TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:
CLIENT: Hi. Sorry I didn't get the message about Monday in time. (pause)
THERAPIST: So…we have the rest of July. I have something opening up at 10:45 on Friday.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: Do you want that time?
CLIENT: Yeah.
THERAPIST: Instead of, in addition to?
CLIENT: I don't know. What do you recommend?
THERAPIST: Let's try in addition to for a few weeks and see how it goes.
CLIENT: Okay. [1:27] (pause) So starting next week or this week?
THERAPIST: I'm out this Friday so starting next week.
CLIENT: Okay. (pause)
THERAPIST: How was your morning?
CLIENT: So I'm wanting to talk about it because my experience has been when I talk about certain kinds of relationship problems the answer is always "The problem is probably polygamy, you should just be monogamous and stop cheating on Dave," which…you know, is an uncomfortable response in a lot of ways.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: But yeah…
THERAPIST: I guess I can say…I am not consciously biased against polygamy, in other words like unfortunately most of us are (inaudible) with things like unconscious sex (inaudible) and stuff like that and I may be but I'm not aware of. [3:09] At least not…I'm not aware of consciously making that not a good thing or not logical or you should be doing something different or…
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: I guess if there's something like that that does come up…
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: I would try to tell you up front. In other words, to be silly, in my (inaudible) "you know, my friends were kind of getting into trying to get ten year olds cigarettes and stuff," and I got into an argument with somebody about it. I want to say upfront "Hey I just don't think that's good."
CLIENT: Right. (chuckles)
THERAPIST: We can talk the same way, I'll try to help you with the problem as best as I can but I guess need to say…if it was something that I felt like, I guess I didn't think was good in a way that I thought was going to interfere I would…
CLIENT: Right. [4:29]
THERAPIST: I would hope I could say so.
CLIENT: If you're aware of it consciously?
THERAPIST: Yes if I'm aware of it. That's right.
CLIENT: Yeah. But anyway I'm having a whole lot of trouble dealing with that at the moment. So there's a party this Sunday that my friend Greta and I are throwing together and I told Ashley about a month ago and he looked at his calendar, like I was sitting right there while he was looking at his calendar and he was like "I have time that weekend," he didn't see why he can't go and put it in his calendar which I took to mean like "yes," I was going to see him on Sunday. Then I saw him this last week on Thursday, you know I mentioned I'm having a hard time with my recipe for the (inaudible) party, trying to make it safe for everyone who's going to be there to eat. Greta has some pretty severe food allergies and so does Ashley and the middle ground doesn't leave a whole lot of room for…and he was like "Oh didn't I tell you I can't make it after all Esther wants to see me that day." I was a little bit taken aback, a little bit upset but I didn't say anything at the time. I wish I had because I thought he had agreed to go with me. I had thought he had said Esther was going to be out of town. [6:06]
THERAPIST: I can see how you go from "she's going to be out of town, I will put it in my calendar," to him mentioning he was going to be… (laughter)
CLIENT: Yeah! I mean…apparently she's having a really, really rough time at work, they have a big project that they're shipping today and she cancelled her plans to travel and just wanted to stay home and chill and spend time with her boyfriend, which I totally understand but…I don't know. My feelings were still hurt.
THERAPIST: Sure.
CLIENT: So later that night I brought up the question of where do we stand in this relationship? I would like to be more open than I do, how do you feel about that? His response was that he doesn't consider this a relationship, we're way too new and he is (inaudible) scheduled as he wants to be and…basically. [7:19]
THERAPIST: Sorry I was caught a little bit, when you said that before, can you say that again?
CLIENT: Hmm?
THERAPIST: I was caught on something you said before; I was distracted from what you just said.
