It's all about experiences and it's all about memories. So like I've had, at more than five times in my life, I had people burst in my bedroom at three o'clock in the morning with a duffel bag screaming, I mean, we have five minutes to get out of here.

We need to grab everything and go. And so everything I had disappeared because the only thing I would grab is I had time to grab his comic books. So I would lose all the toys I had or all the TV I had or all the different books I had I'd lose everything except from iconic books And so over the years nothing none of the material stuff matters to me Mm-hmm, and so it's really hard for people to buy me like my my my wife says I'm the hardest person to buy a Christmas

Friendship for it because I don't want anything to to get me the thing I was yeah, that's about it Yeah, but a memory take me on on a trip, give me a memory, give me something fun. So you're very high in openness, creativity, interesting ideas, and interesting aesthetic experience. Yeah, so love learning. Right, and that was one of the things

that seems to have saved you, that you could, that you found that niche, and that was something you could do alone, and you could even do that when you were moving from place to place. Yep, and it was a deep escape. So there could be abject violence happening right next to me, and I could be buried reading about what happened with my crawler in the expo.

You ever watched the documentary, Crumb? Yep, I love Crumb. I love Crumb. Yeah, yeah. A Robert Crumb. Robert Crumb, well, Crumb, you know, what Crumb did reminds me a bit of what you did because he took refuge in his arctic. And that really Crumb, you know, what Crumb did reminds me a bit of what you did because he took refuge in his

arty and that really saved him, you know, he had life. He had a wife, he had a child, he had a career. I mean, Jesus, he's got a dark side. And his key came from one brutal family, man. It's rough. So, but he had that creative escape that sounds like it was there for you. Okay, so we covered a bit of your life from one to five. And you talked about things starting to turn on you around eight, something like that. So yeah, so that's what we got. So there's three steps in that right? From five to seven, there's like three steps that happen. Cause the way my mom did it is she escaped my father by sending me, I don't know how

she actually got rid of him, cause we went to Oregon. She sent me and my brother to Oregon for a year, and by herself, just flew us out to Oregon, you go live with grandparents. To with grandparents? Oh, and did you have a relationship with your grandparents? With my grandmother, yes, but that was the one of the most toxic times of my life in that year of Oregon, because that sent me out to go live with my pedophile rapist uncle.

That's right during that time. So that there was no escape. No escapeing that. And that's that's when I figured out that that trauma hill is huge in my family. That there's a large mountain of abuse. Like my grandfather, his name is HL because that's the only two letters

that his mom knew how to write when he was born because she gave birth at 13 in the Ozarks. So she, that trauma hill is big. And that, that, so that wasn't positive at all. And so when we finally came back from that after a year of that, my mom brought us back and she had gone with my stepdad. And my stepdad was a junior father.

Did you divorce your father? I think, I don't, I don't don't I don't know I think she's with another guy. This is now your stepdad. Yep. Yep. And so he is a smooth talking criminal. He is a a manipulating lying smooth talking can sell a nice to an Eskimo kind of guy. He's the kind of guy that will lie and steal every day all the time. Right. Right. And but also gets heavily involved into drinking. When I met him, he was in prison for a strong arm robbery. He spent four years in prison for strong arm robbery. He would steal entire delivery trucks that were going to grocery stores and take all the

stuff and would sell it at the flea market. So why do you think your mother picked him and do you know how they met? I mean, she's already hanging around in the dark side of the planet. So I imagine she had the opportunity to run in. I think they met at a bar and I think when they met at a bar, he heard about my father and was like, oh, yeah, I'll keep him away. And it turned it was a pretty started as a protective thing. I see. So she found one monster to keep another one at bay.

Yep. Uh-huh. Do you think that he was a project for her or an adventure? No. No. No. No. Do you think the protection thing was genuine? I think the protection thing was genuine at first and then it turned into a trauma bond from all the drugs. So he might have, you said he was a narcissistic manipulator. He offered her an escape that was false. Yes, yes. Right. And she stayed with him for how long? Until he died.

He died in 2017 in the most 16 or 17, the most fitting way possible. That drunken drugged out violence never stopped in my family. And they were having an argument while they were high in drunk. And he went to the bathroom and had an aneurysm, collapsed on the floor and crapped all over himself, laid there for three hours while she screamed out of him living in Mount Worthless, he was. I really can't think of a more fitting way for the guy to end. That's why did you stay with him? Why did she stay with him? Yeah, because she had She had severe lack of self-respect and sense of self-accomplishment.

She didn't think she could do it. She didn't think she could survive without. She thought that she was broken and couldn't do anything without her. And he, over the years, had kind of built that into her. Right, right. And she just thought that he was indispensable and she could do anything without him. And so we tried She had a brother I have interventions. I personally had an intervention with him by the age of 14 15 years old

I'm digging beating him up now because like I said I was I was gone from home I was living on the streets, but I was home occasionally because I had to come home to recharge Okay, so when were you with your grandparents? That was no, I was with my grandparents from five to six Oh, so okay five to six. Oh, so okay, five to six. And then so first the five father, one year with my grandfather, and then back home with my stepdad. With your stepdad. And then it was my stepdad on. And when did you get big?

13 years old. Oh, how big? Six foot, 280 pounds. Oh yeah, oh yeah, so that was handy. Yeah. I got big fast. Right, right. But I was also quite shy and sensitive.

I didn't know how to use it at the time. So I got picked on constantly. I got used to go to school to school and get bullied all the time. I would get beaten at school, come home with bruises all over me. And I never defended myself. I would never stand up for myself. Why, why, why didn't you defend yourself? I don't know. I started to defend myself one day when I snapped and a kid had slammed my head into a locker

and picked him up and kind of ragged all of them and slammed him a bunch of times. And I noticed that when I did that, after that for the next four or five months, I was at the school. I didn't have anybody buy. Right, right, right. So that was the first time you realized that, eh? Why do you think it happened then and hadn't happened before, despite the fact that you were bullied?

I don't know. I don't know. I think that I think it might have been because the chaos at home was really starting to spin up. That's right. That's right about the same time. Hit your limit. You know, have you ever read about people going berserk?

Some. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it often happens to people who are in a very chaotic environment who are being abused continually and they hit their threshold and it's something like a last-ditch do-or-die response, right? It's like, well, I've tried to retreat. That's not working. I'm cornered. I've got nothing to lose because it's very dangerous position to put someone in. And that's where I ended up being at the end of the story. I got nothing to lose because it's very dangerous position to put someone in. And that's where I ended up being at the end of the story. Yeah, I bet. I bet.

Okay, so at 13, you're fairly large and you learned one day at school that if you... So that happened when I was about eight or nine, when I ragged all that cake, because I was still pretty big. That was when I was about five and a half foot tall and still pretty large. I was growing into my body at that point. Right. So I was still pretty big. I was by that, that was what I was about. I was five and a half foot tall and still pretty large. I was growing into my body at that point. Right. So I was still pretty big. But that was what I first figured out

that if I've lashed out, the people would leave me alone. I also right around that same time figured out that one of the first things, I would kind of do the reverse of what people talk about when they go into prison. You know what they talk about going to prison? The thing, they're going up to the biggest guy, try to fight him in the established role.

