The Jordan Harbinger Show - 1041: Groped In Your Sleep, Betrayal Runs Deep | Feedback Friday

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Students you aided became assailants, and now you deal with trauma and sleepless nights. Can you ever trust or rest easy again? Welcome to Feedback Friday! And in case you didn't already know it, Jordan Harbinger (@JordanHarbinger) and Gabriel Mizrahi (@GabeMizrahi) banter and take your comments and questions for Feedback Friday right here every week! If you want us to answer your question, register your feedback, or tell your story on one of our upcoming weekly Feedback Friday episodes, drop us a line at [e-mail]. Now let's dive in! On This Week's Feedback Friday: After a disturbing incident with two students you mentored, you're grappling with unexpected trauma and insomnia. How can you rebuild your sense of safety and trust? [Thanks to clinical psychologist Dr. Erin Margolis for helping us with this one!] You've leveraged your networking skills to secure two six-figure director-level jobs simultaneously, but you're unsure about disclosing this to one employer. What's your strategy for maintaining integrity while maximizing this opportunity? You've discovered that your friend's cousin's boyfriend, who isn't a licensed dentist, is running an illegal dental practice serving undocumented immigrants. Should you expose him or let him continue helping those in need? In the middle of building a life together, your once-loving husband suddenly asked for a divorce, and you later discovered he was having an affair. Now you're struggling to trust again and wondering if there are any good people left. How will you heal and open yourself to love? Recommendation of the Week: Flipping Out You lost your sister to cancer and realized your mother is a covert narcissist who neglected your dying sibling. Now you're distanced from your family but still hurting. How will you process this grief and move forward? Have any questions, comments, or stories you'd like to share with us? Drop us a line at [e-mail]! Connect with Jordan on Twitter at @JordanHarbinger and Instagram at @jordanharbinger. Connect with Gabriel on Twitter at @GabeMizrahi and Instagram @gabrielmizrahi.  Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1041 If you love listening to this show as much as we love making it, would you please peruse and reply to our Membership Survey here? And...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to Feedback Friday. I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the heel strap on these crocs, keeping us from slipping as we waved through this flooded basement of life conundra, Gabriel Mizrahi. As long as I'm not the crock itself, I'm happy. That's fine. I think I'm the croc in this belabored metaphor, dad vibes and all that. Yeah. So I'm the piece of plastic keeping the ugliest footwear on earth tethered to the foot. Yeah. That feels good. That feels right. I like that. That's you to a team, my man. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets and skills, of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use

to impact your own life and those around you. And our mission is to help you become a better-informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long-form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from former jihadis, undercover agents, Russian spies, cold case homicide investigators and rocket scientists. This week, we had Terina Shaquille. This is a woman who ran away from the UK and joined ISIS, as one does, apparently. This was a two-parter, fascinating conversation. I really misjudged her initially. I know this is going to sound ridiculous. I initially was like, this is going to be the dumbest person I've met in my life, potentially. And she actually turned out to be very insightful and interesting. And she did run away when she was quite young. And so it's just

kind of a funny conversation and an interesting conversation. I highly recommend it. We all said a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on gold. On Fridays, though, we share stories, we take listener letters, offer advice, play obnoxious soundbites, and apparently compare Gabe and me to hideous, but highly functional footwear. Before we dive in, quick story, I remembered while shaving this morning, Gabe, actually. So I lived in Belgrade in Serbia, and my friend lived in this high-rise building, and it was an apartment that was usually unoccupied. I think his parents owned it, and they didn't live in the country anymore, and he would come back and visit his grandparents, yada, so he just sort of stayed there. And it was in a good location, good part of town. And one day,

I go to visit him, and the, like, front glass, you know, of the building where you walk in is just blown up. Like blown out. There's like smoke. I'm like, did you have a fire? Can I go in? Clearly I can see the stairway is still lit. You can kind of walk in.

But there's cardboard laid out on the floor and glass everywhere that somebody had like swept to one side and not actually cleaned up. And blood all over the cardboard, like soaked through the cardboard. And a door on the left right when you walk in was boarded up and the wall had a hole in it. Damn. These are great visuals. Seriously, something had gone wrong in this place. And I was like, oh my God.

What Doug Lyman movie are we in? That's crazy. Well, I thought, who blew up this place? Like, there must have been a hell of a fire. Maybe the boilers in there or something and an exploded furnace, whatever. What do I know? Where's the blood from, though, right? So I go up there and I'm like, so you want to tell me what happened in your entryway?

He's like, yeah, I didn't give you any warning. I wanted to see what your reaction would be. So it turns out that whatever, the federal police, military police, I think they're called Militia or whatever. In Serbia, they had kicked in and raided this. apartment because the guy who lived there was an arms dealer and he had rocket propelled grenades, explosives, automatic weapons, all kinds of stuff. And the place, he didn't live there, I guess, but the place was guarded by a couple of guard dogs. And that's what the blood was from. So they

raided this place, the dogs attacked, they killed the dogs. And then they just like, they bled everywhere. And it was really kind of horrifying. But they showed some of the inventory they took from this place, and let's just say you would not want this stuff in your high-rise, just sitting there. That's a real Serbian story, my friend. All your Serbian stories are very stereotypically what the rest of the world thinks about Serbia. 100%. Well, like, if you tell me in L.A. that an arms dealer gets arrested, you're like, oh, he was eating at a five-star restaurant and enjoying the proceeds from being an arms dealer. Not like, oh, they caught the stash where he keeps all the rocket-propelled grenades that he sells

to, like, terrorists or whatever, or gangsters. You don't think, like, the actual goods are in this dude's place over in Homeby Hills, right? That's what this was. Absolutely insane. I'll never forget that one. Anyway, that's not relevant to anything we're going to talk about here on Feedback Friday. So what's the first thing out of the mailbag? Hi, Jordan and Gabriel. I attend a secondary school in Ghana that teaches both students with normal learning capabilities and special needs children who are autistic, deaf, blind, and so on. In an attempt to bridge the gap between these two groups and to stop discrimination, the school decided to integrate some of those special needs children, primarily the stronger deaf students, into the mainstream classrooms

with the help of sign language interpreters alongside teachers. This new development made me a lot more fascinated with American Sign Language, so I learned it, which has allowed me to interact with the deaf students more closely. I'm also pretty smart, so I was able to help some of these students with topics they had trouble understanding. I just got to say that is very cool, and it says a lot about you. You might be a born educator or translator or linguist. You're clearly called to this work, and it's just awesome. What a unique experience that is. One of these students is a guy I'd like to call Charlie. I particularly admired Charlie because he genuinely enjoyed learning something new and never allowed his disability to deter him.

I really admired his tenacity. One day, Charlie came up to me looking nervous with a confession to make. He told me that one day, while most of the students and teachers were out playing sports, he and another deaf guy, one who is rumored to have been expelled for molesting other younger special needs kids, saw me sleeping alone in the classroom, and this other guy pressured Charlie into groping me. He went into detail about how the guy fondled me through my shirt and forced him to do the same and how I slept through it. He apologized profusely and said his conscience had been eating away at him since I had been so nice to him. I didn't really feel angry at him because he didn't seem like the type. I never reported it. Charlie doesn't seem like

a pervert and the other guy is no longer at the school and Charlie was thankful. Also, one of my friends said that I would probably be blamed for sleeping through what happened to me. Hmm, hmm, okay? Yeah. And since it's been about two years and I don't even remember it, there wouldn't be concrete evidence that it occurred. But I've been avoiding Charlie because I feel weird about what happened. I also feel really guilty because I've been able to help him improve in his studies. Ever since then, I've had trouble sleeping outside my home or around people who are not my immediate family, even people I thought I trusted. I tried meditation music and other things to relax me, but they don't really seem to work. I can't go to therapy to figure it out since my parents aren't that financially stable.