CLIENT: Sure so later that evening, after dinner and after we cleaned the kitchen and all of that I brought up the fact that I would like to see him more often. We've been seeing each other every two and a half to three weeks and I would prefer that to be more frequent. So I brought it up and said "I realize I haven't been the easiest person in the world to schedule with, my June was just really packed. I will manage my schedule and I would like to see you more often, like every week and a half or two weeks instead of every three weeks?" Ashley's response was basically "Whatever it is that's going on between us is…" he doesn't consider it a relationship because it's entirely too new to be a relationship even though we've been seeing each other for three months and he gave me a key to his apartment but it's not a relationship in his mind and he is overwhelmed by how densely scheduled he is and how many things he has committed to and so no he does not want to see me any more frequently. But he does still want to see me unless you know every three weeks kind of basis. [8:50] I don't know, again like…I feel like in this I don't have quite as much right to be angry as I do about him cancelling on me for next weekend to be fair. It's not wrong of him to be…only want to see someone infrequently, right? But I'm still a little bit hurt and disappointed and I don't know what to do about that. (pause) I guess the two obvious answers are bail now because this just…if I'm just going to keep being routinely upset at not getting to see him as often as I want and he's not going to be able to give me what I need in a relationship to be happy then clearly it won't work and better to cut loose now or stick around and enjoy seeing him when I see him and ratchet back my expectations, both of which are really hard to contemplate. [10:23] (pause)
THERAPIST: I imagine that they're hard to contemplate because they're…neither one of them is what you want and you're really hurt and upset that you want something more than he wants and that maybe that part is sort of driving the other part and it's hard to focus on, partly because it's being hurt which is I think dangerous, probably because…
CLIENT: What do you mean dangerous? [11:51] Sorry I didn't quite follow.
THERAPIST: That's okay. You said things about feeling pretty vulnerable, expressing like that kind of hurt and upset. And also that I would imagine that especially so if you're worried or anticipating that…I think probably (inaudible) to begin with, from disapproving of what you want. (pause) [13:00] It makes me wonder if things like that whether…clearly there's a piece of your, trying to get the wording right…anticipating that I'm going to be critical of you being polyamorous (sp?) or critical of wanting to be in polygamous relationships because that's…I'm your therapist and there's a lot of that around in general I would imagine. I'm wondering if there's something else as well which is…I'm intending this to discount those other things but to add to what makes it difficult to talk about is just what you want and I think sometimes that just feels wrong or like it will seem wrong to…other people sometimes.
CLIENT: Like in the generic case that I'm not allowed to want things?
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: Like not necessarily (over talking)…
THERAPIST: To spend time with (inaudible) or… [14:53] (pause) [16:02] [17:09] [18:23]
CLIENT: Mostly I just feel foolish because I really thought that he liked me as much as I like him. (pause) And you know how I feel about feeling foolish. (pause) And of course you know, everything is, there are interactions between various things going on in different areas of my life, compound the issue so I think I mentioned back in February I told Greta how I felt about her and asked if she would be interested in going on a date with me and her response was "Not now, I have to see my kid off to college and finish writing my novel…" Come to find out she's been secretly dating this person, she started dating him in March, didn't tell anyone until a couple weeks ago and now that she's told people publicly it's all she talks about ever, in chat, online, twitter and in person, she can't shut up about him and I am happy for her and I want to be happy for her but I also feel deeply wounded that she just didn't tell me the truth. [20:42] Because I spent all spring thinking there's a chance here, just have to wait until her kid leaves for college and really I should know better to count on that sort of thing and to plan to far in the future but…I would've preferred a clear and direct rather than (inaudible). (pause) So of course me being me I'm not paranoid that maybe people are just afraid to give me a simple and direct no, maybe there's something about the way I present myself that makes people think that like I'll turn angry and violent or something if they tell me no.
THERAPIST: I think I wonder…if you felt like I would not be upfront with you in saying like, about polyamory (sp?), like that…
CLIENT: Not consciously, I mean if I started second guessing everything you say I would really go around the bend, like at some point I just have to, you know, decide to trust your professionalism and that I can take you at your word. [22:27]
THERAPIST: I know what you mean. (pause) [23:31] [24:37] [25:44]
CLIENT: I'm wondering if you have anything to say.
THERAPIST: I don't. (chuckles) (pause) Not really sure what to say yet.
CLIENT: (chuckles) (pause)
THERAPIST: Is there a particular thing you're wondering now?
CLIENT: No. (pause) [27:02] I discovered over the weekend that the person who runs the Paper Collector butchered (ph?) the studio I've been renting print shop time from.
THERAPIST: So that's a little more expensive than (inaudible)?
CLIENT: Yeah and also like the press, I'm not allowed to make a profit off anything I printed off of it whereas Paper Collector doesn't care what I do with the prints I pull but anyway it turns out that her roommate used to date Ashley because this is a tiny, tiny town apparently.
THERAPIST: Apparently.
CLIENT: It's ridiculous how very small and insular the community is. But anyway I just had that thought over the weekend and it was pretty funny. I'm starting to sympathize more with Trish, my ex-girlfriend's need to get the hell out of here. [28:18]
THERAPIST: That was part of why she moved?
CLIENT: Yeah that was the biggest reason why she moved.
