Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Finally Ask 'What Do You Need'？

00:00:00.000 classes in session how you doing and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session guys you just

00:00:09.680 get me today that's it just me all by myself um i i put forward a tick tock not too long ago

00:00:19.760 actually a couple days ago and it was sort of a i don't know if tribute's not the right word but

00:00:28.480 it was a reflection on something one of a very good friend of mine has gone through.

00:00:34.860 And I want to address that today. And I'm going to, I have to address it softly because this

00:00:39.920 platform is very odd about the words you can say and how you can say them. And, you know,

00:00:49.300 things that obviously get taken down or whatever. I mean, demonetize, I don't make money. So it's

00:00:55.780 not, that's not my issue. My issue is how do we have hard conversations about incredibly important

00:01:01.980 subject matter when I'm not allowed to use the words that you need to use to talk about

00:01:06.700 the issue? So today I'm going to talk about DV and yes, I am using the acronym. Okay. So we're

00:01:17.080 going to be talking about violence that happens against any person, particularly I'm going to

00:01:23.020 focus obviously on women, because it's a story I want to share, but any person within the privacy

00:01:30.200 of a home, because I think it's the privacy part, it's the seclusion, it's the exclusion aspect

00:01:37.900 that we don't talk enough about in our society. And I also think the more things that I hear and

00:01:45.160 the more stories that people, specifically women, tell me, the more of these stories that I hear,

00:01:51.120 the seclusion and the exclusion is the number one factor. So you know what's sort of can be

00:02:03.600 pervasive, can break through those walls? This, social media. And when I was having a conversation

00:02:13.180 with my friend, I can give her a pseudonym. We can call her Alex. I was having a conversation

00:02:21.100 with my i don't know an alex so that's why i chose alex um i was having conversation with with alex

00:02:27.740 about what she's been through the number one thing that she spoke about was this notion of isolation

00:02:39.580 but and here's the the key that social media had the power to cut through that even if for just a

00:02:50.300 moment even if just for a crack in the window or in the facade right it allows an individual

00:02:57.260 that might be at home that might be um you know excluded from friends and family because we all

00:03:02.860 know that's the first step in in that level of control is how do i get them away from their

00:03:08.140 friends and family how do i control every aspect of where they go and then and then and then and

00:03:13.980 then how do I control what they think? Because if I can control their influences, if I can control

00:03:21.700 who they speak to, then in essence, I can control what they think. And if I can control what they

00:03:29.120 think, then I can continuously, as perpetrators do, perpetuate and instill violence. And when I

00:03:36.720 talk about that I mean emotional okay I mean mental and obviously I mean physical the only

00:03:45.360 difference with the latter is when you have something that's that external externally tangible

00:03:53.340 sometimes that's the only thing that can that can really trigger a person right because everything

00:04:01.920 else can be so easily hidden. Not that you can't lie about how you got a black guy or how this 0.99

00:04:06.940 happened or whatever you can, and women do. But, but, but, but it's easier to hide and to isolate 1.00

00:04:17.700 and to limit conversations about anything mental or emotionally damaging. And again,

00:04:27.700 you guys might think I'm talking around language here. I'm talking around language here so that

00:04:32.820 this video gets, you know, as much attention as it can get rather than being, oh, she used that

00:04:40.420 terminology. You can't use essay. You can't use DV. None of those terms can we use. You can't use

00:04:46.280 the R word. All those terms are off the table. And I've never quite understood why they're off

00:04:51.560 the table. I guess they're off the table so they can't be used to victimize, so they can't be used

00:04:55.660 threatened so they can't be used in that way but for the love of god when you take those terms off

00:05:03.260 the table how are we supposed to say the thing and be aware of the thing and here's the key not be

00:05:11.100 ashamed of the thing that we're telling all these women not to be ashamed of and come forward with

00:05:20.300 right so alex was in this relationship for years years and years she has three kids not with him

00:05:29.260 this was a um post divorce and these three kids um are fantastic and from what i what i know they

00:05:38.540 were always sort of shielded from a lot of this um but this happened over a long period of time

00:05:44.700 and there was many points that i spoke to her and she'd say this is what happened or this is what

00:05:49.260 what he said, or this is what, and I would say, you got to go, come here. You got to go. You got

00:05:54.020 to send him out. You got it. You got it. You got it. You got it. And here's, I really wanted to

00:05:58.080 have this conversation. People think I'm having this conversation to just be like, you know,

00:06:03.360 stop all of this, make sure there's, you know, to sort of highlight what that woman goes through.