Yeah. I would kind of do the opposite. I go up to the biggest, the most popular kid and then insult myself to him. And then, and make fun of myself to that kid. Uh-huh. And kind of like establish the pecking order immediately. Like I go find the biggest,

whoever the, this ring leader did it was humor. Yeah. Well, kind of, self-deprecating humor that nobody else found funny but me. That kind of, kind of self-deprecating humor that nobody else found funny but me, that kind of insulting kind of like. I see. So you got the pecking order problem over with as fast as you possibly could. And you were willing at that point to accept a relatively low social position. I knew I was. By that point, I had internalized that I was the low social. I see. I see. So I thought you might as well just get it over with quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm going to end up doing it. Well, then you don't have the conflict.. I see. I see. So I thought you might as well just get it over with quickly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to end up doing it. Well, they don't have the conflict. Yeah. Exactly. The sooner I can resolve it, the less fight. Right. Right. Right. Definitely. The less bullying I'm going to go through. If I can, if I can establish myself right there and make it, and if I can do that and make fun of myself, I'm not an appealing target. Because bullying is only going to go after you if you get a response out of you and you can make you cry. So did that generally mean that you were left alone, even though you were at low man on the pool? Kind of, but it was more left alone at a stabilized level of ridicule.

Okay. Like, left alone down here. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's not left alone. Entire like hands off. He's okay.

We can't make fun of him anymore. Right. It's like, we're going to make him fun of him right here, but we're not going to pick on him down there because it's not going to, he's not going to cry. There's no, he's okay, we can't make fun of him anymore. It's like we're gonna make him fun of him right here, but we're not gonna pick on him down there because he's not gonna cry. There's no fun in that. Right, so it's predictable low status. Predictable low status. Yeah, that's a good way.

Yeah, well, you see this, you see that in primate social troops too, is that sometimes this is one indication of that, is sometimes if an interloper comes in, who could disrupt the whole hierarchy, you might think that that would be useful for the lower ranking primates because they would have an opportunity to move up, but they'll generally resist the interloper too because the cost of social transition, the conflict that goes along with social

transition, the cost of that can be so high that they would rather settle for this stable, low status than the unpredictable transition. Yes, that's a precise, that's a very apt description of what was going on with that. I would rather just be what I think I am. I'm the worthless one. I'm the one you're going to make fun of anyway. I'm the fat smelly one. Let's get this out of the way and then I can go ahead and try to live, try to be, I'm going to be out of here less than six months anyway because I'm pretty sure my family's going to evapor of the way. And then I can go ahead and try to live, try to be, I'm going to be out of here less than

six months anyway, because I'm pretty sure my family is going to evaporate soon anyway. Right. So it's temporary. So let's just get this out of the way and we'll go. And while you're doing that yourself and yourself, so to speak, with books and so forth. Yeah. Right. Right.

And then I have a nice, and right around then, that's when I really started to get more and more toxic. And I really started to, to between, between nine and 13 was really when I really started to get more and more toxic. And I really started to between nine and 13 was really when I started to become more, I'm not toxic in a attacking way, not like insulting everybody I'm around, just unappealing and filthy and off-putting and just like,

kind of like give off almost a xenophobic reaction. Like, kind of like just don't wanna touch it, kind of. Were you better? I think, I think looking back, yeah. I think I was. Well, you had reason to be. I mean, it would be surprising. I didn't think I was then.

What did you think then? I think I was just living. I didn't think that there was a tomorrow then. I would regularly say that I felt my life was like I was watching a movie. Like I'm sitting in the audience watching my movie pass by and it sucks. And I don't have any real control over it. Like I, well, another description I would use is like I'm living in a tsunami of pain. Like I'm just sloshing back and forth.

Like I don't, my fear is that. The first response that's called de-realization. It's a symptom of trauma, which is to see your existence as separate from you. The de-realization is that this isn't, and I don't know if this accurately sums up what you're saying, but this isn't real, right? You're like a watcher. yeah, it was felt very unreal. It felt very much like I am not in my movie. I'm sitting in the audience and my movie is passing me by and every now and then it pulls me into a scene and I have to be in it, but I'm not I'm not I don't have any script in this. I'm not engaged in this. Well, yeah, well, that would also be reflective at least in part of the

fact that you had almost no agency. Yeah, right. I mean, you're being pulled from place to place. Mm-hmm. It's not surprising that you felt that things around you were going on despite you because they were. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's a very difficult thing to contend with when you're like nine.

Yeah. Yeah. And my brother at the same time is getting a little more family status because he is assuming of the responsibility. He's the one that's handling, getting the houses when we're getting evicted. He's the one that's handling the fix in the car. And he's also joining in.

So he starts doing drugs with my family. He starts drinking with them. He's really early on. He just joins in. So I don't at all. I didn't. Why not? I found it very unappealing. I would sit and watch those guys do it and I just it was I never understood why.

You would sit there. Did you drink? I'd not until I was in my 20s. Oh, is that well that was that was a wise choice because you had been in real trouble especially. Only drug I did as a teenager was LSD. I tripped LSD when I was 16 years old, but I didn't smoke weed till I was 19. Uh-huh. Okay, so now you're starting to change somewhat dramatically around eight. You said you start to become markedly consciously on a peeling like I'm trying to tell people off,

do you think? Or it started unconscious and then gradually, and I wouldn't even say gradually, it moved into conscious. Yes. So what were your conscious strategies and thoughts at that time? I wouldn't bathe, I wouldn't change my clothes,

I wouldn't brush my teeth, I wouldn't say them really inappropriate things about myself and about what was going on. I would describe the stuff I was seeing in my house, like blatantly around people. And it was the, just trying to be, and I think it was again trying to establish that social pecking order on a constant basis. Well, it's also an attempt. It looks like an attempt also to bring what was happening to you anyways under some degree of voluntary control.

Right, you didn't. There wasn't any obvious way for you to improve it. But one way to control it was to take, well, you might think, to take ownership of it. And I don't know what that is though, to make it even worse, you know, because in some ways you you're fighting yourself. People will do that.

They'll punish themselves for being low status, for example. Yeah. Yeah. And I knew that I belonged there. And I really internalized that. And the... Right. So then you're not worth taking care of, either.

No, I wasn't worth taking care of at all. Okay. And at the same time, the violence in chaos at home is getting worse and worse. Like that's, they are now entering late-stage crack addiction and massive problems without alcoholism. And the degradation of the,

when you're an early drug addict, it's all right, because your body might be able to do it. When you're 15 years in, you're not resilient. And it, you could imagine, you had a choice to make. Imagine this is the choice. It's something like, either there's something wrong with you and that's why what's happening to you makes sense.

Or there's something unbelievably wrong with almost everyone in your family that goes back multiple generations that's so deep that it's terrifying. And that's the decision that I made that that's that's what I mean when I say I changed because that's the decision that flipped. I went from thinking that it was me to realize when it was that between 19 and okay 20. So that was that was that was what switched on you okay now Okay, 20k. So that was that was that was what switched on you. Okay, now you you've talked publicly quite a bit

about violent, the violent school shooter fantasies. Okay, so detail that out to me. So logically so I can understand and so we'll go philosophy as well because you're smart. So the probability that you had a philosophy is very high. So I'd like to know all of that. So the the well, we'll start around the fat 14 years old age when I'm living with that disaster, be house, some more of all the teenagers there because that's right around

with that. Right. Now you've got a gang kind of, yeah, we'll call it a gang. It's the way to put it. Um, and so I've got, I've got enablers, let's say, okay, psychological enablers with that. And so I am, I'm now fully embraced that I am the dirty, fast, straight one. I like, wrap the darkness around my blanket and it's become my personality. And now I, the, I started self-harming right around 14 years old.

