TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

CLIENT: I got the James Patterson one in the mail Friday and I finished it yesterday.

THERAPIST: You really bowl through those.

CLIENT: James Patterson I like, other than [Too Hard On.] (ph?)

THERAPIST: Is there some guy who writes about Amherst? He’s a detective in Amherst or something?

CLIENT: I know there was one from Boston, but I can’t think of who it was. They write up different writers. []. I didn’t like the way it ended, so I’m very pissed off at him. I have to write him a letter. You’re just going to have to write another book within a couple of months. [00:01:00]

THERAPIST: Let me go over one thing about schedule. This is kind of off in the distance but I thought I’d let you know and then we can coordinate around it. It might not even affect us.

CLIENT: I will write on my handy-dandy pocket calendar with me.

THERAPIST: It won’t affect us. [00:02:05] I’ll be taking the week of the 17th off and that’s a week we won’t meet.

CLIENT: Next week?

THERAPIST: No, sorry. In March.

CLIENT: You’ll be off the week of March 17th?

THERAPIST: Yeah. (pause) What’s the story for you? You were talking there was a possibility of surgery.

CLIENT: That ain’t going to happen.

THERAPIST: I remember from last time you were telling me that’s up in the air. [00:03:00]

CLIENT: Don’t confuse me. (pause) I saw the lovely lady and she’s not doing it until my sugars have gone way, way down.

THERAPIST: Your A1 and C, is that what it is?

CLIENT: Yeah, like in my blood sugars. Sometimes they’re 392.

THERAPIST: 392? Oh, my God.

CLIENT: A little high, huh?

THERAPIST: Yeah. Dangerous.

CLIENT: There goes one toe.

THERAPIST: What’s the big deal, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah. I can’t see them anyway, so what the hell is the difference. They might take the leg. That will take care of the knee.

THERAPIST: Better get the right one. [00:04:02]

CLIENT: This one is going, too. (laughs) Hopefully I get to see him next Monday.

THERAPIST: So she needs your sugars to go down.

CLIENT: And the weight to come off. I guess she just really blasted out Winchester. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Why?

CLIENT: Why doesn’t he get my sugars under better control? He’s not giving me enough insulin. In the morning when I wake up it can be 117. Sometimes it might be high, maybe once or twice out of the month; but at nighttime – oh yeah. I’ve tried to stop eating after 6:00, which is kind of hard because sometimes supper is not until 7:00. [00:05:08]

THERAPIST: It’s been hard to get that evening number . . .

CLIENT: Yeah. He finally went up on my units in the morning. I have to take 28 units of insulin. And then at night time it’s like 19. I don’t go for the 19. I always give it 20. I thought why go 19? Why not go for an even number, like 20?

THERAPIST: Do you have to measure?

CLIENT: Some people use a syringe and a bottle. I don’t use that. [00:06:03] I have a pen and all you do is put the needle on top of the pen every time – a different needle every time – and down here is a dial and you just dial one units, two units, all the way back. I just click it to 28 in the morning and I said, “Well, I don’t like odd numbers. I’m odd enough. Why just not go for 20?”

THERAPIST: I got it. I thought you said 12, like the 19 was too much. It’s 20.

CLIENT: Yeah. First he started me off at eight units in the morning and three in the nighttime. Then it got to 16 units and then it went to 23 and now we’re up to 28. [00:06:59] Now we’re starting to see a new twist in it. He wants me to see a nutritionist and the nurse to work with me on nutritious meals. (laughs) She came in and she said, “Do you eat cheese?” I said, “Nope.” “Do you eat yogurt?” “Nope.” “Do you eat cottage cheese?” “No. Don’t you understand? I don’t eat cheese.” “Do you eat fish?” I said, “Only if it’s fried.” [ ] (inaudible at 00:07:40) She said, “Do you eat chickpeas?” I said, “I don’t do any kind of peas, lentil beans, nothing.” That’s gross. What do you think, I’m a vegetarian? That crap. [00:08:04]

THERAPIST: No? No veggies for you.

CLIENT: I like veggies but I never cared for kidney beans or lentil beans, anything like that. Baked beans I don’t mind, but you’ve got to put sugar on them. She said, “You can’t put sugar on them.” “Who says they can’t put sugar on baked beans?” [ ] (inaudible at 00:08:28)

THERAPIST: So what are the typical means you have?