00:06:09.000 I can't, I can't highlight. I can tell you snippets of what Alex went through, but I,

00:06:14.720 That's not my story. I'm here to admit and to own and try to figure out where I failed, where I judged, where I didn't support, where I didn't reinsert myself to the best of my, where I got frustrated because I didn't think she was doing what I thought she should have done.

00:06:44.720 There, I said it. I said it. Because I'm saying that for a bunch of reasons.

00:06:53.800 Because when Alex finally told me I could tell this story, obviously, no names, no specifics,

00:06:59.380 all of those things, so I'm not putting anybody else in harm's way. But when I can tell you this

00:07:03.960 story to this degree, I said, why now? And she said, well, because I've gone through enough

00:07:12.100 therapy, and I've gotten enough help, and I've talked about it enough to no longer have shame.

00:07:21.180 And I went, holy, what do you mean? And she said, well, when somebody does something like that to

00:07:30.240 you, especially when you have kids, even if you don't, and you go back the first time, the first

00:07:37.080 time you decide to walk back into that house, or you don't call the police, or you don't, whatever,

00:07:42.100 she's like that's when this element of shame sort of was the foundation was

00:07:50.080 laid and as the foundation was laid you know the next time happened you're like

00:07:55.180 well I didn't do anything last time and since I didn't do anything last time how

00:07:58.720 am I gonna supposed to do something this time and it didn't seem to escalate so

00:08:02.440 if it was okay then then I kind of tacitly said that it was okay and then 0.98

00:08:06.040 this time and you do that enough and all of a sudden you have a list a list of crap you know 0.96

00:08:14.140 when your soul you shouldn't put up with you know when your soul is wrong you know when your soul 0.98

00:08:19.480 is criminal yet you have tacitly said it and again i don't believe this but this is how she

00:08:26.700 described you've tacitly accepted it back in back in back in and she goes and it wasn't just about

00:08:32.720 me. It was about my kids. So not only do I have shame about what I allowed to happen to me,

00:08:37.640 I have shame about what I allowed to happen around my kids. So I did my first TikTok pissed, angry,

00:08:45.720 talking about, you know, how dare we as a society close an eye to this? How, you know,

00:08:53.700 she's going through all this stuff with the police and get this, if you haven't seen the TikTok,

00:08:57.460 get this so he's being charged and apparently it takes a very long time by the way there's video

00:09:04.760 footage let me say that again there is video footage and the court case is going on and on

00:09:15.280 and on and on constantly asking for continuances you can't do this you can't blah blah blah i want

00:09:21.340 to hear their last so so she got a plea bargain offer from the defense attorney want to hear what

00:09:26.340 it was? I almost can't say it without wanting to throw my computer across the room. Here's

00:09:33.420 what it was. We ask you to drop all the charges and we will promise. I don't know if they

00:09:42.400 use the word promise. We will promise. We will ensure that he will be an upstanding

00:09:49.280 citizen and a good boy is guys just out of curiosity is that all we have to do in our

00:10:01.480 legal system or does it just pertain like the fact that this was even a possible i understand

00:10:10.000 defense attorneys supposed to battle for their clients blah blah blah i get it i get it i get

00:10:14.560 it I get it but negating everything again video evidence negating everything and

00:10:23.800 saying he's gonna be a good boy aren't you and then I'm thinking do we do this

00:10:31.660 with anything else if this wasn't an at-home circumstance do we do this I

00:10:40.000 don't know. I mean, I, I'm at, there's a genuine question. Somebody breaks into the bank, steals