What were you doing? Okay, I would start with light cuts on my arms and it started, I think think as an emotional regulatory thing Where it would calm the tsunami it would it would when when I felt like I was completely out of control and Yeah, so let me ask you something about that because I've wondered about that I've had clients you self-harmed. I'm wondering tell me what you think of this hypothesis So imagine know that time you snapped. So you could say you're out for blood.

Okay, so imagine that there's a part of your brain, a relatively primordial part associated with defensive aggression, which if pushed will only be satisfied with the sight of blood. Well, so because it's very common that people who self harm will state very specifically that unless they draw blood, they won't, they won't calm down. Yeah, no, that's so, that's, that's the, because it wasn't finished. If you didn't draw blood, you didn't do it. And that was, that was very much, it started with very sacrificial gesture, right? To offer blood up to the gods of emotional storm. In a way, yeah. And emotional storms are a good way to put it because it would really,

that would calm the tsunami. It would lower the thing. It would maybe even not lower. It would kind of like cut through that, that fuzz was something that was concrete in mine. And even though I knew it was destructive and I knew doing it, it was bad. Yeah, yeah. It was still mine. And it was real. And nothing else in my life I knew it was destructive and I knew doing it, it was bad. It was still mine. And it was real. And nothing else to my life felt like it was real. And so that, that blood is real. Yeah. Yeah. And the scars afterwards are real. And the pain was real. And the cuts out the, the scabs were real. And all of that. So that's interesting too, because that means that it also stood as an antithesis perhaps

to that sense of de-realization that you had. Yeah. And I was also at that time feeling a strong sense of anger at a complete lack of accountability for anybody in my world. Nobody in my world had any accountability, responsibility for anything. When stuff went wrong, they didn't have to deal with it. They evaporated and started over. They didn't have to deal with the ramifications of the hell they were causing. They just continued and continued and continued. Why do you suppose that bothered you and not them?

I don't know. That I don't know. It really didn't start to bother me, though. That was a thing that was really getting to you. Right, so that's a violation. Yeah, yeah. Well, I can understand that. You know, when I can be lack of account of it. Yeah, when I see people in my life in various places, failing to be held accountable for their pathological actions, it's I find that very, very difficult. Especially when there's no, not even any self-religion, not like not suffer liability, self-ignolage, not even any self awareness that this is what's going on.

Right, to me, it's a violation of the intrinsic moral order. Yes, it's a violation of our social contract. Yeah. That we are supposed to at least engage in a rational, and a normal way where I'm supposed to. If you say you're going to do something that can recently accept that that's what you're going to do, not that you're lying to me and doing something else

that I'm right behind my back. And then getting away with it and smiling and doing it again and enjoying the fact that happened. Oh yeah, you're not strong. I had to sit and listen to them laugh about how the lies that they were doing and how my stepdad was stealing. He worked at a, he would lose jobs over and over again because he would get a job.

Steal everything from the job and go sell it and then lose the job again. I was sitting laugh and listen to them revel about that and laugh about that stuff. And it would just be angry. And so I'm now in the kitchen. Yeah, well, everyone that a psychopathic thief, rogues is a fool. That's how they justify it. Well, if you're so stupid, I can steal from you,

then you're so stupid that you deserve it. Exactly. And everyone's a rube and everyone's a target. And the person who's doing it is smarter than everyone else. And now take that phenomenon and apply that in that dynamic to a depressed kid. If you're depressed, you deserve it because you're the worthless one and you should have deserved it. Yeah, so you're in a weird situation there because on the one hand, you feel that strongly

that people should be held accountable for their moral shortcomings. But on the other hand, you've accepted your role somewhat perversely as low status. You've started to, in some way, revel in it. A little bit, yeah. Well, you've adopted it voluntarily and you said you were pushing it to its limit. You said you wrapped the darkness around the window. Yeah, no, it became a definite,

not only personality trait, but survival technique. Right. Well, it's an identity. Well, it wasn't, it worked in this, in this house that you were in. It was, I was the Dark Unicorn. Right. Right. Well, it's an identity. There wasn't an identity. It wasn't worked in this house that you were in. It was. I was the dark unicorn. Right. Where they didn't have anything like me. But at the same time, I was living three parallel lives at that exact moment.

Because at that house, dark unicorn, where all the pain I was going through turned into a party favor, turned into some weird positive in a negative way. Yeah. Like negative, positive toxicity. Yeah, I've actually seen it. And like that. And so there's negative way. Yeah. The negative positive toxicity. Yeah, I've actually seen it. And like that. And so there's that side. Yeah.

And then I have my home life where it's just abject Helen, I'm the worst of them, I'm the bottom, and I'm the cast off. And I shouldn't even be there in the first place. Why the hell am I even in the house? Then I have the other side, which is, I've met at 12 years old, which is Mike. And when I went to Mike's house, Mike, so it's very important character to bring him in the story right now.

So I met Mike when I was, he was 10, I was 12. We met at a comic shop. We bonded over comic books. We met, we played, we met playing the original Mortal Kombat one video game to time it out and see what time it was. But we immediately bonded the first day. We met immediately hooked. We went, I went to his house and basically never left.

We just deep conversation. How long were you? I was 12, he was 10. Oh yeah. And so we just hooked up and I just basically never left. We just deep conversation. How long were you? I was 12, he was 10. Oh yeah. And so we just hooked up and I just basically never left his house for a week. Why did his parents put up with you? They were really, at the time, they were super sweet.

They lived in a giant four-story house. They're both really well off. His dad was a computer programmer, his mom was a lawyer. Very well to do. He was, they thought that I was just a sweet kid down the street. I lived at the opposite of the one of the blocks at that time. So at the opposite of the block of one of the houses I lived in, that's what I meant. And so we just bought it immediately, became good friends. And it started where we were I would stay there for weeks and his parents

were fine with it. And then over the years to stay there for a couple days, they were okay with it. By the time I'm 15, 16 years old, I can't stay there anymore because now I'm really dirty and filthy. And if I sit on their couch, they have to clean it. So you're so bad at the beginning. I was wondering why they would put up with you.

I get the picture now. So you were a more or less ordinary kid as far as they were concerned when the relationship started. I was just a star. His son's friend at the start and I was having a rough life. So they were going to try to give me all the good. I see. Okay. And then over the years, as I went from 12 to 15 to 13, 14, 15, that arc, that abuse of arc I was going on made me go down and made what's Mike doing

during the time that you're declining. He the whole time I've been friends with Mike, he's never treated me like anything but and equal. Mike, did, Mike would tell me constantly, you're a good kid. Can I language in this podcast? You say whatever you want. You're a good kid in a shit world. He would say over and over. You're a good kid in a shit world. And he, that was like a constant refrain. We would tell him all the time and over at his house. And we would, he would listen to me about my pain I was in, listen to all the abuse, and it was brought on that time with this when the self-harm started.

