Speak Plainly Podcast
Hosted by 2 time best-selling trauma author, Owl C Medicine. A veteran of the US Military, Owl's no nonsense approach to mental physical and relational health is exactly what you didn't know you need. Listen in for ideas worth chewing on and science based tools for living life after trauma.
Speak Plainly Podcast
Season Three Kickoff: My Taiwanese Trauma Drama
Or ever found yourself up late at night, belting out Celine Dion songs with a new lover who feels like a mirror to your past?
Join me, Owl Medicine, as I kick off Season Three of the Speak Plainly podcast by sharing my heartfelt reflections from a recent international trip, with a special focus on an emotional and intense week in Taiwan. Together, we’ll unravel the tapestry of cultural challenges and personal connections, starting with a touching bond I formed with Will, my best friend's cousin. Despite his struggles with family expectations, career setbacks, and a painful breakup, we managed to find solace and joy in our shared moments, reflecting on how these experiences shaped our resilience.
Stay curious and stay uncomfortable.
Music by Wutaboi
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Hey everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Speak Plainly podcast, where we speak plainly about things that matter. I am your host, owl Medicine, best-selling trauma author and general weirdo, who just took a break from the podcasting, my first real break in well, since I started it two years ago, and I think, instead of going through the whole year, this is going to be season three of the podcast, because I feel like I should give myself a break Instead of just doing a podcast every single week and not actually, and I'm glad that I didn't. But boy did I get some great content for you. In today's podcast, we're going to be talking about the Taiwanese leg of my international trip. So, for those who don't know, I just was gone for about seven weeks.
Speaker 1:I spent a month in Nepal and a little over a week apiece in Taiwan and in Japan. I'd been to Japan before and I went back to go to this very specific shop that I really loved and they had this beautiful fabric and I was able to get the one that I lost, the one that I gave away and a few others as gifts for people, and I was very excited about that. The Nepalese hike was incredible. It was a full 12 days of hiking, getting up and doing 6 to 11 hours a day of hiking from tea shop well, tea hut to tea hut they call them tea house hikes and it was incredible. It was grueling, it was exhausting, but I'm glad that I did it and I don't think I'll ever do it again, or if I do, I'll take a lot longer to do it. I won't be like I won't be hurrying up and going with a group and trying to get it done so quickly. I think it would be much, much more enjoyable had I taken, had I taken maybe an additional week to do it, so like three weeks instead of two.
Speaker 1:But this episode is about the Taiwan leg of the trip. No-transcript, it was just everything, and a part of what I wanted to talk about is that culture is not an excuse for abuse. Culture is not an excuse to traumatize your children. I don't give a shit what the culture is. I had my own culture that I grew up in and I know people talk about white people not having culture, but that's bullshit we do. We're not as good at articulating it, but at least in the Midwest there is a very real culture there and it is. I grew up in the like boys, don't cry. World. I grew up in a you shut up and take it and you repress everything, and that's how you get through life culture, and that's not the way I want to live my life. So it's not the way I'm going to live my life and being me now going and spending this time in Taiwan with this person that I was introduced to was really impactful because it was like meeting me at 15 years old. It was the parallels between his mother and my mother at that time, like my mother when I was 15 and his mother now he's 35. I'm 36.
Speaker 1:And we'll call him Will because I want to keep things safe for everybody and keep it anonymous for him. But we'll call him Will. His name and who he is is so much more beautiful, but Will was the first thing that came to mind, so that's an easy one. Anyway, will is my best friend's cousin and Taiwanese and beautiful and gay and, not that long ago, married to a woman who divorced him and took his money. His mother owns a restaurant and he and his siblings work at that restaurant. He actually started his own restaurant, apparently with an ex-boyfriend, and when they broke up, the boyfriend wanted his portion of the startup money back, so he had to sell the place and now he's stuck with the loan that he took out and had to take whatever money that he made from selling it and had to give that back to his ex-boyfriend, which is why you don't mix love and money. You don't start businesses with boyfriends. But hey, that's neither here nor there at this point. It was just information, so you understand that this just happened and he just signed away this restaurant right before I showed up.
Speaker 1:A few other things that happened right before I showed up were we'd been talking for a couple of months when I went down to be with my best friend because she found her spouse dead in the garage. I was spending time with her mother. Her mother flew in from Taiwan and they realized that they had never thought about Will and they got so excited and introduced me to Will and I got really excited. They showed me a picture and I was like oh, actually he's really cute, like really cute, and I got excited. So we talked a little bit. I downloaded Line, which is like WhatsApp for China, and we started messaging each other and then eventually started video chatting with each other, and then that video chatting started happening and having this marvelous time, and we talked about everything. This human is so beautiful, just exquisitely sensitive, and I mean that in all of the best ways Like he is exquisitely sensitive and he's a total romantic and loves Celine Dion, and so we spent many nights that felt like so many nights, but it was really just like the four or five nights that I was there and stayed with him. We spent a couple of those nights staying up singing Celine Dion, like Adele, and just love songs to each other and had this marvelous, marvelous experience.
Speaker 1:But the whole time leading up, we talked every day, we talked every single night, and the only reason I was coming to Taiwan was to meet this person. I was very excited and he told me like yeah, he was going to take time off and he was going to show me all around Taipei and Tainan and just Taiwan in general. Taipei and Tainan are two cities in Taiwan and I got really excited and a week is also a lot of time to take off and I recognize that. So I was like, well, a week is a lot, and he says a week, but I'd be happy with three, four, five days, like that would be great. Um, even just a few days would be, would be really nice. Um, I'm pretty good at showing myself around. I've done a lot of uh enough alone like solo traveling, that I'm good at just hopping on a train and going somewhere and Googling things that I want to see or whatever and showing myself around. So I'm pretty. I'm pretty like self-contained that way.