How do I convince my mind I'm not going to get hurt before I go to sleep? How do I put my feelings aside to help Charlie? Signed, trying to flee this painful memory so I can get some Z's and hopefully help Charlie. Oh, boy. Okay. Well, first of all, I'm so very sorry that Charlie and this other kid did this awful thing to you. It's violating, it's disturbing, it's wrong, and obviously you didn't deserve any of it. The fact that these students you've helped in such a beautiful way turned around and assaulted you, and that this event has clearly left a real mark on you. Honestly, it makes me pretty angry, but it also kind of breaks my heart, right? I'm just very sorry that you're struggling because of it. We wanted to run all of this by an expert, so we reached out to Dr. Aaron Margolis, clinical psychologist, and friend of the show. I'm also known to the people who know me the best as the fucking doctor. And the first thing Dr. Margolis zeroed in on is that both of your questions are basically getting at the same thing, which is how do I not feel my feelings? And Dr. Margolis's opinion is that that's not going to work. Everything you're describing, the trouble sleeping, the feeling unsafe, the shame, the avoidance, these are all textbook trauma symptoms.

So Dr. Margolis wanted to be clear, let's not label this as some aberrant weird experience that you do. just need to get over. This is actually trauma, and it sounds like you have a little bit of PTSD. So if we label this experience correctly, then Dr. Margolis's view, healing from this is really about honoring these feelings and responses you're having, which, given what happened to you, are completely valid, appropriate, justified, and having compassion and grace for yourself as you work through them. Now, that's going to be a much more effective route than just trying not to have this experience so you can move on. I'm going to quote Dr. Margolis directly here. You cannot talk or think yourself out of having feelings.

This is not a matter of convincing your mind to just not believe something. Right, but Dr. Margolis also completely understood the impulse to want to skip over the part where you have to feel the feelings because feeling the feelings sucks. It hurts. It's painful.

It's scary. It's overwhelming. So, of course, you want to skip to the part where you feel better and you can just, you know, take a nap. And if there were a way to do that, Dr. Margolis would love to give that to you, but it just doesn't exist. The progress you're looking for,

for, it generally only happens through some form of processing the experience. Therapy is obviously one of the most common and efficient ways to do that work, but there are so many other resources and experiences out there for you. Maybe there's a counselor at your school you could talk to. Maybe there's a clergy person in your community. Maybe there's some kind of community center in your area with sliding scale or free therapy or free support groups for people who have experienced trauma, stuff like that. You could also buy a book on recovering from trauma and do some of the exercises in the book on your own. So it's not like the only way to get better is to go to therapy. There's more than one way to process an event. So let's talk about Charlie. Jordan, I find this

kid complicated. Yeah, he's an interesting character, but might also just be like a typical kid. I don't know. It's hard to tell. First of all, he's deaf, and our friend here helped him, and it sounds like that relationship was very meaningful and very fulfilling to both of them before this happened. Right. He genuinely enjoyed learning with her. She really admired his tenacity. It sounds like a beautiful relationship before he did this thing. Which, of course, makes the situation even more confusing because I think our friend here is kind of seeing him in a black and white way as either a good guy or a bad guy. But this situation introduces a lot more nuance.

There's a whole gray area here about how she views him after what he did. I think it's very possible that he is both good and bad inside of him like all people, and you have to hold those two side by side. That's challenging and uncomfortable and makes this whole process even more. more complex. It's hard to address that kind of thing within yourself. And at the same time, Charlie clearly has a conscience. He doesn't sound like a total monster like the other kid who might have, slash probably did molest and take advantage of other disabled and vulnerable children. Now, that obviously doesn't make what Charlie did okay, but the fact that he came to you and said, I did this thing,

I feel awful, I have to come clean, I want to make this right, that probably does put Charlie in a different category and probably speaks to his character and probably to a lot of the qualities that you responded to in him. But as Dr. Margolis pointed out, Charlie is deaf. He's not intellectually disabled. He's not cognitively impaired. His disability is not one that makes it hard for him to know what is right and what is wrong. And it doesn't change the fact that he did this awful thing.

Right. I mean, his intention might not have been to harm her, but, you know, that was very much the outcome and the outcome matters. So I can appreciate why you have some compassion for Charlie. I kind of do too. And he did something that violated you that dishonored your relationship. that clearly traumatized you. So because getting rid of these feelings about Charlie is not going to work, Dr. Margolis wanted to invite you to ask yourself, can I have these feelings and be uncomfortable

in the way I'm uncomfortable? And can I hold this desire to help Charlie alongside that? In other words, can you do both? And if you can't do both, can that be okay too? Can it be okay that you have these difficult feelings about Charlie right now? Can you give yourself permission to not be okay with somebody who literally assaulted you. Why do you feel like you have to be okay with him at all? Right. That's obviously very difficult for her. But as Dr. Margolis pointed out, you are not obligated to help someone who harmed you. Her insight here was, it's not your job to assuage Charlie's guilt by acting as if he didn't do a bad thing or forgiving him before you're ready. It's not your job to mitigate his compunction. And it might also be worth asking yourself why you feel compelled

to continue helping Charlie given what he did. Because look, helping him, I'm sure that that's partly informed by your empathy and your passion and your very obvious investment in students like him, which is so beautiful. But wanting to, as you put it, put your feelings aside so you can help Charlie, that might also be a way to suppress, discharge, or, you know, otherwise bypass the very valid, appropriate response that you're having to what he and this other kid did to you. Look, I appreciate that Charlie came clean to her, but that doesn't mean she has to forgive him. And this kid, whether he meant to or not, he caused her harm. And one of the consequences of what he did can be that he just doesn't get to enjoy certain benefits from the person he harmed.

Also, Dr. Margolis pointed out that you can forgive someone and still not keep them in your life. You can forgive someone and still have boundaries. So we're not necessarily saying you need to nurse a grudge for the rest of your life, but you can forgive someone and still pull back or redefine the relationship. There's one more thing we need to touch on here, Jordan, which is the fact that our friend here feels weird and guilty about all of this. these kids assaulted her and she feels guilty. Well, that's very telling, but also isn't that very common with sexual assault? It is. And like she said, she didn't really feel angry at him because he didn't seem like the type, which is an interesting comment because it's like, well, he is the type on some level. I mean, apparently.

Scoreboard. Right. Or what kind of type he is is irrelevant because what he did is what matters. She also never reported the incident. She had a lot of compassion and understanding for Charlie. and she said he was thankful. So again, it seems to me like in so many ways she has put his needs first.

And then she gets this really unsettling message from one of her friends, which is that if she ever did report this, she would probably be blamed for sleeping through what happened to her. Yeah, well, that jumped out, obviously, at both of us. I mean, if that is an invalidation and victim blaming, I really don't know what it is.

Like, that's ridiculous. Even if that's not actually what would happen, I'm a little stunned to hear that. Shocked. I don't know if that speaks to Ghanaian culture, I don't know if it speaks to the way that this particular school works or how they feel about our friend here, but I have to imagine that messages like that, especially if you've received them your whole life, must make it hard to go, someone did something really bad to me, I'm angry

about it, I'm not okay, I need help, I'm going to speak up or stand up for myself or redefine the relationship. And when they're combined with other values, like being of service to other people, not being a bother to anyone, maybe prioritizing men in general, they might create some unusual responses to a trauma like this, including guilt and including a strange, hypercompassion for your assailant. Yeah, great point. And that's another thing I would encourage her to unpack. The roots of this guilt, of this stubborn empathy for a guy who hurt her, which seems to

be coming at her own expense, and how her environment is shaping her experience of all this. All great things to think about, read about, talk about with safe and trusted people. So I hope you get to do that, friend. I know you were asking us how to move past this, but as with most stories like this, this is really about moving through. And moving through always begins with making a lot of room for all of your feelings

and finding the people and resources you need to process them. And if you do that, I think in time you'll find that the trauma symptoms will quiet down, and my hope is that you get to a place where you can sleep more easily. But more importantly, my hope is that you get to a place where you can feel your feelings more easily, have more access to all these parts of yourself,

which is crucial and which you deserve. We're sending you a big hug, and we're wishing you all the best. Big thanks to Dr. Margolis for her wisdom and advice. Dr. Margolis is seeing patients in Los Angeles and virtually throughout California. You can learn more about her and her approach at Dr. Aaron Margolis.com.