He would notice that I would come in with cuts and he wouldn't really ask, but he would just like, dude, you're going to be okay. He would try to tell me that. But I'm also spinning out because I'm only there for a couple hours and I go out and my world is very chaotic and living so the normal part of you, the normal part of the world is shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, very, very quickly. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And so I'm, the self-harm starts getting really bad, like deeper, deeper cuts. And I can't stay at Mike's house because his parents won't let me, they're, they're too filthy. And I'm burning out the rest of the friendship. And then that disaster, you be friends, house ends in one incident where I'm burning out the rest of the friendship. And then that disaster to be friends house ends in one incident where I'm having a big party. There's like 20 kids there and all these kids from the school

and there's even a band from one of the kids. At the house. At that house, we add the big party. And then right in the middle of it, there's like 13 kids, tripping acid, parents arrive. So parties over, all the kids have to go home, all the other kids get to go home, I get to go sleep in the field by and cost of a need.

Because that's the one last refuge in the spot where if I didn't have anywhere else to be, if I couldn't go to Mike's house behind cost of a need which is a big Mexican restaurant in Denver, if you ever watch a show South Park, did an episode on cost of a need. It's big, and the episode is actually accurate, that's got pink restaurant with its cliff divers,

it's really weird. But behind there, there was a field and in the field there was a little dip. So if you later, you couldn't see it from the street. So I was trying to be invisible, little camping area. And so that was one of the last places that I could be. And so they were able to go home, I got to go there. And so when that happened,

that really sent me off on a really dark spin where that was kind of like my last support that I had been staying at. I couldn't go home because the violence at home was really bad at that time. Like they were in the midst of a crack binge for months, they were really, really bad. And so I couldn't go home at all for more than an hour. Right.

And so I'm now homeless. Yeah, right, and you don't have Mike. I don't have Mike. I'm at a point either. No. And by I'm now homeless. No, I know. Yeah, right. And you don't have Mike. I don't have Mike. No. And by this point, instead of sleeping in his house, the only place I can go, he lets me sleep into his tool shed. Because in his tool shed behind his house, they had a big recliner shed they had in storage,

like a big lazy boy. And so I would go in there. And if I didn't have anywhere else to be, I could go to his tool shed and I could sleep. You still know Mike? Still my best friend. I just talked to him yesterday. Oh, I could go to his tool shed and I could sleep. You still know Mike? Still my best friend. I just talked to him yesterday. Oh wow.

Still my best friend in this world. Well, thank God for these small mercies. Yeah. So I'm in his shed and now I'm cutting myself so bad that there's a pool of blood on the ground beneath me. And it's like two o'clock in the morning and I look up and there's the roof and the shed has gaps and I would see the stars in between. And so looking up and thinking,

I gotta do something I'm gonna die. If I don't get some help, I'm gonna die. And so over the years, social services had tried to intervene a couple of times. So I think, well, what I'll call social services on myself. And so when Don, you're how old? I'm 15, 50. So when Don came, I go, and this is late 15, early 16.

So this is the end of that year, beginning of the next year, my birthday's in May. So it's about a, this whole process takes almost a year for this process to take. So the, I think I got to get myself some help. So the next day when Don came, I knocked on my expector and borrowed a bus fare and a phone book from his mom and called Social Services and said an appointment for that afternoon. And so they brought me there and it was Don what I called the appointment was until three or four in the afternoon.

By the time I got there, they brought my mom in too. So yeah, we sit around at a table, big counseling table, and there's on one side, there's four or five counselors, on the other side, there's me and my mom. They have to still sit together. And the counselor says, so what do we hear for?

What's your problem? And so I produce a bloody razor blade. It's box cutters to our razor blade. And so I throw it on the table. I said, that's my problem. I lift a marm, I show them the cuts, I said, I feel like I'm worthless. Filling with the bottom, I feel like there's nothing left. My mom, who is the most practice liar I've a mark, I'm showing the cuts, I said, I feel like I'm worthless. Filling with the bottom, I feel like there's nothing left.

My mom, who is the most practice liar I've ever known, got them to believe I was just making it all up. I was just doing it for attention. I just did it to get a rise out of people. It wasn't that important. Then they sent me home with her. And so we get three blocks from the place as you turn to me with this evil look on your face

and snarls, you should do it next time. You should do a bit of job next time I buy you the f*** and raise your blades. Mm. And I'm like, okay, you think I'm a monster? I'll show you what a monster is now. And instead of wearing that, don't just like a blanket, I dove right into it.

I just, I went on what I call a nine month period, I call Scorched Earth, where that was where I hit my full toxicity. I was consciously going to anybody that was nice or good or positive in my world and offending you on purpose. If there was something that you liked, I would find that and break that. If you liked something, I would steal it. If you, if whatever would offend you the most, I'd do that.

And it was to the most important people in my world. I even went to Mike's house. It stole three of the big boxes of comic books. I went and sold them to comic shop. I was trying to break every bit of positive in my world. For nine solid months I did that. And then at the end of during that period, I also snuck and charmed my way into every family member I could. And like smoothed my way in, got into other picture albums, got a photo albums, gathered every picture of me into a pile and burned

them. So currently there's only like five pictures of me that exists before the age of 15 because my my. you you went and established good relationship just just briefly specifically to get the picture why because I wanted to erase my past I wanted to annihilate my history. I was trying to erase me and so after nine months of that. Do you think that what you were doing? Look the story that you've told so far makes why you did what you were doing, even in this situation, understandable. Did you know it was wrong at that time? Oh, yeah.

You knew it was wrong. Well, why do you think it was wrong given that you had all the reasons that you've described to do it? Because I was hurting myself. But at the time I was in that self-destructive mode, I would, Mike, for instance, as an example, when I did that, it's like, dude, what the hell are you doing? Right.

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm your best friend for you to what? What has been done unjustly to you. Yes. So you're actually participating now. Yeah. Now I'm participating in the hell. Now I'm participating in the hell.

Yes. Now I'm fully given into it. And I not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it.

I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to be a part of it. I'm not going to offend everybody. Right, right. And so after nine months of that, I have a personal societal destruction. I was alone, completely alone. And I had been alone for over a month. And I was in that field by in Kasabanyita. And I'd been living there for about a month.

And I hadn't taken close off. How are you eating? I was stealing free samples from the grocery store at the top of the hill. Did you ever engage in any criminal activity during that time at part of that? Yeah, I would go, I would walk up to the comic shop and steal a whole shelf full of comic books,

walked down the street and handed to the first kid I saw. During that period, what about criminal behavior? My Photoshop lifting, I would go to the store and steal candy bars, stuff like that. Nothing major, My inner shoplifting, I would go to the store and steal candy bars, stuff like that. Nothing major. Mine are shoplifting. But during that period, I was doing it like like, egregiously and blatantly. Right. So that's part of the power of self-destruction. Yeah, I would go to the grocery store, steal an entire shelf or the comic books. And the first kid that I would see walk another tree, I'd just hand him to it. And here he wants a cox.

the first kid that I would see walk another tree that I just handed to him. Here you want some cocks? Yeah. And because they didn't matter to me. And so yeah, I was that kind of crying. Okay, so now you're out in the field. You're completely alone because you cut yourself off from every bend. I wake up in the snow. And I, because I had been there for months, I hadn't taken my shoes off in weeks,

but I also wasn't wearing socks. My feet were just rotting off of my body. I, like I said, I was surviving by eating free samples from the grocery store and stealing whatever food I can from up there and going down to your diving. I was trying to invade the police during school hours by being on school campus, but not going to class so because I had to be, otherwise you'd get a rest

from a truancy. So I'm invading the police. I am, and then I wake up in the snow. And it's so cold, the two-block walk to get up to the grocery store. I wasn't just shaking. I was seizing. I was like, could barely breathe. Like my body was, could barely move.