CLIENT: Today I got up early because I went to coffee hour. I had oatmeal, but it wasn’t that old-fashioned oatmeal, just the instant oatmeal with maple and brown sugar. [00:09:03] [ ] (inaudible at 00:09:05) But then I’ve got to put cream on it. I don’t like milk on it; I like cream.

THERAPIST: Do you make it with water or milk?

CLIENT: Instant. I had that and I had my cup of coffee. Then down at the coffee hour one of the ladies took cracker and put peanut butter on them and there were peanut butter and crackers on the table. I had one of those. Another lady came in and had made this big round thing with the Pillsbury rolls and she put ham and cheese and stuff in it, so I ate a slice of that. [00:09:58] Then at 1:00 I made myself a sandwich and it had ham and Mortadella on it and that was it. Probably tonight when I go home I’ll have a bowl of cereal for supper and that will be it. Some days I can’t eat breakfast and I don’t eat lunch and I just eat the one meal at suppertime. [ ] (inaudible at 00:10:23) I’m getting turned off of meat. I’m not crazy over chicken anymore. I’m not crazy over pork chops anymore or a piece of steak – no. I do eat it – last time I had half of a pork chop. I’m just not interested anymore. [00:10:59] I like eating a baked potato for my dinner. I like a half a stick of butter on a baked potato. I don’t mind that I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. That’s not too bad. I don’t mind putting salsa on a baked potato.

THERAPIST: But it’s not good plain.

CLIENT: I’ll eat just about any kind of vegetable except for parsnip and turnips. I bought Brussels sprouts and fiddleheads and all that stuff.

THERAPIST: It’s almost like you’re saying you’re not going to make it boring. You’re not going to take away the flavor if my life, the good flavor in life. [00:12:02]

CLIENT: No. I don’t like cottage cheese and goat cheese and feta cheese. Yuck. I won’t tell you what it looks like on a good day. [ ] (inaudible at 00:12:19)

THERAPIST: What it looks like on a good day?

CLIENT: Feta cheese – you ever see that crap?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Do you like it?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: You won’t after I get through with my description.

THERAPIST: What’s your description?

CLIENT: It looks like a bad yeast infection. That’s on a good day. I can’t even stand the smell. You know how you go to the stores and they specialize in cheeses? In one door and right back out. Can’t stand the odors. [00:13:00] You should see me go to the fish market when I go to get lobsters. Hey – I’m the one in the out doorway. I can’t even do low tide.

THERAPIST: All those smells, those odors.

CLIENT: Four doors down from me we have this Vietnamese guy. All you can smell is fish. I’m out in the hallway with the Lysol spraying it. Kelly is out there. (laughs) It’s brutal. He goes fishing, ankle fishing in the river,– ugh. Do you have any glow-in-the-dark fish there? He brings home some really smelly stuff. [00:14:00]

THERAPIST: Is that right? And then he cooks it up.

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. One day we were out in the backyard and cooking on my barbecue and he says, “I give you fish? You fry?” “I don’t think so.” No stinky fish on my grill. So we’ll see what happens. There goes my candy bar. I just bought ten boxes of Girl Scout cookies. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Do you like those?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Which kind?

CLIENT: I like the Thin Mints. I like the Samoas; they’re the ones with the coconut and caramel. I like those. And then I like the peanut butter ones – not the plain peanut butter ones – but the ones with the chocolate over them. [00:15:04] Then I like the sugar cookie that has chocolate on the bottom of it.

THERAPIST: Like the full?

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m going to have to eat them quick before he starts. (laughs)

THERAPIST: Yeah. I was thinking about – I don’t know if this is the case for you, but it is a source of pleasure.

CLIENT: Yeah. It’s like this, I have a hard time eating the solid foods because I’ve started throwing up again. When you look at my plate there is not much on my plate because I can’t finish it all. [00:16:02] If I overeat, that’s when I start with the heaving, but put a piece of cake in front of me and that piece of cake goes down with no problem. The cookies go down with no problem. The bowl of ice cream goes down with no problem. It’s the regular goddamned solid food.

THERAPIST: The cookies are okay though?

CLIENT: Yeah. I learned to be a dunker. I never used to dunk my cookies, but I learned to stick them in the coffee and get them all soft. It’s good.