And now it's time to grope some great deals on the fine products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. It is your support of our advertisers that keeps the lights on around here. All the deals, discount codes,

and ways to support the show are all searchable and clickable over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals, please consider supporting those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. All right, next up. Dear Jordan and Gabe, I've been fortunate to break into the emerging online sports betting and casino industry early, which has allowed me to 6x my income over the last five years. Wow. Recently, I leveraged my networking skills, thanks to six-minute networking, to reconnect with a mentor from my previous job, who offered me a part-time director role. Now I find myself in the unique position of holding two six-figure director-level jobs,

one in marketing and one in operations simultaneously. Wow, that's amazing, man. Well done. This is the greatest organic six-minute networking plug that I've heard in a while, so thanks for doing my promo for me. Jordan actually ghost wrote this letter and sent it in under a fake email address. I just want everyone to know that. Yeah, this is like those LinkedIn stories that are clearly made up to sell an e-course or something. Exactly. Those posts always end with agree. But no, even, even I am not that good. These two jobs are in the same industry, but they are not in competing markets or states based on legislation, and they will not be in direct competition anytime soon. I'm fully remote, and I'm currently able to juggle all of my responsibilities pretty well. Job one occupies me

from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to 2. And I work job 2 from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. and again from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Wow. I effectively delegate tasks, meet all my deadlines, and hit my KPI goals. I still work only Monday through Friday and can pick up my four-year-old son from preschool every day and have dinner with him and my wife every evening. This isn't killing me from a personal standpoint either. Yeah, my man, you are killing it. This is a case study in being disciplined and effective. So far, I love it. The second job with my mentor is aware of my situation and is okay with it. I suspect that his plan is to poach me once the acquisition at my first job is complete and I receive my stock payout. In the meantime, I want to leverage these opportunities to enhance my public professional profile.

this combination of skills qualifies me for future sea level opportunities. What obligations do I have to disclose my dual employment to my first employer? How should I handle my LinkedIn profile and an upcoming industry conference where both companies are going to be present? Why does it feel like I'm having a public affair? Do I need to come clean to maintain my professionalism and integrity? Signed, a double director troubled by the specter of being too good a connector in this tight-knit sector. Great questions. You've definitely gotten yourself into a bit of a pickle here, but what a pickle to be in, huh? This is the definition of a champagne problem. So look, it feels like you're having a public affair because you're having a public affair. You're two-time in these two jobs, and you're doing it in a way that, based on what you've shared anyway, sounds like you're honoring your commitments and delivering on your expectations. The issue is, only one of your mistresses knows what's really going on. Right. He's like ethically non-monogamous with one job, and he's cheating in the other one. Yep. And that's a little dicey, morally, practically. So do you have an obligation to come clean to your first employer? Well, huh, okay, I'm of two minds here, Gabe. On one hand, I want to say yes, he does. They hired him

first. He then went and took this second job without telling them, and they deserve to know. Also, these jobs are in the same industry, a highly competitive and innovative industry. I know these two companies are in different markets. They're in different states. They don't directly compete, but there might still be some issues here around proprietary information, trade secrets, all of that. Right. Like, if he saw a roadmap or something in a meeting, over a company one saying that they were going to, I don't know, launch some new sports betting product that competed with company two in 12 months? That would be material information. For sure. And what is he going to do? Just sit on that, pretend you didn't hear it? I don't know. To be fair, maybe. Maybe this

guy is just like so disciplined. He's like a locked box. Hey, maybe. And so maybe his character and his policies around this stuff are a big factor in all this. But I just, I have a hard time believing that he wouldn't go tell the mentor who got him this second job, the mentor who wants to poach him and help him rise up and make him rich, that he wouldn't share something useful like that. That's going to be super highly valuable. I'm going to be honest. I probably would share that if I were in his shoes. That's why there are rules against this stuff, right? But look, even if there really isn't any overlap between the two companies, company one could make that argument for sure. So I'm not convinced that they'd take this news very well. Especially since he would now be revealing it after the fact,

long after the fact. So this is like a big secret. On the other hand, he's clearly delivering at his first job. He delegates tasks, he's meeting all his deadlines, he's hitting his KPIs. It sounds to me like he's doing right by both companies essentially. So I'm also kind of like, eh, what they don't know, won't hurt them, you know? I mean, yes, it's against the rules, but that's already been done. So I don't know, slippery slope and all that. I hear you. There's another thing to consider, which is that company one is apparently in the process of getting acquired. So the company must be doing pretty well, and it sounds like he might be leaving soon. Right. It's weird, though. Wouldn't he have a non-compete? Who knows? Anyway, so how much longer is this really going to be an issue?

Is it really worth compromising his standing at this company and this significant stock payout by coming clean at this point? I'm not sure. Unless they find out on their own, which could be a real problem. Okay. So that brings us to his other question, which is whether to post both jobs on his LinkedIn before he goes to that conference, which I mean, she. That's the guy from the wire, right? Yes. Oh, chef's kiss of a soundbite there.

That was amazing. Yeah. This conference where let us remember both companies are. are going to be in attendance. Right. The stakes are very high. Yes. This is like a sitcom scene where the mistress and or like the other girl is in the same scene

and he's avoiding them and pretending he's on a date with both of them at the same time. So ridiculous. How are you going to do that? Yeah, exactly. This feels like the end of the devil wears prada where Anne Hathaway goes to Paris and then she has to figure out like which master to serve, except instead of high fashion. It's like NBA propets. Exactly.

The outfits are definitely worse, but the stakes are probably even higher. So my gut is telling me, I put this self-promotion thing on hold for a minute. You are playing with fire. I love your ambition. I definitely want you to make the most of these jobs so you can land a great sea level position one day. But I just don't know how you post these two jobs without risking your bosses at Company One seeing the update and going, what the hell? You're working for our competitor and you didn't tell us. And then it's going to be even worse. Although, isn't he always going to have that problem? I mean, at some point, he's going to post about these two jobs and somebody from Company One is going to find out. Right. But if he posts that after his payout, after he leaves, the stakes are way lower. And also, you know, he could probably fudge that a little bit. I hate that I'm recommending that, but like, you know, come on. No, you're right. Unless they come after him or clawback his payout or something like that. But I don't know. I think that's probably pretty unlikely. Not legal advice here from Jordan and Gabe on the show today. Certainly not. My strong feeling is to keep your head down and not self-promote too much until you make your next big move. You have a lot more to gain right now by keeping things on an even keel and

continuing to do well in your two jobs than by publicizing what a rock star you are, the conference will always be there next year and the year after that. And you can always reach out to those people directly on LinkedIn and slowly start building those relationships without a big splashy announcement. And yes, I realize I'm contradicting myself a little bit here because I do think that the only way to truly maintain your professionalism and integrity is to come clean. But I also feel that in many ways you are being a professional by delivering real value to both companies and hitting your goals. And that in your career, as opposed to say your marriage, you have a little more license to look out for number one, especially given these unique