Then I get up there and I'm looking in the mirror and I'm trying to wash my face off. And I'm like, I've got to do something. I'm going to die. If I don't do something now, I'm going to die. And so across the street from the school I was at, there was a building that said, why didn't you just want to die? I don't know.

I don't know, OK. Across the street from the school that I was normally at was a building that said mental health. And I didn't know what it was for. I just knew that the science had mental health. But I knew the last time I warned them, they brought my mom in, I'm not doing that shit again. So I'm just going gonna go in cold.

And so I went to the place in that afternoon and they having me a young lady, she was, it was a counseling center. They having me a young lady that she was in her early 20s, I think, and I don't really remember much about that conversation. Because all I remember is the very end where she said, I'm sorry, there's nothing

I can do, I can't help you. And I walked out of that door and I remember is the very end where she said, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do, I can't help you. And I walked out of that door, and I remember vividly standing on that porch and it was early night, so that evening hour. Why had you not gone for any, well, I guess you said why when you did try to go to special services, it always worked out badly for you and then they brought your mom in, and that went even worse.

And now you went to this mental health place. And so when I stepped out that door, my brain broke like a mirror. Like standing on that step, that's the spot right then and there, then my brain snapped like a mirror and felt like shards of glass in my brain. And instantly three things happened,

like one right after the other one. First thing was I found what was at the bottom with that tsunami. Like that tsunami of pain I was living in went all the way down to the bottom. And at the bottom, there's no more waves. It gets really quiet and gets really still and all the waves go away.

Because there's nothing left to lose. Like, what do you do to cut my arm off? You know, put me in jail, they're gonna feed me. I don't have any more down from here. And so right then, the plans that I wanted to you crystallized in my head, I had talked them through with those disaster group friends because when we were sitting

with those disaster group friends, instead of we were sitting with those disaster groupy friends, instead of talking about sports or girls or football, we'd talk about killing people. We'd talk about, so if you're going to shoot 10 people, how would you do it? If you're going to shoot up a school, what would you do? And that was the fiction of the group. And so over the years, I had already talked about it. Based on why did that be? You said you were at the center of that.

So is that where they show boating, where they bragging? It was a lot of it was show boating and bragging and it started off is just like like a mat like we're looking at mass murder things and crazy videos and stuff and and finding your point with the dark side. Yeah. Yeah. And and I always would go further into that dark than anybody else would. So when they were when you were looking up that's a status issue as well. Yeah. Kind of. And so it turned, and that's how that, that's initially how those started was kind of like status. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of dark. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But for me, then it was plans. I knew I had talked through. I had already knew what I was going to do. I was going to go eat it through the door,

the windows into the food court. This was open campus area. This was at the school. At the school. At the school I was supposed to be attending North High in Denver. And this was open campus area. So they didn't lock the doors or nothing. So you could get in and out easily,

could leave the campus and go to lunch and then come back. So I knew if I went in, I could go in through the doors and go right into the food court and kill everybody in the food court. And how are you going to do that? Well, so the two, that portion of it. So the two plans was either either the food court. And how are you going to do that? Well, so the two, the two plans was either either the food court, or the mall food court, and both the same things. Neither one of those spots were soft targets.

The school had uniformed our police officer stationed in at all times, and the mall had a police station and a couple of others down from the food court. The plan was to cause as much damage as possible and die while doing it. And, but that wasn't really the goal of my attack. The goal of my attack was to cause my parents to deal with making me. I wanted to have them deal with the ramifications of creating me.

So I wanted to cause as much damage as possible, as visible as possible, die while doing it, so that they had to deal with creating a monster. You think that would have made any difference? I don't know. But that was the goal at the time. That was what was in my head at the time. And so, and I knew, a former revenge, yeah, but I didn't, but I felt that attacking them

would have been useless. That what they're going to hurt for one day and that's done me nothing, but they'd never face accountability for anything they've ever done. And they did me. So now they have to face up with making me. And that was the goal of that. And I knew what I knew where to get a gun because this was boys in the hood era,

this was late 90s, so the gangbaggers were all over and they would bring guns into school and flash them in the school because it was before the age of metal detectors, so they would just flash hand-gones. And they bought and sold drugs from my family. So they knew me, they knew I was living in the school because there's before the age of metal detectors. So they would just flash handguns and they bought and sold drugs for my family. So they knew me. They knew they knew I was living in the field. They they would regularly buy drugs from my family.

And so I went up to my cake and get me a gun, hope the one that shoots a lot of bullets. Yeah, sure. Get me an ounce of weed. And that these days, that's walking down to a story and getting it back then. That's like 300 bucks worth of illicit narcotics. But for me, that was easy.

They knew my parents were drug dealers. I just went to my family's house, stole it out of a drug and he was pants sleeping on my brother's bedroom floor. Like he had three ounces in his pocket. It's took when I was pocket, took it. And so did you get it, God? I did, I didn't get it, God. I went and gave him the weed.

Yeah. He was set to get the gun. He told me three days. Okay. Three days time I was gonna have the gun. And in that three day time, that's when I was set. If the incident I got the gun, I was going to cause the attack. If it was daytime, go to the school, night time, go to the mall.

That was the only difference. How detailed had your plan speed? I knew exactly what door I was going to go into and what I was going to do. How much time she's supposed to spend setting up those plans? So that's a two-sided question. The planet self-crystallized instantly, but I had set months planning that because we talked about it. How much time do you spend with your guys?

With your friends? Oh, weeks and weeks. How many hours? At least 30 or 40. Okay. Yeah, a lot of long times of plan. I'm just that dark conversation of planning it. A lot of long times of plan. I'm just that dark conversation of planning it.

And so that's fantastic in planning. And in that, you're working through the, and I didn't realize it then. I don't think they realized it then, but we were working through the ins and outs and the problems with it and what's going to work and what's not going to work. So yeah, by the time it all happened, I had the plan. It came out of the box. Yeah. That's the danger of practicing something. Yeah.

And so I knew right then. And so in that three day of time, I didn't think about it then, but looking back, I think I was saying goodbye. OK. Because I didn't know that was what I was doing then. But I was going to people in a much more peaceful way and like saying, thank you. And went to my ex-cooperance and said,

thank you for letting me sleep on the gravel outside your window. And I was going just saying sorry for things and I was, I think I was saying goodbye. And at the end of that I went to my ex-house. And when I went to my ex-house I knocked on his door and he opened it and I was in tears and I was just crying and he brought me in and he never asked what I was there for. He never asked what it was about. He knew intimately the hell I had been living in. It was his bedroom that I was in there when I was with the cuts of my arms

and he saw the pain from my family. He knew intimately the hell I was in, but he didn't ask. He just brought me in and sat me down and kept on telling me over and over again, you're a good kid in a shit world. He was what he kept on saying to me. And he sat me down and he gave me some food and we watched a movie and

He acted like that nine months of destruction never happened and It wasn't hanging out with a friend that saved my life. That wasn't what did it It was that when I knocked on his door. I felt like I was a walking ball of nothing Mm-hmm I was just there to close off my life and write the last line and say thank you goodbye I'm done turn to close off my life and write the last line and say, thank you, goodbye. I'm done. Turn the lights off. I'm out.

