Welcome to GenX Adulting and today we have Ryan Kemp-Pippan with us, better known as Ryan the Therapist. Welcome, Ryan. We are so happy to have you with us. And our first... Of course, of course. Our first question is always, what year were you born? 1975. I am, but I'm a late blooming Gen X. that's interesting. So why do you call yourself a late blooming Gen X? Because I didn't get my shit together until I was 25, so I always subtract five years, like from my age, and that it makes more chronological sense for me. That's interesting. I feel like a lot of us didn't get our shit together. Congratulations on getting your shit together. That's pretty good. sorry. Did I? Yeah, I just stated that I had my shit together. No, when I got sober. I see, I see. Okay, okay, okay, right. um And where were you born? I was born in Los Angeles, California. And was your family from there, like your grandparents or your great-grandparents? no. My uh mother's family is from Olympia, Washington. And uh my father's family are from Northern Oklahoma and uh sort of Texas. My father is indigenous and my mom is white. And so I'm a proud son of the Pawnee Nation and also of the Kal Nation. So that's the Oklahoma part. They're from Onca City and sort of north west of Tulsa. Okay, so how did they meet? Yeah. grandfather, when he got, I don't know, I can't remember if he left, finished residential school or if he ran away, but when he left the residential school, he kind of wandered around the country, of, this is pre-World War II, of sort of trying to find a place to be. And... ended up back home after a stint in Oregon. He went to the University of Oregon and played football there for food. uh And then went back home to Oklahoma, the reservation, and he went uh out drinking with his brothers and ended up at a bar where my grandmother, her brothers were at, and they got into a fight. Okay, so your grandmother, was she also indigenous? No, well, yes, she was half, but she was white presenting. So she looked white. And back then she was white. know, she didn't she didn't embrace her indigeneity. But so the brothers were white and they got no fistfight and ended up in jail together. And my grandmother's father bailed the her brothers out, but also bailed my grandfather out. And. They were like, okay, you know, thank you. And then years later, they were hanging out in the town and they met each other and she had a child out of wedlock. My grandmother did, which I don't know the whole story at all. just, it's kind of a mythical thing for us, but uh they were going to get married, but World War II happened and he was going over to fight and he's like, I'm not going to leave you a widow. come back. So he went and did his thing, was was part of a tank crew that uh helped liberate the Eagles Nest. The Eagles Nest, the stronghold up in the mountains of Germany that Hitler had. Oh, yes, yes, yes. OK, OK. He was part of that. He, there was an, because they couldn't serve with white people, so he was part of an indigenous tank crew. And their tank crew, the indigenous tank crew and a black tank crew were the first lead tanks uh going up that mountain. And they're the ones that encountered the rockslide that was intentionally put in the road and they blew it up. And then, you know, all the history and stuff is that people. going up and then finding all the art and stuff that was hidden up in uh that place. Interesting. a trip. So, okay. They, the indigenous, um, military members, what was it like army? Okay. It's like a battalion. The indigenous battalion and the African-American battalion, they were separate from the white battalions. yeah. that you couldn't serve mixed. Very much the unsung heroes of various wars. Yeah. And they sent them first, to your point, right? Yeah. Yeah. What a trip. well, hell, wars are fought for rich men by poor. Right, right. So when you said residential schools, that what the school is called on the reservation? uh He'd know at three years old he my grandfather was taken by the federal government from his family and sent away uh to a residential school boarding school And that was the government's institutional effort to to eradicate natives So where was that school? He was sent because he was three. He was lucky. He got sent from Ponca City, which is North Oklahoma He got sent to Haskell which is in Lawrence, Kansas Just about 40 minutes from here So the motive behind that is to remove the children from the home and raise them white, like indoctrinate them. the literal policy was to kill the Indian to save the man. So... oh And that was federal policy. We're in the Declaration of Independence. Indigenous people are called savages. Yeah. So what year would that have been when he was taken around? Somewhere between 1910 and 20, I'd have to pull out the timeline of his life. But the early 1900s. So he was taken there, there when he was three, raised in kind of an institutional um environment. are you guys familiar with the residential schools like the... I've not heard of it, but it makes sense. You separate the family, you indoctrinate them into this new, Anglo-European. the siblings to different parts of the country. So they were separated and they grew up. It wasn't like they were sent to a foster home. They were in an institutional institutional environment. institutions, like the Catholic Church was huge in it. You know, there's rarely a denomination of Christianity in this country that wasn't part of the solution to eradicate indigenous people. oh so he was sent and where hundreds and thousands of kids were brutalized. uh sexual abuse, uh violent, incredible violence, beaten, they weren't considered human. And this went on from the time he was three until... oh till at least, I think he left around 16. He escaped. Yeah, essentially. I can't remember if it was he completed school or he just left. But in the wake of that, he was an alcoholic in that. that's where, for me, alcohol was just such a normal part of our life. Everyone drank, everyone smoked, everyone did something. I mean, I think it makes sense. The trauma he went through, it totally makes sense that he turned to alcohol. If not other things. That's by design too though. Well, yeah. well, it's indigenous for that. We don't have uh alcohols poisoned everybody. But to me, drinking is literally like it. I don't have the end to process it like, you know, the red face and stuff like I it really fucks with me. uh You know, having any kind of alcohol. I don't. I mean, I had to earn. tolerance of you know but yeah I don't know if what the history of that is there's smarter people out there for that one uh for most indigenous people, can't tolerate alcohol the same way others, correct? we similarly, you know, the same way with when the time of contact with European diseases were different and indigenous populations didn't have the immune system to deal with it, which is funny because that largely has to do with cleanliness that Europeans lived in proximity to animals. They would share literal homes with their animals, and so they got exposed over time and they develop different tolerances where in the Americas. they were separated. The animals were in one place, so they didn't have the same sort of lifestyle, but now it gets painted, Europeans are more strong and have better genetics and whatnot, but no, it's because they were dirty poor fuckers. Right. Now that makes such sense. That's funny. So when he left at 16, he came straight back home. No, he wandered the country a little bit like kind of like vagabond, you know, he would tell, he would regale us with stories of like, essentially like being a hobo. You he would travel the rails and like just go all over the place. And he, and I don't know how much of it is true because, you know, my family is known for storytelling and you know, my father was an incredible storyteller. And from what I remember, my grandfather was even better. But Storytelling is a really big component of our family. Even on my mom's side, they're, I think, Scotch. I can't remember, it's Welsh. They're originally from Wales. uh But everyone was a storyteller growing up. So he, from what you know, went around the country, traveled to different areas, and then landed in Oregon at U of O in Eugene and just applied and got in. I honest to God, I just know that he played football at the University of Oregon for food. And I don't know the whole story. And to be honest, it could be total bullshit because of the storytelling. You know that there's that movie Big Fish, you know? I swear to God, that's my dad. He would tell the craziest, most outlandish shit and... um be like, okay. And then you know, as an adult, I'm going around saying this stupid shit to you know, in college, I remember some history course, my like, I have an identical twin brother, we're actually mirror twins, we're the closest you can get to being two people with genetic similarity, like we're exact copies of each other, but mirrored. And I took one college class with him and a Native American history class. And this is when the Unabomber was like still kind of out there being wild and there was a kid with the hoodie sitting next to us and he kept hitting me going, hey, it's the fucking Unabomber. It's the fucking Unabomber. I'm like, dude, this is the first day of class. Pay the fuck attention. Come on. And it was a little Italian lady teaching it and He looked over the syllabus and started making notes and then she said, did anyone have any questions? And he raised his hand and she says, yes. He says to her, uh what right do you have as a white woman to teach me my history? The Unabomber guy said that? No, no. It's Brother. Oh! That's awesome. him and I'm like, shut the fuck up. And I'm like totally mortified. And she's like, excuse me? He's like, yeah, why is a white lady going to teach me? She's like, that's my doctoral studies. Let's move on. she would give us exams. He never did the readings. And he would correct her exams to the right way and then take his exam. And towards the end of the semester, I'm like, dude, you're going to fucking fail your own history. Seriously, chill the fuck out and just take the fucking course. You don't have to read shit. You know it. But don't fuck with her. And out of mercy, she gave him a D. Well, you go. what was he going on off of the stories? uh Yeah, in part the story, but he also, my twin brother, he's really, really smart and that's kind of his bullshit is he's really, really smart and never had to kind of work at school, which was good because he never liked going to school. So he's now funny. He's a middle school teacher now. eh He's like the perfect middle school teacher. He knows all the bullshit and it cracks me up. It takes a special person to teach middle school. It does. And not only does he's a English language learner teacher. So he. so he's teaching English to children who don't speak English? Yeah, most of his students right now are, I think he said from Ukraine and like the Spanish countries. So speaking Spanish, but he teaches everybody. That's cool. So when your when your grandfather left you of oh and came back home then was that the first time was his mother still alive? No. His mother died when he was really little. while he was away when he after he was taken. That's another kind of foggy part. I don't know what the proximity was, if she died and that was the impetus for him to be removed. Because they didn't take babies. He had a sister, Rose, who uh was maybe two or one or two when they took him. She stayed behind on the reservation. and wasn't sent away until later. Okay, so you don't know if his mom was still alive at the time he was taken? she died either just before he was taken or within a year or so of, because my grandfather, my father's father, he remarried and so my grandfather had like three or four other siblings, like half siblings. Okay. All right. So when your grandfather left you and came back, was there family there when he came back home? because he when he came back and he went back to the reservation and the reservation sits butted up against uh sort of northwest of Tulsa. And uh so he went back there and he like they knew everybody that my grandmother is from Skytuk, Oklahoma. That's where they all live and kind of where they ran in that sort of adjacent to the reservation, the Pawnee Reservation. Yeah, he went back there and sort of settled back in and was reconnecting to people. And he found his sister later in life. uh I want to say. It was after the war when he came back home. He and my grandmother reconnected and then they got married and he was a construction worker. And eh I think for a little bit, but then for better fortune, that's how they ended up in Los Angeles. So what brought them to LA? better work, like the good weather and Los Angeles was experiencing a building boom. So it was like the promised land, know, the land of milk and honey. War II. He would have been right there in the beginning of all of that, right? Yeah, they bought this house, a track home in Westminster, California. uh my dad grew up there at that house. And then later in life, my parents got divorced and my dad returned back home to that same house that he grew up in. Did they keep it in the family or did he? It did until, fuck I forget, in the last maybe 10, 15 years. I can't remember when they sold it, but they eventually did sell it, but it stayed in the family for 50 years. That's amazing. That is really cool. So when your grandparents moved to LA, they had your dad. Did he have any other siblings? Yes, uh so my grandmother, she had a child at a wedlock, my uncle Joe, and uh he stayed back and he actually he came to with them to LA and he played basketball and was pretty good apparently and was going to play for UCLA but he got his girlfriend pregnant. Mm. they so he they went back to Oklahoma to raise the family. So he wasn't he was there, but not really. And then my father was he was the oldest of the three other siblings. So my father and then I had uh two aunts, his siblings, his sisters, uh were both younger than him. And now they're all all of them are dead. Okay, wow. did your grandparents, you said your grandma presented white, correct? Yeah, I'll be honest. I always thought she was all white and didn't realize it until after she died. I was doing research and I found out that she was indeed Cherokee. She was registered to the Cherokee Nation. I was like, get the fuck out of here for real. Like, that's crazy. Because was your grandfather, did he present indigenous? yes, and being in Los Angeles everyone thought he was Mexican. And that used to, my dad too, uh you know, my dad was six foot four and well 300 pounds well built, very muscular, just fucking Paul Bunyan, you know, just a big fucking guy and had this booming voice and... uh publicly had a very calm demeanor unless you challenged him or if you hurt someone in front of him, it didn't matter who or what, he was going to get involved and he was going to stop. He was just a good guy. I would say earlier, and I forget when, but he was a functional alcoholic too. Would you say his siblings probably were as well? no, there's other dysfunction there. uh And that's so the middle sister who was my favorite of the aunts, my dad's siblings. She was like the fun aunt. I loved her. She was so fucking awesome. uh She was a hairdresser and just so beyond her time. She they were all Christian. Mm-hmm. Presbyterians, all of them. uh her and my grandfather, my grandmother helped build the first Presbyterian church of Westminster. And then my grandmother went every Saturday with the church ladies, the auxiliary, and cleaned the church and did all of that for years. mean, God, for as long as I can remember, that was her thing. Yeah, I forgot, I'm sorry, I forgot where the fuck I was going with that. she's asking about his siblings. So you had the one fun. my favorite aunt, I loved her. She was a hairdresser. She was awesome. uh And then there was the youngest. No, sorry, that aunt was the youngest. The middle, m his middle sister uh was an interesting person. And that's the part of my story. uh She was an abuser to me. And uh she was not, from what I understand, there was no alcohol usage. But she was not a very kind person. Okay, and then was there also another brother or was it three sisters? the one brother, Joe, was back in Oklahoma and he died relatively young. He was like 50 or 55. He had a heart attack and had a heart transplant. And like early, early heart transplants. he died when I was young. He died probably 10, somewhere between 10 or 12, I was when he died. I had never met him. I'd only seen pictures and I've only heard stories. Never got to meet him. And I have a whole mess of cousins who I know, but I've only met two of them ever face to face. Yeah, they're all in Oklahoma still. I, I even lived in Oklahoma for six years and never, never made it there. connected. So there was Joe, your dad and the two sisters. Okay. So was your mom also in LA? Or no, she was up in Olympia. Okay. So your dad story too. mom, her biological father was murdered when she was like three or four. And when he was murdered by, and they don't know, I actually have the transcripts of the trial that happened. he went hunting, they owned a filling station up in Olympia. And they at the end of the day, they went to they were going to go hunting. And instead of going to the bank, he said, fuck it and put the money in the bag, put it in his glove box and locked it. And they he and his assistant or whoever the other guy was, they went hunting and he never came back and they never found him. They when they went search, think from what I gather, they were coming. The guy he went with was coming back and the speculation was that he was in cahoots with two other guys and the two other guys went to go steal the money and it was locked and they couldn't get in and so they were like, fuck that. And they went to get him and he was a big guy too. And there was some sort of con and they killed him and then put his body in one of the rivers up there uh that went out to the ocean. But what they found was his clothes on one side of a river with his shoes and his clothes were folded and his rifle was leaning against a tree. And that's all they ever found of him. That sounds like they set that up to make it look like he went swimming. Yeah, that's what that sounds like. So that's how old was she when that happened? Three or four and then my grandmother had the she had three kids. My mom has three siblings or. Yeah, there's three of them and my grandmother never worked, stay at home, you know, and she was like, well, I guess I'm going to run the filling station because I had to take care of my kids and then found out that. His her husband's family hated her. And they fucked her over and took the filling station and they knew the county clerk and she got she got asked out of everything and in fact was uh they were looking to evict her from the home. And well, she left the home because she didn't own it. It was in his name and the family took it all and the county clerk would not. There was something with the county clerk that like some corrupt bullshit like that his family knew this person. So she got she left and went to some of her cousin's house and then rebuilt her life. But she was so upset she ran for county clerk and became the first female county clerk of that county. That's amazing because she became the single mom widow. The family evicted. She had to start a whole new life as a single mom. And then she and then that's the best revenge right there. That's amazing. she was so hardcore and she was crazy. Like I tell my daughter, like you have no chance. You're going to be a bad bitch. You come from such a long line of strong women, you know, like empower yourself girl. Like just it is like the world is not ready for that. uh Yeah, she was awesome. She had a heart or not a heart, a massive stroke in 1980. My mom's mom did and lost the usage of her whole left side of her body. And she lived riding a little scooter up until 2005 or 2006. So she lived 20 plus, 25 plus years, 25, 26 years after having had a massive stroke. Well, that's amazing. So your mom's in Olympia, Washington. Your dad's in L.A. How did they meet? Well, apparently after the whole gas station thing, my grant, I don't my grandfather, but they met and they moved to Los Angeles and he was some kind of businessman. I don't know what the fuck he did. Okay so wait, your mom's mom remarried? And then they moved to LA. Did he have kids from a previous marriage or were you guys the only kids? Okay. my mom and her two siblings my mom is the youngest she has an older sister and older brother the older her my uncle he's dead he died a few years ago but they all moved down to Los Angeles and lived a very middle class life you know honestly they're probably upper middle class very uh sort of gilded you know Do you know why they went to LA? Um, I don't. Probably economic again. Yeah, well what did he do? He was some sort of businessman. Okay, and then was she still involved like in politics or did she become a stay-at-home mom? Okay Okay, so Do you so then did they go to the same school your mom and dad? then so how my mom and dad met, my mom, her sister was dating this guy and his house was on this one street, uh right across the street was my auntie's house, my grandfather's sister that he found later. And my father, they had a swimming pool. This was in San Fernando, California, and they had a swimming pool. And my father lived there. This aunt was like his favorite human on Earth. He loved her so much. And my grandfather loved, once he found his sister, it was over like that. I'm never fucking leaving. We are never losing contact. So. He was my dad was a kid was over there like every other weekend in the summers. He like lived there. So he became best friends with the guy across the street and that guy was dating my mom's sister. And I think the Lord was hey, we're to go on a double date. I need somebody to go with. I can't I have to go my sister. And so they brought my dad. was the guy that they're like, hey, you do me a solid and go on this double date with me? Because there's this woman and she does, she needs a date. And that's how my parents met was, was that way. Yeah. Yeah. We may not. And, uh which cracks me up. Cause that, that, the, my aunt and uncle, my mom's sister, they're still married and have been married fucking forever. Um, and they live in Reno now and, Yeah, she was a banker or something and he worked for the Bureau of Land Management. So both those couples that went on that date ended up getting married. Okay. my parents probably should never have gotten married. There was a lot of conflict personally looking at it as a therapist. Certainly both of them were using within their means to escape their family situations, you know, as one does. They got married really young and they were married for like 15 years before they got divorced. Do know how old they were when they got married? Oh, like they were babies. think my mom may have been 19. Okay. And but not that she got pregnant or anything, they