TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi.

CLIENT: Hi. So unfortunately, I have continued doing pretty crazed since last night.

THERAPIST: Why? Talk about it.

CLIENT: Yeah. Like it’s a family joke that I always forget birthdays, because I always forget birthdays.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And the only person I can remember is my brother, and I don’t know why, like it’s 4/14, so that’s, I don’t know. But I forgot this year, and when I remembered, or like had missed it, I just started sobbing, and I was lying in bed, and I was like, “Oh, his birthday.” And that’s not, it’s not really how I react to a lot of things. [00:01:12]

But it was so especially like my parents and my brother, like they always, they’ll be like, “You got the right week.” And I’m like, “Yes, thank you.” And, but I just like, it was weird because I just started sobbing and I didn’t really, I wasn’t thinking that my brother would be mad.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: I just was crying.

THERAPIST: Did you feel like you were losing it?

CLIENT: Yeah, I felt really overwhelmed and just like everything’s happening. [00:01:59]

So and then I had like a, definitely wrote the worst paper that I have ever written for (inaudible at [00:02:13]), which was weird, also. Like I was looking for a (inaudible at [00:02:22]) research, which isn’t something I’ve done a lot, like Morgan, but so there was that. And when I finished the paper, what I was thinking is like I don’t think I can make it to December, like working at my job until then.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And the thing I thought of doing, and I would, that feeling to, two thoughts on this is thinking like three months of short-term disability through work which would be, that’s 100% pay, so there’s that. [00:03:12]

And I wouldn’t be at work. I guess I feel like so just like overwhelmed and just like not able to keep it together. I feel like being at work is making that so much harder.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But I also feel kind of weird about it. I mentioned to you I was talking to my brother the other night. [00:04:00]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And asked him if he had ever taken a planned leave, and he said no, because what he did was end up in the hospital and then you know, called from there and work it out after he was already a patient. He had suggested, like why don’t you quit your job and live off savings, which I don’t have, so no, I can’t, unfortunately. But yeah, like it’s, the way I feel about is it like that (inaudible at [00:04:50]), if someone else is talking to me. I would be like, “You should definitely take that leave, go for it.” But I feel uncomfortable. [00:05:01]

Like—

THERAPIST: My sense of you is that you feel guilty and like you should soldier through it, and like it’s probably not as bad as you think or are making it out to be, something like that.

CLIENT: Pretty much, along with I really don’t feel like my parents want this.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: I worry that Ashby’s going to be crazy, like resentful. And the other thing, I had thought about this kind of vaguely like January, but then I was thinking if I take this chunk of time off and I’m just like home, like that will make me feel really crazy, like being home and not doing anything, it being winter, et cetera, et cetera. [00:06:05]

But now I’m just like, but I don’t think I can, I don’t feel like I can get crazier being at home, and also I could leave my own apartment, but—

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: I don’t know. It’s like I’ve just been thinking about it the last couple days, and if, even though I feel very like uncomfortable, it also kind of feels like that would be a relief to not have to be at work.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Especially since it’s coming around performance review season, and I just can’t imagine that happening. [00:07:08]

THERAPIST: Just mainly think of it of, when you went on leave a couple of times, once before your surgery and once after?

CLIENT: No, once was for like, it started before my surgery, but included surgery.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And then once a year later to kind of deal with—

THERAPIST: For pain problem. But so what, you were having surgery, yeah. I know, this is obviously a different thing, sort of cause, but I think I was remembering your other leave.

CLIENT: Yeah, after it happened, like after I, you know, did the paperwork, it was a huge relief. [00:08:09]

And I think, I think it will be. Like I mean, the other thing I’ve been thinking about is just like the idea of like burnout, like emotional burnout, being burned out from work. There’s something I’ve thought more about in terms of like doing political activism or like helping run conventions and other things where sometimes it’s just like, “No, I’m too exhausted, I have to stop.”

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like I guess I’ve always, well I’ve often tried, thought of my job as just being like this is the place I go, you know, five days a week, and you know, it’s not, I mean depending, like I always get emotionally invested, but I try to think my job would be this thing I do during the week. [00:09:20]

And not something that I’m like thinking about all the time, or am concerned about, whatever. But I guess since I’m thinking of employeeship as, I’ve invested time and money in employeeship being a career, there’s been a lot more emotional stuff, and I also feel like some of the things that happened with the office transition and (pause) [00:10:13]

It gets hard because all the things that are frustrating, but I think one of the biggest things is that I feel this sort of social contract with whatever you have at work was working, and there’s not, well it’s hard, because I don’t really trust anything that anyone says mostly, but I feel like effort to repair that hasn’t really happened, which it’s also unclear to me if that’s even something like a concern. [00:11:10]

A priority, or like even a thought, like I guess at a management level, is this something you’ve thought of trying to work on? And I don’t really think so.

