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CLIENT: Rights (ph).

THERAPIST: Rights.

CLIENT: Rights. Two puggles coming over tonight.

THERAPIST: Two puglets?

CLIENT: Two puggles.

THERAPIST: Two puggles.

CLIENT: Yeah. My buddies [Barry and Janice] (sp?), they're going away for the weekend. And they watch Hank so often that we're obliged to watch their double puggles. There's three puggles in the house, four within 30 feet of my house, because the next-door neighbor also has a puggle puppy. Black puggle puppies are extremely rare. So that's cool. In fact that's them right now, being like... let's see. Any chance you could [walk them up] (ph)? Walk them? (Singing) [Ba da boogie, ba da boogie ba da da] (sp?).

THERAPIST: You've got them starting today? [0:00:55]

CLIENT: Yeah, tonight.

THERAPIST: And then going through...?

CLIENT: Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. So that goes...

THERAPIST: Puggle central.

CLIENT: Yeah. They're good, they're good. I mean, they're sweet. They're dumb as fuck. I talk about my dog being stupid, and he's really just below average. These dogs are (pause) dumb, really dumb. You have to watch Fanny (sp?) after any of the dog poops, because she will go for it. She's like, I'm going to eat that poop, man. She's like, it's going to be so fucking good (chuckling). You're gross. You're disgusting. Yeah, so... yeah. This week though... I mean, once they chill, they're just dogs because (ph) they're asleep most of the day.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay, yeah. [0:01:54]

CLIENT: They sleep something like 18 hours out of the day (laughing).

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Some ridiculous amount of time.

THERAPIST: They don't need to be really active, then?

CLIENT: No, they're puggles, so they're going to be lap dogs. Half of them is lap dog, the other half is hound. So the lap dog is pretty strong. But then once they're in the yard they're like, oh man. I want to hunt something...

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: In this 40 by 30 space.

THERAPIST: Now, Hank's the one that goes after the birds?

CLIENT: Yes, Hank totally killed and tried to eat baby birds.

THERAPIST: Yes, so that's the hound.

CLIENT: That's the hound. And then (inaudible at 0:02:39). I have to go to the dentist after this.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah?

CLIENT: Yeah. Always a blast. It's really not that bad usually, just the cleaning. Today, they'll be like, you're not flossing enough. I'm like, I know, I'm not. Fuck. [0:02:55] I always have a really good flossing interval and then a bad flossing interval. It's like, you should floss. You know what, you're right. Let's floss all the time. I love flossing. Yeah, floss! Then I'm like, I've been flossing really well. Probably take a little break from flossing.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: Next thing you know it's been a few months, so yeah, I floss occasionally, but not twice a day like I should.

THERAPIST: Twice a day, wow.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) Yeah, so there we go. That's all handled. Word, exclamation point. Boom, done, conversation, ended. Just like that. Oh, what did we do before texting? We called people and hoped they were home, like idiots. That's what we did. Fucking... (Pause)

THERAPIST: We were just a bunch of puggles (laughing). (Crosstalk)

CLIENT: Yeah, (crosstalk). (inaudible at 0:03:55) [0:03:58] [I would go] (ph) call people's houses over and over and over again, just like, one of these times they're going to walk through the door and get it, and be like...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: This is the only way to do it. There weren't even answering machines back when I was a kid.

THERAPIST: Yeah, right.

CLIENT: It's just... (Pause) Do you think that maybe they're home? I don't know. Did you talk to them earlier this week about what they might be doing today? Well, it was a few days ago. Who can tell [any more] (ph)? I wish there was some way to quickly ascertain their state.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah, that's right.

CLIENT: And now it's like, I don't know, I sent them a text a couple hours ago. I hope everything's okay. Come on, who doesn't check their phone every couple of hours at least? [0:04:55] (Pause) I check mine fairly often [if it's not] (ph) in my pocket. (Yawning) [Whenever I go] (ph)... whenever I move position I take it with me, and I put it somewhere close. But that's my life.

THERAPIST: (inaudible at 0:05:16)

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm just playing Skyrim (sp?). That's what I'm doing with my life right now is playing Skyrim.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: Just roaming around as this lizard man. (inaudible at 0:05:35) various ancient and demonic gods. And [I do] (ph) quests for them to get in their medieval artifacts and walk through the world. I just became a werewolf last night, so that's nice. So using the ring as one demonic god (inaudible at 0:05:53) werewolf as many times as I want to over the course of the day, especially just the once. [0:05:59] So that's nice.

THERAPIST: The werewolf?

CLIENT: Yeah, werewolf. And you can't interact with most stuff. You can open doors and stuff like that. But mostly you just go through the thing, and then you eat them.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: Then you eat them, and every person you eat extends the duration of your werewolf transformation by 30 seconds. So you start with three minutes and then start traveling through dungeons, eating everybody you meet. And it's pretty fun.

THERAPIST: Eating to keep on going, huh?

CLIENT: Yeah, every person you eat gives you 30 more seconds, so...

THERAPIST: Eating to live.

CLIENT: Yeah. Yeah, and then when this is all over it's just you and your [one claw] (ph). And you have to put all your armor back on.

THERAPIST: Mmm. Oh, because you...