circumstances. Like your wife isn't going to lay you off when the economy turns down, right? But a job will. So it's not quite the same level of commitment here. That said from here on that, I would be totally transparent about stuff like this with future employers. Getting away with this is making me clench things up that you don't want to know about. And you don't want to live like that. Because as you're finding out, even when you reap the rewards, it causes a lot of stress and anxiety to keep a secret like this. There's a world where this might have been okay with company one if you'd said, hey, look, this other company approached me about this really exciting role. It's totally different from the work I'm doing with you. I'm confident I can still deliver on all my

commitments to you. I've developed a system, but I don't feel comfortable accepting this job without talking to you about it first. So can we see if we can make this work? Although maybe I'm being naive. Maybe they would never go for that for reasons that are probably pretty legit. And that's exactly why you didn't tell them. So I guess this ultimately comes down to your personal values around integrity and transparency and to your comfort with risk. But I'd start thinking about how you'd handle things if company one ever did find out, because you don't want to be caught with your pants down. You need a plan in place. But just to zoom out here, you're clearly a rock star, you're obviously very talented, I'm excited about your future. If you balance that ambition

with more communication, a little bit more integrity, I think you're going to succeed on all levels. So good luck. You can reach us Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. Keep your emails concise. Use descriptive subject lines. That makes our job a lot easier. If you're finding dead squirrels in your mailbox, your stepdad's got your nudes, your neighbors are eavesdropping on your therapy sessions through the wall, or you're missing your abusive alcoholic love bombing X. Whatever's got you staying up at night lately, hit us up Friday at Jordan Harbinger.com. We're here to help, and we keep every email anonymous. By the way, if you haven't signed up yet, come check out our newsletter Webit Wiser.

It's a bite-sized gem from a past episode, from us to you, delivered right to your inbox once a a week if you want to keep up with the wisdom from our 1,000-plus episodes and apply it to your life, I invite you to come check it out. You can sign up at jordanharbinger.com slash news. All right, what's next? Hi, Jordan and Gabe. 10 years ago, my best friend's cousin's boyfriend came to the United States from Chile. Let's call him Sam. In Chile, Sam worked for a dentist's office, and he works for one here too. But Sam used to live next door to me, and he would also see random patients and treat them in his living room, doing cleanings, fillings, even putting braces on people.

Bro, wow. Then, recently, I found out that he has his own practice in a city known for people who are not of legal status and don't have health insurance. It's a full-on dental office with every tool and machine a regular dentist would have. He charges people cash at a reduced cost. Wow. Mind you, he is not a dentist, doesn't even have a degree from Chile, but he's working on people twice a week.

He pulled three of my landlord's teeth and even gave her injections for pain. Oh, man. This is dicey and very risky, but also I'm like the balls on this guy. Truly. This is like old-timey dentistry where you would just watch some guy with mutton chops do it a few times, and then you're like, I guess I'm qualified to stick a needle in this guy's mouth. Do you have a bottle of whiskey in pliers? You're good.

You're good to go. How does he know how to do all of this? That's my question. I was wondering the same thing. He must have apprenticed with a dentist back in Chile or with some other unlicensed person, and he just learned by watching and then he started doing it. It's crazy. But also he's an orthodontist.

He's doing braces. Well, why not? And cleanings and surgery. Dude is a jack of all illegal trades. Yeah, sure. So she goes on, ever since I learned about all this, I've been trying to find out

where his dental practices is to expose him. But neither he nor my friend or landlord will tell me exactly where this office is. Okay. I've thought about following him, buying a burner phone and texting him as a potential client, filing a report with the dental board,

even contacting a tip line from a local news station. Am I right about this? Or am I wrong for trying to expose and get him in trouble? should I let him help people in need who don't have the means to see a real dentist? Signed, watching in shock as people go flock to this guy on the block who's not a real doc. Wow, fascinating. Sam, the street dentist from Santiago, pulling teeth and installing veneers for a third of the price. So wild, man. So no, you're not overreacting. This is definitely a huge concern.

We did some quick homework, and there are some very real risks of going to an unlicensed dentist. and the most obvious one, of course, is inaccurate diagnoses, substandard care, badly performed procedures, which can lead to inappropriate treatment, nerve damage, excessive bleeding, improper healing, shoddy work. The list goes on and on. There's also a higher risk of infections at these places, right? HIV, hepatitis, bacterial endocarditis.

These are not things you play with. Also, these street dentists often use substandard materials to keep costs down. Sometimes they're even counterfeit, apparently, and that can result in allergic reactions, degradation, it could even result in total failure of the dental work. And then these people, they don't tend to offer good follow-up care, right? Because they can't, so patients often have to deal with the problems on their own. Right. And then if something goes wrong, which apparently it often does, they have no legal recourse because these practitioners operate outside of the

law, so they're not held to the same standards and regulations. And that means patients don't have any protection or compensation for malpractice. So what Sam is doing, it's very risky. And it might be putting people in real danger. Now, who knows, maybe he's some kind of savant, maybe he apprenticed with the best dentist in Chile, and maybe he's weirdly rigorous and precise and is surprisingly good at all this stuff. But if he didn't go to school, if he's not licensed, if he's not practicing in a safe facility, then he is being reckless. Even if there is something kind of noble about offering his services at a discount to people in need, but he's only offering his services at a discount because he's not a real dentist. So, no, I don't feel you're wrong for

trying to report him. As long as you're doing it to protect people, like, this is not some guy giving haircuts in his basement. He's like, I'm not really a licensed cosmetologist, folks. Come on, man. He's giving people injections. Look, as long as you're doing this to protect people, it's not just because you're taking some weird pleasure and screwing this guy over, although he really is digging his own grave, and frankly, could be digging the graves of others with his dental care. There's a part of me that feels bad for this guy, because he's probably really just hustling to survive in America, without credentials, without education, and to his credit, this is quite a hustle. I'll almost admire it. Okay. But like I said before, he is absolutely playing with fire here, and he could be potentially hurting people in a very real way. Gabe,

you're a psycho when it comes to your dental hygiene. What say you? What do you think about going to get a root canal from a guy in a basement in Gilroy? First of all, I would never need a root canal because I am, as you said, a psycho. But my teeth hurt listening to the story. I physically can feel them tingling. I'm also thinking about the fact that Sam is her, what did you say? Best friend's cousin's boyfriend, right? So this is not some random person she stumbled across on Craigslist who's like, hey, I'll pull your teeth for like 40 bucks out of the back of my adventure wagon. Come on down.

Like she has a relationship with this guy. She used to live next to him. Right. So part of me is going, can you just go to Sam directly and tell him that you know what he's up to and you're deeply concerned about it for all of these very valid reasons we just talked about? and you're giving him a chance to close up shop, and if he won't, then you're going to have to report him.

Then at least you would be giving him a chance to do the right thing, and you would be looking out for a guy who's probably a decent person who's trying to make a living while also helping people in need. And if he refuses to stop, then you won't feel as guilty about reporting him. That's a fair point. I don't know if this guy's going to quit. Right? He's got quite a money-making hustle going on here. He might say he will and then just open up the shop somewhere else,

because that's kind of what I would do if I was in his shoes. he's going to take his adventure wagon two towns over and just start all over again. Also, even if she succeeds in putting Sam out of business, there will still be countless street dentists practicing out there. So it's not like this problem goes away. Right, but this is one piece of the problem she can help solve. That same argument sort of reminds me of like, I saw a company dumping trash in the river, but I didn't do anything because lots of companies dumped trash in the river. So even if I report them and they go out of business, other companies are still going to do it.