THERAPIST: Is it different than eating soups?

CLIENT: Soups I can eat. Of course, I’m fussy. I only eat my soup.

THERAPIST: Soup that you make?

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m not too favored of the canned soup.

THERAPIST: You want it home-made. It’s good, but the other stuff is kind of . . .

CLIENT: When I make a home-made soup there is everything but the kitchen sink in it. [00:17:04] There is celery in it; there are onions in it; there are carrots in it; there are crushed tomatoes in it. Sometimes I’ll put cabbage in it. Sometimes I’ll put escarole in it and sometimes meatballs. Yeah, I make all that stuff. I like it like that. Give me my cooking. Kelly sent over some home-made soup for Deborah last week because Deborah had a cold. Deborah said, “I ain’t eating that stuff. It’s got all this stuff floating around in it. There’s skin and everything. Oh, my. It’s got dark meat in it.” Down the garbage. [00:18:01] “I ain’t eating that.” Okay. Just tell Kelly it was nice. Spoiled. I had my usual argument with fucking Winchester yesterday.

THERAPIST: Over the prescriptions? The one he hands out and all that stuff?

CLIENT: Yeah. I said to him, “I was supposed to come in and see you next Tuesday, but since your kids are on vacation you decided to take that week off. Where do I get my prescriptions because they’re out on that day, the 18th? Did you want to give me [ ] (inaudible at 00:18:54)?” “Oh, no. You’re not supposed to write out narcotics ahead of time.” [00:18:59] “Well it’s not that. If I take them to the drugstore they’re not going to fill them anyway because they’ll only fill them when the insurance says it’s okay to fill them, which is the 18th. So who is going to write them?” He says, “I’ll have them here.” I said, “I just don’t believe you.”

THERAPIST: You don’t have the best track record.

CLIENT: Strike one. Then you went for strike two. I said, “This will be strike three if they’re not here and you know what that means –you’re out.” He said, “You don’t trust me?” I said, “Should I? You don’t have too good of a track record with me lately.” He said, “You’re more than free to leave and get another doctor.” [00:20:00] I said, “Don’t think that thought hasn’t crossed my mind because I’m working on it. What about my B12 shot?” I’ve always had my B12 shot on the same day I see him, so it’s like when I see him, then there is the B12 shot and the script – so that’s three things. I said, “Can I have my B12 shot now?” “Well, no. It’s a little bit early.” I said, “Okay.” So the girl comes in and she goes to make the appointments and she says, “I have your vitamin B12 shots. I can get you in with the nurse on the 28th.” Now that’s a week after it’s due. He’s in with another patient now. I said, “You page him on that phone and tell him I want to speak to him because if you don’t page him, I will knock on the door myself.” [00:21:04] I’m like a raving maniac by now. I said, “They can’t see me. I came and saw you today. Next week I’ve got to come back and get my prescriptions and then I have to come back the following week? That makes two extra appointments for this month and I already have ten appointments I have lined up. Do you know how much that’s going to cost me? It’s $8 every time. $4 up; $4 back. I can’t afford $80. $100 a month for transportation.” “Oh, I didn’t know it cost that much. I didn’t know you had to pay for it.” I said, “What do you think they do – give it for free?” Luckily they did go down to $3. [00:21:59] I’m not going to tell them that. Still, ten visits a month is $60. Then if I use them to go food shopping, that’s another $6. He said, “Wait a minute. Let me go find the nurse,” and he goes out and he can’t find them. He comes back and he says, “Oh, yeah. They’re going to take care of you on the 18th.” Okay. I go up to the desk because the girl can’t make them in the office because she can’t open up time in the doctor’s things. I said to the girl, Mary, “I need to see you next week for my B12 shot and it has to be after 1:00 because that’s when he’s going to have the prescriptions ‘in the building’ for me.” So she goes into the scheduling. [00:22:58] They don’t have any openings.

THERAPIST: On the 18th?

CLIENT: Yeah. I said, “Okay. Fine. Forget it. Don’t even bother making the appointment. I’m just coming up next week and getting my scripts. I’ll get my B12 shot the next month.” “Well, no. You can’t do that.” I said, “Why can’t I? If I don’t want it, I don’t have to have it.” “Well, let me make this other appointment with you to see the nutritionist and the nurse at the same time. I can get you in with that March something.” I said, “Yeah, okay. Don’t even bother making that.” I put on my coat and I left.

