Kevin Ross Recounts Heart Wrenching Story of Sexual Abuse | Joe Rogan

I hate to. I don't hate to because I want to do this. I want to toss a little hand grenade at you and see what you want to do with it here. But I've been thinking about this a lot lately and wanting to communicate my story and these things that have happened to me. And then this opportunity came up and this opportunity to reach a lot of people and to... There's that quote that says, be the person that you needed when you were younger. And Gina has that on her wall and it stares me in the face every day. And I realize that I now am the person that I needed when I was younger. And if somebody would have opened up their mouth and let me know that I wasn't alone and that I wasn't so isolated and so many horrible things that we all deal with is because we feel isolation. We don't think anyone could understand and we don't think that anyone else is going through these things. And if we did, just that knowledge of not being alone would be so significant. But when I was 14 years old, I was molested by my stepmother. And this went on for well over a year, close to two years. And it was obviously detrimental to me and these are things that I'm just now finally starting to be able to understand and realize what happened to me and realize how young I was at the time. When I meet a 14 year old kid, like, you're a fucking baby. You're a baby. It's like when we think about ourselves when we were younger, like at least myself, I'm like, I still feel the same I did when I was younger. I was just little. You know what I mean? But you don't really understand how little you were until you have like a little 12, 14 year old kid standing next to you. Like, you're not like, you don't even, how could that happen? And like thinking about how, so I studied, I said one in six males are abused by the time they're 18, which means every one of us probably knows somebody that this has happened to. And to think how devastating it is to women, but to our men, it's such a different thing because you're almost, it's almost viewed, well, when it happens from a woman, it's almost viewed as like a good thing. Like it's a positive thing, like, oh, I wish that happened to me when I was a kid. I want to be molested. And we're not able to really understand it and understand the damage that it does. And if I wouldn't have felt so alone and so isolated at the time, I don't necessarily know if things would have changed, but I definitely would have, wouldn't have felt so alone. You know, wouldn't have felt like there's nobody in the world that could possibly understand this. There's nobody that, who can I talk to about this? You know, like I can't talk to my friends. A couple of my friends knew they thought it was the coolest shit ever. You know, they're like, I want that. I want that bad. And I'm like, well, it was your stepmom too, which is, dude, it was, it was so confusing. You know, I was, I was, I was very conflicted by it. You know, like I couldn't understand it at all. And then to have this person like mentally manipulating me and making like, oh, it's not a big deal. It's almost like it's a good thing. You know, like, it's like, there's nothing wrong. You know, it's, it's, you know, I'm not a stranger and this, you know, even prior to that, as I said, I started drinking when I was 12, but this really just derailed me so much and made me internalize and put up these barriers and walls around me and things that I, like I said, I'm only even just at this age, starting to understand like the negative habits that this created in me of distrust and of, of, of, of, of negativity and of, of, of, you know, having to be, having to be alone and not trust people and, you know, and so many things like that, that, you know, like, Gina's probably the only person that I've ever talked to in depth about this. I mean, my couple of people in my family know and almost none of my friends and I've never spoken to this to anybody. You know, I, I, I try to go to a therapist once and talk about this, but I started realizing like this therapist is getting more out of this, our interaction than I am. Like he's, you know, like a overweight person that needs like self-confidence help. I'm like, oh, geez, man, like, like, who can I fucking talk to about this? And, you know, maybe, maybe I can't talk to anybody, but I am in a position to where I can reach out and let other people let know that they're not the only ones going through this. And that has been weighing on me so much lately, especially over the last few years. I'm like, you are in a position to be able, even if you, it only helps one person, like you can, you just don't know how to, like, well, I could write about it or I could do like a video blog or something. And I've been thinking about this a lot lately. Like, how do I, how can I do this? And like, should I do this? I'm like, I don't know if that's like a good thing. It's not like I'm a psychologist