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:06:42). It's pretty funny. Then it gets to (inaudible at 0:06:48). (Pause) Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [0:06:56]

CLIENT: So I'm having a panic attack yesterday morning.

THERAPIST: What...? Yeah, what brought it on?

CLIENT: Just about being surveilled by the government...

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: (Chuckling) Which it turns out is happening. (Crosstalk) Verizon, but then this morning as well just they had a deal with Google and Facebook and Twitter just to filter search data?

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: They filter. So what is everyone looking at?

THERAPIST: Yeah. What did it bring up to you?

CLIENT: Well, just... it's one of those things where you're surfing for porn, and you start to get a little more curious. And you're like, what's a good word? I'm looking for girls who are just 18, just at 18. So I got a nubile. Let's put in nubile and search. Actually you click on a link you think is... you've checked out with Scamadviser and SiteAdvisor and Norton, Google, Safe Web and everything. And you're like, okay, it's not a spyware site. Whatever. [0:07:53] And you go there, and it looks really skeezy (sp?). And it's like, important, all girls here are 18 or older. And I'm like, okay, I'm out of here. This doesn't look great. And you get out of there, and you're like, oh my God. Did I just do something illegal? And the answer is no, honestly. Clearly (inaudible at 0:08:12) is weird. But then I was having this panic attack, like, oh my God, they're going to come here. And what if one of those images in my browser cache is bad? And oh, no, then what happens? And the answer is nothing, because there's nothing there. And that's the reality of it, is that there's no problem.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yet I started going through this narrative of how will I kill myself in time? And...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, and then I'm like... and there's no actual good scenarios. Slicing your jugular open with a butcher knife, there's only a 66% chance that you go, and pretty high agony rating, too. [0:08:59]

THERAPIST: Where does it...? If you... what's...? It's almost like you're killing yourself to get... to escape the... sort of the punish...

CLIENT: Yeah, right. Yeah, any sort of legal repercussions for something I didn't do.

THERAPIST: Ah, yes.

CLIENT: Time (ph). And even then, if it's not (inaudible at 0:09:17), it's an embarrassment, them being like, oh, you're looking at bad porn. I'm like, I'm not, though. [We thought you were, though] (ph), and now everything's fine. But everyone thinks you're a fucking sex offender.

THERAPIST: Oh. Okay.

CLIENT: And I don't want that, so...

THERAPIST: To be kind of exposed that way?

CLIENT: Yeah. So I'm sitting there having this panic attack in the morning, like, oh my God, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? And it's getting really bad. And so I google panic attack, and I'm like, how do you fix it? And they're like, try the five two five breath count. They're like, give that a second. You breathe in for five seconds, you hold for two, then you breathe out for five seconds.

THERAPIST: Mmm. [0:10:03]

CLIENT: Then you repeat that.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: And [as I sort of worked it down] (ph), I was like, okay, that's good. And so I was thinking, how do we prevent this? I'm like, well, you've been staying up really late and smoking weed pretty much constantly. So I'm like, this is not good for your anxiety. This is not good. And so actually you need to slow down the weed. You need to cut back a little bit. Just not smoke it all day, [sometimes taking a number of] (ph)... several hour break in the middle of the day to help. And (pause) last night I'm like, oh, I'm starting to feel weird. Okay, time to take a break. But I'm sitting there, I'm like, okay, now if those... if you get scared about these things, then the solution is never to look for free porn. I'm like, and you know this. You know never to look for free porn because they make their money off either ads that pop up or ads that trick you into downloading malware. [0:11:08] And a number of times where I was surfing, and this other window pops up with a sub-window, which is like, hey, there's a special deal here. Here's two [bucks, would you like] (ph) to leave this page or stay on this page? I'm like, those aren't actual... that's not real.

THERAPIST: If you touch it it'll all (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Yeah, those are both, would you like to download this Javascript extension?

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: So you can't click on those windows. They won't close unless you (inaudible at 0:11:35). So you have to Task Manager, find that process or that window, and kill that process.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Then I'm like, well, [I'm going to] (ph) run Norton again. So there you go. That's... [0:11:53]

THERAPIST: Well, let me just say one thing, because it certainly is... I think at play here is your mother's voice around sexuality, that... it taps into that kind of lesson you got from your mom about... that you look at the wrong thing, you go to hell. This is the worst thing that you can be doing. You're bad...

CLIENT: Second to worst.

THERAPIST: Second worst? Murder worse?

CLIENT: Murder is worse.

THERAPIST: I'm guessing it's right below, though.

CLIENT: It is right below, except literally that's the doctrine. There's a fucking document that... about that.

THERAPIST: There you go. That stuff is burned in your head, and not just intellectually, but viscerally, a curiosity about what a young girl looks like...

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Your mom was telling you that's going to land you in hell, or what...?

CLIENT: Yeah, outer darkness. That's what they call it.

THERAPIST: Outer darkness.

CLIENT: Yes, the separation from all other existence, except those people who are also miserable, and the wailing and moaning and gnashing of teeth. [0:13:04]

THERAPIST: Just to say one other aspect of it, that your mother was also similar to these fucking websites that are like, click on me, click on me. Your mother was wanting you to look at things...

CLIENT: Yeah. Hmm.