THERAPIST: Oh.
CLIENT: Yeah. She couldn't deal with how small a town it is, how everybody has dated everybody essentially. Yeah…And also I think there was an element of a bunch of us went to college together and known each other since we were very young and that when you're 25 or 26 and people are still treating you as if you are the same person you were when you were 18 and fresh out of your parents' house, it's a little trying.
THERAPIST: Mm hm. (pause) [29:24]
CLIENT: A friend of mine was spending the night from out of town this past weekend and she came in Friday afternoon and stayed until Sunday morning and was staying at my place so Beatrice, is enough older than me but we weren't students at the same time but she belonged to the same fraternity I belonged to so I knew her, when I was an undergrad I knew her because she was a volunteer and things like that and then when I moved to Baltimore she was also working in Baltimore so we spent a lot of time hanging out together then but anyway she is now tenure track professor. I don't see her nearly as often because she lives far off (laughter) but yeah we hadn't in talked in close to a year just because we were busy and stuff and whatever but she came in to my place Friday and the first thing she said was "Wow you look so much happier than I've ever seen you before," which I wasn't quite sure how to interpret. Certainly the last two months have felt really stressful for me; there's been…a lot of really terrible things going on.
THERAPIST: Yeah.
CLIENT: But of course Beatrice doesn't know about them because we haven't talked much recently. [31:02] But yeah I guess I'm doing something right. (pause)
THERAPIST: I've been thinking about when you had the two classes and you were trying to work on as well…
CLIENT: Mm hm. (pause) I tried two unpredicted days in a row, I was working from home on Monday, I couldn't focus and then yesterday I had a bunch of things on my plate that I didn't really know how to do so I kind of failed a little bit, Thursday will be better. (pause) [32:27]
THERAPIST: I guess another thing that's coming up in a number of different ways is perhaps…You are feeling you are putting yourself in my hands somewhat.
CLIENT: Mm hm.
THERAPIST: Which I imagine is rough…
CLIENT: A little bit, yeah. (pause) [34:02]
THERAPIST: And that you might worry could end badly and in a rough way (ph?)? Such as I answered, just to point you into (inaudible) or be critical or rejecting in some way. (pause) [35:29]
CLIENT: The other thing that's been really upsetting me, like disproportionate to the size of the problem is that I'm working on this book that I want to print this Spring, did I mention that?
THERAPIST: Is it a cook book?
CLIENT: Yeah and (inaudible) and Brenda was going to be editing it with me, Brenda is phenomenally talented and very well-respected and has won awards for her editing, I'm super excited to be working with her and we've already got two authors lined up and its fantastic. We haven't been able to send out invitations to other authors to submit because I'm blanking on a title for the book. Every time I sit down and say "Okay what am I going to call this book?" I can't think of a title and its really upsetting to me. [36:56] The way I feel just seems like I'm not able to think of anything, it's the way I feel every other time I draw a blank.
THERAPIST: Mm hm.
CLIENT: My piano teacher encourages me to actually practice my exercises between sessions because if I show up to a lesson and have not practiced he just makes me improvise for 45 minutes and it's terrible! I hate it! It's very effective at getting to actually sit down and practice the pieces he assigns. (chuckles) It's the exact same feeling of "oh my god, I don't know what I'm doing and what if what I come up with is completely stupid, what if it's boring, what if no one likes it?" I don't know what to do about that but it's really upsetting me that this whole project is stalled on my inability to come up with a fucking title. I also leave subject line e-mails blank probably about a third of the time because I can't think of an appropriate subject line. (pause) [38:15] [39:27] [40:35]
THERAPIST: Well a lot of what you're saying to me…I think it involves a feeling of being a bit fed up? Like…there's an exciting opportunity or if it went well, what you want and we have (inaudible).
CLIENT: Yep and of course I feel like, you know, it's my fault for ruining everything even though a lot of these things are completely out of my hands, like Greta not being honest with me and then dating someone else, that's not even remotely my fault (chuckling) but I still feel like I did something wrong. That's completely irrational or Ashley not communicating clearly, again maybe there's an argument to be made that I could've confirmed more exclusively what the plan was for Sunday but…I don't know he think he bears some of the responsibility for communicating unclearly. [42:07] (pause) I also wonder if he was even planning on telling me had I not brought up the difficulties planning.
THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) Well we should stop for now.
CLIENT: Okay.
THERAPIST: So I'll see you next week on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday?
CLIENT: Yep, thank you. (background talking)
END TRANSCRIPT