And so I thought that I was just a nothing waiting to explode. And what he did, I think, was he put the tiny granular bits of being a person back on the bottom shelf of my life. Like it wasn't. It wasn't that, do you think? What is it about Mike? If you asked him what he did, he just said he just did what a friend supposed to do Yeah, but he was the only person that you found yeah for you and and I don't know what it is

But he's the only one that no matter what happened He never true like I was anything but an equal He never looked at me like I was broken. He never looked at me like I was a project He looked at me like I was a kid in pain and so he he would talk to me about it. And we would, we would, he would, he would, he never looked down on me. We would have deep discussions. He was going to high school for philosophy, going to college and all this stuff. Yeah. I was a dropout. And I was living in this crime-infested hellhole. And he never once acted like it wasn't anything but a buddy that deserved respect that he talked to. And it was the only part of my life that Mike have

either friends. Yeah, yeah, Mike had a big social circle, and that's going to tie into the next part of the story. So, the, so what I, what he did with that, it wasn't just that I could like have a meal. It was that I can enjoy food now. Like I can be reminded of the base human things. And for me, it was absolutely cathartic. It was like like Rolling the clock back on my humanity

Like you you had abandoned any sense of value in yourself. Yeah, totally I had but he was ready to let that go unwilling unwilling to let it go and and not even unwilling to let it go It was the he didn't even see that it was leaving It was like like didn't even see that it was leaving. It was like, like, that's a weird dynamic. It wasn't that he didn't let me slide off the cliff. So he didn't even see that I was on a cliff. Like, Oh, it didn't even treat me like I was on a cliff. And that was extremely powerful to be seen when you feel fundamentally invisible. Like, I would walk around and ask my classmates, do you remember when I leave the room? When

I'm gone, do you remember that I was here? Because I thought when you'd just been ignored by the mental health clinic, do you? Yeah, I felt completely invisible. I felt alone and nothing and to be seen and validated and in the most normal ways, just like it was just a regular Tuesday. And to me, I was on the precipice of a life altering madness. And it was just a Tuesday. And it fundamentally changed my life. And I didn't leave this house for a week. I never went and got the gun. And now was Mike still living with his parents? So why were you allowed to stay there? I think he went and talked to him. I don't know why. I didn't

never ask him. I never saw his parents that week. I just went basically stayed in his bedroom. I think he just went and talked to him. I think he just was like, Hey, Aaron really needs this. And so yeah, he's staying in my bedroom. So I can get in trouble for it if you want to, but he's there. Because by that point, that's kind of the attitude that he had. He had had it with his friends groups. He went to art school and so he had a bunch of art friends and so they were really preppy and yuppie and so well to do and not all of them look, not a little, well we're very that's charitable as Mike was to someone like me.

And so they were in friend groups where they were like, well Aaron needs to go, he smells and Mike was standing up in the middle of them like, no dude if you're saying he's to go you go ahead and bounce right now because he's not going anywhere. And so that kind of validation and belonging, it was it fundamentally changed me to my core. And but and during that week, during that week, it changed me. Well, that's the start. Okay, it's it's important to note that it's not like it's a magic light switch, like ding everything's better than it's all fixed. This

was a process, and this was the start of the process. So what he did was give me a frame shift. He let me change my perspective a bit. The clock rolled back. It was like I said, instead of washing in that tsunami and going you through crazy and was washing around, I could set my feet down for the first time. So he reminded you that you were rotten too? That I wasn't rotten to my core. And so I could be for a little while. And he also talked to one of his friends and let me stay with so I could be for a little while. And so that, and he also talked to one of his friends and let me stay with one of his friends for a while. So I was able to get a house, a sleeping arrangement and reassess and shift my frame of reference

just a bit enough to take a breath and reestablish with my personhood. But the chaos at home was still the same, the abuse at home was still the same, the violence all there was still the same, the self hatred was still the same. That hell was still there. But I was able to step back off that inch and take breath. But now we're going to fast forward three years, okay, because that was between 15 and 16. Now, do you go to the night of my 19th birthday? Okay, night of my 19th birthday, I was planning on committing suicide. I would have the depression at the end. So now you dropped, you dropped the school shooting you dropped the school shooting. Drop the school shooting. Drop the school shooting.

Why? It had went outward anger too. Because almost instantly when Mike did that, I felt ashamed and remorseful. Almost instantly. When that reestablishment of my humanity hit, the remorse and the shame of what I had planned was pretty pretty frustrating.

So it's interesting. One of the things that you're claiming is that you would have only been able to go through with what you had planned if you had in fact successfully severed every tie you had. You would have had to have been genuinely alone and alienated and Mike reminded you that you weren't. So I thought that I was.

Yeah, yeah, the micr-mide to me that I wasn't with that. Right. And sort of despite your best efforts, right? Because you'd spend you said eight months, yeah, nine months. Yeah, yeah. But despite all my best efforts and despite massive effort on my part that he just wouldn't let go. And love very much. So here's a great example of that love. That's why I like telling this part of the story. So night in my 19th birthday, I was planning on a committee suicide. And I was going to do it by overdose. I's why I like telling this part of the story. So my 19th birthday, I was planning on a committee's

suicide and I was gonna do it by overdose. I had gotten a bunch of LSD off the streets, still on a bunch of pills from cocaine from my mom. I had copious amounts of drugs way more than we're gonna need to do the job. And because my depression had spun up, but I was inward, I wasn't outward to arrest anymore. It was just, I was ashamed and depressed.

I just wanted to end it, tired of dealing with this anymore. But I had interventions in the past. My kid would be like, dude, you're depressed. We need to stop it. I didn't want any of that. So I was trying to act as normal as possible. I was trying to act like nothing was wrong in my day. So I went to Mike's house. And Mike's a very social guy. His social circle of his own. And one of this group friends is a girl named Amber. Amber was really friendly with me. She was always really nice to me. But she was his contact. She was definitely his friend. And we would go over to her house every now and then

watch a movie, listen to music, whatever. And so he was like, hey, we're gonna kick it in Amherst today. Like, right, that seemed like a great last day. I was spending it with two of my favorite people and then go back to the field when I'm customary to end my life. That was the plan. And so I get there and that wasn't it at all.

I actually walked into a surprise birthday party for me. And I walked into about 14 people saying happy birthday and Amber had baked a blueberry peach pie. I walked past him and dropped on my drug and toilet and I was last time I ever tried to kill myself. And that's what really set me on my own path. And here's where the love portion comes in. Because when we left my house, there was no birthday party. Mike called the head to Amber's house. He said, hey, Amber, I'm taking Aaron over there. And this is birthday today. Then Amber was having a get together. She had already had a bunch of people over.

She had already baked the pie. And she's like, hey, Aaron's coming over. This is birthday. Let's make it a birthday party for him. So they all got together and made a bunch of decorations and stuff and threw up a quick birthday party. I walked into a fundamentally life-changing thing that changed my opinion of myself to my core

that my friend put up in five minutes and be a nice to an old friend. Mm-hmm. So yeah, just a simple act of kindness. Nothing, the people who tried to be do their own business. Well, not so simple. Not so simple, man, but real, and fundamental,

and genuine, genuinely thoughtful. Genuinely thoughtful. Right, right. And it changed me. That's what really started me on the path to, that was the time when I reassessed. And right after that, I did some serious soul searching about, is this me? Or is this not me?