I mean, come on. Fair. Maybe part of this conversation with Sam is, why are you doing this? how are you doing this? How confident are you that you're doing it well and how many problems are you encountering in your work? Because that actually matters too. Look, if this guy is mostly just scaling teeth and doing fillings and slapping braces on teenagers that he made with a 3D printing machine where they do 95% of the labor now, and it's all like 80% effect, I don't know, I'm slightly less worried. But if he's regularly taking x-rays and pulling teeth and doing injections and then giving people bootleg a moxicicillin from Tijuana,

or no amoxicillin at all, that is a very different story. Right. I'm kind of afraid that's what this is, because he has all these tools and he removed three of her landlord's teeth. Right. And he's doing injections for that. Right. He's not just scraping plaque off people's teeth and handing him a travel-sized crest on their way out, okay?

The dude is doing straight surgery. When I was in college, my friend Alex, Russian guy, immigrant, he had a toothache. And I was like, oh, man, you got to go to the dentist. And he's like, it's too expensive. I'm going to this Russian guy. He's older guy from Soviet Union and he's got. a dental chair in his basement. He didn't say he's a dentist. He said he has a dental chair in his basement. Yeah, that's all you need apparently. You know the guy from Saw, continue. And he went

there and he had the teeth extracted by this old Russian Soviet Union guy who apparently was probably a dentist in Russia that was a little bit ambiguous. But the guy didn't have the right stuff, right? He couldn't just buy, I don't know, what is it, Novakane or whatever, because it's a controlled substance. So he just basically did it by giving him very. vodka, getting him drunk, strapping him to this chair and removing a tooth and then like giving the guy water and when he woke up, sending him home. That was it. She is okay. And he did this multiple times. This is a college student. I felt really bad that he had to do this, but it's just sort of the reality of the situation. We found it funny at the time, but looking back, it's kind of horrific that he actually

went through with that. Yeah, you're like cool cleaning you're getting in Marathon Man, bro. That's terrifying. Yeah. Well, I mean, especially in extraction. You know, it wasn't like I need to go to a hygienist and this guy used to be one, so he's got some tools in his basement, and he washes him. This is like, you know, the dude cut his gums out and took a tooth out. So that's what I do. I talk to this guy first, go from there. Dark Jordan says to use the burner phone and get the address of the place first, because if he bulks when you're like, hey, I just want to know how you're doing this and is it safe, if the guy's like, no way, I'm not talking to you, I know you're on to me, you're going to turn me in. Then you've already got the goods, right? His guard's not going to be up.

Because if you try to do this first and then you try to get his address, his guard's going to be up. It might be a lot harder. Anyway, I feel like I say this all the time, but it just, it sucks. We live in a country where some people have to go to a janky-ass street dentist because they can't afford a real one. That makes me really sad. I love America, as many people point out in their emails. I'm too patriotic sometimes, but it is total BS that people have to resort to this. It just doesn't make sense to me. And look, I also don't think that those people should be subject to a potentially dangerous practitioner either. So it's a real conundrum, but maybe a conversation will help resolve some of this. And hey, thank you for a fascinating glimpse into a world I've never

really thought about and for giving Gabe dental hygiene nightmares for potentially the rest of his life. Yep. So good luck. You know what's better than a back alley root canal, Gabriel? Find products and services that support this show. We'll be right back. If you like this episode of Feedback Friday and found our advice valuable, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All the deals, discount codes and ways to support the show are all in one searchable and clickable place, jordanharbinger.com slash deals. You can also email me, Jordan at Jordanharbinger.com. If you can't find the code, you're too lazy to find the code. You're not sure if the code is

working. Go ahead and shoot me a note. We are happy to surface those codes for you because it is that important that you support those who support the show. Now, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. I'm a 36-year-old woman, and about a year and a half ago, my military husband walked into the kitchen, said he didn't love me anymore, and asked for a divorce. I was blindsided. In the six months leading up to that, we had moved to a new city from overseas, bought a house, bought two vehicles, adopted a new puppy, started trying for kids, and went on our long overdue honeymoon for our five-year anniversary. He still told me that he loved me every day,

did thoughtful gestures, and kept up all appearances of a loving husband. I didn't see a divorce looming, and we hadn't had any discussions about any divorce-caliber issues. I was devastated and confused. He agreed to try couples counseling after starting individual therapy. Three weeks after the bomb dropped, I found out I was pregnant. When I told him, the first thing he said was how it was going to complicate the split, no support whatsoever. He said over and over that keeping the baby was my decision, but he offered three choices.

He takes full custody? I have full custody with only child support, or I end the pregnancy. Oof, what a painful conversation that must have been. Given that his military career would have him move in a few years, he figured that I would raise the kid completely alone in my home state. I ultimately decided to end the pregnancy. I was only six weeks along and didn't think I could handle it with my life already in pieces, and it didn't seem right to bring a child into that situation and tie us together forever.

I get it. I would have understood if you kept the baby too. but I get it. I still go through bouts of regret and shame over this. Now I'm afraid that I'm almost too old to have kids of my own. The night after I ended the pregnancy, I walked downstairs to find my husband with his pants down in front of his webcam with his mistress.

She's a woman from his amateur writer circle who lives in a different state, and she 1,000% knew that he was married. He even introduced us once, and he had told her about my pregnancy. He had been texting and video chatting with her on his way to and from work after I was asleep, or after I left for work for months. Apparently, they spent a lot of time together alone when she visited our city for a

writer's conference. Damn, this scene is cheaper than a Chilean root canal, Gabriel. That's going to be a thing. I felt so duped for believing that he wanted to go to couples counseling and suddenly knew why he didn't want me to be pregnant. He told me once that what he did wasn't cheating since he already didn't love me when he was doing it. Oh, boy.

What a justification. Just imagine what kind of father this a-hole would have been. Yikes. Fast forward to today. I occasionally open the dating apps to dip my toe back in that pool, but turn them off a week or two later. I just don't want to even try anymore. Given everything I went through being betrayed so ruthlessly in every possible way by my ex-husband, I still struggle to move on. I struggle with trusting anyone and fully believe I will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I've been in therapy for over a year. but I fear being cheated on and betrayed again. I feel like cheating is so easy to do and conceal these days. Any advice on how I can move past all this trauma and open myself up to dating and possibly love again? How can I possibly trust anyone again? Are there any good guys with integrity left in the world? Signed, Swiping Right, when I'm still wound tight after that fateful night.

Wow, what a story. Well, again, I'm so very sorry that you went through all this with your. your ex. Being cheated on, it's never happened to me, but it sounds absolutely brutal. Being cheated on after being lied to and fed a certain narrative about your relationship, that's almost worse. And I'm sure it made everything more shocking and more painful. And then to terminate a pregnancy in the middle of all that, you've just been through a lot here, my friend. And look, Gabe, it's interesting. We clearly have a theme on today's episode, this whole question of, how do I get over my trauma and arrive at the point where I want to arrive at? Good point. It wasn't intentional. But,

Isn't that interesting? I think it's a very normal and universal thing. But like Dr. Margolis said, if that were possible, we'd all be doing it. But unfortunately, that's just not how it works. So my first thought for you, inspired by our friend from question one, is to slow down, give yourself more time and grace to move through this chapter and process all these feelings. I hear you that it is not happening as fast as you'd like. I know it's hard to still feel on edge, distrustful, scared.