THERAPIST: At the same time telling you, you're horrible for looking at it, telling you to look at it.

CLIENT: Mmm. Yeah. Well, she's fucked up, isn't she? I just told my sister the whole [white moth] (ph) thing? I mean, her mind was blown. She's like, oh fuck, of course. Of course (inaudible at 0:13:36). She's like, what about those furry caterpillars? I'm like, how would they bite you? And she's laughing her ass off. She's like, right, how would they bite us?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: (Laughing) How would they bite us? We just laugh and laugh.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Well, and I think to her sex was very dangerous, and...

CLIENT: Oh, extremely. [0:13:57] She used to tell us about the time she was raped, and... or almost raped, as she says. She's like, yeah, a man tried to rape me in college. But luckily God gave me a super-strong hymen, so I was still a virgin. And we're like, is that what happened? Is that what happened? Is that how you remember it?

THERAPIST: Jesus. Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. Is that what you tell yourself? And that of course is just heartbreaking in its own way.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And her first husband Donald, who wouldn't let her doing anything, he was very controlling, who sent her to the hospital to get an abortion? And they gave her one, despite the fact that she didn't want one, despite the fact she was screaming and crying, she didn't want it, it wasn't up to her. She was just a woman. Her husband sent her there to get an abortion, so they had to hold her down because she was frantic.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So... yeah. [0:14:56] Then she got the Dalkon Shield, which apparently is just awful for people.

THERAPIST: What was it?

CLIENT: The Dalkon Shield? It's an early intrauterine device.

THERAPIST: Yeah. Primitive and...

CLIENT: Yeah, primitive and literally...

THERAPIST: Painful, that kind of...

CLIENT: Yeah, little bars essentially that (inaudible at 0:15:15).

THERAPIST: Jesus.

CLIENT: Apparently a lot of them got infections.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: So just all these horrible experiences, and the fact that she was so sexually abused as a child, which she refuses to talk about, but the signals are very clear. And then she watched her abuser die on the floor in front of her.

THERAPIST: What happened?

CLIENT: He had these really bad ulcers, and he wasn't supposed to drink coffee or other certain things. It was really bad for his ulcers. And he was there at her table when she was a child. He was demanding that his sister, my grandmother, make him a cup of coffee, demanding. [0:16:00] So she probably (ph) made him a cup of coffee, and he was just drinking it. And then his stomach ruptured, he just bled out on the floor, internal bleeding. But yeah, he died. And she watched him die. And she used to make us feel lucky, because she didn't do those things to us. She was like, I don't break hairbrushes over your arm. She's like, I don't... [kind of the most horrible things, I want you to trust] (ph) I don't do any of those things. So you're lucky that I don't do things like Terrance (sp?) does. (Pause) Yeah, I remember my sister telling me... she would hit my sister pretty often. She'd hit my sister, but never in the face. She'd always slap her hard on the thigh. And she's like, it's okay that I slapped you on the thigh. If I slapped you on the butt, that'd be sexual abuse. And that was always her phrasing, sexual abuse. [0:16:58]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: If I slapped you on the butt, that would be sexual abuse.

THERAPIST: That would be sexual abuse. Right.

CLIENT: My father once patted Bridget's diaper to see if it was full of poop or not. And she was like, how dare you cop a feel on our baby daughter?

THERAPIST: Yeah, she saw it everywhere as sick and...

CLIENT: Everywhere she went. My kid brother runs out of the bathtub naked when he's two. He runs over to see what James and I are doing at the Nintendo station (chuckling). And he trips, and he falls naked onto a shoe. His crotch is in the shoe, whole essentially, and he's trying to get up. And she runs over screaming, stop him! He's masturbating on a shoe! I'm just looking, and I'm like, no, he's not. And James's like, he's doing a terrible job, and...

THERAPIST: (Chuckling) Yeah. Well, it's this combination of her being kind of... seeing it everywhere. And I imagine her being very confused but also that this is bad... but everywhere tempting him. [0:18:02]

CLIENT: Yeah, it's bad everywhere.

THERAPIST: Yeah, and it really informed the way, I think, that she tried to instill the ideas of what sex [are you] (ph) on some... in some very basic... the most primitive of meanings.

CLIENT: Well, yeah, look at my sister who was married to a rapist for ten years.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And she was telling me, she's like... growing up with mom, she would tell me stuff. And she's like, (inaudible at 0:18:27) this is what we went through. This is what women did. And it wasn't until years later when she was telling people, oh, when you don't want to sex but your husband has sex with you anyway, where you're like, oh, stop it, stop it, and you're like, doesn't listen to you, has sex with you anyway, and her friends being like, that's not okay. That's never okay. What do you when he has sex with you anyway? Oh, you know, where he holds you down and wakes you up in the middle of the night...

THERAPIST: Jesus, that's horrible. [0:18:56]

CLIENT: Yeah, well, this is what mom would tell her. She's like, oh, James crawled on top of me again last night. [It's just horrible] (ph). Yeah, yeah. The Dropkick Murphys say it really well. She had excuses, and she chose to use them. She was the victim of unspeakable abuses. Yeah.