I get home and I get a phone call from the nurse and she says, “I don’t know if I’ll have an opening.” I said, “Okay, fine.” I called back and said, “Page Dr. Winchester to call me at home.” [00:24:04] She said, “I’ll have the nurse call you.” I said, “I don’t want the nurse. Didn’t I just say ‘page Dr. Winchester?’” Well, I got an appointment to see the nurse next Tuesday the 18th at 2:00.

THERAPIST: Oh, like he said you would.

CLIENT: Yep.

THERAPIST: So that’s what you’ve got to do. What are those experiences like for you emotionally?

CLIENT: I hate them. I said to him, “Listen, either you don’t want me as a patient and this is why you keep screwing up. I’m sick and tired of this fucking shit.” I haven’t sworn at him in ages. He said, “Well if you don’t feel like you can trust me . . .” [00:25:00] I said, “No, no, no. That’s not it. Am I the only one that you do this to? Am I the only one that you fucked up on everything with? Does everybody else get their pain medication on time? I know you’re only here one day a week. What are you trying to do, cut out patients? You’re getting them so aggravated that they say “fuck you” and go to someone else? Don’t think that thought hasn’t passed my mind, but I’ve been with you for so damned long and you’ve been very good. Lately since you’ve cut down your hours, the quality sucks and it’s not just with you. It seems to be with almost everybody in the Amherst health system.”

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. []. You sit there for three hours and you still haven’t seen him. [00:26:00] It’s aggravating. What does he think, his time is the only time that’s special?

THERAPIST: So you’re really getting a lot less careful care.

CLIENT: Yeah. A half-hour visit is now 15 minutes. I said to him, “There is a sign up in every patient room of the doctor’s office “If you are a diabetic, please take off your shoes and socks.” I said, “I can take off my shoes and socks and you’d say, ‘What did you do that for, Louise?’” You know I’m a diabetic. You should be looking at my feet every month, but you don’t. It’s a good thing I go to a foot doctor anyway.” [00:27:02] “Well I noticed you haven’t seen one here in the Amherst Health System.” I said, “No, because he was nothing but a big joke.” You’re supposed to see him every six months, but my doctor I see every three months because if I have a problem I can just go in and see him. “Well, I gather he’s not in the Amherst Health System.” I said, “No, he’s not.” “I see you haven’t seen the dermatologist here.” I said, “Let’s just say that the one I saw last year, he saw me quick. So now there isn’t one here anymore. I see another one outside the building.” I went to the dentist. He said, “Oh, yeah. We’ve got to pull that tooth. “ But after 45 minutes of doing x-rays, they didn’t have time to pull the tooth. So now the tooth is not getting pulled until March 17th. [00:28:01] A cleaning is being done in April. I said, “What are they going to do, a filling a month?” I just don’t know. I get so aggravated.

And then to top it off last week, my lovely neighbor next door, Annie, calls me up when she gets home from work. “Oh, I just spoke with Mark.” I said, “Yeah?” “I saw him up at the corner of the street. He was walking the dog and I stopped and talked with him. He said that he’s not drinking anymore and he’s not smoking. He’s just staying home and getting things between his wife and his daughter all straightened out and they’re becoming one big happy family.” [00:29:08] I said to him, “Why don’t you come down here anymore?” and he said, “There is just too much drama.”

THERAPIST: What was that like to hear?

CLIENT: It sucked. I really didn’t need to hear that shit from her. It bothered me. I was just miserable all day.

THERAPIST: Tell me about it. What was going through you? How did you react to that?

CLIENT: Not good. Not good. I had a few tears thinking about it and thinking about him.

THERAPIST: Yeah. It hurts.

CLIENT: Yeah, it did. [00:30:02] Between all of the things that he would say to me and all this shit, now it was just a lot of drama. I’ll tell you one thing that really rocked the boat with Deborah living with me, she would be right in there with the two of us, you know? What the hell.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that Deborah was a big block between you and him and you really noticed a change in him about him wanting to be over there without you there.

