Evan: 1:16

Well, Melissa, I kind of wanted to have a little bit of a I guess a public therapy session here.

Melisa: 1:22

Oh, fun.

Evan: 1:23

Wanna get wanna get real. So we always talk about how we are going to to you know talk about real things and have real conversations and break down walls and all of those things. And I have something that has happened to me in my personal life that I think others will, you know, sympathize, empathize with, have been through themselves.

Melisa: 1:45

I have a disclaimer. I am not your therapist, and nothing that I state today is in a professional therapeutic way for you.

Evan: 1:56

I appreciate that disclaimer, and I'm sure that the licensing board also appreciates that disclaimer. And yeah, no, this is, you know, just just want to get your thoughts on, you know, a couple different perspectives related to this situation. And I guess I should set this up with a little bit of a little bit of background on me and my family dynamic. This is not something that's easy to talk about, you know, when you're talking about things on a on on the radio or on the the podcast. But I have a kind of an interesting relationship with my family, uh, especially on my mom's side, but but on my dad's side too. I mean, my dad and I have a good relationship. My mom passed away several years ago now, and you know, we were estranged for a while prior to that anyway. So that that had been an issue for us. But my dad and I, we have conversations, we talk, my stepmother and I get along. My stepsister's family, we're all sort of you know connected on Facebook and the social media accounts and stuff like that. And so it's it's it's generally a congenial situation. We get along. My mother's side of the family. I have very little interaction with. I'm closest, I have been closest with my aunt, my mom's sister, who lives up in New York. And when I say closest, we communicate a few times a year. We check in on each other, how are you doing? How are the kids? How's the family? That kind of thing. Little anecdotal conversations. Last year we took a trip to Georgia to see my mom's family home, my mom's side of the family, that the home that we have down there, which is a historical landmark now and has a little museum in it. And then your family helped put that together because you have a family that lives in a town very close by. And so I had, you know, last time I really spoke to my to my aunt about anything was that before that trip, and we had talked a little bit about the trip, and then afterwards I sent her some pictures from the old family home. But at any rate, I had been messing around. So the unmentionables did a podcast several weeks ago, now after Charlie Kirk was killed, and we had put out a little advertisement on social media. And I had been messing around on Instagram trying to figure out how to use it, how to use it with our platform for sending out social media messages, and I had sent the video to some of most of my Instagram, you know, follower list, and my aunt was on that Instagram follower list. And I sent that back in September, September 16th. And, you know, I know that there are members of my family, especially on my mom's side, that don't necessarily share my political opinions, and that's okay. They're still family, I still love them. You know, I've gone through periods where I've had some regret at the lack of contact that me and and and my children have had with all sides of my family. I mean, you know this. You we we've talked about this with you know various elements, and so some of that is just everybody's distributed across the country. I have family in New York, I have family in in California and and in all these different places, and it's it's not easy to get there. Some of it is just life, right? You just go through life and and it is what it is. And then I think I think there are elements of it where we just we have fundamental disagreements on life and and sort of who we are and how we ought to be, and some of that plays into this. So at any rate, I sent this this message to her September 16th, and then this Wednesday I got a response back from her, and her response was he was a racist, homophobic, misogynist who got killed exercising his free speech. He should never have been murdered for utilizing his free speech. That's all she said. Okay, fair enough. I mean, I don't share that opinion, but fair enough. So my response back was we can agree to disagree on the first part. I've spent a fair bit of time reviewing all the stuff people have accused him of, and I haven't been able to find many things that have been claimed that they are truly depictions of what he said. In fairness, I do believe in freedom of all speech, even stuff I disagree with, so I appreciate you agreeing that we shouldn't be murdering people for their speech, no matter how vile we find it to be. I think that's the common ground Melissa and I are building. Have you by any chance listened to any of our other Unmentionables episodes? Many are focused on mental health outside of politics, and people that we don't that we know don't agree with us politically have really enjoyed them. So she asked me, and who is Melissa? And I said, Melissa's my wife. She owns a therapy practice here in Lancaster County, realizing that it had been a while since I had spoken to her, and I may not have even mentioned you in that context. I know that when we had talked last year, we were still dating and you were still my girlfriend at that time, and so I referred to you as that during that discussion. But at any rate, her next response back to me was, Well, congratulations, I'm losing count. I hope she's quote the one. And that's in reference to the fact that I think I know you know this, and and our listeners probably don't. I have been married several times. I was in the Marine Corps, and Marines make dumb decisions, usually about women. And I made several dumb decisions while I was in the Marines for lots of reasons that we won't unpack here because this isn't a therapy session. As you rightly pointed out. But my aunt, of course, is well aware of that. And so my response back was, ouch, she is. I had no intentions of getting married again until I met her. We dated for quite a while before we decided to get married. It was the right decision. And then her response back was, best wishes to you, Melissa, and your family. That is probably the final time that I will hear from her until somebody else dies in my family. If I hear from her then. I say all of this because I know family dynamics are always different. Some people have really, really close family dynamics and close-knit families. Some families are estranged from one another for lots of different reasons. Uh, I know just in our circle, there's elements of your family that you've been estranged from. There's elements of your family that you're very close to, there's elements of your family that live far away that you're closer to than people that live very close to you or us. So I want to look at this from two different perspectives. So I have my own perspective as the person who shared the video and got the response and feels, you know, the negative aspects of this from that perspective. And I also want to look at this from the perspective of the person who had the initial response, so my aunt's perspective. I want to break it down across both of those kind of lines and kind of get some thoughts on what's going on here. I want to set this up by just saying these are the kinds of conversations that the Unmentionables was intended to not help us avoid, but help us engage in and navigate and understand that we can disagree, we can have different perspectives on things, and it shouldn't mean that we love each other any less, it shouldn't mean that we care about each other any less. I know, quite frankly, that we have friends who probably feel very much the same way that she does. And, you know, we'll see how those relationships work out. But I I just feel like in this day and age, maybe more so than any other, but I I don't know. It these kinds of things are coming up, and whether you call it TDS, Trump derangement syndrome, or you know, just a lack of acceptance and openness, it feels more real these days than it has in the past. What are what are your thoughts on that just generally? The and then we'll get into the perspectives.