THERAPIST: And then it hits... yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause) Yeah, so my sister went through most of her life thinking she was stupid, because that's what Mom would tell her. She'd be like, you're creative. You're not smart, you're creative. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Well, was she envious of Bridget?

CLIENT: Oh, incredibly. [0:19:55] When Bridget was stuck living with her, after I moved out, she got married to this woman... this man, traditional chauvinist Italian, New Jersey Italian, real traditional. I'm a man, so I eat first at the table. I sit down, you bring the food, I'm the first person to eat...

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: And all those various other things. I'm the man of the house, so this is how things are going to be. And my sister just... this is awful. And my sister had an eating disorder for a while, because she had to be careful how she ate. Otherwise my mother would be like, stop making love to your food, or (being) being like, stop trying to tempt my husband at the dinner table...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And just crazy stuff. [0:20:56]

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: So yeah, she hated Bridget. And even to this day... we talk about this. We're like, she has no idea who we are. She literally... my mother has no idea who I am. She knows this projection of me and what I am.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I'm a fucking messiah half the time. And I was born to tell the world about Jesus Christ and this fucking messianic bullshit, whereas my sister...

THERAPIST: What a message to get.

CLIENT: Yeah, well...

THERAPIST: What a complicated message for you.

CLIENT: And she knows us so little that, when Bridget left Frank and (pause) Kevin needed to go to Middletown to find out about the GED program there, she comes to pick me up at the train station, the rail station. [0:21:59] And she's got her kids with her, and it's great stuff. And before she drops me off we take a bunch of pictures with me and the kids and me and her and brother... Kevin and I, and she, Kevin and I, everything. And she puts it on Facebook. And my mom freaks out when she sees these pictures. And she calls me. She's like, oh God, she's like, Bridget is with yet another man. Yet another man. She's been married for ten years to one person. She dated two people in high school, one in junior high. She married one of the people she dated in high school. And it's a picture of her with me, her brother.

THERAPIST: Whoa, whoa.

CLIENT: And my mom's just like, oh my God, she's with yet another man. And this man has a child, because I'm holding Dan, her nephew... her grandson. I'm holding Dan, her grandson.

THERAPIST: Oh, wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, and in this picture she sees Bridget married to, again, yet another man. [0:23:02]

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: And what does that even mean? In her mind Bridget is a sort of slut...

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: Who just goes around from man to man, and who needs to fix her marriage. And, if she prays hard enough, she can go back to Frank. If she prays hard enough, she can tolerate being raped every day. There's the Religiouss, though, too, you just need to pray it out. You two need to get together and pray your prayers until God fixes you.

THERAPIST: God's the only one that can (inaudible at 0:23:33). Yeah, and slutty and... (Pause) Yeah, this from... your mother was with a number of different men, a lot of different men, right?

CLIENT: Hmm?

THERAPIST: She went with a number of different men?

CLIENT: Yeah, she was married, I think, six times...

THERAPIST: Six? [0:24:01]

CLIENT: I don't know who he is. I've never seen him.

THERAPIST: Yet another man.

CLIENT: Yeah, I don't know his name. I have no idea what his name is. She was married for less than 24 hours. They met at a Religious singles event. They marry you right there. (Crosstalk)

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, they marry you right away, literally at the event. There's a bishop there ready to marry you, and...

THERAPIST: Yeah. (Pause)

CLIENT: Yeah, I don't even know how you get a marriage license that quickly. But they must have someone there as well.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, but she got married, she got laid. And she woke up in the morning. She's like, oh my God, you're poor. She's like I can't move in with you, with my children, at that point Kevin. She's like, I want a divorce. And the bishop's like, well, did you consummate the marriage? And she's like, yes, we did. He's like, well, I can't annul this. This can't be annulled. [0:24:55] I think he might be incorrect. I'm pretty sure you can still get a marriage annulled pretty quickly.

THERAPIST: Of course.

CLIENT: Within 48 hours, I think that's easy enough to be like, ah, wait, this is bullshit. (Crosstalk)

THERAPIST: Maybe not to the church, but...

CLIENT: Well, not... never to the church. The church is forever.

THERAPIST: Yeah, (crosstalk).

CLIENT: Well, they got married in the church, so they're sworn for the course of their natural lives.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: They're married in the temple, it's forever. And you get to learn your secret names? And I was so curious about that. And Bridget was like, oh, it's bullshit. It's Elaine. She's like, and every woman who gets married that day, her secret name is Elaine. And the next day it's Jenna. And she's like, yeah, I thought it was going to be special, too.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: But she's like, but it's not. And she's like, one of the early warning signs even ten years ago was when we got out secret names, and he's like, what's your name? [0:25:50] She's like, oh, it's Elaine. She's like, what's yours? He's like, I'm not supposed to tell you. Because the man...

THERAPIST: The man, yeah. [0:25:56]

CLIENT: The man knows hers, and she is not to know his, because he can call her through the veil, into heaven or not.

THERAPIST: Right. It's his call, though. It's not under the woman's control.

CLIENT: Yeah (crosstalk). It's a bunch of fucking pedophiles, chauvinists, and rapists, man. That's where the Religious church started, pedophiles, chauvinists, and rapists.

THERAPIST: Yeah. (Pause)

CLIENT: Yeah. So... (Pause)

THERAPIST: A lot of... yeah, it's... what the...? The treatment of women. Horrible treatment of women, subjugation.