CLIENT: I can’t say she’s the only blame. There was his drinking; I was getting sick of that. I was getting sick of him borrowing money. Borrow? Yeah. I’m ready to throw her out. I had $50 missing out of my wallet the first month. I was missing $50 out of my wallet yesterday. I said, “Deborah, when was the last time you got pot? Did you go out and buy some pot, Deborah?” “No, I haven’t bought any pot.” There was one of my coffee cups on the bookcase and it’s got filing stuff in it. I go and look in it and there’s a bag of weed. I took it and put it in my pocket. [00:32:01] I’m carrying it around all day. I had it in my nightgown when I went to bed last night. Last night I can hear Deborah in the other room looking for it. I said, “Deborah, what did you do with the $50 the other day that you stole?” “I didn’t take it. I don’t know.” I said, “Oh, what’s this? The bag of weed you bought with my $50?” “Where did that come from?” I said, “Deborah, let’s not play dumb. It was in the fricking coffee cup.” “I didn’t put it there. I don’t know. That had to be there.” I said, “Deborah, give me a fucking break. Do you think I was fucking stupid? I was born yesterday? I’ll tell you one thing, I should have done what Kelly told me to do and put it down the fucking toilet.” [00:33:04] I said, “Here. Here’s your fucking pot. Deborah, stay out of it or I’ll fucking go get your daughter, which you never loved – never.”

THERAPIST: You were pissed, huh?

CLIENT: Oh, yeah. And I said, “And if you think you’re going to her graduation, guess what? Pay for it on your own because I’m not paying for you. She wants to come up, fine. She’ll come up when I want her to come.”

THERAPIST: What did it mean to you to hear her stealing and buying the pot? Tell me about it.

CLIENT: This is Deborah. [00:34:01] You get everything. Once a month I buy her a game for her PlayStation thing that she can play on the TV and on the computer. It costs me over $200 a month for cable because she has to get all these fucking channels so she can watch her shows. That’s a $200 bill a month. I buy her tobacco; she rolls her own cigarettes. I buy a big bag of tobacco. It depends on where you by it. It costs her anywhere between $18 and $20. Then she’s got to buy the [ ] (inaudible at 00:34:43). They’re like $3 a pop. She buys two boxes of [ ] (inaudible at 00:34:50) and tobacco. Sometimes it’s between $20 and $28 for those. [00:35:04] The games, those are the things that are between $30 and $50. I buy her frigging personal items and shit like that. I think she thinks I should buy it for her.

THERAPIST: Yeah. I get the sense that there is this feeling that you can give her all this and kind of support her and put food on the table for her . . .

CLIENT: Then she has to go and steal.

THERAPIST: I was just thinking about what you said about what kind of mother she is, that no matter what you do, she’s not becoming the mother she should be and this must be terribly frustrating to you. [00:36:10]

CLIENT: Yeah. Darla is at the age where she wants her mother in her life. Deborah will never cut it as mother of the year. No way.

THERAPIST: How does she feel about that, Deborah?

CLIENT: She shows no emotion whatsoever. Watching TV yesterday, “Shirley Temple died. I used to watch her movies and cry when I was a kid.” “I didn’t think they were bad.” “Deborah, I would be on my deathbed and you wouldn’t even cry over that. [00:36:58] You show no emotion. The only time I ever saw you show emotion, Deborah, was when Bennett left you. That was it, Deborah. I didn’t see you cry when Darla left or anything like that. No.” Darla gets on that plane and Deborah was like the kid was never there.

THERAPIST: Is that right? What do you make of that? Do you feel she doesn’t care or do you feel like it’s too much that she doesn’t feel anything? You know, that kind of thing? What do you think? What do you think goes on in her head when Darla leaves, for instance?

CLIENT: I don’t know.

THERAPIST: That’s saying something.

CLIENT: Darla will come off the plane and she doesn’t hold her arms out to hug her or anything like that. [00:38:00] Nothing.

THERAPIST: What does she act like?

CLIENT: “How was the flight? Do you want anything to eat before we leave? Not that she’d pay for the kid to eat anything; I don’t mind paying for the kid to eat. Then, of course, Deborah is pissed because “I don’t have a car so I can’t take her here and there.” You want to go somewhere? Go take the fucking ride. We can go to the mall. We can go to this place. We can go to that place.

THERAPIST: But you don’t see a lot of emotion? What does she act like.

CLIENT: No emotion; no emotion whatsoever. No. [00:39:01] (pause) It aggravates the fuck out of me. It really does.