THERAPIST: I guess I find myself like going back and thinking broadly here, not like, things have been getting worse over the last three years.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And how you’ve been feeling. I mean, you’ve been feeling more anxious, and more down, and more incapacitated by it, and then in the last few months especially, like weepier. [00:11:59]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And I don’t know the reason for any of that, which is bothering me. I mean—

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And I know things at work are really bad, and that you are quite burned out from the way things are bad. They’ve been bad for a long time, including at some other points, quite bad. I mean, there’s all the stuff with Will [], there’s all the stuff from the beginning of the transition and the uncertainty about whether you, or anybody else was going to have a job, and what it was going to look like. And lots of other things. You know, there’s a sort of, in the last six months or so, I think I’ve got the timing right, there are like maybe four or five months with changes in the medication, which, you know, have some effect, although you changed back to pretty much what you’d been on. [00:13:04]

CLIENT: I mean, the reason why I made the medication change, or asked for it, is I was feeling really—

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Bad.

THERAPIST: My sense, although I don’t know, is that you’re sort of doing less social stuff.

CLIENT: Oh, yes. So it was for my mentors, I was like, so I decided to take Xerox, like (inaudible at [00:13:41]) had published, and that I’d scan into pdfs, and just be like, “Hey, here you go.” Because I also decided to just break up with the mentorship basically, because it’s not going, it’s done nothing for me.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:14:03]

CLIENT: I’m not really sure. Like I think like when I think about it, one of the things I think is definitely the, a change, like new physical locations.

THERAPIST: yeah.

CLIENT: From a quiet office with a closed door.

THERAPIST: Oh, you mean at work, yeah.

CLIENT: Yeah, at work, yeah, so like—

THERAPIST: There’s also the apartment that I—

CLIENT: Yeah, that was also, wow.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: That was a lot.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But yeah, so I went from like a pretty, a very quiet office it was either just me or me and one person.

THERAPIST: I remember it, yeah.

CLIENT: To—

THERAPIST: To the pentoctagon.

CLIENT: Yeah. And like I know that’s been wearing on me, but I’ve been thinking like I think it’s really, really been wearing on me. [00:15:12]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I’ve also noticed that for whatever reason, maybe it’s the pentoctagon, maybe it’s not, I don’t know. I can feel it. Like I’ve been having an extra hard time dealing with like racial microagressions, or just aggressions in school, or like out and about. And this semester having like (inaudible at [00:16:00]) in class being really homophobic over this article. [00:16:07]

And it’s definitely something, I mean, that will, that would piss me off regardless, like there is no (inaudible at [00:16:16]) that would not have made me angry.

THERAPIST: We are meaning to talk about that from school, can you remind me? I mean -

CLIENT: Yeah, it was, you were supposed to read and critique an article which was a research article about do people get a different quality of service when they go to a reference desk asking about like, LGBT stuff, and it was, you know, about LGBTU, and was a really depressing, like I felt it was really depressing. They just, they get horrible service. [00:16:58]

And I was also disappointed that my professor didn’t say anything. Like she’s always been, the classes I’ve taken from her before, she’s been explicitly hands-off in the discussion forums, but I really, like I felt very disappointed and vulnerable that she didn’t say anything, and she still doesn’t say anything when I post a (inaudible at [00:17:30]), like this is horrible. I feel like this is crap.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I haven’t posted in the discussion forum since then, because I just went, “Nope.” Except this week it was required as part of the grade.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: But I guess part of me, I mean, I also like [00:18:01]

Sort of professionally this year, at work I’ve been trying to focus on things that are not about me, like if that makes sense, or not too, like, so that if there were problems it would feel less like a personal attack.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: So like I was doing stuff with disability, and disability, and (inaudible at [00:18:36]), and like on my interactions.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And so it’s not about me, as a person. [00:18:58]

I think I know in a way kind of it was more frustrating because like I think these things. Like this is stuff I know a lot about. It’s not stuff that I know about through like, it’s not my own personal experience, so like whatever, that will be fine. Except that like my knowledge and work and skill or whatever got like ignored or belittled.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And I guess like that was definitely difficult in a, like it’s not like my feelings are hurt. [00:20:04]

Although they are, but it’s also, I guess it’s more like but there’s this kind of empirical thing. Like I know a lot about, like I ran disability services for three years at a convention, so I know something about it. And just having people say, like just discuss it. Like not even say like well, that was only, that was just volunteer work or whatever, just flat out ignoring it. I guess it’s so like, with Will and despite his amazing blatantness -

THERAPIST: His amazing—

CLIENT: Like what I would say, it was just really blatant. [00:21:08]

THERAPIST: Oh, blatantness.