CLIENT: Yeah. (Pause)

THERAPIST: And I think her rage at men's sexuality and the... she certainly... I mean, when she's got a son who's going through puberty... even before that...

CLIENT: Yeah. [0:27:00]

THERAPIST: She came at it with a vengeance.

CLIENT: When I was four. When I was four years old.

THERAPIST: Four years old? (Pause)

CLIENT: Yeah. She kept Kevin in a box for 24 years. (Pause) [I remember going to his room and moving out] (ph). It's just bunk beds, tiny little room, smaller than this, maybe the size of your waiting room, if that big. Actually, not even as big as that, because there's the door. The door opens, and it doesn't hit the bed... the bunk beds, but it's close. And then the bunk beds are up next to the wall, and there's a little closet on the side. And he had a little TV with a cable box and his PS 2.

THERAPIST: Jesus.

CLIENT: And then there's a couple piles of stuff. And, mind you, he's very minimalist. [0:28:00] He's like, actually, I don't want all this stuff. He's like, I don't need stuff, which is great, I mean, because if you've ever seen my mother's house, it's just stacked with boxes and papers...

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: And all sorts of things. Every available horizontal surface is stacked at least a foot high from edge to edge.

THERAPIST: Oh, like any table or anything that has (crosstalk)?

CLIENT: Yeah, anything. Anything you can stack stuff on. And when she runs out of that it's stacked on the floor.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So there are pathways through the house (crosstalk)...

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. And when you go up she's just like, oh, my house looks a mess [and there's things] (ph)... no, this is how it always is. This is how your house is.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: This is what has always been, and...

THERAPIST: Wow, is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah. And my grandmother as well, the same thing. [0:28:54] There was one little room with no stuff in it. And again it was a living area the size of your waiting room. And the rest of the one, two, three, four (pause), five, six bedroom house? Just filled with stuff.

THERAPIST: Really?

CLIENT: Yeah. All of her children's rooms once they move out, just more and more stuff.

THERAPIST: She never threw anything out, that kind of thing? Or she'd just collect...?

CLIENT: Not that I know of. I mean...

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Anyway...

THERAPIST: That is (crosstalk)...

CLIENT: And her garage, filled with antiques and collectibles.

THERAPIST: Whoa, yeah, what were they?

CLIENT: Just furniture, just furniture she owned.

THERAPIST: But she called them antiques?

CLIENT: Yeah, and so did my mom, and collectibles. What are fucking collectibles? It's always collectibles, collectibles, like this buzzword with her and my uncle and my old stepfather. Collectibles, collectibles... [0:29:58]

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Because they'll sell on eBay someday. But he actually makes a living selling stuff on eBay. That's what he does.

THERAPIST: Who does that?

CLIENT: My ex-stepfather. My first stepfather. (Pause) Of the four I've had, he was the first.

THERAPIST: Wow. (Pause) Yeah, these men in and out of your life.

CLIENT: Yeah, some of them not even in my life. I knew one. [He was for less than eight hours] (ph).

THERAPIST: He was the one...

CLIENT: That was her fifth husband. She was actually married to him for a while. Then he had a psychotic break as best they can determine. He started going on about Africa and Europe and diamond smuggling and people being after him. And then one day he just was gone.

THERAPIST: Just disappeared?

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: And he was a pretty high-ranking guy in the Religious church.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that right? [0:30:57]

CLIENT: Yeah. He was pretty high-ranking. (Pause) Yeah. (Pause) I fucking [hated her] (ph).

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, so...

THERAPIST: [What would] (ph)...? Yeah.

CLIENT: She's just awful, because she always puts on this mask when she's with a new man, okay? Everything's perfect. And everything's wonderful. And I'd be like, so, new husband. Here's some things you should know. I tried to warn David... before he even married her, I'm like, so David, she's going to spend all your money. And when it's gone she will divorce you. This is what she does.

THERAPIST: Hmm.

CLIENT: She will spend all of your money, and then when it's gone she will divorce you.

THERAPIST: Ah. Huh.

CLIENT: He had $30,000 in savings, in his bank account, fucking checking account? [0:31:58]

THERAPIST: Do you think she enjoyed it, enjoyed taking their money and going through it?

CLIENT: Oh, she loves it. It's always okay because men are supposed to take care of her.

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: She's just a woman.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: She's not supposed to have a job. Her job is to take care of children, and then you've got to be a volunteer missionary.

THERAPIST: I'm going to spend all your damn money. I can spend all your money, [as opposed to] (ph)...

CLIENT: Yeah. There is... if there's money, writing checks she knew would bounce, chastising us for mentioning our real address when she was writing checks with an old address. (Pause) Probing to see if she could get Bridget or I to jump in on sexual abuse charges [which she levied] (ph) at James...

THERAPIST: Mmm. (Pause) Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: Which were obviously faked, which were obviously faked.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: Kevin has no memory of these things. [0:32:56]

THERAPIST: She wanted to get at him? She wanted to (crosstalk)?

CLIENT: Oh, of course, she wanted to divorce him. She wanted to divorce him. And so now she still sees him and still stays at his house sometimes and has been getting money from him for years ever since.