just chose to get married. they, and I will say, I know that they loved each other, you know, but they were very different people. My dad was very old school and conservative and my mom was everything but. you know, coming from my grandmother, she had no chance either. She was like, mom's a bad bitch. So they kept butting heads over like the roles of women. And my dad went. stay-at-home mom and my mom was like I'm fucking bored like I don't want to do this and she went to nursing school or I guess back then because she never went to college neither one of my parents went to college in fact I'm the first one in my family to go to college and something like that she volunteered at a like a candy striper and then worked her way up in her career as my father did too he was a draftsman and then became an engineer on the job and then that became like a facilities manager and he worked for Budweiser and he worked for Boeing. He had a fucking awesome career. especially considering he didn't go to college. oh them though are really fucking smart, but the feature for both of them, my dad, they always lived in poverty. You know, money was always scarce and uh there was this scarcity of not just uh financial resources, but emotional resources. You know, my grandfather, having survived residential school and being a functioning alcoholic, there was a lot of difficulties. He was very physically abusive and, you know, emotionally absent. you know, he, from what I gather, he was a better grandfather supremely than he was a father. Right. You know, and my dad stymied a lot of that, but he still, he did shit that hurt me, you know. And yeah, and you know, and I guarantee, I know I'm gonna hurt my kids. Hurt is part of the equation, humans hurt. But I hope that my kids will hurt differently. I have no doubt that you have already broken many generational trauma cycles, however you want to put it, just in your line of work alone. Yeah, well that's my greatest achievement is that my kids are 9 and 11 and they don't know a fucking thing about what I experienced. Because I, that, as far as I'm concerned, I succeeded. You know, I've been able to provide a safe and loving bond. My kids are very, we have a very firm and healthy bond and attachment and you know, the bullshit's mine. I gotta remember. myself that their entitlement and their uh ease that's my success but it fucking sucks to it's so horrible It's well, we gave them a voice, right, because we didn't have one, but then they come at us with that voice and it's almost like careful what you wish for. One thing I wish people would have told me before I had kids, hey fucker, when you have kids, just know it's gonna be a mad trigger. Every fucking developmental stage, you're gonna get triggered. That'd great. Write the fucking word, because people need to know that. Yeah, no, it's so true. And then we have to be careful with displacement, right? Displacement that we're not, you know, they may come with us with a spilled milk and we have to be careful though, like what we come at them is all this past triggered shit over spilled milk. Do you know what I mean? I do. When I was a kid, we had shit. We were really broke most of the time. So I don't remember having, when my parents were married, I remember having stuff. I had toys and things like that. Star Wars toys, by the way, which I wish I still had. But that's another part of the story. Once my parents got divorced, we moved back to, we lived in Washington state. My dad moved up. We moved up to uh Hanford, the Hanford plant. So Richland, Washington. It's southern, it's sort of southeastern. It's east of Mount Hood of the Cascades. But it's in Washington. Is that the nuclear plant? It's the Tri-Cities. So if you go up Portland and you go across the river, I figure what that highway is, you go about two hours and it's literally in the shadow of the eastern Cascades. Okay, I know what you're talking about. Hanford was like a superfund site. There's a nuclear reactor and stuff. That's where my dad worked. He went up there because that was like the biggest job and he got a huge ass pay raise. like, so he went there and was working and we went to school there, my brothers and I, but. their marriage did not last. have memories of when we were kids of comforting my young, my, I have two brother, two younger brothers, but only one of them was alive then we would, my twin brother and I would go and comfort him. was like one or two and we would, yeah, sorry about that. A Lego fell. Oh, we were talking about that. How Lego falls and breaks or how Lego breaks. And then what do you do? Do you need to it? Okay. How old were you when you guys were up there? We moved there, I wanna say, 78 or 79, because we were only up there for a couple years. Yeah, really little. Interesting, when I was little, because I'm a twin, not because I have talent, my brother and I were in the movies. Really? What movies? We did a lot of TV. I was on Little House on the Prairie. I remember working with Michael Landon and then we did a few TV movies. on Michael Landon did a Revolutionary War thing and we were in that. I was in The Incredible Old Incredible Hulk with Lou Ferrigno and I have a memory of Lou Frigno, like we were scared shitless of him because he's a fucking big green guy. And I remember him in the full makeup and stuff going, boys, it's me Lou. It's Lou. And somewhere there's a picture of him flexing like the Hulk with my brother and I hanging from his arms. Yeah, because they, sorry. Yeah, my mom. You know, she was a bored housewife. She did not want to be a housewife. She was so not fucking cut out to be a housewife. She fucking hated it. So she would invent shit to be social because my mom is very social. And one of it was there was this thing called the Twins and Triplets Club that she was part of. And uh through that, they're like, hey, you guys, Hollywood would be like, hey, can we meet your kids? Like, because we can work double. Great. Yeah. which was funny, my brother hardly ever worked because he never listened. He didn't take direction. So I did all the work, but they put it on paper that we both worked. It's funny, you mean the one who questioned the college professor didn't listen when he was on set? uh a remarkable concept. So do you have an IM, what is it, an IMBD or ED? IMDB. because I was, you know, three or four. This was in the late 70s, you know, and I went and tried to find these things. I couldn't find shit like and I found something on the I was watching Little House on the Prairie and I'm like, I think that's me. But it matched it matched the sort of distant memory I have, but that was kind of it and there was no like credit or anything. Cause what would you have been like three? Yeah, two, three. So you probably don't have any other than the Lou Frigno memory. Is that pretty much it? that one and then I have a memory. I was shooting a scene and it was fucking hot as balls at the studio. We were on an outdoor set and it was like a Western town set. I think it was the one that you see in Little Austin the Prairie with the sort of like a Western town kind of thing. And he was on the porch sitting in a chair and they were limiting liquids. Like they wouldn't let us have liquids because we'd have the pee. And so I was like hot. I was so hot. And I was like, I didn't want to do this. They would kept cutting and like, I guess I was fucking up the direction. So they kept re-shooting and then I was like, I'm so tired, I'm hot. And then the director was doing something and Michael Landon, was sitting on his lap and he reached down and grabbed the lemonade that he was drinking and he gave it to me and let me drink it and he goes, shh. And I just knew, for me, it was so like a fond memory of that man. Yeah, they were. That was back before they had probably laws to protect children from being purposely dehydrated. Well, I'm sure those laws were there, but you can always skirt shit, you know? how creative is that? Let's find twins so we can extend the day. Not have a twin scene, but let's get more out of Because I know now children are only allowed to work a certain amount of time and that's one of the reasons they do twins, so they can get that double time. I've never heard of that. That's very clever. So you had this whole little Hollywood life and then you go up into Southeast Washington, right? Is that kind of how it went? And then now you're living up there. from what I remember, it was like idyllic as fuck. I remember that we lived in two different homes and it was just I remember my fond memories of my father, but my grandmother, my mom's mom had a stroke while we were up there. And then my mom disappeared for a while. And I honestly, I don't know how long it was. But looking back, the only real memories I have of my mom being up in Washington is her walking us to school. And I believe it was kindergarten. She would walk us to school and there was this river embankment that we would kind of walk either going or coming, I forget. But I remember her telling us about the ducks and the birds that were on the water and then going to school and we would come home and stuff. But I don't remember a lot. And then the fighting, I remember them arguing a lot and I know that there was lots of financial pressure that was going on and they were not happy. They did not communicate well and it spilled out. It was very volatile. Was there ever physical abuse? Nothing that I saw. But there, I when you're a little kid and you don't have to see that shit to be terrified, you can hear it. Like I remember arguing at night and just the sort of snipping at each other. You know, the once my I don't remember what the time frame, but my mom left and I remember we moved from one house to the other. We lived in a duplex and then when we moved into the other house, Mount St. Helens erupted. Mm-hmm. I remember. at church, watching it for weeks, the plume and stuff. And I remember being at church and looking. I always remember being at a shipping dock, but I don't know why the fuck a shipping dock would be at a church. So I don't know. I might be completely not liking things. But I remember it erupting. And in the wake of that, all of us kids wearing the Breaking Bad suits and then going outside and playing. Wow. We never you must have been you were closer. Super close. Yeah, because the only thing we had to do was I was in Beaverton or outside of Portland, but we had ash in our grass. So when you mowed the lawn, you had to wear like the mass people work during covid. We would have to wear that when you'd mowed the lawn. And then there was ash on the ground. But we didn't have to wear any suits. But you were much closer, I think. Yeah, and I remember, I don't think, like the timeframe I'm not certain of, I just remember, this vividly, those sort of half dome swing or climbing things we used to have back in the day. yeah. I remember no one had fences in this area. All the yards ran together and there was just like people's stuff here and there. There was that jungle gym there and all of us kids were playing and I just have this vivid memory of us hanging in this thing like holding our hands and hanging upside down and someone's like thing fell off. wow. they're like their mask or their... Like an astronaut suit. Yeah, Hazmat. and everyone was like, shit, like scrambling to put it back on so they don't die. Yeah. Which I don't think you would have died. Yeah, this part was over. Yeah, yeah. That was a crazy time because I'm a little older than you. I was born in seventy one. So I think when St. Helens blew, think I was in um either third or fourth grade because what you were like, you said, like kindergarten or first grade, maybe. Yeah. So that wasn't true. But I remember we could see it when we would be on the highway and it was there. It felt like as a child that that plume was there for months. Like it was like, why is it still there? It should. I always thought as a child, it blows up and it goes, but it just hovered and hovered. It was such a trip. So you said your mom left before that. Did you know consciously? Like, did your dad say your mom has left? We're getting divorced. No, not that I remember. I remember there being relief in the house, but there was also the sadness. I remember he worked really early in the morning. So I remember being dark and him getting us ready and then driving us to this babysitter or daycare or something and dropping all three of us off. And it was still dark. Wow. I remember that's sort of the theme in that period. was dark and heavy. And I remember my dad taking us to, I don't know if they had it in Portland, I think it was called Big Al's Pizza or Big Bear Pizza. uh I wanted to say like a Chuck E. Cheese, but the old school pizza parlors with the big family style tables and stuff. I remember going to this place. and uh him were eating pizza and he would ask them to give us root beer in the beer mugs. And he would drink his beer in the mug and we would have root beer in the mug and we were like his buddies. uh And that was such, I remember just, and he would, I don't know how the fuck he did it, but he would shower us with Star Wars toys, like the big tall action figure ones. Like I remember coming home, and I don't know where the fuck we were, but coming home. had bunk beds and on our bunk beds were it felt like the whole fucking bed was covered with stuff and we're like what and I remember flipping our shit like what it wasn't even Christmas or anything like what the fuck this is crazy and you know so I remember fondly like my we were really really important to my father you know he never said I love you and stuff well not When he was older, he had a heart attack when I was uh a sophomore in high school and almost died. No, I was a freshman. Sorry. Yeah. uh But he never spoke it much. But like I always knew he loved me and he would like get stupid, silent and like be like observing stuff and like I could catch him and he would be looking and he was just so fucking content to be around us boys. That's a wonderful feeling because a lot of. uh Yeah, I know, because a lot of Gen Xers did not have that relationship with their fathers or ever experienced that feeling you're talking about that you knew you were important to him. That's right. but I promise you, back then I felt incredibly invisible because the finances, know, when we were in Washington and all the Star Wars stuff was happening, I'm assuming that there was some kind of abundance, but once everything blew up, uh we packed up and we moved and it felt very abrupt. You mean when they got divorced? Yes, they were separated first and apparently and I only know this from the years later in my adulthood talking to both of my parents. My mom had been gone for a while. She went down to Los Angeles to take care of my grandmother because after her stroke and a whole bunch of shit erupted in that and they were on their way. They were separated and they were they were not going to and smile, but my dad always held on this hope to keep the family together and do what, that's what men do, right? We're protectors, we're providers. And I remember him kind of moping and just being sad, like, fuck, like I fucked up. And we initially lived with my mom and my mom moved to Atwater Village, if you know Los Angeles. At the time, we were the only white people. in the neighborhood. Okay, so was it African American? Okay, yeah, okay. in fact, the school we went to for first grade, there was a holiday program, Christmas program. And I remember them putting in lines of English for us so our parents could hear something. my gosh, that's actually adorable. Was this um after the divorce or before you moved up to Washington? was right after we left Washington when they got separated. Then we abruptly left Washington and went my we moved into my mom's in her house in Atwater and we started school. So I think what happened is they decided, OK, we're fucking done. Like my dad was like, I'm coming back down to save the marriage. And so he we abruptly left and. uh My mom had this house and I don't know what that was, but I remember my dad helping us move in and put all of our shit in this garage. But then there was a guy who lived in the front of the house and he set everything on fire. He set everything on fire that was in the garage. yeah, we like literally might they I remember them moving truck. They we moved down and all the shit from the truck got put in this garage because my like I don't even know why. And my dad apparently was living back in his childhood home with his parents. So was you, the three boys and your mom in kind of like, was it like a duplex? It was uh kind of, but in California and Los Angeles, they have like these sort of bungalow houses where there's no huge backyards, like a big yard, but there's houses like kind of staggered, like outside apartments kind of. Okay, and then she was you guys were behind this guy's Yeah, his name was Clarence. So your house was kind of behind Clarence's house. Right, our house was the last, the farthest back off the main road and there was like an access road and there were I think two garages in some format there but oh he was the one that set the fire. crazy. um a week, two weeks, I don't remember, but the shit was still in the garage. Because of that, I don't have very many baby pictures or anything. All of our shit got burnt up and no one had money to replace it. And that's kind of what began for us. I didn't have possessions. and all your Star Wars stuff. Everything, baby pictures, Star Wars, like all the shit was gone. And yeah, I remember having like uh a metal lunch box I got. I think it was a, I want to say it was an Indiana Jones one. uh But that got taken away. uh We got into it. My brother and I, literally the only white guys in the. white presenting people. And another caveat, when my grandfather died, we stopped being Native. Meaning it wasn't mentioned again? Yeah, I always say we put the Indian back in the cupboard. Okay, so that was even though your dad so what did people just assume your dad was Hispanic? Yeah, they always say he was Mexican. And he didn't correct them. ah Not that I heard, mean, you know, he had to belong somewhere. Yeah. So so when you guys were going to school, even though you have a decent amount of indigenous blood in you, you were totally white presenting. My twin brother and I look, he looks just like me, I look white, I'm white presenting. But we're the only ones, I'm the only one, my brother and my other siblings don't look white. Dark hair and like the, yeah, my little brother, he's technically my half brother. And his father is Mexican. So yeah, he looks indigenous too. So he's from your mom and another, he had a different dad? Yeah, her second husband. Okay, so he- but he lived with you got you and your... Dad. we... No, he... My youngest brother, we never really grew up together. I'm nine years older than him. Okay, so when you were comforting him, was that when he was visiting her? uh my second, my middle brother. There's three biological kids, my twin brother, myself, and my younger brother. The three of us have always grown up together. But then we have a half brother, but he's my brother. I've never, but he's nine years younger than me. So out of the three, what about you have the twins, you two are white presenting. What about your My other brother, no, he looks indigenous. uh And he's fucking huge. He's like six foot four and he's so much like my dad. In fact, people will see him or talk to him and be like, get the fuck out of here. You look just like Bob. Yeah. I never, I always thought I didn't belong growing up. You know, and I am, so I'm technically the middle child in our family system. You have four minutes and my brother will not let me fucking forget it. He lords it over me. I'm like, fuck off. Four minutes, because if honestly, if I'd have been born first, he'd have died because my umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck. So the doctor moved us so that he could be born first so he wouldn't die. Wow. Well, you can hold that over his head. Yeah. You saved his life. So, OK. Right from the start. So you have this huge you have a lot of trauma going on, obviously, because your parents divorced, separated. Yes. Well, moving, moving and then the fire and then Clarence decided to be an asshole for some reason and light all your stuff on fire. and honest to God, I remember Clarence. And he looks like your average, gravy white guy. you know, imagine an early 80s fat guy, white guy with a white t-shirt and like the painter khaki pants and black shoes. total piece of shit. I don't know from what my... And I can't remember if this was my mom told me this or my aunt, my one of my mom's sister that Clarence was pissed that my mom, he assumed that my mom was was loose because she was a single mom. And he wanted to try to hook up with my mom and he and she spurned him. She's like, get the fuck out of here. And he was like, oh, yeah, light your shit on fire because he was that stable. And funny, that's the male toxicity is persists in our culture. no kidding. my God. OK, so you guys have lost all your stuff. You're living with your mom. Your dad is at his childhood home. You're going to a school where you're the only white kids. How long did you stay living there and in that school? It was, we only did one year there and that summer we, uh there was some kind of custody arrangement and I can't remember exactly what the custody arrangement was, but I remember my dad would come and I remember this when we would get dropped off uh at my mom's house. I remember this longing in my heart. Like I missed my dad and him going, like leaving, it just, it was crushing. But likewise with my mom dropping me off to my dad's, the same thing, she would depart and I would feel crushed. So I did not feel safe anywhere, consistently. And my grandfather was still alive when we... when this was going on, he still lived at that house, but he was getting sick. And when he was getting sick towards the end of his life, he reverted and he stopped speaking English. He grew his hair out. And my dad said he went native. Like he returned, like he was preparing to die. And I remember that. I remember him, you know, speaking to us in his native tongue. I don't. recall shit like I couldn't tell you any of the language. uh Part of me might remember shit if I hear it. But I remember him getting sick and dwindling. But during that, we would go visit. And I remember loving my grandmother. My dad's mom was like the fucking most amazing woman. uh She was a great cook and she was really tall. She was probably five, 10, six feet. Wow. uh her Big Grandma and my mom's mom was like maybe five foot tall so she was Little Grandma. And this is the grandma that's part Cherokee, right? Yeah. dad's mom. she just had big, huge glasses. She had shitty vision, but she sang like an angel and she cooked and she was just so loving. And I remember her, she was my safety. Because when we went that summer, and I don't know what the particulars are, but my dad essentially kidnapped us. He never returned us. So it was during