But again, you have been through a very intense experience here. This is trauma. Several traumas. It's only been a year and a half. And I know that seems like a long time, but given how intense this was, it's also not. So my strong feeling is that you need to be kinder to yourself. You need to be more patient. You need to just allow these feelings to exist. I wouldn't try to suppress them or wish them away. I also wouldn't put too much stock in them. Just make room for them, accept them, talk about them in therapy, see what they're trying to tell you. I promise you. If you didn't need to be feeling these feelings right now, you wouldn't be feeling. them. They're still working themselves out. You're still working them out. And that's important. You'll know when it feels doable and safe to start dating again in a real way. I totally agree. I also think she still has some work to do in working through the bouts of regret and shame that she has about the abortion. I'm with you, Jordan. I think she had some very valid reasons for making that call. I'm worried about the situation that that child would have been born into, how that decision would have tied her to a very painful ex-husband in some form. But still,

She has this residual conflict. She's ashamed. She's worried about, you know, her window for having children, which I completely understand. Those are complicated feelings. Obviously, I would encourage you to bring them into therapy, and I do hope that that space has been helpful for you. But if it hasn't been helpful for you, like, if what you're saying is that you're not making the progress that you were hoping for in any of these departments with your therapist, that would also be a great thing to flag with your therapist so you guys can figure out why and then you can decide if you need something more. Agreed.

My second thought is, you might not be 100% healed and comfortable before you do start dating. I think it's more likely that you'll be healed enough to open yourself up to new people. My only hope for you is that one day you find someone who is excited about you, who meets you with curiosity and compassion

and honesty, who's basically very different from your ex-husband. And I also hope that the relationship that's waiting for you out there, maybe even the relationships, those will help you rewrite a lot of these fears and anxieties and help you put them to bed. You probably already know this. The real healing, the best healing, it happens in a relationship.

It might be with a therapist, it might be with a close friend, with a partner, but there's something uniquely powerful about a romantic relationship to help heal these wounds. But again, you don't need to get there tomorrow, or in six months, or a year. Although I totally understand that there's some urgency here with the kids thing, and that's a variable that you have to hold alongside your fear, but who knows, maybe that'll also motivate you to lean into this fear and put yourself out there a little sooner. And that is not necessarily a bad thing. So I would just keep listening to yourself, keep talking, and keep playing around. There's also an element of serendipity to all of this, right? You might jump on Bumble for two weeks and, you know, right before you delete the app and throw your phone

across the room and call your therapist. You match with somebody who turns out to be great. And I don't know if you guys date for three months or three years or the rest of your life, but that could be the relationship that is so different from the one you had with your ex, and that kind of brings you back to life. It's always possible. As for learning to trust again, that's been a theme on the show lately as well. And actually, since we just took a question that was literally about that from the young woman who dated that older narcissistic guy who took her for granted and almost pushed her out of a window. Oh, yeah. I'm going to invite you to give that a listen because I think our thoughts there will speak to your intuition too. Gabe, do you remember the, what was the episode number for that?

Yes, that was episode 1022. 1222. We'll link to that. in the show notes. That was a really interesting story. As for your final question, are there any good guys with integrity left in the world? I mean, yes, of course there are. I don't know who they are or what their situation is right now or how you're going to cross paths. I mean, Hinge, I would imagine, right? Just statistically speaking. True. Hinge really do be getting people married out there, but this episode's not even sponsored by them. Maybe we should, maybe we should cut that until they drop us a check. But yeah, of course there are kind, healthy, high functioning guys out there. And your job, my friend, is to keep learning and growing so that you can be ready to jump into

things when you finally meet one. But all in due time, you've got this. We're rooting for you. And crossing our fingers that the algorithm reigns awesome, honest, monogamous men with no webcams upon you in the near future. Good luck. You know, Gabriel, I got to say, when guys do this kind of like blatant cheating and then they got their wang out in front of a webcam while their wife is upstairs, you know me.

I'm not like Mr. Carmel's a bitch, right? it's going to come get you, but like that kind of terrible decision making and choices, that 100% of the time bites people in the ass. Oh, yeah. At some point. Of course. The guy's a scumbag. You're lucky you don't have a kid with him.

This woman he met is going to screw him over or he's going to do some other dumb thing. By the way, I don't know anything about this. But adultery is punishable when you're in the military. It's against the UCMJ, which is the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Oh, really? Is it really? I did not know that. Yeah.

So people can be punished quite severely for having an affair. in the military. Again, I don't know anything about it. I don't know how often it's enforced. I heard that it is. I don't know what evidence you need. Wow. But this guy is definitely on thin ice if somebody were to drop a dime on him, just saying. I just googled it. The maximum punishment for a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pain allowances, and confinement for up to one year in a military brig? I've never heard of this. Interesting. But the actual punishment can be less severe depending on the circumstances. Yeah. Well, wang in front of a webcam is pretty pretty damning. That's right. But I don't know.

That's interesting. Should she do that? You know, I don't necessarily think she should. If she already got what she needed from the divorce and that was already settled, I don't know if you really want to stir the pot that much. But, you know, it's there. I'm just saying, Dark Jordan, just saying. You merely adopted the dark.

I was born in it. My recommendation of the week is a documentary called Flipping Out. It's by an Israeli filmmaker named Yoav Shamir. It's actually kind of old. It was made in 2007. And Jordan, you have to watch this documentary. It is so fascinating. So you know how military service is compulsory in Israel for all men and women?

Yes. Well, unless you're ultra-Orthodox, but yeah. Right. Although, isn't that changing? I read in the news that- It is, but I don't know the deets. I don't know why I brought it up. No, it's a fascinating topic.

Anyway, after these people do their service for, what is it, two years or three years or something like that, they are granted a discharge bonus. And a lot of these young people use their discharge bonus to go fly to, it's usually like India, Thailand, South America. Oh, yeah. To recover from their experiences and to basically just let loose and have fun and go crazy. Oh, yeah. So apparently, like 90% of these kids will use some kind of drug during their stay.

And every year, apparently something like 2,000 of them end up needing professional help because they just like, they have a psychotic break or they just get too lost in the drugs. And that experience is referred to as flipping out. Yikes. So this documentarian over a period of, I think, two years, recorded, followed a bunch of Israelis, young Israelis in India, and followed these former soldiers. Most of them are like under the age of 25 as they go through this weird post-military chapter. And it takes place in like these guest houses of northern India, in the beach resorts and Goa.

And it just really captures this culture of drugs and hedonism and how some of these young people are like battling for their sanity. It's pretty wild. But the coolest thing about this documentary is that they follow this one guy who flips out. He has like King David syndrome or something. He thinks he's going to be a guru in India. He's like trying to start like a compound to, you know, be like a spiritual leader. Right.

And this guy, Helik Magnus, is like this ex-Mossad agent. Like families hire this guy to go extract their children from weird places and bring them home when they refuse to come home. Oh my God. And the Habad rabbi who helps bring them together and support locally. It's so wild. It's a great documentary. I highly recommend it.

You can find it on Vimeo. I think it's like seven bucks to write. and 10 bucks to buy, and we'll include the link in the show notes. I think you're going to like it. Good recommendation. The more you describe that, the more I realize I saw this years and years and years ago. And there's a point at which this guy finds this Israeli kid. And you're right. He's trying to start like a cult slash spiritual thing. And he's got like a piece of land and he's paying these Indian guys just like come make mud bricks. And they're like, I don't know. He just pays us, but he stopped paying us. So like, what are we going to do? We're not going to build this thing.