00:10:46.120 money, doesn't make any restitution. By the way, there's no restitution in when you physically harm

00:10:55.120 somebody, apparently. I mean, there's civil cases, but I, I've taken the money, broken into the bank,

00:11:01.400 taken the money, spent the money. And I get my lawyer to go to the bank and say, he'll be a good

00:11:07.740 boy? Is that a part of anything? Or have we relegated, and relegated is just probably

00:11:22.260 the wrong word because I think it's always been that way, have we built into our society

00:11:27.180 that the idea that the violence that goes on inside a household is, first of all, and

00:11:35.760 I'm going to say this because I think this is legally, culturally, historically accurate.

00:11:40.780 It was none of our business, right? Let's all embrace the fact

00:11:45.700 that children and women are historically men's property.

00:11:52.280 That children and women were such property that the man of the house could do whatever he deemed

00:11:59.780 appropriate to teach, to train, to keep his household in order. I hate that word, in order.

00:12:08.920 Okay. So we're not too far off from that. So when I say that we're still, when people talk about how

00:12:17.380 there's no sort of ramifications of racial injustice or sexist injustice or homophobia

00:12:25.600 or all that and they say well now the law stipulates so what are you what are you

00:12:29.840 complaining about it's fine no no no because the layover the hangover the ripple effect

00:12:41.360 of those being true and by the way we're not talking that long ago we're not talking that long

00:12:46.960 ago where this was the case rule of thumb everybody knows this right you can beat

00:12:58.800 you can harm your wife your child as long as you don't leave

00:13:04.480 a mark on them wider than your thumb look all sorts of disgusting pieces of history

00:13:09.120 and it's illegal sure but now what now we have podcasters and twitter people call it x if you 0.52

00:13:23.060 want i don't care what you call it tiktokers even stipulating okay but sure that was the

00:13:30.140 end of the story but what did she do right and if we don't know the full story how can we

00:13:36.260 which has always been the case for essay and how we we sort of facilitate and limit the impacts of

00:13:45.500 what happens in those court cases well it's just him and her and it was just him and her it's he

00:13:52.020 said she said and doesn't matter about what the uh the kit found because what the kit found can

00:13:58.340 all be talked away because they really like shades of 50 shades of gray right so many different

00:14:04.240 avenues to weasel your way around. So many different alleyways to go down. But then I

00:14:11.860 remember this about our culture. We are still legally, parents are still legally allowed to

00:14:19.800 use corporal punishment against their children in Ontario. Well, in Canada, I believe, and I don't

00:14:25.540 want to get these numbers wrong, but I believe between the ages of three and 12.

00:14:35.120 what are we doing i'm sorry i have said it's not okay to a full-grown adult it is not okay

00:14:47.520 to harm a full-grown adult but our legal system in this country says yeah but your kids are still

00:14:56.240 yours see that's the foundational garbage i'm still talking about because if you can't parent 0.84

00:15:02.400 your child without this now it's supposed to be an open hand and you're not supposed to leave a 0.91

00:15:08.560 mark and you're not supposed to there's all of these different right what what

00:15:17.280 we are still a society that hasn't completely and utterly

00:15:24.560 put any violence that goes on

00:15:29.200 onto criminal activity.

00:15:34.320 And you will hear people say,

00:15:36.220 it's the parent's right to train.

00:15:38.520 It is the parent's right to...

00:15:40.820 It's the same, it's the exact same argument

00:15:43.660 that people are still using

00:15:46.260 to facilitate or to

00:15:48.940 um, support the actions that they exhibit in behind closed doors.

00:16:00.700 So after this, obviously Alex isn't there, the crown is not accepting, um, by the way,

00:16:07.520 the crown would be the prosecution in Canada is not accepting this plea deal. What a shocker.

00:16:12.680 And then I'm starting to think, you know, the only things that you can, that you're really

00:16:17.940 going to court about then, they tend to be very, very physical things because there's a picture,

00:16:24.420 there's a video, there's this, there's that. You can't really, the rest of it isn't really

00:16:28.900 so clearly admissible. And so she's sitting here now going like, how long does this have to go on?