a custody agreement where you're supposed to be visiting him and then he just didn't return you? How old were you then? Five or six. Was it during the school year or was it summer? uh him that summer and we just never went back. And my dad, his family was really toxic. They hated my mother. They would tell us the craziest shit. These two aunts would be like, your mom's a whore. Your mom doesn't love you. She abandoned you and all these things. Like would say the most horrendous things. And being a kid, you want to please people. Yeah. and feeling really torn. when we got that summer, we never went back to my mom. They isolated her. Like I remember them going out to the front lawn and kind of fight my mom. Wow. Well, did she not have, um like, per the courts? Didn't she have rights? She, oh yeah, but it didn't matter back then. She had no money for lawyers. She was trying to keep her head above water. Subsequently, in talking to her about it, she's like, I did everything I could that I knew how to. They would not relent, and they had more collective resources, and so they won. No, my... They, my mom lived in Los Angeles still, like uh in Atwater Village, and my dad lived in Orange County, if you guys know the geography. So it was like, fuck, it seemed forever, you know, as a kid. It would take anywhere from an hour to two hours to drive between them because of the traffic. uh and also I guess the only thing she could have done would be to call the police, which now that would work, but I don't think back then that would have even mattered. Right, and honest to God, I remember the intimidation from my dad's family, like really, she felt alone and isolated and talking to her now, you I was estranged from her for a long time. Oh, fuck. I mean, honestly, there's probably two or three different episodes of being estranged from her. uh But back then, you know, she like left, but I remember her like fighting. And like we would do programs or something and she, remember her always being there and just like desperately trying to connect. But away from her, we got fed this stuff that she was such a horrible human and didn't love us and abandoned us. I adopted that to the point that that now, you know, I'm 50 fucking years old and my mom is dying and I still struggle with. that emotional connectivity and uh she and have had very difficult conversations over the last five years and have had to reclaim because yeah, my dad's family robbed me of my mom. Well, and it's hardwired right into your subconscious and into your system. What they did, they brainwashed you. so you're having to and you're a therapist, you know, but you're having to get past all that to connect with her. That's a that's an uphill battle, especially if you get triggered, you're brought right back. So it's like five steps forward, two steps back, five steps forward. I mean, that's that takes commitment. Yeah, well, and that too, you know, I remember being a kid and feeling so fucking alone. You once we got to the house, I don't know what the time frame, maybe six months, my grandfather died. And that's when the floodgates opened. Once he died, all hell broke loose. was apparently he was the buffer, but he was also pretty violent. I found out later that he would was physically abusive to his kids and to my grandmother. Okay. Was it just to go back real quick, you were um the like you said, they put the Indian in the cupboard or whatever. So when your grandfather grew out his hair and started speaking in his native tongue, was that the first time you were really exposed to that side of your family? because we grew up with identifying as indigenous. Like from when I was a little kid, like we learned the stories and my father would tell us all the stories and you know teach us things. I found out later though he would teach us some phrases of the mother tongue or Indian and it wasn't true. And I don't know where the fuck he got it from, but I remember looking up and going, I'm going to fucking learn the Pawnee language. our nation has a language program. And so was like doing it. And I'm like, but wait, what about this? And he goes, I don't know what the fuck that is. And I'm like, but my dad told me this. And he said, no, man, that doesn't exist in our language. And I'm like, fuck. That's funny. That's almost like when someone gets a Chinese symbol on their as a tattoo and it says like toilet. So it doesn't mean anything. It's gibberish. Like I've seen that where lot of people say it's gibberish. It's gibberish. It doesn't mean anything. we were kids, when going to school in Los Angeles, I remember I've always been registered with my nation. And apparently that back in the day that registered with the school district. instead of they would buy whatever California did, we had to go to Indian school. So they would take us out out of class, all of us indigenous kids, regardless of what nation you were. They would put us all in this classroom and then they would teach us our history. But I remember taking this handout one day and coming home and my grandfather was still alive and I was so proud. I'm like, grandpa, look, da da. And he looked at it and he goes, what the fuck is this ni hao bullshit? And I was like, what? He said, do you realize that's from the Lone Ranger? no! They were teaching us movie Indian sign language and all that bullshit. This sort of homogenized Hollywood Indian and that's what they were teaching us. And you had kids who were like from the desert, the plains, the eastern woodlands, the Pacific Northwest. Like they just put us all in and said, this is what Indian is. I'm right? Yeah, it was kind of like a period. Like I know where I went to school, there was a lot of Jewish kids. And so they would go out for an hour to learn about their history and then come back and join us. Okay. would they would take us all out and put us into this classroom and make us like we had to do a basket one time. I remember coming home and making this little fucking grass basket and I was like proud of it and I show it to my grandfather and he's like we never made baskets. We hunted buffalo. That's actually so funny. So you said once he passed away, though, um then you said he was violent before, like with your grandmother and his kids. But then the floodgates opened when he passed away. So what happened there? When he died, I remember at his funeral, we did ceremonies. So we saged and there was a ceremony for us to release his spirit so he could go on to the long journey home. And uh we did all of that and then... Like it's like once that was done, it was finalized and uh there was the white person funeral. Like there was going to be a funeral at the church and I don't know what was going on around, but I remember seeing my two aunts, my dad's two sisters fist fight each other on the front lawn. of the church, of the church? at the house. Okay. they, I don't know why they got into a fist fight and they were like fucking punching each other like men on the front lawn. And I remember all of us kids, there were, I have, there's my, myself, my two brothers and then I have four cousins who were all, we were all kind of raised collectively. And uh we're all like sitting there like the fuck and their mom is one of the sisters out there fist fighting and. when you know grief they fist fought and I don't know what else happened but the youngest sister was married and lived away but the middle sister and my dad lived in that house and then we lived there so there was my grandmother my aunt my dad and then the three boys living in a three-bedroom one bath house And was this the ant that um abused you? Yes, because that's when I say the floodgates opened uh after he died then uh she became so mean and would be very physically abusive. like slapping you in the face, stuff like that. Yes, and she attempted to kill me on two occasions. By what, strangling you? Yes, strangling was one of them. And the other time she was a big lady too. uh She tried to choke me out, strangled me one time as she was sitting on top of me and I couldn't move. You know, I remember like going to blackout and I don't even know how the fuck I managed to get out from underneath there. And then another time she was on top of me choking me out and then a cousin handed her a can of raid. and she sprayed that into my mouth trying to poison me. oh So the cousin was complicit in what was going on. Yeah. So how old were you during this time period? Maybe seven, eight, 10. Because the abuse happened over years. Because then I became the whipping boy. And at one point I realized that, I don't know if I was obligated, but I was compelled maybe to sort of distract the bull so I would get the horns and keep her away from the other kids. All of them are just your brothers. em All of them. In fact, was me and a cousin of mine. uh We would take the most of the brine, or we would try to. Do you know, was it just complete displacement of abuse onto you or was there something that triggered her about you or she you were the one? oh more abuse that went on. um A lot more. I don't know if maybe I think the two youngest now. I don't know if anyone was spared. Honestly, you know, maybe you just got a different degree of abuse, but there was lot of emotional abuse. uh Though, well, she was my primary, yes, but there was uh violence perpetrated by everyone. Even my grandmother. What about your dad? Towards you guys. was, uh you know, strained and like I'm pretty sure was embarrassed that he was living with his parents. But yeah, he would be violent too. And, you know, we got like the belt and, you know, he was aggressive. do you think they had any idea what they were doing or was it just their way of life? And that's not making an excuse. I'm just curious. I think from what I gather, they got more from their dad. Yeah, you know, and I, as a father now, I can see, and I've been able to go back into my life and through my own therapy work to reframe the traumas and make friends with it. uh You know, don't, I don't hold ill against my father. You know, I genuinely, I miss him very much. He died in 2020. uh I would do anything just to be his little boy for 10 minutes. When did the abuse from your dad start though? Was it during those years living in that house? Well, so I'll clarify abuse. you know, there's the rampant any kind of physical spanking I think is abusive. But moreover, the violence that that happened from my from my if I remember correctly after my grandfather. Okay, so up until then he was doing the normal thing that a lot of us Gen X kids got, which was the spanking or the wooden spoon or even the belt to some degree that was considered normal punishment to us. But you're saying it ramped up in a violent way once your grandfather died. he died, remember the neighborhood kids and everybody like my cousins, they would prod my twin brother and I into fighting. Like they would put us in the backyard and like we I remember putting on duct tape carpet remnants. on our arms and legs and getting trash can lids and sticks and metal pipes and fighting literally like gladiators in the backyard for these cheering kids. So you had been up until then, you had not been exposed to where that's normal. You'd been up in Southeast Washington. Was this the first time where you were exposed to this type of situation where everything's kind of violent? year in Los Angeles when we were the only white kids, my brother and I got jumped a lot. So then we learned that like to fight. That was the first time I remember like. I remember my dad even telling me, if that motherfucker hits you, then do this. And he like taught us how to throw punches and you know, he was a former army guy, you know, and he was fucking big dude, you know. When we lived with my grandparents, I remember one time I was probably 11. I was at the... or the corner market, know, like 7-Eleven, playing Double Dragon, if you remember that video game. And you know, you used to put your quarter on the machines, like, I'm next. I was there watching them and I had my quarter and the guy before me, like, died and so my quarter and I put it in and I'm playing and a big kid came in and saw me and said, fuck you and punched me and my head hit the window and... I was kind of like stunned like the fuck he's like, is my game now? And I was like, okay. And so like I went outside and then I started to cry, but I was embarrassed. So I ran and I started to run home. And as I was nearing my, house, my dad was outside oh washing a vehicle. and he saw me and I just like slowed down and tried to compose myself and I guess he could tell I was crying still and he's like what the fuck's going on and I'm like nothing I tried to like lie and he was like no what's going on and so I told him that big kid beat me up and took my game and he said all right and literally shorts no shoes on no shirt cigarette in his lip got into his pickup truck Made me get in and we drove back to that little market. And as we pulled up, there was three or four kids out in front of it. And one of them was the kid that hit me. And my dad has this conversation with me inside the vehicle. says, all right, which one did it? And I didn't want to say anything. And he said, which one did it? And I like that one. And he's like, okay. And so he gets out, walks over and he's kind of talking to him. smoking, lights another cigarette, and he tells the two or three other kids, tell them like, get, leave. And they leave, and the one kid's like, going to leave, and my dad puts his hand on his chest, and can have, they're having a conversation, and then he points to me, and he goes, get out here. And we go out to the, there I'm standing there coy, and the guy is like, is this him? And I was like, yeah. And my dad said, all right. And he goes to the kid and he said, so you like hitting little kids, huh? And he smacks him. You like hitting people that are littler than you. Boom. And then the knuckle tap on the head. And he's kind of roughing them up. And the kid's fucking terrified and shitting himself. And uh then he says to him, you got two choices. You can fight him or you can fight me. Oh my god. And I'm standing there like, what about me? I not get a choice? Like, I don't want to fight anybody. So there, I had to fight this kid. And I'm throwing bullshit punches. And my dad said, if you don't really fight. to the other kid, you're going to fight me and the fucking kid starts going and he hit me. so I was kind of like, well, I got to fucking fight him. So I went and I fought the kid and I'm pretty sure he would have kicked my ass completely if my dad had not been there. But he put on a show, I guess. And then my dad was satisfied and I got back in the truck and we left. Unbelievable. That's crazy. I mean, that is that is trauma right there. That's. Right, well, yeah. I'm a pacifist by choice now. I have more violence. Growing up, violence was such a normative experience. mean, going on into my teen years, I never turned down a fight. I never said no to a fight. looking for fights at times and was at one point in my life was pretty violent. So was alcohol pretty rampant in the house with your aunts and your dad? Would you say that played a part in all this violence? um I don't know. uh I don't think because I don't remember alcohol because it was kind of a teetotaler because of my grandmother. So I don't really remember alcohol like out front and visible. uh I don't remember it that much. I know that there will be times where when we were little. people would be drinking and they would think it's funny to get a little, know, hey, here's grandma's drinking buddy. you know, a little kid drinking beers and you know, like I remember four or five years old going to adult parties and they thinking it's funny that little kids are drinking, you know, scotch on the rocks or whatever. you know, I remember my mom's mom literally to my twin brother, oh, that's grandma's drinking buddy. Wow. Okay, so. it was a feature and I knew people drank and got drunk and we had a cousin who had fetal alcohol syndrome. He was born with fetal alcohol syndrome and he was a lifelong alcoholic. He puffy face and he would always, every fucking party, he in fact made a jacket, like a sports coat that had elastic liners on inside of each side to hold six beers each. No way. Yeah, how kind of ingenious, but that was a feature they would. But when when my dad got remarried in 88, they moved out of my his childhood home and he and my stepmom got a big ass house in the San Fernando Valley and it was like so bougie like fucking Jefferson's right. Like moving on up. Like when we move. In fact, when we moved there, I remember uh myself, my twin brother, and my middle brother, we all had our own room for the first time ever. Was this due to a job change for him? uh I think, no, because he stayed where he was working. He worked for Boeing at the time. And so my stepmom did. My stepmom came from like, her parents were really wealthy. Okay, and then. a house in Bel Air and all that stuff, you know, like they were, and I thought they were fucking awesome people. loved them. But he, her dad worked on the Manhattan Project and knew Oppenheimer and he was one of the pioneers of quantum mechanics. Like he literally wrote the book on quantum mechanics. uh And he was a good guy. But when they did that, we got our own rooms. And I remember the first night I could not sleep, I was terrified. Because I had just spent, but. uh So maybe seven to eight years living with my two brothers and my dad in a uh tiny room, you know, with bunk beds. Then my dad slept in one of the bunk beds and my brothers and I would take churns sleeping on the top bunk or on the floor. Well, and also in an environment of violence, too. Yeah, and with no possessions, like we went to a Lutheran private school where you had to wear uniforms. And so literally we had a like a room, those old L shaped bunk beds. There was like a little closet in the back of it. And I remember in that that little closet, there were uniformed shirts and pants. They weren't mine. They were ours. Like in the morning we would go. to this place and get a pair of pants and one of the uniform shirts. And then we had a drawer of socks and a drawer of underwear. And there was nothing that was mine. I would go and get a pair of socks. I would go get a pair of underwear. Maybe shoes were like the only thing that I had, but I didn't have possessions. I had no toys, no books. We went to a library once and I had that Macbeth book I checked out. uh until I got married. wow. They're chasing you. uh but I remember rereading that Macbeth book, like, like just yearning for something different. So you're living in this environment with violence. You have nothing that belongs to you. You're with your dad and your brothers in this room with bunk beds. And you're estranged from your mom because you've been told she's all these horrible things. then. Very isolating and your way of coping, I assume, was through violence, like you said, sometimes you would actually go look for a fight. Did you? then. When I was little, that time, I was so withdrawn. I remember trying to be invisible and I really fell into daydreaming. You know, it was so hard. Yeah. disassociating like crazy. remember trying pretending I was different. Like I was a bird and I remember swinging on swings because we would also get we weren't allowed to be latchkey kids because apparently we were too much trouble. So we were not allowed to stay at home. We had to. So I went to school early at that private school and I was there late. Literally we were always the first kids to dropped off and the last kids to be picked up. If people even remember to pick us up there were many times where we got forgotten and the school would call uh somebody and somebody would come like I remember getting picked up by total strangers and it was like my cousin's friend would come get me and oh a hell of handful of times teachers would drive us home. Wow. So you, I mean, you were dealing with so many things there. So when you say you did not feel safe, you had nothing to hold onto. There was no, the only consistency was trauma, it seems. Yeah, and it was so normalized. I I look back at my recovery and that was the biggest component for me to first accept that, yeah, I had fucking trauma. And then to go, well, that's not normative, Ryan. You can have different, just because it was doesn't mean it has to be. But I didn't know any of that. just the being bombarded with. all of these difficulties because there was economic hardship. scarcity is the thing that always, right? I remember there was always this scarcity, but I look back now and I've been able to reclaim parts of it. There were joy. It just took forever to fucking remember the kindness and you know, the like Michael Landon story. I look fondly at that and there were uh just pockets of people that were kind to me that I hold on to. And not that my parents were totally, utterly horrible. They had hardships too. I look at it now more as a product of our system. The systemic injustice, it took my mom and wouldn't let her be a mom. It took my dad and wouldn't let it, the tribute was too much. So they had to pay all this time just to keep afloat or whatever. I know my mom wanted to be more present and I know she loves me, but they weren't able to be the people that they wanted to be. And that's a systemic issue that part of me now, oh you know, I'm very socially justice minded. oh That's part of why I do what I do. My hope is to help people find their healthy so that we can end all this bullshit. When I first started my practice, I didn't know what the fuck I was doing. uh But I was so desperate to no longer work in agencies, I was just burnt out. That uh I was kind of my therapist at the time was like, if you don't get out of agency work, I'm gonna fire you. And I'm so grateful for her for pushing me. in fact, she said, okay, my wife is gonna talk to you and she helped me set up my practice. She's gonna walk you through it. And she literally did. Like, it was crazy. So, conclusion of ethical boundaries, right? Like, we were fucking dual relationship all over the place. But uh she helped me do it and I am so grateful because I'm almost five years into this and going, I have never been happier. That's wonderful. I get to help people find the space that I found in healing. And I'm so amazed at the human, like our human ability to be uh present in all kinds of situations and to heal. Our bodies want to heal. We have to do a lot of work to impede that healing and that's what I try to help with my patients is to hold space and let them find their story, their voice. Quite literally, uh I think me saying I'm grateful for what transpired is not the whole story, but I do feel the gratitude. It was wrong. People, the adults in my life failed me, but I get what happened. know, hell, aunt. uh She uh was horrible to me. And... uh I was estranged from her for a long time. And when I had kids, oh when we first found out, I told my parents, and I hadn't talked to this aunt for years. And my parents told her and she found out and my dad gave her my phone