or someone that can like help with this. And, but I, I just felt like I need to express this and, and, and, and communicate this. And then maybe it can do some good for even one person. And then if I didn't, that would haunt me forever. I, I had an experience when I was 13 with a girl who lived up the street who was 21 a couple times, but it's very different than your experience. It was, I mean, I'm ashamed to say it. It was kind of fun. You know, it was different. It was, I couldn't believe it. It was very weird. Yeah. But it definitely like kind of screwed up my idea of what boy-girl interaction was. I didn't go from like 13 year olds most of the time, they're like, you want to kiss? Oh, no, do you? I don't know. Yeah. To, you know, this girl grabbing my dick and pulling her tits out. She was a woman, you know, she was 21. And it didn't, it didn't hurt me like your story. Like your story hurts. Like it sounds like you were betrayed and you were, you were, and also the fact that it was your stepmom. I mean, with me, it was like, what the fuck was that all about? And I don't, I didn't tell anybody. Yeah. I didn't tell anybody for like fucking years and years later. I probably didn't tell anyone until I was in my twenties. And I think I probably told a girlfriend when I was in my twenties. Yeah. And she was like, when was the first time you ever fooled around? I was like, well. Because that was really the first time I had ever fooled around with anyone was this 21 year old woman. It was the same thing for me. You know, I didn't even kiss a girl until I was, I don't know, 12, 13, like late, late. Because I was such a shy person. So I went from just kissing to that. I think. There was no in between. I think the same with me. I think, I don't even think I kissed. I think I kissed her. Yeah. I think she was the first person I kissed. Yeah. Yeah. And to just have your innocence ripped away like that and to be thrust into this adult thing. You know, obviously the situation was that much worse. It being, you know, my stepmom and it being molested. And you know, it's such a different thing than a woman or being forcefully raped. Oh, it's way different. Yeah. But psychologically and emotionally, you know, it's devastating. It is obviously. And you were living with her as well? Yeah. You know, that's, the whole thing's terrible. And you said it went on for a year? Longer than a year. It was probably close to two years. How did it stop? I stopped it actually. You know, this was, this was something, you know, I never, obviously, I never felt right about this. I was very conflicted by it, you know, and I was like, this definitely isn't a good thing. But I don't know. Like, I definitely, I didn't understand how bad of a thing it was, you know. And again, she was very manipulative. And, you know, anytime I would kind of bring that subject up, I'd be like, yeah, I don't think this is okay. You know, this is, this feels wrong. And she'd be like, no, no, you know. And find this way to, you know, rationalize it or make it okay. And, you know, but as time went on, like, I just like, this is bad. How old was she? She was probably 30, young 30s. You know, now that was another thing. Like, once I got to that age, and then I saw a 14 year old, I'm like, what the fuck? Like, I didn't even, I couldn't even conceptualize how twisted this person was until I got that age. Like, how could you, how could you look at a baby, a child, and do that? How could you do that? You know, that expression hurt people, hurt people. Yeah. And, you know, and unfortunately, a lot of that, for me, is, helps you, like, rationalize it and make it, like, oh, well, you know, she's fucked up. And, you know, even my father, you know, after he found out, like, he kept this lady around for a while. Really? Yeah. After he found out. Yeah. I mean, they kind of split up and divorced, but they kind of worked together still, and, you know, he kept her around for quite some time. And, you know, that alone was extremely damaging to me. A betrayal. Such a betrayal, and such a traumatic thing that I didn't even really understand how damaging that was after the fact until, really, until recently. You know, because I, myself, would rationalize it. Well, you know, he didn't want to, like, be an asshole and, like, send her off. Like, she was an alcoholic, too. And, you know, you know, he was like, oh, you know, he was just trying to, you know, make this horrible situation, like, okay for all of us. And, you know, I didn't really think about, like, how fucked up he was in the whole situation. And, like, how much more damaging it was in the long run to me by not having my father protect me. Like, if this happened to my child, I would fucking murder a woman that did this, you know. I certainly wouldn't keep her around, you know, and I certainly wouldn't, like, just handle it the way that he did, you know. And that was almost, it magnified the damage that much more so because of the way