Melisa: 9:29

The whole scenario. You know, well, you know that I have relationships in my own life for a variety of reasons where there's been a lot of space put there because of the nature of the relationships. And it's interesting because we were raised and were in a time period where family is everything. Be loyal to family, and family can hurt you and say what they want to you, but they're always going to be there for you at the end of the day. And I think that's really shifted. And people are understanding that just because somebody is your family is not justification to cause harm.

Evan: 10:11

Yeah.

Melisa: 10:12

And it's very interesting because your aunt is also a clinician, right?

Evan: 10:18

She is. She's a psychologist. So that's where I often get confused, as you know from the last episode that we recorded, the difference between a psychologist and a practicing clinical psychologist and a practicing therapist and a cycle. And a psychiatrist.

Melisa: 10:35

A lot of people interchange that too. Yeah.

Evan: 10:36

I mean, I'm I'm fairly clear on the psychiatrist part where they can prescribe medications and they're a doctor, and that's really their role, not so much the dog therapy. They're a medical provider. Psychologists are the ones where I'm like, they just have a doctorate, right? That's really all it is.

Melisa: 10:53

No, no. Or PhD, I should say. You can have a PhD and be a clinical psychologist, but you can also have a master's degree in psychology or clinical counseling is a degree that's offered more, I believe, at faith-based universities. But the difference is if you are a licensed professional counselor, an LPC, that's a background in psychology. And if you are an LSW or an LCSW, now these are letters in the state of Pennsylvania. Uh every state uh has slight differences to how they letter things, that is the social work side.

Evan: 11:31

Okay.

Melisa: 11:32

So at the end of the day, we all do therapy. If we're practicing in that area of the field, the difference is in how we're trained, what the focus is on, and how really how we view our clients and and how we view our role in the client practitioner relationship.

Student: 11:55

Sure.

Melisa: 11:56

So that being said, it's very interesting because I'm also right now listening here to the let them theory by Mel Robbins. And instead of doing a quick and dirty overview of it, I'm really doing a deep dive into it right now. And she talks in that book about living in a world full of tantruming eight-year-olds that adults never learned how to regulate their own emotions. And it's as if we're walking around surrounded by adults throwing tantrums because they've learned that that's how they can get what they want. And there's really a limited amount of people in our societies today that display more emotional maturity than that. And I look at how your aunt responded to a very civil communication. You know, you acknowledged where you guys agree and you noted maybe where you disagree, but said, you know, that's what's awesome about this, is that's okay to see things differently. And she said what she said to hurt you. There was intentionality in that, much like your ex-wife does often calling me number four. That's my nickname, I think, with her, is how's number four? Well, she doesn't even ask how I am. Let's be real. She just makes nasty comments.

Evan: 13:24

Yeah. I definitely it definitely hurt. And it was definitely it, you know, it's funny. It kind of took me back aback, but it also kind of was just like, oh, I should have expected that. And I think that's a bit, I mean, that's a that's a bit of a problem to me. That's not the way I think family ought to be. But, you know, it I think we see it more often than not.

Melisa: 13:48

How could she have responded differently? That for you, I mean, my assumption is we expect family is supposed to love us, right?