number. Wow. And she called me and I answered it because I didn't know. And I was like, fuck. I ate shit. And I remember going right back to being a little kid and I was fucking anxious and scared. And so I acquiesced and I'm like, OK, yeah, here's my my mailing address. And yeah, yeah, OK. But when I hung up, like I fell apart and I'm like. And my wife had never seen that. Because, you know, that's part of my story. I never told her. that was the first time that you told your wife about this ant and what happened to you. she knew that I had a rough rough go at stuff, but she didn't know a lot of the details. Well, she's dead now and I the last time I did try to I told her and I confronted her face to face. She denied everything and told me I made all the shit up and I was like, we're done. Go fuck yourself. And then sorry, go ahead. I don't want to go back too far, but you what is agency work? What you said you were doing agency work. work is when like a therapist or social worker works uh for like a community mental health organization or you know like they work in community. uh If we treated people better I'd be for it and which sucks is because we don't do good mental health work in this country at all. You know we're an afterthought but... mental health care is, I would say, at least on par with physical health care, but then again, we fuck ourselves over with physical health care too. And you're probably prescribed to a path you have to take, or there's guardrails or whatever. because agency work is never funded appropriately. You look at block grants from good old Reagan era, get rid of the state hospitals, which needed to happen. But the original system was never funded, even anywhere near half. So they destroyed everything that we had. And it did need to get destroyed. But we never rebuilt it. And here we are now with the of money, though. Yeah. I would gladly give that money back. don't mean, I personally, I don't mind paying taxes and shit. I want roads. I want schools. I want robust public services. That's what we're here for. The commons strive together. It's just exhaustingly frustrating to see how uh shitty we are to each other. I can't but help look around and see hurting little boys and little girls and all these adults pretending to be strong and, you know, masculine or whatever. No, you fuck you. You're masking all kinds of shit. Well, I think in our generation as we're hitting midlife, I think there's a significant amount of us that are getting mental health, um are going for therapy and getting help with our mental health now and recognizing and acknowledging our trauma for the very first time ever and putting words to what happened to us and doing things like EDMR and uh I said that right and using tools. EMDR, thank you, EMDR and other tools to kind of go back and rewire the trauma and all that stuff. So I think there is a strong group of us that are doing that. And then there's the other Gen Xers that are like, we're tough, rub some dirt on it. We don't need anything. You guys are, but yeah, exactly. But I'm hoping through those of us who are um using our voice to bring light to the trauma that at least our generation, a lot of us had shared experiences of that on different levels, right? Like I had trauma too, but it's way different than your trauma, but it still is trauma, right? I'm hoping that that will help with a cultural shift and how mental health is addressed. You know, honestly, when I reached out to you all. I I knew what the fuck my impetus was. I have no idea. I found you guys and I'm like, oh fuck yeah. it was like a, you know like you walk through a crowd and you see, cause I'm an old school punker, you know, there's not a lot of us left. And I like, you walk through a crowd and you see an old crusty punk and I'm just like, fuck yeah, look it, we survived. Cause on the real, I never thought, I never thought I was going to get old. Yes. yeah. hit 30, I turned 30. I was a missionary in Kenya and I turned 30 there. And I remember on the day of my 30th birthday, I got detained by bandits. Yeah, this is the God's honest truth. Kenya, you turned 30 and then you were like kidnapped. Yeah, that's wild. uh and we were looking at some water project to look, hey, is it worth reclaiming? And uh we're there and uh kind of looking around the site. And uh when we were coming back, we saw elephant tracks and we're like, fuck that. Because you don't ever want to be anywhere between water and elephants. You'll get killed. They'll trample you. okay. So you're, if the water is between you and the elephants or you're between the water and the elephant. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Got it. Got it. Kenyan brother was there with me and we're hanging out and I learned if he fucking tells you to run, don't say shit, you fucking run. Like just do what he says, he'll keep you alive. And so we're like sitting there and he got kind of nervous and he turns to me and he said, hey, like, let's go. And I'm like, okay, we're going, so I'm walking with him and. we get back to where the truck is and I'm like, okay, there are other people here. That's fucking weird. Because we're out in the middle of fucking nowhere. This is in like, north, western Kenya, like semi-arid. It's fucking desolate as shit. In fact, part of it, Uganda didn't want it. Kenya didn't want it. Ethiopia didn't want it. Sudan didn't want it. So it was like this sort of lawless place that had a million plus population refugee camp. So it was like completely lawless and the UN didn't give a fuck as long as they can keep that camp safe. Right. were good, but sort of all kinds of crazy shit. So we got detained by this group of people, like the whole fucking nine yards, like with the fucking machine guns and the mismatched clothing and shit. And so they're like talking to him and I didn't understand the language they were speaking. I only knew Swahili and not very well at that. So I'm trying to listen in, but I was like, okay, Muktu is not, he's not anxious. So. I'm not going to be anxious. then I but at that point too, I was like, you know, fuck it. If they're going to kill me, fuck it. Kill me. I don't give a fuck. But they realized who we were. Oh, fuck. These guys don't have money. Their agency is broke. And so they're like, oh, fuck. We chose the wrong guy. The white guy, wrong white guy, the kid that. And then they went to us, said some kind of offhand like, hey, it's his birthday. And they were like, I and then it turned into the fucking funniest shit. Then they took us to some bush bar and they're like, hey, you want a beer? It's your birthday. oh like this really weird thing, for me, I was not afraid. Never, not once was afraid. I'm like... you know, fuck it. But then they, my favorite, they were trying to get me a uh prostitute. It's my birthday after all. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm good. I'm a missionary. Like I'm good. I don't need a prostitute. I'm good. But then like other people come in and like, hey, let's show off. And the white people are Muzungu. So they're like, hey, this is our Muzungu. Like I was like their token. It was fucking awesome. it's healthy. And then we're like living it up, but in the wake of that, we're driving back and I'm like, fuck, I turned 30. What the fuck am I going to do now? Like, what are you going to do with your life? And at that point, I had gotten sober in 2001, August 27th, 2001 was the very first day I went to college, like full time. And I was, I was like, I'm going to really do it this time because I've fucked around and went to college and like took a class here and there, but would always withdraw or fail. Like I would give up when shit got tough. I was like, fuck it. I'm, I'm stupid. Because that's what was told to me growing up. you're dumb because I have dyslexia Undiagnosed until I was a senior in high school and I have ADHD undiagnosed until I was 46 Oh, yeah, you you did not have a chance. Well, I was going to ask you, you said in 88 you moved into this beautiful home with your stepmom and dad. You have your own room that had to be kind of a cult. Like you said, you had trouble sleeping, but kind of a culture shock to go from, you know, the violence. You're stupid, you know, the poverty. And now now you're in this beautiful life. And how old were you? Um so was in 88 so I think I was 13. Okay, so that's like eighth, ninth grade, something like that. eighth grade yeah because we i did eighth grade there uh but i remember uh seventh grade sucked for me it was the first time in a long time that that we were going to a public school and i did not fit at all in this and my twin brother went sideways and became a popular kid Mm. And I became a wallflower and my best friend at the time, he and I were at the religious school together and the very first day of school, crossing the street, he got hit by a car and ended up being, he didn't die, but he was fucked up and he was gone. I did not see him again. uh He, in fact, his house was like an oasis for me. I would go spend the night. His mom was a single mom and she had all these fucking rabbits, you know, in this apartment and had these cages. But I remember going over there and feeling loved and just like, I loved going over there, you know, and I loved hanging out with his family. was him, his older brother and his mom. And I don't know what the rest of the story was or is, but I loved going over to his house. I loved. his mom was fucking awesome and I seen heard and valued going there so it was like an oasis for me I looked forward so much going there and when he got hit I didn't know he got hurt I just knew he didn't show up but then I heard later like oh he you know he got hit and almost died and had the neck traction and stuff so the whole first semester he was out and no And you know, back then, we lived just far enough away, like I couldn't walk to his house. I couldn't tell you how to get there. And so it was like that distance was so insurmountable. then, sorry. was no way, it's not like now where you find out through your phone or social media. oh that he got hurt. And then... So like, well, I don't have any friends and kids were mean to me and I was just like, I just quiet. And I remember going, I'm not talking anymore. And I literally did my best to become invisible. I didn't talk. I chose not to speak at that school. I'm like, I'm not going to talk. I did say I will answer teachers questions. But I disappeared and meanwhile my brother kind of became popular and was like a skater kid and did his own shit and I became quiet and I used to hide. uh We had these different like reading periods and I would hide because I didn't want to go play football or anything in the library where I met a Filipino exchange student and so I taught him English. And that was seventh grade. Yeah, and he, would, we would walk home and he lived closer to the school than I did. And I would go to his house on occasion. And when I would go to his house, I don't think it was his older brother, had pornography on openly, like it was fucking MTV. my god. And so I would go there and I'm like burgeoning in puberty and I'm like, no one's told me shit. I come from a purity culture to say, uh your body's sinful, you're gonna burn in hell and know, shit's happening to me. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on? No one to talk to. You know, I go into this kid's house and I'm like, porn and then I have physiological reactions and I'm like. What's wrong with me? my God, you know, and no one can tell me anything. And I felt so horrid. I'm like, I'm going to fucking burn in hell. Like I am such a piece of shit uh that I used to pray to God that I would become famous so I can get on TV and ask forgiveness to everybody just to make sure that I got everyone covered. my goodness. So was that the religious aspect? Was that from your dad's family? Yes, and it was weird. It was Presbyterian early on, but then when my grandfather died, it became this weird, like sort of homeschooled, folky kind of thing that was supplemented by this. The church at this school I went to was a church school, so we would go there when we had to. And my dad on occasion every once in a while would like, we're going to church and take us to that church. Or my mom would say, you guys need church in your life. So when we would go visit her, she would take it as this Lutheran church. So very loosely affiliated, but it was mostly this sort of folky Christianity that was used. uh The TV Jim Baker guy was my grandmother watched him religiously, in fact, lost part of her pension doing the PTL bullshit. But uh it was sort of supplemented like that. So I grew up in this really weird, uh like evangelical. Charismatic thing like where I had to constantly worry about salvation and that you know I was all like sick I was just fucking sinful and an utter piece of shit and I had to like grovel and beg You know Jesus for forgiveness and you couple that with the abuse. I I was convinced I was an utter disposable piece of shit Yes a lot And I'm certain I didn't attempt because I was afraid of burning in hell. So I didn't, but I would pray all the time like I'm good. I didn't want to live. And towards that seventh grade year, as that went on, was back then, if you got reduced or free lunch, you had to work in the cafeteria. jeez. So I did that, but my brother was embarrassed. He was a cool kid. So I took two shifts. I worked lunch and breakfast so that he could get meals. Probably not. Have you guys ever talked about that? I mean, that's pretty amazing. You did that. m be honest, there was some selfish too, because those lunch ladies, they took me under their wing. They knew where I came from and they could see like I wasn't a robust kid. You know, so they would feed me all the time. They would take care of me. I would go in the morning and they would make sure I ate and they would like feed me. And then on the Fridays when I would go, they'd say stop by on your way home and they would always give me like a thing of food. So they became a safe space for you. They were and I don't know any of their names. I don't even remember faces I just remember like the love that I felt from them and those chocolate chip cookies You know So was your dad, how did your dad meet your stepmom? Was that going on during the seventh grade year? em I think I know my dad dated sparsely over our time there and there were a couple women that he would bring us around but he mostly kept us isolated from his dating life. Mm-hmm. Which, to God, I appreciate. It's probably one of the healthiest things he ever did. But he wanted to marry one of the women and introduced us to him, but she was a little bit older than him. And from what I gather, she didn't want to raise more kids. And my dad was like, they're non-negotiable. So that relationship ended and then my stepmom and him, uh they were like friends and my dad was a sappy romantic. My stepmom calls him her sweet man. That's actually the name of the book. uh Well, Sweet Boy is what I called it. I'm writing a sort of pseudo-autobiographical book that I've been working on for the last 10 years. uh I'm kind of writing it to my kids. But I put it down because these days it's just so heavy. I don't have the energy to pick it up right now. Not right now, but they met and he romanced her in his cremagony old ways. They were married for over 30 years and they were so... I mean they weren't perfect but he loved the shit out of her. He loved her so much. You know and she loves him and even to this day she still she misses him and you know... How is she with you? With the three of you? she a safe safe? I honestly, God, I think she, I have a stepsister and it was just her and my stepsister. And part of it was like, what the fuck were you thinking dating this fucking crusty man with these three boys? What are you thinking? Because we were mean. We were so mean when we got introduced to that house. My stepsister just graduated high school and was going to college. So she lived at home for like a year, but then moved out and had her own place. you know, for the most part, I didn't really grow up with her at all. We were in very different stages of life. You know, I was starting uh eighth grade and she was starting college. Yeah. So very different, but she was a very strong advocate for us. remember her. If my dad raised his voice or anything, she was like, fuck you. You can't treat these boys like this. Like, you know, she was a really good advocate for me. And, I know she loves me, but I think that there's a I mean, hell, maybe she'll hear this and know that I love her very much. But I don't know how to be a sibling like that. Did they soften your dad at all? Did he kind of chill out a bit? Yeah, and the heart attack too. You know, he almost died my freshman year. In fact, I was in wrestling. I played football and I fucking hated playing football, but my dad loved it and I was decent at it. And so I did it for him because it got me his attention. But I fucking hated playing football. I seriously, I remember wanting to quit so hard and I tried to quit one time and he brought me to the coach and then the coach and him shamed me and said, tell your teammates you're quitting on them. And I was like, just kidding, JK. uh April Fools. That sounds. uh we were playing in the game and I remember trying to, I played center and I was trying to put my head down and take a helmet to the neck to get a neck injury. my gosh, you just lived in this self-sabotage, uh give a fuck about myself. I did not have any value or worth whatsoever. I just like, whatever. But I did eventually quit. Well, with help, I tanked my grades and then I was ineligible to play. So I got help. Did that take away all athletics, though, like wrestling, too? It did unfortunately then I worked my ass off to get back so I could wrestle cuz I loved wrestling Which I thought was like the WWE No, it was not but I loved it and I loved the camaraderie, know, I enjoyed it very much But I My dad used to pick me up from practice every day and would embarrass me. The cheerleaders practiced kind of in the area and he'd sit there and when I came out he would honk and whistle and be like, hey, Ryan's dad right here, what's up ladies? He was that guy. It was so embarrassing. No. No, no. go, we would go eat at a restaurant and he'd like, like an African American waitress would take his order and he like, go kind of get you and he'd say, I want my this and this and and black coffee. Like I love my women. And I'm like, I mean, so, so racist and inappropriate. but then I like, you know him as a human and he was one of the most like he, when he got to a position of power, at his job, he literally would make sure he hired people of color and single moms explicitly. And he, found out at his death that he was the guy, like he hired a lot of single moms. And oh back then, like they were like federal contractors, so they got paid once a month and they weren't gonna get paid for one or two months. So he would always get little gift cards to the grocery store and the woman would come to her desk and there would be a little card with that gift card in there. He was such a kind person. I like to look at, he's what um I want to be, but he didn't get the opportunity to do his work. Right. Right. You know, he was a kind and loving man. He was a good man in a rough circumstance. So I try to remember that for me, dude, don't make that choice. You can choose different. I can hurt. You know, I can be angry. I can be upset. I can feel like I want to blow up. And I can still pause. And I can do different. How did you learn to do that though? Is it just therapy or your own therapy talking or you becoming a therapist? I made so many mistakes in my life. I still am, you I fuck shit up all the time. uh I don't know if I could point it to any one thing. It was like a series of things. Literally, I don't believe in Christianity at all anymore. I reject the title uh primarily because of the way my indigenous people were treated. But, you I went to seminary. was a pastor for 15 years. Well, wait, let's yeah, before we get so what I don't want to jump too far, because I want to know what that part of the journey is. So you're you're wrestling in high school and you got your grades back up. Your dad has the heart attack. So he's mellowed out a little bit. said. heart attack thing, so every night he, oh, I could count it like clockwork. My dad was a creature of habit. I'm waiting for him and I get out of wrestling and he's not there. I'm like, what the fuck? Like, where the fuck is he? You know, there's no pay phones or anything back then. And so I'm like standing like, what the fuck? And now I'm feeling abandoned and hurt. And I'm like, motherfucker, fuck you. You fucking forgot me. Because they did. Used to forget me when I was a little kid. Right, you talked about that. went right back to that well and I'm like fuck and so like I angry ran home. It was like two miles, three miles to my house. I angry, I was so fucking pissed and I was ready like when I get home I'm gonna fuck him up. Like I'm not joking, I was ready to fucking fist fight my dad. And I was like you know fuck him, I was so hurt and then I get to the house and there's no one there. There's like zero. And I'm like, what the fuck? And there was the old rotary phones in the kitchen, you know, that we used to have the long as cords. Right there was a whiteboard next to it. And on that fucking whiteboard was at the hospital. Your dad had a heart attack. Like that's right. And I'm like, what the fuck? And no, didn't tell me where what hospital and nothing. But I assumed there's a hospital across the hill from us. So I took that anger and I like ran up the fucking hill, threw all the brambles and shit over the hill. And like as a crow flies, made my own path, jumped fences to get to that hospital. And I get there and now I'm like terrified. Yeah. And I get there and I run into the ER and I can go and I'm like, this is my dad. And they're like, taking me back and they're trying to prepare me to what to find. And I'm not listening to shit. And I'm fixated. Now I see this glass that's sort of dark and I could see him and I see on the outside his name written on the placard and all he's connected to machines. He's not moving. And I'm like, fuck, my dad's dead. And that all the anger just left and the craziest fear that I have ever felt to that point overcame me. And I'm like, I can't do life without him. And then I ran into my stepmom and she was like, what the fuck happened? And they tell me and I'm like, fuck. And there's my brothers are there and everyone's just like, then they tell us, hey, he's gonna live but he had to have an open heart surgery. He had a triple bypass that time. And it was in the wake of that, that he became so different. Like. That him um almost dying like that, in the wake of that, he would tell me he loved me a lot. He would hold me. And I loved that. But I felt guilty because the man he was, it dimmed. You know, he was such a Paul Bunyan figure, just cavalier, just fucking massive man. uh All that stopped. And he was feeble and weak