CLIENT: Blatant discrimination and crappiness.

THERAPIST: Yes.

CLIENT: You know, I’m kind of like yes, I guess I can’t prove that I know more about this than Chet, fine. You know, it happens. It’s weird how your personal preferences is for white people, but like, whatever. Who knows? But with this, I’m just like no, I’m really pretty sure that like I’m not pulling this out of my ass. These are things I know about. And also I pin more hopes on this mentorship program than I realized. [00:22:09]

And I probably, I really should have said no when the program person was like, “So, we don’t know where to find a person of color at FAS.” I think that would have, like it would have been a better choice, but I was trying too hard to be like optimistic, I guess, or trying something.

THERAPIST: It doesn’t seem to me like you could have predicted that (inaudible at [00:22:53]) from the business school wouldn’t work. It didn’t seem like, maybe I’m wrong on this, but (inaudible at [00:23:00]) is not that it was her being at the business school that made it not work, (inaudible at [00:23:08]). [00:23:08]

CLIENT: Yeah, I mean—

THERAPIST: (inaudible at [00:23:08]), but—

CLIENT: Well the part about like not being able to find a person of color at [] is just like a sign of deeper problems.

THERAPIST: I see, so it’s not that well the person would have to be at [] because nobody else could be helpful. It’s more like they can’t find somebody at [] it’s a sign that things are fucked up enough that you’re probably going to want to do this.

CLIENT: Yes, exactly.

THERAPIST: I see.

CLIENT: And because she was kind of like, like she didn’t volunteer to do this. I don’t think it’s something she would personally volunteer to do normally.

THERAPIST: Oh, I didn’t realize that.

CLIENT: Oh yeah. No, it was, I mean, so they said to me, like when I said and I gave them a few like descriptions in (inaudible at [00:24:04]), it was like I just want a person of color, just give me one. It’s like the, you know, person running it was like I’m not sure, do you know if that person works at FAS? [00:24:20]

And I thought, I hope so, because what I was asking was for a person of color who has a professional level job. And I said I would take basically anyone except for finance, because I hate finance. And that person should exist, like that doesn’t, because [] (sp?) was like, (inaudible at [00:24:54]), like my ideal? And I’m like well, I really like an openly gay lesbian person. It would be really awesome if this was a woman of color, or like blah, blah, blah. [00:25:06]

I mean, and when the, she was just kind of like, oh, ah, I was fine, I was just like, just (inaudible at [00:25:13]). And so she said, she’s like, “Do you have any suggestions?” So then I had to awesomely ask my coworkers if they knew any, which was really awkward and kind of, and of the like, I don’t know, like maybe five people, maybe. She was the best choice, but it was also a case of like some people said, like some people said, “She’s kind of like a little socially awkward. I don’t know that you’ll,” so I was like, “Well, I guess like she fits something.” [00:26:09]

And I, I also didn’t like, kind of socially awkward is, you know—

THERAPIST: Like not really into it, as I recall. I mean not mean, or exactly standoffish, but it didn’t seem like she really wanted to be there a whole lot.

CLIENT: No, and she doesn’t really seem great at communication.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: In general, and you know why I don’t, I was not expecting like her to be like I don’t know. [00:27:10]

Like have an activist point of view, or X, Y, and Z, but I did expect her to respond in some way, to me, document these problems, and she just hasn’t. And I don’t know why. I mean, it just makes it feel uncomfortable, but I don’t actually know. So I was reading all these articles and I’m trying this week to be just like, “I’m sorry, this just hasn’t worked out.” There’s an end of program capstone lunch. And, which is in like, I don’t know, the middle of May. [00:27:59]

And I just don’t like, I don’t want to go. You know, like I was thinking about it. Like I really just don’t want to. I mean, partially because some of the (inaudible at [00:28:26]), I’ve not actually like, I don’t know, fulfilled them, all of it. But I don’t, like I don’t want to constantly explain why it’s taken months and months to put up a sign about handicap bathrooms and have to bargain over and over. I’m not interested in that. [00:28:56]

I can’t remember which one I was going to do, but like I don’t, it’s just like I don’t feel like trying to defend myself or like what I did or did not do, and I don’t think I really got anything out of this. So like I don’t want to be in the position of someone, of being asked about my experience with it, and giving a public honest answer because no matter how well I couch it, it’s not public.