Evan: 13:57

Yeah.

Melisa: 13:58

They can call us out, but call me out in love.

Evan: 14:00

Sure.

Melisa: 14:01

And do it in a way that isn't an attack. So how do you think she could have responded that would have felt differently?

Evan: 14:09

Well, I look, I can understand the first part, right? The first response question. Who is Melissa? Sure. Right? I can understand that. And then when I said what I said, uh I mean, well, congratulations probably would have been just fine. If you stopped at that, that would have been great. But the I'm losing count. I hope she's the one. You know, and it a lot of people I think that we know, and and I think a lot of people hopefully, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. I think a lot of people, not hopefully, unfortunately, but but I think a lot of people that but might be listening to this podcast probably are are on a you know, second or third marriage. I mean, we there there is a period there of time, I think in the early 2000s and and maybe this this whole century so far where we've been making terrible decisions on how we get married, and we can go into that topic on another, you know, episode. I I there's a lot of reasons for that from a social and uh I think from a cultural perspective where I think we've shifted. But at any rate, a lot of us have made bad choices. Well, a lot of us have made bad decisions.

Melisa: 15:11

Can I just ask, how old were you?

Evan: 15:13

When I got married. The first time a few times?

Melisa: 15:16

Yeah, well, yeah.

Evan: 15:16

The first time I was in my early 20s.

Melisa: 15:18

So like 20. 20.

Evan: 15:21

23, like 20 to 23. Like in those years, it was like there were a few bad things.

Melisa: 15:25

You look at the first time and the second time.

Evan: 15:27

Yeah.

Melisa: 15:27

So they were both between 21 and 23. 20 and 23?

Evan: 15:31

Yeah, between 20 and 23.

Melisa: 15:33

Yeah. Where, whoo, holy moly, right?

Evan: 15:36

And you know Yeah, I mean, there there's there's there's reasons for some of these things, right? Like the first one, she got pregnant.

Melisa: 15:44

Right.

Evan: 15:44

And it was allegedly mine.

Melisa: 15:46

So you thought you were doing the right thing.

Evan: 15:47

So I thought I was doing the right thing. It turned out it wasn't.

Melisa: 15:50

The baby came out a different color.

Evan: 15:53

It was very clear it wasn't my child, put it that way. And then the second one you annulled that one. I did annul that one. So, you know, a lot of times people say it doesn't count. I I'll own it. Sure. The second one was, you know, a passion thing. We we had our moment and it was right before a deployment, and I wanted to make sure that she and the and the the kids that she already had were were taken care of while I was away. So we got married before I left, and that one turned out to be a total shit show. There was a whole there's a whole lot that goes into that. But suffice to say it did not end well for anyone uh involved, and and the entire thing transpired while I was overseas.

Student: 16:35

Right.

Evan: 16:35

So, you know, it was it was it was a bad situation. Then the third one was, as you pointed out, my my ex who likes to try to push my buttons on various different things and and you know, always bring up you know my failures and the things that I didn't get right in the past. At any rate, and she with her, I have two children, and and you know, she was the one before you for a number of we were together for almost 10 years. So you know, did I get it? I you know, I m again made bad decisions with women. I get it. I've made lots of other bad decisions with things as well, and that's some of that is just life, and we learn from it and we grow from it and we get better.

Melisa: 17:16

Well, and who would I be if I had sat back? Because that actually was we talked about all of that the very first time we met in person. And who would I be to judge mistakes that you made at 20, 21, 22? You know what I mean? When we all have a past and history, and I guarantee you that your aunt has made mistakes too. And I think that she would not be happy if somebody turned around and threw those things in her face. No, there's just there's no compassion there. And for me, that's one of those things where if you treat your family that way, someone that you're supposed to care about, gosh, I mean, how do you treat everybody?

Evan: 18:05

Yeah.

Melisa: 18:05

That's mind blowing.

Evan: 18:06

Yeah. And I mean, look, I again, we're we're distanced family. I I know, like I said, I was estranged from my mother. This is her sister. There's probably some built-up animosity from the estrangement with my mother, because of course everybody picks a side in those kinds of situations. And, you know, for right or wrong, or better or for worse, you know, I was probably the you know, quote unquote adversary in that situation. I was the bad guy. I was the person that was making, you know, the poor decisions and and and you know, isolating my poor mother from from me and my and my children.

Melisa: 18:41

Even though, you know, we all need to take accountability for our role in things. We talk a lot about accountability here.

Evan: 18:47

Yeah, and I'll and I'll take the ownership for my for my part of that, right? So that and and I think that is part of evolving as a human and being better and you know, the no better, do get better concept that we talk about. It's you have to acknowledge what you've done and and what role you've played in things. It usually helps if both sides acknowledge that.