Speaker 1:But we had all these plans to go on these beautiful romantic dates and he was going to bring me flowers at the. When I, when I landed um at the airport and I was just so excited because like that's, that's stuff that I have done for boyfriends and things in the past and no one has ever done for me and I'm such a romantic it just swelled my heart up ten times its size to have these interactions with Will and I was really pleased he did. He met me at the airport and we took the train over to go pick up my best friend's mom who had just the day before had surgery, had a deep plane facelift, which is like an elective surgery for a facelift, where they cut you pretty good, but they go into the muscles themselves and stitch the muscles rather than just stitching the skin on top. So it's a much more natural looking thing and whatnot, but it's a legit surgery. You're split from about an inch above your ear all the way down in front of your jawbone, essentially.
Speaker 1:So we get there to the place where she's been staying and knock on the door, and the second we knock on the door is the second that she passes out because she hasn't been able to eat anything and because of, obviously, face surgery. So she hasn't been able to eat anything in like two days because of the surgery. So she gets lightheaded and passes out. She's in her mid-70s and hits her head on the floor and that's how this whole trip starts. Um, that my, my whole taiwan leg of the trip starts. Um. So of course, my best friend is furious that she scheduled it for the day before I was arriving, when she knew when I was arriving. She said multiple times that she didn't know when I was arriving, but I bought the tickets months ago and she knew and she confirmed multiple times with me. But it is what it is. I didn't think that much of it because my life's kind of crazy that way anyway, and I had herbs with me, so I put, so I gave her some herbs and just got her some mostly water and got her some herbs to get her on her feet until we could go get her some food. So we did. She hit her head pretty good, but once she got settled she was all right and we got some food for her and she was better after that. But that's how things started.
Speaker 1:And then I get shown around a little bit by Will. We take the train back to his place and it's beautiful. He has done an incredible job. It's a really nice place. It's an expensive-looking place but it's so nice and expensive. The doors inside the apartment it's like a one-bedroom, but the doors inside the apartment don't have handles. They're all slate and you just press them and they push in and then like kick out. It's super. Even the bathroom door it's super fancy, but it was really beautiful in there. He designed it all and like laid it all out and he hadn't been in there very long because he was just in a. He was just in a different apartment, like less than a month ago, but because he had to sell his restaurant, he had to move to a new apartment.
Speaker 1:So he moved to a new, cheaper apartment, um, and that's where I spent the afternoon and evening with him until we went out for a hot pot and that was amazing, a fantastic hot pot, um and I I I ate so much, I was so full, but had a really good night and I met the family then. Some of the family I met because they also were getting like elective surgeries with his ipo, his aunt, my best friend's mother. So we spent that first night together just talking and my best friend's mother also was like, oh, what kind of herbs do you think that? Um, they should be on and all this stuff, because they know I'd studied chinese medicine and um, and I was like, well, look, I don't know, um, let me, uh, let's just like have some food.
Speaker 1:But he talks to me about it and I ask him, like, about his med list and stuff, and we go over it and there was a lot of things that went crazy in this. So this is why I changed his name. It's because he was on an anti-anxiety and an SSRI, a two-in-one pill and a anti-insomnia med that he'd been on since he was 18. And the SSRI and the anti-anxiety were a couple of years old. But he's 35, I'm 36, and he's been on this anti-insomnia med since he was 18. And he says it doesn't work. He just stays awake. So that's all I know at this point. And then he shows me one other pill and it's an antipsychotic and I was like how long have you been on this one? And what?
Speaker 1:The day after he has to sign the paperwork to sell the restaurant that he put his heart and soul into, was like the first thing that he'd ever done for himself. The first like big step out of the family, step out from under my mother, follow my own dreams thing. And it's, by the way, directly across the street, like, not even not even like catty-cornered, but it is directly across the street from his mother's restaurant. So he has to look at it every single day and it's a failure in so many ways for him, according in his own words. But he signed the paperwork to sell the restaurant and then the very next day was his father's two-year death anniversary and then the next day was his father's birthday and then I showed up like three or four days after that. So just lots and lots of feels, lots of big emotions, lots of turbulent times, and now he's having to work for his mother again and he's really not happy about that. He has to work really, really hard and it's tough for him with everything that's going on and he's really not happy about that. He has to work really, really hard and it's tough for him with everything that's going on.
Speaker 1:And the story about the med is that he called his mother drunk one night because he's been drinking himself to sleep every night since his Vietnamese ex-wife left and took what money he had. So he only has big feelings when he drinks because that's what SSRIs, anti-and anti-anxiety meds do they make your feelings less feely. So he only really ever expresses his emotions when he gets kind of drunk, which he drinks two or three or four big cans of Heineken, usually a night, and gets a little tipsy before bed and then takes those all of his meds which are all contraindicated with alcohol because the effects of them are magnified with alcohol, especially the anti-insomnia, with alcohol, especially the anti-insomnia. You're really not supposed to be drinking when you're on anti-anxiety or SSRIs or anti-insomnia or antipsychotics. Yet he's drinking every night with these and he takes them all at night with alcohol. Nobody told him to maybe take the SSRI and the anti-anxiety in the morning and like the anti-insomnia at night. But anyway he calls his mom because he's sad about dad being dead and he's sad about, like, the failed business and he's upset and he feels like he just wants a break and needs, like, needs life to give him a break, to which his mother's response is to call the doctor and make an appointment for him. And this is Taiwan, it's basically China. So she makes it to where he gets put on antipsychotics for his sleep because she says he just needs to calm down and he is a good Taiwanese boy who does exactly what his mother says. A good Taiwanese boy who does exactly what his mother says. So this is where we get into.
Speaker 1:Culture is not a reason for abuse. It is not an excuse for abuse and I believe that that is, if not abusive. It is someone stepping far out of their pay grade to make decisions for their child that they are not qualified to make. And this is on the tale of at dinner we were talking at the hot pot place. We were talking and they were going and they were loudly talking about him and his meds and how sad he is and how much help he needs and all of that like and not caring that other people are in the in the restaurant and, um, I, I am talking to her about, about some of the stuff and I'm like, oh well, if you're on this, it's like these only work for so long and that sort of thing, and uh, and she gets really mad because I eventually say like, I understand that you're concerned about that, but you don't know these things, you don't have the qualifications to make these statements or to prescribe for your child. You just don't. You just don't. That's what the doctor's for. So let the doctor do the job and like.