00:16:39.520 Right? He's moved on living with a new girlfriend, of course, who I'm sure just

00:16:46.320 thinks alex is the crazy one making up all of these ridiculous things right goes off has jobs

00:16:55.280 how long does this get to go on and what i'm assuming is happening here

00:16:59.920 my assumption is it is trying to be lengthened to the point where she's too tired to do anymore

00:17:10.480 where alex you know i got i just gonna focus on my life i'm getting healthier which she is 0.97

00:17:14.720 by the way she is a healthy strong getting help left right and center superwoman that i just don't

00:17:22.720 want to keep going down that road because that road isn't getting me anything but

00:17:30.320 violated and nothing's happening there's no sense of justice let me tell you this story

00:17:37.440 not too long a little bit after this whole thing same person her dog bit one of her friends

00:17:45.840 is that a good thing no do i think that the dog has been a party to a lot of this yeah yeah yeah

00:17:50.480 now the guy doesn't care but you had to go to the doctor you had to go to the doctor you had

00:17:54.560 to report it you had to report it this is what happened she got two calls from you know the

00:18:03.520 pet police whatever that is it's this the city and visits to her home to ensure that they were

00:18:11.360 keeping that dog locked up for a 10 day because it needs a isolation period

00:18:18.240 that's like four different people sort of got paid to make sure that that situation

00:18:26.400 was was done right and kept safe want to know how many visits she's got about the other thing

00:18:33.520 how often the police just swing by the other guy's house and just say hey just

00:18:38.520 want to make sure you're still walking the line abiding restraining orders just

00:18:45.160 so you're aware we're right around the now some people would say oh well Joanna

00:18:50.520 that's her is it is it it's a genuine question too because how on God's green

00:19:00.280 earth are we supposed to keep these individuals safe when we're not allowed to keep an eye on

00:19:04.780 the perpetrator when they extend and expand our judicial justice system for an eternity

00:19:12.120 because as we all know a restraining or only a restraining order only means something if you

00:19:21.720 have time to call the cop and get them to come there i don't know if you've called police very

00:19:26.160 often i have not but i do know that the that the response rate isn't quick enough

00:19:36.560 and usually try to tragedy befells i don't even know if that's the right word

00:19:45.120 so i posted this video and i've heard read story after story after story of women

00:19:50.720 and their kids, who have literally lost everything, fought through everything,

00:19:59.580 done, literally started over, usually from the beds of hospitals.

00:20:06.940 And he sometimes left the county, left the state.

00:20:14.540 Are we, and here's the bottom, are they chasing him because he, you know, broke her nose?

00:20:20.720 are they get are we getting some sort of extradition how does that work and then

00:20:26.220 people say Joanna people have other the cops have more things sure listen I don't

00:20:31.640 doubt it great fund it more you know what the number one funded institution

00:20:39.200 in this country should be with huge oversight

00:20:45.140 mountains of money mountains of education mountains of psychological

00:20:53.000 development and and ties to the community mountains of all of it child

00:20:57.900 protective services and I know some of you're gonna say well joy all of these

00:21:01.020 things have happened I get it I get it let's also go back to what I said to

00:21:05.420 mountains of money mountains of training mountains of connectivity to the

00:21:11.220 community. If we shifted our funding to that, we wouldn't need a lot of what I'm talking to

00:21:20.440 you about right now. Because this ridiculous notion that in my house, in my rules, what

00:21:28.420 happens, this also, by the way, this also appeals or applies to any SA going on with women or with

00:21:39.200 kids, right? Because everybody loves to say, oh, it's that group. It's that group. We're all out

00:21:48.880 here on all social media pointing to all these different groups that you think are seditiously

00:21:53.560 trying to get at kids. When in actuality, we also know statistically 80% of those calls come from

00:22:01.580 inside the house. Where's the money? Where's the funding? Where's the outrage? You know what I

00:22:08.100 hear and it would never come from a healthy family i promise you that you know what i hear

00:22:15.380 my house my rules what goes on in the family stays in the family what