Melisa: 19:10

Well, it helps if you want to have a relationship.

Evan: 19:13

Yeah.

Melisa: 19:14

But if someone really doesn't value a relationship, then they're not gonna own their part and there's gonna be no restoration there.

Evan: 19:23

Yeah.

Melisa: 19:24

And that is sad.

Evan: 19:25

Yeah. So uh you know, again, I want to kind of hit this from two points, and we've talked a little bit about it, you know, from my side in in terms of the sharer in this particular situation, but to to broaden this to you know, other people who might be engaging in this kind of a situation, I I don't not tell this story to be a deterrent. I'm not saying that you should be, you know, concerned about this and therefore keep yourself quiet and silenced. I think that's something that I've actually done generally in my you know family life is I just keep quiet about stuff. I it's it's you know, they might see, you know, I I've made the news a few times locally and maybe once or twice nationally that the family has you know seen or heard and and mentioned to me, but I don't go around bragging about it at the at the family parties and all the things. And you know, when we do get together, I make it about you know us spending time together as a you know a group rather than anything that I've necessarily done. Because, you know, questions come up and topics come up and we have these talks, and I I've never been afraid of you know engaging in some of these things to a certain level, but I also you know understand who I'm talking to and and understand that I need to, you know, in some cases tread lightly into certain topics.

Melisa: 20:43

I have a question. You know, my take on your aunt's response was that she felt somehow like something that you were saying threatened her or her belief system. And she got defensive.

Evan: 21:01

Yeah.

Melisa: 21:01

And I'm wondering, you know, what is it that that makes people defensive like that? What is it that sparks, you know, even your defensive reactions or my defensive reactions? What are what causes us to let our hackles go up, right? In relationship with somebody that we love?

Evan: 21:21

I think it's when often it's when our our being is challenged. It's when, you know, who we've defined ourselves as is being, you know, quote unquote threatened, when we feel like, you know, the core of who we think we are or our belief system is being attacked, or just maybe even we've discovered that something we we believe is is just not squaring in our own head all of a sudden. When we hear somebody say something and then we're like, man, they're right. I I have been wrong this whole time.

Melisa: 21:57

So what do you think it was in in your aunt's email? What do you think it was that maybe caused her to get defensive and feel the need to attack?

Evan: 22:11

I think the way she presented, she let in her initial response, there's a lot there. He was a racist, homophobic, misogynist who got killed exercising his right to free speech or his free speech. There are three different names ad hominem attacks against a dead guy, right? That she threw out first.

Melisa: 22:33

And those are things that I regularly hear from people, you know.

Evan: 22:36

The only thing she didn't include was fascist.

Melisa: 22:38

Okay. But those and those are three things that regularly come up from people as attacks and and who he was, right?

Evan: 22:50

Absolutely. I mean, these are the things if you search on the internet for Charlie Kirk, it it's gonna be homophobe, misogynist, racist, or fascist. Those four things are likely to be the other term or the terms associated with him.

Melisa: 23:02

Absolutely.

Evan: 23:03

And, you know, I it's not lost on me. Everybody when we so when we put the post out on social media, and I know I've been managing a lot of that stuff, but we put the post out on social media afterwards, after he he he was killed, because we felt like it was important to first of all embrace the fact that somebody was just murdered for for having thoughts and saying them openly. Second of all, it it was very public, it was very very open.

Melisa: 23:34

And we did that at the same time as you know, tackling the violence on the train.

Evan: 23:40

Correct.

Melisa: 23:41

And I don't I think that we went away and did not get to touch on the shooting at the Mass where the Catholic school children were. Yes. And I think that I I want to say that because we are not elevating any one of these things above any of the other things. We're talking about all of them.

Evan: 24:06

Yeah.

Melisa: 24:07

And and innocent people being killed and harmed, sometimes for their beliefs, sometimes just for being a white girl, or for attending a school. And and none of it is okay.

Evan: 24:21

No, regardless of what the reasoning is behind the motive, right? Regardless of all that, we're still talking about people who just don't deserve to die, right? Which is the part of what she said that I that I totally agree with. You know, my response back, I I don't know. I'll let everybody listening make your own decisions on whether it was, you know, reasonable or or responsible to say. I'm certainly not going to agree with the racist homophobic misogynist because again, when we made that post for three weeks after that, two weeks after that at least, all we got. And if you go on our Facebook page, you can see it's just it's just hate-filled message after hate-filled message. And I just I wanted to understand what where did you see this? I researched it, I looked online, I went back and watched uh hours and hours of you know his TP USA events and his radio show, and you know, followed the links down the rabbit hole. Was he actually raised as massages? Did he say some things that trip people that that trigger them? Absolutely.