THERAPIST: How so? What about it, seeing that in her?

CLIENT: I just think she’s useless.

THERAPIST: It must be really frustrating. You seem frustrated. As a mother to a daughter that’s a mother, to see that in her must be very . . .

CLIENT: She cried more when her cat died than she does when Darla leaves. She’s got another cat and her cat follows her around. She’ll be like, “Get the fuck away from me.” “What’s the matter, Deborah? You can’t stand the cat anymore?” “It’s driving me up a wall.” She gets up off the chair and he follows her into the kitchen and waits outside the bathroom door for her. (chuckles) [00:39:59] I said, “Oh, yeah?” And she says, “Just get the fuck away from me.” She’s got no patience with him and it’s so little.

THERAPIST: She gets really angry; she gets really upset by this cat needing her, wanting to be in her presence.

CLIENT: She shouldn’t become a mother to begin with.

THERAPIST: How was that to say it’s her mother for you? How was that?

CLIENT: It sucks. I knew she was that way. I always babysit kids and I have a day care in my house and everything. She just couldn’t connect with the kids or anything. [00:41:00] She didn’t want to hold the baby or anything.

THERAPIST: She didn’t feel any of that?

CLIENT: No. I was babysitting when I was eight or nine years old, changing diapers. When Deidre was small Deborah would have a pair of tongs, taking the diaper to the diaper pail. I could come home from work and Darla would be yelling, screaming her fucking head off. All she wanted was to be held and rocked. She was so upset. “It’s spoiling her.” I would take that baby, put her in my arms, give her the bottle or whatever – out like a light.

THERAPIST: But Deborah, though, how would she react to Darla gone? [00:42:06] If Darla was crying, what would Deborah be like?

CLIENT: Like a raving maniac, like she couldn’t stand the noise. Listening to this 24 hours a day, seven days a week? Forget it. [Do you have an itchy back?] (ph?) You want to walk around over there?

THERAPIST: (laughs) It’s true. I am. I think it’s because I can’t hear so well.

CLIENT: I go for hearing aids the 28th of this month.

THERAPIST: This chair is just not that comfortable. I feel like I’m sliding off. [00:43:01]

CLIENT: Maybe I’ll be able to hear. I don’t hear a damn thing. I can hear that, but what it is, is I don’t hear out of this ear at all because all I hear is a ringing sound all the time, so I’m just completely deaf in this ear. They don’t cover hearing aids. Mass Eye and Ear do. They’ll take it.

THERAPIST: Oh, they will?

CLIENT: Yeah. I’m going to go get fitted. I won’t be able to say “huh?” Deborah, if she’s in the kitchen running water and I’m sitting out in the parlor, I can’t hear a damn word she says and she gets mad when I say, “What did you say?” She’ll say “argh.” I’ll say, “Deborah, enough. I can’t help it if I can’t fucking hear. What do you want me to do? Come over here so I can read your fucking lips. You’re always number one in my book. You’re my number one daughter.”

THERAPIST: She’s like the cat that’s following you around, right?

CLIENT: I said, “Deborah, you’ve got to fucking do something. You’ve got to, Deborah. Deborah, I’m just sick of looking at you day in day out.” She’s a slob. She wears Bennett’s old pajama bottoms he leaves there. They’re pajama bottoms, really. They’re men’s, they’re plaid and they’ve got a hole in the knee. She wears a sloppy old t-shirt that’s six sizes too big for her. Her hair is just a mess. She looks like a slob, messy. She doesn’t go anywhere.

THERAPIST: I think she’s got two states. Either she’s really high or she’s agitated.

CLIENT: Every night when Ella gets home from work at 3:00 or 4:00 she goes next door and they both get in it. Deborah comes over and her eyes are like . . . And she’s got the munchies all fucking night. [00:46:04]

THERAPIST: And repeats the next day.

CLIENT: Every day. Every day. Day in and day out.

THERAPIST: I think not only is she hard to be with day to day that she’s in a chronically bad mood or she’s agitated and irritable and all that stuff, but I also think there is a lot of disappointment you f eel in her and see in her – frustration and also, I think for you, as you’ve been putting it you’ve been really wanting her to take some steps in her life and she just can’t. She just doesn’t or can’t or whatever. She’s been in this position so long. [00:46:59]

CLIENT: I said, “Deborah, the reason why you don’t get Social Security with Disabilities is because you go to the doctors once and – you know.” “I don’t like that doctor. He doesn’t do anything for me.” So that’s the end of seeing that psychiatrist. Go see another. “I don’t like that one either.” Just won’t do a damn thing for herself, not a fucking thing.

