TRANSCRIPT OF AUDIO FILE:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT:

THERAPIST: Hi. Come on in.

CLIENT: We had a lot to talk about last time. I was writing my notes and I couldn't even remember everything. (laughs) It was like a rapid-fire round. (laughs) You didn't think that?

THERAPIST: I think that's true every time.

CLIENT: Oh, really?

THERAPIST: What do you think was different about last time for you?

CLIENT: First of all I'm very grateful that you helped me articulate excellence and underlying issues that I've been feeling. I may have articulated them, but they just kind of get lost in all of the traffic, the noise. So I'm very grateful for that. [00:01:19] That was different in that sense. I had a few moments of clarity, and those for me are really, really precious. I treasure them like someone would treasure diamonds or something (laughs) or feeling happy, when things become clear. I asked Chris I was just telling him that I'd talked in therapy about nurturing. [00:02:08] I said, "Where do you derive your sense of nurturing from?" He was like, "Well, actually I just Skyped with this aunt of mine who brought me up when I was a baby. His sense of nurturing is in the background and it must make a difference. It does make a difference that he has his dad, he has his mom, and he has a huge extended family. He doesn't even think about it. That's what he first said. He doesn't even think about nurturing and an inner breast, as we said. He said he doesn't even think about it because he's so busy working, but he doesn't need to think about it because it's already there and has been. [00:03:05]

For me, when you were using those adjectives for the breast like warm and maternal and human and all of that, I was just thinking that's totally not the adjectives I would use for my family. I would say cold, judgmental. .. yeah. So it must make a difference that I don't really have that in the background so I keep looking for it in the foreground. (long pause) [00:04:37] I feel like some people like me, there aren't that many, but I remember meeting this one woman who was the wife of Chris's friend. She lost her mother when she was a child so she also kind of grew up feeling very lonely and her situation is that she has a baby, I think now two babies. I only met her once for a few hours, but I remember getting the sense or that she said, "I just wanted a family to replace the one that I didn't have." That's how she led her life. She got married and had kids; but I just completely have been running away from that (laughs), which I guess doesn't make sense in one sense. It makes sense in other aspects. My first boyfriend was ready. As soon as he got a job he was like, "Okay, I'm ready. What about you?" [00:06:02] Hell no. (laughs) No way. So I broke up with him. (sighs) I would have gotten to the same point with Chris. I was just like "no way," but I didn't break up. Maybe I tried to but couldn't and all that. The life that I wanted and still want maybe, the intellectual life, I go to these parties and get-togethers where there are these women who I feel like that's who I want to be. They're fashionable and they're young and they're single and they're finishing a PhD. [00:07:00] They're taking care of themselves and they're beautiful. They have men looking at them and all that. I'm not saying that's exactly what I want, but I'm fascinated by that and I wonder if that's what I want or should I be like that. But then I ask them about their backgrounds and, "Oh, yeah. Papa was posted to some foreign country and was a diplomat," or their mom was an academic, so they've had solid not everyone, but most people have had a solid family to back them so that they don't have to pursue money. [00:08:04] I felt very bad saying that that's what I wanted (chuckles). It feels so shallow and wrong to want to be that, to articulate that desire to be like one of those women. I'm glad Chris is not here. (laughs)

THERAPIST: He wouldn't approve?

CLIENT: Yeah, he'd be disappointed and I wouldn't like myself. (chuckles) I don't like myself for just having said that.

THERAPIST: What feels wrong about it? [00:08:55]

CLIENT: It's not something moral or it's not something -my desire is not noble or moral or lofty intellectually. It's got shallowness written all over it. (laughs) (long pause) [00:09:58] I feel like if that life or that destiny of wife and mother is written for me, then I want to fight it with every fiber. If that's the prescription, then I want to revolt, rebel. (pause)

THERAPIST: Is there a connection with being that kind of fashionable, attractive woman and rebel against being a mom? Your mind just went right there.

CLIENT: Yeah, there is a connection.

THERAPIST: How so? [00:10:53]

CLIENT: Not that I don't like those guys life I think she's great. She's beautiful. No, you know what? I have not been this charitable to women who I think are just wives and girlfriends and moms. I've not been this charitable. It's only been a recent thing after what I did was so bad that now I've been a little humbled, so sin is very good. Sin then becomes very humble in that sense. (laughing) But I used to feel or maybe I still somewhere feel how easy for them. They didn't fight. They didn't have to fight to make things on their own. [00:12:06]

THERAPIST: I think I'm losing you a little bit. What about being a mother or a wife? I'm not sure.

CLIENT: They're depending on their men.

THERAPIST: I got it.

CLIENT: They have to have their own identity completely separate from their men. (pause) It's just basic feminist thinking, I guess. Then it's just the ambition. Everyone has a child; everyone gets married. I want to do something different, you know? Not that they don't have an identity I don't know. I think it's sad but then there's that also not-so-lofty judgment, which is just that "How boring, they're married. They have a child? Boring." (laughs)

THERAPIST: It seems like something conventional.