THERAPIST: Oh, is that a way they can get divorced, if somebody's sexually abused?

CLIENT: Yeah, well, you have to write to the prophet, as well, of the church and be like, I want to be unsealed. Unsealing's what they call it when you're bound together for eternity. And we were all sealed to him.

THERAPIST: Oh, wow.

CLIENT: So it'd be like, when we get to heaven, we'll all be with him. But that's been undone. The seal was broken. You have to get the prophet to do it, and you have to be like extenuating circumstances. And that's one of the ways that they'll do it. But they're pressing criminal charges, which is completely illegal, right?

THERAPIST: Whoa.

CLIENT: If you accuse a man for sexually abusing your child in order to get a divorce, I'm pretty sure you don't choose whether or not to press charges. [0:33:56]

THERAPIST: Oh, right, that's a state thing.

CLIENT: (Crosstalk) yeah, exactly. It's like, you have committed a crime...

THERAPIST: That's right.

CLIENT: That must be dealt with. [0:34:03]

THERAPIST: It's a state...

CLIENT: Yeah, but nothing ever came of that. So... and the church is great about that. Well, we should handle this internally. My sister was raped, and she tells the chief of police, who's the bishop.

THERAPIST: Oh, yeah.

CLIENT: And he's like, well, you're talking to me as the bishop right now...

THERAPIST: Not the police.

CLIENT: Not as the police. Not a choice he gets to make.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: Yeah. So you don't... but you don't get to make that choice.

THERAPIST: Is that right?

CLIENT: My sister didn't realize this. So she's like, yeah, so that's what happened. I'm like, you could have that guy's badge, his fucking pension, I mean...

THERAPIST: Wow. What a scandal.

CLIENT: Oh, completely. That's how they behave.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: (inaudible at 0:34:47), and so they excommunicate her, so...

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: They still want her back (inaudible at 0:34:55).

THERAPIST: They want her back?

CLIENT: In fact, they may not have excommunicated her at all. If they haven't they still want her back. [0:35:00] Although they may have, because she's had a child out of wedlock now, so... (Pause) Became pregnant while she was still technically married to Frank.

THERAPIST: Oh, okay.

CLIENT: So you can't do that stuff. (Pause) She was sealed in the temple. (Pause)

THERAPIST: Excommunicated, Jesus.

CLIENT: And the kids are getting old enough now, they're starting to ask other questions.

THERAPIST: Yeah, like what? What are they...?

CLIENT: How did we get here?

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: What do you mean? Humans. How did humans get here? And so started by telling Dan, she's like, well, a lot of people have different theories. Some people believe in evolution. Some people believe in... that God created the world in seven days. And she tells me this. I'm like, you need to go talk to him again. You can't present creationism as anything other than complete mythology. It's like... I'm like, evolution happened. [0:36:04] She's like, okay, yeah (inaudible at 0:36:07), but why haven't they ever found a missing link? That's not settled. There are many, many, many missing links. Even the most current one shows human hands with a fucking ape brow. It's like, we can see, we can see this has happened. Ah, look, here's a transitory model right here [that's part of] (ph) the sequence of obvious and clear evidence for evolution. (Pause) And like, well, it's a theory you can't test. It's like, yeah, but we don't... you don't need to test every theory when you can see that it has happened, when you can look at millions of years of evidence and be like, ah, clearly. So I told her was, you need to go back and tell him. Man, you can't have him walking around thinking that creation of humans (crosstalk)...

THERAPIST: Mmm. [0:36:54]

CLIENT: And so she did, and then later when Reid asked she was like, oh, look at what science tells us. She's like, and a lot of people tell themselves these stories about this stuff, but science tells us this. This is what happened.

THERAPIST: Mm-hmm.

CLIENT: It was like, thank God. No pun intended.

THERAPIST: Ah (chuckling).

CLIENT: Thank God for atheism. They need to put that on a bumper sticker somewhere.

THERAPIST: Thank God for science.

CLIENT: Yeah. So (pause) absolute insanity. But panic attack, and I managed to bring myself down from it and to recognize when I get not enough sleep, too much weed, combination of not enough sleep and too much weed, okay? Simple. I told myself, I'm like, if you want to prevent this in the future, it's a couple of things, one, get sleep, two, don't smoke weed all the time, three, don't go to any free porn sites.

THERAPIST: Hmm. [0:37:55]

CLIENT: Just stop surfing the net in directions that will make you nervous.

THERAPIST: Ah. Yeah, yeah. Right.

CLIENT: I'm like, [have some sense] (ph). I mean, they're not safe. You have to constantly run Norton. There was that time when you clicked a link, and Norton's like, this download is unsafe. I'm like, what the fuck am I downloading? I'm like, okay, so fuck this place. And even with all the searching you do, this one place, like, oh, this place is interesting. I'm like, oh, it's safe, it's totally safe. And one guy (inaudible at 0:38:24) yeah, I actually got the FBI virus when I was there. And it's like, okay, well, that's... fuck that. The FBI virus is a hacker virus that takes over your computer, blocks it out, and puts up a screen with the FBI logo on it. And it's like, we've caught you doing something illegal.

THERAPIST: Jesus.