THERAPIST: Yeah, that was really quite disappointing.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: And it didn’t have to be.

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:30:00]

Yeah, I guess that’s the thing. I’m like, just like not that I thought this was going to be a life-changing thing, but I thought it would be at least like somewhat positive, distract me from crappy things at work, and it didn’t really happen.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: And so also when I was Xeroxing these various articles, I was just like, shit, I haven’t like really written or blogged or like been really involved in sort of like, I’m going to say discourse, but that’s not really what I mean, like been involved in kind of like sprawling discussions of offices like online friends. [00:31:02]

CLIENT: And like I have—

THERAPIST: (inaudible at [00:31:03])

CLIENT: Sort of, so like what I was Xeroxing in part was, it’s called the (inaudible at [00:31:08].

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: And they’re collections of essays, reflections, and poetry and all these things about things that happened at (inaudible at [00:31:18]), and so they’re a lot of them to do with politics, but not always. One of them was actually talking about consent. And I remember that the last year, and I think the year before, the editors were very strongly trying to get me to write something, and I was like, I can’t write anything, I’m sorry. Like I was trying to see if I could like recycle, or like write. Now like two years ago, I was just like, I can’t write, I’m sorry. [00:31:59]

And this last year, I said I couldn’t write, but if you wanted to do a like an interview, like a question and answer, I could do that, but it just didn’t happen. And that’s also very, like it’s probably, this is probably the longest stretch that I’ve gone, like not really, like I’m not cut, like I haven’t seen local friends, I haven’t seen like my Internet friends. I haven’t seen, and I just feel like I guess all the things, like the things that I do are things I think of, like the sort of things I do myself, I just haven’t really been doing, and I haven’t noticed how long it’s been. [00:33:09]

Like one of my friends was like, yeah, I haven’t seen you in three years. And he lives here. And mind you, he travels a lot, and blah, blah, blah, but it’s just like, I mean, we argue about something that’s not possible, like get the surgery. And someone else was like, “I babysat for her.” And I was like, I haven’t really talked to you since before you had this child who is four, like three or four. And like, we were never good friends, but it’s still weird to be like, oh, you have a child. I barely remember, I barely even saw you like the mom being pregnant. I was just whatever. [00:34:00]

THERAPIST: I guess I feel like I’ve seen this in some ways here. Well the way that I’ve seen it here is sort of, I don’t remember exactly when it was that you decided to come in less often, but my recollection is that it was a lot because it was overwhelming to be coming here more often, that it was making you look too sad and too upset, most of the time upset as opposed to angry or anxious.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: To be talking about things more often. And you seemed, I mean in recent months, I think, maybe a, I mean there was that one time where you were really upset after we met, and it lasted like a few days. [00:35:11]

And I guess my impression has been, like the feeling I’ve gotten is that well, happily that hasn’t happened in the same way, I think since then. That you’re feeling like more recently overwhelmed, and thinner skinned in a way when it comes to talking about it. So I’m not saying you don’t or you don’t try to, I’m just saying that it’s like you feel kind of like it gets to be too much, or it really knocks you over. [00:36:00]

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Much more easily than it used to.

CLIENT: Definitely.

THERAPIST: And yeah, I don’t understand all of it. I mean, I think I descriptively, I feel like I have, I hear what you’re saying, I think we’re pretty much on the same page, I’m sure there are things I don’t know, but I don’t get it.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: I mean, some of it certainly has got to be burnout and increasingly, like being increasingly worn down. Sometimes it’s just kind of, it sort of gets worse, but I don’t know.

CLIENT: Yeah. I think that’s also part of why the idea of like taking some time, a leave from work seems so appealing. [00:37:13]

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Because like whatever’s going on, I just feel so unable to get a handle on what it is like I don’t know. Like I don’t know what the problem is. Like what’s really starting this.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: It’s like I can describe like various things, but I couldn’t tell you why.

THERAPIST: Right. I mean another sort of descriptive aspect of this, or like aspect of the fact that you described is it seems to me like the other things in your life have grown smaller and work has grown relatively bigger. [00:37:58]

Over the last year or two, and that work has become unbearable in a way that it wasn’t before. Like even if it was bad, and kind of upsetting and too much, like I feel like it looms larger in your daily life now. You know, sort of fewer things outside of it.