Speaker 1:But that obviously didn't go over very well, but they were kind enough to not flip out and I said it as peacefully as I could and through a translator, through Ebony's mother, because she was the one translating, because his mother doesn't speak a word of English. He speaks some English and Ebony's mother is the best English speaker of the group and she is. She's good, she's a good English speaker, but the way that she translates things and the way that she interprets things isn't it's not perfect. So there's a lot of miscommunication there. And then there's also the problem of trying to keep the peace and whatnot, the actual translations of things, what's actually being said and what's actually being heard. I still have no idea how accurate any of this was.
Speaker 1:But my first real bump in the road was that night at the hot pot thing and her just in her having this finality to everything that she said and her being the final word on what's real in his life and what he suffers with and how to solve it. He didn't get to speak a word, hardly the entire he didn't. He just kind of sat there and picking at his food that he barely ate because he also has been so pent up so tight for so long that he told me he hadn't been able to have a bowel movement without an enema in years. He's 35 and he hasn't been able to have a bowel movement without an enema for years. That's part of why he's so skinny and doesn't eat much, can't eat much, feels really sick when he does. So all of that's just to say his health is not good and it's been not good. And it started with his mental health when he was young and then got put on meds that supposedly helped him sleep and then that wasn't enough and he kept being like, well, these things aren't working, I need help sleeping. Except, I spent a few days with him and I saw that they work really well. He passes out really quickly. So that's the first night.
Speaker 1:The next day he goes to work. I ride with him, we take the moped, we take a little scooter they call them motorcycles and we go to the work and I see everybody. They offer me a bunch of food. I eat some food, even though I really don't want to because it's earlier than I normally eat. But that's how they show love, that's what they can offer. So sure, yeah, feed me. So sure, yeah, feed me. They feed me great food, like really good food. I was really happy with it. It was wonderful. It was too much for me to eat.
Speaker 1:They're all like talking shit because I didn't eat enough and like, oh, you don't eat. And I'm like, well, sorry, this is what it is, I'm not going to make myself sick, so, to fit your culture, it's not going to happen. I will eat. Even and I did I ate more than I wanted to because I wanted to honor their offer and the culture and all of that. But I'm not going to make myself physically ill. That's just not going to happen. So and I feel like that's a really good boundary to have. That's a really good, healthy thing for me to do, especially for me coming from a culture that is identical in that way of we don't even like like, say I love you or I'm proud of you all that much and my mother's side does, especially now. But on my father's side that was not really a thing and it was like food is just food is love, and so I get it. But I wasn't going to make myself ill. So we have that day.
Speaker 1:He works the whole day. I walk around a little bit in Tainan, I go to Starbucks and they get a little coffee because they don't have any other kind of coffee there. Everyone there loves Starbucks and it's different One. Their oat milk isn't nearly as sweet, thank goodness. Different Like they're one. Their oat milk isn't nearly as sweet, thank goodness. They have a bunch of cool, neat Taiwanese style desserts and snacks and stuff. So obviously the menu is a little bit different, but the coffee is all the same. It's all Costa Rican beans.
Speaker 1:But it was air conditioned and it was 90, so it was like in the low to mid 90s and 90 percent humidity the entire time I was in Taiwan. So it was very hot and very uncomfortable. But I walked around, checked stuff out and then went back and rode with him back to the apartment and talked about like going out and doing all this stuff. And after a couple of days I'm like all right, well, he's not getting any time off and he's supposed to have gotten time off and like I can show myself around, but I came here to spend time with him, you know. And so one day when he comes home and he comes home at lunch actually and I've had a I've had a hard day because I was really thinking about it, that he has and his desire to just appease everybody and make everything okay for everybody, and seeing how parallel he is with who I was, who I am at a very core level, and it broke my heart and I was really sad that I wasn't getting any real time with him, that he had to work from 10 am until 10 pm every day. Luckily, he got lunch that day and he came back to the apartment and I hadn't left at all because I was sad.
Speaker 1:I was just really sad because of everything that he had shared with me about his mother and about the meds and about being forced onto the antipsychotics and about the meds and about like being forced onto the antipsychotics and about how he can't talk to anybody in his family about how he feels because they're just going to put him on more medications and he feels like the medications are killing him and he feels like if he doesn't get a break he's going to actually die. And because of what I saw in him and in his health and the enemas and like his teeth rotting out and all at 35 years old I was like I mean these are, these are real possibilities. And I, man, I, when I tell you I fell for him, I fell for him so hard, I fell so hard for this guy and I catch feelings fast. I know that I love that. It's a part, it's a part of me that I absolutely love.
Speaker 1:And I feel like my travels are never complete until I have fallen in love with someone and I'm used to that. It's a thing I search for. When I'm out, I look for someone to fall in love with because I love that feeling. I love making those connections and being open and vulnerable in that way. It brings so much richness to my life. But it's always like I catch feelings, I fall in love and it always and it stays where it's supposed to stay, as in like I don't know this person I'd like living together would obviously be very different. Not trying to build a future, I'm just, I'm trying to be in love with like something about them and it stays superficial, like I mean it's still a deep like feeling of connection and all of that, but it stays. It stays, I guess, not superficial but realistic.
Speaker 1:Like these, these love affairs that I have. They're incredible and they're fulfilling and they're so good for me. But I'm realistic about them and this one hits so deep, it hits so hard, harder than I've like maybe ever outside of, like this one ex Darius of mine that I was just madly, madly, madly in love with but he cheated on me a whole bunch, all unprotected and then left to go like find himself and all these other things. But he was like my real, like one crazy love. And this hit almost like that no-transcript, we were saying I love you to each other by the last couple of days and I spent like five days with him or something, and it wasn't even the whole day. Like I said, it was just the 15 minutes to 20 minutes that he was awake because he'd get a phone call to say, hey, you need to come into work now and he would get up, wash his face and immediately go out to go to work and he would come home at 10 o'clock at night 10, 1030. And that was his life every single day and I flew around the world to come spend time with this guy.