Melisa: 25:29

Or there are his views on religious topics that not everybody would agree with, like like women staying home and having lots of babies and being submissive to their husbands, right? Sure. Not everybody's gonna agree with that, you know. I certainly work full-time, right? And you know, am a very independent, strong-willed woman. I think that's putting it mildly.

Evan: 25:54

Yeah, and uh uh some of those things are a product of the time period, right? When you talk about that, and we don't have to go through all of that now, but but some of the some of the things that you find in in in those conversations are are products of the time period. And I think the the general ideas that he was trying to put out there that family is should come first, you know, that one person or the other should be the breadwinner and the other one focused on the children. The you know, those kinds of things Well that kids need parents. Yeah, kids need parents. I mean, those kinds of things make a lot of sense. Sure. When you just distill them down to forget the religion portion of it, but just you know, logistically does it make sense, right? There's another one where he he's well, he's misquoted a lot, or he's it's misattributed, right? So so he might say something, let's say one of the topics that came up is is he was talking about affirmative action laws and how they're harming and actually the opposite of what they're intended to do. So these affirmative action laws, equal opportunity, they were supposed to create better opportunities for minorities, right? Especially African Americans.

Melisa: 27:06

Right.

Evan: 27:07

And the idea was we're gonna have these quotas and make sure that companies aren't just going out there and hiring white people that look like them because we think companies are racist.

Melisa: 27:16

That are less qualified.

Evan: 27:17

Right. That are less qualified, exactly. So we're gonna make sure that it's fair and say that you have to, you know, interview or hire a certain number of minority can, you know, candidates or or or employees. And what Charlie said is because of those affirmative action laws and because of the stories that we've seen in the mainstream media about firefighters and pilots and all these different things, it triggers at times in certain individuals' thoughts when they see the person on the other end of this, they see a black pilot, for example, was his example.

Melisa: 27:51

That was his example.

Evan: 27:52

Is this guy as qualified as a white pilot? And it is he wasn't saying it because he thinks that way. He wasn't saying it because black people can't be pilots. He was saying it because the affirmative action laws that have the stories have been out there, we've seen the results of some of them, these quotas have put unqualified or less qualified people into positions in these DEI hires.

Melisa: 28:20

Well, and he definitely the takeaway from that was he is racist. And I think that's one of the interesting ones that I've heard because I think anybody who does look at that person and asks that question might be. I think that's accurate. And I know I'm not up on a lot of those things or or the hires that were made or anything. And I hope I don't see my pilot. Because if I see my pilot who's flying the plane, but you know, this just came up this past weekend between you and I, and I didn't see the color of the people around me. And you pointed that out, that you know, we're just in conversation with people, and I don't notice the color of their skin. All I notice, I don't notice their hair color, I don't ask about their sexuality or their religion, because I genuinely do not care. You to me are either someone who is seeking to connect with me, or I'm connecting with you on a very human level, or you're a jerk. And then I really don't care about any other traits that you possess because you're just an asshole.

Evan: 29:45

Right, right. Well, I want to so just quickly, this won't take long. I want to play this interesting clip because they they call my aunt called Charlie Kirk a racist. And I want to just I want to put I want him to put it in his own words.

Charlie Kirk: 29:59

Do you feel that systemic racism isn't real? Of course not. What can you what can I do that you can't do? Name it.

Evan: 30:05

Okay.

Charlie Kirk: 30:06

No, no, seriously. What what what can I do that you can't do?

Student: 30:10

That's a simple thing. No, it's not. No, no, no, why is it? Very simple.

Charlie Kirk: 30:13

No, it's probably. Well, Charlie, there's a bathroom over there that I can't go to. There's a major league team.

Student: 30:22

I can't walk into the grocery store and get the same looks that you do. I walked into Brookshire Brothers a couple weeks ago and I just looked at it.

Charlie Kirk: 30:28

That's an insanely hyper-paranoid way of living life. That's not evidence, right? A real by the way, if I walk into a black neighborhood, I get bad looks too, okay? So I don't know what the contention is.

Melisa: 30:43

I think one of the problems in our society is that there are a lot of people who have never been the minority and don't know what that feels like. Like we were talking about your son the other day, your oldest.

Evan: 31:01

Yeah.

Melisa: 31:02

Do you want to share a little bit about that?

Evan: 31:03

Yeah. So so my oldest went to a charter school in Delaware. He went to a couple, actually. He went to one for you know the first three years of his high school, and then the last it that was. One closed and he went to another one. Both of the schools that he went to, he was a minority in those schools.

Melisa: 31:23

And he was white.