And have deep conversation with Mike and Amber and other friends about how no dude, this isn't me. This is, I will live through hell. And yeah, I'm not adapted to it. I made some really bad decisions and it's really toxic choices. But I don't have to stay there. I can move out of this hell now and I can keep going and I can let them live their hell out in that side. But I don't know. You have to do it because you're 90. Yeah. Yeah. And at that point, Mike actually saved my life one more time by he moved me out to Kansas City. The final clip that cut the family hooks out of me was he went to

college in Kansas City and moved me out there for a summer. I got to go live with him out in KC and I was I'm from Denver. So I got to go spend a summer out with my family. That did two things. They gave me the confidence that I could do something on my own when it get a job. Bay, bills, pay rent. Yeah. Yeah. It also pissed my family off. When I got back, how dare you leave? How dare you think you're better than us? How dare you have a life? How dare you think you can exist without us? Yeah. you have a life? How dare you think you can exist without us? And so that was where I was able to be like, oh, I find, dude, they're attacking me for making myself better.

This isn't me. This is them. And so that's where I finally made that flip. And right about that same time, I started on the real process of my recovery where I call acknowledgement. So I was about 19 years old and I still, again, mom still has her hooks on me at the time. I was working with her at a

Veterans of Forum Wars Bar. And so she, it was right, certainly after I had kind of started to serve a contact. And I'm in this process, but I was working there. So she was running the bar, I was bartender there. And it was a Veterans of Forum Wars Bar, so veterans go in there. So she was running the bar. I was a bartender there. And it was a veteran's foreign wars. So veterans go in there and start drinking. I was 19 years old. Okay. So and the my aunt is on the other side of the bar. And it's a bunch of people drinking whole busy night. And she's on the other side of the bar. And she's one of the people who had tried to molest me when I was younger, dunked in the carpet for crack rock, tried to kill herself a couple of times in a front of me, toxic, toxic person.

And she's on the other side of the bar, and she's just off-handedly talking. I don't even hear the conversation they're having. All I hear is they're saying, oh, Aaron, you know you love me, and I stopped and said, no, I don't. And I didn't mean to say that. It just came out.

I said, no, I don't. And she said, what? I said, no, I don't actually love you. Try to kill yourself in front of me. You tried to molest me, and I don't actually love you. I'm done. And she started screaming. She blew up, no, I don't actually love you. Try to kill yourself in front of me. You tried to molest me and I don't actually love you. I'm done. And she started screaming. She blew up and had a big old screaming fit.

And to me, it was like white noise. I didn't hear any of it. It's a turn to the static. Because it was like an amulet jumped off of my chest. Like instantly, just instant release. And I felt so good afterwards that I just walked out like, oh my God, I just did that. And it was like,

it was like, peace. Freedom. And so that started a, I just did that. And it was like, I was like, Peace. Freedom. Yeah. And so that started a process where I did that exact thing to everybody in my life that abused me. I went in a process of acknowledgement and I made sure it was purposeful, very purposeful, that it wasn't retaliatory. I didn't go to anybody and say, you did this and you need to pay for it. I went to him and said, this is our fun, our relationship was fundamentally changed.

I don't actually love you and I'm done. And I walked away. And that had such a cathartic effect on me. How did you know that it shouldn't be retaliatory? I just felt it in my core that it shouldn't be because I felt that if it was retaliatory, that just continues the argument. Yeah, right. It engages and continues the contest. You're still hooked. It's still hooked. And it still continues the back and forth. And it's still the toxicity. You're gonna come back with what you did this. I don't care about that.

That's why you turn the other cheek. Yeah. And this isn't about retaliation. This isn't about me getting something back because you hurt me. You hurt me and I'm dealing with it. Right. And I'm dealing with it by being done with it.

Yeah. I'm dealing with it. I'm done with it. And I'm gonna walk away and I'm gonna stop having that hurt. And then what sort of response did you get to see? Some of them scream, and some of them yelled, and some of them begged me to stay, and I didn't care.

None of it mattered to me. I just made sure that I said it. Why did you think you were able to not be manipulated into feeling guilty? I think because by that point, I had burned out the ability to get embarrassed or ashamed about anything. I had burned out the end.

I had burned out the ability for any of those family members judgment to hurt me anymore. Yeah, well, and as you said to you, you'd be down in Kansas City and you had that break. Yeah. You couldn't take care of yourself in half your life. And that gave me a breath and light on that to see. It's shown a bright light on that toxicity to see that that was its own sense of hell. Like it's their insults cause other people to insult them back cause a fight to happen,

it's just a violent circle that just spins around and around. And if I engage in that at all, I get sucked into it. But looking at it looks really stupid. So the more I can step back and look at it, the easier it got. Right, right. And so you're like, it was very important to me to not have it be retaliatory

and to make sure that it was just get it out of me. And every time I did, it was like a step, it was like flying. It was like, like, elation. Yeah. Just, just pure elation that I was able to do it. And now today, I can confidently say that I never sit and have the regret that, oh my god, it was this person knew how I felt. They all know. They all know, they all know I'm fine with telling them again. So you started to get your life together fairly seriously at about 19. At about 19. That's when I started, well, kind of emotionally, I started to get myself better. Yeah. And I started to reassess that I can do it, get myself some stability and drop a lot of that toxic affectation.

Should you go back to Kansas City? I did not. I actually came back to Colorado and got by living by myself and got my own apartment. Mike was helping me and got my own job out of that family hook. And what you all did, yeah, I was actually, let's see, right around then, I was working at a Starbucks in Barnes and Noble downtown Denver. So I was just working at a coffee shop service jobs. And did you learn to do a good job?

Yeah, yeah. I've always been, every job I go to, they always want me to be manager. I see. First job I ever had. I became assistant manager. Well, you said that you didn't do your assignments and so forth in school.

So how did, how was it that you were able to do a good job when you got a job? The, because when my, the assignments, I just never found them to be important. For me, I engaged with things that I think are important. I used to tell people that it was important. It was important. And important to do a good job

and benefitably do a good job. The assignments in the school I felt were real busy work. The, if I know the subject, for instance, English class, the reason why I always went to English class was because I had a teacher that I had gotten kicked out of the advanced placement English class for correcting the teacher on Shakespeare. I first did a classic corrective on Shakespeare. I had happened to be in my acid field parties with my disaster before ends. We were acting out the place of Shakespeare at night. That's what we would do. We had the complete worship Shakespeare. We got the mid-Summer night stream and just pick a character and go through the play. That's what we would do.

Trip and acid. 16 year old. And so I went to school and my teacher was teaching Shakespeare first day and he was getting it wrong and it happened to me in the summer night stream. And so I corrected him and teacher does that thing you see in the TV. Well, Mr. Stark, would you like to get up and teach the class? Yeah. So I stood up and started holding court. And so I started talking about it. And he pulled me out of class, opened up the door of class. So everybody could see, still be in front of the class.

So I did berating me, screaming at me. Don't you ever contradict me like that. How dare you confront me in front of class like that? Don't you ever do that? Get out of here. Kick me out of this class. Sum it under remedial English. So I got kicked out of the class

where I'm correcting my Shakespeare, go into the class where they're teaching sentence, structure, and punctuation. And I'm like, I go to the teacher. I'm like, go into the classroom, they're teaching sentence, structure, and punctuation. And I'm like, I want to teach her. I'm like, hey, you find that particularly motivating? No, not really. I want to teach her, I'm like, hey, can I know this? Can I do this?

Can I get your final? Because I know this stuff. I write and I read. I'm really good at this. Like, you can do that. Please just let me prove it. And so she did. She gave me the final.