THERAPIST: She must feel like she’s quit.

CLIENT: It’s a sin. Kelly doesn’t want to come over to the house for a cup of coffee because she feels like she’s invading Deborah’s privacy, the looks that Deborah gives.

THERAPIST: She’s agitated.

CLIENT: Because Deborah watches – My kitchen table is in the same room where my living room is because there is no room in the kitchen. [00:48:02] Kelly and I are at the table and she’s got her show on and she gets aggravated and she puts it onto the channel, like Wheel of Fortune, because Kelly and I watch it, our Chronicle or something. Hey – go in my bedroom. I’ve got the same fucking TV in there. Watch your fucking show in there.

THERAPIST: It’s like do not disturb the sleeping giant.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like it’s her space. I just get a little agitated with her.

THERAPIST: Well, you’re keeping her off the streets.

CLIENT: (chuckles) I’m going to be out on the streets myself.

THERAPIST: You’re the only one that’s between her and the streets, I think.

CLIENT: Kelly will say, “I can’t fucking stand her. She fucking drives me up a . . .” because she’s got Todd. I said, “You think if they get an apartment they could go in it together?” Anything.

THERAPIST: How old is Todd?

CLIENT: Fifty-three. He’s a grandfather now. We call him grandpa.

THERAPIST: Grandpa living with mom, huh? Well, your daughter is not far. Not ten years.

CLIENT: No. She’s going to be forty.

THERAPIST: Darla – what is she, 16?

CLIENT: Yeah. She might have gotten pregnant maybe two or three times before she had Darla. And every time mother paid to have an abortion for her. Finally I said, “Nope. I’m done paying. That’s it.”

THERAPIST: And then she had Darla. Has she been pregnant since?

CLIENT: Nope.

THERAPIST: And she never used birth control?

CLIENT: No.

THERAPIST: She was careful, I guess, after that because she learned her lesson.

CLIENT: She learned her lesson. She wasn’t mother of the year. [00:51:01] I think she thought everybody else was going to take care of Darla, which I did. I said the day she came home with the hospital, she came home with me.

THERAPIST: Where was she living when she had the baby?

CLIENT: With me.

THERAPIST: Deborah was, too?

CLIENT: Deborah and Heath were both living with me.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: I’m pissed at the little shit. She got no Valentine’s Day from grandma. No. I haven’t talked to her since.

THERAPIST: Since?

CLIENT: Thanksgiving.

THERAPIST: You never talked to her even on the phone? I thought maybe you had spoken over e-mail, but not on the phone?

CLIENT: I haven’t spoken to her by e-mail.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Not since she could not find time to call us on Christmas day. I called and left her a message.

THERAPIST: Does she Facebook you guys?

CLIENT: Yeah, she does Facebook messages. So Deborah talks to her but I don’t. Nope. Fuck her. She’s probably looking to see why there wasn’t two cards and one card with money in it. As I say, I generally send her down $25 a month and I haven’t done that. [00:53:06]

THERAPIST: Well, you’re mad, hurt.

CLIENT: Yep. It’s like was she in it just for the money?

THERAPIST: There is something more to that story.

CLIENT: Definitely. If she doesn’t want to say, I don’t know.

THERAPIST: Her grandmother is hurt. Well, there is a lot here, Louise. Obviously.

CLIENT: I’m here until 4:30. That’s when the bus is coming to get me. (laughs) It pissed me off. Between her and Deborah, I think the two of them both think that I shit out $50 bills or something. Wanting to know if I could pay for two tickets for me and Deborah to go down for her March vacation. I said, “Is she fucking crazy? I’m going to buy you a fucking ticket to go down? (laughs) No. And pay for two people for a motel? No. I can stay here in my house and you can’t. No fucking way.”

THERAPIST: But you’d have to do all that.

CLIENT: What can you do? I would love to go down and go by myself.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you haven’t done that.

CLIENT: No, not in a long time. What the hell.

END TRANSCRIPT