Evan: 31:24

As a white kid, he was a minority. Yeah, yeah. So the so the the the first school that he went to, he it was it was close, but they were he was a minority. The second school that he went to, uh, it was he he was one of a few white people in an all-black school. Right. For the most part. And so, and it was an inner city school in the city of Wilmington, a charter school there as well. And you know, he felt what it feels like to be a minority, and I I haven't seen him react the same way as as other people that have been minorities, right? So, and maybe it's he didn't spend enough time as a minority and he didn't really, but I mean he he at at school he would be walking up the stairs and they would smack his phone out of his hand and break it and destroy it. And you know, they there were times where he felt you know unsafe and unfairly targeted, and some of it was was based on the way he looks. So we get it, right? That happens. And what I think we need to recognize as a culture is that it happens in both directions or all directions. Anytime you, as a person who is different in some way, whether it's how you look or how you talk or how you act, go into another place where you are different than everybody else around you, you're gonna get looks, right? We've we've talked about this with our kids, my daughter, when she dresses, you know, in her punk attire, which I think is cool. I do appreciate that she has you know her own way of of living and doing things, but people are gonna stare. People are gonna have their own opinions. It opinions are like assholes. Everybody has one and most of them stake, and you always think yours is the best, right?

Melisa: 33:15

But why are we so dependent as a society on that validation from other people of who we are? And I I find that as a whole, there are so, so many people that just don't know who they are and rely on the people around them to make them feel good and warm and fuzzy and happy. And if that doesn't happen, then the world falls apart. And we're at this point in society where, you know, if I don't agree with you, then we can't be friends. And I think we talked about this on here before. You know, I surround myself by people that believe differently than I do.

Evan: 34:05

Yeah, you're kind of Abraham Lincoln, honestly. He surrounded this. She's giving me a weird look, everybody. So Abraham Abraham Lincoln, you yeah, so everybody may not know this. There's a book out there, Team of Rivals. I suggest everybody read it if you get an opportunity, if you have any interest in history. If you don't, here's the Cliff's notes. Abraham Lincoln surrounded himself with a cabinet of people who didn't always agree with him. Kind of like Donald Trump, but a little bit different. So Trump has his people, and people can, you know, say what they want about that. They don't all align and they don't all agree with him. Right. And the same thing was the case with Abraham Lincoln. He had people in his cabinet who were fervent anti-you know, war, did not want to have the civil war, that that considered the idea of states' rights to be the winning argument, right? Forget the slavery aspect. I don't think he surrounded himself with any pro-slavery people, but he certainly surrounded himself with people who are like, we ought not go to war with the South. Let's just work it out with them, let's let them separate, let's split the country. He surrounded himself with people with these different opinions and perspectives so that he got the whole view when he was making his decisions because he didn't feel like he was the only person that knew what was going on and and you know that he should make all the decisions in a vacuum. He felt very strongly that he should at least get the opinions of the people around him that didn't agree with him.

Melisa: 35:28

And that's kind of where we're at in society today, is if we're so threatened by hearing something that doesn't align with our perception of something, then we're not open to listening and hearing and actually engaging in conversation. That's when we attack and shut down and walk away. And that's the antithesis of what we're trying to do here in opening up conversations and dialogues and saying, you know, hey, share with me where does this view come from? What are you basing it off of? Which, you know, as a clinician, I can't really engage in those conversations.

Evan: 36:13

Sure.

Melisa: 36:13

Because it doesn't matter what I think about something or or how I feel about something, right?

Evan: 36:21

I wonder though, to some extent, you have to understand your your clients. So you should ask questions like, what makes you feel that way, right?

Melisa: 36:27

Or well, but even I have to be extremely cautious in that because if it doesn't have anything to do with the treatment that we're doing.

Evan: 36:37

Sure.

Melisa: 36:38

Or if it's misperceived or there's an assumption that I believe one thing or another, right, you know, then there goes the client.

Evan: 36:49

Yeah. Yeah, that's that's fair. I just, you know, again, we we we you uh you said it really, really well. We we live in a society right now where we want our bubble and we don't want anybody to burst our bubble by having sort of a different opinion or a different perspective. And I that is how that's how we lose things. Not to get all political or anything on you, but that's that is how societies and cultures devolve rather than evolve. When you have that, you it turns into groupthink. It turns into everybody thinks and says the same thing because they don't want to be involved in the drama. They don't want to cause or create problems, and and it ends up giving everybody sort of a universal thought process.

Melisa: 37:34

You know, I was meeting with somebody just earlier today, and this person is junior in high school. And I watched a video of a fight that happened at that high school where one girl beat up another girl in the hallway because the what can I say, the the attacker and the victim, the attacker's brother was sending pornographic content, personal content, to someone that didn't appreciate it. He was sending it, the attacker's brother was sending it to the victim. And the victim was telling people he needs to stop doing this. So the older sister went in and beat the girl up in the middle of a school hallway. And you know what the people around them did?