Speaker 1:So by the time that I'm realizing I'm not going to actually get any time with him, I'm asking like, hey, can you ask for like maybe Tuesday off so we can have a day together? I fly out Wednesday. The restaurant's closed on Wednesday, so maybe you can come up on Tuesday, you'll get a day, you'll get a day to like we can run around and I can take you on on a romantic date. We can go out to like a beautiful place and I was like I'm going to get him his favorite flowers and find a place with a live, with a live band, to like play love songs. Like it was.
Speaker 1:It was seriously that deep, like it sounds so cheesetastic, but like when I think I still when I think about the evening that I would love to have with him. It is such a fucking made-for-TV movie, it is such a cheesy classic like white linen tablecloth with red wine and a string quartet circling around him behind him playing a love song to him, you know, playing a Celine Dion song, because we sang a Celine Dion and we both love her, but like that's what I imagined doing with him, because that was what we talked about doing, and I was so excited because I'm a romantic but I don't really get to. I'm also kind of a tough ass, so I don't really get the romance stuff done toward me and I don't get to do it with, like Michael, because he doesn't even want to go out to a restaurant. I don't get to like imbibe in my romance drug and this was a beautiful opportunity to do that with someone who deeply appreciates those things. And I was so excited.
Speaker 1:And when I'm realizing that I'm not going to get that chance, it really kind of breaks my heart. And then I want to get mad because I flew all the way around the world to come spend time with this person and I'm not getting to. And I understand and I have so much compassion for him that I'm I'm mad and I'm kind of mad at mom because mom won't give him the time off. And that's what he said is that he's like she's not going to give him, she's not going to give him the time off. So I was like all right. Well, he asks for some kind of solution and I said, well, I think the solution is if it's only the family that works there and she needs you. You made a promise to me that we would have time together, that you would show me around, and I understand a week is like an obscene amount of time to just take off work for the normal person. So I get that, but at least a day like I came all the way around the world. So at least a day.
Speaker 1:So, instead of just asking for Tuesday off, why don't you just say, hey, you know, he flew around the world to come spend time with me. I really want to have a day with him, so I'm going to take Tuesday off. That's and it is what it is Like. I need to do this for me. I made a promise and I'm going to keep my promise and I'm going to take Tuesday off. I'll make it up to you somehow or whatever, but make that decision to take the day off, like if you have that power, and you do do that. But make that decision to take the day off Like if you have that power, and you do do that. If asking her didn't work, then just say I'm taking the day off. And we talked about it and I told him that because I'd spent the entire day crying in his apartment. I was like, tomorrow I want to know by like the end of your lunchtime, because the restaurant breaks down from two to four so they can do a changeover, clean everything and get ready for the dinnertime, rush stuff. And I said, let me know by the end of lunch whether or not you're going to take Tuesday off. You don't need to ask for it, you don't need to tell her, but let me know whether you're going to.
Speaker 1:And we had had so many deep, deep, deep conversations. I cried so many times. He cried so many times. There was one time where I was just looking at him and he was sad and he was talking about his dad and stuff. But and I would say I'm sorry, and every time I would say I'm sorry or that sucks, he would go, no, it's fine, I'll be strong. I'll be strong like you and I'd like I'll be better next time. And I'm like, yeah, all of that's great, all of that's true, but it's clear that you're not accessing your own sadness here. It's so clear to me. I see it when I look into his eyes, I could see this cyst of sadness that this brittle smile was covering up.
Speaker 1:And he would look at me and he would smile and he'd be like, see, I'm smiling. And he would say that see, I'm smiling. And I would just look at him, I would just continue to stare and he got really uncomfortable and he was like what, what's wrong? I'm like I'm fine, see, I'm smiling. And I was like no, you're not, you're not fine, and that smile is fake. And I don't want you to fake your smiles, ever, not with me. Please don't fake your smiles with me. Me, please don't fake your smiles with me.
Speaker 1:I want to know when you're actually happy and I want to know when you're sad. I want to know when you're scared. I want to know when you're heartbroken. I want to know your truth, your inner reality. I want that's what love is. I want to be privy to your inner world and I want to help you as best I can manage it and make it as fulfilling as possible.
Speaker 1:And as I looked at him, he was like he was like no, it's fine and whatnot. And I was like I mean, and I see this sadness and eventually I don't remember how the conversation went but I eventually I said I'm just gonna. He was like you're gonna make me cry and I was like, well, I'm just to stare at you until you cry because I think you need to. And I just looked in his eyes and he kept that brittle smile. And the longer I stared into his eyes, that brittle smile that like paper mache, it was like frozen paper mache. It just piece by piece from the corners of his mouths and the corners of his eyes it just crumpled and disappeared. And then he sobbed and I held him for like an hour and crying.
Speaker 1:That many opened up about his dad and about his failure and about all the things he feels. And to have to have him be that open and that honest with me and to do it through the ssri and the anti-anxiety, to have that overwhelming feeling of those emotions so strongly that they actually come out through those meds, just really showed how much he needed someone to be there to hold him and just tell him it's all gonna be okay and to let him sit in that sadness and sit in that grief, the grief of the loss of his dad and the loss of his restaurant and his relationship and his health. He just really needed somebody to do that, and I was so honored to be that person and so honored by the way that he saw me, so honored by the way that he saw me, who he saw me as. He saw me as some strong dream of a person, and that's part of what was so intoxicating about the relationship and the love, and I think that's.
Speaker 1:I think that's why a lot of people wind up, because toxic relationships are held by toxic people, and toxic people are people who have been hurt a lot, and people who have been hurt a lot really do want to see the best in other people, and when we fall in love, we see the absolute best in other people, and they may see the worst in us and they may bring out the worst in us. But then, when things are better and it's been a while since we've been hit or stabbed or been made to feel like absolute crap they remind us of how they see us, and that's what's, that's the magnet that keeps attracting us back is the way that they see us and the way that he saw me. I loved and I wanted to be what he saw me as for him, and I also recognize that I am. I am who he sees me as. It wasn't just a like. This is the only person who's ever seen me as this, and I mean 10 years ago he would have been, and well, he would have been seeing me as someone that I was not, so it wasn't intoxicating enough to throw off my brain entirely.