And he's like walking around with a stick talking to himself. It's really saying. and crazy. Wild. Yeah, really good story. Also, in case you all don't know, there's a subreddit for our show, if you want to jump into discussions with other listeners about specific episodes or the show in general, Gabriel and I are both in there. So definitely check it out. It's over on Reddit in the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. All are welcome. All right, what's next? Hey, Jordan and Gabe. Two and a half years ago, I lost my sister to an aggressive and rare form of cancer. She and I were very close, and I didn't know it at the time, but she was the glue holding our family together. She was sick for a little over a year before she passed, and what hurt the most during this time was how my family

treated her. In that time, I realized with the help of your show that my mother is a covert narcissist, and my father is a codependent enabler. For background, I was what you would call a mama's boy, until I went to college when I started to notice how much my mother frustrated me. To this day, she says that college was the worst thing that happened to me because of how it changed me. Not long after I graduated, my father lost his job. Instead of supporting, him, my mom complained about where they were going to get money and how disappointed she was. She was also so angry that I took a job a few states away that she would never visit me, but got angry when I visited my college town and didn't drive an hour and 45 minutes out of my

way to come and see her. I started to hate going to my parents' house because my mom and I would end up in a fight when I would call her out on her nasty behavior. My God, what a mother to have. I am so sorry to hear this. Should we conference Dr. Romney, Dr. Adams, and Dr. Margolis in right now? Seriously. We could use the narcissism and meshment brain trust on this one, I think. Man, how cool would it be to assemble our psychologist friends to tackle a letter like this? Like the Avengers, but for parental trauma. Yeah, I like it. Jennifer Connolly as Dr. Margolis and Ed Harris as Dr. Adams. Yes, I'd watch that movie for sure. Both my parents were very black and white in the way that they handled things with my sister. My mom seemed to check boxes rather than show her real love. My

Mom would do laundry, empty trash, cook meals, etc. But would never just sit with her dying daughter, hold her hand, and comfort her. In fact, when my sister was in the hospital, my mom held her hand with her right hand and scrolled Facebook with her left. Oh, man. When my sister was in pain, she'd say things like, why don't mom and dad love me? And it broke my heart. Dude, it breaks my heart. What a detail.

Ugh. That is so sad. God, the Facebook thing is a real image. Seriously. But my, God, I'm having a little. lot of reactions here, Gabe. Carry on. In the final days of her life, my sister was able to leave the hospital and decided to move to my parents' house instead of hers, largely because my parents' house was single story. I lived three hours away and came home as much as I could, even if it was for a few

hours, just to see her and be with her. That is wonderful, man. I am so glad you had that time together. Wow. I watched my dad continue to work and rarely spend time with my sister, but when he did, it was loving enough. My mom, on the other hand, was with her all day, but barely spent time with her, continuing to do chores around the house and do transactional things from my sister, all the while calling it love. One day I was there, I got so angry with my mother and told her to just spend time with my sister. She agreed, but only lasted about two minutes before walking out with a full trash can to dump. Wow, this woman loves a job, doesn't she? She sure does, but I think it's pretty obvious what these jobs are about.

though. When my sister passed and my father told my mom, she said, I have a nail appointment today. What? This is cartoonishly awful. I am stunned. After her death, I distanced myself from my parents. When I spoke with my mom, it would inevitably turn into a fight about how much she's done for me and you think you're in pain, but what about me? Her narcissism turned up to 11 when I wasn't giving her what she needed. Yeah, you cut off her narcissistic supply, which is one of the things that enrages narcissist the most. I tried reasoning with my father, but he ignored my requests, laughed at my boundaries, and has now completely severed contact with me. The hardest part is that I have another sister who I helped support through our sister's death and some other nastiness at the hands of our

parents, only for her to turn on me when she decided to reestablish contact with my parents. Interesting detail. So she has another position in this family system that is so different. Yeah. I tell myself every day that I'm fine without my family. I have tons of people who genuinely love my family and me and I've spent years cultivating relationships with so many great people that have been so special to us. Beautiful, man. I'm so proud of you. This is one of the reasons that developing your own meaningful relationships with healthy people is so important and I'm very happy that you have this support. Still, there's something about being ignored by my family that hurts and I can't get over it. I go to therapy, which has helped. But the process

is still tough. Any additional advice on what I should do? Signed, Awaking and Leave Taking, but still aching about these parents who are berating, upbraiding, and, when it counts the most, forsaking. Man, this is a fascinating letter, Gabe, and a very painful letter. First of all, I want to start by saying, I am so deeply sorry that you had to say goodbye to your sister. Losing a sibling to cancer, especially a young sibling, is just heartbreaking. But watching your sibling pass away while being neglected by her parents. especially her mother after decades of this kind of treatment, it's just an additional layer of pain.

So for that reason, I'm so sorry for her, for you. Even your parents and your other sister, there are just no words. You don't need me to tell you that these are exceptionally difficult parents to have. The details you've shared here, like I said, almost cartoonish and how literal and extreme they are. I'm not surprised that you're furious with them, that you've distanced yourself from them. You've painted a picture of a family that requires very strong boundaries

to engage with at all. And if you listen to the show, especially the Dr. Romney episodes, you know that a true, genuine, healthy relationship is impossible with a narcissist. They can't see other people as people. And they're almost always suffering from their own unaddressed trauma. So as you know, a safe relationship with your parents is basically impossible. So pulling back, protecting yourself based on what you've shared here, I think that's really important.

And you know me. I'm not a guy who's like, your mom was mean to you a few times. Cut her off. but when your parents guilt you for not living entirely for them, when they fail to love their children unconditionally, or forget unconditionally, they can't even love them well even at the end of their life, when they literally laugh at your boundaries,

when they cut you off for speaking up when something bothers you, I just don't know what other option you have. And I imagine that that distance has given you some peace and clarity on this whole situation. But that doesn't mean that your family won't continue to hurt you. I know you thought I was going to drop in some like, good news. No, no, not so lucky. We carry our parents around inside of us.

We think about them. We relate to them even when we don't talk to them. Plus, they're still the painful legacy of this childhood that you had. So I think it's likely that your parents will always, on some level, be a source of sadness and anger and pain. And your job, especially right now, is to be in touch with that pain, not to deny it or suppress it or negotiate with it. And definitely not to avoid it by capitulating to your parents' demands, but to feel it fully. learn to bear it so you can process and grieve all of these extremely formative experiences you've had. And on that note, hey, I am so glad to hear that you're in therapy and that it's helped.

I hear you that the process is still tough. Therapy doesn't automatically make experiences like this easy. What it does is make them meaningful, clear, and survivable in a way that hopefully allows for a new relationship with your past, with the people in your life, and with yourself. And I'm thrilled to hear that you have that support, as well as the love of all these amazing friends of yours. my feeling is, your job right now is to keep prioritizing yourself and your family, continue being in touch with all these feelings, especially your sadness and your anger and your grief, keep bringing all of this into your therapy and bring as much curiosity and

compassion and acceptance to this pain as you can. Because that is really the only way to come to terms with everything that you've been through and process all of this grief. It's interesting. Once again, this is exactly what the girl from question one and the woman from the previous question are going through, right? Not trying to find a quick fix or some clever hack for all of the pain, but just making room for it and really owning the experience. That's it. Yeah, again, the only way out is through. I guess that's a big theme of today's episode. Thanks, Ryan Holiday. I got to say, Jordan, I'm having a very strong reaction to this letter because this guy's parents sound a lot like my mom's parents. Really? Yeah, it's almost eerie.

So, okay, long story short, my mom, who is a pretty remarkable person, and by the way, who listens to the show every week. What up, mom? She was raised by two very, very painful parents. Her dad was this raging, ambitious, abusive narcissist. A very impressive guy, an immigrant who really built himself up from nothing, but just a total monster. His biggest concern in life was money. He was so afraid of losing money, very cheap and pinched every penny kind of guy. And her mother was this fragile, browbeaten, just neglectful woman. She was so sweet, but just, just, a shell of a person. And they did a real number on their kids. And basically, their youngest daughter, my aunt Shauna, she developed a severe addiction later in life. And she ended up

drinking and starving herself to death. Oh my God. Which was horrible to watch. And it happened in part because their parents did very little to intervene and care for her. I mean, they basically, from what I remember, basically tiptoed around her addiction, avoided conflict. They didn't have a deep relationship with her to begin with. So there wasn't a lot of like trust and rapport. and, you know, basically failed to love her the way that she needed. But obviously, that began the moment she was born. God, that is awful. I remember you telling me parts of this story, but some of this, a lot of this is new to me.