Evan: 38:22

Filmed it.

Melisa: 38:23

Absolutely. They filmed it.

Evan: 38:25

Yeah.

Melisa: 38:26

Instead of intervening, instead of standing up for someone, they stood back and filmed it.

Evan: 38:34

Yeah. It happens all the time. Every single day in American high schools, it happens all the time. This is a very common occurrence. And you know, I was talking just the world star mentality.

Melisa: 38:45

I was talking to this person about that whole situation. And, you know, this this person has such good insight for their age. And that person noted that we're in a world of groupthink where everybody just follows the leader and won't stand up. And I I noted that this seems quite a bit different than even our home district, where I've seen videos of fights, right? Where a football player stepped in and broke it up and and told the attacker to walk away.

Evan: 39:23

Right.

Melisa: 39:24

The kids, now of course it was filmed because I watched it, but somebody still, a student stepped in and said, This isn't right.

Evan: 39:35

Yeah.

Melisa: 39:36

And actually, after I saw that, I I really hoped that that student was affirmed for that, for stepping up and taking that position. And I know we work so hard to make sure that our kids have a voice that we recognize every step they take in life is a choice. And those choices have sometimes predictable good outcomes or predictable poor outcomes. And then we've got unpredictable outcomes, but you know, we work so hard on things like integrity and moral standards and truly raising kids that have a strong moral compass. Yeah. And things like this make me sit back and ask, how many parents are there that are doing that?

Evan: 40:32

I I think it's I'm hoping that it's more than we see.

Melisa: 40:37

It's generational patterns of continuing what was done by parents that came before us. And I was reflecting on this just earlier today. That do you know what the hardest part of going to therapy, uh, especially the work I do, right? Because we uncover deep shit all the time. But you know what the hardest part about that is for the client?

Evan: 41:01

I would think it would be the after.

Melisa: 41:03

What about it?

Evan: 41:04

Once you say it, it's real. And I think for me, it would be okay, now I've said it, what's what's the judgment coming at me from the other side?

Melisa: 41:13

That's a unique perspective. It's that once you see it, you can't unsee it. So yeah, it might be in something that happened to you, but once you see outside of that and see the other factors that impacted it and see the character of people around you, you can't unsee that stuff.

Evan: 41:36

Yeah.

Melisa: 41:37

And now I'm in a position where I have to decide if I'm gonna take action and what action I take. And that might mean having to walk away from certain people in our life. And that sucks. So the hardest part of therapy is no better, do better. It's it's okay when we're uncovering it, but now I'm seeing that I'm losing people in my life.

Evan: 42:01

Right.

Melisa: 42:01

Because I'm no longer willing to ignore the toxic behavior. And now I need to find new people and surround myself with people that are also trying to grow.

Evan: 42:13

Yeah.

Melisa: 42:14

And I think I've said it on here before, but I say it in my office space all the time. You have people who are becoming healthy, and you have people that are unhealthy. Those are the two types. And most divorces happen because somebody is deciding to be healthier and grow and change like we all should be. And there's one person that's stagnant and wants to stay how they are. And every time unhealthy will drag becoming healthy down. Becoming healthy can never grab unhealthy, you know, by the shirt collar and pull it up and pull it up, and then magically unhealthy wants to change. So, you know, when you are surrounded by people that want to learn and grow and become healthier as humans and expand our way of thinking to be tolerant and understanding and not being judgmental or racist or misogynistic or homophobic, right? Then, you know, it's it's people who are becoming healthy with people who are becoming healthy, and we all refine each other.

Evan: 43:30

Yeah. But when iron sharpens iron.

Melisa: 43:32

Right. But when we resort to I don't agree with you, so you human are evil, and I now have a reason to attack you. There's so much tied up in that, and the threat that that person must be to be so attacked in that way. And it's happened to you, it's happened to me. And I sit back and say, wow, I must really be a threat if you need to come after me and make up lies and say things to try to take me down. What is it that I'm doing that you really, you know, puts you in a position of needing to defend yourself?

Evan: 44:23

Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting situation that we find ourselves in. So bring this back home to the you know, the the topic that we've been on, you know, having these conversations and having these discussions and sort of the two perspectives on this, you know, I just any thoughts that you have on the perspective of, you know, someone who might be afraid to share these kinds of, or not even these, but their own kinds. Maybe there's there's you know, people out there who are coming from the other direction. They're, you know, Marxists and they're really interested in in fighting the good fight for for all of humanity to be in a classless society and they, you know, are in a conservative household and they feel like they can't have these discussions with their with their parents. I mean, from my perspective, it only hurts things when you feel forced to be quiet.