Speaker 1:But now, at this point, I have, oh my God, such incredible feelings for this person, such deep, profound feelings in such a short amount of time with this guy, and I have such empathy for him and his situation, because it reminds me of my childhood and I remembered what it felt like to be so stuck and so helpless. And so it's like this is my, this is my life and there's nothing I can do to change it. Um, at least for me, I couldn't change it until I graduated. But then, after 18, I knew I could get out and I could get away and I could go do whatever I wanted. And that was kind of the expectation, which is one of the fundamental differences between he and I is. The expectation was that when you were 18, you're on your own, you pay your own way, you do your own life, you get your own bills, you get your own house. You figure it the fuck out, but you get out and in his family she had the mom had a had a restaurant and she has been working the restaurant for all these years and she's in a lot of pain and can't do what she used to do and so basically she can't do much of the work at all anymore and she needs her kids to do it.
Speaker 1:And that was one of my sticking points of like if you can't do the work to run your restaurant, then you shouldn't have a restaurant. You do not get the right to make your kids work there and work ridiculous hours and like barely get by so you can maintain this restaurant, so you don't have to work, you don't have to do stuff for yourself anymore. I don't think that's fair, I don't think that's good. So at this point I have all this, all this empathy for him, but I also recognize that he's 35 years old.
Speaker 1:However afraid of his mother he is, or however afraid of her anger or the feeling of abandoning her or whatever, however afraid he is, it's still his job to make decisions for his life and he's not doing that. So he asks what I think he should do and I tell him you should just take Tuesday off. Just take it off. But I want to know tomorrow by lunch whether or not you're going to do that. You don't have to do it and I will love you either way, and I think he knew that I genuinely would. I would love him either way, whether he took the day off or not. That I understand. That that's different there. It's a different culture. He feels like he owes these things to his mother and cool, that's you when in Rome, whatever.
Speaker 1:But I did make it clear at one point we talked mostly in English, but there was a couple of nights, the last couple of nights, that we did a lot of our conversation on Google Translate, just because we were getting really deep and I wanted to make sure that exactly what I was saying is exactly what was being heard. And he said, maybe it's culture. And I said maybe it is, but that's not a reason for for abuse. It's not an excuse for abuse. So, um, that night he hadn't eaten and he goes to take his. He took his meds. We were laying in bed, we had a great night singing celine dion and adele and he showed me some uh, some taiwanese singers and some Chinese singers that he really loved and he loves the same type of music that I do. He loves the drama and the beauty and I like drama with an edge and he likes drama with pedals Like I don't know what else to describe it as he loves the beauty and the love songs and all of that. I love the love songs, but I also love the heartbreak songs and I love the strength after the heartbreak songs. That's more my thing and he just wants the love songs.
Speaker 1:And, um, that night I it looked like what I saw in his hand was too too many pills. Um, cause he was taking three and it looked like there were five in his hand and I didn't see him take them all. I didn't see him taking them at all. But when I did see his hand because he was taking them like right in front of me because we're just in bed together I saw a couple of extra pills and I was like, hmm, didn't think much of it, maybe it was just counting, I don't know.
Speaker 1:But then he was like, oh, I didn't eat, he'd already taken his sleeping pills. He's like I didn't eat, I have to eat or I'm going to not feel good tomorrow. I was like, okay, he asked me if I wanted anything, because he's super sweet that way and he was going to make me dumplings and I was like no, I'm good, it's 2 am, I'm just going to go to sleep. And he's like okay. So he goes to make himself food, I lay there and I pass out. I wake up at like almost 6 am or something and he's not in bed. So I go to the living room and he is passed out on the living room floor with half eaten dumplings, like arm over his head and just like out. So I wake him up and he's got this crazed look in his eyes like there's something neurologically wrong, like big problems, because he took those pills. He drank a bunch with the pills and it maybe took too too many, I'm unsure. But either way he was in bad shape. So I took him to bed and woke up in the morning and he was still very like very groggy in the morning and again washed his face and out the door in 15 minutes.
Speaker 1:And this is the day that I I knew I put him between a rock and a hard place because I told him like I need to know whether you're going to take tuesday off, because he's already told me that his mother said no and I'm like, well, that's pretty shitty, because she knew I was coming, they all knew I was coming and like that's shitty, that shitty that she's like you were. Because he made it seem like he already got approved for the time off from his mom and that he would get some days. And then she just changed her mind. So I was kind of pissed about that no-transcript. So I get my emotional armor ready and I put everything in its appropriate place with my little meditations and go okay, this is what I'm feeling and this is why I'm feeling it and this is like, and putting everything there and being like this is what's most likely and pre pre coping, using my CBT skills and all of that.
Speaker 1:And I go to the restaurant to like get some food and cause they have great food and uh, see if he has talked to her or whatever. And he's not there when I get to the restaurant. Because he was in such bad shape that he passed out at the restaurant and had to sit down and then fell asleep sitting down at the table and then went over to his sister's to take a nap. But I didn't hear anything from him this day and he normally texts me like multiple times throughout the day when he's not working, before work, on each break that sort of thing. He checks in and he'd been very like checking in regularly. So I was a little bit worried but I'm like, hey, he's working, whatever.
Speaker 1:Then I got really worried because I pulled him off of the floor and he had like crazy neurology eyes, that in the middle of the night that night. So I got worried and I knew I'd put him between a rock and a hard place, saying that I need to. I need to know, because I can't wait for somebody else to like live my life. I came here to visit you and if you're going to take the time to visit with me, then like I'll stay and like hang out and we can go up to, we can go up to Taipei together and if not, I'll go up by myself and I'll I understand and I'll love you and like whatever, I'll be sad but I'll get it and um, so he comes back and works the afternoon and it, since his mother already said no, I had been thinking to myself. This very much felt like the if you could give advice to your 16-year-old self, what would it be? And I've never been able to come up with a good answer for that, because 16-year-old me wasn't going to listen to anybody's advice. But what might have helped, I realized because I did it here. But what might have helped I realized because I did it here.