that it was handled, you know, and to not have that, to not be taken care of by adults, by not being taken care of by my father, by the people around me that were supposed to love me and take care of me. And they did the exact opposite. Like, they fucked my world up, you know. And I put band-aids of alcohol on it my whole life, you know. And I understand, like, why I did that and why it was, I mean, I really was, you know, was trying to kill myself, really. I mean, when you look at it, that's what I was doing. I was just doing a long process of it, you know, and that's what we do. It's like, we don't want to take a gun and kill ourselves, but I don't want to really live, and I want to, like, I want to check out of this place sooner the better. So I'm going to do everything in my power to make it happen, and that way I can't say I killed myself, but I was killing myself every day and putting myself in situations that were extremely dangerous and detrimental and damaging. And that's what I was doing, and, you know, half of my life was just destroyed. And, you know, I'm trying to use this second part of my life to make up for that, make up for the damage that was done, and to try to turn a horrible situation in a negative situation, something that I could easily point to and allow destroy my life, which is what I was doing, and trying to do the opposite, you know, again, with the fight approach. It's like, you have a loss, you have a horrible thing happening, you have an injury. What are you going to do with it? Are you going to let it destroy you and break you and never do this again and be depressed and bitch and complain and whine about it? We're going to say, yeah, shitty things happen to all of us. Fucked up things happen, and we all have the excuse to let it destroy our lives and to use it to make ourselves feel better about drinking and drugs and just being an asshole. And, you know, like we all have reasons to be dicks and we all have reasons to, you know, take it out on other people. But that doesn't mean that you should, and that doesn't mean that you don't still have a choice. It's that victim mentality. And this is something that I just started to understand because, you know, that term victim and telling me, I'm like, yeah, well, I am a fucking victim. But what victim mentality really is, is feeling like you don't have a role to play from that point. Yeah, you might not have been able to control these terrible things that have happened to you, but you do have control over what you do from there. You have control over whether you use that to go into a more positive light or you use that to drastically damage you and, you know, be this burden that you carry. Well, sometimes I think when someone like you goes through something like this and comes out on the other end, what you can do by talking about this can set a path for so many people to understand that, you know, when someone looks at you, you know, they see you fighting on television and they see you on the Internet and, you know, successful Muay Thai fighter. And, you know, you look cool. You have this beautiful girlfriend. Everything seems so positive. You know, when you're a young kid and your life is shit like mine was clearly like yours was you look at these people like they're nothing like you. They're aliens. They're some different thing. They're there. It's the world's opened up to them so easily. And they're better than you. When someone hears you talk about your experience, the alcoholism, the abuse, the isolation, the feeling like a loser and all the things that are so relatable to so many people, when you can talk about this, you can you're you're setting a map that other people can follow. And this is something that's so important in culture and in human beings. We're all part of some strange evolution of the human race. And the things that our grandparents went through were likely unbelievably horrific. The things their grandparents were went through were probably magnitudes worse. And this is just how human beings have gone from being monkeys to being what we are now. And it's happening very rapidly. And one of the things that accelerates this understanding of consequences and of the ability to rise to the occasion and overcome obstacles and to be able to use adversity as a tool to better yourself is someone like you. What you're doing right now is very, very beneficial to so many people. Millions of people are listening to this right now. And so many of them, this is going to resonate with them. They're going to say, oh, this guy who is this fucking bad ass kickboxer, bad ass dude, who's this like, you know, like people admire you. And to hear this is so, it's so powerful. I mean, it's it. I'm so glad you said it. I'm so glad you talked all of it from the beginning. You know, your earlier struggles to this because this is medicine for people, man. There's a lot of people that are hearing this right now and they're going, I can do it too.