CLIENT: Yeah, definitely. (pause) [00:14:16] Plus there's also the fear that I will fail in those roles in many ways. I'll get bored or I'll not want to take responsibility. Yeah, I just don't have it in me to be constantly looking inward and being satisfied with my home. I'm just bad. (laughs) [00:15:01] (pause) It would depress me a lot when I was with my first boyfriend and he was just wanting to get married and have children. For years I would look at that picture and get very, very depressed by it. I guess at that time I couldn't articulate it, but I wanted more, so I guess I did kind of chase that dream and still am chasing it. (pause) [00:16:03]

Again, in my head I feel like people who have that just have this inner strength that I don't have. They are able to be satisfied with what they have inside them and their home becomes like an extension of their inner nurturing. They have that breast inside them and then it's then within this realm is the husband and spouse and children. This has always been, to me, since my childhood, a very, very dangerous place where things get crushed and stuff. [00:17:01] I'm always looking out and my goal is just to say, "You know, that's the key difference between you and me. I'm always looking in and I'll always love you and I'll always be looking in my home." And I said, "Yeah, and I'll always be looking out the window." I feel like with Chris there's a little less of the looking out the window simply because there are things that I can look at inside, like the intellectual discussions or the films that we like, the companionship. So having things in common helps me to look in, you know? [00:18:17]

I just feel like where does that sense of nurturing come from? Because not everyone has a huge extended family and parents who are loving. So many people come from, as they say, dysfunctional families. I was also thinking about what you said about the sense of urgency, the feeling how did you articulate it? That moment of weakness or something that feels like an eternity? [00:18:57]

THERAPIST: Your sense of time being collapsed, that it if it doesn't happen now it will never happen.

CLIENT: Yeah. I just can't seem to shake that sense. I was thinking, like with Victor, I tried so hard to get him to see it that way. (laughs) "Do you really want me to walk away from you? Do you really want to lose someone who is so loyal to you?" It might have spooked him a little bit, but not at all. He did not budge. He just did not feel the sense of panic that I felt. He knows that he's not like Brad Pitt or anything, he knows that women are going to reject him and it's going to be a long time before he finds someone he can sleep with, but that doesn't seem to make him want to cling to the girl he has right now because he's not completely happy with her. [00:20:19] So he's completely strong enough to let her go and look for someone else. You could say there's so many things wrong with that, but since we're not analyzing him I would just say to me it seems like he's very, very strong and has that inner sense that, "I'll be okay. There's no need to panic. There's no urgency." I actually had this conversation with him and he was like, "Yeah, that's not me. Let's see in December." [00:21:05] This was way before the big fights and everything. I must have said something, "No, I mean right now, this, that." And he said, "Why, are you going to die right now?" (laughs) and I said, "Yes."

THERAPIST: Maybe it did feel like that.

CLIENT: Yes. It felt like this. I feel like, given that same situation, I would do the exact same thing that I did; no different. (pause) (sigh) [00:22:12] What could I do to feel less panicky? (chuckles) How can I change? Do you just get numb? Do you just go through several of the experiences and then be, 'Okay, I get it now. Nothing is going to happen if I panic and things will just take their own time?"

THERAPIST: Is that what "numb" means?

CLIENT: Yeah. (chuckles) Like when you've been shocked several times and then you're like, "Ah, this feeling. Yes, I recognize it. Time to sit down. Time to chill." [00:23:11]

THERAPIST: Well it seems like numb and calm are not the same thing, so I'm not sure if you're saying numb and not saying calm.

CLIENT: No, I'm saying numb. I know it's negative; I intend it to be negative.

THERAPIST: Maybe it's hard to imagine that something may not feel urgent, but it can still feel alive and lively and exciting without that sense of urgency, because numb is deadening.

CLIENT: But I feel like that's what you guys are expecting me to do.

THERAPIST: Whoa. What am I . . . my ears are pricking up. What am I expecting you to do? Tell me. [00:23:57]

CLIENT: You and Victor and everyone I feel like you guys are saying "chill what's the panic?" I'm hearing me dead. (laughs) In that scenario my nerves are saying fight now. Don't accept this at any cost.

THERAPIST: Fight for . . ?

CLIENT: For love, for happiness, for what I want.

THERAPIST: The women who have families and children, are they sort of submitting or acquiescing?

CLIENT: No. I'm sure they actively desire that. That's what I've learned. It's not like in my mom's generation where they did acquiesce. [00:25:06] But in my generation, since I'm closer to my generation obviously, these women actively desire families. I don't think that they're [patsies] (ph?) at all. It's just what they want. That's what I'm learning. I wouldn't be satisfied with that, I know. (pause) But I wonder if I wouldn't be satisfied because of these psychological issues of not having that nurturing sense inside me. [00:26:01] (long pause)

THERAPIST: Does it feel like I tell you to not be certain ways?

CLIENT: No, you don't prescribe any kind of behavior, but I just have a sense like it's me against everyone else, that everyone who is grown up is saying, "You did this wrong. You weren't supposed to be that way." I'm saying, "I had better defend myself." (chuckles) [00:27:00] (long pause) [00:29:38]

THERAPIST: Where did you go?