Speaker 1:I offered 10,000 Taiwanese dollars to his mother, which is an entire month's worth of rent in downtown Tainan for a one-bedroom apartment in downtown proper. So it's like not that much in US dollars, but it's an entire month or two weeks of minimum wage, basically, or 50. It was 50. No, it wasn't two weeks, it was 57 hours. I would have been 57 hours of minimum wage or an entire month worth of rent in downtown Tainan, which is where they were and where the restaurant is.
Speaker 1:So I offer this and thinking, hoping that that would give her the money to be able to pay someone, because that was his reasoning for why she said he wouldn't get the time off. It's because she needed to have somebody come in and work and I was like I can do that, I can cover that, I can cover that and then some, because it's also like the whole thing, like his sister also just had surgery and so like the only person there who's like working is her sister's husband, because mom doesn't do that much at the restaurant and she runs to go get items that they're out of, but that's kind of it. She's like the gopher girl. So the only person working is his sister's husband and because he needs time off, I came to visit him. She just had surgery a few days ago. Like literally two days after her surgery she's working with all these like face scars and stuff like still wrapped in bandages and working making people's food.
Speaker 1:So I'm like let me offer enough that they could literally just shut down the restaurant for a day. They could all have a day of vacation. I think that would be wonderful and it would be enough that they could choose. Like it would at least be enough to cover their expenses for the day. They don't make any money. I calculate. The first math I did was actually to calculate how many bowls of noodles they would have to sell, because they're like a noodle lunch place. So I looked at how many bowls they'd have to sell. It was like 500 or 600 bowls and I'm like I'm pretty sure they're not going to do more than that in a single day. Just from me spending that one day there, I was like they did a couple hundred bowls. So I was like that should be enough and I was like that's really cool and I put it together later that I mattered to them. That would have been better than any piece of advice Hands down, better than any piece of advice I ever could have given.
Speaker 1:So I offered it, knowing that it could have gone wrong, and it did, because I knew at this point I was making her choose between money and power. And Chinese people, especially Chinese mothers, do not like choosing between money and power. They want all the power and all of the money. They want money because it gives them a sense of power. But ultimately it seemed like things were going to go well because when I first presented the idea, obviously, like I said, I'm having to send all of this through my best friend's mother because Will is working and it's working now in the afternoon, after having like a five-hour or four-hour nap or something, so he could like get, get his head straight and not doing well like physically, mentally, anything, um.
Speaker 1:And then I felt bad because I felt like I put in between a rock and a hard place, but also that's what a boundary is like, that it sucked that I had to do that. But I needed to make plans for what am I going to do? Because Tainan is not a place to like wander around and go see stuff. It's just Taiwanese locals eating local Taiwanese food and like that's cool. I did that, but I already wandered around and did that stuff and I wasn't looking to like go shopping for things so not a lot for me to do and I needed to make choices for things. So not a lot for me to do. And I needed to make choices for myself.
Speaker 1:So I put him between a rock and a hard place and I send that message off of the money and it seems like my friend's mother is like, yeah, I think that'd be great. Then she can like pay for somebody to come and do that. And then she was like oh yeah, she says yeah, you can have Tuesday off and do that. And then she was like oh yeah, she says yeah, you can have Tuesday off. And I was like, no, not Tuesday, monday and Tuesday. I asked for Monday and Tuesday for 10,000 Taiwanese dollars, not just Tuesday. And she was like, oh well, the money's not for her, the money's to pay for somebody else to come in.
Speaker 1:And this is when I got pissed. This is when I got really pissed and I actually sent exactly what 10,000 Taiwanese dollars can get you. I said this is one month's rent. This is 57 hours of paid minimum wage in Taiwan. This is more than enough money to pay for somebody to come in and work. So do not play with me, I am not stupid. All of this is easily Google-able information. Do not play. And I said those exact words it's easily Google-able information. Do not play with me, I'm not stupid. $10,000 for two days was the offer, and it remains the offer. Because I was like, after all of this, they are like oh yeah, I'll give them the day off and I'm like no, not for the amount of money that I offered. This was the offer. So I got pissed and I sent that stuff.
Speaker 1:And that's when everything went to hell in a handbasket. The family was furious and didn't want me around. They were absolutely infuriated, super upset with me, super upset with Will. It was a bad situation and everyone was angry and Will was at work and didn't have any idea why, had no idea why everyone was so upset. And so then eventually they tell him why, and when he comes home that night, I've already bought my tickets to go to Taipei, which is a capital city away from Tainan. I've already bought my ticket to get up to the—or no, I'd already bought my hotel. It doesn't matter, I'd already bought my hotel. It doesn't matter, I'd already bought my hotel room in Taipei.
Speaker 1:So I had to go up the next day and he said that everybody was mad but they talked about it and he's going to get Tuesday off and she doesn't need any money, but he's going to have Tuesday off. He has to come back Tuesday night but he's going to come up Tuesday morning. We looked at the train times. He's going to take the eight-something train to get there by like 11 or whatever and then take it back down that night to take the last high-speed rail train back down to Tainan, even though the restaurant was going to be closed on Wednesday. She wanted him back down Tuesday night. Couldn't, even though the restaurant was going to be closed on Wednesday, she wanted him back down Tuesday night. Couldn't even come up Monday night since he got Tuesday off and couldn't stay Tuesday night, even though Wednesday there the restaurant is shut down. He had to be back Tuesday night so he could be there first thing in the morning on the day off to prep food and chop onions and that sort of that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:So I was like, oh my God, here, like this is quintessential the same control freak tactics that my mother used to do when I was a kid and it was infuriating. But I got what I wanted. I got a day with him and it didn't cost me 10,000 Taiwanese dollars. So I think wonderful, we're all excited, we're making plans for Taipei. And I catch a train the next day. He says I love you, can't wait to see you.
Speaker 1:I give him a kiss goodbye and then I take the train up and after Ebony's mother takes me around, we go out to eat and she apologizes about how everything went crazy the day before and I I'm like no, it's, I, it's, it is what it is. And then turns out she tells me now that that Will never actually asked for the time off him off and that he seems to have this habit of telling people what they want to hear instead of what the truth is. And so when I offered her a bunch of money for him to get the days off, that was the first that she'd heard about it and that was part of the confusion and part of the frustration. And, again, I don't know who is telling the truth here. I have no idea. Still to this day, I don't know who is telling the truth.