CLIENT: Right? And it's like, there's a fine of X amount of dollars that you can pay right now. But we're keeping your computer locked until you pay, and... because you did something illegal. [0:38:55] And it's a virus that you can get on free porn sites.

THERAPIST: Well, it's designed to instill that feeling that you're describing of, I'm going to get caught and seen for doing something I wasn't supposed to do.

CLIENT: Right. And even if you didn't think you're doing something wrong...

THERAPIST: Even if you didn't think you're doing something wrong, yes.

CLIENT: It's like, oh, got you. You're look, oh shit (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: And even if... imagine the victim of this, who has to be like, oh God. I don't know... I wasn't doing anything, but now they think I was. I don't want to fight this, because then it goes to the court that's the... people know about this.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And so people will pay this. But you have to wipe (ph) the entire machine. (Pause) Yeah, power it down, and boot it up in safe mode. And it's like... wipe it because it gets deep. (Pause) [0:39:56]

THERAPIST: But I think you're sort of saying something important, too, about the whole... it's not just a... I mean, yeah, of course, the imprisonment and all (chuckling), and a fine would be significant. But it's also that somebody would be accusing you of something you didn't do.

CLIENT: Right, but the way people look at you (crosstalk)...

THERAPIST: And the way people look at you is that you did do it, yeah.

CLIENT: And you never change that perception.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you have... tainted with it.

CLIENT: Yeah, I'm like, what would people think and say about me?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So easy solutions. Just stay to strictly pay porn sites, because they have so much to lose if something goes wrong, which is where I usually go. I'm usually (inaudible at 0:40:40) transacted. So transactions happen (crosstalk).

THERAPIST: Well, it's preying upon this kind of ambiguity people have around sexuality. Everybody... people looking at porn are afraid (ph) of feelings of, am I doing something kind of...? [0:40:57] How will people see me?

CLIENT: But are there people who don't look at porn?

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: I guess Christians, right? Maybe.

THERAPIST: (Laughing) Oh, you don't think Christians look a porn sites?

CLIENT: Well, most of them probably do, right? But there's got to be some people who are like, oh, no. This is... no, crazy, crazy.

THERAPIST: Lexington, Kentucky is famous for having the most churches and the most strip clubs (laughing). [That's so odd] (ph).

CLIENT: That's really funny.

THERAPIST: And most adult bookstores, so (inaudible at 0:41:25).

CLIENT: Oh, there you go. There you go. (Pause) Yeah.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It's pretty crazy.

THERAPIST: They're doing what your mother was doing.

CLIENT: She calls Bridget. She says stuff like, God will forgive me for masturbating because most of the time I'm like a nun.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: What does that even mean]?

THERAPIST: What does that even mean? Right.

CLIENT: Yeah. So... [0:41:57]

THERAPIST: And that her sexuality's bad...

CLIENT: And that she would call Bridget and talk about it.

THERAPIST: And talk to Bridget about it.

CLIENT: Right? Imagine. Imagine.

THERAPIST: Right, right. Yes. Why is she calling her daughter?

CLIENT: And this is just part of your daily life. And this is just part of your daily life. And you are accustomed to this.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: Yeah. And the good news is that, when your friends have deeply personal problems, you're prepared to hear anything.

THERAPIST: (Chuckling)

CLIENT: People are like, nothing fazes you.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: (Laughing) Are you kidding? This is kid stuff.

THERAPIST: This is nothing.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like, oh, gee, golly.

THERAPIST: Jesus. Yeah.

CLIENT: It's like, oh, did you come too soon with your new girlfriend? Oh well. That's fixable. It's like, you spent so many years trying to masturbate as quickly as you could, which I don't know why you were doing that. [0:42:56] But know you've trained yourself to have no endurance, which means you need to go back to the drawing board and train yourself again. And they're like, oh, really? Like, yeah, this is fucking easy stuff. Like, did you read books on this when you were a kid? No. You should have read books. You should have read books. My uncle had a copy of The Joy of Sex in his house. When I was seventeen I was like, oh. So he's like, yeah, you should totally read this.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And so I did, cover to cover. I was like, this is great stuff. And he had all these various other books lying around from back when he was trying to be straight. And... yeah. Read all these things to get all the information I could possibly get.

THERAPIST: There is also something... you were talking about these women that you... that had such a benign view of sexuality with you. When you were in college, (inaudible at 0:43:45). It's almost like a detoxification of... an attempted (ph) detoxification of what your mom was doing.

CLIENT: Yeah, well, I was having a lot of sex. (Crosstalk)

THERAPIST: And feeling good about it. [0:44:01]

CLIENT: Oh, yeah, it was like... well, the first time I did anything sexual when I was 15 at [Keisha Donaldson's] (sp?) place, I was kissing for a bit. And then I slipped my hand up the sleeve of her nightshirt and then back down around, because that's like... as a kid, okay, how am I going to get in that? How am I going to get in this shirt? Whatever. And I was like, wow, breasts, amazing, amazing. And then I cried for half an hour immediately, because now I was going to go to hell.

THERAPIST: Oh, Jesus, there you go.

CLIENT: I'm like, oh shit, now I'm going to hell. There's no getting around it. It's happened.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I've done the thing, and now it's over.