Same teachers? Same teacher. Oh, different. Oh, I see. Good and remedial English. Remedialing the teacher is a lady. And she's like, can you do it? I'm? Nope, different teachers. Oh, different teachers. Remedial English. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see. Good end remedial English. Remedial English teachers are a lady, and she's like, can you do it?

I'm like, yes, sure. So I'd take her final. I ace the final for Remedial English. Got 100%. And so, from then on, I was her de facto class assistant. So even though I never went to class, and even though it was only there once every three weeks, when I was there, I didn't have to do these assignments.

I could just walk around and help everybody else with their assignments. And I'm book report day. I didn't have to read the book. I could just walk around and help everybody else with their assignments. And I'm book report day. I didn't have to read the book. If I could walk up to her and explain what the book was. If I'd go to her and tell her the story and tell her what happened in the book and explain that I know what it is, I didn't have to write the report.

And it was, so she was the real teacher. She was a real teacher. And she saw me as for being smart. And so I would, even though it was remedial English, I went to that class every day. All the, every day I could, every day I could get to that class, I could go to that class. Because that was one little hour where I felt valued and, and like I belonged. Right. Right. Yeah. Well, part of the story that you're telling has that motif in it is

that what you needed and unsurprisingly given the structure of your family and the fact that you were moving constantly and that your generally friendless was a sense of genuine belonging. And you had that to some degree with your group of discreence, but it was based on something that was very bad at its core. Where's Mike? You had an actual relationship.

An actual relationship. Yeah, and with Mike I valued it so much that I memorized his phone number and every time I moved out of state I had I had he was my home base Yeah, so I I Like I every other attachment could disappear and but Mike was always right always there, right? Okay, so I'm gonna we got to close this up Yep, unfortunately because I'd like to, we got to close this up. Yep. Unfortunately, because I'd like to find out, you know, what happened later in your life too,

because you got married and you have things and you like, you have a life. And yeah, so we're going to, we can fast forward to when I came out with my story. Well, I want to ask you a specific question. Sure. If you don't mind. Well, there's going to be people who are watching this and listening to it who are feeling both desperate and they probably have the reasons for it, and who are feeling not only desperate, but resentful

and vengeful, right? And who are toying with those sorts of dark ideas that you toyed with. And so if you could say something to them other than everything that you've just said, is there anything specific you would say that you know that would be helpful to someone who is tempted by that, those darkest of motivations? What I tell my own kids all the time is that the only thing constant in life is change, that the only thing that's absolutely certain

is that tomorrow's going to be different than today, that it might not be better and it might not be worse, but it is going to be different. And so we have choices with that. We can either resist that change and get worn down like the rocks on the beach, turn into sand and just get annihilated. Or we can adapt with those changes

and move like the water itself. And the more we can be that change and realize that the past that we are carrying and the damage and the destruction that we have experienced is not us. It's just luggage that we're carrying around with us. It's just the baggage that we carry. That the more we can make sense.

Right, so it's part of not accept that. Yeah, damning judgment of yourself and others. It's fine when you tell yourself that you're worthless enough and that you hate yourself and everybody hates you too, that your brain lying to you. That your brain lying to you. You are you're worthless enough and that you hate yourself, and everybody helps you too, that's your brain lying to you. That's your brain lying to you. You are in fact good enough.

You woke up good enough today, and it's okay that you messed up, and it's okay that you were wrong. And it's okay that you got that. And it's okay to be okay. It's okay to be good sometime. That's not a bad thing. It's okay to feel emotion for people.

Well, that's a weird thing to conclude if you have, for example, bargained to accept a very low social status because you already in some ways made a contract with yourself that you're going to be an outsider, going to be unpopular and that you are worthless. And one thing that happens when you internalize that so much is that it gets to be repellent to any positivity. Yeah, right.? Like, if someone would have come up and say, oh, you're a really good person, well, you don't really know me then. If you see me, then you'd see the monster,

because I'm not really a good person. Yeah, well, it also violates the contract. It does. It does, because we've established now that I'm the low-impact. Yeah, yeah. And the only way that I've seen for an outside source to be able to combat that is with consistency. And the only way I've said by being the one

that doesn't break when the waves crash against you to not to be be a mic to not to not give up when the stuff gets hard. But when when when you're in that dark to realize that just keep going. So why do you think Mike liked you so much because I was smart because he always says it was because of the deep conversations because he could we could sit and talk for hours and never be bored. We can see that talking to you that in you really valued that in me and and that I was always that I would give everything of myself for my friends even from back then like if I had it I didn't value my stuff so if I had something you needed it I'm fine with giving it to you and I would give Mike the shirt off my back I tell him today I'd give you the skin off my back. So you were also a friend to Mike. Yeah. And and and it was intellectual respect,

like the meeting meeting of peers. All right, well, I'm going to close this up. I think that's a very good place to end. Thank you for walking us through that. One of the things I did notice from a clinical perspective, by the way, is that you showed very little emotion, negative emotion, when you were describing what happened to you in your past. And there's two possible explanations for that when you see it. And one is that a person has hurt so bad that the emotion is just flat.

But the other possibility is that the events have been put in their proper place and stripped of their emotional significance and transcend it so that they're no longer relevant. And that looks to me like what you've managed. And congratulations on that because that's given what you went through. That's a major moral achievement. And the fact that you were able to deal with that and to stop it from being transmitted to your children is a, that's work of inculcurable significance.

Yeah, today my kids have all gone to the same middle school, elementary school, high school. They've all gone. They've never been evicted. They've never had their mom beaten their dad or their dad beaten their mom. None of that. I say, I use what happened to me growing up as exact examples

of how to parent my children. I used to be off. Isn't it interesting, you know, that this is a real mystery about human beings too, is that like, really in some fundamental sense, all you had were bad examples. Now it's not exactly true because you had your brother,

really had Mike, and you had some friendships, and so you could see how reasonable and positive human relationships were, were structured. But anyone listening to the story that you relayed would say, well, you have every reason to not know how to be a good husband and a good father. And yet, despite all that, and despite the determinism of a multi-generational family of pathology on both sides, you were able to step away from it and establish something positive in the confines of your own life. And I do it specifically by using what happened to me as a kid, like exact examples of the parenting that I went through and just do the opposite. Right, right. Well, it's so interesting because if you're a bully, there are two things you can learn

from that, or at least two things. One is how to bully. And the other is that you should never bully. Right? And it's the same lesson. There's something about the manner in which the lesson is received that determines the consequences. It's not a deterministic course in that like while we do know that most people, and this

is actually the truth, almost all people who abuse as adults were abused as children. But most people who were abused as children don't abuse as adults. Right. Right. Right. And so now I think that I won because today my kids are happy and healthy and friendly and my 12 year old when there's a

new kid in her class, the teacher puts the new kid next to her because she's the class ambassador. So she's the welcomeer for the class. Right. So yeah, you said that I don't get emotional with that. That's a good one. That's a good way to end. Congratulations on that. Thank you, sir. That's a major accomplishment. Thank you. Yeah, say hi to your 12-year-old. Thank you. I will. You bet. You bet. All right, everyone. Thank you very much for watching, listening. Today, your time and attention is always much appreciated. Thank you to the Daily Wire Plus people for facilitating this live conversation. We're going to be doing a bunch of them over the next couple of months to the film crew here in Scottsdale. Thank you for well, setting this up and making it run so professionally. Embletop Will, see you all very soon.

Thank you, Brad. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, appreciate it. Thank you. you