So how old were you? 11 or 12, I think, maybe 12. So my sister was about seven or eight, and this event really made an impression on us. We visited her in the hospital. My sister was actually there the day she died, which was very impact, fairly traumatizing for my sister. It was awful. Yeah. Ugh, I am so sorry. Yikes.

But here's the crazy thing. So on the day, my aunt died, her parents had tickets to the theater, right? To the Geffen Playhouse in Westwood, which is walking distance from UCLA where my aunt died. And after she died, my grandfather went to the theater and scalped the tickets for like 200 bucks. Oh, my God. Because he could not stomach the thought of being out that money. This is hours after his daughter died. Bro, what?

At least he didn't go to see the show. He's like, well, going to use these tickets. I would almost understand going to the show more than standing outside the theater and scalping the tickets. So that's your family's equivalent of this mom going to get a manicure after her daughter just died. Yes, it is eerie. I feel like I know this family. And because I've dealt with these personalities firsthand, I know that they are incredibly wounded, limited, confused people. You don't abandon your daughter on her deathbed.

if there isn't something deeply wrong with you. So when our friend here talked about his mother doing laundry, cooking, emptying the trash, but never just sitting with her dying daughter and holding her hand, I'm angry and I'm deeply sad just like he is. But I'm also seeing a woman who cannot bear the vulnerability and the intensity of grief, of love, of real relationship. I mean, that detail about her lasting two minutes in the room before taking out the trash. Yeah.

And also that image of holding her daughter's hand with one hand and scrolling Facebook with the other. Which, Gabe, I just got to say, I'm still wrapping my head around all this. His sister being in pain from cancer and going, why don't mom and dad love me? And I'm assuming, you know, she's in pain, she's crying. That is so unbelievably sad. It really might be one of the saddest things that I've ever heard on this show. And it's making me so sad to the point where it's turning into anger because that's how

I process many emotions that maybe I should talk to my therapist about that. But it really is making me freaking angry, man. I know. It is heartbreaking and it's so sad to think that that was one of her. last experiences before she died. Yes. Actually, I say that, but also in the mix there, one of her last experiences was being there with her brother who would come and spend time with her. And that's why I was so touched that he made the time and he did everything different from his parents. But yes, this is horrible. But this is a mother who is deeply uncomfortable with intimacy, who was probably,

if I had to guess, totally overwhelmed by her sadness, which she could not allow herself to feel. And she was probably ashamed of that on some level that she was not really in touch with. And who needed desperately to distract herself in order to cope. But also, to be fair, these chores that seem like empty, avoidant gestures, like checking a box, as our friend put it, I think there was probably an aspect of them that was love, the only kind of love she knew how to offer. And for a person, as emotionally stunted as this, those little acts in their own strange way, they might be glimpses of the best part of her. They're not enough, but they were all she could do. So what I'm trying to say is, I am fully on board with your rage, your disappointment, your sadness. They are

absolutely warranted. But while you make room for all of that, I would also invite you to make room for the fact that your parents' narcissism, their avoidance, these are defenses. They developed in response to their own serious trauma. I mean, just imagine the childhoods that produce people like this. They can't do better. It's too threatening. It's too painful. And that's their stuff to live with. And maybe in time, that'll make it a little bit easier for you to have some compassion for them, maybe even to forgive them on some level eventually. But just like with the girl from question one, there's no need to race to that outcome. Just honor your feelings and trust them. And this process you're in with your parents will take care of itself.

Totally agree, Gabe. And meanwhile, you're rewriting all that. The fact that you were there for your sister in such an incredible way while she was dying, that's a gift. And that's something you should be proud of. Your other sister, she has her own experience of all this, her own wounds. She's choosing your parents right now and that hurts. But in a way, that probably confirms that you're the only person in the family who sees your parents clearly. So your journey is bearing those very same feelings that, to Gabe's point, your parents can't tolerate. And because you have a family of your own in this beautiful circle of friends, I know that you'll be able to share them, work through them, find new meaning in them, and that's what's going to get you through. And it's

going to make you a better husband, a better dad, a better human being, and that is your reward for doing this important work. We're sending you and your sister and your late sister wherever she is now, and she was so lucky to have you there with her at the end, my man. All of you, a huge hug. Hope you all enjoyed the show this week. I want to thank everybody who wrote in and everybody who listened. Thank you so much, as always. Go back and check out Tarina Shaquille, if you haven't yet. The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people that I know, like, and trust. And I'm teaching you how to build that same thing for yourself in our six-minute networking course. It's not necessarily just about work stuff.

I mean, you see how relationships support you in your time of need. This stuff is not a joke. This is not a gross course. It's not schmoozy. The drills take a few minutes a day. You've got to dig the well before you get thirsty. Build those relationships before you need them. I wish I knew this stuff 20 years ago. Again, it's all free. It's my gift to you. Six-minute networking.com is where you can find it. Show notes and transcripts at Jordan Harbinger.com. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at Jordan Harbinger.com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.

Gabriel's on Instagram, Gabriel Mizrahi, or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast 1. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogaddy, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own. And I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on this show.

Dr. Margolis's input is general psychological information and based on research and clinical experience, it's intended to be general and informational in nature, does not represent or indicate an established clinical or professional relationship with those inquiring for guidance. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful,

please share it with somebody else who could use the advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger show with Yasmin Muhammad, who grew up under the tiering, of radical Islam. This religion forces people to just get stuck in time. It is the root of so many of the evils that are happening in these countries.

This is why we can't progress. We always hear about how the caliphate is coming, how Islam will rule the world, how Muslims will get rid of the infidels, we're going to kill off all the Jews, and Muslims are going to control this whole world. and the whole world will go back to Allah the way it should be. Everybody on the planet will be praying to a loan. These people are indoctrinated into a belief system that turns them into monsters.

It erases their humanity. It tells them your basic humanity and what you believe to be right and wrong. You must ignore and you must follow what you are told to do. This is happening in your backyard. And if you don't care about what's happening in Afghanistan or what's happening in Pakistan, what's happening in Saudi Arabia, then care about what's happening on your own soil, at least. Terrorism is the art of fear, and the only way to defeat terrorism is to not be afraid. In the face of these people that are telling you, you are not allowed to have free expression, you are not allowed to have free speech, you are not allowed to have an opinion, you say, okay, watch this, watch my opinion, watch my free expression.

express itself. For more about Yasmin's harrowing story and her escape, check out episode 748 of the Jordan Harbinger Show. This episode is sponsored in part by What Was That Like Podcast? If you're looking for a new show to add to your rotation, something that'll make you stop mid-dishwashing and go, wait, what that actually happened? You got to subscribe to What Was That Like? It's real people telling the most surreal moments of their lives, and they're not just giving you the highlights. They're walking you through it from the inside as the person who actually lived it, which means you're basically getting a front row seat to the chaos. One episode is about Scott getting locked up in a foreign jail for a crime he didn't commit.

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Every story is verified. Their site even has photos so you know even the most bizarre stuff you're hearing is somebody's real life. Listen to what was that like on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever app you're using right now. This episode is sponsored in part by Something You Should Know podcast. Finding a new great podcast shouldn't be this hard, so let me save you some time. If you like the Jordan Harbinger show, you'll probably like Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers.

It's one of those shows that makes you smarter in a practical, useful way. Same curiosity vibe we go for here, just in a fast-focused format. Mike brings on top experts and asks the exact questions that you'd want to ask, and the topics are all over the place in the best way. Recently, they've covered things like why we care so much what other people think, the benefits of laughter, why sports fans get so invested, and what makes people like you or not, the through line is always the same. Smart ideas you can actually use in real life. Something you should know has been featured in Apple's shows we love, and it's got thousands of five-star reviews because it's

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