CLIENT: Several places. (chuckles) I don't know. I just wonder if I should do what Chris does and not even have time to think about all these things. (chuckles) I asked him Sunday night after I left from his place and went home, "What did you feel after I left? I felt abandoned and lonely." He said, "I felt like why are so many of my students getting C's?" He's grading. (pause) (chuckles) [00:31:07] I think someone was asking directions on the street that night. I literally jumped and screamed. (laughs) I was just reading a book and this woman approached me. "Hey, do you know if this train goes," and I was like "Aahh." It's a little weird.

THERAPIST: What startled you?

CLIENT: She was my height and she just came up to me and stood really, really close to me. I think she touched my arm a little bit, as if we were already chatting or something. It just felt like she had suddenly come so close. (laughs) I was so startled I couldn't go back to my book for several minutes after. (laughs) [00:32:06] (pause) I just feel like I'm going to be this way, always desiring connection and nurturing. As soon as I find it I'll be scared that it will vanish. And if it doesn't vanish, if it promises to be around, I will open myself up to it and desperately cling. [00:33:09] And that thing is going to be like, "Let go of me," and then just shut the door in my face. (pause) I'm sure this is normal and people go through this every day. They must, right?

THERAPIST: Must go through?

CLIENT: The scenario of desiring and then being afraid and being clingy. [00:33:58] (pause)

THERAPIST: When you say things like that I don't usually know how to respond. (pause) You started off the session, it sounded like, sort of feeling hopeful because you got some clarity on some things you were feeling. And now it seems like you're in a very different place. [00:35:02]

CLIENT: Yeah. (chuckles) I just feel lost again and hopeless.

THERAPIST: About?

CLIENT: Just that I won't change in this behavior. I fear that (sigh) I always will see things in extremes. To me the solution seems to be not desiring anything.

THERAPIST: Because you can't imagine desiring something without a sense of urgency?

CLIENT: Yeah. (pause) [00:36:05] That's what I mean about being numb, is going through life seeing people but knowing that I must not get close, I must not respond the desire. (pause)

THERAPIST: So then you feel that what everybody expects of you is to be numb?

CLIENT: Yeah. [00:36:58] (pause)

THERAPIST: It seems like that's certainly what you feel Chris expects of you or models for you.

CLIENT: Not numb. I would say he expects for me to not even think about any of this to not think about myself but just to constantly work; and I'm ready to do that so long as it makes matching my goals. But I'm not ready to do that if it doesn't because I'm not a scholar. I'm not looking at data and analyzing it every day. I'm thinking about human beings and what motivates them and the mistakes they make. [00:38:05] I try to portray that through my work. My stuff is very emotional so that's basically my yardstick. If something I work on does not make me feel emotional, then I know that I haven't done a good job with it. It's like I cannot be numb completely, but I have to open myself up and feel pain, feel joy; although if you just constantly be in pain and joy, you won't have any time to sit down and do the work, which is work plain and simple. [00:39:05] It is like looking at data and writing about it. (chuckles) It's both, I guess. I don't know. I never want to be numb, but I feel like I don't just bring pain to myself and to others when I'm non-numb, when I react, when I fight, when I rebel. (pause) [00:40:29]

THERAPIST: What are you thinking about?

CLIENT: Right now?

THERAPIST: Yeah.

CLIENT: Not very much. I don't have that sense of clarity that we had earlier.

THERAPIST: It sounds like you feel like others expect you to be partially dead. [00:41:03]

CLIENT: Yeah. I will say there is a continuum, either just numb or just totally crazy alive or whatever.

THERAPIST: You are coupling urgency with being crazy alive.

CLIENT: Yeah. It's not? (chuckles)

THERAPIST: I don't know whether it is or isn't, but I certainly thought it would be a good place to start by outlining how you feel. When you say it's not, are you thinking, "Oh, my gosh. Am I wrong?" or what are you thinking? [00:42:01]

CLIENT: No, I just want to understand if they are coupled in my head.

THERAPIST: Urgency to me seems like a desperate fight not to die. So then I guess the question is why are the only two options to fight not to die or to die? Why is dying on the table?

CLIENT: To me it felt like death, not seeing Victor or talking to him. He used to say, "Go away" or "No." It felt like death, lacking that connection or seeing the disconnect and having him dislike me felt like death. Complete and totally, but now I guess I would say now it's just the death of certain portions of me, certain portions that I used to feel. [00:43:12] Chris is like what you said, certainly wants me to die, which is just like, "Oh, my God. How can I have said this?" Like when I say this and he says, "So, how did your meeting with your professor go?" He doesn't know how to react. I mean he doesn't never react. When I said, "I felt lonely and abandoned. How did you feel?" he responded. He said, "Well, you don't have a family and I do," that's a response. It might not be the response that Victor would have given, but it was there. (chuckles) Still (sigh) maybe that's the thing we can talk about next time. Being with Chris makes me feel like certain portions of me need to be switched off. Maybe I'm incorrect in thinking that.

THERAPIST: We do need to stop for today. I will see you on Monday.

THERAPIST: Take care. Bye-bye.

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