Speaker 1:All I know is everything I got was secondhand and everything I communicated was secondhand, until I eventually just started using Google Translate and saying everything that I wanted to say in Google Translate and then sending it in Chinese just to make sure there was no more confusion. Because I was like, nope, you're going to hear exactly what I have to say and I need to understand what you're going to say. So send it all in Chinese and I will use Google Translate and I will send you everything in Chinese. So that's when things get really confusing. And I realize what happened with his mom and I'm like, yeah, I can see how she would get really upset if he didn't ask mom. And I'm like, yeah, I can see how she would get really upset if he didn't ask.
Speaker 1:And that tracked, that made sense for the person that I got to know and fell in love with over this week. It tracked, it made perfect sense that that is the type of person that he is, because it's the type of person that I was, which then made me thankful for my bullies, like my physical bullies, that I had to actually physically fight in order to learn to stand up for myself. Because if it hadn't been for those bullies, I wouldn't have developed the inner strength to stand up to my own mother and to cut my mother out of my life entirely and my father as well, like I, wouldn't have had the strength to do that. I would have been in this and thank God I wasn't medicated, because had I been medicated, the way that he was medicated, the pain of how miserable my life was would have been squashed just enough for it to be tolerable. And then I would have tolerated it and tolerated it and tolerated it until it became my normal and I would still be in Indiana, still living a miserable existence, stuck on my anti-anxiety and my SSRIs, my SSRIs. So I became really thankful for the hard path of my life and, as my friend Ebony said to me because I was talking to her on a couple of these days, that I wound up just crying a whole bunch and telling her how, like, how strong my feelings are for him and how, like, like, how much empathy I have and stuff. And she was, she was mad at everybody except me. She was mad at everybody and the way that they treated me and how they just didn't seem to give a shit.
Speaker 1:And so Ebony's mother and I we go out to eat. She takes me to a couple of places, takes me shopping on this little, on this little neat street, and we get a few things. We have a good time. Um, I even video chat with his mother for a second and she says I love you and like, and it's like, everything's fine and whatever. She doesn't say everything's fine because she doesn't speak that much english, but she doesn't speak enough english to say I love you. Um, because she, she says, according through ebony's mother, she's like I know my son, I know that's this, this is. That's probably exactly what he did. He didn't even ask for the time off because he was afraid to ask for the time off and he tried to do something nice and so things like got patched over with the family and then the that was like Sunday or whatever. I come up and then Monday is the day before he is supposed to arrive and he doesn't answer any of my text messages or any of my phone calls. And we've been together every single day and leading up to this, we've been on the phone every single night between like 10 and 12 video chatting and he doesn't answer any of my video chat messages.
Speaker 1:And I meet this guy who also is from the US, had been living in Taiwan for seven years and completely separately. I hadn't told him anything about this situation with Will or his family or Tainan or anything, and he just goes on a random short little tirade about these grown 35, 40-year-old men who were still under their mother's thumbs and can't make any decisions for themselves. And I was just I died, I cracked up and I was like, boy, I got a story for you. So we chatted and had a great time. He was a really awesome guy and I told him all about the story and he was like, yeah, he's not coming up tomorrow. And I was a little heartbroken and I was like I think you're right, I don't think he's coming up tomorrow either, but I'm still going to keep my hopes up a little bit.
Speaker 1:And the next morning I called I mean at the time he was supposed to be like heading to the train station nothing. I call again and again and again. I called like seven or 10 times or something, probably seven times that day and he just never called until like one or two in the afternoon. I get one text message. It's a fairly long text message saying that he didn't take his. It seemed like he didn't take his pills Again, broken English, so not all of it was that clear Seemed like he didn't take his pills or something went weird with his pills and he didn't sleep very good. And so he's going to the doctor today rather than coming up and spending the day with me. And at this point I'm furious. I'm not, maybe furious is the wrong word, but I am hurt and I'm angry, and it's because I've been lied to.
Speaker 1:I flew around the world to go spend time with this guy and we had such an incredible connection and his cowardice as far as I am concerned, his cowardice prevented us from having a single day together, and had he told me that he wasn't coming up, it would have been fine. But he told me that he was. He told me and I asked on Sunday night. I was like but you're coming up Tuesday, right? And he was like yeah, of course I'll be there, I can't wait. And then nothing Totally ghosted me on Monday, and so I told him I knew that you weren't coming when you stopped answering my calls yesterday.
Speaker 1:I knew that you weren't coming and I told you that I would love you and I would love to see you in other places not Taiwan because of the family and all that drama, but like maybe we can meet in Japan, or we can meet in Vietnam, or we can meet in some of the one of the other places in the world and we can have an incredible time. And that was what we've been talking about for a couple of days. And he was like I'm sorry, this might be cruel, but I didn't sleep well. I'm going to go to the doctor today and hope that we can still be friends and meet somewhere else. And I just said absolutely not. Nope, that's going to be a hell fucking no from me, because not only did I give you the option where I said hey, I understand if this is not the way that things work out and you don't want to ask for whatever reason. I will love you and I will understand, but what I will not understand, what I will not allow in my life, is to be lied to about this.
Speaker 1:I came all the way around the world to spend this week with you and I didn't get a single effing day, not one day, not one. And you told me that you were going to come up and then you ghosted me for an entire day and then you ghosted me all morning. And if you had just told me hey, I feel really bad, I just can't bring myself to do it, I can't bring myself to ask my mom for the day off, just can't bring myself to do it. I can't bring myself to ask my mom for the day off. I can't bring myself to just take the day off. It's just not the way my culture is. I just I can't do it. I'm really sorry.
Speaker 1:I would have said I understand and I would have just given him a huge hug and cried and been sad and just been very open and vulnerable and honest about my emotional experience and been like but I get it and that's, that's okay and I will love you and maybe I'll see you down the road sometime. But because he essentially ghosted and then at the last minute was like nope, I was like I'm done, I'm absolutely done. I want nothing to do with any of you or your family. I want nothing to do with any of y'all. And I didn't say those exact words.