00:22:22.500 and everybody's listening right now we all have that story we all have that story and you know

00:22:31.460 what perpetuates that story you know what allows it to lay roots in a family

00:22:37.640 and and tear it apart and build adults that are incapable of like reaching out

00:22:45.800 or getting healthy shame shame

00:22:53.220 absolutely

00:22:56.280 I just don't think we are active enough to say what is not okay in our families,

00:23:11.820 what is not okay in our homes. And I'm going to get back to my role here, because I know I,

00:23:18.180 again, I talked about my failures and then I kind of left it alone, probably because I'm,

00:23:22.960 it's still really uncomfortable for me to talk about because I remember hearing those stories

00:23:27.080 from her, you know, now they weren't maybe as horrible as the last time, but every time I would

00:23:36.380 get angry and I would make plans and I would, I would try, you know, in my head. And then I get

00:23:41.960 so enraged and be like, what up, what am I supposed to do? And then, and then I do

00:23:47.840 what nobody should do, which is like, back away. Okay, you don't want my help? Fine.

00:23:56.520 Even though, I don't know if I knew better than, I think I knew well enough to understand that

00:24:03.980 the person going through that, I can't force them. I can't make it right for them. I can't

00:24:11.300 force them but by me allowing the isolation by me not inserting myself anymore you know she never

00:24:18.420 said joy don't talk to me anymore she may have made it harder sure but those heavy lines were

00:24:25.780 never drawn and yet when you made it harder and it was frustrating to me because i all of my

00:24:32.580 suggestions fell on deaf ears and and then i just see it happen again and again and it was just this

00:24:38.500 this i was doing this and and i didn't do what i feel like at this point i should have

00:24:46.900 but i don't i don't know how many like i'm gonna say what i think i should have done but who

00:24:52.740 crying out loud who knows right maybe if we had a justice system that was healthy maybe if we had

00:24:58.180 um a culture that actually stopped teaching such horrific violence and shame and and family

00:25:05.620 business bullcrap maybe we wouldn't be here but considering we're here here's how i would have

00:25:12.580 liked to have gone back and done it i would have tried to listen more i would have tried to tell

00:25:22.020 less i would have tried to ask ask her what she needed more i would have tried to forge alliances

00:25:30.900 with her family. I would have tried to forge closer ties with her kids so they knew who

00:25:38.360 they could call if they needed to call. Closer ties with her ex-husband. Rather than stepping

00:25:45.960 away, I should have, and rather than telling, I should have just made it crystal clear that

00:25:55.040 I was there. I was always going to be there. And especially to the individual who was dealing

00:26:05.860 in such violence that I was always occasionally going to drop by, occasionally do some videos,

00:26:18.100 Occasionally, you know, see the kid.

00:26:22.120 I'm always going to be around.

00:26:25.860 So you might try.

00:26:27.600 The more that you try, just so you know, I can't move in.

00:26:35.220 But I'm always going to be maybe a couple steps away.

00:26:41.280 Maybe if I would have done that, she would have found a path out quicker.

00:26:46.980 Maybe if I would have done that, that something could have shifted.

00:26:54.100 Maybe if I would have done that, God, it wouldn't have been joyful if he would have just left.

00:27:04.140 Maybe if I would have stopped making my own solutions such a be-all and end-all,

00:27:13.760 Maybe I could have heard, truly heard, there's a difference between listening and hearing, truly heard what she needed and given it to her or her kids or her family.

00:27:28.460 Maybe all of those things, if they were better, if I was better at it, if I was less about me and more about helping and more about her, you know,

00:27:41.900 maybe all of that could have changed. So I guess that's my, my lesson, my, the point of this

00:27:55.280 particular podcast, because I can't speak to what it was like to be in that house. I hope one day

00:28:01.880 Alex, you know, comes on here and really talks about it because she has such brave, impressive

00:28:08.360 and quite staggering insights to share.

00:28:13.960 And when she's ready, she'll come.

00:28:17.760 But this is not about her because I didn't live that.