and human, no longer a superhero. But he. did he become feeble and weak or did it just... He changed and your perception of him changed? Yeah, that's probably more accurate that he became definitely more human, more real. uh And I don't know, I would never have traded it. I'm so grateful that he did become kinder to me and would tell me he loved me and kind of soft. Like after that, he never physically disciplined me, never. Like never. It's almost like he, I mean, I'm not saying this in a religious way, but it's like he went through a spiritual experience. I think it was like him going through, because he almost died and going, I don't know if you've ever encountered people, especially back then, you know, that was in what, 90, God, I can't remember if it was 89 or 90, but they didn't have the technology they have now is open-art surgery. And he got cut open from his throat down to his abdomen. Wow. And I remember him sitting in his chair and he was just so weak. He couldn't do a lot. uh And like that's when I picked up all the chores. Like we had a pool. So I took over the pool. I took over. There was ancient solar panels on the top of the house. I took over the maintenance of that. We had like a half acre of uh original citrus orchard from way back in the days of California. I took care of that. Like it was terraced. You know, I took over all these physical things that he just couldn't do anymore. uh And it was like glad I was glad to do it. No. No. I'm four minutes younger, but that the when when we were in seventh grade and my brother became the cool kid, he started doing drugs. So at 12, he started doing coke. And that that he that's where he started. if, and his trajectory was just, know, lifelong addiction issues. And, that's where he started, it's not like he started smoking weed and then moved to Coke. He just hopped right in the fast lane. yes. And we had a proximity to fame. um I don't want to say too much because I, but we had a connection to proximity from back in the day and that person was sort of famous. They were a professional athlete and they traveled the world doing this thing and that proximity brought all kinds of famous people to our house. Mm. brother hung out with them and that's how he got exposed to drugs. No. From my family of origin, the... I honestly, I just don't, I don't want to say so much. fine. That's fine. just was trying to connect it. Okay. So you have now taken over the. physical labor that your dad can no longer do because of the heart attack. um You're in high school and in your mind is college something that was ever discussed in your home? Was it ever something like you're going to go do this as a normal thing? Sort of. I don't remember how old I was, my mom's dad, the man that my grandmother married, it's not her bio dad, but that's her dad. When my brother and I were born, we were the first boys born into the family. you know, back then, know, boys mattered more or whatever. But moreover, my brother and I were two or three months premature. I was four pounds 11 ounces. He was four pounds one ounce when we were born and we spent the first like month in the incubator. But so we were kind of like fuck they even survived. So what were you guys you were you made it past the 25 week mark right what were you how many weeks if you were you were a month or two. A month or two premature. I know we were both born blind and jaundiced and had to be in the incubator with little masks on. Yeah, you guys were like real premature little. That's amazing. right? I look, I'm six foot one and 220 pounds. I'm like, think think overcame something. I didn't miss many meals, you know? oh But they poured it into us and my grandfather just adored us. My mom's dad, he just adored us. And he set up a bank account or something when we were born. And I remember hearing about it here and there, but it was always... kind of the peripheral. Well, when I think I was 15 or 16, we were at the bank and I was like, hey, mom, I want to check the balance of my my bank account. And she was like, what bank account? And I said, know, the one grandpa made for me. And she said, honey, that's gone. And I was like, what? Said, yeah, I used that long time ago. If you want to go to college, you're going to have to get a scholarship. And I was like, well, fuck that. Yeah. So I know, I believed I was stupid. I believed I was a horrible piece of shit, so no, I wasn't going to That's what rich people did. That's what other people did. It wasn't me. But my stepmom was a college person. She went to UCLA and UC Davis. Like she was fucking super different. My father never did and my sister was going to college. So yeah, it was out there and at some level they my parents were like, yeah, you're gonna go to college. Like it was kind of expected but it never seemed realistic to me. Like, all right, I'll fucking go but I hate school. in school, I'm stupid, why waste that time? But you know the uh ultimatum we were all probably given is if you're gonna live here you gotta uh get a job or you're gonna go to school or you know and that's probably the best part most of us got. So I went to junior college. Well first my twin brother left LA and moved upstate New York with my mom. and her new husband so he could sober up. And I had never lived without him, so I followed. I was going to say that's a big deal for you guys to be separated, right? Yeah, we'd never ever been apart. So I was like, fuck that, I'm going. So I followed him and I went to a junior college there in upstate New York and got a fucking 4.0. Well, you had been diagnosed with dyslexia by then, right? You said senior year. but I never got treatment. Nothing. No just just me I rod dogged it you know I like would try to And it's like, love reading, even to this day, I read vigorously, but I didn't know how. So I learned that if I took a piece of paper and I like, you know, covered it and I could hack essentially, and I, it was, I could do stuff, but I still would, it was a lot of effort. And there was a teacher there at the junior college that I was like, I'm dumb. And she's like, you're actually not. And if I'm being 100 % honest, I was young, know, what 18 and she had to been in her mid 20s. I totally thought I was going to hook up with her. I'm like, oh, she totally wants me, you know, and but after I was so fucking sad, like all those stupid 80 PG movies that we watched, they were the chubby guy gets the girl all that stupid shit. that movie, My Tutor? Yeah. Yes, that's right. I'm picturing that. Yes. Yes. Yes. Why would you think that? She thinks she's saying I'm smart. She wants me. Totally like my god, and that's what I'm supposed to like but she literally was like no and like made me do this math and taught me like and then by the end of it I'd cotton up and take these tests where I I got through all the college level math because of her So when I I was like, it's too fucking cold here like this sucks Watertown, New York m town. Where's that? so that's. Might as well be in Canada. Yeah, yeah, yeah. uh at a Sears there in their shipping department and we would get French Canadians in all the time because the exchange rate was better. Yeah. And I made the news because some guy tried to steal some shit and I chased him down in the snow and tackled him and held him for the police and they came and there was a microwave and he stalled. They brought the microwave back and had me take pictures of it and put me in the newspaper and shit. It was huge back then and like the local library had me come in and they honored me and all this stupid shit. It was funny. all of that sticking up for yourself with fighting came through in that moment. Well, on the real, took a while. Violence, I always knew I could handle myself. fighting, I was never averse to it. It was just like an instinct. But I think moreover, it was the injustice part that I hated. And even to this day, I do it differently. But I'll still fight. No way. Don't bully people around me. That's not happening. Right, right. Funny you say that quick tangent about a year ago, I went to our local Home Depot and I saw this guy running out of the store with like full of DeWalt uh hand tools and he's running to the thing. So I'm with you. I don't like the injustice of it. I got my phone out. I filmed him. I filmed him go into the truck, throw it all in, got their license plate, gave it to the Home Depot guy. But he didn't chase him down. No. Well, we're too old now. I wouldn't chase people either. We're also in Florida, you have to assume everyone has a gun. Okay, so you have to be careful. You have to assume that. Okay, so... ago, on another side, sorry, Brian. Two years ago, I'm driving home after work and I'm dead-ass tired and my wife hits me and says, hey, can you get milk on the way home? And I'm like, yeah, I'll get it. It's right there. I stopped at the grocery store and there was a pickup truck when I entered into the parking lot, kind of sort of parked. And there was a door open and I stopped and I'm like, what the fuck are they doing? And after like two minutes, I'm like, OK, they're doing something. So I literally slowly went around and then I went and parked. When I parked, noticed in my rear view mirror when I was getting out that there was a truck, but I thought it was like stopped because of traffic. I get out and the dude rolls his window down and he goes, hey, fuck you. And I go, what? Fuck you, you fucking piece of shit. And I look at him and I look around and I go, are you talking to me, man? And he goes, yeah, fuck you. And I go, dude, I don't know what your deal is, but take your bad day somewhere else. Like I'm not having it. I walked down and I go to cross the the lane to get to the store and the dude puts his truck in reverse and like fucking spins the wheels and rips pack and I like just moved out of the way like a fucking bullfighter goes and I stop and I'm like what the actual fuck is up with this dude and he stops keeps the truck on rips the door open and starts to make his way towards me and I instantly I pause and I assess okay has he got a weapon is he a threat and I'm I'm like, no, he's a stupid-ass old guy. So I go, OK, I stand my ground, and he comes. John in my face and I'm like he ain't doing shit he's just angry so I heard him and he's like yeah and then he goes you're a fucking pussy and I said wait hold on dude I'm confused am I a dick or am I a pussy because I can't be both and I'm assuming you're not cool with trans so what is it and he's like fuck you come on hit me motherfucker and I'm like what said hold on you're the one with the problem so either you shut the fuck up or do something and I stood there and he's like and I said look you're all talk dude so shut the fuck up or do something fuck you throw the first punch and I'm like so you're just gonna talk huh you're just gonna fucking talk run your mouth all right good I'm gone and then he follows me and follows me and I turn around and I said I'm drawing a line there's an imaginary line in that I'm gonna walk away you cross that line I will fuck you up I promise you, you cross that you're going to fucking get dropped. And I stood there and looked him in the eye and told him that. And I said, I'm going to walk away now. You cross that line, you're going to get fucked up. That's a promise. And I turned around and I took a step and I look back and I go, just remember, you fucking take a step. You're getting fucked up. And I went into the grocery store. What was this problem with you? Like what triggered it? I hit it almost hit his wife. And I'm like, what? He was just having a bad day and being a dumb ass. Well, apparently, Topeka is small. 150K. uh Some people were filming it and put it on the Topeka Facebook group. And my brother calls me and is like, dude, you're famous. And I'm like, what? And I don't have Facebook. And he tells me, I'm like, oh, great. And some of my patients saw it. But you weren't in the wrong. I was not, but I was embarrassed for how I reacted. But it sounds like it you were actually calm compared to what you someone else might have reacted to this guy. I was much calmer than him, but it's not what I would have, I wasn't proud of how I behaved. I should have just walked away. But I knew, once I assessed this guy, I knew I would fuck him up. That savage part of me was like, I hope he fucks around. I would deck this motherfucker. But. it to your patience that this is an example of how you stand up for yourself and it worked out, you know. mean, luckily, only one patient said something to me in a session and I said, look, we're not talking about me. I know now I look back and I absolutely could have done so much more different. And they're like, no, you should hit that motherfucker. And I'm like, well. he was following you, wasn't giving you an option to just walk away. Yeah, but honestly, my passive is like I have to it's a choice. It's active for me. And that's the part where I'm a shitty Buddhist, by the way. can go, my God, like I should have walked away because I I had the I owned him. I could have fucked him up whenever. But I knew that and I acted out of power and taunted him a little bit. And then I'm like, I shouldn't have. I know. Have you ever heard that saying of then just eat the bacon? It's I want to be a vegan, but I like bacon so much. And it's like, be a vegan, but then sometimes eat the bacon and it's just valid. Yeah, it's like. it. I take meat-cations all the time. you do the best you can most of the time and then sometimes you just eat the bacon. Sometimes people just cross the line and trigger you. I can relate to what you're saying. You might have calmed him and checked him before he did something worse to someone else. Yeah. know what, he's lucky he came at me because Topeka is a lot like Florida. There are motherfuckers armed everywhere. He is so lucky he didn't come at an armed, like one of these armed young guys. They would have fucking shot his ass in the fucking center. Sorry, sorry. back to upstate. You're like, gosh, you're you're in with Michael Landon. You're getting your picture taken at Sears and now you're on the Topeka Facebook page. Little, little fame follows. Are you into Skinner no, I mean, yeah, I've heard of Skinner and I've read some Skinner, but I'm not like a fan. Like, it's not somebody I've gotten into. Yeah. What about Young? Damn. Yes, I am a phenomenologist. What's, wait, I've never heard that. Phenomenologist? What's that? Carl Jung's phenomenology. That which exists exists because of your experience. Yeah, that's the phenomenology. Yes. uh I got into Jung through theology. and stayed for the philosophy. uh absolutely young him and uh Freud, all their stuff is found, most of it's bullshit. They had their own issues. But I love the phenomenology part. Like, I love that. That which exists, exists because of experience. It runs completely in line with quantum mechanics. that's interesting. The reason I ask about Skinner is his whole intermittent or intermittent conditioning, right? And that's very powerful in terms of learning and conditioning. And you've got kind of that pattern, it sounds like in your life, where a little bit of love, a little bit more love and a little more love, you know what it is. So you learned it and it's very powerful. you know, it's interesting to hear just that just comes to mind for me. Well, and that that, you know, I think in the human condition, we are not intended to be alone or isolated nor unloved. Like we will seek that, you know, in the most abusive of situations. I was listening to one of your episodes and the guest was talking about that they would their parents. one of the parents was abusive, physically abusive and would beat the shit out of them and that they learned that that's what loving relationships were, that how did they know they were loved? Well, my partner's kicking my ass. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Similarly thinking, yeah, we get conditioned for that and it may not be love, but because we perceive it as love, we seek it. So we will find ourselves going back into unhealthy relationships. And I was victim of that consistently. Any romantic relationship I went into for the longest time was unhealthy and abusive. And it wasn't physically abusive, but it was it mimicked what I what I knew love. Probably extremely powerful too, intoxicating and serious. Oh, to be chosen and to be loved, like, my God. Fuck yeah. oh bit of taste of it and you've had it off and on. It's extremely powerful. But even if it's something that's toxic and dysfunctional, if it's a known trauma, that's more comfortable than going for the... It applies to every aspect of your life. the healthy route is scary. It's an unknown. So let's stick with the security blanket of trauma. You know that. You know how that's going to go. Yeah. Look, if I knew now back then, like, oh, Ryan, you know, 25 year old Ryan, hey, uh you're going to have healthier, but it's going to cost you everything. I wouldn't have done it because that everything was everything. But now in hindsight, 25 years later, I look back and go, fuck yeah, I'm grateful it cost everything because it was all the unhealthy shit. Yeah. live. You know what you know, though. So leaving um upstate New York, where did you go after that? I went back home to LA. Okay, and then did you go back to college and continue? I failed out though. I went only because I had to. I did that for about a year. I instantly went back to drinking. Like literally got off the airplane. My brother and I went and we had a homecoming party with some friends and I instantly went back to drinking. When did you start? did you start, yeah. We skipped that. freshman year so how old I was 13 yeah was it normal high school partying or were you also using it as a coping mechanism? it was absolutely a coping skill. And I went so fucking hard into the drinking. I was a big guy and I played football. And football, you're supposed to be the big man. And there's all these parties and social scenes. So I would go hard. And I also didn't accept it or know back then, but I have social anxiety. I don't like being around people. Mm. I don't like people. Like I say that not as a Kurt thing, but I prefer much more introverted manners. Yeah. So I drank to be social, like to courage. Like, so I drank, I got to talk to women. So I drank, I'm afraid of rejection. So I drank. I don't want to be around people. They're going to judge me. So I drank. And then when I drank, that persona built, I call him Troy is my alter ego. He uh took over and he was the life of the party, crushing beer cans on his head, doing all the crazy shit, getting into fights. He took over and he was me for the longest time and uh I acquiesced to him and Ryan shrank and kind of hid. And the drinking was... Did you call him Troy in the present back then? Or was it as you got older, you're like, was my Troy? uh he was named my brother. I would get all crazy and do all these like sort of Neanderthal fucking things like I mean could spend so many there's so many fucking stories of the crazy shit I would do. uh Which is funny because it was still a justice component. Like I was a protector. I wrote up this idea that I was unloved and unwanted in high school, that I was a fucking savage piece of shit, which I held for the longest time. And when my dad died, my, you know, as parents do, my mom sent me all the shit that they saved that I never wanted. Yes. Like Ryan, here's your three boxes of all the shit that I've saved. And I'm like, why did you save it? I didn't want it. Well, I was saving it for you. And I'm like, OK. But it had all these yearbooks in it. And. uh My wife said, can I go through it? Because I'm like, I can't. I'm too close. I'm still grieving. She said, can I go through it and at least like catalog the stuff? And I'm like, yes. And so she spent an afternoon looking at these boxes and was enamored with these yearbooks. Once she was like, my God, look at you. You're so little. And she was reading all the comments from people and she came to me and said, honey, you you've always said you were horrible human and just so violent and just an asshole. But can I read you something? And I was like, okay. So she started reading me these entries from people that were like kind and loving, like just totally contrary to the idea that I'd written for myself. And she's reading them out loud and then it kind of like overcame me. And in my grief, I'm like, who the fuck is that guy? And I was like, that's not copacetic with what I understood of myself. So I reached out to an old friend through Facebook and I said, hey, can I ask you a stupid question? And she's like, whoa, what? And I said, what do you remember of me in high school? And she uh said, my God, Ryan, you were the nicest guy. She said, we always felt so safe around you. You were just like our protector, like our big brother. And I went, oh, fuck, that's it. That's why you guys, know, because I always said, women didn't like me. She said, no, we loved you. You were like our big brother. She said, in fact, so and so still, she got divorced and she was like, I wonder what Ryan's up to. She was like, no, we loved you so much. You were just so kind. And then I went and looked and I go, wait, that, that was me. And it helped me in my therapy, my own therapy, talking to my therapist and processing this and her helping me understand that I'd written this narrative of myself of survival and that I was savage. that was there, but that was the trauma response. That's what's going on inside of you. What you were projecting was probably the protector and the kindness that you so desperately wanted. You became the person for others that you had hoped would be for you. Absolutely. and that's in my work as a therapist, that's what I try to help people do and say, your job is to be the healthy adult that your little kid needed. And yeah, that's literally what I did. And the sort of meandering road I've been on, I use that as a prescriptive for patients to say, look, you are not a piece of shit. You are an amazing human. I don't give a fuck who you are. You start there, you start at an amazing human and then you build from that. But we have to learn how to do that most of the time. Yeah, I mean, that does not come at least I can say for our generation does not come naturally. We were not raised to think highly of ourselves at all. know, if we. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes, like even with our peers, mean, speaking as a girl, we would see who could put each other down, like ourselves down the most. Like, oh my God, I'm fat or I'm not this, I'm not that. And then the other would be like, no, no, I'm not this and I'm not that. God, you never would say anything good about yourself. We'd be like, oh my God, no, I, I'm, you know, I have this the worst than you. Like you're great, but I'm horrible. It was almost like this just self-deprecating, but seriously not in a funny way competition of how much can we put ourselves down? And I think that at least for the women in our generation, then we grew up and we, and we, the girls grew up and became the women. that struggles so much with so much shit, especially body image and all that. That's a whole other episode we're going to do. because yeah, but because but then we raised these Gen Z daughters and they're amazing. You know. Yeah, we're like they believe in themselves. Yeah, yeah. to an elementary school talent show. I forget what grade it was. So let's say they were like third or fourth grade, my kids. I go and I'm sitting in there and I'm watching like there was these like four or five older kids, fifth or sixth graders. And this one kid like, like imagine Chris Farley as a little boy. And I literally watched him on stage discover that laughter that he can make people laugh. And I was like, oh kid, you just done fucked yourself up because now you're gonna chase that high a rest of your life. Cause he was genuinely fucking funny. But right after them, this special abilities young girl came on and the wounded part of me instantly went up and I'm looking around. All right, any motherfucker goes off on this girl, I'm gonna fucking rip him a new asshole. And I could feel like myself like clinching up and I'm like searching and my wife could feel it too. And our daughter was with us in the audience and she was sitting on my lap and I was holding her and I guess I held her too tight. And she goes, daddy, you're hurting me. And I was like, fuck, I'm sorry. And my wife goes, are you okay? And I'm like, no, I'm triggered. She's like, what's going on? I'm like. I'm waiting for people to fucking go off on this little girl. And she's like, and she's holding my arm. She's like, you're okay. I know I'm safe, but I'm triggered. And she goes, you're okay. And I'm watching this little girl do Jay-Z's, it's a hard nuts life. She's like doing some dance routine and I'm like, this is kind of cringy. She is so into it and very earnest and she ends and everybody goes apeshit. The kids, the teachers, they're like lauding her and all the popular girls who were performing were on stage. They run over and they're holding her and I thought, okay, we're gonna be okay. These kids are better than us. Yes, they are. they really and the girlhood I can speak is having a 25 year old daughter. So I'm sure it's even going to be stronger with your kids. But the girlhood is strong. Like they celebrate each other. They lift each other up. Like it's it's a beauty. Now we I will say Gen X in general, we kick we have kicked ass parenting like the ones who've wanted to change the whole narrative here and do the could be part of the cultural shift. We've done an amazing job. I think so. Our kids are phenomenal. And yeah, sometimes it's a little too much for society. get that. But I don't care. We broke this cycle. And look at what we've created. They're amazing. You know, my dad used to tell me uh this was after his heart attack. So we, uh in our nation, there's like a name giver. Like you get your name when you're like a sort of right to manhood, which I never got to ceremony because that died. So I always felt like, I'm not a real man. I'm not a grownup, which on the real, I still don't feel like I'm a fucking grownup. But I'm you, I'm waiting to grow up. We're all figuring it out. Fuck that. My idea of retirement is when I get retired, if I ever fucking do, I wanna go to a retirement friend village and fucking hang out and talk about, like watch our movies, like fucking just like live a life in community and just hang out. That's what I wanna do. a GenX retirement community will kick ass. Oh my God, I would so go there. It would be awesome. What's that place? The villages. That's not Gen X. They're having threesomes and swinger parties and shit. That's rumors. Why are we not either? my number one rule. I want community, but don't try to fuck my wife or me. I'm good. You do what you want, but that's not my jam. I'm not out there trying to fucking be all twisted. the boomers or like the older Gen X that are more boomer. I'm talking about a John Hughes marathon night and we all just came out. You know what I mean? And the music, all of our bands, the ones, best music, even if it's cover of our music, like just dancing, like that's it. OK, so all right. So you so you. Did you drink in upstate New York? Cause you said you got, went back to drinking. So you graduated from high school, you go to upstate New York, you stopped drinking. Yeah, got sober, got really got got a 4.0 GPA. And then I sit, no joke, my plane landed that night I was drinking. So what triggered you leaving? It was just too cold in upstate New York? my brother left because he was in Continuation High School and I'm the only one of my brothers that graduated high school in four years. Everyone else, hell, I got two of my family members, they don't have GEDs or high school diplomas. And I have an uncle who is functionally illiterate. So your brother was in Continuation High School in Upstate New York and then he graduated? Well, when he went to New York, he went to regular high school and graduated. So he got sober too and got out of that element and got healthier. But as soon as we got back, we, mean, hell on the airplane, we were clamoring to fucking go get lit. It's almost like upstate New York was that boundary for you. And as soon as you guys left it, you went right back. In hindsight, looking now at these things, it's similar. We had to get out of that environment in order to see what the fuck it was. There was no healing available to us there. None. It couldn't. You can't heal in the danger. now. And so when we got out and went to New York, it was safer. But it was just enough of a different for us to do different. And we both did. We flourished in the different, but we couldn't handle it. We didn't want it or know how to be in it. Like when I left in 2005 for I left LA in 2004 and went to Kenya and I never I've never been back. I never lived there. I've visited, but never went back. And that was the greatest thing I could have ever done because that's literally what helped me heal. OK, so you so you get back to L.A. You guys start partying again. You try college. You fail out. What do you do next? I got a full-time job because my parents kicked me out. They were like, if you're not going to school, because I lied to them one semester. I enrolled, you know, and got the little card and gave it to them to prove. And then they caught me like fucking around. Like we would pretend to go to school, my brother and I, and we wouldn't. you know, they just, we were very deceptive. uh So they were like, need to fucking you need to work full time. So I was like, well, I'll work. So we started working at a large insurance company back when HMOs first started, you know, and then that parlayed into being customer service reps. And then that moved into like selling and under. insurance and back in the Viagra days when like it was fucking bananas but we made so much fucking money in fact up until recently that's the most money I've ever made in my lifetime was when I was like in my early 20s yeah and we have I have nothing to show from it because we pissed it away like we would go to Vegas and fucking you know 500 bucks on a hand of fucking poker or whatever I didn't know how to play poker Yeah. You know, were, that movie Swingers came out and we did that. Like we lived that. I used to go to the Derby and go dancing and I'm a big guy and I can actually dance. I would dance with. So many women would like line up to dance with me because I could do all the fucking crazy movies from the movies like fucking spins. And there was this one woman that used to wait. She was really little and I loved dancing with her because she could fly and we would go on the dance floor and I could fucking throw her in the air and shit and do all these crazy moves and we like we just could dance. But I never made a move or a pass on her. Because I was like, no, I'm here to dance. I don't want to fuck this up. But I was also afraid. didn't want to have, I didn't want to care for anybody and have them reject me. Had you had a relationship yet with a woman, a long-term relationship? at that point, no, I stayed away because I was afraid of burning in hell. So I stayed away and then um almost right after that, though, I did start dating my first real girlfriend. But I was 20. I was almost 21. Okay, so you still have the religious mentality of sex before marriage and all that. Yeah. yeah, that no, you shouldn't have sex before marriage, you know, the whole purity culture. I am absolutely a product of the, a byproduct of how that damages men. Mm-hmm. Right. the unrealistic expectations of what physical intimacy is, that, everything is going to be better. Once I get married, fuck yeah, but not having any kind of sexual education, like no physical, I didn't know shit about body, you know, uh Cindy Bischoff, if you're out there, I still remember sitting next to you in... Sixth grade, think it was. Yeah, sixth grade. Our elbows touched and I felt really weird. And I'm like, wow, she's she like I feel weird. And I just found myself trying to make any excuse to be near her. And I wrote her a love letter. the night before the last day of school and I wrote it, poured my sixth grader heart out onto paper. Then I got scared and put it underneath my pillow and didn't bring it to school to give to her. But my brothers found it and read it at dinner that night. Yeah. And I was like, nope, never again. I will never ever be romantic. I will never anything. Cause they torched me mercilessly. And I was like, done. So I... generation. Well, and also, though, with the whole purity thing and and and not giving any education to either side, men, boys or girls, probably, I would assume. um Then you have people that don't know what they're doing, too. So you're going out into the world now. You you know nothing about your body, but you also know nothing about a woman's body. And that. less than nothing, right? Nothing. I mean even take guys who went through sex education. Trust me. They don't know either porn Yeah, but that's bullshit, right? Cuz that's acting and then you guys are tough. You don't know that you're taught the wrong things that women like you don't know that I know and so you're sent out and then we have to deal You know what? mean, but I think it's ten times worse if you're coming from a purity situation because your dichotomy is Is off the charts in that sense. You were given zero knowledge so horrid and I will never forget entering into the dating pool and it wasn't like that, like women liked me. you know, I can look back and go, yeah, they were very interested in dating me, but I was afraid of burning in hell. And, but I was like, no, cause I didn't want to get hurt. So. You know, and there was at one point, like, I used to lift weights like crazy and I used to have like six pack. I was really like physically put together and I was just like, no, I'm not. don't want to. No, no, I'm good. But this one woman, we knew each other in high school, kind of a parallel. I was at a punk show and I went outside to cool down because it was fucking hot as shit in this dirty club and I used to smoke cigarettes. So go outside and I'm smoking. I didn't have a shirt on. Yeah. ripped off in the pit. So I go outside and I'm in fucking like my dicky pants and bands with no shirt fucking smoking cigarettes. My head was shaved and this girl was like, hey, can I bum a smoke? And I'm like, yeah, and we just start talking. she was totally flirting with me and my buddy Dan was looking at me like, you're the dumbest motherfucker. And I was like, what? He's like, you're not going to go get her number. And I'm like, why? He's like, dude, you're a fucking idiot. Go get her number or I'm gonna fucking punch you. And that's why I went and got her number because I didn't want to get punched by my buddy Dan because he was way bigger than me. So I got her number and called her and we just talked and hung out. Well she, her family were very religious and I wasn't in the church at all at that time. I left but because of her I started going to church again and that's how I got into as an adult into the evangelical movement. Okay, so did you guys start dating? Yeah we started dating. I tell people I never dated I took hostages. Okay. Although it sounds like she pulled you back in. She did, but honest to God, it was almost instantly. We went on a couple of dates and I'm like, okay, well, we're gonna get married. Yeah. Because that's what you thought, right? That you're uh right. That's what you're supposed to do. Yeah. you use the God language then. So then the axiom was, well, God ordained us. So I met her at this punk show and we started dating, hanging out, and we were literally drinking buddies. Like we would go party and I was like, she's like a good Christian girl. And she's like, no, she's a party girl. And we were both pretty much alcoholics at the time. uh We dated for, fuck. It was at least two years, maybe close to three, but my grandmother got sick and she was dying and she died. But at her funeral, we go and everyone's like, my God. And it was like. Talking about future forward. Oh, yeah, I can't wait till we get married and this and that. So I'm like, oh, we're getting fucking married and We get home and she we're smoking a cigarette on the front porch and she says hey promise me something and I was like what? Promise me that we'll always be friends. matter what and My stomach went sideways. I'm like, what the fuck do you mean? Well, we're gonna be married and she's like just promise me that I'm like, okay, whatever but I'm like something's going on but I didn't want to accept it and so we had I threw myself a birthday party and at that birthday party my I got really fucked up and passed out my brothers em wake me up and say hey you need to come see this like we caught her making out with some dude and I was like no no fuck you guys you're full of shit well em fast forward maybe a week later we're hanging out Princess Diana died and we were watching the news coverage of that and she turns to me and says was it 97 or an 88? thought it was 97 wasn't it? I don't know. So it's one of them 97 or 90. Yeah. says, hey, em can we talk? And I'm like, what? She said, I've been praying about this forever and God's telling me that we shouldn't be together. Now, had you gone back to the church by now with her and had been involved? need, I was so into the church. So you were living life where you're still partying, but you're also still. You both. And in the church. I was really, I really wanted so hard to be good in the church. I wanted to, I was trying to live this. And one of the things was like the fruit of the spirits where you need to be able to speak in tongues and whatnot. And that's not the tradition I came out of, but I was like, well, fuck it. If that's one of the signs. So one of the youth leaders was trying to teach me how to speak in tongues. And I kept thinking, the fuck, I'm not getting it. I'm not doing it right. But I wanted to please him so hard. fake dead. So you can learn how to actually do that. That's what they told me. what's that even mean it's kind of like where the spirit is inside of you and you just start like god is in the spiritual time tradition, you speak, whoever speaks in tongues, they speak, and then there has to be someone there that interprets. So you made it up, so how did they interpret you? You made it up too? m You know, I'm speaking in tongues and they're like, yes, praise Jesus. Praise the Lord. And I'm just like, yeah. So I was faking it. Yeah, but she told me, yeah, the Lord's telling me we shouldn't be together. And I was thinking, well, I'm not hearing anything. Maybe I'm fucked up. And so we ended up we broke up and it was devastating to me like. suicidal ideations and unworthiness and it was the worst time and I thought I don't want to drink because that's bad I'm gonna go fucking too hard I'm gonna die so I quit drinking and I got sober like overnight and I'm like you know what I'm gonna fucking earn her back I'm gonna get her back So I quit drinking and like fucking threw myself into all kinds of crazy shit. oh Working out, I worked out like eight hours a day. Then I went back to school and was like, I'm gonna take school. I'm gonna go to school. uh And I just searching for anything and I was like, no, none of it's working. So after a few years, I was like, I need to move on. And then uh the sobriety, I partied a little bit, but then I was like, I... One night I went out, got fucked up, and uh I tried to get into a fight and get killed. Because I couldn't kill myself, because suicide's bad, but if I could die, I'd be good with that. So I went to this fucking shake your ass party club kind of bar, like the 90s excess bar with sports bars. Yes. And there was this big ass dude on the dance floor and dancing with this woman. I'm like, that's the guy. So I went over to him and I grabbed the woman's in front of the guy and she was like, what the fuck? And I said, whatever. And I said, the guy, fuck you. And he goes, what dude, are you okay? And they both were like, are you all right, man? Like, seriously, are you okay? And instead of fighting me, they showed compassion. And I fuck, it was so convicting. Like this flood over me was embarrassed. And I was like, so I look around and there was a long net Budweiser on a table and I grabbed it and it still had some beer in it. And I turned it over and smashed the bottle. And now I got fucking glass and beer all over my arm and I hand the bottle to the guy and I'm like, all right, fucker. Now it's fair. So you are still determined. I wanted him to kill me. and what he do. He put it down, said, dude, are you okay? And she reached over and was like, kind of like holding my arm, like, are you all right, man? And I got embarrassed and I ran and the way I ran, I ran into like a patio and there was no other where to go. So I went through the emergency exit. And then did you drink again? Oh, they did? No. everybody was looking at me and I was even more embarrassed. And I ran and it was like in a business park and I'm looking for like where the fuck can I go? I didn't know where I was at. And there was a fountain in the middle of this business park. So I ran and jumped in the fountain and tried to hide underneath the water. my gosh, this sounds like a fever dream. I just was ugly crying and I hated myself so hard. I'm like, you can't keep doing this. I fucking wanted to die. And I was in that there. I'm like, dude, you gotta quit drinking. Yeah. gotta quit drinking. And it took a good 12 to 18 months to actually stop, but my drinking caved and I'm like, I gotta do something different. So I was like, what do I do? I didn't have any other healthy examples or anything around me. And I didn't know what the fuck therapy was, so I tried AA and I just didn't jive with me. So I slowly tapered and I went back to college. I took a college course because the relationship I wasn't ended. It was not a healthy relationship. oh So I ended that and then went to college and that professor was like, you're smart. And I'm like, fuck you. You're a pedophile. You're trying to fuck me. Just like you thought the other... Right! Totally! And he was like, his name was Craig, but he let me smoke cigarettes in his office while he smoked the pipe. geez. And so we hung out and he was like, you're really smart. And I got an A in his class and he said, dude, you're taking my next class next semester. And I was like, okay. And it was then they had some instant uh admissions thing on the college, junior college. He said, Hey, bring all your shit. And I'm like, what shit? And he's like, nevermind. He went to the administration or registrar, got my high school transcripts and my college stuff that I had from getting into the junior college. He printed it out and brought it with, with him to this thing and I was supposed to meet him and he sat outside and smoked his pipe while I went in to get interviewed and when I came out they told me I got accepted to university and my brother didn't he didn't get in and and I was like no fuck that if we can't do it together I'm not gonna do it and he goes no fuck you you're going you're gonna go I'll get in for next time. And then I was like, okay, I'm only going to do it because you're going to go next semester. But he never did. He went crazy and did his own thing. And I did. And that's what saved me. Cal State University, Northridge. And so Craig was a monumental person in your life, pivotal. he, and I could not tell you, he was at the junior college. And after I got in, I'm like, okay, so what the fuck do I do, man? And he's like, all right. He literally like hand walked me over to this building and said, okay, this is the financial aid person. She's going to help you. And then she called over to the university and got me connected with the financial person there. And then they're like, okay, you need to get registered for classes. What the fuck do I do? and so they connected me. I originally was a biology major and so I started off there but the next semester I had to get classes or advisement and I couldn't get a hold of them oh so my friend jokingly, someone I met there, jokingly gave me a pamphlet for the religious studies program so I had it and I called the number out of frustration and ended up talking to the chair of the department. He answered the phone. and we ended up talking for like two hours and he had me convinced at end of it and had me registered for religious studies courses and I changed my major. And so, what did your, was it theology then, what your major? Well, religious studies, it wasn't theology because they're a comparative religious studies. It's a public university and they were the first public university with a religious studies program, a comparative study in the West. So I got, I went there and I was like, I'll just do this because I can get classes. Well, I ended up becoming a TA with the department and uh that's where I ended up studying uh early Buddhism. like Buddhism before it came out and itself it was still part of Hinduism. So I started studying that and just got totally into that and that was what I my my plan is all I'm to become a get my doctoral degree and be a professor in early Buddhism. And the professor that was my one of my mentors is like you you should go to seminary because you can get this degree and like a degree just in case the professor doesn't work out you'll be able to have a career you'll have a MDiv and I was like okay but in the meantime I got involved in a relationship that was not healthy and it was super toxic but I was hurting and so I was like I need to run away from this so I dropped out of school and ended up missing the keystone that I needed to graduate so I had to go for another year That other year I was like, well, fuck, I need to fill out my uh schedule. So I started taking art classes and fell in love with ceramic arts. And I'm a naturally, I'm an artist by nature creator. And so I got into that and ended up getting huge into ceramic arts. And the professor was like, dude, you're really good. uh You need to do your MFA. And I was like, OK. So I started that and I'm like, no. to run away and so I applied to be a missionary and they accepted me and I was like I'll go because Kenya has this uh ceramic technique that is from antiquity that they used in Paleolithic times that's still practiced. I'm going to study that and that's going to be my MFA and then I went and when I was getting trained for to go to be a missionary I had to was at a seminary in Chicago and this Presbyterian school, this lady was really cool, she was like the recruiter. She convinced me to just apply and interviewed me there and I applied and she waived the fees. So I went away going, I'm never coming back. Well, I got accepted and got a letter while I was in Kenya. And when I was in Kenya, shit got dangerous and I had to leave. So you dropped out of college and went and applied to be in seminary school in Chicago. Am I following that one? OK. applied for uh this missionary program, they're like, you need to have a college degree. So I went back to my guy and said, all right, what's the fastest way to get a college degree? And he's like, dude, you need this one class for a religious studies degree. And I'm like, well, fuck it. Then that's what I'm doing. So that's why I have a religious studies degree. Okay, so then you graduated. got your undergrad. How long had it taken you to get your undergraduate? 