Speaker 1:I tried to be as kind as I could, but I made it very clear that I will not be lied to. I don't deal with liars and I don't deal with. If you don't have the courage to say your truth, then I can't have you in my life, because I can't waste my time trying to wonder what the truth is. So if this is the way I'm treated on my first visit here, after I'd flown around the world to spend time with you, and this is the way that you handle it, this is the way that you thank me, then no, I don't want to be friends. I have no reason to be friends with you. You add nothing to my life. If this is the way that you're going to treat friends, I have no reason to be friends with you. You add nothing to my life if this is the way that you're going to treat me. And I didn't hear anything after that.
Speaker 1:And a few days later, when I was in Japan and I'd left, I saw his favorite flower, which I had never heard of before. It's a lycianthus. It's a beautiful, like half rose, half peony looking plant and I saw some for the first time, recognizing what it was, and it made me think of him and I'd thought of him a lot because I really really had so many feelings for him. I cried so much over this whole thing and I sent him a message with the picture and was like, hey, I'm just, I saw your flowers. It made me think of you and I am sorry that I reacted as strongly as I did. I felt like we got really, really close and then when it seemed like you lied to me, it really hurt and I'm sorry that I assumed that you lied, really hurt and I'm sorry that I assumed that you lied. I should have given you the opportunity to like say more and I didn't, because I was really hurt and I'm sorry about that and I hope that the connection that we did make will at least warrant a response from you and I really hope that you got stuff figured out with your doctor and I hope that you're feeling better and I miss you Crickets.
Speaker 1:Absolutely nothing for multiple days until I finally I just sent the final I call it my final fuck you. Message yesterday where, yeah, yesterday, where I just said you know, okay, well, I gave you, I gave you the chance to respond and you clearly are not going to respond, so I am just going to wipe my hands with this. I hope that you have a good life and goodbye. And that was my final. Like my, my call it my final fuck you message, my final like I'm done with this. Um, I call it my final fuck you message, my final, like I'm done with this. And I like that I can say fuck you without actually saying fuck you and can say you know what? I hope the best for you, but this is what it is and I don't have room for this in my life. So this is a long one. Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:This was my experience of Taiwan. Oh, lastly, the guy that I met on that Monday. He told me because he tried, when he first moved there, dating some Taiwanese folks and the men are all the same in his estimation and he perfectly described what was happening with me and Will and said that he knew he wasn't coming up and maybe that's just being jaded. But he spent seven years living in the country and he told me that the next day when I'm walking around, I should look around and find an old Taiwanese man and just look. Look at all the old Taiwanese men, look in their eyes and really look, because when you do, you'll see that they're all dead children. And I did. I took a mental note and I walked around the next day, that Tuesday, and as I checked out all kinds of beautiful temples and went to wonderful places and had a really good time and I went to the places even that I was saving to go with Will to, and I went to them and it was all good.
Speaker 1:I was sad and frustrated a few moments here and there, but for the most part I'm good at rallying and like I had to take a day, that one day, to really let my emotions like do its thing and and recalibrate for the next day and that was the day that he didn't go to work because I pulled him off the floor the night before and all of that but I was able to recalibrate, knowing that he was ghosting me the night before, and recalibrate to. I was still really sad and cried a couple of times in the morning and was still really trying to hold out hope until like 10 or 11. And then I finally was like okay, now he's definitely definitely not coming and luckily I had adjusted my expectations at that point and still was able to take myself out and have a good, genuinely a good day, not just like being all sad inside and walking around and having a miserable experience. I don't like doing that. That's a waste of time to me. I'd rather sit alone and have a miserable experience.
Speaker 1:Possessive and controlling, and they run everything, they run it all and they run it with the level of, with this incredible level of repression that I saw in my mother when I was young and luckily she's not as repressed anymore. I've talked about when my brother died and everything that changed with her when that happened and the effort that she put into bringing some amount of value to my life. And unfortunately, when his father died, his mother, according to him, just got more and more and more and more selfish. So when I looked into the eyes of these old Taiwanese men, I saw the prepubescent children that they are mentally in their minds and I saw the acceptance of their death and the misery of their life leading up to that death. Obviously, not everybody had the exact same look in their eyes. There's variation.
Speaker 1:But damn, once he told me to look for it, I could not unsee it. I could not unsee it. It was everywhere, especially in the guys in their 60s and 50s, 60s and especially 60s and beyond. I would say 50s because they look 50, but they look a white 50. So they're probably already 60 or 70. Because Asians they got that black, don't crack, kind of skin, that yellow, don't mellow I don't know Is there a phrase for that, but it was true. There was just such an emptiness in the eyes of the average man. It was absolutely heartbreaking and the whole experience was really heartbreaking. But it really was like getting to look into an alternate universe and see what my life could have been had it taken a different path, had I taken a different path, had my circumstances been just a little bit different because they were so similar.
Speaker 1:But the difference of being medicated or not medicated huge difference. The difference of having physical bullies beat you up that you have to stand up for and a mother who will beat you up for losing a fight, because that definitely happened to me. I lost a fight to a kid down the street and she sent me back down the street to go fight him again. So if it wasn't for that kind of strength that was expected out of me, I very much could be in the exact same situation that he is in and I still miss him. I do? I miss him, I miss the romance, I miss the daydreaming, I miss the kisses. I miss the daydreaming, I miss the kisses, I miss the cuddles and the touches and the attention to me and to my needs. And it was magical, it was really magical, but I feel like I have taken up enough of your time on this.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me in this new season of the podcast. I am excited to be back on the peninsula and to be here for the beautiful summers that we have that I kept being gone for for one reason or another, like a fool, but I'm happy to be back. I'm not happy about the sticker shock and the prices and the gas prices and all of that, um, but I am happy to be back with with my community, with my friends and family, my chosen family out here. I am excited. So more of these to come. Thank you for spending your time with me. I hope that you enjoyed this little story about my adventures in Taiwan and the quintessential Taiwanese trauma. Taiwan and the quintessential Taiwanese trauma. So, if you like the podcast, consider buying me a coffee. Thank you very much for your time and your attention. I really appreciate you. And remember stay curious and stay uncomfortable, we'll be right back. Thank you you.