CLIENT: Yeah, and like I think in, I like tried to do more things outside of work.

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Like just, like I’m okay, should I do whatever, and it’s so exhausting and difficult and in ways where I’m like I just don’t get where that completely wore me out and I have to go lie down right now. [00:39:09]

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Which also then like I get frustrated and sort of like a feedback loop.

THERAPIST: Sure.

CLIENT: But yeah, like—

THERAPIST: Have you, have you had a physical recently, like in the last six months?

CLIENT: Yes.

THERAPIST: Okay. I mean, it could be lots of other things that just, you know, just figure that stuff out.

CLIENT: I had a, I did a bunch of stuff like in the last year because of the profuse sweating I’ve been dealing with, which is a side effect of Wellbutrin, most definitely. And so my doctor was like all right, we’re just going to start going through a ton of stuff, so it was like blood tests, urine tests, blah, blah, blah, saw an endocrinologist. [00:40:06]

So there was all of that and then there was my blood pressure has been going up, so and I was kind of like, I think I’m also super anxious at the doctor.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: So she asked me to like take my blood pressure different times of the day and different days of the week. And the answer is my blood pressure goes up a lot during the work week. And a lot. And my doctor’s like yeah, so if I could prescribe you not being stressed over, and so they checked my thyroid among other silly things. [00:41:09]

And yeah, like I’ve, it’s funny, because I was really concerned about this wedding, but, because it’s so frustrating.

THERAPIST: Sorry, could we go back? So did people not know about Wellbutrin being the cause of that? Or do you know that was part of it but weren’t sure that it was also something else?

CLIENT: I was hoping it was also something else because it’s just so out of control sometimes. Like, like just sweat pouring down my face, and people like commenting on it at the store, or whatever, or having a hard time giving a presentation because I’m like, my face is just streaming with sweat. It’s not useful. So yeah, I was hoping it was something else. [00:42:03]

THERAPIST: Yeah. Not so much.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Right, and so if I, from indicating that your blood pressure goes way up at work, things looked okay.

CLIENT: Yeah.

THERAPIST: Well I’m glad things were okay.

CLIENT: Yeah, it’s, I mean it’s one of those things where I’m like yeah, my, the thing that freaked me out about the blood pressure is that I’ve always had like low blood pressure is great. I get my cholesterol and like blah, blah, blah. And so to have it get worse over like a year, or a year and a half maybe, and have it be just work like was very [00:43:03]

THERAPIST: So (inaudible at [00:43:06]), with your cousin, but as your plan would be sometime in the next month or two to go out on leave for about three months, and then like let’s say June, July, and August, and then come back and do September through December, at which point you’ll be done with office school.

CLIENT: If I took a leave, I’d actually just finish office school during the summer.

THERAPIST: Oh.

CLIENT: I mean, assuming that, let me rephrase that. In theory, like assuming I could cope with taking class in the summer.

THERAPIST: Right. Like taking one class?

CLIENT: It would be yeah, it’s one class left. So I could either not take a class or take a class. I could take a class or not during the summer. If I take a class in the summer, I’d be done. [00:44:03]

THERAPIST: Right, right.

CLIENT: Which is why I’m sort of like, mmm.

THERAPIST: Right. And then would you start looking for other jobs? I mean—

CLIENT: Yeah. The, like—

THERAPIST: My supporting you on this leave isn’t contingent on any of this. I’m just sort of asking what you’re thinking.

CLIENT: Yeah. Unfortunately -

THERAPIST: Like if a thing like this would help.

CLIENT: What I’m feeling right now is like I would like to apply for a new job right now, except that I don’t think that I could actually get through applying for a job right now.

THERAPIST: Right.

CLIENT: Especially, I think I would, for a variety of reasons, it would probably be a horrible interview, so yeah. Like assuming that I can get a new job. [00:45:08]

That’s what I want.

THERAPIST: Right. Basically as soon as you go up to—

CLIENT: Yeah, the concept of applying for jobs.

THERAPIST: It seems sensible to me, we do need to stop for now. I don’t have the sense that this is something that you’re going to like apply for this week.

CLIENT: No, I mean I’m still not hearing from (inaudible at [00:45:41]), so that’s still something else.

THERAPIST: Okay.

CLIENT: So no.

THERAPIST: Right. Bye.

CLIENT: Okay, so we’ll see you next week then.

THERAPIST: Yeah. [00:46:00]

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