THERAPIST: Yeah, you were battling two really complicated things at the same time, one, wanting the natural kind of... the healthy instinct to find a breast (chuckling)... [0:44:57]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And be satisfied and enjoy it, and at the same time wanting to stay good, wanting to stay good.

CLIENT: Yeah, but then... I mean, but breasts were just so amazing. There was no stopping. I'm all, well, now I have to touch breasts.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I was like, these are just the most amazing thing. And I remember being like (inaudible at 0:45:17) it's kind of like a water balloon. That's really interesting. Huh. I remember thinking that, that it's like a water balloon. And (chuckling)... yeah. Yeah, but I'm just lucky to have a variety of dudes in my life and even some women, when I was in high school, who were like, no, no, this is...

THERAPIST: This is...

CLIENT: Sex is good.

THERAPIST: You're good, yeah.

CLIENT: Like, sex is good, and my dad being like, oh yeah, fucking pussy, and he was like...

THERAPIST: Oh yeah.

CLIENT: He's like, you're a kid. You should go find some 30-year-old woman, and just be like, I want to know how to eat pussy. [0:45:54] She'll fucking take you to her bed and let you practice.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And I'm like, I wonder if that really would have happened. I don't know if that's true. I was 16 at that point. I was 15 at that point. I don't know if any 30-year-old woman would take a 15-year-old boy to her bed.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, so... craziness.

THERAPIST: Mmm.

CLIENT: Yeah, so all that bullshit. But then [Christian Henderson] (ph) fucking drawing me diagrams. He'd be like... he's like, here you go. He's like, do this with this, you do this with this.

THERAPIST: Ah.

CLIENT: Some ladies you do this. It's like... he was like, here is how it works. My dad being like, if you ever get a prostitute, maybe take a bath. He's like, just maybe take a bath. Step one. Like, okay. He's like, yeah. (Chuckling) Like, okay.

THERAPIST: Wow.

CLIENT: Yeah, and Christian...

THERAPIST: These lessons, huh? Gee.

CLIENT: Yeah, but, I mean, just... Christian being like, yep (sp?), sex. Women like this. They don't like this.

THERAPIST: The frankness. [0:47:01]

CLIENT: Yeah. I'm like, oh, great, this is all wonderful information...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, and then reading books and then just... this is... Changing Bodies, Changing Lives that we had to smuggle into the woods to read.

THERAPIST: When did you do that?

CLIENT: When I was homeschooled.

THERAPIST: Oh, when you were with your mother?

CLIENT: 12 or 13, [come out of the homeschool] (ph) friend's house. We sneaked Changing Bodies, Changing Lives into the woods...

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And just read it and read it.

THERAPIST: You were a brave guy doing that, jeez.

CLIENT: Well, I was curious. I was endlessly curious. (Pause) Needed to know.

THERAPIST: Yeah, yeah.

CLIENT: I had my first sexual fantasy when I was five? It was me and a bunch of girls from kindergarten...

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: And none of us had our clothes on. But we were all wearing... you know those doctor masks?

THERAPIST: Uh-huh. [0:47:57]

CLIENT: We're all wearing these rubber brownish, brick-colored doctor masks over our genitals.

THERAPIST: Huh.

CLIENT: And I don't know why. But I remember just thinking about that and like, yeah, that's cool.

THERAPIST: And you're all... you're with a bunch of girls?

CLIENT: I'm with a bunch of girls from my kindergarten class.

THERAPIST: With just those...

CLIENT: Yeah, just the red... that's... and we're all... yeah, I mean, we're all five, so...

THERAPIST: Uh-huh.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: [Was it enjoyable] (ph)?

CLIENT: To this day... well, sure. To this day I'm like, what the fuck were those doctor masks? What was that about?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I still knew there was something wrong with that, those were bad.

THERAPIST: Huh. What? The masks or the...?

CLIENT: No, genitals were just bad.

THERAPIST: The genitals. Oh. Yeah.

CLIENT: That's all I knew, they were supposed to be secret. Never show them to anyone or let anyone touch them.

THERAPIST: Well, it reminds... it's reminiscent of the leaf over the genitals in all the...

CLIENT: Oh yeah! Maybe that's where that came from. [0:48:56] Adam and Eve, the old story.

THERAPIST: Yeah, leaves over the genitals as if there's something bad there, or that should be kept secret as you say. Maybe that's the thing.

CLIENT: Yeah, keep it secret, keep it safe. (Laughing) A little Gandalf going on there. He likes to quote Lord of the Rings after he quotes the Bible, just as a point of comparison.

THERAPIST: (Laughing) Is that right?

CLIENT: Yeah, it's clever. (Pause) It's very clever.

THERAPIST: Oh yeah, yeah. (Pause)

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Well...

CLIENT: All right.

THERAPIST: All right. Monday, yeah.

CLIENT: Monday it is. (Pause) God, I'm sleepy today. Just (pause) sleepy.

THERAPIST: Yeah?

CLIENT: All right.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Coffee, waking up, you know.

THERAPIST: How much sleep did you get? [0:49:56]

CLIENT: Probably six hours, [which kind of is pretty good] (ph).

THERAPIST: All right.

CLIENT: All right, see you later.

END TRANSCRIPT