11 years. That's amazing. It's amazing. from high school or 11 from when you got into it? 11 from the... Yeah, I started in like uh kind of right after that was the December after I graduated high school. Yeah, 11 years. So was that a big deal in your family that moment when you graduated? yes and no. It wasn't really celebrated. Was it a moment for you? Did you acknowledge it in any way? No, I graduated in August. fact, I didn't walk. I didn't walk across the stage. I just did it. It was just another thing I completed. OK, I did that. And then went on to the next, which was the seminary or the visionary thing, which I when I left, I was like, I'm never coming back. I'm going to live here. So you graduate and decide you're going to be a missionary, which is affiliated with your church. Yes, which was affiliated with the church that I was at. the church that you were at. it's a, it's a missionary in Kenya with the primary motivation of doing paleolithic. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. never did in fact go and study that ceramic technique. I never even went to the village when I was there. I got caught up in the whole thing was like, fuck it. I'm never leaving. I'm going to live here. I'm going to I stopped taking my anti-malarial meds was like, fuck it. I'm going to live here. I might as well get local. And within like a month, I was on the coast and got malaria. And almost died and I'm like, well that was stupid but then I was like fuck it. already got malaria. I'm good my. So wait. So before you went to Kenya, you had gone to Chicago and applied to be in the seminary. Am I following you right? I was in Chicago, I went to Chicago for the month long training to be the missionary in Kenya. And while I was there, I met this lady who was the administration or admissions person for this other seminary. And I was like, and it wasn't even the one I was at because they were hosting it at a seminary. Okay. And it was in Texas and I was like, fuck it, I'll talk to you. we talked and bullshitted for this one evening and that was the interview. she had me fill out the paperwork and I did. And that was how I applied. So how long, and then you go to Kenya, okay. And then, how long are you in Kenya? I was only there for just under a year because, well, my plan was to live there forever, but there was some danger happening and it became unsafe. And I originally had planned, I was there with the Presbyterian Church, but I was going to abandon them and go to the Lutherans because they were like, no, fuck you. Well, we're going to hire you on for permanent. And I'm like, fuck yeah. Because that's what that was. My goal was to stay there. And the shit happened. And then there was like this violent act. And they're like, you need to get the fuck out of here, Ryan, because I traveled all over Kenya, all over Eastern Africa. My job was literally to travel and kind of do emergency management. and sort of write this newsletter so I was like a photojournalist. So I got exposed to all kinds of crazy shit which is where my PTSD went from regular PTSD to complex PTSD because I chose to relapse while I was there because I couldn't sleep because of the traumas I was experiencing. So I chose to drink as like medicine and I intentionally relapsed and would drink every a couple days so I could pass out. So you just said what your role was, but explain that more. So you weren't over there trying to spread the word of God. You were over there. it was a service-based trip. It was like Peace Corps. Yeah, whatever skills I had to how do I use my skills and I go there with a religious studies degree with no discernible skills and I end up finding out uh I built a computer network was one of the things I did. I taught people how to use computers. I taught like computing and then I that turned into teaching people how to write papers and grammar kind of like an English teacher. uh I did a lot of weird shit but I traveled and took photography and taught people how to use, like how to take photos and like I wrote this newsletter that was designed to teach or to connect people like the people's needs on the ground to donors in the states like I managed that and I hung out and then it ended up just me partying a lot and kind of hanging out with people. But you also saw some horrible things, is what you alluded to. Yeah, there was lots of death and violence that visited me there. So when you left, were you still drinking? Yes, and it took me from when I started. intentionally relapsed in March of 25. I intentionally relapsed, made the conscious decision to and that began a three year journey back to sobriety. Sorry, 2005. And so where did you go when you came back to the States after that? I came home for like a week and then I instantly went to Texas to where I was going to go to seminary. And did you do the seminary? I did, I showed up and they didn't know I had accepted because I never accepted, I didn't know you were supposed to accept their admissions. So I just showed up and they're like, oh, fuck, we didn't know you were coming. So I pretended to be a student for a couple days and hid and slept in the lounge. And then what happened? Did they eventually accept you? Yeah, they came after a couple days, the woman who's now my wife, we met and we were friends and she was like, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm fucking fine. But they caught me sneaking into the lounge at one night and I said, please don't say anything. Like I'm trying to fucking do this. And they're like, no, we're good. so then they rallied around me. and like were like hiding me and stuff. It was fucking awesome. And honestly, it was another expansion of grace and love. Like the woman who's now my wife, we met and she was in a relationship and I was like not looking for anything. But she like, I instantly knew she loved me. Like she really cared about me. And so did everyone else. They kept rejecting my rejecting. They're like, fuck you, we love you, you're one of us. So they kept watching out for me and like loving on me and just like caring for And I'm like, ah, fuck you. And they're like, no, fuck you. We're going to love you no matter what. And it was one of the first times in my life that I got a breath. like it's unconditional love as much as you run against it. I think about it now and I go, man, that's the closest I've ever had to evidence that there really is a God. Because I'm like, they really did love me. it just, something worked out. There was a person that didn't accept some scholarship. So not only did it work out, I got this bitch in dorm room, like this fucking killer dorm room in the middle of Austin during the waning years of old Austin that I was paying like 127 bucks a month for. Wow. Wow. I lucked out so hard and the other part, there was a bar that was 420 steps ish from my dorm room that I went there a lot and they're like, you want a job? And I'm like, fuck yeah. So I got a job working at this bar where I only had to work two or three nights a week and I was making way more money than like a uh student job. but you're still taking classes, right, during the fall time? a full-time student and the community surrounded me and connected me to resources so they taught me how to study, they taught me how to read academically, they taught me how to write papers. They literally were like, fuck you, we're gonna take you with us, because they knew I didn't know how to do shit. Did they help you with your dyslexia? Yeah, I mean they connected me with this woman who was a writing expert and she's the one that taught me how to write papers. Like literally treated me. I was never explicit like this is for dyslexia but she's like dude this is what you need to do and apparently either she knew or something because she's the one that gave me the skills like taught me how do you like with the reading how do I block off the reading so that I can focus. Right. taught me how do I move through and how to like different sort of coping things to use to read. She did it all and the woman who's my wife now, she was on the whole ride for me and she was like, you're my friend and my favorite is uh we were friends, like really good friends. hung out, then her relationship ended and we hung out a lot. She'd come to my bar all the time and I'd give her free beer and burgers and I joked like she was in it for the beer and burgers. And I just thought we were really good friends and we go to this fucking museum one night or one day, we go to this museum, we're hanging out and she reaches over to grab my hand and I rip my hand back and I'm like, what the fuck? You know we're not on a date. And she was like, fuck you. And she left. Good for her, I'm glad she left. left me there and I had to walk back to campus and by the time I got back, everybody had known, like all of our friends knew. And one of them, ran into a common friend and she was like, you are such a dick. And I was like, what? She's like, you know she likes you. And I was like, I like her too. And she's like, you're a fucking asshole. So I was like, well, I gotta go to work. So I went to work at my bar and she showed up with a date to my bar. She's a queen. Oh, she is. I love the way she handled that. is one of the most amazing humans that I have ever encountered. I am so grateful. We celebrated 20 years together this past summer. For real, right? So she shows up with this dude and they're laughing and I'm like, errr. I go over and I'm like, get out of here, you're cut off. And he's like, what the fuck, dude? Like, I didn't do anything. I'm like, get the fuck out of here. And she's like, what are you doing? You can't tell me how I can date. We're not even dating. And I'm like, all right, fucking, Friday, we're going on a real date. She's like, okay, fine. And I swear to God, as I recall, she turns to me she says, all right, we're good. Like, you can leave. I love that. Now she handled that beautifully, perfectly. That's wonderful. this summer when we were celebrating, I looked at her and said, you know, so many people were like, they're never going to make it. And we kind of talked our shit together about all those people, know, friends and family. And I said, I'm so grateful that we're evidence that sometimes it's your worst qualities that can get you to a healthier spot and she is stubborn as fuck and does not give up. And me, I'm kind of underperforming and lazy. So you guys balance each other a little bit, probably, you know. look at us now and I'm like, I am so grateful we made it because she's my best friend. I love her. She is such a good human. You know, and I was just like, I don't really want to do this over again. You know what we've always said, because we were friends first too, and for like three years. And I've always said you have to have friendship in a marriage for it to sustain through life because life is going to throw everything at you. when it when the shit is really deep and down, it's the friendship that gets you through. It truly is. for real, like tell her all the time. You know, there's no one I'd rather spend time with than her. And she makes me laugh. She is the funniest fucking person. And I swear to you, she's a sailor. She's going to kill me. But she's a pastor. She's a sailor. She is one of the kindest humans I've ever known. She gives me such mad hope. And she is the best fucking mom ever. my God. She's a great mom. Like our kids are so lucky that she's their mom because she's funny. She's really creative. She's super involved. She's just a great mom. That's awesome. I'm just so happy to hear that you found your person and she found her person. Absolutely. Over this journey that's the thing that impresses me the most. I got to that point where I was like I don't know what hurt is, know what damage is. What happens if I say yes to me? Let's see. And that began a string of events in life over the last 25 years where I chose me and that pissed off a lot of people and it lost a lot of relationships and friendships. But I found me and I love myself. I can say that with great honesty. I love my being and I don't know. Identify now as an apathiest. I don't have any energy to prove or disprove God's existence. Fuck it. If God exists, God exists. I'm not gonna fuck it. I wanna be healthy for me. I wanna be healthy for my kids, but I wanna help others. That's why I do what I do as a therapist. I wanna help others find they're healthy, they're happy. that if and if that's ministry fuck it it is I'm so grateful that this whole fucking sword journey has brought me to this space that I get to sit with my patients and watch them heal and grow and explicitly help men because I try to work with as many men as I can Mm-hmm. Because I want them to have a healthier masculinity. I am so tired of all this toxic bullshit. It's stupid. You men are given intimacy is sex and emotion is anger. You cannot live a whole ass life like that. And the bar to be a good man is so fucking low. It's sad. Yes, agreed. to rape people or kill people and I'm a good man. How about brothers? How about we raise the bar a little bit? You know, be kind, be compassionate, you know, be slow to anger. I'm sorry, what? Be like Jesus? What the fuck? Right, right. Well, have you found that um especially in our generation, most men patients if yours or you don't have to say patients of yours, but most men are avoidance? Yeah, overwhelming majority, absolutely. And if a man deviates from that, they're generally ostracized and called queer or something. know, that toxic masculinity is so horrific and ingrained. know, Brian, I bet you can, we could spin stories about like middle school and middle school gym. What a fucking horror show. Yeah. You know, we had a guarantee there was at least one of our coaches who was a pedophile. Fucking guaranteed. Because there was those rumors, you know? And he used to sit there with these naked little boy middle schoolers who'd never seen naked other boys ever and make you can him a fucking wet fucking towel to get out of the gym. And he would sit in that cage and watch all those naked little boys parade through scared shitless. Did you guys have that where you would have coaches? We had to change for gym in middle school, but not get naked. And there were no showers or anything. But in high school, that became a thing like, you know, after a basketball game or a football. You guys would shower? No, not everybody. The coaches would be in there, though. To his point, some of the coaches were in there. I didn't get the vibe that any of them were pedophiles, um perverts for sure. They'd be they were more interested in the girls. You know, I don't think we had any guys, any male coaches interested in male boys. But you never became a thing. You wouldn't know. They certainly were accused of there. We had some accused of for the girls. 100 percent. Yeah. We had we had a rumor of one with a girl with the girls. But with the guys, you wouldn't know because they could just be watching you just from their office and you wouldn't know if they're getting off on it or not. The coach. Yeah. could tell you I never saw like touching or anything. It was like creeper. And I say that guarantee there was one at least one that was a pedophile. I could be not sure, not right, but at the very least, it was very discomforting, creepy. uh It was just it was unsettling. I think about how it was back then. It was just. boundaries or i think there were no boundaries there was no protect and of kids there was none for real, because the freshman year in high school, there was a rumor of one of the female coaches was sleeping with football players. And I remember sitting out like on a blacktop on those little circles you got in trouble, know, and walking by this coach walked by and the male The football coaches and some of other guys did this. Because she gave, apparently gave some kid chlamydia. my god. my You know what's interesting too though is you grew up in the epicenter of fucking weirdness, right? Southern California, LA. All those crazy movies we watched were brainchilds of people down there that were part of the... so not like, I want like the movie Valley Girl. Fucking love that movie. Nick Cage asked him that movie. That the speech and stuff like all that stuff absolutely existed, but that it was not a thing. It was Hollywood like all. He like walks the movies and like, when the fuck did that happen? The only thing that was close was Fast Times. That particular mall was the Sherman Oaks Galleria. We used to go there and fucking Perry's Pizza. I would still love to get that square pizza. my God, that was good. But outside it was... Because I look at Jersey for me. Love Kevin Smith. One of my fucking heroes. I watched Clerks and I'm like, my God, need... That's the life I missed. I need to move to Jersey. That's so funny. um when you met your wife and you guys started dating, um from there, how did you get to becoming a therapist? Like what happened in between that I go to seminary and I never really wanted to be a pastor. I was like, I don't have anywhere else to go. So I went with the idea, I'm going to find a different path somewhere. And it was introduced to me there. They had a dual degree program for an MSW and an MDiv at the University of Texas. And they asked me, hey, we're doing this new program. They handpicked me. Will you apply for this and be one of the first students to do it? And I was like, OK, yeah. So I applied after being handpicked, you, and they declined me. for being too religious. And I'm like, do you fucking know me? Oh my God, I'm a fucking sailor. I'm a drunk. How the fuck am I too religious? So the guy that was the seminary who was in charge came to me and was like, so apologetic. I am so sorry. That wasn't supposed to happen. you know, but we want you to do it again, but you have to apply for next year. So, but by that time, the dual degree part was over. couldn't, I'd have to do both them. So they accepted me but I also got accepted at that time I was like you know fuck it I'm gonna apply elsewhere. So I applied to like eight different schools at that point and got accepted to like five of them and to the University of Louisville, the University of Pittsburgh and to Columbia I got full scholarships. Wow. And on a side I got accepted to Princeton out of Cal State Northridge for a full scholarship actually a fellowship But I declined that because the unhealthy relationship I win was in that was her dream for us For me to get my PhD from Princeton and to live Princeton life, and I'm like fuck you Don't want that shit fuck them Princeton motherfuckers, and I stand by that to this day because they're fucking Ridiculous elite. I don't fuck it would kill me. It would have killed me but I get your sentiment. Yeah, that's not my crowd. would have, it would not, I'm an old punker. uh I got accepted also to the University of Texas, but they didn't give me a full scholarship. And the school I was at said, we can only guarantee you housing for one year. And I'm like, I need two years. know. So I declined it and we moved to the University of Louisville. And I started there, but when we showed up, We got married two days after we graduated seminary Drove us our honeymoon up to Louisville. We landed with $300 in our pocket that her grandmother gave us a Truck full of shit into an apartment. We sight unseen rented that was in the fucking ghetto There was a murder in the alley and I'm like, my god, what the fuck are we doing here? And I go to get into school and they're like, oh well, it's gonna cost this much wait, I got a full ride. No em I'm an out-of-state student. No way. had to pay the difference and I'm like, we can't afford it. So I deferred that to try to establish residency. And that's how I became a minister. I got ordained because I needed a job. I had this degree, never intended to use it. And I got this Craigslist for a, to be a pastor at a church of a denomination I had nothing with, but they said, we will ordain you. And the job was to be an outreach missions pastor to the gay community. Wow. So I accepted that and uh became a fixture in the gay community in Louisville and started all kinds of different programs. And in fact, that work ended up uh ending my ministry career, but it led to uh the Oglethorpe case that went to the Supreme Court and ended DOMA. What case was that? Yeah. the Defense of Marriage Act that same sex marriage became legalized. Okay, so that it would stay or that it became legalized. legal that to the one of my best friends and his husband were plaintiffs in that case and he and I worked together in Louisville, Kentucky and he and his husband went to remember Kim Davis that crazy clerk that denied the marriages. Yes, her I knew her. Like they went to her court got rejected then they sued they got arrested in fact and that court case went on up to the Supreme Court. Well. That was part of my work. So it not only ended the segregation of marriage, it made same-sex marriage legal and it changed two different church denominations, the Presbyterians and the Disciples of Christ, but it cost me my ministry career. because you fought for it. Yes, because I was an advocate and I was essentially a lobbyist. used to lobby Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul in Frankfort, Kentucky and in D.C. But that all of that work cost me my ministry career. So at that point, I was like, I'm over. I don't know what I'm going to do. So I half-assed attempted suicide. Oh no, how old were you at this point? That was 2011. Yep, we've been married for three or four years and we're moving to Oklahoma and I'm like, I don't know what to do. uh so they are like, you need to get treatment, man. And I was like, I don't want to go inpatient. uh So my deal was I'll go to intensive therapy. And uh that's what saved my life. And that's how I became a therapist. What pushed you over the edge in that? that I helped everyone. I helped so many people. When I was climbing the ladder, I was sort of church famous. And when I was climbing the ladder, it did and my identity exploded. My everything, all the hard work I did, the 15 years, all the academics. Yeah, and I never asked for shit. I never asked people for anything. I always just gave and gave and gave. And when I called in the car said, look, I really need help. No one came to my rescue and everyone abandoned me. How long had you been a pastor or minister? 