Melisa: 45:19

Yes. And, you know, are we talking about people, you know, conservative parents that are intolerant of views that are any other way?

Evan: 45:28

Yeah.

Melisa: 45:29

And that's not okay either.

Evan: 45:31

Right.

Melisa: 45:32

It's when we classify someone as bad because we don't agree a hundred percent with everything they believe, and we expand that into even, you know, hey, that teacher is really conservative.

Evan: 45:52

Yeah.

Melisa: 45:53

And I don't agree with her. So now she's an awful teacher, and I don't want my kid in her class.

Evan: 45:58

Yeah.

Melisa: 45:58

How does that impact the teaching that she does? Does it impact how she teaches or what she teaches? Does she follow the curriculum? Does she keep her views out of it?

Evan: 46:07

Right.

Melisa: 46:08

You know, uh the same way with someone who is, you know, more on the progressive side. It shouldn't impact how they do their job. You know, I can have my views, and my views don't impact my therapeutic knowledge in that space.

Evan: 46:28

Right.

Melisa: 46:29

And last time I checked, you know, if I'm not helping you work on your own beliefs and thoughts about all that stuff, now I have people who come in and and are really upset about the state of the world. You know what? So am I.

Evan: 46:42

Yeah.

Melisa: 46:42

I'm really upset about the state of the world too. I can understand that. And we might view it from different directions, or, you know, wholeheartedly we agree on the vast majority of things most often. But if we don't agree on everything, does that make me a bad therapist? I don't think so.

Student: 46:59

No.

Melisa: 46:59

And I think people forget that, yeah, there might be one thing that we see differently, but then there's a hundred things that we actually fundamentally agree on.

Evan: 47:11

Yeah.

Melisa: 47:12

So why are we focusing on the one instead of the hundred? Why are we choosing division instead of unity and respect and love? And I think that's the biggest part of this that I don't understand is why so many people are feeding into the division like your aunt. Why feed into the division and not just say awesome?

Evan: 47:34

I mean, after a month, she could have just not mentioned it.

Melisa: 47:37

Right.

Evan: 47:38

Why bring it up? You know, it it just I it it's just kind of sort of hit me, you know, why do we wait a month? Right. But yeah, so to sort of bring things together, at least my message from this, from what I take away from this, as as somebody who was, you know, in involved in this, you should feel open to share your thoughts and opinions, and also open to hearing other people's thoughts and opinions, and recognize that there are going to be certain topics that are more controversial or maybe even you know more uh impactful on you as an individual, and that we're all allowed to have our own perspectives, our own opinions, our own takes on things, and it doesn't take away from the type of person you are. Right. Your concept of something or your belief in something might be, you know, to me improperly placed, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person.

Melisa: 48:38

Correct.

Evan: 48:39

And and so we need to remember that about everyone, not just the people that we care about, but the people that we come across.

Melisa: 48:45

Well, and I think I want to note that there actually are really bad, evil people in the world.

Evan: 48:51

Absolutely.

Melisa: 48:52

And I think what I'm understanding you're saying is if you know somebody and you know their heart and you know who they are, why do we let their perspective on one thing that's different from ours? Why does that take away from all of the good that you know is them?

Evan: 49:14

Yeah. It doesn't matter what, you know, faith denomination they are. Are they Christians? Are they Muslims? Are they Mormons? Are they atheists, you know, atheists, are they Baptists or Catholics? None of that stuff matters if they're, you know, good people, they're good people. If they're not good people, then they're not good people. That that's all separate and different. And and, you know, we need to be able to have open conversations and open dialogue and open discussions for so many reasons. But I just, you know, I wanted to share my personal, you know, perspective on this and and sort of this situation openly to sort of show everybody there's a better way to do this. And it does it doesn't necessarily need, you know, to lead to these kinds of things. And that I think there's a lot of hurting people in the world who are willing to cause hurt to other people. And that's unfortunate.

Melisa: 50:09

Words hurt. Words can hurt and words can heal.

Evan: 50:12

Yeah.

Melisa: 50:13

We just have to be willing to analyze ourselves and look at how our words are impacting other people and be willing to own that and change.

Evan: 50:24

Yeah. Thanks for hearing me out. I appreciate the non-therapy therapy session.

Melisa: 50:29

Absolutely. And you know, for anybody who's listening to this, it's paid content. And this is where you get to go a little bit deeper with Evan and I into more of the personal side of our lives. And we appreciate that.

Evan: 50:43

So Yes, we very much appreciate uh you come back again. Everything. We appreciate you being a part of this. Thank you.