00:28:21.260 I just lived as an individual who didn't understand what to do

00:28:28.240 and got frustrated when my seemingly rational plans

00:28:33.100 weren't met with parades and accolades

00:28:36.540 and following whatever it is I had to say.

00:28:41.200 I think that I do that often as an individual.

00:28:47.560 It's not just about this particular situation.

00:28:50.040 This situation, though, is a little bit more dire,

00:28:52.020 which is why I'm speaking to it.

00:28:53.720 But I think if somebody were to say,

00:28:56.480 Joe, what's the thing that you want to get better at

00:28:59.900 or you failed at?

00:29:01.280 Or I think it would be this.

00:29:06.540 I see problems and I want to fix problems and I assume in so many ways that I have good

00:29:17.540 intellectually based sort of conclusions.

00:29:21.900 I have the best way to go down the road and rather than asking for what somebody needs,

00:29:30.860 I give them what I think they should have.

00:29:37.340 oh that's a hard one to change it's a hard one to change when you see it it's a failure

00:29:44.140 and it's a hard one to change because you're so ready to jump into action that's true for

00:29:50.220 a relationship as well but you're so ready to say okay i can do this i'll do this i'll do that

00:29:56.060 you know why it probably makes me feel better makes me feel in control a little bit of therapy

00:30:01.740 there and if i'm in control life's more manageable but what i really realized

00:30:11.820 from the conversation i had with alex not too long ago before i posted that tick tock is

00:30:16.940 i have no control of any of that which is why instead of me saying what do you need

00:30:24.860 i backed away i always answered phone calls i was it wasn't like a severing it was just like

00:30:31.740 I'm just going to be over here in this room till you figure it out. When you figure it out,

00:30:37.140 come let me know what a horrible, horrible, horrible decision I made. What a garbage decision. 1.00

00:30:47.480 I know we can't be, you can't be everything to all people. I get it. I get it. But I'm pretty 0.99

00:30:54.600 sure if somebody's important to you, you can make time enough to say, what do you need?

00:31:00.500 what can I do, rather than this is what you do, or I got to walk away.

00:31:09.100 You know, if you're getting harmed, that's different.

00:31:11.520 It's not what I'm talking about here.

00:31:16.480 So for any person who is listening, who is in that position,

00:31:22.900 i hope that you have friends or people in your life that can that will ask you the question

00:31:36.000 and if anybody has somebody in their life that know this that is going through this i need you

00:31:41.960 to ask them what do they need what can you do rather than here's the plan of attack 1.00

00:31:51.080 and when they're ready when they're capable when they feel safe enough women are strong 1.00

00:31:58.540 powerhouses of incredible fortitude they will tell you and in that moment just be ready to 1.00

00:32:05.380 help move mountains to get them wherever they need to go safely and then move those mountains

00:32:12.180 at the same degree to whatever they need to be done in the court system whether it be criminal

00:32:17.080 whether it would be civil, whatever needs to happen after that fact.

00:32:22.860 So if somebody's in a situation right now, I hope you can tell somebody.

00:32:31.500 And if it's on social media, it's on social media.

00:32:35.820 You can do it in an anonymous way.

00:32:38.820 Ask for something you need.

00:32:40.500 And if you're a person who has somebody in this situation, don't back off, don't back away, don't get frustrated, don't fail as I did.

00:32:54.800 You stand in, you be present, you don't allow people to isolate you from the people you love and you ask, what do you need?

00:33:07.640 and then move heaven and hell to give it to them.

00:33:12.940 All right, guys, thank you so much for hanging out with me today.

00:33:16.720 I know that was a heavy topic.

00:33:18.460 Please, in the comments section below, ask any questions.

00:33:21.300 If you want me to look into anything, I will do my best

00:33:25.180 in order to get more perspectives and more ideas

00:33:29.500 on this incredibly important topic that we have to talk about oh so carefully.

00:33:35.300 thanks for hanging out with me and i will see you next tuesday same bat time same bat channel

00:33:43.540 dismissed

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - November 14, 2023

The One Where I Finally Ask 'What Do You Need'？

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