15 years. they knew you were working with the gay community, right? That was part of your deal. And it wasn't the people that I worked directly with, they weren't directly the ones that banned me from the church. They were the ones that didn't show up to help me. OK. So the church was OK with you working with the gay community, but you can't do anything like help change their life for the better. that particular church that I was with was totally about it. And in fact, my work gave them a Genesis and they revitalized themselves and took their work, took the work I was doing and it transformed that church. But I was written out of the history of that church. They would, it was a really toxic situation. Just because you fought for the legal... my assumption, and I never talked to anybody. literally, when I was leaving, I was like, OK, I'm done. Like, I'm done. And I asked for help a couple of times, but didn't get anything. I'm like, fuck it. We're done. Had Doma passed before you left? So it was still going through the courts? And that's why they were forced to do. when that case reached the Supreme Court and it was enacted, the senior minister that I was working with at the time back then uh reached out to me through social media and I'd cut off contact with him and with everyone, blocked everybody. uh He reached out to me and was like, I just want you to acknowledge that this is because of you. You did this. This is your work. So he was okay with you doing that, but you still were banned from the church. didn't ban me. It was the administration of the region I was in. would not, what they did, they couldn't take away my ordination, but what they did was said, em we're not gonna circulate your profile. You're not gonna get a church here. All because of that work you did? It's a big deal in Kentucky. That's crazy. All of Kentucky except Louisville is pretty conservative, I think. Right? Yeah. And when we would go into the rural areas to do education about what does the Bible really say? Man, they killed a census worker, hung him from a fucking tree. And I was going into that environment to tell them, this is what the Bible really says about gay people. Oh my gosh. You didn't get hung. So. And it was that time too that Dr. Tiller was murdered here in Kentucky or Kansas for he was an abortion doctor. He was murdered and I eulogized him at a public ceremony in Kentucky and got death threats too. And the Westboro Baptist Church protested me. Oh, God, they're they're a whole nother thing. They're they are they are just evil, evil people. oh No, that's that's not for that. So, OK, so you get into intensive therapy. Would you say that was your first step of for the first time saying yes to you and not everyone else? I think cognitively, yeah, like that was the first time I consciously chose me. It was like I need to do something different. And that therapist and I, we worked together at first. I was seeing her four or five times a week. And that eventually led to tapering down. But in that, I remember being so angry and her, she's like, can you pray at all? I'm like, no, I'm just I'm so mad at God. And she said, well, what can you do? And I said, I can doodle. And she said, well, let's start there. So she, I would draw in her office, doodle in her office, and she would ask me about it. And that led to me buying some computer program and teaching myself digital design. And that led to a career where I was designing logos and websites. for people back then and it actually blew up and it was taking off and then I started doing digital art and then I got accepted to the social work program at the University of Oklahoma and I was faced with the dilemma look dude you can't do both so I shut my business down to pursue the social work and that I'm grateful that's that's literally why I'm here. Did you do your own website? Your current one? No, one of my buddies did it because I've since I stopped doing all the design. I I designed it like I worked with the digital designer and I it was all my ideas. And, you know, I like look, I want a therapy site that's not a therapist site. I want it to look like a pump band, which is why it looks like it looks because I sorry, bad religion. Love you guys. My favorite band from when I was a kid. And by the way, I went to the same high school as bad religion did. oh I've always loved that band, but I saw their website, I'm like, I want Bad Religions site. I highly inspired by their website for mine. Yeah, cool. So from becoming a social worker, did you end up going back to school to become a licensed therapist? I did. I went to the University of Oklahoma and finished my MSW there. And then I went under supervision in Oklahoma the first time and got my clinical license there. oh And then I worked for the Department of Corrections through the Department of Mental Health Substance Abuse Services doing rehabilitation. And then my wife was, we moved churches from Oklahoma to here to Topeka. And when I came here, I was like two or three months shy of five years of practicing as a social worker, clinical social worker. So Kansas suspended my clinical license and made me go back under supervision here. So I tell people I have the equivalency of a board certified surgeon as mental health, I've been under, it was a total of six years, almost seven years of clinical supervision I was under. my gosh. And then when did you start your own practice? in June of 2001. m 2001. Yep, oh sorry, 2021. Sorry, I'm fucking up at the 20s. that's okay. We listen, we started from the start. I know it's a lot. So, and how has, what would you say having your own practice has meant to you in your life? It has been life-giving. It's allowed me to become a better therapist, a better human. uh I love what I do. I call my office my clubhouse. I get to welcome patients in and it's sort of a masculine, nerdy clubhouse. You I'm really into Lego. I jokingly tell patients now that I am a... uh aspiring Lego master builder that Moonlights is a therapist. And it's the therapy part that allows me to be able to hold space for patients. you know, it's just it's the greatest honor. I uh legit love what I do. I look forward to I mean, I'm looking at tomorrow schools closed. Mmm. uh I'm like, I texted my wife, I was like, hey, school's closed. She's like, I know, fuck. I'm like, do you want me to cancel patients tomorrow or can I come in and work? Because I love what I do. I love hanging out with my patients. Yeah, I don't like canceling but I know I try to be equitable in the child rearing. I don't want my wife to oh she's gonna do it. So when I get home we're gonna have that conversation and figure out what the fuck it's gonna be like. uh yeah, I get to fuck around with Lego. Like while you guys are here, I built this yesterday. This is a Lego build, a mock that I built yesterday, but in transporting it fucking broke apart. So I got to fix it, but I get to do this because of the work I do. That is so cool. Do you do remote with patients in addition to do offer virtual service and one of the things, Kansas joined the multi-state licensing, but they haven't issued them yet. It was supposed to happen uh earlier in January, but it's not. I don't know when that will take effect, but that was my plan when it- effect to openly specialize working with men particularly that, you I'm also a licensed uh religious trauma expert. Mmm. another thing I do is help people that have experienced religious trauma. So I'm an addiction specialist. I'm a certified licensed clinical addictions counselor, licensed clinical social worker. My specializations include men's issues, men's trauma, early childhood trauma. religious trauma you know I say my life stories help me be able to sit with people that experience some really epic shit and I can help people I can sit with people that others don't that's why I say my weirdos if you're my weirdos you know you is well who's my weirdo? Well we all walk these paths in life and we come to forks. To the right there's the dark path it's storming and there's storms and there's shit lurking in the shadows and to the left there's unicorns and rainbows and 7-elevens and provision and my weirdo is we take a look to the right and the left and we go to the right and I ask why'd you go that way and they respond because I can. Yeah, uh is boring and that's, if you're that person, you're one of my weirdos. And if you like stupid dad jokes and don't mind vulgarity, then you will work great together. But I tried the soccer mom path and I just, I don't do them justice. Yeah, no, I think that makes sense. think when you come from trauma, um normality is so foreign and can seem so boring and actually harder to exist within than the chaos and the oblivion. Yes. death metal, I go to sleep to death metal. And my wife's like, what the fuck is up with that? I'm like, is it the chaos inside is nothing that that external chaos calms me. Yes. it's because speaking for myself, I didn't have a blueprint even on really any lot of things, but uh figuring all of that out and then having it was almost more effort to follow the normal path of all the other wives and all the other moms, how you're supposed to be then to be the go the dysfunctional crazy route. That would have been more comfortable. But I had to commit to the stability, if that makes sense. That did not feel comfortable. absolutely. you we we touched on this earlier. You know, why do people that experience abuse go to the abuse? Because it's what they know. I think it's for me, I frame it as it's a healthier reframing of the chaos. Do I still have that gravity towards the caps? A fucking Lutely. I'm so comfortable in chaos. It's not even fucking funny. But to reframe that and to make it into a healthier relationship for myself. And for those around me, I have forged these pathways where I let that danger Ryan, the Troy, he gets to eat at these places and it's safer. So it's ways to manage and mitigate the trauma and the chaos. Well, I'll fucking put on death metal and go to sleep to it or I'll, you know, I'll fuck around with different hobbies. And my wife's like, OK, what's the next one, Ryan? And I'm like, fuck off ADHD brain. And I'm giving myself healthier parameters. I accept it. I tell patients everything is speaking something and if I can learn how to listen to the chaos when I'm hurting feel the hurt when I'm sad be sad when I'm happy be happy to be mindful and present in the things and not try to fight them that's when I can heal. Yes, It's almost like taking the power away from your demons. And it's not that they go away, but they... You've channeled... their power, their darkness you've channeled for good. I know it sounds so cliche, but it like I always tell my kids there's nothing you can tell me that you've done or thought about that I'm going to be shocked because I've done it. So you could say anything you can talk about cutting suicidal ideation, drugs, drinking, promiscuous sex, whatever it is, know, abortion. There's nothing you can say to me that I'm to be like, oh my God. So, and I tell that to friends that are close to Well, not on the surface. tell them, no. do you mean? No, what I mean is I'm with you. We accept it all, but then we may talk later, like, oh, fuck, how do we deal with this? Oh, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then it's like your child and you're like, uh, but It's the listening, then it becomes the parenting. Yes. And it's little different. But I think when you have that history and you've gone through stuff, if you can figure out how to use it, to oh create space for others, which is what you do, professionally, right? But as a parent, I've tried to use that, and for friends, and say, this is a space that, there's no judgment because there's nothing you can say that's gonna shock me. And so I think your story, which we've just heard, you absolutely aid you um with your patience. There's no question about it. I tell patients, when someone asked me, how the fuck did you become a therapist? And I said, honestly, I've lived a life into which I painted myself into a corner where I can't fucking do anything about this. Like I am so fucked. You know, I look at what's happening with ACA and I'm like, man, if insurance companies could, they would return back to old where mental health care is a rider where you have to opt into it. which will limit my access completely. As it is right now, mental health care and physical health care are treated very separately. Again, I have the equitable credentials to a board certified surgeon. Wow. get paid like a board certified surgeon? No. Do I have the student loan debt of a cert? Yes. I've been paying on my student loan since 2008. I owe today 60,000 more than I collectively borrowed having paid on that much. my God, what a nightmare. What a nightmare. it sucks and they're supposed to be forgiven last year and I applied and qualified but our state attorney general sued the government and they put him in administrative hold and it's still in administrative hold now. I don't know what the fuck is up but they're not forgiven. I'm still paying monthly. That's crazy. When did you find out you were diabetic? Oh god, 2010. Are you type one type two. So you have to watch your sugars don't drop or else you're going to. and I have a glucose monitor that I turned off while we were talking. Well eh I knew I was going to drop this. This is literally all I have in my office right now because I didn't go shopping. m need to wrap up. Yeah, I know we need. don't I don't need you, Pat. You'll be the first. I know you need to go. I have one question. I know what was she. Wait, what she say? I support you, but I need you to come home. Yeah, I real quick. I know you became a parent later in life. So just a quick question. How long were you guys married before you started having children? Six years. And how did having children, um I know for myself it was incredibly healing for a lot of stuff that I had gone through. um How did it change your life? I will say, oh being a dad. Top, excuse me, I love, love being a dad. Yeah. Just the thought of like, I'm thinking of my children now and I am so excited to leave here and go and see those little faces. You know, they're nine and 11 right now and I'm trying really hard. I have to remind myself, intentionally, dude, they're not gonna be little forever because it's so fucking hard. And my trauma butts up against this shit all the time and I have to remind myself, dude, back the fuck up. He's gonna be smart. That's what fucking middle schoolers do. They fucking he's trying to find his independence and you've provided such a safe and loving home that he's a shit. Yes, and he is so much smarter than me. That is not an exaggeration that he taught himself how to read during COVID. Wow. cool. Hello? literally put the captions on and said look the words that's the coordinate and he fucking memorized it and taught himself how to sight read. He reads he's 11 reads at a college level. Yeah he's I told him dude you're I'm not shitting you're way smarter than me but um to chain is chain it is it's being a parent has been the most triggering fucking thing ever. But it's been such a healing journey for both my wife and I. We were married for six years before we had kids and we tried for about three years to have kids and we couldn't. And we in fact got to the place where we're like, maybe that's just what God wants for us is that we're not gonna have kids. And that was a really hard place to be. uh And... I don't remember if it was the day, but my wife, we were like, okay, let's go see about uh fertilization treatment. And she started that journey and went to an appointment and they told her, honey, we can't, you can't, you can't do this. And she was so bummed. She's like, cause you're pregnant. Right. Wow. don't tell him my son but he's an he's an answered prayer just like I say my dad used to always tell me like after his heart attack he would say honey your job in this life is to plant trees that you will never enjoy the shade of but while you do the work of plant those trees, you will rest under the shade of those planted before you. And that's what life is. And I take that to heart. And I accept and acknowledge that I am planting trees and the labor I put forth is not for me. It's for my children, my children's children and for those that come after me. And while I do that work, will rest under the shade of the trees planted before me. And when I die, and I tell my kids this, they get tired of me. When I die, I will die and I will become an ancestor. And I think for me, it's an honor to lose and shed Ryan and I become an ancestor. I joined the collective and that's a goal for me. Most of us within 100 years of our death are forgotten. Well, it's a beautiful way to look at it is that you become an ancestor. I really like that. And this episode is part of your legacy. Yeah, but I mean, it is it's something that your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren can, you know. something comes up at the most, I gotta meet you two. I gotta spend this time and it has been a joy. You guys have good vibes. If I wasn't loud, I'd fucking hang out with you guys. totally. You have good vibes. We could do another five hours with you. know you had one more question. Yeah, for sure. You had one more question. Oh, yeah. She gives me one opportunity to ask you question. To your last question. It's and I'll ask in a bridged one. We glossed over the fact that you grew up in Southern California and you were into punk. That's sort of the American. I mean, New York's big punk scene, but LA is a punk scene, right? What's your what's your favorite? band or yeah. growing up, bad religion and Noah facts were like the fucking shit. I saw bad religion this summer. My wife and I got to go, because I originally bought tickets to see them this summer to take my son to his first punk show. But as we were going, he's like, dad, it's fucking hot. I don't want to go. And I'm like, OK. And I was going to take my brother. And my wife said, hey, fucker, they're playing with dropkick. That's my favorite fucking band. Fuck you, we're going. So we had the best fucking date. It was such a rad show to go and have all these old fucking punkers. Like you look around and I'm like, look at us motherfuckers. We made it. We got arthritis, bad backs, our knees hurt, but we're here. Holy shit, this is awesome. Yeah. I think that the chili peppers are considered punk, right? I would consider more funk, but... the Chili Peppers. First couple albums, Uplift Mo, Full Party Plants, my favorite. Favorite band, probably a bad religion, but I love all kinds of... R &B and Soul is my heart. I love Sam Cooke. Yeah, there's not a lot of music I don't like, say for like modern country. I don't hate it, but it's not... I won't choose it. But I love Johnny Cash. I love the Bakersfield sound. I'm all into that. Give me some Charlie Pride. I I've been running and I ran the Johnny Cash this morning. You ran this morning. Johnny Cash. We're also big. But it's Johnny Cash. You know, it's not like your normal, I don't even know local new country. It's Johnny Cash. Johnny Cash is not country. He's Johnny Cash. we're deadheads. We're like huge deadheads. Yeah, we, we don't know if you can see it. are all grateful dead tapes. I don't think he can see. Yeah, he can. see it? The bootlegs? Yeah. That's from my college, actually high school and college days. Yeah, we were hardcore. Yeah, we were there. We Jerry. Check out Billy strings if you like the dead at all. We've gotten into Billy. He was in Tulsa not too long ago Billy strings. He's awesome. He's awesome I'm gonna have to and I apologize my wife just texted me and was like alright fucker. Yes. My last question is always, where do you see yourself in five years? God, where do I see myself in five years? You know, I, honest to God, I really don't try to, if I'm doing what I'm doing now, but have had different experiences and have grown and learned, I'm good. I would love to be doing this, like being a therapist and fucking around with Lego and that's what I want. But you know, whatever if I, if I'm dead, I'm dead. If I'm alive, I hope that I'm still kind. Maybe uh I finish a fucking book. I don't know. I would like to be here in five years. That'd be cool. I think that would be very cool. really do. I and I would like to have you come back on to dive deeper into men's mental health. I'm game, I've really loved hanging out with you guys and maybe I won't be so, so nervous because I don't know if you guys knew this, I was fucking terrified. No, no, it didn't come through, but I can't think enough. Well, it's a good Gen X. They're so good at that. ah But we can't thank you enough for being so candid with us, sharing your story. I know there's going to be listeners out there that feel seen from it and can relate to parts of it and will help people. And so we can't thank you. And I know we went over in time. So thank your wife. Thank your wife. uh up chips and queso on the way home as a peace offering. And as I say, if I may, to anyone listening, I just really hope that you know that you are an amazing human. I don't give a fuck who you are, what you've done, nothing defines you exhaustively. It's always OK to do different, and it's never too late to do different. I just hope that if you're questioning about your worth or value, please fucking choose yourself. If it's just for today. And in that, you know, I can't answer or work with everybody, but I, if you reach out, would try to do what I can point you to some direction, but please you deserve some kind of help. You deserve a space to be heard. Please choose you. I love that. I love that message. That's really, think what a lot of people need to hear is that it's okay to choose yourself. It's okay. it does. that when you start to do different, that's how it feels like. Oh, fuck, I suck. No, you're being healthy. Fuck all that. It is. are if Ryan will come back, we are going to have him come back on and dive deeper into men's mental health. I really would love to do an episode on that. um be down, we got to have Brian work some Johnny Cash into it. you go. We'll do that. So thank you again, Ryan. And for our listeners, we will have everywhere you can find Ryan in the show notes. So if you do want to reach out to him, always leave any questions or comments on social media or on YouTube, whatever. And we will make sure if they're for Ryan, that he knows about them. And of course, we always love to hear from you as well. So we hope you enjoyed this episode and we will see you next time. Bye.